IIT Incubators and Startup Centres
66 IIT incubators and innovation centres, listed with the city, sectors and stage each one works with. Open a profile to see the programme's stage, location and how to apply.
66 organisations, page 1 of 2
IIT Mandi Catalyst
IIT Mandi's technology business incubator on its Kamand campus — Himachal Pradesh's first, running staged startup programmes alongside DST, MeitY and BIRAC-backed funding schemes.
SINE, IIT Bombay
SINE, IIT Bombay's technology business incubator since 2004, has backed 550+ startups including Gupshup, ideaForge and ImmunoACT, and now also runs Y-Point, its own early-stage deep-tech VC fund.
TIDES Business Incubator
Business incubator at IIT Roorkee running technology and bio-incubation, plus seed-fund, fellowship and prototype-funding schemes, with applications open all year for founders from across India.
iTIC Incubator, IIT Hyderabad
IIT Hyderabad's deep-tech incubator, running pre-incubation, incubation and government-backed grant schemes for hardware and deep-tech founders.
IIT Madras Incubation Cell
The deep-tech incubator of IIT Madras in Chennai. It takes outside startups with a strong technology base, and gives 18 months of incubation support.
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Startup support at IIT Madras in Chennai: the Incubation Cell, the Nirmaan pre-incubator and a biotech bioincubator. Campus founders come first; the Cell also lists outside entrepreneurs.
FITT, IIT Delhi
FITT is IIT Delhi's industry interface and the body that runs the institute's startup incubator at Hauz Khas, backing deep-tech founders with campus space, faculty mentors, prototyping and bio labs, and a long list of government and corporate funding programmes.
AWaDH, IIT Ropar
IIT Ropar's DST technology innovation hub for agriculture and water, running deep-tech incubation, accelerators and a national CPS lab network from Rupnagar, Punjab.
ABIF IIT Kharagpur
Agri-business incubator hosted by IIT Kharagpur in West Bengal and funded by NABARD, with a 12-month incubation programme open to applications round the year.
Incubation Centre IIT Patna
IIT Patna's hardware incubator for ESDM and Medical Electronics startups, hosting DST NIDHI, DPIIT Seed Fund and MeitY GENESIS schemes.
RKVY-RAFTAAR Agri-Business Incubator (R-ABI), IIT (BHU) Varanasi
Agri-business incubator on the IIT (BHU) Varanasi campus, funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, running pre-seed, seed and student programmes for agriculture and allied-sector ventures.
IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation
DST Technology Innovation Hub at IIT Madras backing cyber-physical systems startups in sensors, networking, actuators and control systems.
AIC IIT Delhi (Atal Incubation Centre, IIT Delhi)
Atal Incubation Centre at IIT Delhi's Technopark in Sonipat, Haryana, running deep-tech incubation labs, dedicated startup offices and a co-working floor.
ACIC IIT (ISM) Foundation
The Atal Community Innovation Centre at IIT (ISM) Dhanbad, incubating community-focused start-ups and innovators across Jharkhand.
FIST IIT Patna
DST NIDHI technology business incubator at IIT Patna for engineering and deep-tech startups.
IHFC, IIT Delhi
IIT Delhi's DST-funded Technology Innovation Hub for cobotics — pre-seed, incubation and deep-tech funding calls for robotics, AI and drone founders.
SIIC IIT Kanpur
IIT Kanpur's incubator, running national deep-tech, defence, drone, AI and MedTech programmes from campuses in Kanpur and Noida.
GDC, IIT Madras
Entrepreneurship centre at IIT Madras running customer-discovery bootcamps for STEM research teams from across India.
IIEC, IIT Gandhinagar
IIT Gandhinagar's technology business incubator at Palaj, running the NIDHI PRAYAS prototyping grant and open to founders from outside the institute.
IIT Palakkad Technology IHub Foundation (IPTIF)
IIT Palakkad's DST-backed technology innovation hub in Kerala, running deep-tech funding calls and a hardware prototyping lab.
IIT Ropar Technology Business Incubator Foundation (TBIF)
IIT Ropar's technology business incubator — a Section 8 non-profit set up under the DST NIDHI-TBI scheme, backing deep-tech startups in manufacturing, defence, IoT, AI and healthcare from the Rupnagar campus.
IIT Tirupati Navavishkar I-Hub Foundation
DST-backed technology innovation hub at IIT Tirupati incubating startups in mapping, satellite navigation and precision sensing.
IITI DRISHTI CPS Foundation
IIT Indore's Technology Innovation Hub, now focused on digital-healthcare startups and technology commercialisation.
TIDES, IIT Roorkee
TIDES, the technology business incubator at IIT Roorkee, running a bio-incubator and funding schemes for early-stage founders.
TiHAN, IIT Hyderabad
DST's Technology Innovation Hub for autonomous navigation at IIT Hyderabad, funding drone, robotics and self-driving startups through rolling proposal calls.
Agri Food Business Incubation Centre (AFBIC), IIT Kharagpur
Agri-food business incubator at IIT Kharagpur, set up under the RKVY-RAFTAAR scheme, with programmes for ideas, startups and students.
I-DAPT HUB Foundation, IIT (BHU) Varanasi
IIT (BHU) Varanasi's data-analytics innovation hub, which incubates DPIIT-recognised startups and takes equity.
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
SINE, IIT Bombay's incubator and deep-tech accelerator for technology startups, with a Semiconductor accelerator cohort taking applications.
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
ABIF, the agri-technology incubator hosted at IIT Kharagpur's Agricultural and Food Engineering department, takes outside founders. The institute's seed fund is for its own community.
Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar
IIT Bhubaneswar's Research and Entrepreneurship Park: an incubator for early-stage technology startups, with a 3 months pre-incubation stage and incubation for 18 - 36 months.
IIT Bhubaneswar Research and Entrepreneurship Park
IIT Bhubaneswar Research & Entrepreneurship Park supports deep-tech startups with world-class labs and mentorship in Odisha.
Indian Institute of Technology Jammu
I3C, the incubation and innovation council of IIT Jammu, runs Catalyst 30, a seed-equity programme for revenue-generating startups, and a mentoring clinic for founders in Jammu and Kashmir and beyond.
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
IIT Delhi drives deep-tech entrepreneurship through FITT, one of India's oldest and largest academic incubators.
Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur
Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur runs the TISC incubator, with pre-incubation, physical and virtual incubation for individual innovators and startups in Rajasthan.
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY KANPUR
Startup incubator at IIT Kanpur offering incubation, lab access and co-working space in Kanpur and Noida.
Indian Institute of Technology Patna
Indian Institute of Technology in Patna, Bihar, focusing on research, innovation, and technology development including Robotics, AI, and IoT.
Indian Institute of Technology Indian School of Mines
Open to IIT (ISM) Dhanbad students: a pre-incubation programme with mentoring, lab access and seed funding, run by the institute's Dean (IIE) office in Dhanbad.
IITI ACE Foundation, IIT Indore
IIT Indore's incubation centre at Simrol, open to outside founders as well as the institute's own students and staff.
Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar
IIT Gandhinagar's IIEC is a DST-backed incubator with 10,000 sq ft of lab/office space supporting deep-tech startups in Gujarat.
Indian Institute of Technology Dharwad
Research and technology incubator linked to IIT Dharwad, run by dhaRti Foundation, with a biotech and healthcare centre (dhaRti-BioNEST) and support across other sectors.
Indian Institute of Technology Ropar
TBIF is a DST-recognised Section 8 incubator at IIT Ropar, offering lab space, mentors, IP and legal support, and seed funding for selected technology startups.
IIT Bombay (BETiC)
Biomedical Engineering & Technology Innovation Centre at IIT Bombay: medical device prototyping and an industry-linked translation accelerator for device inventors.
Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-Madras) (R-TBI)
DST TBI: Rural Technology and Business Incubator (RTBI)
Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IIT-Hyderabad)
Deeptech incubator at IIT Hyderabad, supported by DST. Runs pre-incubation, incubation and acceleration, with prototype grants for eligible Indian founders.
dhaRti Foundation, IIT Dharwad
Incubator on the IIT Dharwad campus in Karnataka, running the BIRAC-backed dhaRti BioNEST centre for biotech, medtech and healthcare startups.
TIH IIT Bombay
IIT Bombay's DST-funded Technology Innovation Hub for IoT — seed investment, rolling grants and a fellowship for IoT founders, separate from the campus incubator SINE.
E-Cell IIT Bombay
CIIE IIT (ISM) DHANBAD FOUNDATION
Not-for-profit incubation centre at IIT (ISM) Dhanbad for ventures from any academic discipline.
The Indian Institutes of Technology run their own incubators, innovation foundations and entrepreneurship cells, and one institute can have several of them under different names. Many IIT incubators were set up around research, so deep-tech and hardware companies often find labs, faculty and testing facilities here that a general incubator does not have.
The first thing to settle is who may join. Some IIT programmes take outside founders, some only students, alumni or faculty of the institute, and some run a separate track for each. Read the eligibility on each profile and on the programme's own site before you plan around one.
Check what the programme gives beyond a desk. Lab and equipment access, faculty mentors, and a scheme-funded seed route are the things that make a campus incubator different from a coworking space, and they vary a great deal between institutes.
The numbers on this page
- 66 of the 2429 incubators, accelerators and programmes we list in India (3%) are on this page.
- By organisation type, the most common are Incubator (61), Academic (41) and Government (7). One organisation can carry more than one type.
- By stage focus, the most listed are Ideation (41), Validation (41) and Early Revenue (21).
- By sector, the most listed are Deep Tech (33), HealthTech (17) and AgriTech (15).
- By state, most are in Tamil Nadu (7), Uttar Pradesh (7) and Maharashtra (6).
- By city, most are in Chennai (7), Mumbai (6) and Delhi (5).
- 20 of 66 offer coworking space on site.
Before you apply to an institute incubator
- Is the programme open to outside founders, or only to students, alumni or faculty?
- Which labs, equipment and faculty mentors can a startup actually use?
- Does it have a pre-incubation track for an idea that is not yet a company?
- Does it take equity, and does it host any government seed or grant scheme?
- Do you have to be in residence, or is there a virtual or non-resident option?
- How often does it take applications?
Frequently asked questions
How many IIT incubators are listed?
We list 66 organisations linked to IIT institutes. One institute can run more than one centre, and the same centre may appear under its foundation's name. The count changes as profiles are added and checked.
Can I join a IIT incubator if I did not study there?
Often yes, but not always. Many take outside founders for a fee, equity or a selection process, and some reserve places for the institute's own community. The profile and the programme's own site state who is eligible.
Why does one IIT appear with several programmes?
Institutes tend to run a technology business incubator, an innovation hub and an entrepreneurship cell separately, each with its own funding source and eligibility. They are listed individually so you can compare them.
Do campus incubators take equity?
It varies by programme. Some take a small share, some charge a fee, and some take neither when the support is funded by a government scheme. Confirm the terms with the programme before you commit.