ACIC-BMU Foundation

Work out which door you are knocking on

There are two incubators on this campus and they take different people.

• ACIC-BMU Foundation is the Atal Community Innovation Centre. It says it is for innovators in the university and in the community around it, and it publishes no rule that keeps outside founders out.
• Propel is BML Munjal University's own incubator, and the university says it is for current and former BMU students only.
• If you have no link to the university, ACIC-BMU is the one to approach.

How applications work

• Incubation applications are open on a rolling basis through the centre's own application portal, linked from the Incubation menu and the apply band on its home page. No deadline is published.
• There is no published cohort calendar, so it is worth asking when the next intake starts before you build a plan around it.
• The site also has a contact form, and general enquiries go to acic@bmu.edu.in.
• If you want to mentor rather than apply, the About Us page has a separate mentor sign-up link.

What the centre has not put in writing

Ask about these on your first call, because none of them appear on any of its pages:

• Whether incubation is free or charged, and whether the centre takes equity.
• How long incubation runs, and what the selection steps are.
• Whether there is any stage, sector or geography rule.
• Whether desk space is included or billed separately.

What it says it looks for and gives

• Its stated aim is to nurture entrepreneurs who are innovative, tenacious and ethical and who want to create economic value and social impact, so a clear line on who your venture helps is worth writing down.
• On its own account it helps startups apply for grants from government bodies and corporate venture arms, and may consider a grant, seed fund or soft loan where a scheme allows. Come with a use of funds, not just a request.
• It offers legal help on intellectual property, patents, trademarks and copyrights, plus accounting and company secretarial support. If you need these, say so early — they are part of the package rather than an extra.

If you are still at the idea stage

• The Foundation Program for Aspiring Entrepreneurs is a four-month programme for student innovators that takes an idea to a proof of concept and ends in a demo day. Ask whether a fresh intake is planned.
• Propel Pitchfest is the centre's recurring pitch event for young startups, with masterclasses, bootcamps and a year of TiE Delhi NCR membership for participants. Editions have run most years since 2021, so it is worth watching for the next call.

ACIC-BMU Foundation is the Atal Community Innovation Centre at BML Munjal University, on the Delhi–Jaipur highway at Sidhrawali in Haryana. The university set it up with the support of Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, and it says its focus is on encouraging innovators inside the university and in the community around it. It was officially launched on 22 November 2022, at an event the Atal Innovation Mission team joined online.

The centre is listed by name in the Atal Innovation Mission's own directory of Atal Community Innovation Centres, which gives its region as Rewari, Haryana and its focus areas as manufacturing, new materials, cybertech, deeptech, electric mobility and EV energy. Neither the centre's pages nor the mission's directory says how long the AIM support runs or when it started, so treat the backing as stated rather than dated.

What the centre offers

ACIC-BMU groups what it gives startups into seven areas. Incubatees can use the tinkering and maker spaces on the university campus to build prototypes and products, and they can book the university's laboratories and other resources for development work. On space, it offers furnished offices with a choice of coworking desks or private cabins, computers on a choose-your-own-device basis, telephony, internet, a multi-function printer, a conference room with projection and tele-presence, and pantry and library access.

Beyond space, it says it helps with legal work — protecting intellectual property, filing patents, registering trademarks and copyrights — and with accounting and company secretarial support. It opens access to experts and mentors from different functions and industries so founders can get advice on the problems in front of them. On money, it says it helps startups apply for grants from government bodies or corporate venture arms, and that it may itself consider a grant, seed fund or soft loan where a scheme is available for it; it also connects startups to potential investors. Finally, it runs regular meetings between its startups and industry leaders, and introduces them to investors, entrepreneurs and service providers.

The centre does not publish an equity policy or a fee, so assume neither is settled until you ask.

Who can apply

ACIC-BMU describes its audience as innovators within the university and the community around the university. It does not publish eligibility rules — no stage, sector, incorporation, age or residence test appears anywhere on its site — and nothing on it limits applications to BML Munjal University students.

That matters because the campus has a second, separate incubator. Propel is BMU's own incubator, and the university says it takes full-time and part-time BMU students, current or alumni, who want to work on a business idea. So a founder with no connection to the university applies to ACIC-BMU, not to Propel. Both sit under the university's Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which the centre calls the driving force behind innovation and entrepreneurship at BMU, supported by ACIC-BMU and by Propel. The one ACIC programme that is explicitly for students is the Foundation Program described below.

Programmes and events

Applications for incubation are open on a rolling basis through the centre's own application portal, reached from the Incubation menu and the apply band on its home page. There is no published deadline and no published cohort calendar.

Around that sit a handful of named programmes. Propel Pitchfest is a recurring pitch event for young startups, hosted by the centre, where founders present to investors, mentors and industry experts alongside masterclasses, bootcamps and fireside sessions; participants also get a year's membership of TiE Delhi NCR. Editions ran in 2021, 2022 and 2023, and the home page carries an application link for a 2024 edition. The Foundation Program for Aspiring Entrepreneurs is a four-month programme for student innovators that takes an idea from scratch to a proof of concept, ending in a demo day that puts those teams in front of mentors, collaborators, investors and students. The Startup Masterclass Series was a run of sessions in early 2021 on the startup canvas, business models, legal instruments for funding, venture valuations, legal readiness and raising a first round, taught by venture investors, corporate lawyers and professors; it is not currently running.

The events page also carries a long back catalogue of one-off sessions the centre and the university have hosted — a hackathon, an on-campus Hult Prize round, entrepreneurship game sessions, patent-filing and micro-enterprise workshops, ask-me-anything hours with founders and investors, and the campus round of the Smart India Hackathon. Most of these are university activity rather than founder programmes, so read the events list as a record of what happens on campus rather than as a list of things to apply to.

Startups it has backed

The centre publishes a directory of 35 startups. Fifteen of them carry full details: BatX in lithium battery recycling, Megabooklet in building materials, Fery in women-focused bike taxis, Hypernova and EVO Rentals in electric mobility, SmartPAPA in creator commerce, OpenToo, PlanetCubes, SkyLand in home automation, iQuestStar Edutech, Oxyfind Technologies in health tech, Khwaishh Enterprises and Wasper Technologies in e-commerce, Hivericks in clean tech, and Fresh N Clean Mart in agritech. Most are based in Gurugram, with others in Delhi, Bengaluru, Guwahati, Chennai, Bhubaneswar and Dehradun.

Scale

BML Munjal University's own page for the centre reports more than 100 startups supported, more than 500 awareness programmes, more than 100 events organised, more than 30 partners and more than 30 mentors. These are the university's published figures, not audited totals, and they sit next to a directory of 35 startups and a mentors section naming 23 people on the centre's own site, so the counts do not line up neatly.

Who runs it

Davinder Singh is the centre's CEO, with Neha Grover as coordinator and Siraj Khan as programme manager. Deepak Pandit is chair professor at the university's Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The board names Akshay Munjal, Swati Munjal, Shyam Menon and Abhay Sharma. A steering committee brings in outside names including Sunil Kant Munjal, chancellor of BML Munjal University; Poyni Bhatt of SINE at IIT Bombay; Rahul Garg of Moglix; Kanwaljit Singh of Fireside Ventures; and Kris Gopalakrishnan. BML Munjal University itself was founded by the Hero Group.

Location and contact

The centre is on the second floor of Gateway-B at BML Munjal University, 67 KM-Stone, Sidhrawali, Haryana 122413, in Gurugram district near the Rewari border. General enquiries go to acic@bmu.edu.in, and the home page carries a contact form and a phone number.