Summary
- Six live schemes cover founders from idea stage to enterprise scale, ranging from a ₹5 lakh RKVY-RAFTAAR pre-seed grant to a ₹1.5 crore iDEX defence cheque.
- ASPIRE’s ₹1 crore figure goes to the incubator running the centre, not directly to your startup’s bank account.
- GENESIS is really two schemes in one: a ₹10 lakh EIR grant and a separate, equity-based ₹50 lakh matching investment track.
Every founder WhatsApp group has that one message: a screenshot of a government grant scheme promising lakhs in “free money,” no equity attached. Half the time the amount quoted is wrong, or it’s describing money that goes to an incubator instead of the startup, or it’s an old figure from a scheme that’s since been folded into something else.
That’s worth fixing, because the schemes underneath the confusion are real, and some of them are large enough to cover a founder’s first eighteen months of runway. From ₹5 Lakh to ₹1.5 Crore: What India’s Startup Grant Schemes Really Offer
MAXIMUM GRANT CEILING BY SCHEME
ASPIRE: money for the incubator, not directly for you
ASPIRE, run by the Ministry of MSME, is often listed online as a straight “₹1 crore per startup” grant. That’s not quite how it works.
The ₹1 crore ceiling goes to the government agency or institution setting up a Livelihood Business Incubator (LBI), covering plant and machinery costs. Private applicants running an incubator get up to 75% of that cost or ₹75 lakh, whichever is lower. If you’re a founder in agro-processing, rural manufacturing, or khadi and village industries, you don’t apply for the ₹1 crore directly. You apply to get incubated at, or funded through, one of these centres, which then support you with equipment, mentoring, and smaller pass-through grants.
It’s still useful money if your sector fits (agro-based industries, rural artisans, food processing), but the framing matters. Think of ASPIRE as infrastructure funding for the ecosystem around you, not a founder’s cheque.
MSME Innovative Scheme: ₹15 lakh per idea, plus IPR and design support
Launched in 2022, this scheme merges three sub-components under one roof: Incubation, Design, and IPR.
The headline number founders care about is up to ₹15 lakh per innovative idea, disbursed through one of over 1,400 approved Host Institutes (IITs, IIMs, NITs, and dedicated MSME incubators). That’s per idea, not automatically per enterprise, which matters if you’re running more than one product line under the same company.
The less-talked-about parts are worth knowing too. The IPR component reimburses up to ₹5 lakh for a foreign patent and ₹1 lakh for a domestic one. The Design component covers 60-75% of an approved design project’s cost. And SIDBI manages a separate equity support layer, up to ₹1 crore, for MSMEs ready to commercialise and scale a proven idea. Most founders only ever tap the incubation grant, but the IPR reimbursement alone is worth checking if you’re filing patents this year.
Read More: Startup India Certificate 2026: Step‑by‑Step Guide to DPIIT Recognition (NSWS Portal)
PRISM (DSIR): built for individual innovators, not just registered companies
PRISM stands for Promoting Innovations in Individuals, Startups and MSMEs, run by DSIR (the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research), and it’s one of the few schemes open to individual Indian citizens who haven’t incorporated yet.
The grant comes in two phases. Phase I, for proof-of-concept and prototype work, runs ₹2 lakh to ₹20 lakh. Phase II, aimed at enterprise creation and scaling, caps at ₹50 lakh. Sectors covered are broad: affordable healthcare, water and sewage management, clean energy, smart materials, and waste-to-wealth technologies.
One condition to flag for the audit trail: if a funded project is abandoned, DSIR can ask for the money back with 12% interest. It’s a grant, but it’s not a no-strings one.
GENESIS: two schemes wearing one name
This is where a lot of listicles trip up, including the version most founders have seen. GENESIS is a MeitY umbrella scheme with a ₹490 crore outlay aimed at Tier-II and Tier-III tech startups, and it has more than one funding track under it.
The Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) track, which most early founders actually apply to, offers a subsistence grant of up to ₹10 lakh a year, plus mentorship and incubation access through participating centres. Cohort 3 opened in August 2026 with a specific push toward first-time, non-metro founders.
