The catalysts to India’s deep tech growth and the journey that lies ahead

Explore the key catalysts behind India's deep tech growth and the exciting journey ahead. Learn about the innovations and opportunities shaping India's deep tech landscape.

There’s no doubt that as a country we are waking up to our deep tech potential.

In the budget this year, the government laid out nearly ₹1 trillion towards research and development besides Rs 1,000 crore venture capital fund for the space economy. That’s not all.

Despite a brutal funding winter, startups in deep tech were able to raise $870 million. For reference, e-commerce emerged as the hottest sector until May this year.

While the sector itself is vast and diverse with everything from spacetech to life sciences falling under its purview, it is a clear indication that deep tech is here to stay. And within this, is a beacon of opportunity in Tamil Nadu.

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Deep tech capital of India

One could describe Tamil Nadu as the deep tech capital of India with utmost confidence—all the evidence certainly supports this notion at least. Last year, Tamil Nadu was ranked as the top state when it came to patent filing, largely driven by innovation within the deep tech space.

Leading the pack from the front is Agnikul Cosmos. “I think one of the biggest trends in the startup space is space itself,” Srinath Ravichandran, Founder of Agnikul Cosmos told WeWork Labs at a recent event at Olympia Cyberspace in Chennai. “This is largely due to the number of policies and investments coming in.”

Startups like Agnikul have benefited immensely from a slew of schemes that have enabled their rapid growth. For instance, iTNT Hub, a Public-Private Partnership founded and funded by the Governments of India and Tamil Nadu, concerns itself with coming up with initiatives that support and facilitate the growth of startups in the space with the necessary funding and backing they need.

Under iTNT, the government has also housed 120 incubators to accelerate the growth of deep-tech startups. Besides this, iTNT has also onboarded nearly 100 academic researchers from diverse emerging and deep tech fields on its platform Jigsaw—which enables greater collaboration between industry and academics.

Additionally, there are also plans to host a global startup summit in Chennai early next year on a “high budget” with international pavilions showcasing the best startup ecosystems, accelerators, investors and incubators from around the world.

What are some of the challenges deep tech startups face in India?

Srinath from Agnikul sums up the deep tech journey the best: “Any startup journey is a marathon, deep tech is especially an ultramarathon.” While there are bright spots, it is understood that there is still a long way to go.

“For India to be in the top 3 deep tech startups ecosystem, key areas that need support are – access to patient capital for deep tech startups to build and scale their products, strong R&D partnerships with academia for nextgen innovation, streamlining government procurement for startups to build India specific solutions and implementation of the deep tech Policy that was tabled in

2023,” said Ritika Murugesan, Head, of Nasscom deep tech in a statement.

What works in the favour of the sector is perhaps the mindset of the founders building in it. “The founders here [in India] are resilient, the translation of “jugaad” mentality not in the sense of low-quality work, but rather, effective solutions at a low-cost is there,” Nitish Kumar, Investment Team, Speciale Invest told WeWork Labs at our Founder Meetup conducted recently in Chennai.

That being said, it is clear that deep tech is poised to grow further. And given the support—both from the government and the infrastructure—only time will tell how disruptive this sector is set to get. See you in the next WeWork Labs blog!