Sharda Launchpad

Pick the right door

Sharda Launchpad sorts founders by how far along they are, so decide that first.

• You have an idea and nothing built yet: The Next Startup, three months of pre-incubation with no registration fee.
• You have a validated problem and a business idea: Syncubator, twelve to eighteen months, with a desk if you want one.
• You already have early traction: Xcelerator, six to twelve months, aimed at scaling and raising capital.
• You work in agriculture, rural health, rural livelihood or women's empowerment: look at the DST i-TBI and its IgNIS pre-incubation cohort.
• You are building in food or drink: the Sharda Global Food and Beverages Accelerator has its own application.
• You want structured teaching rather than incubation: New Age Entrepreneurs is a paid online certificate course, and you need a degree in any discipline to enrol.

How applications work

The main route is the register-to-incubate form on the Sharda Launchpad website, which asks for your stage — idea, prototype, market, scale-up or other — and your sector. You can also write to the incubation inbox at incubation.launchpad@sharda.ac.in, or visit the office. The food accelerator has a separate form that wants a startup profile in a thousand characters, your registration type, whether you hold a DPIIT number, social links for both the company and the founder, a two-thousand-character answer on what makes you different, and a pitch deck as a PDF. Queries for that programme go to food.accelerator@sharda.ac.in.

How selection works

Your business idea goes to a review committee first. If that initial read is positive, the founders are invited to present their business plan to an evaluation committee that includes the mentor, followed by questions — and presenting over video conference is allowed. You are told the outcome within fifteen days of the presentation. If you are turned down you may submit a revised proposal answering the committee's suggestions; the incubator says it works to a no-rejection policy and guides every innovator to improve the idea. If you are accepted, you have one month to confirm you accept the terms, and you then sign an incubation agreement, plus a seed-fund agreement if you want seed money and a technology commercialisation agreement if you use university intellectual property.

What reviewers look at

The published criteria are specific, so answer them directly in your application and your deck:

• The strength of the idea — its technology content, how novel it is, its timing and its market potential.
• The profile of the core team and the promoters.
• Any intellectual property you have created, and the idea's potential to create more.
• Financial and commercial viability, with three-year projections including profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flows.
• How much money you need and how realistically you can raise it.
• Time to market and your break-even period.
• Commercial potential and demand in India, and how far the business can scale.

Things to sort out before you commit

• Incorporation. You must register a company that meets DPIIT's criteria — within three months of joining The Next Startup, or six weeks of joining Syncubator. Your application can be approved provisionally before you incorporate, and part of the registration cost is reimbursed for physically incubated startups.
• Equity. Incubation here takes equity. You nominate an agreed share of the company, at least three percent, to Sharda University, and one percent to your mentor. Seed money can convert into further equity or a revenue share on top of that.
• Charges. Syncubator and Xcelerator each have a one-time registration fee, and from the second month you pay monthly charges for whichever facilities you use. Ask for the current schedule before signing.
• Time limit. Incubation runs up to eighteen months, with two three-month extensions at the incubator's discretion. You also commit to yearly audited accounts and unaudited quarterly updates, and you need the incubator's agreement before changing your founding team or transferring a large block of equity.
• If you are employed by government, get a no-objection certificate from your employer first.

A caution

Some details on the site disagree with each other — the food accelerator names its partner differently on its programme page and its application page, and the New Age Entrepreneurs page gives two different start dates. Confirm dates, fees and current intakes with the incubation inbox before you plan around them.

Sharda Launchpad Federation is the business incubator of Sharda University in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. It is a Section 8 company — a not-for-profit vehicle the university set up to run incubation both inside the campus and for founders outside it. It sits at Plot No. 32-34, Knowledge Park III, and is promoted by Sharda Educational Trust.

How programmes work

Sharda Launchpad splits incubation into three named stages, and its published incubation policy describes each one. The Next Startup is the idea-stage entry point: three months of pre-incubation for ideas in science, business, social and creative fields, with no registration fee. Syncubator is for founders who already have a validated problem statement and a business idea, and runs twelve to eighteen months with co-working space, one-to-one mentoring and help with government and private fundraising. Xcelerator is the six-to-twelve-month stage for startups with early traction, focused on scaling, business metrics and raising capital from customers, investors, corporates and government. Syncubator and Xcelerator both charge a one-time registration fee plus monthly charges based on the facilities you use, and both can be taken virtually or with a physical desk on campus.

