FITT, IIT Delhi

Pick the right route in

FITT is several doors at once, so start by naming which one you want:

• You want space, mentoring and campus facilities: apply to the incubation programme at IIT Delhi. This is the standing route and takes applications on a rolling basis, subject to space.
• You are a biotech, diagnostics or medical-device team that needs bench space: the BioNEST bio-incubation facility is the route, and it supports ideation to proof-of-concept teams. If you do not need a bench, ask about virtual incubation instead.
• You want money for a specific milestone: the government schemes FITT implements — NIDHI, SISFS, TIDE 2.0, SAMRIDH, BIRAC BIG, LEAP, SEED and SPARSH, and the iDEX defence route — each open as their own dated calls. FITT's team helps incubated companies work out which one fits.
• You fit a corporate theme: the programmes with Microsoft, Boeing, Sona Comstar, IDFC FIRST Bank, NatWest, Maruti Suzuki and Kotak are themed and time-bound. Watch for the next call rather than applying to the incubator and hoping.
• You are still at idea stage: SPARK is FITT's own early-stage programme, and a pre-incubation course runs with Masai School.

Find your faculty mentor first

Every incubated startup at IIT Delhi has to have an IIT Delhi faculty member as technical mentor, and that person has to endorse your application. Pick the faculty member by the technical area you work in, or by the expertise your team is missing, and talk to them about how they would work with you before you fill anything in. Applications arrive with that endorsement already on them, so leaving it to the end costs you a cycle.

How applications work

Start by sending a short note about your idea through FITT's online application. You will get a reply with a link to create a profile on FITT's system and upload your presentation. The team then sets up a first discussion, and if that goes well you are invited to present your plan to the selection committee. FITT's applicant guide also allows the completed form to be emailed to its incubator inbox, which is listed in that guide.

Admission is rolling and depends on space being free, so there is no single deadline for incubation — the dated calls belong to the individual funding and corporate programmes.

Check you clear the basics

Before you spend time on the application, confirm you are a private limited company registered in India under the Companies Act 2013, that resident Indian citizens hold more than half the shares, and that at least one promoter is on the startup full-time. Teams where everyone is part-time are explicitly discouraged. If you are an individual or an LLP, you need an innovation grant from a government programme already in hand.

What reviewers look for

FITT lists the criteria plainly, and they are worth answering one by one in your deck:

• An innovative technology-based idea with commercial potential, and a clear reading of the market.
• Potential to generate intellectual property, or IP you have already filed.
• A team with the skills and experience to build the product, and the commitment to keep going.
• Evidence you can execute — an early prototype, market validation, users, or investors already on board.
• A specific reason you need to be at IIT Delhi, and a clear role for your faculty mentor.

Plan for what incubation asks of you

Incubation runs for two years with quarterly reviews. You issue fresh equity shares to FITT within a month of starting, and you pay space utilisation charges for the physical space you get. Extending past two years means presenting again to the committee, which decides whether more time is warranted. Budget for the reviews and keep the incubation team updated on progress — the relationship is designed to be continuous, not a one-off admission.

If you are turned down

You can apply again. FITT asks that the new application shows a clear improvement in the product or the business plan, and says it encourages founders to come back once a previously declined idea has moved on.

FITT — the Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer — is IIT Delhi's industry interface and the body that runs the institute's startup incubator. It was set up by the IIT Delhi Board of Governors as a registered society on 9 July 1992 and works out of the IIT Delhi campus at Hauz Khas, New Delhi, with the incubator's scale-up space in the institute's Research and Innovation Park. Alongside incubation it manages IIT Delhi's intellectual property, technology transfer and licensing, contract R&D and corporate membership.

How programmes work

FITT started the startup incubation programme at IIT Delhi in 1999-2000, and runs it through the Technology Business Incubation Unit (TBIU). A startup that joins is linked to an IIT Delhi faculty member who acts as its technical mentor, gets subsidised working space, access to prototyping facilities and a mentor network, business support including IP management and legal and financial guidance, and training, workshops and networking events. FITT also opens its networks of tech companies, campus R&D facilities and deep-tech investors to incubatees.

Incubation runs initially for two years with quarterly reviews. It can be extended, but only in justified cases and only with the review committee's approval — a startup that wants more time presents again to the TBIU committee. Accepted startups issue fresh equity shares to FITT at the start of incubation and pay space utilisation charges for the physical space they are allotted.

