CHENNAI: Shastra VC, an early-stage investor, has launched India's first Venture Capital-led deep-tech fellowship to take forward frontier research from labs to venture-ready startups
‘SDEX’ (Shastra Deep-tech Excellence Fellowship) will be a 16–24 week research-to-venture fellowship aimed at accelerating deep-tech innovation at the grassroots level across India’s top engineering and research colleges. Shastra VC has invested in more than 30 startups, comprising Alt Carbon, Simplismart, SISIR Radar, Sanlayan, and Inspecity, among others
SDEX Cohort 1 will choose up to 15 teams for the inaugural cycle and provide equity-free funding and resources of up to US$100,000 to each fellow.
Applications are open at Shastra VC’s website www.shastra.vc for researchers and builders across India working on frontier deep-tech innovation.
The last date to apply is January 31, 2026. Interested Start-ups can apply through https://shastra.vc/
SDEX will extend support to exceptional researchers via equity-free fellowship funding and milestone-driven technical sprints, enabling frontier technologies cross the gap between lab validation and venture readiness.
SDEX widens access to innovation via two tracks:
*Challenge Track, in which Fellows deal with high-conviction deep-tech problems sourced from Shastra’s ecosystem with clear constraints and defined milestones, and
*Frontier Track, an open call for the researchers pursuing breakthrough ideas even when the problem is still at a nascent stage, as long as they set precise, testable technical goals.
Together, such tracks cover both roadmap-critical requirements and new white-space technologies.
SDEX by Shastra seeks to provide a structured pathway to support innovation one step earlier than traditional venture capital, while keeping the work anchored in rigorous technical proof.
