From ISRO Scientist to $25M Deep Tech Founder | Prateep Basu (SatSure)
Founder Thesis · 2026-03-05 · 1h 35m
Episode notes
This episode with Prateep Basu, Co-founder and CEO of SatSure, is the deep-tech founder story India's startup ecosystem has been waiting for. Prateep Basu left a career building propulsion systems for India's GSLV MK-III rocket at ISRO to ask a deceptively simple question - why do urban Indians get 10 loan offers a day on WhatsApp while farmers wait a month for a single approval? The answer became SatSure, a Bengaluru-based Earth intelligence company that uses satellite imagery, AI, and government land records to deliver alternate credit scores for farmers, monitor crop health across bank portfolios, and help airports, insurers, and FMCG companies make smarter decisions from space. Bootstrapped for four and a half years before raising $25 million across multiple rounds, SatSure now monitors 1.95 lakh villages and has analysed over 2.1 million farmer plots. In this candid, wide-ranging conversation with host Akshay Datt, Prateep breaks down the physics of 40-pixel crop detection, explains why algorithms are never the moat, and reveals the strategic logic behind SatSure's audacious zero-bid for India's first private national satellite constellation.
More from Founder Thesis
All episodes →- Rajesh Jain (Netcore Cloud) on How to Bootstrap a SaaS Company to $100M Revenue63 / 100
- The Series A VC Reshaping Indian Startup Funding | Rajeev Kalambi @ Cactus Partners56 / 100
- Is Venture Capital Built to Break Founders - Amrit Chandan @ Lorefully51 / 100
- India's Non-Invasive Answer to Elon Musk's Neuralink | Siddharth Panwar @ NeuroDx
- What VCs Miss When Evaluating Lending Startups: Alok Mittal