Door one
Pre-seed
A brilliant idea, looking for a viable business model around an innovative product, service or platform, and for a way to make it scale.
Pathfinder Foundation Innovation
Ideas leave here as companies
A startup incubator on the PRTF campus in Knowledge Park III, recognised by the Government of Uttar Pradesh. Eighteen ventures have been incubated here since 2022.
StartinUP · Government of Uttar PradeshSupported under UP IT & Startup Policy 2020
- Ventures incubated
- 18
- Incubating since
- June 2022
- Focus areas
- Health, agriculture,
environment, deeptech & AI - Recognition
- StartinUP · UP Startup Policy 2020
- Where it happens
- On campus · same building as your classes
Biomolecular Technology✦Ailmcure Research & Innovation✦Mediscience Research & Innovation✦PSG Technologies✦Bioprospecting Life Sciences✦Bioupgrade Technologies✦Saunidhi Infotech✦Insilico Healthcare✦Soilinfo & Solutions✦ROI Organic Hub✦Tech Vimal Corporation India✦Aparam Agrosmart Knowledge & Education✦Kirnova Biopower✦Vttvrdn Technologies✦Verdhara Agro✦Stubbio Solutions✦Celleome Diagnostics✦gramyuvaAI✦
What this place is
Mentors, workspace and investors, on the same campus.
Pathfinder Foundation Innovation is a startup incubator established at PRTF and supported under the UP IT & Startup Policy 2020. It backs research-led ventures in human health, agriculture and the environment: new tools, databases and applications with commercial potential.
- 01
Support and promote research, innovation and entrepreneurship, with the infrastructure for incubated startups to do it.
- 02
Turn innovative ideas into minimally viable startup businesses.
- 03
Collaborate with industry, investors, government, academia and other incubators for knowledge sharing, co-incubation and technology transfer.
The portfolio
Eighteen companies that started here.
Every one of them approved, incorporated and working. Filter by what they work on.
- 01Biomolecular TechnologyHealth & life sciences
Jun 2022 - 02Ailmcure Research & InnovationHealth & life sciences
Jun 2022 - 03Mediscience Research & InnovationHealth & life sciences
Jul 2022 - 04PSG TechnologiesTechnology
Jul 2022 - 05Bioprospecting Life SciencesHealth & life sciences
Jul 2022 - 06Bioupgrade TechnologiesHealth & life sciences
Jul 2022 - 07Saunidhi InfotechTechnology
Sep 2022 - 08Insilico HealthcareHealth & life sciences
Oct 2022 - 09Soilinfo & SolutionsAgriculture & food
Nov 2022 - 10ROI Organic HubAgriculture & food
Apr 2023 - 11Tech Vimal Corporation IndiaTechnology
Jun 2023 - 12Aparam Agrosmart Knowledge & EducationAgriculture & food
Feb 2025 - 13Kirnova BiopowerEnvironment & energy
Mar 2025 - 14Vttvrdn TechnologiesTechnology
Jun 2025 - 15Verdhara AgroAgriculture & food
Jul 2025 - 16Stubbio SolutionsEnvironment & energy
Aug 2025 - 17Celleome DiagnosticsHealth & life sciences
Oct 2025 - 18gramyuvaAIAgriculture & food
Sep 2026
No ventures in this area yet.
Ventures incubated, cumulative
Nine in the first six months, and eighteen by September 2026.
What a founder gets
A bench, a desk, a lawyer and a cheque.
Nine kinds of support. The rule above each group starts as a sketch and ends solid, which is roughly what happens to the idea.
Space & kit
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Co-working spaceDesks on campus, shared with the people solving the same problems.
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Digital infrastructureThe compute and tooling a software or data venture needs from day one.
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Wet lab facilitationBench space for ventures whose product has to be grown, assayed or tested.
Expertise
-
A dedicated incubation teamOutreach, onboarding, events, workshops and the day-to-day running of the centre.
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Mentorship sessionsDomain experts who pressure-test the science, the market and the plan.
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Legal & marketing supportCompany formalities and compliance, and help taking the thing to market.
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Intellectual property rightsProtecting what you have invented before you show it to anyone.
Money & reach
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Financial assistanceSeed support for ventures that clear the panel.
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Exhibitions & investor meetingsBeing told where to show up, and being introduced when you get there.
The bench
The people who pressure-test your idea.
Mentors from IIIT-Delhi, JNU, ICGEB and Sharda University, plus a chartered accountant and a High Court lawyer, because a venture fails on its accounts and its paperwork as easily as on its science.
Bioinformatics & computational biology
Dr GPS Raghava
Professor, IIIT-Delhi
Immunology
Dr Ravi Tandon
Assistant Professor, JNU
Structural biology
Dr Neel Sarovar Bhavesh
Principal Scientist, ICGEB
Agroecology
Dr Usha Mina
Professor, JNU
Biostatistics & data analysis
Dr Manoj Kumar
Assistant Professor, JNU
Nanotechnology
Dr Jaydeep Bhattacharya
Assistant Professor, JNU
Biotechnology
Dr Saurabh Kumar Jha
Assistant Professor, Sharda University
Finance
Tarun Maheshwari
Chartered Accountant
Law
Dr Vijay Kumar
Lawyer, Allahabad High Court
- … and moreSpecialists are brought in as a venture needs them, from the wider PRTF faculty and advisory network → Board of AdvisorsResearch & industry leaders →
And the team that runs the centre
- Uma Shankar SinghIncubation Manager
- Devender SinghTechnical maintenance
- Vikas KumarSupport
If you study here
Students don’t watch this from the outside.
The incubator shares a building with the lecture halls, so a PGDM student sees a company being built at close range, and can start one.
-
In the classroom
An idea gets written down
A problem spotted in a case discussion or a field project becomes a proposal, in front of faculty who have taken ideas to market before.
-
Between the two years
A team actually builds it
The PGDM’s summer sprint runs here: teams form, build a working thing, launch it with AI and pitch it. Some of it survives the summer.
See the summer sprint -
In the centre
The same support the ventures get
The same mentors, the same wet lab and co-working desks, the same help with intellectual property, company formalities and taking a product to market. Students are not handed a lesser version of it.
-
After the programme
A company is a legitimate outcome
Incubation support runs through the PGDM, and founding something counts as a career outcome here rather than a detour from one.
About the AI-Centric PGDM
How you get in
Two doors, and what the panel looks for.
Pathfinder Foundation Innovation takes seed and pre-seed ventures from ideation through to a working prototype.
Door two
Seed
A minimum viable product and a business plan already in hand. Ready for market research, a larger team and a prototype to build the business on.
What the panel weighs
A panel of experts reviews every applicant and interviews the promoters before a venture is taken on.
- The ideaInnovative content
- The marketMarket availability
- The marketGrowth prospects
- The technologyIts potential value
- The businessThe business idea itself
- The peopleThe promoter team
Recognition
Recognised by the Government of Uttar Pradesh.
Pathfinder Foundation Innovation is supported under the UP IT & Startup Policy 2020, the state's StartinUP programme. For a founder that means state-recognised incubation, and access to the incentives the policy carries.
UP IT & Startup Policy 2020
Incubate with us
Bring us an idea.
Whether it is a sentence on the back of a page or a working prototype, the incubation team will tell you honestly which door you are at.