FIRST TBI – Foundation for Innovation & Research at SASTRA

Choosing the right route

Start by deciding whether you want space and mentoring, or money, or both. If you want to be incubated, use the application form that matches you — Student, Faculty or Technopreneur. Technopreneur is the one to use if you have no connection to SASTRA. If you want funding, apply to whichever of the three schemes fits where you are: NIDHI-PRAYAS if you have an idea and need to build a physical prototype, NIDHI-EIR if you need a year of support to work on a technology business idea full time, and the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme if you are already a DPIIT-recognised company working towards market entry.

Before you apply

• Check that your work fits one of the five domains the forms offer — 3D printing, IoT, virtual reality, robotics or drones. FIRST's current incubatees span a much wider set of sectors, so being outside those five is not a hard no, but your application has to pick one.
• If you are going for the seed fund scheme, get DPIIT recognition first. It is a precondition, and you obtain it from Startup India, not from FIRST.
• If you are going for NIDHI-PRAYAS and you are employed or still studying, arrange your no-objection letter early. It has to permit you both to apply and to keep the intellectual property, and it takes longer to get than the form takes to fill.
• NIDHI-PRAYAS will not consider a product that is already past prototype stage, and it excludes software-only, e-commerce, service and app-based products. If that is you, look at the seed fund scheme instead.
• You cannot hold NIDHI-EIR and NIDHI-PRAYAS at the same time, or take PRAYAS support twice or from two centres.

How applications work

The incubation forms are short web forms on FIRST's own site with no closing date announced, so you can send one at any time. The Technopreneur form asks for a problem statement, how you came to want to start something, why you want to be at FIRST specifically, and a CV — so write those three answers before you open the form rather than in it. The two NIDHI schemes are applied for through FIRST's own application portal, which its scheme pages link to.

What reviewers look for

For NIDHI-PRAYAS the test is whether a physical prototype can realistically be finished within the project period and whether there is a route from it to a product someone buys; it wants applicants with a technical background and ideas grounded in science or engineering. For NIDHI-EIR the stated preferences are ideas with real technical uncertainty or a long road ahead, ideas built on technology or intellectual property from publicly funded research, and ideas with social impact — and it explicitly discourages anything with little technical novelty or less than six months to market. The seed fund scheme asks whether technology is genuinely at the core of the product, business model or distribution, and whether there is market fit and room to scale.

Two things to check with them directly

FIRST does not publish what incubation costs, whether it takes equity, or how long a residency runs. It also does not publish a phone number. Ask by email before you commit.

FIRST TBI is the technology business incubator on the SASTRA Deemed to be University campus at Tirumalaisamudram in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. Its full name is the Foundation for Innovation & Research at SASTRA Technology Business Incubator, and it is a section 8 company in its own right rather than a department of the university. It was set up with the Department of Science and Technology, and it runs its own site, its own application forms and its own labs, separately from SASTRA's academic admissions.

What it works on

FIRST names five thrust areas: 3D printing, the Internet of Things, virtual reality, robotics and drones. Its earliest description of itself is narrower still, naming only the Internet of Things and 3D printing as the two fields it would focus on. What it has actually taken in is wider than either list. Its own directory of current incubatees sorts them into sixteen categories, including agritech, biotech, medtech, edtech, defence, blockchain, power electronics, renewable energy, automotive and enterprise software alongside the five thrust areas. So a founder outside 3D printing and IoT is not automatically out of scope, but the labs and the in-house technical help are built around hardware, sensors and immersive media.

How programmes work

There are two ways in. The first is a direct application for incubation, through one of three forms on FIRST's own site — one for students, one for faculty, and one labelled Technopreneur. The Technopreneur form is the route for founders with no tie to the campus: it asks for your current location, your educational background, the problem you are working on, why you want to be an incubatee at FIRST, and a CV, and it asks you to pick one of the five thrust areas as your domain. None of the three forms states an eligibility rule in words, and none announces an intake window or a closing date, so they read as rolling.

The second way in is through the three national funding schemes FIRST delivers as a centre. NIDHI-PRAYAS is for converting an idea into a physical prototype and is open either to an individual innovator with no company or to a co-founder of a young startup. NIDHI-EIR is a twelve-month fellowship for someone leaving education or a job to pursue a technology business idea full time, and it comes with office space and administrative support at the incubator. The Startup India Seed Fund Scheme is for startups already recognised by DPIIT and incorporated within the last two years, and it covers proof of concept through to market entry and commercialisation. All three are national schemes with published rules; none of them requires any connection to SASTRA.

Who can apply

Nothing on FIRST's pages restricts incubation to SASTRA students, staff or alumni, and the separate Technopreneur form exists precisely for applicants from outside. The real gates come from the schemes rather than from the incubator. NIDHI-PRAYAS asks that you be at least eighteen and an Indian citizen with government-approved proof of nationality; if you already have a company it must be incorporated in India, majority-held by Indian citizens, under seven years old, under a turnover ceiling, and not already funded for the same prototype elsewhere. It will not fund anything already past prototype stage, and it excludes pure software, e-commerce, service solutions and app-only products. If you are employed or studying you need a no-objection letter from your employer or institution. NIDHI-EIR asks for a science or engineering degree or diploma, full-time commitment, and that you not be a significant shareholder in another company. The seed fund scheme asks for DPIIT recognition first, which you obtain from Startup India rather than from FIRST.

Facilities

FIRST occupies a dedicated block of its own with a design facility, an innovation and training centre, a rapid prototyping centre, incubation and office space, and a board room. The 3D printing facility runs a large bank of printers working in polymers, resins, ceramics, biologicals and metals. The IoT facility holds sensors, modules, kits, signal generators, web nodes and transceivers, with cloud storage attached for collecting and analysing data from edge devices, and the areas named for it are agriculture, smart energy, smart grid, security and healthcare. Separate labs exist for virtual and augmented reality content. FIRST publishes a virtual tour of the space.

SASTRA also hosts a second, separate incubator called ABLEST, established with support from BIRAC and the Department of Biotechnology for diagnostics and therapeutics, with containment and sequencing facilities. It is a different entity with its own incubatees and is not part of FIRST.

Scale

FIRST's own counters report the numbers it is willing to stand behind: startups scaled up, startups funded under each of the schemes it delivers, patents, trademarks and copyrights filed, mentors on its panel, and jobs created by its portfolio. Its pages give different counts for how many startups it has supported in total — the university's own innovation page gives a much lower figure than the incubator's homepage, and the list of current incubatees is a third number again — so no single total is quoted here. The named list of current incubatees runs to roughly seventy companies.

Who runs it

The chief executive in charge is Dr. V. Leela Vinodhan, with a small operations, accounts and technical team on site. The governing body is chaired in effect by SASTRA's vice chancellor, Dr. S. Vaidhyasubramaniam, who is also named as Director of FIRST, and includes a scientist from the Department of Science and Technology alongside senior people from TCS, TVS Sons, PayPal India and City Union Bank.

Locations and contact

FIRST TBI is on the SASTRA campus at Tirumalaisamudram, Thanjavur. It has one location. General and incubation enquiries go to its programme inbox; it publishes no phone number. FIRST posts event highlights, workshops and webinars on its site, and it has no careers page.