India Tech Report

India’s storage surgeIndia’s cabinet has signed off on a Rs. 14,500 crore (about $1.5 billion) viability-gap funding scheme to spark the development of 92 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of grid-scale energy storage by 2031. The initiative aims to unlock nearly Rs. 97,600 crore in total investments, backing 60GWh of pumped hydro, 30GWh of battery storage, and 2GWh of emerging tech. With a 40 percent domestic content mandate applied on batteries to curb imports, the government is betting that juicing storage capacity will finally smooth out the undesirable intermittency of our growing renewable grids.Terahertz tunnellingResearchers at India’s Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research have developed a silicon chip that allows terahertz waves to pass through engineered barriers with negligible loss. By using topological photonics to mimic graphene’s honeycomb lattice, the team achieved data transmission rates of up to 100 gigabits per second across the barrier. The breakthrough overcomes a major hurdle in guiding high-frequency terahertz signals around sharp bends and junctions, paving the way for compact, low-loss circuits essential for future 6G communication networks.Corvette propulsion winAstraYAN, an IIT Madras-incubated deep-tech startup, has beaten global contenders to bag a propulsion systems integration tender for the Indian Navy’s upcoming Next Generation Corvettes. The contract forms a vital slice of a recent Rs. 53,867 crore naval shipbuilding push awarded to Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Goa Shipyard. By emerging victorious in a grueling technical trial alongside foreign contenders, AstraYAN marks a rare milestone: a domestic company taking charge of the complex machinery fusing diesel engines, gas turbines, and transmission architectures for frontline warships.Unlocking the innovatorsTo end today’s briefing, there’s the news from SEBI. India’s powerful capital markets regulator is trying, one more time, to make the public market more accessible to deep tech startups. SEBI, or Securities and Exchange Board of India, has convened a working group to overhaul the Innovators Growth Platform (IGP), its struggling bourses framework designed for startups.Since its 2019 launch, the platform has failed to attract meaningful listings. The new panel will evaluate why the rules miss the mark for capital-heavy, pre-revenue deep-tech startups in sectors like semiconductors, space, and biotech. If SEBI successfully lowers the barriers for research-stage innovators without compromising investor protection, it might finally give India’s deep-tech champions a reason to list at home rather than abroad. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit indiatechreport.substack.com

VyomIC, a space tech venture operating under Aerodome Technologies, has secured a vital grant from the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) under its Technology Adoption Fund (TAF) 2026.Out of a total project cost of Rs. 20.12 crore, IN-SPACe is injecting Rs. 12.55 crore to advance the commercialisation of an indigenous atomic clock ensemble architecture that VyomIC is developing.Precision timekeeping is the invisible scaffolding of modern industrial infrastructure. Satellites orbiting thousands of kilometres above Earth do not merely pinpoint coordinates for transport; their synchronised ticks govern the operation of telecommunications networks, power grids, and high-frequency financial markets.Yet the current architecture remains concentrated in the hands of major spacefaring states. VyomIC’s initiative is designed to overcome this structural dependency by serving as a core foundation for a planned commercial Low Earth Orbit Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (LEO-PNT) constellation.Worldwide, the race to build low-orbit navigation networks reflects a growing strategic reckoning: the legacy medium-orbit infrastructure — headlined by America’s GPS and complemented by Europe’s Galileo and Russia’s GLONASS — is showing its age and structural vulnerability.Orbiting at roughly 20,000 kilometres, conventional navigation signals arrive at Earth faint and prone to electronic interference, spoofing, and deliberate jamming in contested corridors. By bringing positioning and timing into low orbit, commercial operators aim to deliver vastly stronger signals, indoor penetrability, and centimeter-level accuracy for autonomous platforms.With geopolitical friction rising and autonomous systems proliferating, control over sovereign timing infrastructure is rapidly evolving from an esoteric technical discipline into an indispensable facet of national economic security.“VyomIC has been selected under IN-SPACe’s Technology Adoption Fund 2026 to advance the development of its indigenous, novel atomic clock ensemble architecture for high-precision and secure timing solutions,” the company’s Co-Founder CEO Lokesh Kabdal said in a post on LinkedIn last week.“The novel ensemble architecture is designed to deliver highly stable, resilient and precise timing by combining multiple clock technologies. It will serve as a foundational technology for VyomIC’s next-generation LEO-PNT architecture, strengthening India’s capabilities in sovereign space-based positioning, navigation and timing,” Lokesh added.Lokesh and his fellow founders Vibhor Jain and Anurag Patil, started Aerodome Technologies in late 2023. Their journey started from the elite Indian Institute of Technology Madras ecosystem, where these entrepreneurs were also a part of Avishkar Hyperloop project. Several members of that project have gone on to start some of India’s most innovative deep tech ventures.As to Lokesh, Vibhor and Anurag, their path took a pivotal turn during a drone show, where signal jammers used for security purposes exposed some of the dangerous vulnerabilities and precision gaps of current GNSS, or global navigation satellite system, infrastructure.This realisation led to the creation of VyomIC last year, envisioned as an Indian satellite constellation that will secure our place in the global low Earth orbit (LEO) PNT race. The three founders expect that VyomIC will be able offer signals that are at least couple of orders of magnitude stronger than those from the geostationary satellites of the existing GNS systems.Having validated its atomic clock technology at Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) 3 and 4 under independent evaluation by IN-SPACe and external technical experts, VyomIC is now directing the TAF capital towards achieving TRL 9 — full operational deployment in orbit.The timing is notable: these grants to VyomIC and other Indian space tech startups have been announced at about the same time when the Indian Space Research Organisation is well on its way to deploying its NVS-03 satellite to its final position in orbit. One can see this as underscoring the growing strategic alignment between government-led space programmes and private space industry and startups in the country ever since India started to liberalise its space economy rules a few years ago. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit indiatechreport.substack.com

