Qmet Tech, IIT Bombay

Which programme is for you

Only one of Qmet's programmes takes applications from companies, and that is NextSense. The PARIMANA fellowships and the summer internship are for students, PhD scholars and post-doctoral researchers at Indian institutions, applying with a faculty mentor at their own college. If you are a founder, NextSense is your route, and the Laser Hackathon is worth a look if your team builds laser or photonic hardware.

Before you apply to NextSense

Check the hard gates first, because they are not negotiable and they are checked at the door.

• You must be a company. There is no individual or idea-only route.
• DPIIT recognition must be in place when you apply, or you have to give an undertaking that you are eligible for it. Funds are released only after recognition comes through, so getting it early removes a delay.
• Your holding company must be registered in India, your IP must sit in India, and the company must be majority Indian-owned, with Indian promoters holding at least 51 percent.
• Your work has to be in quantum sensing, imaging or metrology. Adjacent deeptech will not fit this call.

Get the paperwork ready

The application asks for a fixed document set, and assembling it takes longer than writing the form. You will need your certificate of incorporation, memorandum and articles of association, the company PAN card, your DPIIT recognition certificate or an eligibility undertaking, your Udyam or MSME certificate if you have one, and the last three years of balance sheet and profit and loss statements if they exist. You also submit budget details and a milestone-based statement of what you need money for, in Qmet's own format.

How selection works

Applications are accepted only through the form linked from the programme page, which runs on Qmet's own application portal. Shortlisted applicants may be called to give a pitch presentation, and the presentation has to be prepared in the prescribed format and submitted with the application, so build it before you submit rather than after. Everyone shortlisted is told by email. Qmet states that its decision is final.

What reviewers are looking for

Read the stated criteria as a checklist for your proposal. They want a product or service with market fit, a viable route to commercialization and room to scale, with technology at the core rather than bolted on. The staged funding tells you how to pitch: be honest about whether you are at idea, proof of concept, or ready to scale, and ask against that stage. Funding is given as equity or compulsorily convertible preference shares, so treat this as an investment conversation and come with a cap table you are comfortable discussing.

The spending rules also shape a credible budget. Support can cover research and prototyping, equipment, salaries for scientific and engineering staff, testing, validation and certification, and marketing and field trials. Promoter salaries are capped as a share of the support, and so is contingency. Anything unusual has to be justified in the application itself.

Ask before you apply

The programme page does not publish an opening or closing date, and the hub describes the current round as its third cohort, so check whether the call is open before you start assembling documents. General queries go to the office inbox at office.qmet@qmettech.com.

Qmet Tech Foundation is the National Quantum Mission's hub for quantum sensing, imaging and metrology. It is a Section-8 not-for-profit company set up by IIT Bombay under the mission, which the Department of Science and Technology implements, and it says it is one of four thematic hubs under the mission. Its office and experimental lab are on the IIT Bombay campus at Powai, Mumbai.

Its own shorthand for itself is the Quantum Sensing and Metrology T-Hub, or QSM T-Hub. That is a thematic hub and has nothing to do with Telangana's T-Hub. It is also not IIT Bombay's general incubator, and not a Technology Innovation Hub under the DST cyber-physical systems mission. If you are a founder outside quantum sensing, this is not the IIT Bombay body you want.

What it works on

Qmet's research runs through three technical groups, each led by a principal investigator at a partner institute. The first group works on imaging and microscopy systems built on the quantum correlations of entangled photons, aiming at higher resolution, better signal-to-noise in low light, non-invasive imaging and imaging through turbulence, with a principal investigator at IIT Kanpur. The second develops field-deployable hybrid magnetometers and sensors that measure absolute ambient fields and detect fine anomalies, along with the control algorithms, network training and visualisation software around them, also led from IIT Kanpur. The third advances nitrogen-vacancy centre diamond sensing and microscopy, which works at room temperature with optical readout, and is led by Prof. Kasturi Saha at IIT Bombay.

