TIMed

Choose the right route

• Individual innovator or early-stage co-founders with a physical product idea: NIDHI-PRAYAS, if you need money to build a prototype.
• Start-up with a sound medical device proposal that needs space and mentoring: apply for incubation.
• Start-up already incubated at TIMed that needs early funding: ask the team about NIDHI seed support.
• KTU student: the Minor in Entrepreneurship, through your university.

How applications work

• Incubation: email your business plan. If you do not have one ready, send a brief write-up through the website. The team reviews it and invites you to present.
• NIDHI-PRAYAS: contact the project coordinator. The page carries a funding call for 2024-25, so check that it is still open.
• Seed support: available only to start-ups already incubated at TIMed.

How selection works

• The incubation committee looks at innovation content, market need, technology readiness and time to market.
• It also looks at your ability to invest or raise funding, the profile of your team, and your motivation.
• You must show a need for incubator services at TIMed.

What NIDHI-PRAYAS reviewers look for

• A clear idea and roadmap: innovativeness, a timeline of planned activities, and a route to commercialisation.
• Market and social value: market potential after the prototype, and social relevance.
• Team and follow-on: team composition, the potential to form a company, and the potential to win follow-on funding.

SCTIMST-TIMed is a technology business incubator for medical devices and biomaterials. It runs from the Biomedical Technology Wing campus of Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) in Poojapura, Trivandrum, Kerala. TIMed describes itself as the only technology business incubator of its kind focused exclusively on medical devices and biomaterials.

How the programmes work

TIMed helps founders take a medical device from an idea to a product that can be made and sold. It offers physical incubation with business and technical mentorship, lab and workshop space, and access to the institute's testing and characterisation facilities. Mentoring is staged. TIMed says it identifies the stage a venture is at and mentors it for that stage, because the path from idea to a finished medical device is long. An incubatee can stay for up to 36 months, and the expert committee reviews progress during that time.

Two national schemes run from the Department of Science and Technology sit alongside incubation. NIDHI-PRAYAS is a proof-of-concept grant for building a physical prototype, aimed at early-stage innovators. NIDHI seed support is early-stage financing for start-ups already incubated at TIMed. A separate student route runs through KTU, which lists TIMed as one of five incubators that run its Minor in Entrepreneurship.

Who can apply

Incubation is open to innovators and start-ups with a sound proposal in the medical device and technology field who need incubator services. The site says start-ups located anywhere in the world may apply if they plan to enter the Indian market or need specific inputs from India. Students, clinicians, engineers, small and medium enterprises and start-ups are all named as possible applicants. The team reviews each proposal for innovation content, market need, technology readiness and time to market before it discusses next steps. Applicants must also show a need for incubator services at TIMed.

NIDHI-PRAYAS is open to individual innovators and to co-founders of early-stage start-ups, and applicants must be Indian citizens. NIDHI seed support is for Indian start-ups registered in India, with at least 3 months of residency at TIMed and majority Indian promoter ownership. Subsidiaries of foreign companies do not qualify.

Facilities

TIMed's own space includes rentable modular offices and hot desks, a wet lab, a dry lab for electro-mechanical and instrumentation work, and a clean work space with a class 10,000 area and a class 100 laminar flow bench. Incubatees can also use facilities at SCTIMST, including analytical and mechanical characterisation equipment, several kinds of microscopy, metrology and calibration, and in vitro evaluation of medical devices. Conference rooms, a lounge, and access to the institute's canteen, library and sports facilities are listed too.

Scale

TIMed lists a roll of incubatees working on products such as wound care, infusion therapy, telemedicine carts, biosensors and ophthalmology. Its seed support list shows companies that received first disbursements in 2019 and 2021. The pages do not give a total count of start-ups supported, so no overall figure is published here.

Who runs it

TIMed is managed by a board of directors and an executive committee. The committee brings in members from the host institute, from the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation, and from medical technology industry and angel investing. The site names the institute, the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation and the Department of Science and Technology as the three key institutions behind TIMed.

Currency of the pages

Some pages are dated. The incubation page says TIMed is now accepting proposals, and the NIDHI-PRAYAS page carries a funding call for 2024-25. Most news and event items on the site date from 2016 to 2019. Confirm the current intake with the team before you apply.