Researchers from the UK and China have identified a novel semiconductor material that bypasses a fundamental constraint in solar technology, potentially paving the way for significantly more efficient photovoltaic panels. Published in the science journal Nature, the study reveals that bismuth sulfide, a crystalline semiconductor compound, can absorb sunlight intensely while retaining its electrical charges longer than conventional materials.The study was a collaboration between University of Oxford and China’s Wuhan University, according to a press release.The commercial solar sector has long faced a rigid trade-off where materials that absorb light aggressively also lose their generated electrical charges rapidly, curbing overall efficiency. Overcoming this physical barrier is vital for next-generation renewable energy infrastructure, as global utilities and manufacturers race to maximize power generation and reduce land footprints for solar installations.In the new study, the Oxford team used a technique known as ultrafast terahertz spectroscopy to discover that bismuth sulfide acts as a pseudo-direct semiconductor. Calculations show its unique electronic energy levels cut charge loss rates by approximately 75 percent at room temperature, creating a temporary energy reservoir that slows recombination.Recombination refers to the phenomenon in which electrons that were knocked free by the incoming light energy crashing right back into the empty spaces left behind, which are called holes in semiconductors.“One of the longstanding challenges in developing efficient solar-energy materials is that the properties which make a semiconductor very good at absorbing sunlight also tend to make the resulting electrical charges disappear quickly,” Professor Laura Herz, who led this research, said in a press release.“Our work shows that this trade-off is not inevitable. By uncovering how an unusual electronic structure can combine strong light absorption with much slower recombination, we have identified a new principle for designing semiconductors that could help us harvest solar energy more efficiently.”While the international collaboration — partnering with Wuhan University and supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council — stresses that further engineering is required to build a commercial solar cell, the discovery offers a potential roadmap.By screening materials databases for similar pseudo-direct behaviors, developers could soon manufacture high-output photovoltaics and solar-to-fuel systems with much higher conversion efficiencies.The cover image of the audio player above shows non-contact optical probes of semiconductor performance. Image credit: Professor Laura Herz. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit indiatechreport.substack.com

Paar Autonomy has raised about Rs. 10 crore ($1.2 million) in seed funding led by AdvantEdge Founders, the Bengaluru defence technology startup said in a press release on Oct. 27. The startup, founded in June 2024, develops artificial intelligence payloads and vision software for unmanned land, air, and sea systems.The deal reflects growing investor interest in sovereign defence capabilities, as Indian OEMs, such as drone makers, seek to replace foreign components with domestic hardware and software architectures.Paar’s product line includes Sentinel, a series of electro-optical and infrared gimballed payloads, and NorthStar, a visual navigation module for GPS-denied flight. Powered by on-board vision-language models trained on proprietary datasets, these systems translate plain-language mission commands into offline autonomous flight.Controlling its electronics, gimbals, and code in-house enables Paar to fulfill India’s Defence Acquisition Procedure 2026 mandates for indigenous intellectual property.The new investment comes as electronic warfare fundamentally reshapes global conflict, rendering GPS guidance and operator links vulnerable to severe jamming. Across worldwide defence markets, commercial value is rapidly migrating from commoditised drone airframes towards edge-computing payloads and autonomous vision architectures capable of surviving heavily contested operational environments.“Modern warfare shows that hardware airframes are moving towards low-cost commodities. The real differentiator rests in an unmanned system’s perception and its capacity to execute missions autonomously amid heavy GPS interference and severed communications,” Paar Founder and CEO Vignesh Sivaram Jayaraman, said in the press release.“Domestic platforms are capable, yet they depend heavily on foreign intelligence and vision architecture. Paar was founded to build and own this critical stack locally, delivering a world-class solution driven purely by technical excellence,” Jayaraman added.Looking ahead, Paar will use the capital to establish a Bengaluru manufacturing facility, scale serial production, and complete field validation for NorthStar.Kunal Khattar, founder and managing partner of AdvantEdge Founders, said in the release that “unmanned systems have shifted the value share from hardware to payloads, software, and autonomous execution.”“By indigenising this capability, Paar Autonomy not only secures local supply chains but also unlocks a massive global opportunity,” Kunal added. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit indiatechreport.substack.com

