BENGALURU, Jan. 31 -- Dealmaking in spacetech startups accelerated in 2025 as investors responded to signs that early entrants are hitting key milestones, beginning to loosen capital for a sector long viewed as high-risk and slow to mature. Data from Venture Intelligence shows that venture capital poured in $276 million across 33 deals in 2025, compared with a total of $262 million across 28 deals in 2023 and 2024 cumulatively. New entrants into the ecosystem received cheques alongside mature companies raising larger rounds. "Early incumbents in the sector have been able to raise capital, which in turn has created confidence in the entrepreneurial community that the investing ecosystem is there to support them," said Pratik Agarwal, partner at global venture capital firm Accel. "There's also been an inflection point of talent." Early entrants such as Agnikul Cosmos and Skyroot, which were initially focused on building space infrastructure, are now approaching first commercial launches. Most are expected to launch rockets sometime in 2026. That progress has begun to attract funds that have historically avoided deeptech. Arkam Ventures, which traditionally hasn't made deep tech investments, is now evaluating spacetech more actively and is looking to make between four and five bets from its second fund, announced in 2023 with a target corpus of $180 million and yet to announce a final close. The firm invested in Skyroot in 2024 in an unannounced cheque from its first fund. "We learnt a lot about spacetech with that investment including how deep the supply chain is, what are the critical components, what are the advantages India has in the sector," said Rahul Chandra, managing director at the early-stage fund. "We're using a lot of that thesis for our subsequent fund." Zerodha-backed Rainmatter Capital is also stepping up deeptech investments and has been meeting more spacetech companies than in prior years. The firm made an early bet in Agnikul Cosmos and participated in satellite startup Galaxeye's $6.5 million round in 2024....