Deep Tech to Drive India’s ‘Unicorn 2.0’ Wave, Says Infosys Co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan

April 29, 2026

For the past decade, India’s startup story has been defined by consumer internet: e-commerce giants like Flipkart, fintech platforms like Paytm and PhonePe, and food delivery apps like Zomato and Swiggy. These companies built massive user bases, attracted billions in venture capital, and created a generation of wealth. But according to Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, that chapter is closing.

Speaking at the CII Unicorn Summit 2026, Gopalakrishnan articulated a clear vision for the next phase of Indian entrepreneurship: “Unicorn 2.0,” built on deep technology and advanced manufacturing . Moving beyond consumer internet and fintech, the next wave of billion-dollar Indian startups must be built on deep technology and advanced manufacturing to secure the country’s strategic autonomy .

“For me, Unicorn 2.0 is about deep tech,” Gopalakrishnan told the gathering. While acknowledging that the first wave of consumer internet, edtech, and D2C unicorns made India proud, he noted that the next wave will determine if India becomes a truly developed economy .

“Deep tech is harder, it takes longer, the capital cycles are different… and the failure rates are higher. But the rewards—economic, strategic, and civilisational—are also far greater.”
— Kris Gopalakrishnan, Infosys Co-founder and Chairman, CII Centre of Excellence for Innovation

‘Unicorn 2.0’: What Deep Tech Means for India

Gopalakrishnan’s definition of deep tech encompasses the frontier technologies that will define the next decade of global innovation:

Sector	Strategic Importance	Key Drivers
Artificial Intelligence	Enterprise and consumer applications across healthcare, finance, automation	AI funding shot up 73% YoY to $253 million in Q1 2026
Semiconductors	Building self-reliance in chip design and manufacturing	India Semiconductor Mission; AGNIT’s Gallium Nitride pilot deployment
Advanced Manufacturing	Robotics, IoT, drones for Industry 4.0	Addverb produces 10,000 robots annually; Unbox Robotics deployed in India and Europe
Defence & Aerospace	Indigenous surveillance, military applications, space tech	Defence indigenisation push; Army contracts for drone startups
Space Tech	Satellite manufacturing, launch vehicles, in-orbit servicing	Aule Space building autonomous docking systems
Optical Communications	Li-Fi and Free Space Optics for secure, high-speed connectivity	Velmenni’s 10Gbps links across 25km

Drawing on his own experience building India’s IT sector, Gopalakrishnan also urged startup founders to form a dedicated industry association to actively shape government policies. He recalled how the formation of the IT industry body Nasscom in 1988 was instrumental in creating today’s $300 billion IT services industry .

The Government’s $11 Billion Bet on Deep Tech

To fuel this shift, Gopalakrishnan highlighted the government’s 11billion(₹1lakhcroreoversixyears)Research,DevelopmentandInnovation(RDI)Fund∗∗[citation:1][citation:4].Heprojectedthatwithprivatedomesticandglobalco−investments,thiscouldcatalyseamassive∗∗11billion(₹1lakhcroreoversixyears)Research,DevelopmentandInnovation(RDI)Fund∗∗[citation:1][citation:4].Heprojectedthatwithprivatedomesticandglobalco−investments,thiscouldcatalyseamassive∗∗30–40 billion R&D ecosystem, creating the funnel for tomorrow’s deep tech unicorns.

The impact of such patient capital is already visible. In 2025, deep-tech startups raised about $1.2 billion, nearly 50% more than in 2024 . The trend accelerated into 2026, with semiconductor, optical communications, and robotics startups attracting defence-aligned capital and global investors .

Advanced Manufacturing: The Hardware Imperative

Gopalakrishnan emphasised advanced manufacturing—such as robotics, IoT, and drones—as a crucial pillar, stating India must manufacture complete supply chains rather than just assemble components designed elsewhere .

