Notes from the Field

I was going through a newsletter and realized that India is about to spend ₹50,000 crore on inland waterways. But almost nobody in the startup world is paying attention to dredging.

Here is what I figured:

• 111 National Waterways declared: Over 20,000 km of navigable rivers and canals. But to make them navigable for cargo ships, you need a minimum draft (depth).
• The Silt Conundrum: Indian rivers carry some of the highest silt loads in the world due to monsoon runoff. Without continuous, massive dredging operations, these waterways will silt up and choke in a single season.
• The Opportunity: This is a massive, capital-intensive macro play. It is not about writing software; it's about the physical infrastructure, the supply chain, and the machinery required to move millions of tons of earth daily.

If your business is unsexy, if your sector is muddy, and if your path to scale looks different from what most VC grids recognize—there is massive pricing power waiting for you.

Btw, just to clarify, when we look at deep-tech investments in local hardware (like medical MRI scanners), the big deal isn't because it's "indigenous" or national pride.

It's a big deal because of unit economics:

• 40% Cheaper to Manufacture: The team has been able to make the electronics around the magnet extremely well-packaged, reducing manufacturing costs by 40% compared to conventional imported scanners.
• The Rarity Moat (Model 2): Medical and defense hardware are incredibly hard to build. The regulatory feedback loops are years away and the capital requirements are heavy. But once completed, they command an massive, permanent premium because competition structurally cannot replicate the tech stack.
• Took a Village: It literally took a village to raise this idea. But let's be clear—the founder-entrepreneur is always the one who takes the ultimate risk. Our job as partners is simply to stand beside them and provide patient, non-intrusive support.

Eight years since Rainmatter started, today we have:

• 100+ startups backed across multiple verticals.
• 130+ exceptional founders supported across 10+ states.
• 660 Crores in cumulative investment amount.

As Nithin says, Rainmatter will always be about giving back some of Zerodha's success to the Indian startup ecosystem. We don't have outside LPs, and we don't have exit-driven timelines. We back sustainable, long-term businesses built by operators who love what they build.