Surveillance Startup Optimized Electrotech Bags $6 Mn

SUMMARY

The round also saw participation from existing investors, including Venture Catalysts, 100Unicorns and Rajiv Dadlani Group, along with internal backing from cofounder and MD Sandeep Shah

Shah also told Inc42 that the company is planning to launch a dedicated subsidiary focused on the space tech segment

To support its growth, he aims to raise $5 Mn over the next six months, primarily through strategic investments from semiconductor companies

Deeptech surveillance startup Optimized Electrotech has raised $6 Mn (around INR Cr) in a Series A funding round co-led by Blume Ventures and Mela Ventures.

The round also saw participation from existing investors, including Venture Catalysts, 100Unicorns and Rajiv Dadlani Group, along with participation from the startups’ cofounder and MD himself Sandeep Shah.

The startup plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate development of AI-powered imaging payloads and high-speed space surveillance systems as well as to expand into overseas markets.

“This funding will help us strengthen our R&D capabilities, build next-gen tech, and extend our reach across critical sectors in India and beyond,” Shah said.

He also told Inc42 that the company is planning to launch a dedicated subsidiary focused on the space tech segment. To support its growth, he aims to raise $5 Mn over the next six months, primarily through strategic investments from semiconductor companies.

Founded in 2017 by Shah, Anil Yekkala, Dharin Shah, Kuldeep Saxena, and Purvi Shah, Optimized Electrotech offers surveillance solutions by building electro-optic imaging systems for defence, aerospace and border security use cases.

It claims that its indigenously designed and developed AI-driven surveillance platforms allow governments, defence services, paramilitary forces and mining corporations to respond to threats such as unauthorised drone attacks.

It competes against the likes of Bharat Electronics and Tata Advanced Systems, among others, in the multi-spectral imaging category.

On the financial front, Shah told Inc42 that the company saw a decline in revenue for the year ending March 31, 2025 (FY25) to INR 3 Cr from 4.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Adding to this, its bottomline loss also widened to INR 8 Cr in the year under consideration from INR 5.7 Cr in FY24.

This comes at the heart of deptech startups gaining significant traction from both venture capitalists and the government due to their potential for innovations and longterm growth.

In 2024, the Indian deeptech sector saw a notable increase in deal activity, with $460 Mn raised across 78 deals. Meanwhile, the only startup to have entered the coveted unicorn club this year is also a deeptech startup Netradyne.

More recently, union minister Piyush Goyal urged the Indian startup ecosystem to move beyond low-value ventures such as food delivery and quick commerce, and instead focus on high-impact areas like semiconductors, robotics, and deep-tech.

He emphasised that deeptech is crucial for enhancing India’s global competitiveness, while also citing China’s deeptech innovations like Deepseek, as a benchmark.

Also, policymakers are advocating giving this space a high-octane boost in the form of a fund of funds for startups.

Additionally, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget 2025 speech, proposed setting up a new FoF for startups with a corpus of INR 10,000 Cr.

Besides, an additional INR 10,000 Cr was allocated to the SIDBI FoF for startups, bringing the total corpus to INR 20,000 Cr.