NIDHI-PRAYAS

NIDHI-PRAYAS exists to get an idea to a physical prototype. FIRST runs it as one of the scheme's centres, and reports startups it has funded under it. No intake window or deadline is published.

What you get

• Grant support for building the prototype, released in tranches.
• A project period of eighteen months from the first tranche.
• Intellectual property that stays with you or your startup.
• The money can go on outsourced R&D, design engineering, consultancy and testing, raw material and consumables, fabrication of a working model, limited business travel, patent filing and contingency.

Who can apply

• An individual innovator with no company: at least eighteen, an Indian citizen with government-approved proof of nationality. If you work in a team, the team agrees a lead innovator who applies and receives the funds.
• Or a co-founder of a startup: incorporated in India, at least fifty-one per cent held by Indian citizens, not more than seven years old, under a turnover ceiling in every year since it started, and not already funded for this prototype by anyone else.
• The idea has to be based on technology and science, and you need a technical background.
• The prototype has to be a physical product completable within eighteen months. Anything already past prototype stage is out.
• Pure software, e-commerce, service solutions and app-based products are excluded, as is funding research or student internships.
• If you are employed or studying, you need a no-objection letter permitting you to apply, giving you time to work on the project, and confirming the intellectual property vests with you.

How selection works: A monitoring committee at the PRAYAS centre you apply to decides. Its decision to approve, reject or reduce the award is final. You cannot take PRAYAS support twice or from two centres, and you cannot hold it alongside NIDHI-EIR.

How to apply: Use the Apply for NIDHI-PRAYAS link on FIRST's scheme page, which opens its own application portal.