RDI SPF to issue cheques soon, says ANRF CEO Shivkumar Kalyanaraman

The ₹1 lakh crore RDI Fund aims to create a deep-tech asset class and mobilise up to ₹10 lakh crore through private-sector innovation and research

The first cheques from the ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Special Purpose Fund will be issued to eligible entities in the coming days, Shivkumar Kalyanaraman, chief executive officer at the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), said.

 

“Day after tomorrow, we’ll be giving out the first cheques and notifying multiple second-level fund managers within a month, who will also get additional allocation. You’ll see an emergence of an asset class that will drive deep-tech innovation very shortly and we need you to respond, in the combination of building research and development capacity within the private sector, perhaps in combination with academia,” Kalyanaraman said, speaking at a session on India’s Deep Tech Breakthrough at the CII Annual General Meeting on Monday.

 

Terming the operationalisation of the RDI Fund as happening at “record speed” from the announcement by the Prime Minister on November 3, 2025, till May 2026, the official said the foundation had already notified the second-level fund managers TDB and BIRAC, which have been given ₹2,000 crore each in the first iteration.

 

The ₹1 lakh crore RDI Fund is housed under ANRF, a statutory body under the Ministry of Science and Technology, which aims to create a new deep-tech asset class that will channel capital through professionally managed second-level fund managers into the private sector, primarily deep-tech startups, corporate research and development units, and special-purpose research vehicles.

 

Kalyanaraman said the fund opened eligibility to Indian resident-managed entities, even if they have majority foreign ownership, while allowing significant foreign participation at the fund-manager level. He added that the government expected the total capital mobilised through the RDI architecture to scale from ₹1 lakh crore to ₹4-10 lakh crore over time.

 

“We are not just building a scheme; we are building a financial architecture that can de-risk deep-tech and long-horizon innovation. We expect a lot of innovation, both in corporate structures to respond to take advantage of this fund. So the ₹1 lakh crore that we put out, we expect it to be like ₹4 lakh crore to ₹10 lakh crore, depending on the money multiplier that we expect to see,” he added.

 

“We want academia to incubate discovery and then see that pivot into private sector-led innovation,” he said, underlining ANRF’s push to build research-industry bridges, co-invest with CSR and philanthropy, and encourage corporates to submit challenge-based funding proposals.

 

He added that India was at an inflection point, but needed to build its information and human infrastructure as much as it needed physical infrastructure, such as roads, and digital infrastructure including UPI and Aadhaar. “These three types of infrastructure can be considered the three pillars of Viksit Bharat,” he added.