NIDHI-Science & Technology Entrepreneurs Parks and Technology Business Incubators (STEP/TBIS) are institutional linked facilities promoted by the Department of Science and Technology to nurture innovative and technological led new ventures during the initial and critical period i.e. the start-up phase. By providing a range of specialised business support services, a TBI facilitates the initial journey of a startup and enables new ventures to survive and succeed in the market place. Around 90TBIs have been promoted by the NSTEDB of DST. TBIs are primarily hosted at the institutions of higher education across the country including both publicly and privately funded Universities and institutions e.g. IITs, IIMs, NITs, NID, PSG, Manipal Univ, VIT, Amrita Univ. etc .

While the STEP/TBI are able to support the “Space, Services and Knowledge” requirements of startups but, wide gap exists in financial support required by a technology driven start up in its initial phase which are not being addressed properly. The basic idea of seed support is providing financial assistance to potential startups with promising ideas, innovations and technologies. This would enable some of these incubatee startups with innovative ideas/technologies to graduate to a level where they will be able to raise investments from angel/Venture capitalist or they will reach a position to seek loans from commercial banks /financial institutions. Thus, the proposed seed support disbursed by an incubator to an incubatee is positioned to act as a bridge between development and commercialization of innovative technologies/products/services in a relatively hassle-free manner.

Objective of NIDHI-SSS

The sole objective of the NIDHI-Seed Support System (NIDHI-SSS) is to ensure timely availability of the seed support to the deserving incubatee startups within an incubator, thereby enabling them to take their venture to next level and facilitate towards their success in the market place. The scheme also enables the STEP/TBI to widen their pipeline of startups and also share the success of their startups which would also result in ensuring their long-term operational sustainability.

List of Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) implementing NIDHI-SEED support system: http://nstedb.com/New_Programmes/NIDHI-SSS-31-03-20.pdf

Detailed NIDHI-SEED Support system Document: http://nstedb.com/New_Programmes/2018/NIDHISeedSupportSystem.pdf

For more info: https://www.nstedb.in/Nidhi-ssp/