Marathwada Accelerator for Growth & Incubation Council (MAGIC)

Which route to take

• You want incubation: use the incubation application form on MAGIC's site. It is the only route the site actually opens, and it feeds everything else.
• You want a government seed scheme: the MSInS Seed Fund, Startup India Seed Fund and iDEX pages have no forms or deadlines of their own. Apply for incubation, or write in, and say which scheme you are after.
• You are a student or first-timer: look at the events page for idea hackathons, bootcamps and workshops. These are lower-commitment ways in, and some are restricted to particular districts or colleges.
• You are an MSME, not a startup: MAGIC says so explicitly — MSMEs with an innovative idea can apply for incubation, and it runs MSME innovation programmes separately.

What the form asks for

Have these ready before you start:

• Founder name, contact details, city and state
• Your company, startup or idea name, and a website if you have one
• Whether the startup is registered, and your team size
• Udyam and DPIIT numbers if you have them — both are optional
• Your sector and your stage: ideation, prototype, pre-revenue or already in market
• The problem you are solving, in about 100 characters, and your solution in about 200
• Whether you hold a patent, and the number if you do
• A pitch deck as PPT, PPTX or PDF, up to 20 MB

The two short text boxes are tight, so write them before you open the form rather than in it.

How selection works

MAGIC runs four steps: you submit the form, it does a preliminary screening and evaluation, then an interaction and mentoring review, then selection. Applications are judged on innovation, feasibility and impact potential.

What reviewers look for

• Scale and impact. MAGIC says preference goes to innovation-driven ideas with potential for scalability, job creation, and social or economic impact. Say plainly who benefits and how many.
• A working idea, not just an intention. An idea, a prototype or an early-stage startup all qualify, but you have to show the thing exists in some form.
• Willingness to be mentored. This is written into the eligibility list. Mentoring, reviews and the Saturday clinic are the core of what MAGIC offers, and a team that will not show up gets little from it.
• Fit with a thrust area helps. Agri-tech, smart industrial city services, green mobility, defence, and health and medicare get sector-specific mentoring and government programme links. Other sectors are still accepted.

Worth asking before you commit

MAGIC does not publish how long incubation runs, whether it charges anything, or whether it takes equity. Ask all three in your first conversation. Also ask what lab and shared infrastructure access actually means at the centre nearest you — the site qualifies it as available where applicable.

MAGIC — Marathwada Accelerator for Growth & Incubation Council — is a sector-agnostic startup incubator and SME accelerator in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad), Maharashtra. It was established in 2018 and is promoted by the Chamber of Marathwada Industries & Agriculture (CMIA), the region's industry association, which is what MAGIC means when it calls itself industry association-led. It works with early-stage startups, MSMEs, students and faculty, and runs three centres in Maharashtra.

How incubation works

MAGIC describes incubation as an end-to-end path from idea validation through product development and market entry to growth. Its own summary of that path has six steps: application and screening, idea validation, product development, mentoring and review, funding and market access, and finally growth and scale. Applications are assessed on innovation, feasibility and impact potential.

What an incubated team gets is mentoring from industry experts, technical and product development support, help reaching seed funds and CSR grants, legal, compliance and IPR assistance, marketing and go-to-market support, and co-working space. The site adds staffing support — help hiring and building a team — and networking with industry leaders and investors. MAGIC does not publish a programme length, a fee, or whether it takes equity, so ask before you commit.

Who can apply

MAGIC says incubation is open to early-stage startups, student innovators and faculty-led startups, MSMEs with an innovative idea, and entrepreneurs and innovators across sectors. You need an innovative idea, a prototype or an early-stage startup, you have to show potential to scale and to create impact, and you have to be willing to take part actively in mentoring. Preference goes to ideas that can scale, create jobs, and have social or economic impact.

Your company does not have to be registered yet — the application form has a plain No option for that question, and fields for a Udyam number and a DPIIT number are there for teams that already have them. There is no geographic gate on incubation: MAGIC says it supports founders across India and the form's state list covers all 28 states. Individual events can be narrower — the MAGIC Idea Hackathon 2026 at Jalna ITI is only for ITI and college students from Jalna district.

