IIT Madras, Unicorn India Ventures launch ₹600 crore deep tech fund

IIT Madras Research Park (IITMRP), India’s first university-based research park and a leading force behind India’s deep tech transformation, and Unicorn India Ventures, a deep tech venture capital fund, have joined hands to launch a Rs 600 crore deep tech fund. The fund will also have an additional Rs 400 crore as a greenshoe option.

 

The fund will look to build a portfolio of over 25 companies in IP-led, engineering-heavy startups in sectors such as robotics, spacetech, defencetech, semiconductors and medtech, aligned with national strategic interests.

 

IIT Madras—India’s premier engineering institution—has ranked number one for 10 consecutive years in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) for excellence in academics and innovation, and leads the nation in intellectual property creation, achieving a record average of more than one patent per day. 

 

Kamakoti Veezhinathan, director of IIT Madras and the man behind the Shakti microprocessor, said: “Science and technology will play a crucial role in the growth story and towards India becoming Viksit Bharat 2047, focusing on technology sovereignty, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, defencetech and quantum technology. The need of the hour is to reduce reliance on technology imports and strengthen indigenous capabilities. IIT Madras has been at the forefront of this wave for over a decade, and this fund is the next logical step for us.”

 

Bolstering the innovation and commercialisation capability of IIT Madras is the IITM Research Park, which is home to several global R&D labs, centres of excellence and incubators. IITM Research Park and the IITM Incubation Cell have played a pivotal role in translational research, commercialisation, and nurturing cutting-edge deep tech startups across spacetech, communications, climatetech, electric vehicles, semiconductors, quantum and defencetech. To further strengthen the innovation ecosystem and accelerate the growth journey for startups, IIT Madras Research Park has selected Unicorn India Ventures as the fund manager for the deep tech fund.

 

With an average first investment size of Rs 8–10 crore, the investment strategy will follow a dual-stage approach. The fund will be used to invest in early-stage deep tech startups that have reached Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 3–4, with the aim of identifying high-potential innovations and nurturing them through initial commercialisation hurdles. To ensure that portfolio companies are not capital-starved, as deep tech is a long-gestation investment business, the fund will also support them with capital at the early mid-stage, where they have reached TRL 5–7, to accelerate the development of concept-proven technologies. A part of the corpus would be assigned to select early late-stage companies that reach TRL 7–9 with proven product technology and need support with accelerated scale-up and market penetration.

 

Natarajan Malupillai, group chief executive officer of IITM Research Park, said: “India’s deep tech ecosystem is at a pivotal moment, driven by supportive policies, sustained R&D investments, and a strong entrepreneurial aspiration among our youth. This fund will accelerate the scale-up of mission-driven, globally competitive startups while strengthening India’s culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. We are pleased to partner with Unicorn India Ventures to advance India’s deep tech leadership—imagining, designing and building in India for the world.”

 

Bhaskar Majumdar, managing partner at Unicorn India Ventures, said: “It is an honour to be selected by IITM and IITMRP, which have been the backbone of deep tech innovation in India. With our proven understanding of deep tech, we believe we have the resources and the network to support early-stage deep tech companies. As an active deep tech investor, we have already built a portfolio of nearly 30 companies, and this new fund in partnership with IITMRP comes at the right time, as we have met numerous innovative deep tech companies in the last two years. India has the talent, capital and patient investors like us and IITM to pool our collective knowledge, resources and industry connections to help the next generation of deep tech founders.”

 

The fund will deploy 60 per cent of the investable corpus to build the initial portfolio and reserve 40 per cent for follow-on rounds to ensure that there is enough “patient capital” to back winners through the “valley of death”. A significant portion of the companies will be sourced from IITM’s ecosystem, with the balance coming from the wider Indian deep tech ecosystem.

 

Unicorn India Ventures, as the fund manager, will leverage its ability to mobilise capital beyond the primary fund corpus and build a robust co-investment engine to ensure that portfolio companies are never capital-starved. The fund will take the lead in raising the corpus from IITM alumni and its global network of limited partners, comprising family offices, ultra high net worth individuals and large Indian institutions.