Startup Grand Challenge 2.0

About Startup Grand Challenge 2.0

To address critical issues such as food waste reduction, nutritional enhancement, and sustainable production methods thereby fostering economic growth to meet the global security demands, adoption of advanced technologies is the need of the hour. Startup Grand Challenge 2.0 in the food processing sector is aimed at catalysing innovation and accelerating technological advancements.

Through this national-level Grand Challenge, Ministry of Food Processing and Industries (MoFPI) & Startup India aim to facilitate generation of disruptive ideas fuelled by fresh perspective and leading research. The key objectives of the challenge are:

Stimulating innovation by Encouraging startups to develop novel technologies, processes, and solutions to address challenges in the food processing and allied sectors.
Provide a common platform to startups, innovators, and industry to connect and interact with various key stakeholders from the ecosystem.
Learn from industry experts and collaborate with them to build solutions that will change the industrial business and technology landscape.
Promoting entrepreneurship through fostering the creation and growth of new ventures in the food industry, driving economic development and job creation.

Proposed Problem Statements

Valorisation of residue/waste emerging from Agri/food value chains:

How food waste can be treated through various innovative technologies to produce value-added products like food additives, biofertilizers, biofuels, electricity, animal feeds, organic fertilizers, food grade pigments, bio composites, single cell protein (SCP) etc. thereby enhancing food security and environmentally sustainable development. It can focus on smart/sustainable packaging solutions for food products as well.

Novel Technologies for development of nutritious and palatable food products:

How can we develop food manufacturing processes which use natural ingredients, retain nutrition, include functional ingredients in development of new food products having the health and wellness component on one hand and improve texture, mouthfeel and be palatability on the other.

Improving water use efficiency through process modifications:

What technologies can be used to recycle and reuse process water, optimise water usage through advanced sensors, develop water efficient equipment/processes and explore alternate water sources.

Eligibility Criteria

The Grand Challenge is open to (Indian nationals only):

Startups and individual entrepreneurs/ innovators

Proposed Process Flow

Call for Applications on Startup India Portal

Marketing and Outreach Activities

Constitution of Evaluation Committee

Preliminary Evaluation of Applicants

Handholding Support: Incubation, Pilot Opportunity

Grand Finale: Announcement of Results & Disbursal of Cash Prizes

Announcement of Finalists

Evaluation of Shortlisted Applicants

Key Elements And Incentives

1. Call For Applications

The Grand Challenge applications will be hosted exclusively on the Startup India website www.startupindia.gov.in for 4-6 weeks. Rigorous marketing and outreach efforts will be undertaken during this time through emailers and Startup India accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, to ensure participation from across the country.

2. Constitution Of An Evaluation Committee

A committee would be set up by DPIIT and MoFPI for evaluating all the applications, providing mentorship and feedback to applicants, and selecting the winners. The members of Evaluation Committee will include:

Representatives from Central Ministries and Central Government Departments
Representatives from a Venture Capital Fund or Angel Network
Domain and technical experts/ scientists from industry
Domain and technical experts from Academia
Successful entrepreneurs

3. Preliminary Evaluation

Information completeness and essential documents will be checked for all applicants by the Startup India team, to shortlist them for the next round attending Knowledge Series.

4. Announcement Of Finalists

The proposed solutions and accompanying business plans will be analysed by the Evaluation Committee. A shortlist with finalists will be announced, post the analysis by the Evaluation Committee.

5. Grand Finale

Finalists will pitch their solutions to the Evaluation Committee via video presentations

6. Top 06

Innovative and resilient ideas/solutions will be awarded a cash prize and other offerings and will be provided with incubation support and pilot opportunities to convert their idea into tangible solutions.

7. Incentives For Winners

Cash Prize: Top 06 ideas will be provided with a cash prize by MoFPI. NIFTEM (K) to provide complete roadmap to the winner startups.
Incubation Support: Top 06 winning solutions will be provided with 12-months’ incubation support with the on-boarded incubation partner. The incubator would be responsible for virtual/ physical incubation of the selected participants, mentor matchmaking, conducting business and investor workshops, and tracking the progress of the selected applicants for up to 3 months after the completion of the program.
Pilot Opportunities: At the end of the incubation, selected participants will have the opportunity for field trial and pilot their product in the market. They will have access to validate their technology from the relevant Ministry/ Department’s network of institutions. It is to note that industry will come at a later stage to assess whether they can provide pilot orders and/or mentorship to the selected startups.

8. Startup Grand Challenge Timelines

Application Start Date: 21st June 2024
Application End Date: 21st July 2024
Application Result Date: 31st August 202

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