Dr. Bansi Dhar Incubation Centre (DBDIC)

Which programme to apply to

DBDIC runs one open route today: its incubation programme, advertised as a rolling call for applications with no closing date. The Entrepreneurial Fellowship Program and the two fellowship tiles on the centre's overview page are all closed, so do not build an application around them.

Read the sector list before anything else. DBDIC backs clean energy, deep tech, sustainability, biotech, food tech, agritech, and innovative materials and infrastructure. The centre sits inside a materials and clean-energy research institute, and its value is the lab bench, the instruments and the researchers next door.

How applications work

• Apply through the Apply Now button on the incubation call for applications on the institute's site. It opens an online application form.
• The form asks you to sign in with a Google account, so use one you can access.
• If the form does not open, write to the institute's general inbox, info@drbansidharinstitute.org, or call the number on the call for applications. The same inbox and number are the contacts given for the programme.
• Older pages on the site still link to two earlier application routes. Use the one on the current call for applications, not those.

What to put in front of them

• Say which stage you are at in their words: idea and needing concept validation, early stage and needing infrastructure and mentorship, or growth stage and preparing to scale. The call is organised around those three groups.
• Name the equipment or lab you actually need. A request that maps onto their nanomaterials, phytochemical, fuel cell, hydrogen, civil engineering or instrumentation facilities is far easier for them to say yes to than a general ask for space.
• Show what you want to validate or test, and over what period. The programme is described in terms of technology development, validation and progression to market readiness.
• If you need analytical work rather than full incubation, the Central Instrumentation Facility takes startup users directly and is worth asking about on its own.

What to settle before you sign

The centre does not publish its terms. Ask, in writing, whether incubation is free or charged, whether DBDIC takes equity, how long a startup stays, who owns intellectual property developed using the institute's labs, and what the in-house seed fund it mentions actually is. None of this is on the site, and all of it matters.

Worth knowing

DBDIC does not publish a startup count or a portfolio, so ask to speak to a company already in the centre before you commit. Its agreement with the Atal Incubation Centre at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University is recent, so ask what co-incubation through that route would give you.

Dr. Bansi Dhar Incubation Centre (DBDIC) is the business incubator of the Dr. Bansi Dhar Institute (DBDI) in Sector 18, Gurugram, Haryana. It takes in innovators and startups working on clean energy, deep tech, sustainability, biotech, food tech, agritech, and new materials and infrastructure, and gives them workspace, laboratory access and mentorship inside a working industrial research institute. The site uses both spellings of the name, Center and Centre.

The institute behind it is older than the incubator. DBDI, formerly the Dr. Bansi Dhar Institute for Industrial Research, traces its lineage to the Shriram Institute for Industrial Research, founded in New Delhi in 1947 and operating from 1950. Its Gurugram branch works on hydrogen and clean energy, nanomaterials and environmental engineering, infrastructure and construction materials, and electrochemical and fuel cell research. DBDIC is named in honour of Dr. Bansi Dhar, who the institute says led it for decades and served as President of FICCI and of the PHD Chamber of Commerce. Alok B. Shriram is President of the institute and Kanika Shriram is a Governor.

How the incubation programme works

There is one open programme, published as a call for applications on the institute's own site. It is framed as a structured path from technology development to validation, funding access and market readiness, run inside an industry-driven research environment. It is open on a rolling basis: the call names no deadline, no cohort size and no intake window.

Startups selected for the programme get co-working space and access to the institute's research labs and prototyping facilities, mentorship from industry experts, researchers, domain specialists and experienced entrepreneurs, funding-support pathways that include guidance on government grants and investor connections, industry linkages for collaboration, pilot projects and commercialisation, and access to the institute's networking and engagement events.

The centre also describes an in-house associated seed fund for startups, but does not explain anywhere on its site what that fund is, who runs it or what a startup would have to do to reach it. Nothing on the site says whether incubation is free or paid, or whether DBDIC takes equity. Both are worth asking about before you apply.

Who can apply

The call for applications invites three groups: innovators at the idea stage who want help validating a concept and building a prototype, early-stage startups that need structured technical support, mentorship and access to advanced infrastructure, and growth-stage startups looking to improve product performance, build partnerships and prepare to scale.

DBDIC does not state any other gate. It does not say you must be an incorporated company, it does not restrict applications to Haryana or the National Capital Region, and it is not limited to students or staff of the institute — outside founders are the audience the call addresses. The sectors are the real filter. This is an incubator for teams with something physical or scientific to build, and a software team with no lab or materials need would get less out of it than a founder who needs instruments, a fume hood or a prototyping bench.

A separate Entrepreneurial Fellowship Program ran with much tighter rules — applicants had to be under 30, hold at least a bachelor's degree in technology, sustainability, business or a related field, and not be employed elsewhere. That fellowship closed on 30 May 2024 and has not been reopened. Two further tiles on the centre's overview page, Greenovate 1.0 Fellowship and a Startup Incubation Program, are both marked applications closed and have no pages behind them.

Facilities

DBDIC describes around 1,000 sq ft of incubation space: co-working desks, meeting rooms, and a workshop with prototyping equipment. The fab lab list covers 3D printers, CNC and milling, a soldering station and electronic workbenches, and storage and warehousing, alongside on-demand links into the institute's laboratories and support with intellectual property and regulatory filings.

The labs are the reason to be here. DBDIC names a Nano Material and Polymers Lab, a Phytochemical Lab, a Central Instrumentation Lab, a Fuel Cell Lab, a Clean Energy and Hydrogen Lab and a Civil Engineering Lab as available to incubated startups. The institute's Central Instrumentation Facility is open to startups as well as to researchers, students and outside institutions, and lists X-ray diffraction, BET surface area analysis, UV-Vis spectrophotometry, FT-IR, simultaneous thermal analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, GC-MS with headspace, ICP-OES and both analytical and preparative HPLC.

Track record

DBDIC publishes no numbers of its own. There is no startup count, no cohort size, no funding figure and no named portfolio company anywhere on the site. Its Our Startups page and its TBI Team page both exist but are empty, and the only person named for the incubation centre is its Program Manager. The counters on the institute's home page — years of experience, employees and innovations — belong to the research institute, not to the incubator, and should not be read as the incubator's record.

What the centre can show instead is recent activity. DBDI signed an agreement with the Atal Incubation Centre at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi, on 30 March 2026, covering co-incubation support, technical and scaling expertise and access to investment opportunities. It ran a From Lab to Market bootcamp with NASSCOM DeepTech on 5 February 2026. It lists academic and research collaborators including The NorthCap University in Gurugram, Amity University Noida, BITS Pilani, the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology in Pune, Lingaya's Vidyapeeth in Faridabad and JECRC University in Jaipur. DBDIC does not claim recognition under any national incubation scheme, and none is stated on its pages.

Where it is, and careers

DBDIC is at Plot No 76 D & E, near HIPA, Sector 18, Gurugram, Haryana 122015, with office hours listed as Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 5:30 pm. The institute posts research positions on its Current Openings page, though the listing there has not been refreshed in some time. Its news and events page carries the Dr. Bansi Dhar Lecture Series and the institute's climate and deep-tech events.

One practical note: our records previously pointed at a separate DBDIC web address, and the institute's own page still links to it, but it does not respond. Everything current sits on the institute's main site.