SmartAgri CoE, Bhilai

Check eligibility before anything else

• The applicant must be a Private Limited Company, a registered partnership firm, or an LLP. An individual founder or an unregistered team cannot be the applicant here.
• The entity must have been incorporated within the last ten years.
• An annual turnover ceiling applies to every financial year since incorporation. The current ceiling is worth confirming with the team, since the figure is a condition of entry rather than a detail.

Know the terms before you apply

• Selected start-ups are expected to offer equity to STPI and STPINEXT under the centre's operational guidelines. This is not an equity-free incubation seat.
• The package for selected start-ups includes seed funding support. The CoE's pages give different figures for the ceiling on it, so treat any headline number as indicative and confirm the current terms.
• Applications go through the Open Challenge Program page on the CoE's website, with the application made in the name of the company, firm or LLP. Questions go to the CoE's inbox, smartagri@stpi.in.

How applications work

• Intakes run as dated calls. The first call, OCP 1.0, was open from early June to mid-July 2026.
• There is no rolling intake: a call has to be open for an application to go in. The Open Challenge Program page is where a new call is announced.

SmartAgri, the Centre of Entrepreneurship in Agri-Tech at Bhilai, is an initiative of the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), set up in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Agriculture Development, Farmer Welfare and Biotechnology Department of the Government of Chhattisgarh, and Chhattisgarh Swami Vivekanand Technical University. It is one of the domain-specific Centres of Entrepreneurship STPI has launched across emerging technologies. It works with start-ups building technology-driven solutions to real-world problems in agriculture.

How programmes work

Start-ups come in through the Open Challenge Program. The programme is a platform for start-ups and innovators to solve real-world agricultural challenges through innovative and technology-driven solutions. Selected start-ups work from ready-to-work plug-and-play space at the CoE, and receive seed funding support, access to angel and venture-capital networks, and patent filing and documentation support. They are also expected to offer equity to STPI and STPINEXT under the centre's operational guidelines.

The first call, OCP 1.0, was announced in June 2026 and took applications from 5 June to 15 July 2026. No later intake is announced. Seed funding support is part of the package for selected start-ups, but the CoE's pages give different figures for the ceiling on it, so the current terms are worth confirming with the team before you rely on a headline number.

Who can apply

The applicant must be a Private Limited Company, a registered partnership firm, or an LLP, incorporated within the last ten years. An annual turnover ceiling applies to every financial year since incorporation. The call is for start-ups and innovators working on agricultural problems, and the application is made by the entity rather than by an individual founder.

Facilities

The CoE runs a facility of more than 10,000 square feet, with a 25-seat plug-and-play workspace. Start-ups taken in work from ready-to-work space there. These are the CoE's own figures about its site.

Scale

The CoE is early in its life: its first intake was in 2026. The number it attaches to start-ups on its pages is a goal for the programme rather than a count of start-ups already supported, so there is no track-record figure to report here. What it does publish about itself is the size of the facility and the number of plug-and-play seats.

Who runs it

SmartAgri CoE operates under STPI. STPI has launched 26 of the more than 27 domain-specific Centres of Entrepreneurship it planned, and SmartAgri at Bhilai is one of them. The CoE is run together with the Agriculture Development, Farmer Welfare and Biotechnology Department of the Government of Chhattisgarh and with Chhattisgarh Swami Vivekanand Technical University at Bhilai, which have been its partners from the start.

Locations

The CoE is at STPI Bhilai in Chhattisgarh, and gives its address as STPI, Junwani Road, STPI-Bhilai, Chhattisgarh. STPI's own regional pages list a different street address for the STPI Bhilai office, so the address is worth confirming before a visit. Enquiries go to the CoE's own inbox.