Action For India

This is AFI's live call. It is for founders building AI-powered solutions for a climate-ready India, across climate intelligence, energy and cleantech, carbon and emissions, sustainable agriculture and food, water, circular economy and waste, sustainable mobility, and nature and biodiversity. The call opened on 7 September 2026 and closes on 1 October 2026. The cohort launches on 20 October 2026 and runs to January 2027, with a demo day in the first week of February 2027 and a valedictory on 26 February 2027.

What you get

• Mentorship matched to your stage, sector and growth priorities
• AI and product clinics covering AI strategy, product development, data strategy, technology architecture and deployment
• Go-to-market support: customer discovery, market opportunities, corporate engagement and partnerships
• Introductions to corporate, institutional and ecosystem partners for real-world pilots
• Investor readiness work on your pitch, business model, unit economics, impact metrics and fundraising plan
• A demo day in front of investors, corporates and strategic partners

Who can apply

• Founders with a working MVP and initial traction
• A strong founding team and an AI use case that can scale
• No incorporation, geography or category gate is stated

How selection works: Only 15 to 20 startups are selected. AFI's other cohorts run a first-level interview and then a jury round before announcing the cohort, and this page does not say otherwise.

How to apply: Use the apply link on the cohort page before 1 October 2026. Questions go to events@actionforindia.org.

Applications for this cohort ran from 20 May to 15 June 2026 and the cohort is running now, from 1 July to 1 November 2026, with a demo day on 15 October 2026 and a valedictory ceremony on 1 November 2026. The page still carries an "applications are now open" line, but its own timeline closed in June — treat the timeline as the real answer and watch for the next round.

It is for founders working on crop intelligence, quality assessment and grading, precision farming, satellite analytics, farm automation, sensors, supply chain intelligence, market linkage, farmer advisory, climate resilience, rural fintech and food traceability.

What you get

• Mentor mapping based on your startup's stage, drawing on the AFI Agri Council
• AI product clinics on model optimisation, deployment and data strategy
• Go-to-market support through farmer channels, agri enterprises and farmer producer organisations
• Corporate and ecosystem pilot introductions
• Investor readiness: pitch decks, unit economics and fundraising
• A demo day in front of investors and strategic buyers

Who can apply

• Founders with a working MVP and initial traction
• A strong founding team and a scalable AI use case
• Market or farmer validation for what you have built

How selection works: Only 15 to 20 startups are selected. The 2026 round ran first-level interviews from 15 to 20 June, jury rounds from 20 to 25 June, announced the cohort on 28 June and onboarded on 1 July.

How to apply: Applications for this round are closed. Ask events@actionforindia.org when the next agri cohort opens.

The Impact Catalyzer is AFI's cross-sector accelerator for tech-enabled social enterprises that want to scale their impact. It runs online. AFI's pages give its length as both six months and five months, and separately describe it as up to five hours a month per startup across about 500 hours for the whole cohort. The last cohort AFI has published is its first, in 2024, whose 23 startups spanned clean energy, healthcare, agriculture, education, livelihoods and waste management — among them Airth, GreenPod Labs, Godaam Innovations, Fuselage Innovations, Saltech Design Labs, myUDAAN and Woolah Tea. There is no current deadline, so treat it as between intakes and ask before applying.

What you get

• Individual mentoring with a specialist mentor mapped to your leadership, sector and business need
• Monthly Knowledge Building Sessions: webinars and hands-on workshops for the cohort
• Learning Community sessions, a closed peer group the cohort helps run
• AFI Huddle, a many-to-one mentor session for cross-sector input
• Product refinement, masterclasses with ecosystem experts, market access and a startup toolkit
• Investor connects and networking

Who can apply

• Early-stage, tech-driven startup companies
• For-profit social enterprises
• At technology readiness level 5 or beyond
• Operating for more than two years
• Having already received grants, awards or investment does not stop you applying

How selection works: AFI says it looks for a strong founding team, a solution that is innovative with social impact at its core, and a business that can scale.

How to apply: Use the apply link on the programme page. Questions, general or technical, go to events@actionforindia.org.

The AFI Agri Cohort is a five-month accelerator for startups in precision agriculture, automation, agri financing, or dairy and cattle management. It runs virtually, with optional field immersion in key agri regions, and asks for three to four hours a week. AFI states plainly that it is free and that it takes no fees and no equity. Two cohorts are published, each with 16 startups; the second includes eVerse.AI, Saptkrishi Scientific, Agribotic Systems, Yin N Yang Farms and BharatGodam. The last published intake closed on 14 August 2025.

