India's ₹2,192 crore deep-tech fund sent 62% to firms tied to its own panel
What's the deal? India's government has cleared ₹2,192 crore in soft loans to 22 private companies in the first disbursement from its ₹1-lakh-crore Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund. But 15 of those firms — accounting for more than ₹1,377 crore, or roughly 62% of the money — have investment ties to seven members of the panel that selected them.
The details: Nine of the companies are linked to the chairman of the selection committee, and one carries a personal equity stake held by that chairman. The funded firms work on space systems, energy storage, semiconductors, robotics, and related deep-tech domains.
Why now? The RDI FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → launched in November 2025 to accelerate private-sector deep-tech research in areas including artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, space, defence, clean energy, and semiconductors. It offers long-term, low-cost, collateral-free public financing for technologies the market alone will not fund.
How it works: Implementation went to the Technology Development Board (TDB)Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC)Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, both under the Ministry of Science and Technology. TDB set up a 12-member Investment Committee — 11 private-sector professionals plus a non-voting government representative — to evaluate applications. It received 124 applications and cleared 22.
The response: On July 30, 2026, Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh named seven committee members who had disclosed financial interests in selected companies, responding to a parliamentary question from Congress Rajya Sabha MP Praveen Chakravarty. The Department of Science and Technology said selections were made "purely on merit" and that conflicted members had "zero involvement" in the relevant decisions.
The defence: Panel chairman Saurabh Srivastava, co-founder of the Indian Angel NetworkDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, said conflicts are expected when industry experts are involved and that recusals are recorded. TDB Secretary Rajesh Pathak described conflict of interest as "unavoidable" in such panels, arguing it can be managed through disclosure and recusal.
What could go wrong? When the gatekeepers of public risk capital sit inside the same networks that stand to benefit, the claim of pure merit becomes hard to sustain. The government says the second cohort of 13 companies had just one firm with a member stake, framing the first-round concentration as early awareness among networked firms rather than bias.
The signal: India is betting big on deep tech with a fund it wants the private sector to trust. But governance questions in its very first round test whether public capital can stay clean when it flows through private hands.
Read more: Inventiva
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
