i-RISE — Technology Business Incubator, IISER Mohali

Choosing the right route

There are effectively three doors here, and they want different things from you.

• If you have a registered company and want space, labs and mentoring, apply to the IISER Startup Incubation Program. That is the standing route and it is open on a rolling basis.
• If you are a DPIIT-recognised company under two years old and want seed funding, apply through the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme page instead. i-RISE is the incubator you apply through, so the scheme's rules decide your eligibility, not the incubator's.
• If you are a student with an idea and no company, watch for IdeaPhied. It is the only route that takes teams rather than companies, and winning it can lead to incubation.

How applications work

The incubation programme takes a downloadable form. You can submit it online, email it to the CEO inbox at ceotbi@iisermohali.ac.in, or post a printed copy to CEO TBI at the campus. A proposal by email is also accepted. There is no portal to log into, so keep your own copy of what you sent and follow up by email.

Check the status banners before you spend time on a form. The site is inconsistent about whether applications are open: the home page carries a closed banner in its hero while the same page says registrations are open, and the INNOSTARS page shows a closed and an open banner together. Email the incubator and ask rather than guessing from the banner.

How selection works

For the incubation programme, shortlisted applicants give a screening presentation. Get through that and you start the three-week phase one workshop, then move into long-term incubation.

For IdeaPhied, the published judging criteria are the originality of the idea, whether it is feasible, how inventive it is, how clearly and relevantly you pitch it, and how seriously the team intends to pursue entrepreneurship. The format is tight: three slides, one minute to present and two minutes of questions, so build the pitch around one claim.

INNOSTARS looked for innovation potential in deep tech, a clear value proposition and market fit, a strong team, room to scale, revenue already coming in, and an MVP or better.

What to settle before you sign

Read IISER Mohali's entrepreneurship guideline and incubation policy first. It sets out that an incubated company allots shares to the incubator in return for support, caps the institute's holding at 9.5 per cent, and describes how faculty and student involvement is handled. It also sets the clock: nominally three years of support, up to five in some cases, with up to a year of pre-incubation before that. Ask what share is being asked of you and what it is being valued against before you commit.

Be clear about which laboratory you are being given. Some of the equipment reaches you as permission to use the institute's labs and workshops rather than as the incubator's own kit, and the terms follow the institute's rules.

i-RISE is the technology business incubator at IISER Mohali, in Knowledge City, Sector 81, SAS Nagar, Punjab. The name stands for Raising Innovative & Sustainable Enterprises, and the incubator was set up in 2018 as TBI IISER Mohali before it was renamed. It says it works with support from the Department of Science and Technology and operates within the Ministry of Education's National Innovation and Startup Policy initiative. In the Department of Science and Technology's own list of technology business incubators, the registered entity behind it is named as the Society for Technology Business Incubator, Mohali (TBI-IISERM), with IISER Mohali as the host institute. Our own listing used to carry the host institute's name and website instead of the incubator's.

How programmes work

The main route in is the IISER Startup Incubation Program. It runs in two phases. Phase one is a three-week workshop that helps a team turn an idea into a business. Teams that finish it are then linked to i-RISE for long-term incubation. The published steps are: send the application, attend a screening presentation if you are shortlisted, start phase one, then move into phase two.

i-RISE is also the route to the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme for startups it takes on. Its funding page sets out what the scheme covers, which is proof of concept, prototype development, product trials, market entry and commercialisation, alongside co-working space, laboratory access, mentoring, networking and IP and legal help. The scheme's own eligibility rules apply, and they are strict: your company must be recognised by DPIIT, incorporated no more than two years before you apply, and built on technology at the core of its product, service, business model, distribution model or method. Indian promoters must hold at least 51 per cent of the shares.

Two named programmes run on their own schedules and are both between intakes. INNOSTARS 2.0 was a two-month acceleration programme for deep tech startups, run with AngelBlue, with a cohort of up to fifteen and a demo day at the end. It asked for startups already generating revenue and at MVP stage or beyond, across AI and machine learning, biotech, advanced manufacturing, clean energy, green mobility, logistics, blockchain, electronics and advanced materials. IdeaPhied 4.0 is the student idea competition, which ran from January to a final round on campus in February 2026, with a pre-incubation workshop, prizes and a route into incubation at the incubator for winners.

Who can apply

You do not have to be an IISER Mohali student or staff member. IISER Mohali's entrepreneurship guideline and incubation policy of 2021 covers two kinds of venture: companies promoted by its own faculty, staff, research scholars and students, and external start-ups promoted by people with no connection to the institute. Either way the policy is written around a registered company, so an idea on its own is not enough for the incubation route. The one programme aimed squarely at people without a company is IdeaPhied, which is open to students at graduate, postgraduate, diploma, PhD and research-scholar level, in teams of two to four.

Incubation here is not equity-free. Under the same policy, an incubated company agrees to allot shares to the incubator in return for the support it receives, and the institute's total holding is capped at 9.5 per cent of the company's shares. The exact share is negotiated against the value of the help given. Support runs nominally for three years from formal approval and can be stretched to five, with a pre-incubation period of up to one year before that.

Facilities

i-RISE describes its own space as dedicated office space and equipped laboratory infrastructure, and it has a laboratory manager on its operational team. Its co-working space and laboratory access are also listed as part of what a seed fund startup gets. Separately, the institute's incubation policy gives an incubated company permission to use IISER Mohali's laboratories, workshop facilities and equipment, so a lot of the heavier equipment a science startup would want here belongs to the institute rather than to the incubator, and reaches you as access through it.

Who it backs

Its incubatees page names startups in six groups: health tech, diagnostics and medical devices; biotech and bioprocessing; agri tech, food tech and farming; IT, IoT, AI, machine learning and deep tech; waste management and sustainability; and mobility and logistics. The Department of Science and Technology's list records narrower thrust areas for the incubator, which are biotechnology covering healthcare, therapeutic and industrial biomolecules and bioenergy, and new materials and devices including nanomaterials from the chemical, physical, biological and material sciences.

Who runs it

The director of IISER Mohali, Prof. Anil K. Tripathi, chairs it. Satyendra S. Choudhary is the chief executive officer. The executive board is drawn almost entirely from the institute and includes the Dean of Research and Development as vice chairperson, the registrar, and faculty from the mathematical, physical, biological and earth and environmental sciences. Mentoring is split between a panel of business mentors from outside the institute and technical mentors who are IISER Mohali faculty.

How to apply and where to find them

There are three ways in for the incubation programme: download the application form and apply online, email the completed form to the incubator's CEO inbox, or post it to CEO TBI at the campus address. The incubator also posts its own jobs on a careers page, and it publishes the institute's entrepreneurship guideline and incubation policy and a conflict of interest policy, both worth reading before you apply.