Tamil Nadu’s TIDCO To Invest ₹25 Cr Each In Agnikul & Raptee

The Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) will invest ₹25 Cr each in spacetech startup AgniKul and electric motorcycle manufacturer Raptee.

In a post on X, state industries minister TRB Rajaa said that the investments were made under the state government’s Startup Investment Policy 2025. The approval letters were handed to the two companies on March 14. 

“TIDCO to invest ₹25 Cr each in AgniKul Cosmos & Raptee Energy under Startup Policy 2025. Investments support deep-tech and advanced manufacturing startups, focusing on sunrise sectors and all growth stages,” read a post on TIDCO’s official X handle. 

Rajaa said that the investments, the first under the startup policy, will look to back high potential companies emerging from state’s deeptech and advanced manufacturing ecosystems. 

The minister also said that the policy will “specifically” focus on making strategic investments in sunrise sectors such as electric vehicles, aerospace and defence, renewable energy, semiconductors, medical electronics, AI, blockchain, quantum computing, among others. 

“Our goal is to ensure that Tamil Nadu’s most promising technology companies find patient capital, strategic support and scale opportunities,” Rajaa added. 

Established in 1965, TIDCO is Tamil Nadu government’s industrial development agency. It undertakes joint ventures and facilitates industrial and infrastructure projects in the state. 

The development comes barely four months after Agnikul raised $17 Mn from Advenza Global, Artha Select Fund, Atharva Green Ecotech, HDFC Bank and others at a valuation of $500 Mn.

Founded in 2017 by Srinath Ravichandran and Moin SPM, Agnikul Cosmos is developing small-lift launch vehicles. Its flagship rocket, Agnibaan, is a two-stage vehicle designed to carry payloads of up to 300 kg to orbits of about 700 km. It claims to have built the world’s first single-piece, fully 3D-printed semi-cryogenic rocket engine called Agnilet.

On the other hand, Raptee, founded in 2021 by Dinesh Arjun, Keerthivasan Ravi, Karthikeyan Adhikesavan, and Phunith Kumar, sells premium electric motorcycles. Its T30 motorcycle currently sells at an ex-showroom price of INR 2.4 Lakh. 

Raptee currently operates a 4.5 acre production facility in Chennai with an installed annual capacity of 1 Lakh units. In September last year, the EV maker also received an undisclosed amount of funding from the Union science ministry’s Technology Development Board (TDB).

At the heart of all this is growing policy focus on fostering deeptech companies. VCs generally shy away from these startups owing to long R&D cycles, substantial capital requirements and a long path to translate fundamental research into commercial products. However, the trend is changing. 

As per Inc42 data, deeptech emerged as one of the most active sectors in 2025, clocking 87 funding deals totalling $500 Mn during the year. On top of this, of the 90+ new funds announced last year, 21% carried explicit deeptech mandates.

Apart from this, eight prominent India and US-based VC firms banded together to launch the ‘India  Deep Tech Alliance’ (IDTA) to infuse more than $1 Bn in the country’s deeptech startups over the next decade. 

Additionally, the Union Cabinet also approved a research development and innovation (RDI) scheme with a corpus of INR 1 Lakh Cr last year to fuel capital in the sunrise sector.

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