11 Grants, Challenges and Pitch Competitions Closing Between 9 and 25 October

From the ₹20-crore SIDBI Innovation Challenge Fund to IIT Bombay's ₹3.5-crore Ten Minute Million, here are the founder programs with deadlines in the next fortnight.

Applications shut between 9 and 25 October 2026 for grants, pitch competitions and innovation challenges collectively offering tens of crores. Here is what is closing, with deadlines bolded so you can act fast.

Closing 9 October: the EarthON Greenovation Bootcamp 2026, a 3-day residential programme for climate entrepreneurs at ISB Hyderabad, jointly run by EarthON Foundation, Greenovation Hub and AIC ISB, with prizes up to ₹2 lakh. Closing 10 October: two very different shots — the AWS × IDFC × Campus Fund Grand Challenge 2026, the 7th edition of India's competition exclusively for student startups (alumni have raised over ₹90 million post-challenge), and Hefty-Hacks, a fintech-and-trading hackathon by TechZap with a ₹75,000 prize pool. Closing 12 October: HackX 3.0 at Manipal University Jaipur — a 36-hour hackathon across 10 tracks with a prize pool exceeding ₹5,00,000, open to students, developers and designers.

The big cluster lands on 15 October. The Tamil Nadu Tourism Innovation Challenge 2026 (StartupTN + Tamil Nadu Tourism) is hunting tourism-tech startups. The SARTHI incubation programs — six tracks from Agri-Tech to Deep-Tech across Maharashtra, each offering ₹3 lakh — close the same day. Closing 16 October: the SIDBI Innovation Challenge Fund (SICF) 2026, SIDBI's digital platform for outcome-oriented MSME-sector innovations, with prize money of ₹20 crore — the single largest pot on this list. Closing 17 October: RISE IISER IDEAPOOL 2026 for sustainability-focused ideas (₹2.5 lakh plus incubation). Closing 18 October: Ten Minute Million 2026 by E-Cell, IIT Bombay — an offline pitch competition where founders get 10 minutes before an investor panel, with potential on-the-spot funding totalling ₹3.5 crore.

Further out, closing 25 October: the STPI IGNITE Open Challenge 2026 with support ranging from ₹2.5 lakh to ₹1.5 crore.

Why it matters for founders

Non-dilutive capital and investor-facing stages are the cheapest momentum a startup can buy. Pick the two programs that genuinely fit your sector — not all eleven — and apply this week: a well-written one-page application takes an evening, and SIDBI's ₹20-crore pot alone is worth that evening.

Find these funders and apply in one click — browse investor profiles at /investors and prepare your application with the /apply-kit.