The Indian Institute of Technology, entirely funded and controlled by the government of India, has been an active participant in the Indian startup ecosystem.
After two IIT Madras incubated startups took pledge to delivery around 1,00,000 experts of artificial intelligence and deep learning by 2020, another campus of the ace engineering college, IIT Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, will disburse over ₹10 crore to startups over next five years through IIT Mandi Catalyst.
This comes after National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, Department of Science and Technology, GoI, approved setting up of Seed Support System program at IIT Mandi Catalyst.
IIT Mandi Catalyst, a Technology Business Incubator (TBI) was launched in May 2016. It aims to foster Research and Development (R&D) and entrepreneurship to spawn knowledge-intensive initiatives that would develop innovations useful to the society as a whole.
Under the Seed Support System program, startups will have to spend minimum three months in residency at IIT Mandi.
During this time, Catalyst will provide an additional grant of 1.5 lakh to initiate work on the idea and prove its worth. Entrepreneurs that successfully show their idea’s worth will then be eligible to raise funds upto ₹50 lakh.
Furthermore, for the last three years, IIT Mandi has disbursed over ₹1 crore in grants and investments to over 30 startups that have gone through its three-month residential programme.
These involve sectors ranging from agritech to adtech to emobility solutions.
Also read: Edtech startups GUVI, One Fourth Labs merge to prepare 1,00,000 experts in AI, deep learning by 2020