Semiconductors
Chip design and packaging
Moore's Law has moved into the package.
Chiplets, substrates, test and the design tools around India's new assembly plants.
India's deep-tech venture studio
From lab proof to first customer.
Kinetic Foundry co-founds companies from Indian research. We work alongside scientists, innovators and researchers, with government programmes, IITs, national labs, industry and venture funds from early stage to late stage, to turn breakthroughs into businesses.
- TRL 2→4
- the stretch we build in
- ₹1L cr
- RDI scheme, investing from TRL 4
- 91%
- of India's 2025 deep-tech funding went to AI
- 6
- frontier sectors in focus
India has the science and the capital. The bridge between them is missing.
Public capital for deep tech is now large, but it enters once a technology has worked in the lab. Before that, between TRL 2 and TRL 4, research has to become a company: a team, a product and a first buyer. That is the stretch Kinetic Foundry is built for.
IdeaKinetic Foundry builds hereRDI fund managers, VCs and industry invest from TRL 4 onward
TRL 3
Proof of concept. The key function has been shown experimentally. Most ventures we co-found start here.
~20%
of global venture capital now goes to deep tech, roughly double its share a decade earlier.
BCG, Nov 2023511
startups from the IIT Madras incubator alone, valued at over ₹53,000 crore, with 13 M&A exits. Indian labs do build companies.
IIT Madras, Dec 2025$2.3B
of Indian deep-tech funding in 2025, with 91% going to AI. Chips, energy, space, bio and quantum share the rest.
Nasscom-Zinnov, Feb 2026We work where science, government, industry and capital meet.
A deep-tech company needs five things at once: the science, public programmes, a lab and test bench, a first industrial buyer, and capital that matches each stage. We bring them together around every venture.
SCI
Scientists, innovators and researchers
Scientist-founders keep meaningful equity and stay close to the technology. We add the operator, the buyer and the plan.
LAB
IITs, national labs and new labs
We license and co-develop IP on standard terms, and use shared test and fabrication facilities before building our own.
GOV
Government programmes
Grants and mission funds come first: BIRAC, DST, iDEX and ADITI, ISM's design scheme and the National Quantum Mission, matched to each venture.
IND
Industry
We find the anchor customer before the factory. Qualification with a real buyer is the product roadmap.
VC
Venture funds, early stage to late stage
Ventures graduate to outside investors at TRL 4 and beyond, including RDI-backed fund managers, then growth and late-stage funds.
Six frontiers. One rule: own a hard layer.
We focus where public capital is committed, demand is visible and a studio-sized entry point exists below fab-scale or launch-scale spending.
Energy materials
Batteries beyond lithium
What if the battery ran on salt?
Sodium-ion, cell materials, recycling and magnets that cut import dependence.
Space
Earth intelligence
Cameras see colour. This sees chemistry.
Hyperspectral analytics, payloads and the data products that turn orbit into decisions.
Defence and autonomy
Shields, sensors, autonomy
Cheap drones need cheaper shields.
Low-cost radar, RF sensing, interceptors and edge autonomy, built dual-use from day one.
Bio-manufacturing
Precision fermentation
Biofoundries are coming. Strains are the gap.
Engineered strains, enzymes, downstream processing and molecules with named buyers, built on shared biofoundry capacity.
Quantum
Sensing and secure links
Quantum that ships starts with sensing.
Quantum sensors, secure communication and the photonics, cryogenics and control electronics around them, qualified for real platforms.
A repeatable path from paper to purchase order.
Every venture moves through the same gated stages. Each gate has kill criteria, so time and capital go to what the evidence supports.
- STAGE 1
Originate
Screen research against a named buyer problem and a studio-sized entry point.
TRL 2 - STAGE 2
Pair
Match the scientist-founder with an operator CEO. Agree equity and licence terms early.
TRL 2–3 - STAGE 3
Prove
Reach a lab-validated prototype with grants and shared test facilities.
TRL 3–4 - STAGE 4
Qualify
Test against an anchor customer's specification and sign the first paid pilot.
TRL 4–6 - STAGE 5
Graduate
Raise from outside investors and scale, with the studio as a long-term shareholder.
TRL 6+
Capital in sequence
Where is your technology, and what comes next?
Pick a sector, a readiness level and who you are. The compass applies our method: the stage you are in, the next gate, what would stop the venture, the capital that fits now and what Kinetic Foundry does at that point.
Sector
I am
Pair
STAGE 2 · TRL 3 · ENERGY MATERIALS
- Next gate
- A lab-validated prototype (TRL 4).
- Kill criteria
- No operator CEO fits, or equity and licence terms cannot be agreed.
- Proof that counts
- Cycle life, energy density and cost per kWh at coin and pouch-cell scale.
- Capital that fits
- ANRF and DST clean-energy research grants
- IIT and national-lab incubators
- Kinetic Foundry studio capital and operators
- First buyers
- EV and energy-storage makers, cell plants and recyclers.
- Kinetic Foundry
- At this stage Kinetic Foundry matches the scientist-founder with an operator CEO and sets up the company and IP licence. In energy materials, it targets the hard layer under assembly: cell chemistries, materials and process equipment.
- Your move
- Bring your data, the lab's IP position and one problem a buyer has. We'll test it against the next gate together.
What we are learning in public.
Our Frontier Tech series covers one technology a day, with sourced numbers and the lab-to-company gap in each.
Space · Earth observation
$8.4B today, $44B by 2033
ISRO's estimate of India's space economy, and its 2033 target. A ₹1,000 crore IN-SPACe fund now writes ₹10–60 crore cheques. The studio-sized entry is payloads, sensors and data, not launch.
Quantum · sensing
4 hubs, 8 startups
The National Quantum Mission runs hubs at IISc, IIT Madras, IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi. Sensing, communication and components have nearer-term buyers than general-purpose quantum computers.
Bio · fermentation
$165.7B bioeconomy, $300B target
India's bioeconomy was 4.25% of GDP in 2024. BioE3 is setting up shared biofoundries. The missing piece is strains, enzymes and products.
Question our thesis. It answers from sourced facts only.
The short answers are below. When live answers are switched on, the panel takes any question and answers using only the facts and sources on this page. If the facts don't cover it, it says so.
Why does India need a deep-tech venture studio?
Public capital such as the ₹1 lakh crore RDI scheme invests from TRL 4. Before that, between TRL 2 and 4, research has to become a company with a team, a product and a first buyer. A studio co-founds companies in exactly that stretch.
Isn't deep tech too slow and risky for investors?
About 20% of global venture capital now goes to deep tech (BCG, 2023). The risk is real, so every stage has kill criteria, grants come before equity and an anchor customer comes before a factory.
Why not just fund AI?
91% of India's $2.3B of deep-tech funding in 2025 went to AI (Nasscom-Zinnov). Chips, energy materials, space, bio-manufacturing and quantum share the rest. That gap is where we focus.
What does a scientist-founder keep?
Meaningful equity and closeness to the technology. We add an operator CEO, the buyer and the plan, and agree licence terms with the lab early.
How do I start?
Use the Venture Compass above to find your stage, then send a note to our founder, Rahul Pratap Yadav, on LinkedIn.
Live answers are switched off on this site. The answers on the left and the sources in the footer cover the thesis.
Bring us the hard problem.
Researchers with a result at TRL 2 to 4, operators who want to lead a deep-tech company, industry teams with a problem to solve, and investors at every stage. Tell us who you are and we'll prepare a note you can send to our founder, Rahul Pratap Yadav, on LinkedIn.