Government programmes it facilitates

Four government routes have their own pages. For the MSInS Seed Fund, backed by the Maharashtra State Innovation Society, MAGIC says it acts as a recognised incubator implementing the scheme, and does awareness and outreach, application guidance, mentoring and progress reviews, and monitoring and reporting. For the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme it describes a narrower role: onboarding and screening startups, supporting the application, tracking progress and keeping to the scheme's guidelines. For iDEX, the Ministry of Defence innovation programme, it calls itself a partner incubator and offers outreach, mentoring, technical guidance, incubation and infrastructure. It also runs MSME-focused innovation programmes, idea hackathons and capacity building workshops of its own.

None of these four pages carries a deadline or its own application link. If you want to go through one of them, start with the incubation form or write to MAGIC.

Activities and mentoring

Alongside incubation, MAGIC runs a standing set of open formats. A Saturday Mentoring Clinic handles idea validation and problem-solving. MAGIC HeadOnn helps innovators turn ideas, academic projects and early concepts into products. MAGIC LearnNxt is an expert-led learning series covering startup fundamentals, technology trends, business strategy, and legal, funding and compliance basics. Startup bootcamps are short and intensive, covering problem-solution fit, business models, pitch preparation and feedback. There are also design thinking workshops, innovation challenges built on real problem statements from industry and government, startup exhibitions, faculty development programmes for colleges, and My Skill My Business for ITI students and young would-be entrepreneurs.

Thrust areas

MAGIC stays sector-agnostic but names priority thrust areas: agri-tech, smart industrial city services, green mobility, defence, and health and medicare. Its application form goes wider, with sector options covering food processing, renewable energy, IoT and AI, SaaS and IT, waste management, manufacturing and engineering, fintech, ed-tech and 3D printing. Its published portfolio is spread across mobility, healthcare, agritech, food processing, fintech, IT and waste management.

Facilities

MAGIC lists co-working spaces and incubation offices, meeting and mentoring rooms, and training and workshop facilities. It also mentions access to labs and shared infrastructure, qualified on its own page as available where applicable. It does not describe specific equipment, so treat lab access as something to confirm for your own build.

Scale

MAGIC's own counters report more than 1,500 jobs created, more than 1,600 mentoring sessions, more than 380 workshops, bootcamps and sessions conducted, and an ecosystem of more than 30,000 members. For the Saturday Mentoring Clinic it reports more than 7,200 applications and more than 6,900 ideas validated, from more than 22 states and union territories. Its startups-incubated figure is inconsistent: the homepage counter says more than 185 and the about page says more than 180. Its portfolio page names 14 startups, grouped as current, graduate, seed support and CSR support — among the graduates are Appiphy Solutions, DivIndia Global Exports, AgroZee Organics, NIYO Farmtech, iPRO3D Technologies and Autostudio. All of these are MAGIC's own published numbers, not audited ones.

Who runs it

Prasad Kokil is Managing Director and Makarand Kulkarni is Chief Executive Officer. The board of directors is drawn from Marathwada industry and includes Ashish Garde, Ritesh Mishra, Kedar Deshpande, Maithilee Tambolkar, Mukund Bhogale, Milind Kank, Prashant Deshpande, Sunil Raithatha, Suresh Todkar, Rohit Dashrathi and Nitin Kabra. The staff team includes a general manager for outreach, a senior incubation manager, a manager for seed funds, and incubation and outreach associates. MAGIC's mentors page lists 27 people, again mostly regional industrialists and company heads, with a few founders among them. There is no careers page on the site.

Locations

The head office is at Bajaj Bhavan, P-2, MIDC Industrial Area, Railway Station Road, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar 431005. The MAGIC ITI Jalna Incubation Center is near Chandanzira police station in Jalna. Anveshana, a defence startup centre, is in Auric city on the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor at Shendra MIDC, Ladgaon. MAGIC's upcoming events and contact form are the quickest way to reach the team, and general queries go to contact@magicincubation.com.