India Enters Innovation Decade with Rs 1 Lakh Cr DeepTech Fund, 6x Capital Surge

At a time when India’s capital landscape is being reshaped by shifting global dynamics and rising domestic conviction, TiE Delhi-NCR hosted the second edition of Capital Connect 2026 at the Leela Ambience, Gurugram. With 300+ curated participants, including investors, policymakers, family offices, LPs, global funds, regulators, and HNIs, the forum brought together the key drivers of capital in India. The discussions centred on capital allocation trends, deeptech opportunities, and the growing importance of domestic and sovereign capital in the innovation ecosystem.

Featuring a strong lineup of leaders at the forefront of India’s capital and innovation ecosystem, the second edition included Manoj Mittal (CMD, Small Industries Development Bank of India); Shivkumar Kalyanaraman (CEO, Anusandhan National Research Foundation); Sanjeev Aggarwal (Co-Founder, Fundamentum Partnership & Helion Ventures); Mohit Dhawan (President, Hero Enterprises); Sudhir Rao (Senior Partner, Celesta Capital); Vikram Gupta (Founder & Managing Partner, IvyCap Ventures); Sandeep Sinha (Co-CEO & Co-Founder, Oister Global); Jyoti Sharma (Department of Science & Technology, Government of India); Padmaja Ruparel (Co-Founder, Indian Angel Network), among others.

Speaking on India’s evolving capital landscape, Shri Manoj Mittal, CMD, SIDBI, said, “We are witnessing the foundations of India’s next growth era being laid, where domestic capital is not just participating, but leading. With a 6x rise in domestic capital since 2016 and transformative instruments like Fund of Funds 2.0, the ₹1 lakh crore RDI Fund, and targeted SME growth capital, the scale of ambition is unprecedented. Yet, to fully unlock this opportunity, the ecosystem must evolve in tandem. We need a significant expansion in AIFs, stronger and more capable incubators, and a robust talent pipeline to power the next wave of innovation. As AI, spacetech, deeptech, and defence emerge as defining sectors, this moment calls for coordinated action. This is more than momentum; it’s the beginning of India’s innovation-led growth decade.”

Capital Connect’s second edition brought together conversations that matter, from decoding where smart capital is flowing and how top investors are allocating in a shifting market, to exploring emerging sectors, new fund strategies, and the evolving role of family offices. The agenda delved into policy signals, institutional capital trends, and founder–investor alignment, offering a clear lens on how India’s investment landscape is being reshaped, and what it means for the road ahead.

Highlighting the role of institutional innovation in deeptech growth, Dr. Shivkumar Kalyanaraman- CEO, Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) said, “ANRF is being built as a catalyst for India’s rise as a Research and Innovation powerhouse, creating the field where deep science discoveries happen, deep tech ideas emerge and these can to be funded and scaled via an ecosystem of investors. As a statutory body of the Government of India, ANRF is not just a grant-making institution but an institutional innovation designed to aggregate academia, industry, and startups with autonomy and neutrality.

Through a dual approach, early-stage de-risking and deep science, mission-mode programs and early translation funding via grants and patient capital deployment through mechanisms like the RDI fund to spark an asset class and ecosystem for research-intensive innovation financing, we are building a pipeline from deep science to investable opportunities. With mission-mode MAHA programs, translational initiatives such as ATRI centres, and catalytic partnerships contributing 10–20% of funding to create new non-government research institutions, what we have seen so far is only a trailer of what lies ahead,” he added.

A key highlight of the forum was the Exclusive Startup Showcase at Capital Connect 2026, featuring Talkfever, Olbrain, and Gabify. Three early-stage startups pitched to a curated room of active investors, including VCs, family offices, angel investors, and HNIs, followed by sharp Q&A and focused engagement. With curated introductions facilitated by TiE Delhi-NCR, the showcase enabled meaningful investor-startup connections and set the stage for potential growth partnerships.

Speaking on advancing India’s research and innovation landscape, Dr. Jyoti Sharma, Head – RDI Cell, Department of Science & Technology, GoI, said, “The RDI Fund represents a significant step towards strengthening India’s deep technology ecosystem, with a proposed outlay of ₹1 lakh crore. It is designed to support high-risk, high-impact projects and to help de-risk early-stage and deep-tech investments that often face constraints in accessing capital. By providing support of up to 50% of project costs, the Fund aims to crowd in private investment and accelerate the progression of technologies from research to deployment. Early traction has been encouraging, with multiple projects at advanced stages of consideration and a strong pipeline under review.”

