Startup Mahakumbh | Deeptech policy in final stages of consultations: DPIIT secretary

India’s national deeptech startup policy is in the final stages of inter-ministerial consultations, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) secretary RK Singh said here on Monday.

“What really matters in startups is its ability to commercialise and develop intellectual property rights (IPR),” he said at the Startup Mahakumbh, a three-day startup industry event. “It’s not enough to only innovate. You should be able to convert it into IPR, which is of long-term benefit to the country and to yourself. Deeptech and extensive research and development would be the answer to that.”

The deeptech policy aims to support startups operating in the high-end technology space across several sectors such as artificial intelligence, internet of things, space technology and machine learning, Singh said.


“Hopefully, you'll soon see a separate window for deeptech startups,” he added.

Also read | Startup Mahakumbh to boost India’s efforts to improve innovation ranking: DPIIT secretary

Debjani Ghosh, president of technology industry body Nasscom, said, “Think of deeptech as the key required to unlock the accelerated growth potential of India. The ecosystem which is going to unlock that key is the startup economy.”

India's G20 sherpa Amitabh Kant said the future lies in deeptech. “We will need a big deeptech fund of funds, which will deploy resources into alternate investment funds (AIFs), because much of the startup movement's success story has been because we were able to create the fund of funds,” he said.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had in the union budget 2024 announced that a new scheme will be launched for strengthening deeptech technologies for defence purposes and expediting ‘aatmanirbharta’ or self-reliance.

Startup Mahakumbh is being jointly organised with collaborative efforts of Assocham, Nasscom, Bootstrap Incubation and Advisory Foundation, TiE, and Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA). It is also supported by the DPIIT, MeitY Startup Hub (MSH), and Invest India.

The event is expected to see participation from more than 40 unicorns, or startups valued at over $1 billion, including founders of Lenskart, Boat, Dream11, Oyo, Razorpay, Zerodha, Acko, Moglix, Urban Company, and Nykaa.