Backed by the vision and drive of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG), the MC² Foundation has moved swiftly to launch MC²+ Ignite, a new accelerator programme aimed at turning India’s deep-tech and energy innovations into globally competitive ventures.
The programme was launched at IIT Madras by the Secretary, MoPNG, along with the CMDs of India’s major Oil & Gas companies and the Chairman, bp India — a show of strong industry-wide backing for the initiative.
At the launch, Neeraj Mittal, Secretary, MoPNG, and Chairman, MC² Foundation, said the Foundation was created to bring together technology problem statements from India’s oil and gas energy majors on a single platform, connect them directly with academic researchers and startups, and support promising ventures through to global scale.
He highlighted the duplication that the Foundation seeks to eliminate across the sector.
“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.”
Mittal underlined the strategic importance of energy to India’s development, saying, “If there is no energy, there is no life, no economy, no business, no food and no water.”
The ambition, he stressed, cannot stop at India’s borders. "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.”
For startups, MC²+ Ignite is designed to tackle one of the biggest hurdles in deep-tech commercialisation: moving from promising technology to real-world deployment.
Addressing the founders at the launch, Mittal pledged the Foundation’s support across the startup journey.
“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.”
MC²+ is positioned as a first-of-its-kind decentralised acceleration and innovation platform for India’s oil and gas sector. Its hub will be based in Delhi, supported by nodes at sponsoring oil and gas companies and their R&D centres, giving startups access to real pilot sites and industry environments.
The programme has also brought premier research and innovation institutions into the ecosystem, including IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, C-CAMP and Venture Center, Pune.
The network is designed to give incubated startups the flexibility to tap infrastructure, laboratory facilities, technical expertise and mentoring capabilities across institutions and locations.
MC²+ Ignite will select a cohort of approximately 30 startups, with selected ventures eligible for up to Rs. 2 crore in milestone-linked convertible funding.
The programme is aimed squarely at a persistent funding and commercialisation gap facing Indian deep-tech and energy startups.
While early-stage grant funding is increasingly available, startups often struggle to secure access to operating assets, pilot facilities, industry customers and the growth capital required to scale.
MC²+ Ignite seeks to bring those missing pieces together — capital, infrastructure, technical expertise and direct industry access — within a structured accelerator cohort.
With India’s oil and gas majors, leading academic institutions and startups being brought onto a common platform, MC²+ Ignite is designed to move innovation beyond the laboratory and into the field — and ultimately towards global markets.