Capital Connect 2026 marked the unveiling of the GP Watchlist 2026, a curated recognition in partnership with Oister Global, honouring India's most promising fund managers. Mitin Jain of India SME Fund has been announced as a honouree, building on last year's cohort spanning deeptech, SaaS, and growth-stage investing.

Speaking on the significance of the platform, Geetika Daya, Director General, TiE Delhi-NCR, said, “Capital Connect 2026 reflects a clear shift in how capital is engaging with India’s innovation ecosystem, moving beyond short-term momentum to back long-term institutions, deeptech, and founders solving complex global problems. At a time when India is entering a decisive decade for innovation, such platforms enable meaningful dialogue between investors, policymakers, and founders.”

The event was supported by SIDBI and Khaitan & Co. Through curated discussions, investor-only sessions, and founder showcases, Capital Connect 2026 reinforced the expanding role of private capital in shaping India’s startup ecosystem.

About TiE Delhi-NCR: Fostering entrepreneurship for over two decades, TiE Delhi-NCR stands as one of the most dynamic and impactful chapters of the global TiE Network. Renowned for its marquee events, high-impact mentoring programs, prestigious entrepreneurial awards, and powerful investor pitch platforms, TiE Delhi-NCR plays a pivotal role in shaping India’s startup landscape.

NetApp Unveils New High-Performance EF-Series Models

NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, today announced the release of the next generation of NetApp EF-Series storage systems, built to power the most performance‑intensive workloads at scale. The introduction of EF50 and EF80 helps enterprises and neoclouds meet the growing demands of AI, high-performance computing (HPC), and transactional databases, including in emerging use cases like sovereign AI clouds and AI-powered manufacturing.

“Data is the key component to delivering business value for enterprises, underpinning performance hungry workloads like AI or databases,” said Sandeep Singh, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Storage at NetApp. “As businesses contend with ever-increasing data volumes and performance-intensive applications such as AI model training, AI inferencing and high-performance computing, they need infrastructure that delivers speed, scalability and efficiency without added complexity. NetApp delivers a comprehensive portfolio that addresses every stage of the AI data pipeline from collecting and preparing data to feeding it to GenAI models that produce business insights. With the new EF-Series systems, purpose-built for extreme performance, we’re enabling customers to deploy and scale high-throughput, low-latency workloads quickly and efficiently, while reducing data center footprint and operational overhead.”

Coupled with high-performance parallel file systems like Lustre or BeeGFS, the new EF50 and EF80 systems accelerate HPC simulations and keep GPUs fully utilized with high-performance scratch space, helping organizations unlock new value and competitive advantage at the right price. Customers ranging from neocloud providers driving AI innovation to movie studios managing massive media libraries will benefit from not only performance and scalability but also robust security measures to safeguard sensitive information and prevent data loss.

The new EF-Series storage systems deliver over 110GBps of read throughput and 55GBps of write throughput, a 250 percent improvement over previous generations. With a power efficiency of 63.7GBps per KW, and 1.5PB of storage in 2U, the new systems ensure reliable, high-performance with efficient rack density and an affordable cost. With EF-Series, organizations can:

• Achieve high performance for data-intensive workloads, scaling capacity without sacrificing efficiency or latency
• Balance budget requirements with high-performance needs to make better decisions faster
• Simplify management and operational complexity with affordable block storage, streamlined deployment and support from NetApp’s technical experts.

“As we navigate the AI era, many enterprises are finding that they need to maximize their raw performance to extract the most value from their data,” said Clayton Vipond, Senior Solution Architect at CDW. “The refreshed NetApp EF-Series delivers the throughput and capacity businesses need to scale high-powered workloads that transform data into insights and outcomes.”

"NetApp's EF-Series systems give Teradata the storage performance needed to support our most demanding workloads," said Sumeet Arora, Chief Product Officer, Teradata. "We appreciate that NetApp continues to invest in this technology, and with the enhanced performance of the new models, we look forward to exploring opportunities to reduce infrastructure complexity and support the AI and data modernization initiatives our customers care about."

“By delivering a high-performance storage system that supports parallel file systems like Lustre and BeeGFS, NetApp is making its mark as emerging industries, such as neocloud, emerge to support the AI-Era,” said Simon Robinson, Principal Analyst at Omdia. “Our research validates that AI workloads require a level of raw performance unmatched by any mainstream business workload to date. With the new EF-series systems, NetApp is delivering a solution that addresses the performance needs of large-scale AI projects, whether model training or inference.”

