IIT Indore's DRISHTI and IFCI Venture sign MoU to open funding pathways for startups

Another government-backed funding bridge opened this week. IITI DRISHTI CPS Foundation — the Technology Translation Research Park under the NM-ICPS programme at IIT Indore, a Section 8 entity supported by the Department of Science and Technology — has signed an MoU with IFCI Venture Capital Funds Limited, the venture arm of IFCI Ltd and a Government of India undertaking.

The MoU creates structured pathways for funding opportunities, investment linkages, technology commercialisation and market access for eligible startups and tech-driven ventures — covering startup identification, investment readiness, investor connections, pitching and capacity building.

The real story is the fund linkage angle. The partnership will explore access to the GoI-backed funds managed by IFCI Venture: the Venture Capital Fund for Scheduled Castes (VCF-SC), the Venture Capital Fund for Backward Classes (VCF-BC), the SAGE Venture Fund, and the Ambedkar Social Innovation and Incubation Mission (ASIIM) — alongside DRISHTI's experience running DST and SCSP programmes. For founders from these categories, this is a direct line to capital that most startup networks never surface.

The signatories — IIT Indore Director Suhas Joshi, DRISHTI Project Director IA Palani and IFCI Venture MD Anish Babu — frame it as an ecosystem handshake. One honest caveat: this is an MoU framework, not a live fund or open application. Specific funding will be evaluated under each scheme's guidelines and approvals — so founders should read the scheme documents, not the press release.