IIT-Bombay’s Eureka! Returns With 25th Edition, Offer Startups A Chance To Win Up To $80K

The Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT Bombay is all set to host its flagship business model competition titled Eureka!. Returning with its 25th edition, the competition will offer young founders and leaders months of learning, networking, and mentoring on the key to building a scalable business.

The event is designed for early-stage entrepreneurs, especially those in the ideation phase, looking for one-on-one mentoring on developing a go-to-market strategy. 

The programme has seven tracks — the Yes Bank Business Track, the CitiusTech Healthcare Track, the QED Investors Fintech Track, the Union Bank Social Track, the BPCL Energy Track, the Komet Web3.0 and Blockchain Track, and the Westbridge Capital Pan-IIT Track. 

What’s In It For The Startups?

This time around, with over 15K applications expected, young entrepreneurs and student-led startups will go through three extensive rounds spread across five months. The first round will bring on-stage mentors to help founders navigate the process of building a sound business model. 

The previous edition saw a variety of industry leaders stepping up as mentors, including Indian Angel Network’s Kanchi Daiya, StartupBay’s Amit Jain, Tomorrow Capital’s Piyush Surana, and 3i Zone’s Pradeep Rathi, among others.

The shortlisted entrepreneurs will subsequently undergo an intensive mentorship round with workshops focusing on improving and building up the business model and product. At this stage, the founders will be judged based on the idea’s viability and its unique value proposition.

Once the finalists are announced, the founders will go through a three-day accelerator programme to prepare them for the last mile of the competition. The final pitch will be held as a part of E-Summit 23, IIT Bombay’s annual business conclave in February 2023. The selected ventures will get a chance to pitch in a closed-door event in front of a panel of industry experts.

Last year’s event included names such as 9Unicorns’ Rajesh Mane, Venture Catalysts’ Reshma Jhaveri, Swadeshi Handicrafts’ Rahul Baviskar, and Hyper Accelerator’s Douglas Peris, among others, as jury members.

The winning startups will win a cash prize of $80K and incentives worth $61K in the form of AWS Credits and free subscriptions to Canva, Freshworks, and Autodesk. The investor jury will also have the option of providing additional funding to the featured startups.

The winners of past editions included startups such as BlisCare, Jeevan Lite, SPARC, MyWays, DocEye, Curomates, and AI-Genix. The winning startups also got the opportunity to pitch their business ideas on international grounds at the Indian Pavilion, Dubai EXPO 2020, where BlisCare, DocEye, Curomates, and AIGenx raised spot funding.