Govt. floats draft National Deep Tech Start-up Policy

Recently, the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government has put out a draft National Deep Tech Startup Policy (NDTSP) for public comment.

It seeks to ensure India’s position in the global deep tech value chain, in areas such as semiconductors, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and space technology.
It seeks to bolster research and development in deep tech start-ups, which work on fundamental and technical problems.
It also seeks to find approaches to provide financing to deep tech start-ups at critical moments, such as before they go to market with their products or ideas.
The policy also seeks to simplify the intellectual property regime for such start-ups, ease regulatory requirements, and proposes measures to promote these firms.
- For instance, the NDTSP suggests the creation of an Export Promotion Board to ease barriers of entry for Indian deep tech start-ups into foreign markets.

It refers to a class of startup businesses that develop new offerings based on tangible engineering innovation or scientific discoveries and advances.
Usually, such startups operate on, but are not limited to, agriculture, life sciences, chemistry, aerospace and green energy.

The deep tech innovations are very radical and disrupt an existing market or develop a new one.
- Innovations based on deep tech often change lives, economies, and societies.
The time required for deep technology to develop the technology and reach the market-ready maturity is more than shallow technology development (like mobile apps and websites).
It often requires a lot of early-stage funding for research and development, prototyping, validating hypotheses and technology development.