IITI ACE Foundation, IIT Indore

Work out which door you need

ACE Foundation runs two application routes and they are not interchangeable. If you are a current student, faculty member or staff member at IIT Indore, use the internal application. If you have no connection to the institute, use the external one. Being unaffiliated is not a disadvantage here: the foundation says plainly that its programmes are open to everyone regardless of affiliation.

Then check which programme is actually running. Incubation is the only live track. Pre-incubation and acceleration are both described on the programmes page but marked as coming soon, so if you are at idea stage or already scaling, write to the team before you spend time on an application.

How applications work

• Start from the Incubate page and pick the internal or external application.
• You can fill the online form, for which you will need to be signed in to a Google account, or download the application form as a PDF instead.
• The application asks for your startup details, so have your product description, team and business model ready in writing first.
• Questions about the process go to acefoundation@iiti.ac.in.
• There is no published deadline or cohort start date. The site says applications for the next intake are open, so if you are ready, apply rather than waiting for a date.

How selection works

Selection runs in four steps: you submit the application, the team screens it and sets up an interview, shortlisted startups pitch to a selection committee, and those accepted complete documentation and onboard.

Reviewers are told to look for an early-stage startup or an innovative idea, a business model that can scale, and a committed founding team. So the pitch that fits this process is one that shows a real product or a well-tested idea, a market big enough to grow into, and founders who will stay with it for the full programme.

Before you commit

• Ask for the incubation agreement in writing. The foundation states that it charges a fee that depends on how long you stay incubated, and that it takes a small equity stake, with exact terms discussed during the application. The policy document on the site does not currently open, so get the terms from the team directly.
• Ask which no-objection certificate applies to you. There are four, split by part-time or full-time and by whether you sit on the premises; the download links are not working, so request the form by email.
• Ask what the lab access actually covers. Lab facilities are mentioned but not described, and the institute's own research labs are a separate matter from the incubator's.
• Treat the published startup, founder, mentor and patent counts as the foundation's own claims. They are undated and its pages give different values, so do not size the programme on them — ask how many startups are in the current cohort instead.

IITI ACE Foundation is the incubation centre of the Indian Institute of Technology Indore, on the institute's campus at Simrol on Khandwa Road, about 25 km south of Indore in Madhya Pradesh. It describes itself as an incubation center at IIT Indore that supports startups with mentorship, funding and resources. IIT Indore's own site lists two bodies under its incubation heading: ACE Foundation, which is the general startup door covered on this page, and Drishti CPS Foundation, the institute's cyber-physical systems hub, which we list separately.

You do not have to be part of IIT Indore to apply. The foundation states that its programmes are open to all aspiring entrepreneurs and startups regardless of their affiliation with IIT Indore, and it runs two separate application routes for exactly that reason: an internal route for current students, faculty and staff of the institute, and an external route for everyone else. Both routes lead to the same selection process.

How programmes work

Three programmes are described. Only one of them, Incubation, is running today; the foundation's own programme data marks Pre-Incubation and Acceleration as coming soon, so there is currently no way to apply to either.

Incubation is for a startup that already has a working product and wants to reach the market. It runs about twelve months, and the foundation says it can be extended depending on how a startup is progressing. What it lists for participants is dedicated mentorship, seed funding opportunities, product development support, go-to-market strategy, legal and financial advisory, and access to its investor network. Its incubate page adds one-to-one mentoring sessions with industry people and founders, and office space on campus.

Pre-Incubation, when it opens, is planned as a three-to-six month track from idea to a first product, covering idea validation and market research, business model development, help building the product, customer discovery, pitch deck work, and access to co-working space. Acceleration, also three to six months, is planned for startups ready to scale, covering growth strategy, investor connections, hiring, expansion, fundraising preparation and executive coaching. Neither has an intake.

The foundation says it charges a fee that varies with how long a startup stays incubated, and separately that it takes a small equity stake in return for its support, with the exact terms settled during the application process. Be aware that its published incubation policy document, which would set out those terms, does not currently open.

Who can apply

For the external route, the stated requirements are an early-stage startup or an innovative business idea, a business model that can scale, a committed founding team, and a willingness to commit for the length of the programme. For the internal route you must be a current student, faculty member or staff member of the institute, with an innovative idea or early-stage startup, and the same commitment. No incorporation requirement, no state restriction and no category restriction appears anywhere on its pages. The foundation also says it welcomes applications at the idea stage, though the pre-incubation track built for that stage has not opened yet.

Selection runs in four steps. You submit an application with your startup details, the team reviews it and schedules an interview, shortlisted founders pitch to a selection committee, and those taken in complete the paperwork and join. Four no-objection certificate forms are described for incubatees, covering part-time and full-time incubation both inside and outside the foundation's premises, though the download links for them are not working at the moment.

Facilities

The foundation offers office and co-working space at Simrol, with meeting rooms and internet, and says startups get access to lab facilities. It does not name any specific lab or list equipment, and the institute's own research facilities are not presented as the incubator's.

Scale

Around 45 portfolio companies are listed by name, each marked as currently incubated or graduated. They run across transportation, waste management, connected devices, electric vehicles, telecommunications, renewable energy, artificial intelligence, human resources, healthcare and medical devices, robotics, data, education, manufacturing, financial technology, semiconductors, food, IT services, agriculture, textiles, construction, retail, drones and biotechnology, so in practice this is a sector-agnostic incubator. Named companies include Bombay Powerco, which makes electric vehicle charging systems; Scas Technology, which builds semi-autonomous monitoring drones; Help Yourself, which is developing a diagnostic kit for early detection in oral submucous fibrosis; Inventors Den, behind a real-time water quality monitoring device; and Sevit Healthcare, working on polypeptides.

Its headline counters are worth treating with care. The site reports more than 100 startups and more than 1,000 young founders, alongside more than 10 mentors and more than 10 patents filed, but it gives no date for any of them, its about page repeats the same claims with different values, and its mentors page still carries example profiles rather than real ones. Read them as the foundation's own claims, not as audited numbers.

Who runs it

Prof. Mobin Shaikh, FRSC is the chief executive, with Shubham Purey as chief financial officer and Aman Sinha as manager; Sonal Rai and Prashant Kaushal are listed as staff. Dr. Swaminathan R is named as chief executive until 2025 and Rajiv Pandey as finance head until 2022. The board of directors is Professor Suhas S. Joshi and Prof. Suman Mukhopadhyay.

Careers and events

The foundation runs a careers page and has advertised for an incubation manager, with a preference for candidates holding an MBA or a master's degree, or experience in startup incubation, innovation management, entrepreneurship, technology commercialisation or business development. Its events page lists entrepreneurship programmes it has run, including a five-day advanced entrepreneurship skill development programme at a hotel in Indore, an online startup evaluation and pitching session, and an entrepreneurship awareness programme hosted at Awantika University.