Minister for Electronics, Information Technology & Biotechnology and Rural Development & Panchayat Raj, Priyank Kharge, during a media briefing on the Future Makers Conclave at BTS 2025, held at Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru on Monday.
| Photo Credit: ALLEN EGENUSE J.
The Karnataka government on Monday said it was entering into a ‘Deep Tech Decade’ and also announced an investment pool of ₹600 crore to kick off various initiatives to trigger growth in deep-tech across the State.
Addressing a media conference, Minister for IT/BT, Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Priyank Kharge said the government’s ₹600 crore investment commitment would power the ‘Deep Tech Decade’, aimed at positioning Karnataka as the deep tech capital of India.
“This initiative reflects our vision to create a robust deep-tech pipeline supporting entrepreneurs working on technologies such as AI, ML, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing, robotics, and sustainability-driven innovation,” he said.
He further said the government was also in talks with various players in the venture capital industry, including the ones he met last week, to expand the size of this investment pool to ₹1,000 crore or more.
“It is not that ₹600 crore will be enough for deep-tech growth for the whole decade. We will re-look at the investment required. We will certainly require more funds to create deep-tech and AI startups across the State and for this we are also exploring to create joint funds in collaboration with venture capital players.” The Minister further said the blueprint of the rollout and funding was already ready as the State was absolutely serious about retaining its global leadership in the technology landscape.
According to Mr. Kharge, the ₹600 crore investment earmarked for deep-tech would comprise ₹150 crore for DeepTech Elevate Fund, with a special focus on AI and frontier technologies;₹80 crore under the Elevate Beyond Bengaluru Fund to promote startups in Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hubballi-Dharwad and Kalaburagi; ₹75 crore through the KITVIN Fund for equity-based investments in deep-tech and AI startups, with funding between ₹50 lakh to ₹2 crore;₹48 crore for new incubators and accelerators at IIT and IIIT Dharwad and Kalaburagi; and ₹110 crore for business incubators in higher education institutions, nurturing early innovation and entrepreneurship across 11 institutions already cleared by the Cabinet.
He said the government would explore a fund-of-funds through co-investment models with the VC ecosystem to ensure continuous capital flow and scalability across the deep-tech value chain.
The Minister further said,the 28th edition of the Bengaluru Tech Summit (BTS 2025), the State’s tech exposition scheduled from November 18 to 20 at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC), would feature Future Makers Conclave (FMC).
Published – November 04, 2025 12:00 am IST
