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FY2025-26: At a glance
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FY2025–26: The Year That Set the Tone
Looking back, looking ahead
Twenty years ago, Venture Center was established with a simple but important objective: to help create an environment where public research institutions and private enterprise could work more closely together, sharing infrastructure, expertise, and opportunity to accelerate innovation.
At the time, this was an ambitious idea. Indian science had strong research capability, but translating research into real-world products required systems that were only beginning to take shape. Two decades later, that work continues.
FY2025–26 marked an important transition for Venture Center, as growing momentum across infrastructure, partnerships, and startup outcomes signalled the emergence of a more mature innovation ecosystem ready for its next decade of growth.
Building for what comes next
FY2025–26 saw Venture Center expand its infrastructure into new areas of strategic importance.
A key milestone was the inauguration of the Food, Feed and Nutrition Lab, established with CSR support from Kemin Industries. The open-access analytical facility strengthens support for innovators working at the intersection of nutrition, agriculture, and functional foods by enabling product validation, nutritional profiling, and quality assessment.
Looking ahead, the upcoming Center of Excellence for Clean Energy and Green Hydrogen, being developed with support from the Government of Maharashtra, will further expand Venture Center’s capabilities in an area of growing national importance. Designed to support innovation across clean energy generation, storage, and end-use applications, the facility will offer advanced testing and validation infrastructure alongside incubation support, training programmes, and broader ecosystem-building initiatives.
Growing as a trusted enabler of deeptech
Our analytical support teams contributed to early-stage product development for organisations such as Serum Institute of India and generated critical data for India’s first approved liraglutide biosimilar developed by Levim Biotech and marketed by Glenmark Pharmaceuticals. Our GLP-compliant functional assay capabilities, including ADCC assays, also supported biologics development programmes across leading Indian companies.
To date, Venture Center’s analytical ecosystem has supported over 300 clients and delivered more than 10,000 analytical tests and method development activities across ten sectors.
Regulatory support through the Regulatory Information and Facilitation Center (RIFC) also translated into important outcomes during the year. Our team supported innovators in securing six CDSCO licences, two import licences, and three ISO 13485 certifications, strengthening regulatory readiness across healthcare and life sciences ventures.
The team’s work has also expanded over this last year to address broader and evolving compliance needs. This has included the introduction of new advisory support areas such as US FDA regulatory guidance, HIPAA compliance, and India’s DPDP Act, alongside existing support in quality systems, information security, and sector-specific regulatory expectations.
A maturing ecosystem
What began as an ambitious effort has grown, over two decades, into a deeply interconnected innovation ecosystem.
A major milestone during the year was Venture Center’s selection to serve as the Project Management Unit for two important national ANRF missions: the MAHA MedTech Mission and AI for Science and Engineering (AI-SE). This was further strengthened by Venture Center’s selection for ANRF+, a strategic outreach initiative designed to strengthen innovation impact and intellectual property awareness across India’s research community. Through structured expert guidance, IP and technology transfer clinics, and practical support around commercialization pathways, the initiative expands Venture Center’s role beyond incubation.
Another significant milestone was the launch of the Leap Global Accelerator, supported by DST-NIDHI and Blockchain for Impact. The programme was designed to address a challenge many Indian deep-tech startups are increasingly confronting: how to successfully navigate international growth. As more ventures mature beyond early product development, scaling globally requires a deeper understanding of international market dynamics, regulatory pathways, partnerships, and commercialisation strategies. Through international mentors and experts with deep market experience, the programme was designed to help founders bridge this gap and build stronger pathways to global markets.
The year also marked an important step in Venture Center’s international engagement, with our partnership with UNIDO marking one of Venture Center’s first collaborations of this scale with a leading international institution. Focused on strengthening technology transfer capabilities in India, the initiative brought together global experts and practitioners to share practical approaches for moving research closer to real-world application. One important outcome was the launch of the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) Handbook—a resource designed to help institutions build stronger frameworks for research commercialization.
During the year, Venture Center also became the in-country implementation partner for the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Leaders in Innovation Fellowship (LIF), opening new opportunities for Indian deep-tech founders to engage with international expertise, perspectives, and innovation networks.
What’s emerging from the ecosystem
The strongest measure of an innovation ecosystem is what begins to emerge from it. Across FY2025–26, Venture Center’s startups continued to move beyond early-stage promise to demonstrate meaningful external validation across capital, regulation, market access, global exposure, and product deployment.
Standout milestones include AeroDel Technology Innovations’ licensing partnership with Zydus Lifesciences for the launch of Aerolife Mini™, India’s first portable and foldable inhaler spacer, alongside EyeROV’s ₹47 crore order from the Indian Navy for advanced underwater robotic systems, reflecting the transition of deep-tech innovation into large-scale commercial and strategic deployment.
In other milestones, Proxi Farma received the National Startup Award 2026, while Angirus was recognised with the Green Future Award across BRICS nations and featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia.
Our startups also achieved important product and regulatory milestones. Emsensing received its manufacturing license for DripSet, Rechargion became the first company in India to achieve ARAI-tested validation for sodium-ion battery cells, and BioPrime advanced through regulatory approvals and strategic international partnerships.
Several ventures also secured seed and follow-on funding, reflecting continued investor confidence in the ecosystem. This growing portfolio strength was also reflected in Venture Center receiving the Best Assistive Technology Investor Award from the AssisTech Foundation, recognising its continued support for ventures working in complex, impact-driven sectors.
Looking ahead
Twenty years on, Venture Center remains a work in progress, shaped each day by the collective effort of teams, founders, mentors, investors, and partners working to move ideas closer to real-world impact.
Over these two decades, our ecosystem has supported more than 1,000 startups, each representing its own journey of experimentation, learning, setbacks, and progress. Each of these journeys has shaped Venture Center as much as Venture Center has shaped them, continually refining how the ecosystem learns, adapts, and evolves.
This ongoing evolution was also reflected internally, as Venture Center’s teams came together in a more integrated shared workspace after years of operating across different corners of the NCL campus. Bringing the wider Venture Center family under one roof has enabled closer collaboration, more spontaneous exchange of ideas, and a renewed sense of shared purpose. As the ecosystem continues to grow, so too must the systems and spaces that sustain it.
The vision remains the same as it was at the beginning: to help create, shape, and sustain a Pune cluster of innovative technology businesses with significant regional, national, and global impact.
If FY2025–26 has shown anything, it is that while much has been built over the last twenty years, Venture Center’s next chapter is already taking shape.