Equity-free (non-dilutive) startup funding in India — grants, prizes and milestone awards that put capital in without taking a share of your company. You keep 100% ownership.
The ANKURAN program offers non-dilutive pre-seed grants up to ₹5 lakh for farmers, students, and young entrepreneurs with innovative agricultural business ideas.
BIRAC's GCI program provides grants of up to ₹2 crore for developing innovative screening and diagnostic tools for infectious diseases like TB and emerging pathogens.
The Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) program at IITM Pravartak offers Indian innovators a monthly stipend of ₹35,000 for up to 12 months to develop Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) prototypes before company incorporation.
PRASFUTAN offers a non-dilutive seed grant of up to ₹25 lakh, covering 85% of project costs, for agricultural startups at the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage incubated at R-ABI centers.
Equity-free grant of ₹3 lakh to ₹5 lakh for Andhra Pradesh-based startups and MSMEs, combined with a 4-week intensive sprint to develop an AI prototype.
StartinUp provides grants to foster grassroots innovation and entrepreneurship, primarily supporting startups based in Uttar Pradesh.
The Uttishthati Foundation i-TBI Ignition Grant 2.0 offers up to ₹10 lakh in seed funding for early-stage startups focusing on deeptech, energy, agritech, and healthtech.
Indian startups developing cutting-edge mobile technology can apply for an equity-free Proof-of-Concept grant of up to ₹45 lakh from Samsung.
The Startup Srujan Seed Support (S4) program provides grants from ₹2.5 lakh to ₹10 lakh for young innovators and early-stage startups in Gujarat.
Jharkhand Startup Policy provides a one-time marketing grant of up to ₹10 Lakh for startups registered in the state, operating for less than five years with an annual turnover under ₹25 Crore.
Non-dilutive capital is the cheapest money you'll ever raise: no cap-table dilution, no repayment on true grants, and a validation signal for the round that follows. The trade-off is competitive selection and reporting.
What founders ask about equity-free funding.
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