The updated EF-Series builds on decades of durability and reliability from NetApp. With more than 1 million installations, it has a proven track record that customers can rely on.

Additional Resources

• NetApp E-Series Hybrid and EF-Series All Flash: Built for Dedicated, High-Bandwidth Applications
• Power your AI Workloads and Data at the Speed of Innovation

Wipro and Harness Announce Strategic Collaboration to Accelerate AI-Native Software Delivery for Global Enterprises

Srinivas Pallia, CEO and Managing Director, Wipro Limited

Wipro Limited, (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading AI-powered technology services and consulting company, and Harness, the AI Software Delivery Platform™ company, today announced a strategic collaboration to help global enterprises accelerate AI-native software delivery with greater speed, reliability, and governance.

As enterprises accelerate AI adoption, software delivery has become increasingly complex with many organizations continuing to rely on disconnected tools and manual processes. Wipro’s collaboration with Harness aims to address this challenge by combining Wipro’s agent‑native delivery platform WEGA with Harness’ AI Software Delivery Platform. WEGA is part of the Wipro Intelligence™ unified suite of AI-powered platforms, solutions, and transformative offerings. Together, the two companies will help organizations modernize software development, automate releases, reduce deployment risk, and accelerate innovation.

“We are rapidly evolving WEGA, our agent‑native delivery platform, to help clients realize value faster, build smarter systems, and scale AI with confidence,” said Srini Pallia, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Wipro Limited. “Together with Harness, we are establishing a proven blueprint for AI‑native software delivery – enabling enterprises to innovate at speed, strengthen reliability, and deliver resilient digital experiences in an AI‑first world.”

The Harness AI Software Delivery Platform enables organizations to bring delivery intelligence, automation, and governance to everything after code—build, test, deploy, release, feature management, cloud cost optimization, incident response, and more—while providing continuous visibility into performance, reliability, and operational risk. When combined with Wipro’s consulting‑led approach, global delivery scale, and AI capabilities, enterprises gain a more unified and intelligent way to manage modern software environments, reducing manual effort while improving outcomes across speed, stability, and cost efficiency.

“Enterprises today are facing the AI Velocity Paradox: AI is dramatically increasing the speed of innovation, while leaving the biggest bottleneck – everything that happens after code is written – harder to manage than ever,” said Jyoti Bansal, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Harness. “Together with Wipro’s consulting-led expertise, global reach, and WEGA agent-native delivery platform, Harness can help organizations bring delivery, reliability, security, and cost management into a unified AI software delivery model — enabling them to innovate faster while maintaining the governance and resilience needed to scale.”

With this partnership, Wipro and Harness are creating a stronger foundation for enterprises to scale AI-native software delivery with confidence.

About Wipro Limited

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO) is a leading AI-powered technology services and consulting company focused on building innovative solutions that address clients’ most complex digital transformation needs. Leveraging our consulting-led approach and the Wipro Intelligence™ unified suite of AI-powered platforms, solutions and transformative offerings, we help clients realize their boldest ambitions to build intelligent and sustainable businesses. The Wipro Innovation Network – part of the Wipro Intelligence™ suite – underpins our commitment to client-centric co-innovation and co-creation by bringing together capabilities from the innovation labs and partner labs, academia, and global tech communities. With over 230,000 employees and business partners across 65 countries, we deliver on the promise of helping our customers, colleagues, and communities thrive in an ever-changing world. For additional information, visit us at www.wipro.com.

About Harness

Harness is the AI Software Delivery Platform™ company, enabling engineering teams to build, test, and deliver software faster and more securely. Powered by Harness AI and the Software Delivery Knowledge Graph, the platform brings intelligent automation to every stage of the software delivery lifecycle after code—removing toil and freeing developers from manual, repetitive work. Companies like United Airlines, Morningstar, and Choice Hotels use Harness to accelerate releases by up to 75%, cut cloud costs by 60%, and achieve 10x efficiency across DevOps. Based in San Francisco, Harness is backed by Goldman Sachs, Menlo Ventures, IVP, Unusual Ventures, and Citi Ventures.

TecMarx Launches Ultra Watch at Rs599 with 2.19-Inch Display and 30+ Sports Modes

TecMarx, a fast-growing technology brand under Go-5 Incorporations, today announced the launch of its latest wearable innovation the TecMarx Ultra Watch, priced at ₹599. Engineered to meet the needs of modern users seeking comprehensive health, fitness, and connectivity features, the Ultra Watch combines a large, vivid display with robust performance and premium design aesthetics.

