I-DAPT HUB Foundation, IIT (BHU) Varanasi

Check you clear the four gates first

The Start-Up Incubation page sets out four conditions and they are all hard. You need a company incorporated in India, a DPIIT recognition number for it, at least one founder working on it full time, and at least one founder holding 51% equity. If you do not yet have a DPIIT number, get that before anything else — it is the gate most early applicants fail.

Make the data-analytics core obvious

The programme is sector agnostic, but only on top of a data analytics and predictive technologies core. The hub's thrust areas are telecommunications, health and family welfare, defence R&D, road transport and highways, power, and energy, environment and agri-tech. Write your deck so a reviewer can see in the first two slides which of those your product sits in, and what data your prediction actually runs on. A product that merely uses a model somewhere is a weaker fit than one whose value comes from the analytics.

Have the five documents ready

Applications ask for a certificate of incorporation, a DPIIT recognition certificate, your founders' equity structure, a business plan or proposal, and technology or product documentation. The equity structure is the one founders usually have to reconstruct, so pull your cap table together early and make sure it shows the 51% holding clearly.

Use their pitch-deck template

The incubation page offers a pitch-deck template for download. Use it rather than your investor deck — it is the structure the reviewers read against.

Expect diligence, and expect to give up equity

Selection is described as due diligence, valuation and a selection procedure before a startup is finalised for equity-based support. That means your books, your incorporation papers and your cap table will be looked at properly, and that the hub becomes a shareholder. If you are not willing to take an equity partner, this is not the right programme.

Confirm the call is actually open

The page says applications can be submitted at any time, but the application form it links is numbered as a cohort, and a notice elsewhere on the site says some other calls are paused. Email the office before you invest days in the application, and ask which cohort is currently taking applications.

Do not apply through the research or fellowship routes

The research-project call, the short-term course call and the Chanakya fellowships are not founder routes — they are for faculty and for registered students. Applying to them as a company is a wasted submission. Start-Up Incubation is the door.

I-DAPT-HUB Foundation is a Section 8 not-for-profit company based at IIT (BHU) Varanasi. It is the Technology Innovation Hub for Interdisciplinary Data Analytics and Predictive Technologies, set up under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems, which the Department of Science and Technology runs for the Government of India. The hub describes itself as a technology incubation centre that turns scientific and technical work into commercially viable products, processes and services.

Its six thrust areas are telecommunications, health and family welfare, defence research and development, road transport and highways, power, and a sixth bucket covering energy, environment and agri-tech. Everything the hub funds sits under the theme of data analytics and predictive technologies, which it shortens to DAPT.

Start-Up Incubation

Start-Up Incubation is the one route on the site a founder can apply to. It is aimed at early-stage entrepreneurs turning an idea into a business, and the page lists what a selected startup gets: office space, mentorship, technical support, market access, legal guidance and access to funding. The programme is sector agnostic, but data analytics and predictive technologies must be at the core of what you are building.

The hub takes equity. Its portfolio page says startups are finalised for equity-based financial assistance only after due diligence, valuation and the selection procedure are complete, so expect a formal diligence process rather than a quick decision. The site does not publish the size of the stake, the length of the incubation period, or whether any fee is charged.

Who can apply

The eligibility list is short and strict. Your startup must already be incorporated in India and must hold a DPIIT recognition number, so this is not a route for an individual with an idea and no company. One of the founders has to be working full time on the business. At least one founder has to hold 51% equity. There is no restriction to Uttar Pradesh, to IIT (BHU) students, or to any one sector beyond the DAPT requirement.

How to apply

The Start-Up Incubation page says applications can be submitted at any time. It gives you two things: a pitch-deck template to download, and an online application form, which is hosted on an outside application platform and is labelled as Cohort 3. So the page reads as rolling while the form itself is cohort-numbered — check whether the current call is open before you spend time on the deck. Five supporting documents are asked for: your certificate of incorporation, your DPIIT recognition certificate, your founders' equity structure, a business plan or proposal, and documentation of your technology or product.

What else the hub runs

Most of I-DAPT's other calls are not open to founders, and it is worth knowing that before you go looking. The Call for Innovative and Entrepreneurial Research Projects funds project proposals that move cyber-physical systems up the technology readiness levels, with industry partnership described as desirable; the page never states who may apply, and a notice on the site says fresh research-project applications are not being accepted at the moment. The Short Term Course call funds faculty at IIT (BHU) and other institutions to run training courses and certificate programmes in DAPT, with the money going to the host institution's research and development office. The Chanakya Fellowship programme has seven variants for undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and post-doctoral students and their mentors; two of them mention startups and commercialisation, but all seven require an academic registration, and the post-doctoral variant is also paused.

The hub also raises corporate social responsibility money under an initiative for startups solving social problems, promising incubation, mentoring, prototyping support, pilot implementation, market access and capacity building for impact-driven startups. That page is a form for companies wanting to contribute, not an intake for founders. A Live Problems page lists industry problem statements with timelines and an open status, but none of its detail links work, so there is no way to respond to them.

Facilities

The hub runs its own data centre, built on hyper-converged infrastructure. Its published specification is six nodes, 6 TB of RAM, 288 CPU cores, six Tesla T4 GPUs and 100 TB of network storage, and it reported 102 running virtual machines and 30 thin clients for November 2025. For a team training models this is the most concrete thing on the site. Office space is named among the incubation resources, but the hub does not publish a lab or prototyping list.

Scale

The numbers on the site do not agree with each other. The homepage counters report 44 startups, 21 patents, 56 projects, 98 publications, 51 short-term courses and 16 Chanakya fellowships. The portfolio page says twenty-two startups have been finalised for equity-based assistance, and separately that 36 were approved in 2025-26. The vision page says 25 or more startups nurtured and 50 or more research projects. All of these are self-reported and none carry a date. No startup is named anywhere on the site, so the portfolio cannot be checked.

Who runs it

Prof. R. S. Singh is Project Director and Mr. G. S. Rawat is CEO. Day-to-day work is split across three project managers, for projects and Chanakya, for startups, and for finance and accounts. The board of directors is chaired by Prof. Amit Patra, Director of IIT (BHU), and includes the institute's Dean R&D and Registrar alongside outside members. A separate hub governing body adds academics from IIT Delhi, IIT Guwahati and IIM Mumbai, industry members including Teradata's chief product officer and former heads of Brahmos Aerospace and the Ordnance Factory Board, and government representatives from the mission office at DST.

Where it is, careers and contact

The hub is at IIT (BHU) Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh 221005. The office answers Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM, and says it replies within 24 to 48 hours. A careers page is live and was advertising a system engineer and network manager role, with applications by email to the office inbox. There is no events page; the media section is a set of scanned press clippings from Dainik Jagran, Amar Ujala, Hindustan and the Times of India. The site also lists a digital skills academy of paid outside courses from CloudThat and Simplilearn, and an international collaboration page naming universities the hub wants to work with, which lists research interests rather than any signed agreement.