IIM Lucknow Enterprise Incubation Centre

Startup 101 is the main way into IIM Lucknow's incubator. It runs for 24 months in two halves. The first half is capacity building, delivered through knowledge sessions, workshops and mentor connects, and it covers product commercialisation, technology validation, customer discovery, sharpening the value proposition and product-market fit, go-to-market strategy and data-driven decision making. The second half is about growing deeper in the market you have chosen and becoming fundable, covering a scalable business model, sustainable growth, investor readiness, building the team, global expansion, and investor and market access.

What you get

• Assured seed investment for the top 25% of the cohort
• A startup toolkit
• Access to technology labs and the in-house supercomputer, available virtually as well
• 1-on-1 mentor sessions with industry and academic experts
• Market access through the centre's corporate partners
• Access to government funds and schemes
• The chance to raise from a corporate venture capital fund
• Networking with investors across India
• A startup desk for legal and compliance work

Who can apply

• Startups incorporated in India holding a DPIIT (DIPP) number
• One founder must be full-time on the business
• At least one founder must hold 51% equity
• Sector agnostic, but technology has to be at the core
• No connection to IIM Lucknow is required

How to apply: Use the Join as Start Up form on the centre's site. It asks for your details, company incorporation number, venture name, incorporation date and sector, and requires a pitch deck upload. Questions can go to incubator@iiml.ac.in.

The acceleration programme is the centre's route for startups that are already running and want to grow faster. The page describes it as spanning 12 to 24 months, with a structured curriculum covering business model validation, market analysis, product development and growth and expansion strategy, delivered through workshops, seminars and capacity-building sessions led by industry experts and founders. That is paired with one-on-one mentoring and with events, pitch sessions and demo days that put startups in front of investors, corporates and customers.

It runs as sector cohorts rather than one continuous intake, so whether you can apply depends on which cohort is open. The two the centre documents are both finished: a DeepTech cohort with Technopark@IITK at IIT Kanpur, which received more than 50 applications and selected six startups, and an AgriTech cohort with NABARD for agriculture and off-farm startups, which received more than 100 applications and selected ten.

What you get

• Idea conceptualisation and validation support
• Mentorship and capacity building
• Fundraising support
• Corporate and industry connects
• Go-to-market strategy and product-market-fit work
• Legal and IPR support
• Global launch support
• Product development support
• Startup toolkit access
• Access to the AI and IoT lab and the supercomputer

Who can apply: Early to growth-stage startups in whichever sector the open cohort covers. The centre does not publish a standing eligibility list for acceleration.

How to apply: Each cohort runs its own application. Watch the centre's news and events page, or write to incubator@iiml.ac.in to ask what is open.

This is the centre's entry point for people who have an idea rather than a company. It is a structured four-month course described as a journey from divergence to convergence, covering business and financial modelling, design thinking, idea development, sales, marketing and presentation, understanding entrepreneurship and the startup life cycle, and business communication. Sessions are delivered by industry experts and by IIM Lucknow professors and trainers from India and abroad.

The course ends in a Pitch Fest, where selected participants show their ideas and can go on to further pre-incubation and funding support at the centre. The previous cohort mentored more than 230 business ideas.

What you get

• A route from an idea to a startup, and from an idea to MVP-ready and pitch-ready
• A launchpad into the incubation programme for MVP-ready startups
• A stage to present your idea to founders and investors
• A certificate of completion
• Mentorship from industry experts, and incubation support for ideas that earn it
• Training from IIM Lucknow professors

Who can apply: Professionals, aspiring entrepreneurs and students. You do not need a registered company.

How to apply: Write to incubator@iiml.ac.in to ask when the next cohort opens; the centre does not keep a standing application link for this one.

EnterpriseHER is the centre's incubation programme for women-led ventures. It is aimed at women running early to growth-stage companies, and it offers the same technology and mentoring base as the main programme with office space at a reduced rate.

What you get

• 12 months of incubation support, extendable by another six
• Access to the technology lab — supercomputer, 3D and IoT lab — plus the startup toolkit and help desk
• Smart office infrastructure at a subsidised rate
• Capacity building by the centre's team and industry experts
• Tailored mentorship
• Assured seed fund support, with access to investors and funding agencies
• Strategic alliances and corporate connections
• Support to expand into global markets

Who can apply

• Indian citizens
• Cumulative 51% or more shareholding held by a female founder or co-founder
• A company registered under the Companies Act 2013

How to apply: Use the Apply Now button on the programme page. The page also offers a sample pitch deck you can download and follow.

