Asiana, Taiwan's JC Capital launch $100M fund for India deeptech

What's the deal? AsianaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Taiwan-based JC CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → have launched the Asiana-JCC Advanced Manufacturing & Innovation Fund, a US$135.8M (roughly $100 million) venture vehicle for India's advanced manufacturing and deeptech ecosystem. It has a base corpus of US$81.5M and a US$54.3M greenshoe option. Asiana is the investment platform founded by Asian PaintsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → co-promoter Jalaj Dani.

What's the endgame? The fund will back 12 to 15 companies, mainly at the Series A/B stage, and has reserved capital for follow-on rounds. Targets span semiconductors, computing, aerospace and defence, materials and sustainability, and technology-led industrial businesses.

The India-Taiwan bridge: The partners want to connect the two markets through technology transfer, exclusive deal flow, supply-chain integration, and access to global corporate limited partners. More than 80% of JC Capital's LPs are corporate investors across the US, Japan, Taiwan, and Malaysia.

Why now? "India is still at an inflection point or takeoff point today," Dani said, pointing to the need for progress on both cost and technology to make manufacturing competitive. JC Capital founder Jim Chen said the firm recently brought a delegation to India around Semicon India, exploring areas including sensing and compound semiconductors.

What's the opportunity? Chen said India has built a deep pool of semiconductor design talent but needs local manufacturing to complete the ecosystem. "You need to have a local foundry to work very closely with the IC design teams," he said, citing the TataDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →-PSMCDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → collaboration and investments by global semiconductor equipment companies as signs of progress.

The signal: The fund reflects a widening effort to tie India's growing design talent to Taiwan's manufacturing know-how. For Chen, returns are not the sole aim: "what drives me and the company more is that we are actually helping our investor partners and portfolio companies."

Read more: entrepreneur.economictimes.indiatimes.com

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