BENGALURU: Nandan Nilekani has chosen an automotive products company for his biggest venture investment yet, backing an atypical startup which counts India’s biggest automakers among its clients. Sedemac Mechatronics, based in Mumbai, has snagged close to $7.5 million (about Rs 50 crore) from the Infosys cofounder and existing investor Nexus Venture Partners, with Nilekani leading the round.The investment in Sedemac, which was incubated at a lab in IIT-Bombay, is keeping in line with Nilekani’s investment philosophy which prefers big, transformative ideas instead of the ecommerce companies that have typically found favour in India. Among the companies he has backed are Team Indus, which is aiming to land a rover on the moon; robotics firm Systemantics; and crowdfunding platform LetsVenture.Sedemac, which builds controls for small engines and powertrains, was founded in 2008 by mechanical engineering professor Shashikanth Suryanarayanan with fellow IITians — Pushkaraj Panse, Amit Dixit and Manish Sharma. Tata Motors Ashok Leyland and TVS Motors are among its clients.A former control systems engineer at conglomerate General Electric , Suryanarayanan started work on a couple of prototype projects at IIT-Bombay, which is also Nilekani’s alma mater, between 2004 and 2007. “I had no intention of starting acompany when I came back to India,” he said.“What started as a small lab-based enterprise has now grown into a company that sells state-of-the-art, technology-intensive powertrain control products to major companies,” he said. The latest bet from Nilekani is a significant one at a time when the automotive industry globally is getting disrupted by technology and vehicle makers pushing for more technology-powered, energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly vehicles for a new generation of consumers.“Sedemac is a great example of tech inno vation from India which can have a transformational impact,” Nilekani, who led the Unique Identity Authority of India, said in a text message. Suryanarayanan and his team plan to use the investment to scale up and expand into other markets like China and the United States.Sedemac counts Nexus Venture Partners and India innovation Fund as its other existing investors. “Overall we see about 25-30 million vehicles over the next 3-4 year utilising these products. Where Sedemac goes from here is that it will continue to try and build its story to create its position as a leader for controls for small powertrains,” said Suryanarayanan.“We also see potential in US, especially in the lawnmower industry which is pretty big. Much of the usage will continue to be India, China, sort of Asia focused, but increasingly into Africa, South America, North America, so on,” he added.The latest investment in Sedemac will mark at least the eighth venture that has been backed by Nilekani, who has actively invested in recent months in early-stage startups that he believes are building disruptive ideas which are “highly impactful”.