PSG-STEP

Pick the scheme that matches your stage

PSG-STEP is not one programme with one deadline — it is a cluster of government-backed schemes, each aimed at a different point in a founder's journey:

• Just an idea, no company yet: DST NIDHI-PRAYAS (grant) or the DST NIDHI Entrepreneurs-in-Residence programme.
• You have a proof of concept and want to build an MVP: MeitY TIDE 2.0's Entrepreneur-in-Residence or Grant tracks.
• You already have an MVP and are scaling up: the MeitY TIDE 2.0 Scale-up Investment Grant, or TANSEED through StartupTN.
• You need repayable capital for product development, testing or a patent filing: the Seed Fund Support Scheme (interest-bearing, not a grant).
• You work in biotech, especially social-impact health tech: BIRAC SPARSH or the wider BIRAC BioNEST centre.
• You're building for defence or the armed forces: apply through an iDEX DISC or PRIME challenge with PSG-STEP as your partner incubator.

Know what each scheme actually gives you

• NIDHI-PRAYAS and NIDHI-EIR support the idea-to-prototype stage and require you to register for pre-incubation or incubation at PSG-STEP for the programme's duration.
• MeitY TIDE 2.0 is really three linked tracks — EiR, Grant, and a later Scale-up Investment Grant — evaluated separately by committee.
• TANSEED is awarded on an equity model, unlike PSG-STEP's other schemes, which take no equity.
• The Seed Fund Support Scheme is a loan with a set interest rate and repayment period, not a grant — budget for repaying it.

How applications work

• Most schemes route through PSG-STEP's application portal; look for the "Apply Now" button on the specific scheme's page.
• NIDHI-PRAYAS eligibility is specific: applicants must be Indian citizens at least 18 years old, or an existing PRAYAS-centre company under two years old with no significant revenue. A team must name one lead applicant, who receives the funds on the team's behalf.
• The programme gives preference to bootstrapped founders, those with a clear commercialisation roadmap, women and young innovators.
• You can use NIDHI-PRAYAS support only once, and not if you've already received similar government support for the same idea.
• BioNEST's short formats (BioIgnite internships, BioCOLAB lab access) are registered separately through their own sign-up forms, not the main application portal.

Before you apply

• Match your stage to the scheme. Applying to a prototype-stage grant with only an idea (or vice versa) wastes a review cycle.
• Check whether the fund is a grant or a loan. The Seed Fund Support Scheme must be repaid with interest; NIDHI-PRAYAS, NIDHI-EIR and MeitY TIDE 2.0 do not.
• Note the equity difference. TANSEED takes a stake in your company; PSG-STEP's other schemes do not.
• Questions: write to step@psgtech.edu.

PSG-STEP is a technology business incubator run by PSG College of Technology in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. It was set up in 1998 with backing from the Department of Science & Technology, IDBI and ICICI, and now works with the National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB), BIRAC and MeitY as well. It sits inside the PSG College campus and draws on the college's labs and faculty across engineering and science departments.

How programmes work

PSG-STEP does not run one flagship cohort. Instead it hosts a cluster of government schemes side by side, each with its own rules, and a founder applies to the one that fits their stage and sector. DST NIDHI-PRAYAS is a pre-incubation grant for turning an idea into a proof of concept, open to individual innovators and very young companies with no significant revenue yet. The DST NIDHI Entrepreneurs-in-Residence programme is built for people thinking about leaving a job to start up: it offers guidance from experienced entrepreneurs, a wider network and desk space while the idea takes shape. MeitY TIDE 2.0 covers the next stretch of the journey, from an Entrepreneur-in-Residence stage through a proof-of-concept grant to a follow-on scale-up grant for startups working in IoT, AI, blockchain, robotics and similar technologies across healthcare, edtech, agritech, fintech, clean-tech and transport. On the biotech side, BIRAC's SPARSH programme funds social innovators working on ageing and health, and the wider BIRAC BioNEST initiative runs shorter formats too: a 15-day internship for students and professionals learning bioprocess techniques, flexible-timing lab access for PhD scholars, and a monthly community meetup for the region's bio-entrepreneurs. PSG-STEP is also a recognised iDEX partner incubator, mentoring founders and MSMEs who compete for Indian Army, Navy, Air Force and defence-PSU innovation challenges, and it is one of StartupTN's implementation partners for TANSEED, a seed fund that takes a 3% equity stake in return for support. Separately, its own Seed Fund Support Scheme is repayable seed capital rather than a grant: it carries interest and a multi-year repayment period, aimed at startups that need money for product development, testing, trial marketing or filing a patent.

Who can apply

Taken together, the schemes cover a founder from a bare idea (NIDHI-PRAYAS, NIDHI-EIR) through a working prototype (MeitY TIDE 2.0) to an early revenue-stage company raising a seed round (TANSEED, the Seed Fund Support Scheme). Most of the funding schemes are open to technology startups generally, though several specify eligibility: NIDHI-PRAYAS wants Indian citizens at least 18 years old, or existing PRAYAS-centre companies under two years old with no significant revenue, and gives preference to bootstrapped founders, women and young innovators with a clear commercialisation plan. TANSEED sets aside higher amounts for green-tech, rural-impact and women-led startups. BIRAC SPARSH is scoped specifically to social innovation in ageing and health.

Facilities

PSG-STEP runs roughly 1,00,000 sq ft of incubation space split across information technology, electronics, nanotechnology, mechanical engineering and biotechnology. Inside that footprint sits the DST-NIDHI Centre of Excellence in Advanced Technologies, a roughly 50,000 sq ft campus meant to hold around 150 startups, with an Embedded Development Centre, an IoT Development Centre, a PCB manufacturing facility and an EMI/EMC compliance lab it runs jointly with PSG-Qualsys. On the biotech side, its BIRAC BioNEST centre gives incubatees wet labs, open-innovation labs and named equipment: a lyophilizer, an HPLC system, a microplate reader, a cell culture facility, a 10-litre bioreactor and RT-PCR/PCR machines, bookable through an online link. There is also a dedicated nanotechnology research, innovation and incubation centre on campus.

Scale

PSG-STEP's own incubatee-profile pages currently list 61 present incubatees and 327 graduated ones — companies working across software, biotech, electronics, agritech, healthtech and more. Recent rounds show the scale of individual schemes: in its fifth round, TANSEED drew 348 applications, took 35 startups to the final pitch and funded 14; the fourth round drew 228 applications across 23 sectors, evaluated by around 75 experts, and funded 17 of 25 finalists. Named results include four MeitY TIDE 2.0 scale-up grant recipients and a run of companies recognised as iDEX defence-innovation challenge winners, alongside more than a dozen companies that used PSG-STEP's TDB/NSTEDB-backed Seed Fund Support Scheme for product development.

Who runs it

PSG-STEP is governed by PSG College of Technology's own leadership: Shri L Gopalakrishnan, Managing Trustee of PSG Institutions, chairs it, and the college's Principal, Dr K Prakasan, is Vice-Chairman. Day-to-day operations sit with an Executive Director and a small team of programme, technical and project staff. The college itself was founded by the PSG & Sons' Charities Trust in 1926 and set up as a college in 1951, on the same Coimbatore campus PSG-STEP now uses for its labs and centres of excellence.

Locations

PSG-STEP is on the PSG College of Technology campus at Peelamedu, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 641004.