Members of the India Deep Tech Alliance (IDTA) has invested approximately ₹2,170 crore across 56 deep-tech companies in the alliance’s first year, the industry consortium said on Friday.
IDTA, the industry coalition, which was formed at Semicon last year with commitments of over $1 billion from venture firms like Celesta Capital, Accel, Premji Invest, Venture Catalysts, Bloom VC, Gaja Capital, Ideaspring, and Tenacity Ventures aims to create globally significant companies in semiconductors, Al, space and other critical sectors.
The investment over roughly a year, has been deployed across five priority sectors under the government’s Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Scheme. AI and its applications pooled around ₹639 crore across 16 companies, while deep tech spanning quantum computing, robotics and space drew ₹649 crore across 21 companies. Energy security, transition and climate action attracted around ₹655 crore across 8 companies; biotech, biomanufacturing, synthetic biology and pharma took in around ₹189 crore across 7 companies; and the digital economy, including digital agriculture, received around ₹38 crore across 4 companies.
IDTA said the investments were made independently by individual members under their own strategies, but framed the aggregate number as evidence of deepening investor conviction in India-built deep-tech companies.
Additionally, the body will partner with semiconductor body SEMI to build a national workforce-training platform called the India Semiconductor Academy (ISA).
“IDTA is trying to address a lot of issues in detail, say capital, regulatory support, other fundamental issues that startups face, including taxes, procurement, imports and skills. So ISA is as an integral pillar of the overall strategy to move this ecosystem forward,” Sriram Viswanathan, Executive Committee Member, India Deep Tech Alliance & Founding Managing Partner, Celesta Capital told Fe.
The proposed academy seeks to partner with various industry participants and academic institutions, including Cadence, CG Semi, Dixon Technologies, Micron Technology, 3D Glass Solutions, the University of California San Diego and IIT Kanpur.