A new generation of Indian entrepreneurs is emerging with PhD degrees as their primary credential, marking a significant shift from traditional IIT and IIM backgrounds. According to reports from Mint, Gunjan Kapadia exemplifies this trend, returning to IIT Madras for a PhD in chemical engineering after seven years in a stable career. His startup Sthyr Energy, launched with fellow IIT-M PhD students, successfully raised $1 million in seed funding last year. This represents a departure from the familiar trope of entrepreneurs leaving established careers for startup ventures, with the PhD serving as both academic credential and strategic foundation for deeptech innovation.
India's deeptech ecosystem is experiencing remarkable expansion, with funding reaching $1.47 billion in 2025, representing a dramatic increase from $484 million in 2020. As reported by Mint, the number of deeptech startups has grown from approximately 2,700 in 2022 to more than 4,200 by 2025. This growth coincides with India's strategic focus on AI, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing, creating new opportunities for research-led ventures. The sector's transformation reflects changing investor priorities as geopolitics reshape global supply chains and domestic innovation becomes increasingly critical.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan issued a strong call for private sector investment in higher education research at the IIT Madras Technology Summit 2026 held in New Delhi on May 5. Speaking at the inauguration of the summit themed 'From IITM. For Bharat. Building Together,' Pradhan highlighted the urgent need to shift India's innovation paradigm from government-dominated funding to a balanced public-private model. India's Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD) stands at approximately 0.64 percent of GDP as of 2020-21, with the private sector contributing only 36.4 percent compared to global leaders like South Korea (4.8 percent) and China (2.4 percent). The minister advocated for a 50-50 split between government and industry to create a mature innovation system capable of producing deployable technologies.
Major Indian universities are redesigning their PhD programmes to support entrepreneurial ambitions. BITS Pilani launched its PhD-Drive programme in 2023, offering ₹10 lakh to develop prototypes and mentorship for students with startup ideas. According to Mint, the programme currently supports 19 PhD students with plans to enroll another 15 in August. IIT-Madras Incubation Cell has supported 560+ startups with a combined valuation of over ₹74,000 crore. The IIT-Hyderabad is planning a similar programme focusing on commercially viable products, emphasizing the growing collaboration between academia and industry.
Venture capital firms are increasingly backing deeptech startups, with Artha Venture Fund in discussions to sign memoranda of understanding with legacy Indian universities. As reported by Mint, F2A (Fundamentum Frontier Advisors) is a ₹3,000-crore venture capital platform focused on consumer AI, enterprise AI, and physical AI. The funding concentration shows 70% of deeptech funding in India is concentrated in early-stage investment rounds, leaving limited capital for Series B and later-stage commercialization. To catalyze private participation, the government has rolled out the Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) Fund, a ₹1 lakh crore corpus under the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF). This apex body promotes research across disciplines, seed-funding startups, and attracting private capital into sunrise sectors like AI, quantum computing, and clean energy.
