Golden Sparrow - Q4, 2025 Newsletter

Golden Sparrow is a India-focused, early-stage fund. We invest in Rare Birds across Deep Tech and AI Enterprise.

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” — Nietzsche

“Why do you do this?” The question came in mid December from a Deep Tech VC in Delhi during our first lunch.

This career could be about fees or status. But for me, it is the role I never want to leave.

Every interaction with a founder sharpens the mind in ways no other work allows. We pull apart layers of their science, purpose, and conviction. These conversations sometimes humble us. They reveal frontiers we did not know existed.

Like the bird rider, we chase the edge between the known and the undiscovered.

The Portfolio and Fund II

2025 is a wrap. In December, we made our last investment from Fund I and began the first close for our $20M Fund II. Throughout the year, we made 6 investments across space manufacturing, GPU virtualization, security layers for AI agents, and bio-manufacturing.

During the quarter, we backed the founders of MyoLab, who are building a human digital twin foundational model. We also invested in Clario, an enterprise data platform that serves as the bridge between our chapters: it is the final investment of Fund I and the inaugural commitment for Golden Sparrow’s Fund II.

Our existing portfolio continues to reach significant milestones. EtherealX and Morphing Machines recently closed their Series A. For our Fund I investors, these represent 5x and 3x markups on our entry price, alongside co-investors such as TDK Ventures, Accel, and Prosus. Our third markup of the quarter, Tectonic, has reached a 4x valuation from our initial check.

Although only directional for an early-stage fund, we are on the right path. Our Net TVPI (1.2x) and Gross MOIC (1.3x) place us in the top decile of performers for our vintage.

By The Numbers

• LPs in Fund I: 62

• Portfolio companies: 18 (you can view them here)

• Deep Tech Allocation: 8 companies (52% of the fund)

• AI Infra and Applications: 10 companies

• Fund Deployed: 99% (Fund I is effectively committed)

• Capital from female LPs: 28%

• Expert Venture Partners: 5

• Full-time team: 3

• Performance: 1.2x Net TVPI | 1.3x Gross MOIC

Inside MyoLab

AI was founded on language, but we are investing in its next evolution: movement. While the first wave of AI solved cognitive abstraction, the physical world remained a black box. ChatGPT can describe a perfect swing, but it cannot feel the torque in a joint.

MyoLab is changing that by building the first physiologically grounded, embodied human digital twin. This foundational B2B backbone fuses sensor and biological data to simulate muscle and motion in real-time. By moving from simple geometry-based tracking to physics-based simulation, they have achieved 13x faster performance than standard benchmarks. Applications span robotics, healthcare, and high-performance sports.

The founders represent the Rare Bird archetype we seek. Vikash Kumar (ex-OpenAI, Google Brain, sold his company to DeepMind) and Vittorio Caggiano (ex-Meta, IBM) are researchers with over 20,000 citations across neurobiological control research. We sourced the deal through our high-signal IIT Kharagpur network via Ritik, who rejoins our firm as a Principal.

The massive potential of embodied AI underpinned a significant investment from our fund — following deep diligence and the support of our internal brain trust: Amritendu, Anand, Michael, Quentin, and Venkat.

MyoLab is the missing link between AI that thinks and AI that moves.

Inside Clario

Clario tackles the “garbage in, garbage out” problem for the AI era. Large enterprises are drowning in legacy data ROT (Redundant, Obsolete, Trivial), which increases infrastructure costs and legal risks.

Their enterprise data platform cleans and organizes these file stores, serving as the “Marie Kondo” for legacy data.

The backstory is older than the round. I met Yousuf Khan three years ago when he suggested investing in Golden Sparrow to get closer to India deal flow. I told him we would share deals anyway, and our relationship compounded from there.

Recently, our Operating Partner Michael Marmor met him in Palo Alto and role-played the CIO buyer, giving us access to this otherwise closed-door deal.

This level of founder-market fit is rare. Yousuf is a veteran CIO (Qualys, Pure Storage, Moveworks), a former advisor to Zoom, and an investor in Discord. He also previously served as a General Partner at Ridge Ventures.

While the problem is boring, Yousuf is not.

He is the most customer-obsessed founder we have met, which is why we wrote our “love letter” offer the same night and won significant allocation.

Clario serves as the bridge between our chapters: the final investment of Fund I and the inaugural commitment for Fund II.

India’s Deep Tech Status

Ten years ago, Deep Tech was 1% of India’s venture capital. In 2025, it hit 15%. This shift addresses a long-standing paradox: India produces 8% of the world’s top AI researchers and designs 20% of global chips, yet historically, this talent fled. While India ranks third in scientific publications, its R&D spend remains just 0.7% of GDP—a tenth of the US or China.

The tide has turned. The 2020 opening of the space sector and shifts in defense procurement provided the real-world pressure needed to validate frontier startups. As a result, 2025 VC spend is on pace for $15 billion, with Deep Tech commanding over $2 billion.

The ecosystem is maturing. While we focus on the early stage, we welcome the arrival of growth-stage capital. Firms like Speciale ($175M) and Celesta ($250M) are launching significantly larger funds to support these companies as they scale. This maturing capital stack—highlighted by General Catalyst leading Raphe’s $100M round—validates the ecosystem we helped pioneer. Notably, blue-chip investors like TDK and Accel have joined us in backing EtherealX.

It is a busier space now. But while others watched from the sidelines, Golden Sparrow was already putting capital to work. Half of our 18 investments are in Deep Tech—spanning semiconductors, space, biotech, and quantum—often alongside early movers like Pi, Speciale, and YourNest long before the category became crowded. We put our money where our mouth is. The capital is here, the talent is returning, and India’s Deep Tech moment is now.

The Boomerang Effect

I started Golden Sparrow as a Solo GP. Building a firm while sourcing deals and supporting founders is a brutal task. I realized that while solo execution was possible, team-led was superior.

Early on, I made a counter-intuitive choice: I gave up a third of the profit share—or carry—to our team. This decision was transformative, aligning long-term incentives with ownership and evolving us from a “Solo GP” to a “Single GP” firm.

In this system, we maintain the agility of a lone decision-maker powered by the collective muscle of a world-class team. Michael, our Operating Partner, sharpens our decision-making process by peeling back the layers of a founder’s vision. Venkat leads our Deep Tech strategy in India, uncovering the “hard tech” others miss. Anand provides the overarching AI strategy that keeps our firm’s focus and its portfolio ahead of the curve.

This environment creates what Anand calls “boomerangs”—talent who leave to see the global landscape and choose to return. Ritik is the proof. Our first hire in 2023, Ritik left for a stint at the global firm z21 before choosing to come back to us as a Principal.

Ritik is now a linchpin in the US–India AI corridor—a vital pillar of our thesis. We have always said age is no barrier to excellence for our founders; Ritik proves we apply that same standard to our own team.

We have the team to support and drive Fund I forward and lay the groundwork for an exceptional Fund II. We are not just a Solo GP anymore. We are a firm.

Thank you for being with us on this journey. Happy holidays. See you here next quarter.