2025: A Year of Builders, Breakthroughs, and Belief
“Every year-end, I remind myself of how far we’ve come and how much possibility still lies ahead.”
As I reflect on 2025, what stands out most is the acceleration of technology across so many dimensions and how profoundly it has shaped our lives. The future holds much to look forward to, and equally, much to approach with responsibility and awareness.
And in India, this acceleration feels especially significant. We are at an inflection point where multiple technology currents are converging deep-tech manufacturing, AI-native software, cybersecurity resilience, space-tech, and a renewed push towards digital public infrastructure. The rise of agentic AI, the formalisation of data ecosystems, and India’s growing ambition in global supply chains are redefining what Indian companies can build for the world. This momentum echoed strongly in our own portfolio.
Chara’s fundraise strengthened India’s stake in rare-earth-free manufacturing. Matters.ai, MeshDefend, and Pype AI continued to lay the foundation for a new wave of agentic AI products — building core infrastructure that will enable enterprises to operate with greater intelligence, automation, and resilience. SuperBryn’s progress underscored the growing importance of reliability and evaluation as voice AI moves from experimentation to real-world deployment. And Digantara’s round marked an important milestone in the rising importance of space surveillance and intelligence.
This year also reaffirmed why ecosystem thinking matters. Through our work on AI in Cybersecurity, the ONDC: Commerce without Boundaries report, SaaS from Scratch, and the Women in AI study, we remained engaged with the critical questions that will shape India’s innovation landscape in the decade ahead — capability, trust, and inclusion.
Entering 2026 holds deeper meaning for us. Kalaari completes 20 years next year, a moment not only to look back, but to recommit to the values that brought us here. Over two decades, we have grown alongside an ecosystem that has made startup innovation and impact a force to celebrate.
I end the year grateful for the work, the people, and the privilege of being part of this journey. Wishing everyone a hopeful, meaningful, and inspiring 2026.
Latest from our Portfolio
Digantara, a space surveillance and intelligence company building space domain awareness infrastructure, has raised USD $50M in its Series B round. With their proprietary space-based sensors and algorithms, the team is advancing space intelligence to address one of the most critical challenges in the increasingly crowded and contested fronteir-space. We’re proud to have partnered with Digantara since the seed stage and to continue supporting the team as they build foundational space-tech infrastructure from India for the world.
Chara Technologies, building rare-earth-free electric motors and controllers, has raised ₹52 crore as it scales the next phase of its clean mobility journey. Since our partnership in 2021, the team has progressed from concept to commercial deployment, reflecting the strength of India’s engineering and manufacturing capabilities. We’re proud to continue partnering with Chara as they expand their impact.
Matters.AI, an autonomous data security platform, has raised ₹55 crore (US$6.25M) in seed funding. By enabling continuous learning and early risk detection across dispersed data, the team is addressing a critical visibility gap in modern organisations. We’re excited to partner with them as they build the next generation of data protection infrastructure.
Pype AI, an infrastructure-led healthcare platform deploying workflow-native, fully observable voice agents, has raised $1.2M in a pre-seed round. By streamlining patient communication and care coordination, the team is reducing the operational burden on clinicians. We’re proud to partner with Pype AI as it scales its platform and expands into the US care management market.
MeshDefend, an AI-native platform building an Agentic OS for enterprise data infrastructure, has raised $2.3M in a pre-seed round. By bringing real-time visibility and autonomous operations to complex, distributed data environments, the team is rethinking how enterprises manage infrastructure. We’re excited to partner with the team as they build self-managing data systems for global enterprises.
SuperBryn, a platform focused on testing, evaluation, and monitoring for enterprise voice AI systems, has raised $1.2M in a pre-seed round. By addressing reliability across accents, environments, and complex workflows, the team is enabling voice agents to scale from pilots to real-world deployment. This investment is part of our CXXO initiative, and we’re excited to partner with the SuperBryn team as they build the reliability layer for next-generation voice AI.
Modulus Housing, a factory-built construction company redefining infrastructure through industrialized micro-construction, has raised ₹70 crore in Series A. By combining factory-led execution, proprietary construction systems, and standardized designs, the team is addressing one of the most critical gaps in India’s infrastructure buildout—fast, repeatable, and high-quality low-rise construction. We’re proud to partner with Modulus as they build a new category of scalable, sustainable infrastructure for Bharat and beyond.
Reports
AI is outpacing the security systems built to manage it. Traditional tools look for known threats, but AI behaves differently; learning, mutating, and creating risks that leave no clear signatures or breaches.
In our latest report, The State of AI and Cybersecurity 2025, we map where these gaps are emerging from AI red teaming and model supply chains to shadow identities, data governance, and AI-assisted SOC operations—and outline how security must evolve to stay ahead. The full report, with CISO insights, case studies, and frameworks, is out now.
Continuous Learnings
“What does it really take to create a new SaaS category? In our latest SaaS From Scratch session, Kushal Nahata, Co-founder & CEO of FarEye, shared what he’s learned building from zero, where the hardest part isn’t competition, but education, conviction, and clarity on who you’re truly solving for.
Kushal’s journey from buying 500 smartphones to prove early value to scaling enterprise-led last-mile innovation globallyboffers practical lessons for every SaaS founder building for endurance.
From early-stage startup execution to the Kalaari Fellowship, Aditya’s journey into venture has been shaped by staying close to builders and real operating environments. In his Fellowship Diary, he reflects on how hands-on operating experience, deep domain immersion, and real ownership at Kalaari shaped his approach to thesis building, sourcing, and portfolio engagement.
Venture Forward is Kalaari’s quarterly newsletter that shares our portfolio wins, updates, our latest reports and what’s new in the past 3 months.