iCreate: NIDHI-PRAYAS Program (India)

iCreate is a government-recognized Technology Business Incubator and DST-recognized PRAYAS Centre. The NIDHI-PRAYAS grant is handled by iCreate in its capacity as a recognized PRAYAS Centre, and they also provide the necessary physical infrastructure, and technical and business mentorship.

The NIDHI-Promotion and Acceleration of Young and Aspiring technology entrepreneurs (NIDHI-PRAYAS) programme, is one of the programmes introduced under NIDHI, focussing on addressing the idea-to-prototype funding gap.

This programme is designed to attract the youth to come forward to try out their ideas by developing the prototype without the fear of failure, and assess if they will work in real-life business situations. The programme aims to provide innovators a platform where they can quickly experiment and reiterate their working models in the idea-to-market journey. Selected applicants are referred to as PRAYASEEs.

Focus Areas

• They are primarily focusing on applications related to
  • Renewable Energy
  • Energy Efficiency
  • Industry 4.0
  • Electric Vehicles
  • Smart Cities
  • Agritech
  • Meditech
  • Watertech
  • Healthtech
  • Digitisation
• The project should involve physical product development, not software development or pure academic research. The grant can be utilised for R&D or testing outsourcing, raw material, fabrication, business travel, patent filing, etc. Preference would be given to young innovators, women innovators, projects which are bootstrapped or have got a co-investment commitment, and those with a clear roadmap for the startup creation or commercialisation.

What’s in for you?

• Business and technical mentorship
• Capacity building workshops
• Access to workshop at their state-of-the-art campus in Ahmedabad
• Access to library and iLab@iCreate, their rapid prototyping and digital innovation lab
• Facilities like internet, meeting rooms, tea, coffee, and food at their cafeteria
• Hostel accommodation in their vibrant campus dedicated to startups
• Access to their countrywide network for expansion and growth
• Access to the startup ecosystem through participation in relevant events
• Incubation and funding support, post- utilisation of the grant
• Investor connects and Corporate connects & PoC

Funding Information

• The total amount disbursed will be up to Rs 10 lakhs and the project term will be up to 18 months, extendable by 6 months based on progress review by the PRAYAS monitoring committee at iCreate.

Who can apply?

• Eligibility criteria for applicants:
  • You should be an individual innovator, student, or startup.
  • You should be an Indian citizen.
  • Your project should be in the Idea-to-PoC development stage, or have a PoC ready.
  • Your project should relate to hardware or software-based technology innovation.
  • In case of the grant by the Government of Gujarat, your startup should be registered as an LLP or private limited company in Gujarat.
  • To get maximum benefit from this programme, iCreate strongly recommends that applicants should reside on campus. Such projects will also be given greater preference in selection.

For more information, visit iCreate.