The shift from software-only to hardware-backed models is already underway. Addverb, for instance, currently manufactures around 10,000 robots annually and has built capacity to produce up to 100,000 units a year. Co-founder Sangeet Kumar noted that earlier robots were designed to perform one specific task repeatedly. Now, with advances in AI, they can handle variation—different shapes, sizes and conditions—without needing everything to be perfectly structured .

Unbox Robotics, founded by Pramod Ghadge (who previously worked at Flipkart), builds swarm-based robotic systems that automate sorting and order consolidation. The company has already deployed hundreds of robots across India and Europe, with most of its revenue coming from overseas—a reflection of where demand currently lies .

Ati Motors is taking the concept further, embedding what its VP of Software Engineering Pallab Sarkar calls a “physical AI” layer into autonomous mobile robots. “You can innovate to a certain level with hardware, but when you try to perceive, learn and adapt based on the environment, intelligence comes into the picture,” he explained .

Strategic Autonomy: Owning Critical Technologies

Pointing to recent geopolitical tensions and supply chain disruptions, Gopalakrishnan said owning critical technologies in AI, semiconductors, defence, and space is essential .

“Supply chain disruptions, technology export controls, and geopolitical tensions have shown that dependence on any single country or bloc for critical technologies is a strategic vulnerability. For India to become a strong, developed economy, a Viksit Bharat, we must own our technologies. This is not protectionism, this is prudence,” he remarked .

This call for self-reliance is resonating across the ecosystem. AGNIT Semiconductors, Bengaluru’s first and only vertically integrated Gallium Nitride semiconductor manufacturer, is currently running three RF products in pilot deployments on Indian strategic defence platforms. The company, incubated at the Indian Institute of Science, is targeting volume production of approximately 100,000 units over two years, with commercial shipments starting July 2027 .

Velmenni, which has spent over a decade developing patented Free Space Optics and Li-Fi wireless communication technologies, secured a multi-million-dollar defence deal for FSO across all Indian submarines. The company’s technology delivers 10Gbps-plus links across 1 to 25 kilometre ranges and has achieved 99.999% uptime over 18 months at a GMR thermal power plant in Odisha—India’s first commercial carrier-grade FSO backhaul for a private 5G network .

The Investment Landscape: Patient Capital is Coming

The shift to deep tech is fundamentally a shift in capital allocation philosophy. Unlike consumer internet startups that can scale rapidly with relatively modest capital, deep-tech ventures require:

Longer gestation periods: Semiconductor companies can take 7-10 years to reach commercial scale
Higher capital requirements: Building a fab or developing a proprietary AI model costs hundreds of millions
Different risk profiles: Technical failure is a real possibility, not just market risk
Strategic rather than purely commercial returns: Defence and space investments serve national security objectives

Government-led initiatives are emerging as critical catalysts. Investors cited research and development-focused frameworks and dedicated deep-tech funds as important enablers, particularly for sectors with long gestation cycles . Ankita Vashishta, managing partner at Arise Ventures, said these programmes help bridge the gap between laboratory research and venture capital .

Private capital is following. Capital-A, an operator-led venture capital firm focused on manufacturing and deep-tech investments, announced the first close of its Fund II at ₹160 crore. The Bengaluru-based firm is targeting a base corpus of ₹300 crore, with a greenshoe option to selectively upsize the fund to ₹400 crore. The fund will invest in 15–18 early-stage companies across advanced manufacturing, AI, robotics, defence and aerospace components, semiconductors, and hardware technologies. It has already deployed capital into startups including Manastu Space, Agrileaf, Misochain and CraftifAI .

Startups at the Forefront of Deep Tech

India is already witnessing a new generation of deep-tech startups across critical sectors:

Semiconductors:

AGNIT Semiconductors is India’s first vertically integrated Gallium Nitride manufacturer, with three RF products in pilot deployments on Indian strategic defence platforms .
Aegion is building domestic manufacturing capability for critical aerospace and defence components, including a closed-loop titanium recycling process for high-purity metal feedstock .

Space Tech:

Aule Space is building autonomous servicing satellites with docking systems to extend the life of high-value spacecraft, close-range inspection of space assets, and safe decommissioning of non-functional satellites .
Manastu Space is developing green propulsion systems for satellites .

