Symbiosis Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Pick the right door

SCEI runs two different kinds of thing, and only one of them is an incubation application.

• You have a startup and want space, mentoring and lab access: apply to the incubation programme. This is the only route with a live application on the site.
• You have an idea and want to test it first: look at the pre-incubation programme (Mind to Market) or the Certificate in Entrepreneurship with Design Thinking. Both are online, twelve weeks, and end in a certificate.
• You are a woman starting or growing a business: the Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme adds one-to-one mentoring and introductions to market specialists through SCEI's Women Entrepreneurship Wing.
• You only need a machine or a skill: the 3D printing and internet-of-things trainings are short, hands-on sessions run on SCEI's own equipment.

What SCEI asks for

The only stated requirement for incubation is that your idea be viable and able to become a private limited company. Read that carefully: it is about whether the idea can be incorporated, not whether you have already incorporated. Nothing on SCEI's pages restricts incubation to Symbiosis students, faculty or alumni, and no sector or home-state restriction is published.

How applications work

• Incubation applications go through one online application, opened by the apply button in the site header and on the incubation page.
• There is no published deadline, cohort window or intake calendar, so it is worth applying when you are ready rather than waiting for a call.
• SCEI publishes no selection steps or timeline either. Expect to have to ask what happens after you submit.
• For anything else, including the courses, which have no application route of their own on the site, write to office@scei.org.in.

What to lead with

• A product, not a plan. SCEI says it incubates startups that can show an ability to innovate and build new products or services, so show what you have built or prototyped.
• A reason to be on this campus. Its labs are set up for physical building — 3D printing, PCB milling, machining, laser cutting, IoT and high-powered compute. A team that will use the workshop is an easier fit than one that will not.
• Where you fit its technology focus. SCEI points at health technology, AI and machine learning, the internet of things, medical imaging, waste management and nanotechnology. Its named portfolio is far broader than that, so a good idea outside those areas is not ruled out, but a link to one of them helps.
• A two-year plan. Incubation normally runs two years, with a possible third. Come with a view of what you would use that time for.

Before you commit

• Some of the site is ahead of what is running: testing services, internship and project opportunities, startup finance and the ecosystem page are all advertised as coming soon. Confirm anything you are counting on.
• The courses list no upcoming dates. Ask which batch is next before you plan around one.
• If you are a corporate rather than a founder, SCEI accepts corporate social responsibility contributions under section 135 of the Companies Act 2013, and has run these with partners before.

Symbiosis Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (SCEI) is a technology business incubator on the Symbiosis hill-base campus at Lavale, in Mulshi taluka near Pune. It is a section 8 not-for-profit company promoted by Symbiosis International (Deemed University) and supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. It incubates early-stage manufacturing and technology startups, and separately runs short entrepreneurship courses that anyone can join.

SCEI is often searched for as Symbiosis TBI, and the two names are the same organisation. It is a separate registered company from the university that promotes it, with its own building, its own team and its own application route. The university is its host institute, and the research strengths SCEI says it draws on — health technology, medical imaging, waste management, AI and machine learning, and nanotechnology — belong to Symbiosis rather than to the incubator.

Who can apply

Incubation is for early-stage manufacturing and technology startups that can show they are able to innovate and build new products or services. The one requirement SCEI states is that the idea be viable and convertible into a private limited company. It does not restrict incubation to Symbiosis students, faculty or alumni, and it does not ask for a company that is already registered, so an outside founder with an unincorporated idea is inside the stated criteria. No sector gate, geography gate or age limit is published.

The courses are open more widely. The pre-incubation programme and the Certificate in Entrepreneurship with Design Thinking both invite working professionals, aspiring entrepreneurs, students and freelancers. The Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme is for women who want to start a business built around their own skills and interests.

Incubation

Incubation normally runs for two years and can be extended by another year. SCEI describes the programme as training, mentoring, prototyping and proof-of-concept validation, plus access to its wider network. Incubatees are offered business and technology mentoring, office space with a computer and Wi-Fi, use of its fabrication lab, access to the university's research labs, cloud credits from AWS and IBM, and investor introductions. SCEI names technical and business mentoring as the part it puts the most effort into.

There is no published intake window, deadline or selection timetable. Applications go through a single online application, reached from the apply button that sits in the header of every page on its site.

Courses and training

The pre-incubation programme, branded Mind to Market, runs for twelve weeks and is delivered entirely online. Its aim is to build an entrepreneurial mindset and take an early idea further. The Certificate in Entrepreneurship with Design Thinking, usually shortened to CEDT, is also described as a twelve-week online pre-incubation course, run by startup mentors, entrepreneurs, investors and founders. SCEI lists the two separately but describes them in almost the same words, so it is worth asking which one is running before you pick.

The Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme mixes live training, group and one-to-one mentoring, fieldwork for market research, and feedback on how the venture is progressing. It is backed by SCEI's Women Entrepreneurship Wing, which carries the support further with incubation, one-to-one mentorship and introductions to market specialists. At least two batches have run, named Aruna and Ashlesha.

All three courses are online, ask for ninety per cent attendance, and issue a completion certificate once the assignments are done. SCEI also runs shorter hands-on technical training in 3D printing, and a twenty-hour programme on building an internet-of-things prototype.

Labs and workshops

SCEI's own facilities sit in the SCEI building. The Design Thinking Zone is a flexible room for brainstorming, stocked with tools, puzzles and games. The Prototyping Lab has eight 3D printers covering ABS, PLA, Onyx and nylon, from Stratasys, Zortrax and MarkForged, a three-in-one Snapmaker that prints, laser cuts and engraves, a PCB milling machine and basic fabrication tools; waste processing reactors, microscopes and a drone are also catalogued there. The Technology Lab holds an Nvidia DGX server and other high-powered machines for design and development work. There is an IoT lab, and a fabrication workshop with a vertical machining centre, laser cutters, a wooden mini lathe, a drill and grinder, and a robotic arm. Testing services are advertised on the site but are not yet running.

Startups it has backed

SCEI's startups page names thirty-five companies without giving a total or a date, so read it as a sample rather than a full count. They span payments, healthcare, school robotics labs, food processing, agritech, handicrafts, exoskeletons, drones, carbon capture and education software — a wider spread than the stated technology focus suggests. Named companies include Easebuzz, MumSmile Healthcare, Labguruji Education, Prioritas Innovation, Sentient Engines, Routexploration Dynamics, TechSync Innovations and ErgoAssist.

Mentors and who runs it

The mentor page names fifty-nine people, mixing Symbiosis faculty with founders, corporate operators, investors and specialists in finance, intellectual property, design and marketing. SCEI's chief executive is Dr. Sapptarishi Ghosh. Mrs. S. S. Mujumdar and Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar are its founder directors, and its additional directors include the current and a former vice chancellor of Symbiosis International, the provost of its health sciences faculty, and Sunil Shirole of YEN Capital. Namrata Temkar is the incubation coordinator.

Where it is, and corporate funding

SCEI is in the SCEI building on the Symbiosis Institute of Technology premises, on the hill-base campus at Lavale, Mulshi taluka, Pune 412115. Corporates can route corporate social responsibility contributions to it under section 135 of the Companies Act 2013, and it has done this in practice: it signed an agreement with Curtis Instruments India in March 2024 to back incubatee product development, and another with the CIMP Business Incubation and Innovation Foundation the same month. Its events page is an archive of past visits, workshops and signings rather than a calendar of what is coming.