Startup Grants & Funding for AI, SaaS & Enterprise Tech Startups

Most Indian funding programs do not have "AI" in the title. They are written for "IT and ITeS", "emerging technologies", "software products", "deep tech" or "Industry 4.0", and an AI or SaaS company qualifies under one of those headings. A handful are explicitly about artificial intelligence; far more will fund you without ever naming it.

As of 18 September 2026 our catalogue holds 167 programs that list AI, SaaS and enterprise tech as an eligible sector, of which 99 are currently taking applications. The list on this page is that set, filtered live — so it includes the ones written for software generally, not only the ones that say AI.

The practical consequence: searching program titles for "AI" is the wrong way to look. Filter by what you are (your stage, your state, your entity type) rather than by what you build.

Founders usually arrive looking for a grant. Grants are the smallest slice of what is actually available to a software company in India. Across those 167 programs:

Subsidies are the largest group and the most overlooked. They are not grants — you spend first and claim later — but they are the least competitive money on this page, because they are administrative rather than selective. If your unit is registered in a state with an IT policy, you may be able to claim back part of your R&D spend, your rent, your interest cost, your patent filing fee or your certification cost, on a form rather than a pitch. Examples currently in the catalogue, each with the ceiling the program's own notification states: UP's R&D expenditure reimbursement (up to ₹5 crore), Punjab's IT/ITeS capital subsidy (up to ₹2.5 crore), Chhattisgarh's 20% subsidy on R&D machinery for electronics, AI and IT units, and Goa's special incentive allowance under its IT policy (up to ₹2 crore).

Read every one of those as a ceiling for the largest qualifying claim, not as a number you should expect. The ceiling is what the scheme allows; what you receive is a percentage of what you actually spent, capped by that figure.

Taking the stated maximum of every program on this page that publishes one (112 of them), the spread is:

• Lower quarter: up to ₹7 lakh
• Middle: up to ₹45 lakh
• Upper quarter: up to ₹1.5 crore

So the typical program on this list tops out in the tens of lakhs, and the crore-plus figures come almost entirely from state capital and infrastructure subsidies, where the claim is tied to substantial physical or R&D spend you have already made.

Two honest caveats. These are ceilings, not averages — the ceiling is the largest award the scheme permits, and most awards land below it. And a ₹45 lakh grant released against four milestones over two years is a different instrument from ₹45 lakh of equity on day one; compare the release schedule and the strings, not just the headline.

Of the 163 eligibility rules behind these programs, 76 — about 47% — restrict who can apply by state. That is the single biggest filter on this page, and it is bigger than any filter about what you build.

This cuts both ways. If you are registered in a state with an active IT or startup policy, there is a set of money available to you that a founder one state over simply cannot claim. If you are in a state without one, roughly half of this list is closed to you before anyone reads your idea, and your realistic pool is the central schemes, the competitions and the accelerators.

It is worth knowing this before you start writing. The most common wasted week in grant applications is a strong application to a scheme whose state you do not qualify for.

By contrast, the gates founders worry about most turn out to be rare here. Only 7 of the 163 require DPIIT recognition and only 6 require an MSME registration. DPIIT recognition is worth having — it is free, and it is the entry condition for the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme, among others — but on this list it is not the wall it is often assumed to be.

Counting the stages these programs accept:

• Working product: 61 programs
• Revenue: 42
• Idea only: 32
• Profitable: 6

The centre of gravity is a working product. If you have something running, even without revenue, most of this page is open to you. If you are pre-product, there is a real set of 32 programs to aim at — largely idea-stage grants, student and campus programs, and challenges — but the honest advice is that your odds improve more from shipping a prototype than from writing a better application.

Entity type is rarely the blocker people expect. Across these rules, 113 accept a private limited company, 104 an LLP, 93 a partnership, 80 a proprietorship and 74 an OPC — and 27 will consider you before you have incorporated at all.

1. Filter by your state first. It removes about half the list either way, and it removes it on a fact rather than a judgement.
2. Filter by your stage. A program that wants revenue will not make an exception for a good prototype.
3. Separate the claims from the contests. The subsidies are paperwork against spend you have already made — they have a deadline but no competition, so they are the highest expected value per hour of work. Do those first if you qualify.
4. Shortlist three grants or challenges, not fifteen. Grant applications reward depth. Three serious applications beat fifteen recycled ones, and the reviewers on these panels read a lot of recycled ones.
5. Check the release schedule before the amount. Milestone-released money changes what you can plan around; so does a program that reimburses only after you have spent.

Every program on this page links to its own page here, which carries the eligibility, the documents it asks for, the deadline and the official link to apply.