Nirmala Sitharaman launches IITM Unicorn Frontier Fund-I at IITMAA Sangam in Bengaluru

26 September 2026

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman attended the 7th edition of 'IITMAA Sangam', the annual conference of the IIT Madras Alumni Association, in Bengaluru on 26 September 2026. She launched the 'IITM Unicorn Frontier Fund-I', an Alternative Investment Fund jointly initiated by Unicorn India Ventures and IIT Madras / IITM Research Park. She said that under the Public Sector Enterprises (PSE) policy, all fields other than 8 strategic sectors, space and nuclear among them, have been opened to private participation. She said India has the potential to achieve 10%+ GDP growth. Education Minister Pralhad Joshi said IIT Madras has 560 startups with a collective valuation of ₹80,000 crore. Sitharaman also released the book "Cashless Nation: How UPI Changed Everything".