National Current Affairs
IIT Madras ₹600 Crore Venture Capital Fund for Deep-Tech Startups
- 12 Feb 2026
- 2 min read
Why in News?
The IIT Madras Research Park has launched a ₹600 crore deep-tech venture capital fund aimed at nurturing early-stage and technology-intensive startups across India’s deep-tech ecosystem.
Key Points:
- Fund: The IIT Madras Research Park (IITMRP), in collaboration with Unicorn India Ventures, announced the establishment of a ₹600 crore deep-tech venture capital fund called IITM Unicorn Frontier Fund I.
- The fund includes an additional ₹400 crore ‘greenshoe option’, bringing potential total deployment capacity to ₹1,000 crore for investment in deep-tech startups.
- The fund targets early-stage deep-tech companies with technologies such as AI, semiconductors, defence tech, robotics, and frontier research.
- Strategic Vision: It emphasizes technology sovereignty, reducing reliance on imported technologies by supporting ventures building globally competitive solutions from India.
- Innovation Support: The fund aims to provide patient capital, recognizing that deep-tech startups often require longer gestation periods due to intensive R&D, prototyping, and regulatory challenges.
- Impact: The initiative is expected to strengthen India’s deep-tech startup ecosystem by enabling growth of intellectual property-led ventures and fostering collaboration between research institutions and industry.
- IITMRP: It is one of India’s prominent university-based research parks, designed to bridge the gap between academia and industry by incubating startups and hosting R&D entities within its facility.
| Read More: India’s deep-tech ecosystem, AI, semiconductors, Intellectual property |
