Tata Industries, a division of India’s largest conglomerate, has committed $5m to an Israel-based university venturing fund to help commercialise its research.
Tel Aviv University’s (TAU) technology transfer company, Ramot, will manage the Technology Innovation Momentum fund, which is targeting $20m in size.
The fund will back and develop “commercialization ready” technologies in a wide range of fields, including engineering and exact sciences, environment and clean technology, pharmaceuticals and health care.
Tata operates in seven business sectors: materials, engineering, IT and communications, energy, services, consumer products and chemicals. Tata Industries helps its parent enter new and high-technology businesses, such as control systems, IT, auto components, advanced materials, telecom hardware and services.
KRS Jamwal, executive eirector of Tata Industries, said: “An extensive due diligence process was conducted by CTOs [chief technology officers] from major Tata companies prior to this MoU [memorandum of understanding] and we were encouraged by the technological leadership, the passion and the commitment demonstrated by TAU. During this process, the Tata team was exposed to more than 70 promising innovations and had the opportunity to interact with leading scientists at TAU.”
He added in a press report: “Rather than just scouting around and having conversations, it allows us to show our commitment and show that we’re keenly interested to do more.
“We’ve found this structure to be very innovative, and at the moment we have not seen any other university offering such an interesting structure.”