Separately, there’s a GENESIS Matching Investment Scheme that offers equity-based matching investment of up to ₹50 lakh to technology startups from Tier-II and Tier-III cities, alongside a structured six-month acceleration programme. This one takes equity. It’s not a grant in the same sense as the EIR track, and conflating the two is how the “₹50 lakh GENESIS grant” myth keeps circulating.
Read More: Top 5 Government Schemes for Rural Youth Startups in 2025
If you’re bootstrapped and want money with no equity attached, the EIR track is the one to target first.
iDEX: the largest cheque on this list, if you’re building for defence
Run by the Ministry of Defence through the Defence Innovation Organisation, iDEX funds startups, MSMEs, and individual innovators solving problems posed by the armed forces (through the Defence India Startup Challenge) or self-defined problems with defence relevance (Open Challenge).
Standard grants go up to ₹1.5 crore, disbursed over roughly 18 months against milestones, with startups retaining full IP rights over what they build. Under iDEX Prime, aimed at more mature, higher-stakes challenges, that ceiling rises to ₹10 crore. It’s non-dilutive either way, and a successful prototype comes with a direct line to procurement by the Indian Armed Forces, which is as good a pilot customer as a startup can get in that sector.
This one only makes sense if your product genuinely fits a defence or dual-use use case. It’s not a general-purpose grant.
RKVY-RAFTAAR: staged funding for agri-startups
The Ministry of Agriculture’s RKVY-RAFTAAR programme funds agri and allied-sector startups in two stages, through a network of RKVY Agri-Business Incubators (R-ABIs).
Idea-stage founders can get up to ₹5 lakh after completing a short Agripreneurship Orientation Programme. Once you’ve got a working MVP and move to seed stage, that rises to up to ₹25 lakh, released in tranches as you hit milestones. DeHaat, one of India’s better-known agritech names, used RKVY-RAFTAAR funding early on to expand its farmer network.
It’s a smaller cheque than iDEX or ASPIRE, but the staged structure (₹5 lakh to validate, ₹25 lakh to scale) makes it one of the more founder-friendly designs on this list.
What this actually means for your fundraising plan
None of these schemes replace a seed round, and none of them should be the only line in your funding plan. But stacked together, and applied for with the right expectations, they can meaningfully extend your runway before you have to give up equity.
The pattern worth remembering: schemes tied to a specific ministry’s mandate (defence, agriculture, MSME manufacturing) tend to pay more and move faster than broad, sector-agnostic ones. And whenever a scheme mentions “up to,” read the fine print on who the cheque is actually written to. That single detail is where most of the confusion above started.
Read More: Top 10 Government Schemes Boosting AgriTech and Rural Startups
If you’re not sure which of these fits your stage and sector, StartupIndiaX’s Govt Scheme Finder filters 30+ central schemes by sector and stage, and the Startup Runway Calculator can help you work out how far a milestone-based grant will actually stretch before your next raise.
Got a scheme you’ve applied to that isn’t on this list, or a number here that doesn’t match what you were quoted? Drop it in the comments, we track corrections openly and this list will get updated as new cohorts open.
FAQs
What is the biggest non-dilutive government grant available to Indian startups?
Among the schemes here, iDEX offers the highest ceiling: up to ₹1.5 crore for standard defence and aerospace challenges, and up to ₹10 crore under iDEX Prime for more advanced problem statements.
Can a startup apply for more than one government scheme at the same time?
Generally yes, as long as you meet each scheme’s eligibility and disclose any other government support you’ve already received, since several schemes cap total assistance per idea or per founder.
Do I need to be DPIIT-recognised to apply for these schemes?
It depends on the scheme. PRISM accepts individual innovators who haven’t incorporated yet, while GENESIS EIR and RKVY-RAFTAAR generally expect an incorporated entity, DPIIT recognition or not depending on the specific cohort’s guidelines.
Is ASPIRE funding available directly to my startup?
Not usually. ASPIRE’s grant is paid to the incubator or institution setting up a Livelihood Business Incubator. Founders benefit indirectly, through equipment access, mentoring, and smaller pass-through support at that incubator.
How is GENESIS different from the GENESIS Matching Investment Scheme?
GENESIS EIR is a subsistence grant of up to ₹10 lakh with no equity taken. The GENESIS Matching Investment Scheme is a separate, equity-based track offering up to ₹50 lakh in matching investment, mainly for Tier-II and Tier-III tech startups ready to scale.