The Government of India's ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund has selected the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) as one of five Focus Research Organisations (FROs), with a declared funding allocation of ₹500 crore for investment in India's deeptech innovation sector, reported on October 16, 2026.
C-CAMP will collaborate with private partners and investors to build a total consortium funding of over ₹1,000 crore to back India's most transformative deeptech life-sciences startups. It is the only dedicated biotech organisation among the 19 second-level fund managers (SLFMs) – five FROs plus 14 VC firms – that share an aggregate ₹7,131 crore commitment under the first RDI cohort.
Startup funding India news: public capital meets deeptech
The other four FROs are ARTPARK at IISc Bengaluru, IIT Madras Research Park, PIEDS at BITS Pilani and SINE at IIT Bombay. Among the 14 VC fund managers: Blume Ventures, Chiratae Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Speciale Invest, YourNest Capital, IvyCap Ventures, Ideaspring Capital and TVS Capital Funds, among others.
“We will ensure that lack of funding does not remain the bottleneck it currently is, for India's biotech innovators to compete with the world's best,” said C-CAMP Director-CEO Taslimarif Saiyed, targeting high-risk, game-changing innovations in healthcare, agriculture, food security and environment – sectors he called the highest overlap with human life.
Why it matters for founders
This is public money finally flowing into deeptech at scale: ₹7,131 crore committed to 19 managers, with more cohorts coming. Biotech founders – long the most capital-starved segment – now have a dedicated, founder-friendly channel in C-CAMP. If you are building in biotech, deeptech or frontier R&D, the RDI Fund's next cohorts are the most important capital formation story in Indian startups right now.