LetsVenture, India’s leading startup investment platform, has signed MoU with Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX-DIO), to support and nurture deeptech startups with applications in defence and civil use cases. The announcement was made during the Aero India 2023 event hosted in Bengaluru from February 13 to 17.
As a part of the partnership, LetsVenture will be committing Rs 100 Cr to invest in iDEX-funded startups in the next five years.
Both LetsVenture and iDEX-DIO will collaborate to support the iDEX beneficiaries in India to promote innovation and accelerate investment opportunities in the defence innovation ecosystem.
According to an IBEF report, India’s defence manufacturing sector recorded increased production to $11.85B in FY22 from $10.9B in FY21. LetsVenture sees a huge opportunity for deep-tech defence startups towards building solutions.
“LetsVenture believes that deep-tech in defence is emerging as the next sunrise sector, and we consider our collaboration with iDEX-DIO to invest Rs 100 crore in iDEX startups to be a significant milestone in assisting the Nation in becoming self-sufficient in defence manufacturing with a focus on Atmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India. With government support and ecosystem interest, we see an accelerated effort, and are eager to work with iDEX-DIO to promote innovation and advance investment opportunities in this sector,” said Nakul Saxena, President - Early Stage at LetsVenture.
While addressing the audience at the Start-Up Manthan at Aero India 2023, Honourable Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh emphasised on iDEX’s role in achieving ‘Aatmanirbharta’ in the Indian defence ecosystem.
“iDEX has helped the development of several home-grown technologies and has provided an important platform to showcase innovations and technological developments. Start-Ups that have developed because of iDEX are also getting orders, which has fostered the Start-Up ecosystem in the country. iDEX has also given professionals the opportunity to understand futuristic technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Augmented reality, and Block-chain,” he said.
The Union Budget 2023-24 also announced a National Data Governance Policy which will enable access to anonymised data for innovation and research by startups and academia, which can further boost the growth of defence startups.
About LetsVenture
LetsVenture is a pioneering marketplace for early-stage startup funding that ensures fundraising in India’s private market is easy, efficient, and transparent for both startups and investors.
Since it started nine years ago in 2013, LetsVenture has raised over $110 million for 500+ startups, and its portfolio is valued at $8B+. The LetsVenture platform has more than 12,000 investors from 60 countries.
LetsVenture is backed by Accel, Chiratae Ventures, Nandan Nilekani, Ratan Tata, Rishad Premji, Mohandas Pai, Sharad Sharma, and Anupam Mittal.
About iDEX
iDEX-DIO aims at creation of an ecosystem to foster innovation and technology development in Defence and Aerospace by engaging Industries including MSMEs, startups, individual innovators, R&D institutes and academia and provide them grants/funding and other support to carry out R&D development which has good potential for future adoption for Indian defence and aerospace needs.
[Image Credit:- A. Bharat Bhushan Babu, Principal Spokesperson, Ministry of Defence, Government of India]
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