India is establishing a $25 billion pool to boost its deep-tech start-ups, focusing on artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and space technology, aiming to catch up with US and China in frontier tech investments.
India is assembling a proposed $25 billion pool for deep-tech start-ups, in a bid to build more of its own critical technology and rely less on foreign suppliers. The plan, outlined in reporting on the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association’s annual deep-tech review, would draw on public money, private equity and venture capital, with the aim of backing companies working on artificial intelligence, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, drones and space technology.
The scale of the ambition underlines how far India still has to travel to catch the United States and China in frontier technology investment. According to the IVCA-Venture Intelligence Bharat DeepTech Report 2026, India attracted $11.4 billion in cumulative private equity and venture capital funding across 957 deep-tech deals between 2015 and 16 July 2026. The annual flow has accelerated sharply, rising from 18 deals worth $91 million in 2015 to 62 deals worth $552 million in 2020, before reaching a peak in 2025 of almost $3 billion across 189 deals.
By mid-July 2026, the sector had already added another $997 million from 103 deals. The report suggests that much of the capital has gone to businesses working on artificial intelligence, including generative AI, which together attracted $2.88 billion over the period. Business software, and electric-vehicle and battery technologies each drew about $1.5 billion, while biotechnology and life sciences received $850 million and robotics and automation $780 million.
India’s deep-tech geography remains heavily concentrated. Bengaluru accounted for 51% of recorded deals and 50% of funding in the report’s city-level analysis, with Mumbai, Gurugram, Hyderabad and Pune also emerging as important centres. The study also points to growing activity in Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Kochi, though it notes that the figures do not capture every start-up or research institution in the country. Separate reporting said the government has committed $11 billion through the Research Development Infrastructure Fund, with venture capital and private equity expected to match that sum and additional funding helping to lift the total pool towards $25 billion.
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