The Genesis – QUIC incubation

The incubator runs one route with two stages, and the evaluation committee decides which stage you enter at.

Pre-incubation is for ideas that still need shaping. Teams go through workshops, webinars and lecture series, usually under a mentor from Quantum, attend a business plan development workshop and present a plan with market analysis, and build a prototype under their mentor's supervision. The stage ends with registering the startup as a partnership firm, LLP, private limited company or one person company and producing the certificate. It lasts six months to a year, after which a committee promotes the team to incubation or drops it; a team making too little progress can be dropped sooner.

Incubation lasts twenty-four months from the date of admission. Extensions run in six-month blocks at the market rate for space, computers, internet and electricity.

What you get

• A registered office address and common plug-and-play office space, with seats for each incubatee
• Internet, a shared printer and reception service, and common lab services
• Requested access to Quantum University's laboratories and resources for product development, through Genesis officials and with the department's permission
• A pool of mentors and experts in technology, legal and financial matters
• Help registering intellectual property
• Networking and showcase events, and meetings with entrepreneurs, investors and industry professionals
• Short courses in business management and business communication, accounting tools and a shared secretarial pool
• Discretionary seed capital or a seed loan, for registered companies only, applied for no earlier than three months after admission

Who can apply

• Category I — faculty, students and alumni of Quantum University with a novel idea to commercialise, a laboratory-proven concept to scale, or a technology business to set up. They enter as a pre-incubation project.
• Category II — a start-up company promoted by a first-generation entrepreneur who wants an R&D partnership with the institute or a company. No connection to the university is required, and registration certificates must be submitted with the application.
• The incubator takes equity, on a scale set by how much of the university's resources and support you use, with a six-month cooling period after induction to decide whether to continue.

How selection works: Stage one is a written incubation application with an executive summary or business plan, reviewed by an internal committee for technical and business feasibility. It is assessed on the idea's technology content, innovation, timeliness and market potential, the core team's profile, intellectual property created and the potential for more, five-year profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow projections, funds needed and the viability of raising them, time to market, break-even period, demand in India, and scalability. Stage two is a presentation of the plan to the evaluation committee followed by questions, after which the committee decides admission and which stage you start at.

How to apply: The policy says to register through the website, but no registration form for the incubator is live on the site. Use the university's general enquiry form or write to info@quantumuniversity.edu.in asking to reach The Genesis – QUIC, and attach the executive summary with the first message.