ITEL Foundation

Pick the right door in

ITEL runs more than one route for founders, and they are not interchangeable:

• Rolling incubation: apply any time through the Interactive Screening Process if you are an early-stage deep-tech founder.
• BuildAI: apply only if you are an AI start-up (0-3 years old, or a DPIIT-recognised student start-up) and can meet the cohort's own application deadline and event dates.
• Build Club: this is for students at partner colleges, not for start-ups — if you want to set one up at your campus, write in directly rather than using the screening form.

How the Incubation Program works

• Fill out ITEL's online Interactive Screening Process — it asks about your team and idea.
• Your application is reviewed by the Incubation Committee, which makes the final call on selection.
• If selected, you are onboarded into the Incubation Program with mentorship and access to ITEL's network of technologists and industry partners. A grant may follow, but it is at the Incubation Committee's discretion and subject to eligibility and terms and conditions — treat it as possible, not guaranteed.

How BuildAI works

• Submit the screening application with your pitch deck before the stated deadline.
• Shortlisted teams present at a Demo Day, which checks technical readiness and real-world applicability.
• A separate Pitch Presentation follows, which is where the Incubation Committee assesses impact and incubation-readiness.
• Winners get a shot at incubation with IndiaAI/MeitY and co-incubation with ITEL and IIT Guwahati's Technology Incubation Centre, on top of cash prizes for the top five pitches.

What reviewers seem to look for

• A genuinely hard, high-impact problem rather than an incremental product — ITEL's own language repeatedly frames its interest around "impossible" or complex national-scale challenges.
• For BuildAI specifically: a working AI product that can be demonstrated live, not just a deck.
• Willingness to work inside a consortium — most of ITEL's own initiatives pair start-ups with named academic and industry partners, so founders comfortable collaborating with outside institutions fit the model better.

ITEL Foundation — short for Immersive Technology and Entrepreneurship Labs — is a not-for-profit company based at IIT Madras Research Park in Chennai. It was founded by a group of industry leaders to bring scientists, start-ups and young innovators together to work on large, complex national problems, from urban traffic to cybersecurity. It is not connected to itel, the consumer phone brand; the similar name is a coincidence.

What ITEL does

ITEL runs two kinds of work side by side. The first is a set of its own long-term technology programmes, which it calls Tech Leadership Initiatives. Each one pulls together scientists from several institutions, start-ups and industry partners around a single hard problem: HASHTIC, an elevated-pod urban transport system meant to cut a 15 km commute to 20 minutes; the Urban Waterlogging Mitigation Forum, which maps city drains and builds robotic blockage-clearing systems; a heating-and-cooling programme chasing much higher efficiency from Carnot-cycle heat pumps; the Indian Cybersecurity Academic Network (ICAN), which trains faculty and works with government on digital-infrastructure security; the Vikram Sarabhai AI Lab (VSAIL), building Indic language models and India-focused robotics datasets; Fintech for Inclusion, developing AI voice tools for microfinance; a climate-tech programme spanning green hydrogen, biomass energy, sustainable plastics and water treatment; and RISC-V software work. These initiatives are research and deployment efforts rather than funding programmes a founder applies to directly, though ITEL's incubated start-ups sometimes work alongside them.

The second is nurturing start-ups directly. ITEL's Incubation Program gives selected founders access to mentorship from industry veterans, connections to technologists at partner institutions, and — depending on the Incubation Committee's decision — a grant. It also runs BuildAI, a national platform for AI start-ups that it operates jointly with the IndiaAI Mission and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Separately, Build Club is a student-run maker community on partner college campuses — not a start-up programme, but a talent pipeline that teaches students to build electronics, robots and eventually their own chips.

How to apply

Start-ups apply to the Incubation Program through ITEL's online Interactive Screening Process. Eligible applications are then reviewed by the Incubation Committee, and selected founders are onboarded into the programme with mentorship and, where the committee approves it, a grant. BuildAI uses the same kind of screening application, plus a pitch deck, and moves shortlisted teams through a Demo Day and a Pitch Presentation. Both processes are described as ongoing rather than tied to a single yearly window, though BuildAI runs as a dated cohort with its own application deadline and event dates.

Who can apply

The Incubation Program is aimed at early-stage, deep-tech founders working on complex, high-impact problems, across sectors such as space, healthcare, semiconductors, clean energy, robotics and language technology. BuildAI is narrower: it is open to AI start-ups up to three years old, and student start-ups can apply if they hold DPIIT recognition.

Who runs it

ITEL's Chairman is Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, an Institute Professor at IIT Madras and the founder and former president of the IIT Madras Research Park and Incubation Cell. Its advisory board and technical committee draw on a wide bench of Indian tech and academic leaders, including co-founders of Infosys, HCL and Info Edge, several IIT directors, and CEOs from cybersecurity, telecom and venture capital. ITEL's own incubated companies include names such as Quant Solar, Panoculon Labs, Zealev, Sudoyantra, Intercosmos, Trishul Space, Dexsent Robotics and Reneonix, several of which have gone on to raise funding or win outside grants and awards.

Locations

ITEL's corporate office is at IIT Madras Research Park in Tharamani, Chennai. It also runs a separate Incubation Center in Velachery, Chennai, and keeps an office in Delhi.