Two things to know before you apply. Incubation here takes equity: once the agreements are signed, the incubatee nominates a mutually agreed share of the company — a minimum of three percent — in favour of Sharda University, and one percent in favour of the assigned mentor. And seed funding is structured as a loan by default, with different repayment terms for Sharda student startups, Sharda alumni, faculty and staff startups, non-Sharda students and everyone else. A separate seed-fund agreement is signed on top of the incubation agreement.

Alongside the three stages, Sharda Launchpad runs a DST-supported inclusive technology business incubator, the i-TBI, with its own chief executive and core team. Its focus areas are agriculture and rural technology, rural health and sanitation, women empowerment and rural livelihood, and it publishes a services list covering co-working space, legal and regulatory help, patent support, grant assistance, weekly startup clinics, angel and venture connects, pitch decks and financial projections, and prototyping with access to 3D printing, IoT and robotics equipment as well as university labs. IgNIS is the i-TBI's three-month cohort-based pre-incubation programme; its first edition ran from February to April 2025 and a third edition kicked off in February 2026.

There are two programmes outside the incubation ladder. The Sharda Global Food and Beverages Accelerator takes food and drink startups at prototype, early-traction or scale-up stage across cloud kitchens and quick-service restaurants, B2B food supply, packaging, food products and food logistics, and it has an application form on the site that asks for a pitch deck. New Age Entrepreneurs is a fee-paying online certificate course run with Aescom Technology, thirty-six hours of classes spread across twelve weeks, open to graduates in any discipline. Sharda Launchpad has also run LaunchPreneur, a three-day residential startup bootcamp, in January 2025 and again in December 2025.

Who can apply

Outside founders can apply. Sharda Launchpad describes itself as the university's vehicle for incubation "within the University and for the external community", and its incubation policy sets out explicit terms for non-Sharda students and for applicants with no connection to the university at all. The page listing its incubatees is headed as if they were all student entrepreneurs from the campus, which is not the case — several of the companies on it are independent ventures based elsewhere in India.

That said, the terms are better if you are connected to Sharda. Company registration costs are part-reimbursed for physically incubated startups, at a more generous split for Sharda students and alumni than for external students, and better again for ventures wholly owned by women or by SC and ST founders. Seed money is interest-free for Sharda alumni, faculty and staff, and carries interest for everyone else. Whichever route you take, you are expected to incorporate a company that meets DPIIT's criteria — within three months under The Next Startup, or six weeks under Syncubator. Founders who are serving government employees need a no-objection certificate from their employer, though companies that merely have government employees as shareholders may apply.

Facilities

Incubatees get co-working space with internet, meeting rooms, a conference room and a reading zone, either as a hot seat or as a dedicated workstation charged per month. Prototyping covers 3D printing, IoT and robotics, and the i-TBI also opens up Sharda University's own laboratories with guidance from domain experts. The incubation policy notes that an incubatee company may optionally be allocated a residential unit on campus alongside its office space. Companies normally stay up to eighteen months, extendable twice by three months at the incubator's discretion, with longer extensions possible for pharma and biotech teams whose products take longer to reach market.

Scale

Sharda Launchpad's home page counters report more than one hundred ideas pre-incubated, more than eighty-five startups supported and more than one hundred and fifty events on innovation, entrepreneurship and intellectual property. Its Our Incubates page names seventy-four companies, among them Moonrider, TSAW Drones, SVRC Techno Innovations, Royal Bengal GreenTech, Navstream Innovations, Deepaarogya and Gavel Legal. These are the incubator's own published numbers, and they do not entirely agree with each other.

Who runs it

Dr. Amit Sehgal is Director of Sharda Launchpad Federation. Mr. Pankaj Jain is chief executive of the DST i-TBI, and Mr. Akshat Gupta is Incubation Manager. Dr. Bhuvnesh Kumar, Dean of Research at Sharda University and a retired DRDO scientist, is a principal investigator on the i-TBI and sits on the advisory board with Bharat Oswal, the angel investor Kamal Chhabra and Vikas Khanna of Tube Investments of India. The About page also lists roughly thirty in-house and industry mentors.

Where it is and how to reach it

The incubator is on the Sharda University campus in Knowledge Park III, Greater Noida, in the Delhi NCR region. To apply, use the register-to-incubate form on its website, which asks for your stage and sector, or write to its incubation inbox. Food and beverage applicants have their own form and inbox. A careers page invites internship and job enquiries, and lists openings when there are any; there were none at the time of writing, though the i-TBI has separately advertised incubator staff posts. Its events page lists past workshops, summits and pitch days, the most recent being a startup pitch day in June 2026.