On top of its own incubation, FITT acts as the implementing agency for a long list of central-government schemes and corporate programmes. The government side includes NIDHI-SSS from the Department of Science & Technology, the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme, TIDE 2.0 and SAMRIDH from MeitY, the iDEX defence route, several BIRAC schemes (BIG, LEAP, SEED and SPARSH) and the MSME Idea Hackathon. The corporate side includes programmes run with Microsoft, Boeing, Sona Comstar, IDFC FIRST Bank, NatWest, Maruti Suzuki, Kotak, Samsung, Pfizer, Engineers India and Meta. These run as dated calls rather than continuously, so which ones are open changes through the year. FITT itself also lists SPARK, its own early-stage programme, and a pre-incubation and entrepreneurship course delivered with Masai School.

FITT funds startups directly too, through grants, debt and equity, and describes itself as a first-cheque investor in most of the companies it backs. Grants go to early-stage teams refining an idea, building a prototype and testing market potential, and are assessed against the team's goals and a utilisation plan they submit.

Who can apply

The incubator takes technology-driven startups working on innovative products or processes. A startup must be registered in India as a private limited company under the Companies Act 2013, with more than half the shares held by resident Indian citizens and at least one promoter working full-time on it. You can apply before incorporating, but onboarding depends on the company being formed. Individuals and LLPs are considered only if they already hold an innovation grant from a government programme.

There is a difference between FITT's pages on how old you can be: the incubation page says preferably within the first five years since inception, while its downloadable applicant guide says preferably less than three years. Treat the tighter figure as the safer assumption and ask if you are close to the line.

The TBIU page frames the same programme through who the founders are: a nursery venture started by IIT Delhi academic staff, students or alumni, or a faculty-student company; a startup by first-generation entrepreneurs; or the R&D division of an existing small or medium enterprise. Ventures whose technology has a match inside the institute are preferred for residency, in that order.

Facilities

The Research and Innovation Park at IIT Delhi runs to 3,00,000 sq ft and has room for more than 125 startups. Its co-working floor offers single seats, shared tables and private cabins in furnished, move-in-ready offices, with high-speed WiFi, printing and scanning, lockers, meeting and event spaces, central air conditioning, basement parking, a cafeteria and an Idea Lounge on the first floor for collaborative work. Rooms fitted out for electronic system design and manufacturing are available to incubated startups. The park sits in Hauz Khas in south Delhi, a short walk from the IIT station on the Magenta metro line and Hauz Khas on the Yellow line.

FITT's Fab Lab covers three workshops: a rapid prototyping lab with 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC routers and electronics workstations; a mechanical lab with MIG, arc, TIG and spot welding, power tools and a pneumatic setup; and an electrical and electronics lab.

Biotech founders work in the Biotechnology Business Incubation Facility, run under BIRAC's BioNEST scheme and operational since the last quarter of 2014. It currently holds 3,500 sq ft with room for up to fourteen innovators or startups at a time, supports ideation to proof-of-concept teams on site and offers virtual incubation to those who do not need bench space. A 20,000 sq ft expansion is planned on the fourth floor of the Research and Innovation Park, with a fabrication lab, a calibration lab and a common bio-lab. Equipment there is charged per sample, at one rate for incubated startups and IIT students and higher rates for outside startups and industry.

Scale

FITT's home page counters report more than 150 startups incubated, more than 1,618 IPR filings including more than 1,300 patents, more than 185 technology transfers, more than 2,100 industry collaborations, more than 500 training programmes and more than 600 development projects. Its applicant guide gives different startup counts — more than 100 through the incubation programme, and more than 250 startups and entrepreneurs across all its funding and mentoring schemes — so the figures on the site do not reconcile with each other. Startups it names include BotLab Dynamics, Clensta International, Raised Lines Foundation, Cyran AI Solutions and, from the bio-incubator, Nanoclean Global, Nanosafe Solutions and Wrig Nanosystems.

Who runs it

Dr Nikhil Agarwal is Managing Director. Prof. Rangan Banerjee, Director of IIT Delhi, chairs FITT's governing council and the TBIU board, which also seats IIT Delhi deans and outside members from the Department of Science and Technology, Social Alpha and Sona Comstar. FITT publishes a careers page and an events page, and is recognised by DSIR as a Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

Locations

FITT is at IIT Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, with the incubator's space at the Research and Innovation Park on the same campus, and a Technology Business Incubator listed at Chandra Shekhar Bhawan, ITO. The Atal Incubation Centre at IIT Delhi's Sonipat campus is a separate organisation — IIT Delhi Sonipat Innovation Foundation, a Section 8 company created by FITT and IIT Delhi under NITI Aayog's Atal Innovation Mission — and it applies and reports separately from FITT.