IIML EIC is one of the Indian management institutions that delivers Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women. It is a business education programme rather than an incubation programme: modules give practical frameworks for financial management, marketing, negotiation and leadership, taught by faculty, with a focus on innovation and operational excellence. Goldman Sachs says the programme has reached over 200,000 women globally and supported over 3,800 women-led businesses in India since 2008.

Who can apply

• You own or co-own the venture and are its primary decision-maker
• The business has been operating for at least one year
• It has a minimum of three employees
• It meets the programme's annual turnover floor
• You have not graduated from 10,000 Women before

How to apply: Applications go through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women India apply page. For questions about the IIM Lucknow cohort, write to eic_gs10kw@iiml.ac.in.

IIML-Venture Fund is the seed corpus IIML EIC created for the early-stage startups it incubates. The centre describes it as sector agnostic with a technology focus, and says it also draws on its networks to syndicate further capital from other venture funds, public-sector undertakings and corporate investors alongside its own cheque.

Who can apply

• A registered company in India that is incubated at IIML EIC
• Indian promoters holding at least 51% of the shareholding
• DPIIT recognition

How selection works: Investment decisions run through the centre's Internal Investment Committee, which mixes IIM Lucknow faculty with the centre's managing director and its investment, incubation and business development heads.

How to apply: There is no separate public application. The route is to be incubated at the centre first; write to incubator@iiml.ac.in for the current process.

NIDHI-SSP is the Department of Science and Technology's seed support programme, and IIML EIC is one of the incubators that disburses it. The centre describes it as timely support that lets a startup build its financial foundation and then raise from angels, venture capitalists and financial institutions. Money is for proof of concept, prototyping, product trials, market entry and commercialisation, and it comes with mentorship from experienced founders and industry professionals, workshops on business planning, financial management and marketing, and networking with investors.

Who can apply

• A registered company in India with at least three months of physical or virtual incubation at IIML EIC
• Indian promoters holding at least 51% of the shareholding
• DPIIT recognition

How to apply: There is an application form on the centre's NIDHI-SSP page asking for your details, company incorporation number, venture name, incorporation date and sector, with a pitch deck upload. The page also lists the startups it has already backed. Note that the centre's own two pages describe different funding ceilings for this programme, so confirm the current figure with the centre before you plan around it.

IIML EIC is a Startup India Seed Fund Scheme incubator. The scheme funds proof of concept, prototype development, product trials, market entry and commercialisation, and at this centre it is disbursed as optionally convertible debt.

Who can apply

• A DPIIT-recognised startup incorporated not more than two years before applying
• Technology at the core of the product, service or business model
• Indian promoters holding at least 51% of the shareholding at the time of application
• The startup must not already have taken substantial monetary support under another central or state government scheme

How selection works: Through the centre's Incubator Seed Management Committee, which includes its Faculty In Charge, its managing director as the incubator's nominee, an industry expert and a member of the government startup nodal team.

How to apply: The centre does not publish a separate form for this one. Write to incubator@iiml.ac.in, or apply through the Startup India seed fund portal naming IIML EIC as your chosen incubator.

IIML Angel Network, which the centre also calls IIML-Angels, is for investors rather than founders. It is described as a network of IIM alumni built so that individuals and institutions can co-invest alongside the centre in its portfolio startups and act as advisers to them. The centre says it is continuously empanelling individual and institutional investors.

Who can apply: Individual and institutional investors, particularly IIM alumni.

How to apply: Through the Join as Investor registration on the centre's site.

IIML Startup School is how the centre packages its training. It runs short and long programmes for entrepreneurs at different stages, plus courses for investors and corporate venture teams — chief executive programmes for growth ventures, sales acceleration, and corporate venturing.

A caution: the listings on this page have not been refreshed for a long time. The newest entry in its current table is dated August 2022 and everything else sits in an archive going back to 2019. Treat the page as a description of the kind of training the centre runs, not as a live schedule, and check the news and events page for what is actually running.

How to apply: Each listed session carries its own apply link; for anything current, write to incubator@iiml.ac.in.

This one is for companies, not startups. IIML EIC runs a corporate venture capital programme for public-sector undertakings and private corporate partners, supporting them end to end as they build a corporate venturing model: backing innovation and entrepreneurship outside the company, integrating promising solutions into their own business, funding disruptive work, and joining corporate open innovation with corporate venture capital.

For founders, the relevance is indirect but real — the corporate partners behind this programme are where the market access and corporate venture capital offered inside the incubation programme come from.

How to enquire: Write to incubator@iiml.ac.in.