Fostering innovation from business models to DeepTech

The Hindu

3 days ago

Few months back, the Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal sparked a debate by drawing comparisons between Indian startups and their Chinese counterparts. While his comments stirred some discontent within the startup ecosystem, they also raised a crucial point — India must now shift its gaze from surface-level innovation to DeepTech.
The journey so far
If we look at our startup ecosystem journey so far, it has flourished largely on the back of business model innovation. From food delivery apps and e-commerce to fintech and gig economy platforms, startups have created new value by reimagining how services are delivered. While this has driven revenue and encouraged entrepreneurship, it's time to aim higher. As Mr. Goyal emphasised, the next frontier is DeepTech — technology grounded in scientific discovery, engineering excellence, and fundamental research.
But what is DeepTech? One will get different answers depending on who you ask. Ask around in VC circles or among founders, and the usual buzzwords emerge — AI, robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), drones etc. While these are important, DeepTech is far broader.
Material science, power electronics, advanced manufacturing, and molecular drug research are the fields which underpin critical advances in everything from energy systems and robotics to next-generation healthcare and AI hardware. For example, what makes drones both lightweight and durable? Material science. Why is China ahead in battery tech? Because companies like BYD invested early in core chemistry and engineering, and not just assembly.
DeepTech isn't about repackaging existing components. It's about bold and original work. It's about building from scratch, failing repeatedly, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible.
Building DeepTech
Understanding DeepTech is like peeling an onion with each layer revealing new dependencies and challenges. There are five core pillars which must align — a product mindset; R&D culture; technical depth; the educational ecosystem; and supportive government policies.
Product mindset is a big missing link. Let's start with a simple question. Which globally recognised product, across sectors — consumer, industrial, medical, telecom, mobility etc — have been conceived and built in India? Even in software, our supposed strength, we haven't produced tools like TensorFlow, Android, QNX, or SAP. While Indian talent leads some of the world's top companies, the DNA of product creation remains weak at home. China began by reverse engineering global products, steadily moving up the value chain, and eventually creating new products with original R&D.
A product mindset and R&D go hand in hand.
Without a culture of experimentation and long-term thinking, no amount of funding can build DeepTech. For R&D culture to flourish, founders need to dirty their hands in technicality. Great DeepTech companies are built by founders with hands-on technical expertise. Think of Google, Tesla, NVIDIA, and Microsoft. Their founders were engineers, builders, and coders. Larry Page and Sergey Brin wrote the algorithm that became Google while Bill Gates wrote software as a teenager.
To create such companies from scratch, we need founders with deep domain knowledge and an urge to solve complex problems, and not just manage teams.
Moreover, to promote technical depth, our education system needs to change its focus from tools to fundamentals. The journey towards DeepTech starts in the classroom. But how many Indian colleges teach AI or robotics from first principles, the mathematical derivation of AI or close loop control systems fundamentals? Beyond a few IITs, most focus on tool-based training, not foundational understanding. As a result, our engineers often become tool users, not tool creators.
We can emulate the likes of MIT and Stanford, where students master core theory before picking up tools. Multidisciplinary collaboration is another must. Most innovations especially in healthcare, mobility, or automation lie at the intersection of fields. Our college projects should involve multi-disciplinary student participation. We must move toward academia-industry collaboration, internships, and real-world problem-solving. In the U.S., the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has funded challenges that have fostered innovation in robotics, leading to breakthroughs like Intuitive Surgical's Da Vinci robot.
And finally, smarter government support will always be a catalyst. India has institutions like the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) to promote R&D, but many of the qualifying criteria are irrational. For example, why restrict funding to startups only inside incubators? Shouldn't we evaluate based on the technical depth of the founders, the R&D roadmap, and its potential impact?
DeepTech startups often need access to fabrication labs, pilot facilities, and test and certification centres, all of which are costly infrastructure the startups themselves can't build. Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises often lack precision, and large corporations demand volumes that early-stage ventures can't deliver.
The government must create shared facilities, and affordable, high-quality spaces for low-volume, high-precision prototyping and testing. This is the only way to bridge the gap between idea and viable product.
The road ahead
India's aspiration to lead in DeepTech is both timely and necessary. But to realise this vision, we must orchestrate a coordinated shift across the entire ecosystem.
Founders must deepen technical expertise and adopt a true product plus R&D mindset. Educational institutions must prioritise fundamentals and interdisciplinary learning, and the government must offer smarter, broader, and more agile support.
Only through this kind of systemic transformation can we build world-class DeepTech products which are driven by science, born in India, and built for the world.
Bhupendra Bhate is CEO and co-founder of Saintiant Technologies Pvt Ltd, a company specialising in advanced medical devices powered by AI.