What you get

• Individual mentoring, Knowledge Building Sessions, Learning Community sessions and AFI Huddle
• Product refinement, masterclasses, market access and a startup toolkit
• Investor connects, and a demo day at the end with possible investor and pilot partnerships
• Mentors drawn from agri entrepreneurs, investors, former bureaucrats and innovation leaders

Who can apply

• Early to growth-stage startups with a working MVP or product
• Working in precision farming, market access, farmer producer organisation platforms, water or soil technology, or agri-finance

How selection works: AFI reviews applications on a rolling basis, so applying early helps.

How to apply: Applications for the last round are closed. Write to info@actionforindia.org to ask about the next one.

AISEA is an accelerator for tech-enabled entrepreneurs that AFI runs in partnership with IIT Hyderabad and its i-TIC Foundation. AFI states that the programme is directly funded by the Government of India through the Department of Science and Technology. It focuses on healthcare, agriculture and education, and AFI describes 30 social entrepreneurs as having been through it across two cohorts. Two of those, the soil-tech startup Krishitantra and Urdhvam Environmental Technologies, are named as having gone on to raise from outside investors.

AFI writes about AISEA in the past tense and publishes no dates, no eligibility rules, no selection process and no application route for it. Treat it as a completed programme unless AFI says otherwise, and note that AFI does not state whether the government funding is still running.

What you get

• Support across funding, technology, and industry and government ecosystem introductions
• Mentors, and peer-to-peer learning inside the cohort

How to apply: No application route is published. Ask info@actionforindia.org whether AISEA is still taking applications.

SEAS is AFI's advisory service rather than an accelerator. It is cohort-based, and AFI says it aims to work with more than 20 social entrepreneurs over a year, grouped by stage of growth. It is priced: AFI asks founders to write in for pricing, duration and offering details, so get the cost and what it covers in writing before you commit. The only named cohort on AFI's pages is from 2022, and its 9th annual forum page describes SEAS as a programme to be launched at that forum, which has no announced date — so its current status is unclear.

What you get

• Fundraising help: advice and introductions to funding houses and grant providers
• Consulting across sales, marketing, finance, operations, legal and people
• Bespoke mentoring from leaders across industries, aimed at gaps in specific functions
• Help setting up a governance and advisory board
• Access to AFI's network across government, industry, academia and foundations

How to apply: Register through the get-involved page, or write to info@actionforindia.org for pricing and details.

WISE is AFI's cohort programme for women founders and co-founders running social enterprises. AFI says it supports them through peer-learning programmes, access to industry experts and investors, and mentoring matched to the stage of the enterprise, and that it has built an online networking portal for webinars, podcasts and mentoring sessions. AFI names the eBay Foundation as backing this work.

The programme's page is out of date. Only the 2021 cohort has a published roster — Akshita Sachdeva of Trestle Labs, Neha Kirpal of The Inner Hour, Shveta Raina of Talerang, Jahanvi Joshi of Bleetech Innovations, Pooja Rai of Anthill Creations and Dimple Parmar of ZenOnco.io — and the page carries an unfinished note about a later cohort rather than a date. Ask before you assume it is running.

Who can apply

• Women who found or co-found a social enterprise and want to scale it

How to apply: Use the register link on the programme page, or write to info@actionforindia.org to ask whether a cohort is open.

The Silicon Valley Challenge is AFI's business plan competition. AFI describes it as annual and says it selects five high-potential social enterprises from India for an immersive two-week programme in Silicon Valley, California, with travel and stay covered, meeting technology companies, incubators, investors and other founders. Winners are called SVC Fellows.

The most recent published fellows are from 2021 — among them Sukhmeet Singh of A2P Energy Solution, Anil Kumar Reddy of Donatekart, Abhilash Haridass of WEGoT Utility Solutions, Manoj Sanker of Nemocare Wellness and Aniket Doegar of Haqdarshak. Ten names are listed for a programme described as selecting five. No current call, deadline or application route is published.

How to apply: No open call is published. Write to info@actionforindia.org to ask when the next one runs.

The Annual Forum is AFI's flagship event and its main route into the network for founders who are not in a cohort. It is invite-only and brings together 100 social innovators with 100 people from impact investment, philanthropy, government, industry and public policy for two days of discussion. Eight forums have been held since 2012. The 9th is announced with the theme "Transforming Lives Through Technology and Collaboration" and sectors covering agriculture, education, livelihoods, health, climate and financial inclusion, but AFI has not announced a date.

Selected startups pay a per-person fee to attend. Founders in AFI's own testimonials credit the forum for investor, mentor and government introductions rather than for money.

What you get

• Introductions across financial, government, human and intellectual capital
• Time with mentors who can advise on scaling and stay involved afterwards
• Keynotes and panels, and pairing with a mentor
• A route into the Silicon Valley trek
• Selected founders also get continued consulting support through AFI's advisory service

How to apply: Use the apply link on the forum page. It is invite-only and a fee applies to selected startups, so confirm both before you plan travel.