The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology's (MeitY) MeitY Start-up Hub (MSH) and Meta have announced a list of 120 start-ups and innovators for the XR Start-up Program. The program, which was announced in September 2022, is a collaboration between MSH and Meta to discover, nurture, and accelerate Extended Reality (XR) technology start-ups and innovators across India. It includes an Accelerator and a Grand Challenge, aimed at boosting the emerging tech ecosystem in the country. The program was launched close on the heels of the recent National Start-Up Day.

Out of the start-ups selected in the Accelerator Program, over 30 per cent are from tier II or III cities across India. Also, 40 per cent of the selected innovators and start-ups in the grand challenge are from tier II or III cities. Furthermore, more than 20 per cent of the cohort has women innovators and start-ups with women founders/ co-founders.

The Accelerator Program is supporting 40 early-stage start-ups working in XR technologies with a grant of Rs 20 lakhs each. The Grand Challenge will encourage early-stage innovators in sectors such as education, learning and skills, healthcare, gaming and entertainment, agritech and climate action and tourism and sustainability.

The innovators will be provided support to upscale from the research and development phase to developing workable products and services. At first, 80 innovators will attend a boot camp, out of which, a total of 16 innovators will be provided grants of Rs 20 lakhs each and further support to help them develop the minimum viable product (MVP) or prototypes.

The Accelerator and Grand Challenge are also supporting start-ups and innovators with establishing customer connections, partnership opportunities and fundraising among other things. The program is being executed in partnership with implementation partners including, Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT) at IIT Delhi (North Zone), Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at IIIT-H (South Zone), Atal Incubation Centre (AIC) at SMUTBI (East Zone), and Gujarat University Startup and Entrepreneurship Council (GUSEC) (West Zone).

(With inputs from PTI)