IIM Ahmedabad’s CIIE.CO and SIDBI have partnered to establish a pre-seed fund, especially for deep-tech start-ups. The MoU signed between the two organisations laid the foundation for the fund with a total corpus of ₹40 crore, equally contributed by both SIDBI and CIIE.CO.
Over the past twenty years, CIIE.CO has been an investor in early-stage ventures in India, investing in more than 350 start-ups, accelerating more than 1,500, and mentoring many more. The organisation’s singular focus has been on backing founders who are building disruptive solutions in their early stages. CIIE.CO’s investments are sector-agnostic, with a broad focus on three thematic areas - deep tech, digitisation, and climate tech.
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The partnership was formalised during an event at CIIE.CO, located in IIM Ahmedabad’s New Campus. Attendees included Shri S Ramann, CMD of SIDBI, Prof. Chitra Singla, and Prof. Ankur Sinha from IIM Ahmedabad, Shri S P Singh, CGM of SIDBI, and Kunal Upadhyay, co-founder of CIIE.CO, among others.
CIIE.CO has also been recognised as a Center of Excellence by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. As India continues to position itself as a global leader in deep tech innovation, the partnership between IIMA’s CIIE.CO and SIDBI will play a significant role in strengthening the deep-tech entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country, it said.