Honeywell, IISc partner to fund and support early-stage startups

Honeywell has partnered with the Indian Institute of Science’s (IISc) Society for Innovation and Development (SID) centre to increase collaboration between industry and early-stage startups. As part of the initiative, Honeywell has identified nine deep science startups, which will be supported from the incubation to the early seed investment stage. 

Honeywell, under its philanthropic arm Honeywell Hometown Solutions India Foundation (HHSIF), will provide seed capital to the startups, while SID will offer infrastructure and technical support. The selected startups this year include MagHeals, IndiaSpeaks Research Labs, Dfine Bio-innovations, Reti Ecotech, 14Si Silcon Solutions, Ikshana Medical, Open MedLabs, Nature Wrks Technologies, and HEM Dimensions.

This initiative is part of Honeywell’s Start-Up Support Program which has been running for the last few years and has supported startups like Azooka Labs, HealthSeq Precision Medicine, Equine Biotech, and Protein Design, among others, in the past. About 30 startups have been funded by HHSIF since 2019, most of which are led by women and teams from underprivileged communities. These startups focus on offering solutions in critical areas like healthcare, biotechnology, and nanotechnology.

“By funding these startups, we are fostering the next generation of game-changing technologies that will address some of the world's most pressing health and environmental challenges,” said Pooja Thakran, director, HHSIF.

The partnership aims at supporting science and technology startups and Entrepreneurship-in-residence programs (EIR), particularly for solutions that address societal, healthcare, and environmental challenges. The parners offer assistance in terms of mentoring startups, building their capacities, and helping them scale up.

“Deep Science startups are problem-oriented and map to at least one of the sustainable development goals. Support for such ventures is inadequate and one of the reasons is the lack of understanding of the underlying science and technology that tends to be diverse and complex. Honeywell and HHSIF have recognised the need to support such startups and we are delighted with their continuing financial support,” said Prof B Gurumoorthy, chief executive at SID.