STPI: The Government Engine Running 24 Centres of Entrepreneurship and Rs 25 Lakh Seed Funding

The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) is an autonomous society established in 1991 under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) — and it has quietly become one of the largest startup-infrastructure operators in the country. It runs 67 centres, 59 of them in non-metro locations, with 17 lakh sq. ft. of incubation space for startups and MSMEs in smaller towns. STPI-registered units contributed US$110 billion to India's software exports in FY2024-25.

For startups, two programmes matter. The Centres of Entrepreneurship (CoEs) — 24 launched across emerging technologies — deliver a 360-degree support ecosystem: incubation infrastructure, hardware and software labs, mentoring, funding and investor interfaces, and industry connects. The domain-specific lineup includes FinBlue (Chennai), MOTION (Pune), NEURON (Mohali), Apiary (Gurugram), IMAGE (Hyderabad), MedTech (Lucknow), IoT OpenLab (Bengaluru), Electropreneur Park (Delhi and Bhubaneswar) and the Octane group of 8 CoEs in the North East.

The second is the Next Generation Incubation Scheme (NGIS): up to Rs 25 lakh of seed/risk funding for promising startups, plus internship grants, plug-n-play incubation space, regular mentorship and workshops. STPI's stated startup targets: supporting 1,900+ startups and enabling 500+ marketable products with 100+ IPRs/patents across AI, IoT, data analytics, AR/VR, fintech, medtech and agritech. Since 2023 it reports supporting 1,500 startups, 800 IPRs and 2,000+ product innovations.

The momentum is current: at the STPI Electropreneur Summit 2026 (September 2026, IIIT-Delhi), STPI launched the Open Challenge Programme of the Electropreneur Park and exchanged MoUs with spoke centres and investors including the Indian Angel Network and Solara VC — expanding ESDM incubation across 11 partner institutions from Chandigarh to Kashmir to Dehradun.

The Octane group of 8 CoEs in the North East — including the IoT-in-Agriculture CoE at Guwahati, the Animation CoE at Shillong and the AR/VR CoE at Imphal — shows STPI's most distinctive bet: building product-startup infrastructure where no private accelerator would go. With 59 of 67 centres in non-metro locations and 17 lakh sq. ft. of incubation space, STPI is structurally a tier-2/3 first institution. The September 2026 Electropreneur Summit MoUs — with 11 spoke centres from Chandigarh to Kashmir to Dehradun and investors IAN and Solara VC — extend that logic into electronics, democratising ESDM incubation across the northern region. For founders in the North East or smaller cities, STPI isn't a fallback option; it's the primary infrastructure, with seed funding up to Rs 25 lakh attached.