Quarkitech raises ₹2 crore pre-seed for sensor data compression
Quarkitech, a deeptech company operating out of the IIT Madras Research Park, has raised ₹2 crore in pre-seed funding from Artha Access—a programme of Artha Venture Fund II—and Finvolve. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The company builds compression technology that tackles sensor data overload at the point of capture. Its core effort is a compression algorithm library designed to reduce data before it is stored, processed, or transmitted—allowing drones, satellites, and other defence platforms to move 10–100 times more usable data through the same bandwidth and power constraints without adding hardware.
For a global defence or aerospace buyer, Quarkitech’s proposition is a physics-first attack on a costly bottleneck. Sensor redundancy generates enormous volumes of noise; filtering it after the fact strains onboard power and communication links. Quarkitech applies mathematical frameworks drawn from complex quantum systems to compress at the source.
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In laboratory tests on drone-captured images, the company reports a 26X reduction in data volume while retaining 98% of mission-critical information. The immediate question is whether those results hold under real-world stress—heat, vibration, a moving platform—and the round is designed to fund that transition.
Quarkitech has also been awarded a ₹1.5 crore grant by the IITM-CDOT Samgnya Technologies Foundation under the National Quantum Mission, signalling institutional backing for its underlying research.
"Sensor redundancy is a physics problem before it is a software problem, and Quarkitech is attacking it at the point of capture instead of after the data is already stuck onboard. What they have today is a laboratory result, and the honest question is whether it survives heat, vibration and a moving platform. We would rather be on the cap table while that question is being answered, which is exactly what Artha Access is built for," said Anirudh A. Damani, Director, Artha Group.
"By applying the mathematical frameworks used to model complex quantum systems, we are untangling the massive data bottlenecks of modern defence and aerospace," said Shashikant Singh Kunwar, Co-founder and CTO of Quarkitech.
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