Titan Capital, a seed-stage investment firm co-founded by Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl, has introduced a new investment vertical centered on India's strategic technology ecosystem and defense in a daring move to develop sovereign technology capabilities.

With a focus on national security, deep-tech innovation, and job creation, the program will provide funding to companies in a variety of industries, including advanced manufacturing, hardware, aerospace, and cybersecurity.

The move indicates that mainstream VCs, who have historically concentrated on consumer internet and SaaS, are becoming more interested in dual-use and defense-aligned technologies.

To assess investment prospects with domain-specific knowledge and assist emerging businesses in navigating the highly regulated, mission-critical industry, Titan Capital is seeking to collaborate with scientists, technicians, and veterans of the military forces as part of this new vertical.

Venture finance is increasingly concentrating on defense technology on a global scale. While Europe's Helsing recently received €450 million in support from General Catalyst to develop defense AI, the US-based Anduril Industries recently obtained $1.5 billion for its AI-enabled combat systems.

Titan Capital wants to make sure that the ecosystem doesn't miss its opportunity as India is about to see a similar inflection.

 

To encourage domestic solutions, the Indian government introduced programs like iDEX and the Technology Development Fund (TDF) and raised the defense budget to Rs 6.81 lakh crore for FY 2025–2026.

However, there are still funding holes for early-stage businesses developing complicated, high-risk, high-reward technologies.

This is the exact situation in which venture capital firms like Titan Capital can act as a catalyst by providing the speed, conviction, and sustained support that conventional systems frequently lack.

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To date, Titan Capital has backed more than 250 businesses, such as Giva, Ola, Razorpay, Urban Company, and OfBusiness.