The government’s Rs 1 lakh crore Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) programme is beginning to draw venture capital into technologies India has long struggled to finance. The trend underpins India's big future bet on turning from a large consumer of technology into a country that produces it.
The latest sign that India's deeptech push is moving beyond government policy comes from an unlikely place, the mid-tier venture capital firms. ET has reported today that firms including Antler, Bertelsmann India Investments, Jungle Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and Kae Capital are changing how they assess deeptech companies, bringing in scientists, technical advisers and global sector specialists. Antler says it now seriously evaluates seven to eight deeptech companies a month, against about one earlier. The private-sector response to a sector shunned by private capital so far arrives alongside the government's RDI programme, which is designed to use public capital to draw private money into technology development.