The TecMarx Ultra Watch features a 2.19-inch display that delivers crisp visuals and intuitive navigation, making it easy to interact with notifications, activity stats, and custom watch faces. With 30+ sports modes, the watch becomes a versatile fitness companion, capable of tracking a wide range of activities from walking and running to yoga and cycling, empowering users to stay motivated and monitor progress with precision.

Crafted with a metal shield body, the Ultra Watch not only offers durability but also adds a sophisticated touch to everyday wear. Its customizable watch faces allow users to express their personal style, adapting the look of the watch to suit different occasions and moods.

Connectivity features ensure seamless integration with both Android and iOS devices, keeping users informed with instant notifications for calls, messages, and app alerts. Whether it’s tracking health metrics or staying connected on the move, this smartwatch is designed for dynamic lifestyles.

Commenting on the launch, Puneet Gulati, Founder & Promoter of Go-5 Incorporations, said, “The TecMarx Ultra Watch represents our commitment to bringing premium-grade smart technology to more consumers. With its expansive display, extensive sports tracking, and polished design, it elevates everyday wearable experiences without compromising on style or performance.”

12 Women to Receive STEM Study Support Through Prodigy Finance and NovaGrad’s ProdiSHE Award

Prodigy Finance, together with NovaGrad, have launched ProdiSHE, a new initiative created to support women who want to study STEM subjects abroad.

The idea came from a simple reality that their teams kept seeing. More women are applying for science, technology, engineering, and maths courses overseas, yet many still struggle to make it to the starting line. In some cases, it is the cost of an application fee. In others, it is a visa appointment, or the worry of paying for life abroad. For some students, there is also a lack of support at home. Even USD 200 can be a big amount for a student from a rural area in India or Africa with a big dream and limited financial backing.

Prodigy Finance and NovaGrad say the award is meant to help students at that exact point, when ability and ambition are there, yet money becomes the reason a plan is delayed or dropped.

Sonal Kapoor, Global Chief Business Officer at Prodigy Finance, said, “We’ve seen a growing number of women wanting to study STEM abroad over the past year.. Women often face more difficulties when deciding to study overseas. Sometimes, even a small financial help, whether it’s a 1,000 USD award or an application fee waiver, can make a real difference for the one in need. At Prodigy Finance, we see talented women around the world stepping into international classrooms and building global careers. ProdiSHE is our way of supporting that journey.”

The award aims to support students who genuinely need help in taking their next step. The selection process is merit based. Each student will be asked to submit a short essay explaining their goals, their background, and how studying abroad could shape their future. They hope that this support reaches students who are not only talented but also need practical financial help to move forward.

The competition includes two opportunities for eligible students.

Through Prodigy Finance, eligible students who apply for a Prodigy Finance loan during the campaign period may be considered for the ProdiSHE Impact Award. Two recipients from India will receive USD 1,000 off their loan amount.

Through NovaGrad, students who apply to selected partner universities during the campaign period may be considered for application fee reimbursement of up to USD 200. Ten recipients will be selected globally, and a Prodigy Finance loan is not required.

Applications are now officially open at the Prodigy Finance official website and NovaGrad and will close on 10 May 2026. Selected students will be announced by 10th June 2026 on the Prodigy Finance and NovaGrad official sites.

Women planning to pursue STEM degrees abroad are encouraged to apply before the deadline.

For more information on the Prodigy Finance and NovaGrad competition and to apply, please visit : https://prodigyfinance.com/ https://novagrad.ai/scholarships-support.

About Prodigy Finance

Founded in 2007, Prodigy Finance is an international student lender that has helped over 45,000+ international master's students attend the world's top universities. To date, Prodigy has disbursed over $2.3 billion in funding to students from more than 150 countries. Prodigy Finance is fueled by impact investors and other privately qualified entities who invest in tomorrow's leaders while earning a financial and social return. Prodigy's borderless lending model enables students to apply for a loan based on their future earning potential and not just their current circumstances and credit history.

*Prodigy Finance Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom.

*Loan offers are subject to our eligibility, funding, and credit assessment criteria.

*Loan amounts are subject to the cost of attendance limits set by schools.

*12.15% variable, based on a total credit amount of USD 41,680 (USD 40,000 amount borrowed + 4.2% admin fee), repayable over 180 months at a variable interest rate of 11.07%(7.4% fixed + 3.67% variable). Initial monthly repayments of USD 100 (30 Months). Subsequent monthly repayments of USD 573.36 (150 Months). Total interest payable USD 64,525.66. Total amount payable USD 106,205.66.