Optical Communications:

Velmenni has executed over 50 deployments globally and secured a multi-million-dollar defence contract for its Free Space Optics technology .

Robotics and AI:

Addverb manufactures 10,000 robots annually with capacity for 100,000 units
Unbox Robotics has deployed swarm-based sorting robots across India and Europe
Alchemyst AI is building infrastructure software for AI application development, enabling teams to ship AI agents faster with neural memory and context retention

Defence Tech:

Apollyon Dynamics, founded by BITS Hyderabad students, has secured a contract from the Indian Army to build and deploy India’s first mobile drone lab, now operational in Jammu and capable of producing over 100 FPV drones monthly .

Advanced Materials:

Altmin is setting up India’s first cathode giga factory in Telangana, with planned capacity of over 8 GWh and annual production of more than 30,000 metric tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate .

The Role of Bengaluru: India’s Deep-Tech Capital

In a separate interview with BW Businessworld, Gopalakrishnan reflected on what makes Bengaluru a unique ecosystem for entrepreneurship. He cited the example of Ashok Soota, who is still building companies at 80-plus after having built Wipro, Mindtree, and Happiest Minds .

“That’s what Bangalore represents. You look at all the founders who have built great companies, and they’re still building. They’re still investing. They’re all angel investors. They’re giving money, time, and mentorship. That’s the Bangalore culture” .

It is a young city—the average age is around 28–29. People from all over the country come there because that is where opportunities are: “If you have some idea, you can get funded if you’re in Bangalore,” he added .

Challenges: The Need for Policy Support

Deep-tech ventures face unique regulatory challenges. Notably, once companies lose DPIIT recognition (currently granted for 10 years), they become ineligible for investment from Category I AIFs, angel funds, and government-backed platforms . Industry leaders have called for extending DPIIT startup recognition to at least 15 years for deep-tech companies .

Anirudh A. Damani, managing partner at Artha Venture Fund, said the deep-tech ecosystem’s primary expectation is alignment between policy and India’s long-term self-reliance goals. Sectors such as semiconductors and space technology operate on extended innovation and capital cycles, requiring regulatory frameworks that reflect these realities .

Additionally, building robots is not just about writing code; it is about integrating sensors, actuators, power systems and compute into reliable machines that can operate in the real world. Most companies still depend on imported components for critical parts such as sensors and specialised electronics. Ati Motors, for instance, sources key navigation components like LiDAR from abroad, even as the electric vehicle ecosystem has improved local availability of motors and related hardware .

This gradual localisation is one of the clearest signs of the ecosystem maturing. “We are today able to do mechanical parts, batteries, PCB assembly,” said Unbox Robotics CEO Pramod Ghadge. But high-quality vendors are limited, and companies often have to manage manufacturing processes closely rather than relying on a mature supply chain .

The Road Ahead: From Unicorns to Deep-Tech Champions

The shift from consumer internet to deep tech is not merely a sectoral pivot—it is a fundamental change in how India builds companies. It requires different capital, different timelines, different talent, and different policy support.

As Gopalakrishnan noted, “We cannot become a developed economy unless we are strong. We need to have leadership in science and technology. We need to own our own technology. Today, our dependency is huge. I hope that in the next 10 years, we can build a deeptech ecosystem” .

The good news is that the building blocks are falling into place. The government has launched the AI Mission, Semiconductor Mission, Quantum Mission, and the ₹1 lakh crore RDI fund. Private capital is beginning to flow into deep-tech funds. Startups are emerging from IITs, IISc, and other research institutions with world-class technology.

The question is no longer whether India will have deep-tech unicorns—it is whether the ecosystem can scale fast enough to produce them at the pace required. Gopalakrishnan is optimistic but realistic: the next decade will determine if India becomes a developed economy or remains a technology consumer.

“We hope that in the next 10 years, we can build a deeptech ecosystem,” he said . For founders, investors, and policymakers, the work starts now.