MAC cohort programme

MAC's core offering is a cohort-based programme with set milestones, open to student, faculty and outside founders alike. The centre splits its effort 80:20 — most of it on acceleration, sharpening the product, testing the model against real customers and connecting founders to mentors and investors, and the rest on slower incubation work for teams that need help with intellectual property, compliance structuring or building internal systems. Startups run on either an accelerator track or an incubation track, and the standing offerings are the same for both. MAC says it is in the first of three planned phases and is onboarding its first cohort.

What you get

• Mentorship from a network of over 110 mentors, domain experts, serial entrepreneurs, industry veterans and technical advisers, through one-to-one sessions and group advisory roundtables
• Prototype and lab access via tie-ups with partner technical institutes and MDI's Neuroscience Lab
• Go-to-market support: customer discovery, early sales outreach, digital presence and finding your first pilot users
• Demo Days and pitch platforms in front of investors and corporates
• Funding-readiness help — deck work, financial modelling, investor introductions and practice pitches, plus connections to angels, micro-VCs and grant programmes
• Guidance on incorporation, protecting intellectual property, co-founder agreements and DPIIT startup recognition
• Workshops on design thinking, financial planning, investor communication, digital marketing and technology basics
• Access to events and networks at MDI and the partner institutes

Who can apply

• Undergraduate and postgraduate students with an idea at concept or early prototype stage
• Faculty, researchers and PhD scholars with a technology ready to commercialise
• External founders with a validated idea or early traction, with no MDI connection needed
• Social innovators building for a measurable social, environmental or community outcome
• A clearly defined problem statement with some market research behind it
• A committed founding team; solo founders are considered on merit
• Openness to mentorship, feedback and iteration, and time for the programme milestones
• A preference, not a rule, for tech-enabled, scalable or social impact ventures

How selection works: a panel screens and shortlists applications, and says shortlisted teams are told within two weeks. Shortlisted founders then have a conversation of about fifteen minutes with the committee about their vision and fit for the programme. Selected startups are onboarded into the cohort.

How to apply: MAC refers to an online application form but does not publish a link to it, so write to the centre at mac@mdi.ac.in with your idea brief, team details and current stage, or call its office. Cohort dates, programme length, any fee and whether equity is taken are not published — ask when you write.

MAC states that it does not run its own corpus fund and that funding access is facilitated rather than disbursed. Grant mapping, structured investor access and a dedicated fund are described as later phases.