The hub also lists a co-branded product with TIFR, the Qmet-TIFR nanopositioners, and publishes patents on quantum diamond microscopy and on wavefront and orbital angular momentum optics.

One thing to read carefully on their site: the homepage lists the National Quantum Mission's four national objectives, which include quantum computing and satellite-based quantum communications. Those are the mission's, not Qmet's. Qmet is the sensing, imaging and metrology hub.

How programmes work

There is one programme for founders and companies, NextSense, and the rest are for students and researchers.

NextSense is a call for proposals from startups working in quantum sensing and metrology. Selected startups get funding, business and technical mentoring from experts, and access to Qmet's facilities, labs and technology resources under its own policies. Funding is staged: idea to proof of concept, proof of concept to product or customer pilot, and scale-up with product development and commercialization. The instrument is equity or compulsorily convertible preference shares, so this is investment rather than a grant. The homepage describes the current round as the third cohort.

The PARIMANA family is human resource development. PARIMANA stands for Program for Advanced Research in Imaging, Metrology, And Nano-scale Applications of Quantum Sensing. There is an undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD fellowship, a post-doctoral fellowship, and a summer internship. All of them are for students and researchers at Indian institutions, working with a faculty mentor at their own college, and none of them is open to a company.

The Qmet Laser Hackathon 2026 sits somewhere in between. It asks entrants to design a compact, rugged 532 nm laser module delivering around 100 mW for integration into an NV magnetometer, against a published specification table covering stability, thermal management, vibration, radiation tolerance and lifetime. Two winners are rewarded and get the chance to work with Qmet on its quantum sensing projects. The page does not say who may enter or when it closes.

Who can apply

NextSense is only for companies, not individuals. You must be a DPIIT-recognised startup at the time of applying, or funds will only be released once DPIIT recognition comes through. You must be an Indian company, which they define as a holding company registered in India, with the IP resident in India and majority Indian ownership, and with Indian promoters holding at least 51 percent. Technology has to be in the core of the product, service, business model, distribution model or method. And the idea has to have market fit, a viable route to commercialization and room to scale, inside quantum sensing and metrology. Preferred areas include quantum inertial navigation, gravimeters, thermal sensors, quantum biosensors, precision machining and peripherals around quantum sensing and metrology, but the call is open to other areas in the field.

The fellowships have their own academic gates: minimum grade thresholds, admission to a recognised Indian institution, a faculty mentor, and no other government-funded fellowship running at the same time.

Facilities

Be realistic about what exists today. Qmet says it is building fabrication and testing facilities, developing quantum-grade components and establishing advanced materials growth centres. That is written in the future tense. What is confirmed as open is an office and experimental lab at the Rahul Bajaj Technology Innovation Centre on the IIT Bombay campus, inaugurated on 24 October 2025 at the hub's first Foundation Day. NextSense startups are offered access to Qmet's facilities, labs and technology resources under its policies, without those being itemised.

Scale

Qmet says it brings together 16 partner institutions and more than 40 researchers. Those institutions are named on its homepage map and include IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur, IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIT Ropar, IIT Gandhinagar, IISc Bangalore, TIFR in Mumbai and Hyderabad, BITS Pilani, IISER Bhopal, the University of Hyderabad, Harish-Chandra Research Institute, the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences and TCG CREST. Those are partners, not portfolio companies. The site names no startup it has funded and publishes no count of startups supported, so we do not carry one.

Who runs it

Prof. Kasturi Saha is Project Director, and also leads the NV-centre technical group at IIT Bombay. Hardik Joshi is CEO. The hub is governed as a Section-8 not-for-profit with a board of experts from academia, policy and industry, and runs a small in-house team of programme managers, scientists, engineers and administrators.

Events and jobs

Qmet runs a public events programme: a National Conference on Quantum Biotechnology held at IIT Bombay on 24 August 2026, an Annual Quantum Conclave, a Faculty Development Program, workshops on quantum sensing including one at SVNIT and one with CSIR-NPL in Delhi, and World Quantum Day. It also hires directly, listing both technology roles such as project scientist and management roles such as business development and accounts on its careers page.