In this episode, Siddhanth Jayaram, founder and CEO of Equilibrium, unpacks how the venture will scale to a full-stack carbon removal platform provider to millions of farmers in India.After five years in venture capital at Kalaari Capital, Siddhanth set out to channel technology and finance into climate action with a startup called Climes, and Equilibrium was spun off in 2024 to focus on the voluntary carbon markets, building a transparent monitoring, reporting, and verification platform.Today, Equilibrium bridges Fortune 500 net-zero budgets with high-integrity projects across India, Siddhanth says. Its portfolio pairs nature-based initiatives — including regenerative agriculture, agroforestry, and mangroves — with engineered biochar created from agricultural residues and feedstocks comprising invasive species of plants.Backed by a proprietary digital MRV platform that takes in satellite data and taps the power of artificial intelligence, Equilibrium verifies every ton removed while passing as much as 70 percent of credit revenue directly to smallholder farmers.In this conversation, Siddhanth unpacks carbon credit pricing, explains how soil amendments improve crop yields, and shares why digital tracking is critical for market trust. He also outlines Equilibrium's roadmap to reach millions of farmers in the Global South.Chapters(02:45) What Equilibrium does and its core mission (03:39) From venture investing at Kalaari Capital to climate tech (09:40) Why Equilibrium evolved into a full-stack platform(14:05) Building a portfolio across nature-based and engineered removals(20:21) Turning agricultural residues into biochar and soil amendments (25:06) Solving the market integrity crisis with digital MRV (28:30) Project implementation, registry verification, and farmer payouts (41:51) Explaining carbon credit pricing through a consumer brand pyramid(47:57) Scaling to millions of farmers across India and the Global South(55:53) Envisioning the open carbon stack as a digital public goodRelated post This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit indiatechreport.substack.com

In the next episode of Conversations at India Tech Report, catch an interview with Siddhanth Jayaram, founder and CEO of Equilibrium, a “full-stack” carbon credits company that specialises in biochar-based carbon removal and ecological restoration, focusing on India’s farmers and agro-forestry efforts. Siddhanth, who started out with a degree in industrial engineering, and spent several years in venture investing switched to climate tech entrepreneurship himself. Equilibrium, which is in its fourth year, is backed by investors such as Kalaari Capital, Avaana Capital, and Peak XV Partners. The company has also developed a proprietary digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (DMRV) software that enterprises such as FMCG companies can use to support their decarbonisation efforts. In the coming years, Siddhanth aspires to go from the 30,000 or so farmers Equilibrium has touched thus far to millions of growers, helping them adopt solutions that will make their lands more climate-change resilient, improve yield and raise their earnings through the sale of carbon credits resulting from their sustainable agricultural efforts. Catch the full conversation on Thursday, Oct. 15, right here or wherever you get your podcasts. Here’s a 2-minute preview, with Siddhanth offering a consumer-brands analogy to describe the carbon credits hierarchy. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit indiatechreport.substack.com

