IIT Madras's Rs 200cr VC Fund To Target Next-Gen Unicorns

With the number of startups emerging from IIT Madras increasing exponentially in recent years, the institute anticipates several more unicorns in the future and seeks to nurture these startups through careful investments that will help them scale. The IITM Alumni Fund will focus on Series-A and pre-Series-A investments. It will be a legally separate entity from the institute, created to focus on the growth of IITM startups. 

A large majority of the investments will be in IITM-incubated startups. Investors in the fund are likely to include alumni and high-net-worth individuals. The fund will operate as a regular VC fund in terms of processes and governance. 

The IIT Madras Incubation Cell has already incubated 500 startups with a combined valuation exceeding Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion/about $6 billion) and has created more than 11,000 jobs.Ather Energy recently became the first IIT Madras-incubated startup to go public and the second IIT-M incubated unicorn after Uniphore, a global conversational AI and automation company. 

'In our first fund,' IIT Madras Director V Kamakoti said, 'we aim to raise Rs 200 crore through the IITM Alumni Fund. All of you (the entire alumni community) can invest in this fund to help IITM startups and yourselves. Here is an opportunity to work with great startups, great technologies, and invest in them so that we both grow. This fund will also help accelerate our vision of 'Start-up Shatam,' where the institute seeks to incubate 100 deep-tech startups every year.' 

'We are at the cusp of an entrepreneurship revolution at IITM and need to carefully curate and scale the exciting startups emerging here so that they maximise their impact,' Ashwin Mahalingam, Dean (Alumni and Corporate Relations), IIT Madras, said.

-- Shine Jacob, Business Standard