Shastra VC launches deep-tech fellowship

Shastra VC, an early-stage task superior fund, has launched India’s archetypal Venture Capital-led deep-tech fellowship to instrumentality frontier probe from labs to venture-ready startups.

‘SDEX’ (Shastra Deep-tech Excellence Fellowship) volition beryllium a 16–24 week research-to-venture fellowship aimed astatine accelerating deep-tech innovation astatine the grassroots level crossed India’s apical engineering and probe institutions, ranging from IITs, IISc and IISERs to NITs, IIITs and different nationalist labs.

Shastra VC has invested successful much than 30 Startups including Alt Carbon, Simplismart, SISIR Radar, Sanlayan, and Inspecity, among others.

SDEX Cohort 1 volition prime up to 15 teams for the inaugural rhythm and supply equity-free backing and resources of up to $ 100,000 to each fellow. Applications are unfastened to researchers and builders crossed India moving connected frontier deep-tech innovation. The past day to use is 31st January 2026. Interested Start-ups tin use done Shastra VC’s website— https://shastra.vc/

Jivesh Madan, SDEX programme lead, Shastra VC, said, “India has world-class deep-tech probe endowment crossed world institutions and nationalist labs. What has been missing is aboriginal enactment that turns beardown probe into venture-ready proof, truthful that much deep-tech ideas tin go investable companies. SDEX is built to span that spread by backing aboriginal method validation and providing adjacent mentorship truthful that the champion breakthroughs go companies that matter. We privation to conscionable the researchers pushing boundaries of the frontier and springiness them a accelerated and credible on-ramp to real-world impact.”

SDEX volition enactment researchers done equity-free fellowship backing and milestone-driven method sprints, helping promising frontier technologies transverse the spread betwixt laboratory validation and task readiness.

Avijeet Alagathi, partner, Shastra VC, added, “India’s deep-tech ecosystem is coming of age. Universities, incubators, and nationalist programs are making it easier than ever for probe to determination from laboratory to market, and the argumentation momentum successful caller years shows existent intent to physique planetary frontier-tech leadership. SDEX fits perfectly into this moment— it creates a VC-led proof-to-venture span that helps deep-tech ideas get validated earlier and expands the pipeline of startups that are genuinely investable.”