Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), of International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIITH) has been granted Rs 5 crores as funding under Startup India Seed Scheme, an initiative by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) of the Government of India. The funds will help in amplifying investments in pre-revenue stage deep tech & research startups.
After the evaluation of the IIIT-H foundation’s impact on startups, progress and achievements over the past decade, Experts Advisory Committee (EAC) has sanctioned the incubator with a total of Rupees 5 crores.
CIE incubates early-stage technology startups in areas of Deeptech such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, blockchain and also in Enterprise Tech, Edutech, Healthcare and Medtech. Startups based on research or ones that are run by researchers will be preferred.
“The funds will enable proof of concept, prototype development, product trials, market entry and commercialisation by providing financial assistance up to ₹25 lakh to each of the startups,” said a CIE statement.
For the next three years, around 20-25 startups will be supported by the IIIT-H Foundation to develop CIE’s deeptech startups seeding and growth programs. In the past few years, CIE has helped kickstart more than 15 startups. In 2021, startups like Revos, Instoried, Paymatrix and Scholr have exited and have returned 4 times the equity held by CIE.
“IIIT Hyderabad has always had serious aspirations to translate research into solutions for industry and society. Our incubator was started in 2008 to enable this. Over the years we have seeded several startups and nurtured a few hundred startups. Very happy to see this support from Startup India” said Director-IIITH, Prof. P. J. Narayanan.
The CIE of the International Institute of Information Technology of Hyderabad (IIIT-H) is a Department of Science and Technology approved incubator, operating since 2008. It has incubated more than 400 startups, seed-funded more than 30 startups and now runs 2 tech accelerator programs for companies starting up.