New Delhi: Around 30 energy deep-tech startups will each become eligible for up to Rs 2 crore in milestone-linked convertible funding under MC²+ Ignite, an accelerator programme launched at IIT Madras on August 19 by Dr Neeraj Mittal, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG), and Chairman, MC² Foundation.
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MC²+ is a brand of MC² Foundation. The programme is aimed at deep-tech startups building technologies for India's energy sector.
Mittal was joined at the launch by the heads of the oil and gas public sector undertakings and by the chairman of bp India. The event was held at the AMM Arunachalam Auditorium.
Delivering the keynote address, Mittal said MC² Foundation was set up to pool the technology problem statements of India's oil and gas energy majors onto a single platform. The Foundation is intended to connect those problem statements directly to academic research and startups, and to back the resulting ventures to global scale.
He located the rationale in duplicated effort across companies that do not talk to each other. "Several of our companies can be working on the very same catalyst at the same time. That is duplication of work, of investment and of bureaucracy — and it comes with no direct interface to the institutions where the research is actually happening," he said.
Mittal framed the sector in foundational terms. "If there is no energy, there is no life, no economy, no business, no food and no water," he said.
He also said the ambition could not stop at the domestic market. "We cannot become a Viksit Bharat by focusing on the Indian market alone. We have to produce at a global scale — that is how costs come down," he said.
Addressing the founders present, Mittal committed the Foundation to backing ventures beyond the funding stage. "We will be with you through the entire cycle — mentorship that is both technical and managerial, help with funds, and the visibility that a PSU will procure your product when it is ready. You should not have to worry about whether a market exists," he said.
The statement describes MC²+ as a decentralised acceleration and innovation platform, with a hub in Delhi and nodes at sponsoring companies in the Indian oil and gas sector. Those nodes are to sit inside the companies' R&D centres, which the statement says will give startups access to real pilot sites. It characterises the structure as first-of-its-kind, a claim it does not substantiate.
MC²+ has partnered with IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, C-CAMP and Venture Center, Pune. The stated purpose is to let incubated startups draw on infrastructure, laboratory facilities and mentoring across multiple locations in India.
The statement positions the programme against a specific funding gap. It says early-stage grant funding is easy to come by, while startups struggle to access operating assets, pilot sites, industry customers and growth capital. MC²+ Ignite is intended to bring capital, infrastructure, technical expertise and industry access together within a structured cohort.
Applications for the inaugural cohort opened on August 5 and close on August 31. The selected startups are to be announced on September 15. Applications are being taken at www.mc2plus.in.
The statement does not disclose the total corpus committed to the programme, the source of the convertible funding, or the names of the individual sponsoring companies hosting nodes.
Alongside Mittal, the launch was attended by Arun Kumar Singh, Chairman and CEO of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), and Dr Ranjit Rath, Chairman and Managing Director of Oil India Limited.
AS Sahney, Chairman of Indian Oil Corporation Limited, was present, as were Sanjay Khanna, Chairman and Managing Director of BPCL, and Vikas Kaushal, Chairman and Managing Director of HPCL. Khanna and Kaushal are also directors of MC² Foundation.
Atul Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director of Engineers India Limited, attended. So did Dr Madhukar Garg, former President, R&D – Refining and Petrochemicals at Reliance Industries Limited.
Kartikeya Dube, Chairman of bp India, and Sandeep Maheshwari, CEO of MC² Foundation, were also present.
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On the Foundation itself, the statement says MC² Foundation is building an energy innovation platform to give startups, researchers and innovators in energy and industrial deep-tech access to capital, infrastructure, expertise, pilot opportunities and commercial pathways. It says the intent is to help technologies move from research and development towards deployment and commercialisation.
