AIC BAMU Foundation

Which route fits you

• If you have an idea but no company yet, ask about pre-incubation. It is the one route that does not need a registered entity, and the policy says it is open to teams from BAMU, from other universities, and to entities with no university link at all.
• If you already have a registered company with a prototype or first customers, apply for incubation.
• If you have a registered company but do not need a desk in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, ask about virtual incubation.

How applying works

• Everything starts at the startup registration form on the centre's own site. Every programme poster on the centre's programmes page points to that same form, so there is no separate application per programme.
• The form asks for founder details, your company name, incorporation year, DPIIT recognition number if you have one, legal status, team size, stage (prototype, minimum viable product or commercialised) and your focus area. Have those ready.
• The form accepts applicants who describe themselves as an individual, a student, a startup, a farmer or a professional, and it accepts "not registered" as a legal status — so it is worth submitting even before you incorporate, as long as you understand that full incubation will need a company.
• Calls for applications go out twice a year. If you miss one, register anyway so you are on file for the next.
• You can reach the centre at ceo.aic@bamu.ac.in, or through its listed phone numbers.

How selection works

• Applications are screened first for whether the idea has potential and whether the team is credible.
• Shortlisted applicants get an application form and the centre's pitch-deck template.
• You then pitch in person to the Startups Selection Committee, which meets twice a year. Plan on travelling to the campus for this.
• If you are selected, a draft incubation agreement is shared and you have to agree its terms before the application is processed further.

What to get right before you apply

• Be clear that you are technology-based or building something with social impact if you have no connection to the university — that is the condition the policy sets for outside startups.
• Expect to be asked about a mentor or advisor from the university. You do not need one to apply, and the centre says it will help you find one, but showing you have thought about the link helps.
• If a promoter is a serving government or organisation employee, start the no-objection certificate early — it is a hard requirement.
• If you are a full-time student anywhere, check who holds the executive roles in your company. The policy will not admit a company where a full-time student holds one.
• Do not apply if your company teaches courses or runs training programmes — the policy excludes them outright.
• Ask for the fee schedule and the security deposit up front. Both pre-incubation and incubation charge a fee in advance, and the amounts are not on the website.

AIC BAMU Foundation is the Atal Incubation Centre on the campus of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad), Maharashtra. It is a separate Section-8 company under the Companies Act 2013, promoted by the university and supported by the Atal Innovation Mission at NITI Aayog and by the Maharashtra State Innovation Society under the state's Department of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. It sits on the university campus at Jaisinghpura, near Soneri Mahal.

How incubation works

The centre offers three kinds of support, set out in its own incubation policy. Pre-incubation is for a group or team that has an idea but has not yet registered a company; it runs for a year and is meant to carry an idea to a proof of concept. Incubation is for a registered startup that already has an early prototype, or a product or service that some first customers are using. Virtual incubation is for a registered startup that wants the mentoring and the network but does not need a desk at the centre.

Admission runs on a published cycle rather than a rolling one. The centre calls for applications twice a year, screens what comes in, then sends shortlisted applicants an application form and a pitch-deck template. Everyone who gets that far pitches in person to a Startups Selection Committee, which also meets twice a year. Selected startups then read and agree a draft incubation agreement before they join.

Pre-incubation and incubation both carry a fee, paid in advance, plus a security deposit set out in the incubation services agreement. The fee schedule itself is not published on the centre's website, so ask for it when you apply.

Who can apply

You do not have to be from the university. The policy says pre-incubation support can go to teams from BAMU, from other universities, or to separate entities with a valid business idea. For full incubation, a startup with no BAMU link has to be technology-based or building something with social impact, and the centre encourages it to find a mentor or board advisor from the university — though it will admit you first and give you time to find one.

Incubation itself needs a registered company: a private or public limited company or an LLP under the Companies Act 2013. That can be relaxed for six months if you sign a letter of intent and incorporate within that window. Virtual incubation has the same requirement, relaxed to six months or a year for recent graduates.

A few gates are worth knowing before you spend time on an application. Companies that teach courses or run training programmes, including vocational ones, are explicitly not eligible. A startup that has already graduated from the centre cannot be incubated again for the same venture. If a promoter is a serving government or organisation employee, the centre needs a no-objection certificate from the employer. Students in a full-time degree anywhere may promote a company but may not hold an executive position in it, and full-time BAMU students additionally need a no-objection certificate and a self-declaration.

The centre's own sector list is health tech, agri tech, SaaS, manufacturing, food processing, waste management, AI and machine learning, and electric vehicles. A separate line on its about page invites ideas built on IoT, AR, VR and machine learning applied to healthcare and auto-industrial uses.

Facilities

The centre runs an AI and machine-learning laboratory built around a DGX system, an IoT fab lab, an AR-VR laboratory, a proof-of-concept lab, a 3D makers lab, co-working space, an innovation and invention centre for intellectual property work, and a central digital library. Incubatees in the building get office space, internet, furniture, a library, a meeting and conference room with projection, tele and video conferencing, and a shared secretarial pool. An MBA student can be assigned to an incubated company for management support on request.

Alongside that, incubatees get access to the university's own campus resources: the RUSA Centre for Advanced Sensor Technology, the Paul Herbart Center for DNA Barcoding, the Knowledge Resource Centre, and the departments of physics, chemistry, chemical technology and computer science and IT. Those belong to the university, not to the Foundation, and reach founders as campus access.

Mentoring is structured rather than ad hoc. The head of the centre meets incubated company chief executives at least once a month for a strategy review. Every incubated company has to take a faculty advisor as a technology mentor, and empanelled specialist mentors are available for particular areas, often starting unpaid with the option to move to a paid arrangement later.

Scale

The centre's Incubated Startups page lists 436 companies by name with their founders, which is the figure this page uses. Its home and about pages carry a separate counter reading 503 or more startups, and the startup registration block on the home page shows a much smaller running total of registrations through the form — the three numbers are not reconciled anywhere on the site, and none of them is dated. The named list includes agritech, waste management, electric mobility, robotics, dental and pharmaceutical companies alongside a long tail of trading and manufacturing firms.

Who runs it

Amit Ranjan is chief executive officer and Vaibhav Khairnar is chief operating officer and programme manager. The board is chaired by the university's Vice Chancellor, Prof. Dr. Vijay J. Fulari, and includes the Pro-Vice Chancellor, the current and a former Mission Director of the Atal Innovation Mission, the chief executive of the Maharashtra State Innovation Society, and industry directors from Bajaj Auto, Grind Masters, Nath Biogene and Deogiri Nagari Sahkari Bank. A separate Incubator Seed Fund Management Committee is published, with members from SIDBI, MSINS, FITT at IIT Delhi, IIM Bodhgaya, an angel network and industry.

The centre posts its own recruitment notices on a careers page and its activity on a media and events page.