manu iyer

Investing in foundational-tech @bluehillvc | Entrepreneur | Arsenal are Champions | Chess | Chennai+Bangalore

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

@autocarindiamag Autocar India: Ola Roadster X is the worst made-in-India bike we have tested.

As someone who’s been calling out @OlaElectric's poor quality for years, Autocar’s brutal review of their ‘groundbreaking’ Roadster X is no surprise at all.

It is not trivial to build an EV motorbike. What passes off as an EV “motorbike” in India today, is just a scooter platform with a bigger motor and motorbike aesthetics.

True motorbikes need ground-up engineering on powertrain, thermals, safety, charging architecture. That bar is much higher than most expect.

@RapteeEnergy has built and homologated a high-voltage EV motorbike from scratch with a custom built 240V drive-train which can fast charge (DC) on CCS2 public chargers. Take a test drive today and learn more!

Disclaimer: I am an investor in Raptee. But have been calling out Ola from before I was an investor in Raptee.

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

@vadalondon @RohRamesh @aninthan Some really classy ones on display during the parade, a few of which I had not seen before.

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

@BadMybad176 @Arsene_Bergkamp Nope. Don't want one. I'm at the airport to get back home. Good luck with your problems. Need a new party in power probably; one that doesn't hate the local populace.

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

@thana2063 @gabiola442 Come down and watch a game with us

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

We made the trip from Chennai to North London. For the parade. 14 hour flight in and we weren't the craziest ones - there were fans who'd flown in from Sydney.

What a turnout. What energy. The 5 hour wait on the streets was nothing; we've waited 22 years.

One-year-old baby to 80-year-old grandpa, all drenched in Arsenal colours.

Maniacal. Magical. Monumental.

North London Forever. ❤️🤍 #COYG
@RohRamesh @vadalondon @Arsenal @ArsenalChennai

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

@thana2063 @gabiola442 In Adyar

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

@thana2063 @gabiola442 Huge. This was the gathering from the final game against Palace. 350 people in the room at 1am, waking up the whole neighbourhood.

[Rohit Ramesh @RohRamesh]

Insane vibe! With @DeepTechManu @vadalondon
#Arsenal

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

We had done 2 fabless semiconductor investments from the fund and both have managed to tapeout in record time. Both have taped out with TSMC. Here below is a summary of what both companies are building. Exciting times for investors in semiconductors!

@BluehillVC @SanketPanda10

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

@ArsenalN7 2000

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

Arsenal!! Campione!! 22 years on! COYG!!! What a season!

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

Kroupi, you legend.

[Gunners @Gunnersc0m]

We’ve done it.

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

@raggedtag @narayananh Sringeri temple

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

Glad to be quoted in this article on the prospect of Indian Startups building data centres in space.

[Chandra R. Srikanth @chandrarsrikant]

🚨Why Indian startups are racing to build data centres in space

Each Indian startup is approaching the opportunity differently.

Pixxel's partnership with Sarvam AI is aimed at proving that sovereign AI workloads can run directly in orbit.

The Pathfinder satellite will initially host only a small number of GPUs – Blackwell or H200 class GPU –, but the larger goal is technological validation, Awais Ahmed, CEO and co founder of Pixxel said.

Ahmed said most of the real testing will begin only after launch. “Once it's in orbit, that's the real test,” he said.

Agnikul Cosmos, meanwhile, is taking a more infrastructure-led approach.

Rather than building the data centre itself, the company wants to offer its launch systems and patented upper-stage platforms as orbital hosting infrastructure.

Typically, rocket upper stages become debris after satellite deployment.

Agnikul wants to convert those upper stages into long-duration orbital platforms capable of hosting compute payloads.

“You can think of us as the real-estate provider for orbital data centres,” Srinath Ravichandran, Agnikul's CEO and co-founder told Moneycontrol.

The company eventually wants to support modular compute systems in the 10-100 kilowatt range, scaling toward one megawatt over time.

TakeMe2Space has perhaps laid out the most aggressive roadmap.

The startup plans to relaunch a 120-watt experimental satellite later this year after losing an earlier mission aboard a failed launch in January 2026.

That first system will carry around 40 terabytes of storage and act as a single-node orbital compute platform.

The next phase — targeted for 2027-28 — involves a five-kilowatt constellation architecture with optical inter-satellite connectivity.

By 2029, the company hopes to deploy a 50-kilowatt, 2.5-ton satellite carrying 400 petabytes of storage. For this, the startup is looking to raise a $55 million following a $5-million seed round in January 2o26.

TakeMe2Space founder Ronak Kumar Samantray said the company is targeting sectors such as BFSI and defence, and already has customers with signed letters of intent.

NeevCloud, on the other hand, is focusing more narrowly on inference infrastructure for specialised workloads.

The company plans to begin testing chips in orbit this year before scaling commercial deployments in 2027.

By @AihikS and @debanganaghosh4

https://t.co/mcLqrlBh8v

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

One of the many initiatives that the government of India is taking up is a financial outlay to promote domestic manufacturing of Rare Earth Permanent Magnets (REPM). REPMs are critical for many industries including EVs, Wind Turbines, Electronics, Defence & Aerospace.

GoI recently announced Rs.7280cr towards a scheme to support local supply chain formation in a critical space where import dependence is overwhelming. In fact Chinese export controls in this space has left domestic supply-chains scrambling, with close to 90% of our imports coming from China. India imported 53700 metric tons of REPMs in 2025 (an 88% YoY increase from 2024), and the scheme outlay is expected to establish capacity of only 6000 metric tons. There's a long way to go, but this is a good start.

@BluehillVC

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

@0xMahalakshmi @balajiworld Quickride is even more expensive given EV fleet. However much better quality cars.

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

@Nigel__DSouza https://t.co/0syUpDx2RG

[manu iyer @DeepTechManu]

@autocarindiamag Autocar India: Ola Roadster X is the worst made-in-India bike we have tested.

As someone who’s been calling out @OlaElectric's poor quality for years, Autocar’s brutal review of their ‘groundbreaking’ Roadster X is no surprise at all.

It is not trivial to build an EV motorbike. What passes off as an EV “motorbike” in India today, is just a scooter platform with a bigger motor and motorbike aesthetics.

True motorbikes need ground-up engineering on powertrain, thermals, safety, charging architecture. That bar is much higher than most expect.

@RapteeEnergy has built and homologated a high-voltage EV motorbike from scratch with a custom built 240V drive-train which can fast charge (DC) on CCS2 public chargers. Take a test drive today and learn more!

Disclaimer: I am an investor in Raptee. But have been calling out Ola from before I was an investor in Raptee.