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CompaniesShouvik Das
4 min
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27 Jan 2025, 11:42 PM
ISTRangan Banerjee, director, IIT-Delhi.Summary
Many startups incubated at IIT-Delhi have raised substantial funding, helping the institution exit such investments and raise revenue for future research projects, says director Rangan Banerjee.
Multiple startups incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D) have raised substantial funding, helping the elite institution exit such investments and raise revenue for future research projects, director Rangan Banerjee said.
The institute had research and development (R&D) grants of ₹500 crore for FY25, an amount that keeps growing, Banerjee said on the sidelines of releasing its first research impact report covering the past six years. “This helps our research build startups that generate direct employment, and leverage technology transfers from academia to compete in the industry,” he added.
For comparison, the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru and IIT Madras had R&D grants of ₹626 crore and ₹681 crore respectively in FY24, as per their annual reports.“The balance of research funding is tricky for Indian institutes compared with global ones. Here, most funding comes from the government—and these are competitive grants. Compared with previous years, the industry component of research funding is increasing, but its share is still relatively smaller,” said Banerjee, who heads the IIT ranked second among India’s best engineering colleges. Government initiatives such as the Anusandhan National Research Fund (ANRF) could help, Banerjee added. ANRF funds research projects and assists in setting up research infrastructure.
Among startups incubated by IIT-Delhi affordable internet startup Wiom and connected car infrastructure startup Vecmocon raised $17.1 million and $10 million respectively, Banerjee added.Part of a growing basePreeti Ranjan Panda, dean, corporate relations at IIT Delhi, said these are part of a growing base of successful private ventures building large companies through partnership funding from large corporations.
“We have a partnership with aviation giant Boeing for its ‘Build’ (Boeing University Innovation Leadership Development) programme, as well as pharmaceutical conglomerate Pfizer with the latter’s ‘Innovation and IP Programme’. Each of them helps startups like Wiom and Vecmocon create an industry network, and an ecosystem of support to build for the world,” Panda said.
Industry veterans have voiced the need for India to build its own intellectual properties in foundational technologies to reduce reliance on other nations. Last week, Ajai Chowdhry, co-founder, HCL and chairman of think-tank Epic Foundation told Mint that a lack of core patents “can leave India at the mercy of other nations, especially the US, and the sanctions that they can impose to force their will on our and the glob
