From DIY to Specialized Agencies: The State of Deep-Tech Marketing in 2026 (India Edition)

In 2020, deep-tech founders in India who needed marketing support — oh wait — back then we were still in the "my product will sell itself" and "why do great products need marketing" and "marketing is for average products only" era. Thankfully we are past that.

Let's restart. In 2020, deep-tech founders in India who needed marketing support — strategy, content, or marketing ops — essentially had to do it themselves. While you could theoretically hire a marketing manager, the talent pool of professionals with deep-tech experience was nearly non-existent. Could you hire an agency? But there weren't any specialist firms. And generalist ones wouldn't understand the technology, and didn't want to take the effort. Oh, the horror stories we have heard about deep-tech founders working with B2C marketers!

So who did the sales decks? Founders. LinkedIn posts, press notes? Founders. Brochures, explainer videos, event backdrops? Founders.

Cut to 2026, and now we have a small talent pool of deep-tech marketers and a few specialised shops. So, as a deep-tech founder you now have a few real choices. Let's go through these choices.

Do it yourself

This remains a legitimate choice, especially at the pre-seed stage. No one understands your technology or your initial customers better than you do. Since product specs and benefits are often fluid early on, working with external partners can be frustrating and costly.

Hire a marketing person

If you can find high-quality talent, recruit them at a reasonable cost, and ensure they can perform in an uncertain early-stage environment, this is an excellent path. However, meeting all three conditions requires a fair amount of luck — though startups generally need luck in everything they do.

Hire a generalist agency

Don't do it. You'll regret it. The learning curve for deep-tech is too steep for agencies accustomed to mass-market campaigns, leading to wasted time and budget. Just ask others who have hired generalist agencies to do deep-tech work.

Hire a specialist agency

Fortunately, several specialized firms now exist. As of August 2026, there are four notable Indian agencies with a deep-tech focus: CoreVoice (us), everything.design, This is it Studio, and Story99.

We asked Claude to summarize their websites in 100 words; here are the results (date: July 30, 2026):

Others

We occasionally hear of other specialized deep-tech marketing agencies. Our frequent collaborator, MadChatter, has a unit offering full-stack services to deep-tech clients with PR as the central pillar, and they have produced impressive work.

How does one choose?

Fortunately, the available options are sufficiently differentiated, making the decision straightforward. Here are our observations:

everything.design vs CoreVoice

everything.design is the most experienced of the lot (by number of projects completed and seniority of leadership team). Both Nikhil and I (Amrut) have met the founder (Mejo) and we have loved interacting with him. His Mechanical Engineering → MBA → creative leadership journey is similar to mine. To top this, CoreVoice and everything.design have had at least two overlapping clients in the last one year, i.e. we were both hired (for different projects) by the same client. I am certain there will be more clients who will hire both of us in parallel or one after the other.

everything.design prefers branding and design projects; whereas CoreVoice prefers long-term full-stack collaborations. Our style of working is also sufficiently differentiated. It would be a good idea for deep-tech founders to get a scope-document and quote from both of us and evaluate who is a better fit for the current assignment.

Story99 vs CoreVoice

Amrit Vatsa and Anshuman, the founders of Story99, were previously with CoreVoice before launching their own firm in 2025. Amrit has been an independent filmmaker since 2014, and both started their careers as consultants at PwC.

They excel at simplifying complex engineering concepts, especially academic papers. Story99 is an excellent fit for faculty and academic teams; their "Tech Talks" video series for IIT Madras has been highly successful.

CoreVoice is geared toward complex, multi-faceted customer problems that require integrated solutions. With a larger team and a wider range of services, we handle projects that require sustained execution. Additionally, while Story99 is a remote team, we maintain physical offices in Bangalore (Koramangala) and Mumbai, which can be a significant differentiator for in-person collaboration.

In all honesty, we love Amrit's video storytelling style. He puts a lot of heart into them. We have lost at least one client to them in the last one year, and we are OK with that. [But, please don't mention I said this to our creative lead.]

This Is It Studio vs CoreVoice

We haven't had any personal interactions with This Is It Studio, or their clients. We are aware of their work. They are design-led, as per their website. [Is design really a magic pill to all problems?]

We admire the courage of two designers to pick this complex deep-tech world as a focus area. There are days where, in spite of my engineering background and immersion in this field, I have to have hour-long conversations with Claude to understand what a founder has said. So in that context, I really admire Prachi and Julia. They are the only "outsiders" in this list, and that itself should be a reason for founders to give them a buzz.

I suppose I'll find out more about them in the coming years. Perhaps I'll run into them at a VC-led conference. If you are evaluating both of us, please do let me know how we compare.

Own team vs CoreVoice

In my opinion this is a very philosophical choice. There are founders who like to build everything themselves, and own everything. If you're that person, perhaps hiring your own team is a good idea. There is a cost-benefit matrix you might have to consider. But if you need to own it, just do that!

There are others who prefer to collaborate, and obviously we work only with these founders. That's all there is to it.

Summary

Dear deep-tech founder: compared to five years back, you have an actual choice to make on who will plan and execute your marketing. Thank god for choice. Hopefully this article would've helped you figure out who you want to pick as a collaborator.