In this episode, I’m joined by Amir Khan, Managing General Partner at MARL 5G Accelerator and founder of StudioK. Amir shares his personal journey from growing up in a lower-middle-class family in Agra, with dreams of becoming a pilot, but discovering his true aptitude lay in finance, which he studied at San Francisco State University, and went on to co-founding LendTech, which eventually led to his becoming a noted early stage tech investor.He talks about why long-term societal transformation relies on deep tech backed by science and engineering, rather than chasing quick software profits. That latter path is increasingly fraught with risks, something that all VCs are afraid of, Amir points out, with the widespread availability of AI tools such as Claude Code, making the task of picking a software founder more difficult.Amir breaks down the original core verticals behind MARL — Mobility, Autonomy, Robotics, and Logistics — and unpacks his views on the opportunity for Indian entrepreneurs in the transition from 2D text models to 3D physical AI and robotics. He favours a 75/25 capital strategy for India’s tech ecosystem, where investments in long-term strategic deep tech areas must compete with the imperative of creating immediate jobs for our millions of youth.We also talk about StudioK, an all-expenses-paid founder residency in Bengaluru for very early stage startups that Amir has recently opened, where some of the first startups are working on areas including space tech, physical AI and even AI-led hedge funds focused on the Indian capital markets.The world is beginning to take notice of India’s deep tech startups, and our funding bottlenecks will ease, he says, while recommending that entrepreneurs are best served by embracing the Indian culture of frugality. Tune in for an insightful conversation on bridging Silicon Valley and India’s emerging deep tech landscape. #vc #deeptech #startup #india Amir Khanhttps://amirkhan.me/Chapters(03:39) From Agra to San Francisco: Amir's journey into finance and entrepreneurship.(06:40) Beyond software hype: Founding MARL 5G Accelerator for deep tech.(14:55) The democratisation of software and the return of hardware.(19:17) Moving to physical AI and a 75/25 strategy for ecosystem capital.(24:21) Launching StudioK: An all-expenses-paid founder residency in Bengaluru.(40:27) Overcoming Series A funding bottlenecks with a frugal mentality.(49:59) Lessons from the Verifone founder on impact and life philosophy.(58:10) Scaling StudioK globally across emerging markets. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit indiatechreport.substack.com

How can entrepreneurs in India tap opportunities in the next generation of physical AI and robotics? Amir Khan, early-stage VC investor and founder of the MARL 5G Accelerator points to why moving beyond 2D text models to 3D physical AI requires specialised vision training and data labelling infrastructure.From India’s perspective, tackling the challenge of creating large numbers of jobs for our youth while also investing in deep tech, Amir is in favour of a 75/25 capital allocation approach. Put 75 percent of resources into avenues such labelling services, generating immediate capital and employment and invest 25 percent to fund long-term breakthroughs in deep engineering, science, and robotics, he says.Amir recently opened StudioK, a residential all-expenses-paid space for tech entrepreneurs, in Bengaluru. Catch our full conversation on Friday, Sep. 18 right here or wherever you get your podcast. Here’s a 2-minute preview. #preview #startup #vc #deeptech Amir Khanhttps://amirkhan.me/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit indiatechreport.substack.com

In this episode, Satish Padmanabhan, co-founder and CEO of DIMAAG, unpacks his company’s innovations for the critical power infrastructure shift needed to sustain the AI revolution.Satish is a genuine serial entrepreneur, with DIMAAG being his seventh venture and also his “longest job” as he jokes. The company’s evolution goes from a smart factory quality control platform that verified 220 million disk actuators monthly to designing electric tractors to heavy-duty electrification.Satish teamed up with Tesla veteran Ian Wright to start DIMAAG and they have notched up deep intellectual property in the areas including thermal management.Today, DIMAAG is tapping its expertise to offer solutions such as ZettaWatt, an innovative 800V DC platform, that reduces disruptions as AI data centres connected to power grids become increasingly power hungry, driven by surging AI chip power density.We also dive into Satish’s views on the physical scalability limits of Large Language Models (LLMs) with current solutions, why hard, unglamorous engineering is making a massive comeback, and his insights into how global investors have begun to take notice of India’s deep tech opportunities. #ConversationsChapters(02:33) The accidental transition from quality control to electric tractors(07:53) Leveraging high-voltage EV technology for the data center power bottleneck(12:56) How immersion cooling prevents battery thermal runaway in continuous operations(17:04) Why gigawatt-scale data centers are causing severe grid oscillations(22:25) Solving power oscillations on the DC side for 99.7 percent efficiency(35:12) The physical limits of scaling large language models(44:02) Building a vertical stack hardware ecosystem between Silicon Valley and India(57:34) The entrepreneurial drive to build products that stand the test of time This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit indiatechreport.substack.com

In this episode, I’m joined by Pardeep Garg, co-founder and CEO of CRID India — Centre for Research and Implementation for Decarbonization.With a background spanning IISc in Bengaluru, MIT in the US, and multiple climate-tech startups, Pardeep is uniquely positioned at the intersection of technical research and real-world execution.CRID India identifies itself as a think tank and implementation agency, focusing on “hard-to-abate” sectors in industry, and agriculture, where Pardeep points out that even though there exist well-understood technologies that are more energy efficient and therefore emission reducing, their adoption has not taken off, because of the initial costs involved, lack of awareness and so on.In this episode, he discusses examples, such as heat pumps, which he says could be India's next big success story, comparable to solar energy, and details his team's work in building the nation's first industrial heat map.More efficient motors of IE 4 or IE 5 (international energy efficiency) rating are another example, as is drip irrigation.We also discuss CRID India’s aim of becoming a “systems integrator” for energy transition in the country, where solving for climate change requires aligning policy, finance, and stakeholder interests beyond just engineering. #Conversations This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit indiatechreport.substack.com