An innovation game changer

India's ambition to lead in cutting-edge sectors like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotech, and advanced manufacturing needs a critical enabler—capital that matches the long, risky, and often uncertain journey of research and innovation.

- K Gopalakrishnan Prasad Gadkari Respectively co-founder, Infosys, & chairman, Axilor Ventures, and executive director & chief strategy officer, NIIF

While talent and ideas are abundant, India requires an institutional mechanism to finance high-risk, high-impact research and development (R&D), particularly in the private sector. The government's ₹1-lakh crore Research and Development Innovation Fund (RDIF) is among the most ambitious initiatives to have been launched to support deep-tech and frontier innovation.

Structured to provide long-term risk capital through professional fund managers, the RDIF seeks to bridge the critical funding gap for innovation. It aims to catalyze a financing ecosystem capable of converting India's intellectual capital into globally competitive products and industries.

Risk capital: Need of the hour

The government has developed the RDIF through deep consultation and engagement with leaders across the innovation ecosystem, comprising technocrats, start-ups, private equity-venture capital funds, corporates, researchers, academia, etc. It aims to address a persistent challenge in India's innovation landscape: the need for long-term risk capital that can support breakthroughs from lab to market.

India already has a vibrant base of entrepreneurs and a deep talent pool. What's missing is capital aligned with the long cycles of innovation. The new fund addresses this by creating a professionally managed platform that empowers start-ups, incubators, research organizations, and large corporates to deploy resources into frontier technologies.

Bridging the valley of death

One of the fund's critical strengths lies in its flexibility. While equity may be ideal for early-stage start-ups, concessional long-term debt becomes a powerful instrument for corporates investing in early R&D and intellectual property (IP) creation—areas where commercial lenders typically hesitate. These tailored financial instruments are tied together through a structured, impact-oriented framework with clear guardrails and robust governance.