Bajaj Finserv launching ‘Finserv Intelligence’ to back India’s AI & deep-tech research and innovation, and its partnership with IIT Bombay

Bajaj Finserv Ltd, one of India’s largest and most diversified financial services companies, today announced the launch of Finserv Intelligence, a group-wide strategic initiative in applied research and innovation, focussed on high-tech, low unit-cost, highly scalable solutions, built in India, for India and the world.

Finserv Intelligence is designed as a holistic innovation ecosystem with a five-to-ten-year horizon for realisable impact. It will operate through an integrated model that brings together academic collaborations, investments in the start-up ecosystem, and in-house specialists. Drawing on leading global and domestic innovation models, the initiative envisages R&D labs, centres of excellence, venture-led models and Scholars-in-Residence programme for capability building.

To launch the initiative, Finserv Intelligence has partnered IIT Bombay, India’s premier academic and research institution. An MoU and Master Collaboration Agreement have been signed to establish a joint research centre and define a joint Statement of Work spanning AI, cyber security, quantum technologies and the reimagining of physical retail experience.

Sanjiv Bajaj, Chairman & Managing Director, Bajaj Finserv, said, “The next decade of value creation in financial services will belong to those who build technology that powers it. We have chosen to build, and to build in India. NITI Aayog’s recent report cites how India’s R&D intensity is a fraction of what comparable economies invest, and private

capital must do more of the lifting. Finserv Intelligence is our commitment to that shift, bridging the gap between academia, industry and national priorities. With IIT Bombay, we are putting India’s finest scientists and most ambitious founders at the centre of solving problems that matter to a billion-plus Indians.”

Bajaj Finserv companies will invest Rs. 1,500-2,000 crore over a 5-year period in AI innovation startups, managed by a dedicated investment team. The program will prioritize early-stage companies, from seed to Series B, with strong scalability potential across AI, cybersecurity, quantum technologies, fintech, and consumer technology platforms.

Rajeev Jain, Vice Chairman & MD, Bajaj Finance, said, “Finserv Intelligence offers founders something fundamentally different from capital alone. Startups will plug directly into Bajaj Finserv’s enterprise ecosystem, our governance frameworks, financial discipline, operational depth and market insight, alongside flexible ticket sizes and committed follow-on investment. Through direct engagement with our leadership, structured growth playbooks and hands-on mentorship, we will instil the principles that build enduring companies with frugal engineering, sharp unit economics, ROI discipline and rigor required to scale. Our ambition is to be a strategic co-architect for deep tech founders, helping them evolve from promising ideas into market-ready, resilient institutions.”

Unlike traditional investment approaches, Finserv Intelligence adopts a value-creation-first philosophy, ensuring financial returns are coupled with h the development of technological capabilities that strengthen both Bajaj Finserv and the startup’s long-term strategic position.

Prof. Shireesh Kedare, Director, IIT Bombay, said, "At IIT Bombay, we believe the true value of research lies in its translation into technologies and solutions that create meaningful, real-world impact. We strongly believe that innovation must be accompanied by effective translation and deployment. Our collaboration with Bajaj Finserv strengthens the industry-academia partnership required to accelerate innovation and build scalable solutions for the future - especially in the domain of fintech.”

Finserv Intelligence along with IIT Bombay will focus on:

Artificial Intelligence: Next-generation applications and frameworks, including voice AI and small language models tuned for the Indian BFSI context, and advanced custom models.

Cybersecurity: Resilient solutions to address evolving cyber threats in AI and communication paradigms.

Quantum Technologies: Exploring breakthroughs in computing and communication paradigms.

Retail experience & innovations: Reimagining physical retail spaces with futuristic customer experience and next-generation operational efficiency, setting new benchmarks for how stores of the future look, feel and function.

Beyond financial services, Finserv Intelligence will progressively expand into:

Digital financial inclusion: Enabling large low unit-cost innovations beyond UPI to deliver differentiated financial solutions at scale.

Health: Preventive care, health-tech solutions and improving access, affordability and outcomes.

Climate: Climate risk monitoring and management and building resilience to climate-related disruptions.

By combining capital, research, and enterprise execution, Finserv Intelligence represents a bold expansion of Bajaj Finserv’s innovation capabilities.

Finserv Intelligence is a long-term commitment focused on putting the building blocks in place in the first year. Subsequent years will see the platform widen its research lens, deepen investment in startups and co-create new ventures with a long-term ambition of standing on its own as a serious applied-research player across financial services, health, climate, and a path to commercialise India-built solutions.

The launch comes at a time when India’s research ecosystem is at an inflection point. NITI Aayog’s recently released ‘Ease of Doing Research & Development in India’ notes that India’s gross expenditure on R&D has remained stagnant, with 60% of R&D publicly funded, as compared to advanced economies where nearly 70% of R&D investment comes from the private sector. The report identifies weak industry-academia linkages as a key constraint to translating research into commercial innovation.

Finserv Intelligence is designed d as a direct private-sector response to these gaps, bridging research and application, anchoring patient capital in India’s deep-tech ambitions and creating a deployment ground at national scale.