Investor Profile: Forge Innovation & Ventures

Forge Innovation & Ventures (forgeforward.in) is a Coimbatore-based accelerator and open-innovation venture builder that calls itself "India's Largest Open Innovation Network". It is hardware-first and digital-plus — "phygital" — focused on industrial tech: defence, manufacturing, precision health, climate mitigation, mobility and sustainability. It combines incubation, corporate and start-up open innovation, and seed investment under one roof at Forge.Factory, KCT Tech Park, Coimbatore.

Model: HUBs, STUDIOs, NODEs

Forge operates HUBs (full-stack industrial innovation centres), STUDIOs (corporate venture studios) and NODEs (innovation centres inside universities and industrial parks), organised into six verticals: Forge.Academy, Forge.Labs, Forge.Lighthouse, Forge.Foundry, Forge.Fast and Forge.Fund — the last providing grants and seed investments. It has built an industrial innovation lab network across seven cities in Tamil Nadu with digital fabrication tools, and reports having mentored 175+ companies.

The iDEX connection

Forge is a key partner incubator for the Ministry of Defence's iDEX (Innovations for Defence Excellence) programme. Per CEO Vish Sahasranamam in a ThePrint interview, Forge has connected 600 defence and aerospace start-ups with India's 16 defence public-sector undertakings — and start-ups in its orbit have secured orders worth ₹3,000 crore since iDEX's launch. For hardware founders, that procurement pipeline matters more than any demo day.

Leadership and fund size

Vish Sahasranamam is CEO. Forge's investment corpus has not been publicly disclosed; the value it advertises is industrial infrastructure, corporate demand and government programme access rather than a headline fund size.

Forge's six verticals map the full journey from classroom to cap table: Forge.Academy (talent), Forge.Labs (infrastructure), Forge.Lighthouse (showcasing), Forge.Foundry (venture building), Forge.Fast (acceleration) and Forge.Fund (grants and seed investments). Its industrial innovation lab network across seven Tamil Nadu cities puts digital fabrication tools within reach of founders far from the metros.

The track record predates the iDEX work: its 2018 STARTegies camp surfaced winners including EyeRov Technologies, Sastra Robotics and Feather Dyn — hardware ventures that have since become familiar names in Indian robotics. With 175+ companies mentored and an open-innovation model spanning government, academia and industry, Forge functions less like a conventional accelerator and more like industrial infrastructure for start-ups.