Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur’s Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre (SIIC), in partnership with SBI Foundation, the CSR arm of the State Bank of India, are launching the ‘Startup Innovations for Social Good’ initiative under SBIF Innovators for Bharat. The initiative is also being supported by SBI DFHI Limited and SBI Ventures. The program, announced on June 5 at an event held at the IIT Kanpur Outreach Centre, Noida, is aimed at bringing socially impactful solutions through mentoring and funding support to early and growth-stage startups.
The initiative will nurture 30 impact-driven startups – 24 of which will be early-stage and 6 will be growth-stage – in domains such as AgriTech, Healthcare, and CleanTech. Spanning 18 months, the program will offer a structured incubation program with continuous mentoring, domain-specific support, and performance monitoring to ensure effective, socially impactful outcomes.
The launch event was graced by Prof. Amey Karkare, Dean of Resources and Alumni, IIT Kanpur; Prof. Deepu Philip, Professor lncharge, Innovation & Incubation, FIRST IIT Kanpur; Shri Sanjay Prakash, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, SBI Foundation; Shri. Ambika Prasad Bhuyan, Vice President (Head Marketing and Strategies), SBI DFHI Limited; Mr. Kapil Kaul, CEO, IIT Kanpur Development Foundation; Mr. Kumar Alok IAS (Retd.), former Chief Secretary Tripura and Prof. of Practice, IIT Kanpur; Mr. Aman Bhaiya, Vice President and Head (Strategy) SBI Foundation; and Mr. Piyush Mishra, COO, FIRST SIIC Kanpur, among other dignitaries.
Commenting on this development, Prof. Manindra Agrawal, Director of IIT Kanpur stated, “SIIC/FIRST IIT Kanpur has always had a solution-oriented and future-ready approach to strengthen India’s startup ecosystem. This program, supported by the SBI Foundation, is a uniquely-curated collaborative initiative that will help enhance the impact of the startups, empowering communities and ultimately contributing to economic growth and societal well-being. With IIT Kanpur’s expertise in knowledge building, and state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities, we look forward to bringing about more meaningful development in the selected domains.”
The initiative will also provide startups with networking and follow-on investment opportunities through dedicated workshops and roadshows, driving indigenous innovation and addressing critical unmet needs in agriculture, healthcare, and environmental sustainability.
Prof. Deepu Philip, Professor-ln-charge, Innovation & Incubation, SIIC-FIRST, IIT Kanpur said, “This collaboration focuses on developing transformative capabilities across critical domains of AgriTech, Healthcare, and CleanTech to achieve wider impact on the society at large. FIRST IIT Kanpur has a proven record of pioneering technological transformations across domains with a portfolio expanding over 400 incubated startups with indigenous technologies. This joint initiative adds to our decades-proven legacy of backing both early and growth stage startups with a flexible incubation and innovation ecosystem.”
Shri Sanjay Prakash, Managing Director, SBI Foundation, said “SBI Foundation’s Innovators for Bharat is an initiative that provides support to high-impact incubators providing incubation/acceleration support to start-ups working to address the most pressing development challenges in the country. Our partnership with one of the top incubators, i.e. SIIC, IIT Kanpur, focuses on many such pressing issues for our country. We are confident that this program will be the cornerstone in identifying, funding and nurturing startups leading the Agritech, Healthcare and Cleantech Innovations.”
The initiative will be implemented through a phased manner under FIRST, popularly known as Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre, the dedicated incubation arm of IIT Kanpur. The proposed grant, with the funding partner SBI Foundation, SBI DFHI Limited, and SBI Ventures, will fund the creation of a robust incubation ecosystem focused on AgriTech, CleanTech, and Healthcare.
