IndusDC, a venture studio, has set aside Rs 100 crore (about $12 million) to identify and develop deep tech startups in India’s industrial and energy sectors for fiscal years 2025 and 2026.
According to its founders, the studio aims to build five startups within the next two years and over 50 startups globally in the next decade.
Each startup founded by IndusDC will receive Rs 20 crore (approximately $2.4 million) in capital.
IndusDC has already secured commitments from Mirik Gogri of Spectrum Impact, the family office of Aarti Industries promoters.
“We’re primarily focusing on industrial hardware solutions that have the capability to cut 40-50 million tonnes of CO2 emissions by 2035,” Kaustubh Hanmantgad, founding director and COO of IndusDC, said in an interaction. “Cumulatively, the industry as a whole will be able to cut a billion tonnes of CO2 from the industrial segment,” he said.
It has to make sense for industries economically, and one should be able to build it in a capital-efficient manner, “which will push us to use more accessible materials, keep the costs clean, and make it easier to navigate,” Hanmantgad said.
IndusDC, founded in 2023 by Kushant Uppal, Satyanarayanan Seshadri, and Hanmantgad, will be cofounders for each startup. They will work closely with entrepreneurs in residence (EIR) to develop lab-stage ideas and intellectual properties (IPs) up to the product-market fit (PMF) stage.
“The venture capital world over the past decade has focused extensively on business-to-consumer (B2C) and software as a service (SaaS) companies,” Uppal, who is the chief executive of IndusDC, said. “However, larger investors and family offices have realized that there is significant market and business potential in climate, hardware, and deep tech.”
The studio will oversee product development, pilot production, digital technology integration, customer validation and funnel, startup governance, team building, and fundraising support.
“I think the fundamental role of a venture studio is that you’re going into a startup as one of the founders. So, there’s significant time and commitment that you’re putting into building out a venture. So, there are only very few entities that one can take on as a venture studio,” Uppal said.
The studio is co-building three deep-tech startups in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
