Glossary
Incubation and startup glossary for India
The words Indian incubation centres, founders and funders use every day, in plain English.
- Incubation centre
- An organisation that supports early startups with space, mentoring, money, networks and programmes, usually for a fixed period.
- Incubation centre ERP
- One software that runs everything an incubation centre does: applications, startups, mentors, investors, accounts, grants, events and accreditation reports.
- Technology Business Incubator (TBI)
- An incubator, usually hosted by an academic or research institution, that supports technology startups. Many in India are supported by the Department of Science and Technology.
- Atal Incubation Centre (AIC)
- An incubation centre set up with support from Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog.
- Pre-incubation
- Support for an idea or team before it is ready to be a startup in incubation, often run by a college cell.
- Accelerator
- A time-bound programme that takes a cohort of startups through intensive support, often ending in a demo day.
- Cohort
- A group of startups that join a programme together.
- Incubatee
- A startup that an incubation centre is supporting.
- Virtual incubation
- Support given without a desk at the centre: mentoring, programmes and introductions, mostly online.
- Demo day
- The event at the end of a cohort where startups present to investors and partners.
- Seed fund
- Early money given to a startup to prove its idea, build a prototype or reach its first customers.
- Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS)
- A Government of India scheme, run by DPIIT, under which selected incubators receive funds to give startups as seed support.
- NIDHI
- The National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations: the Department of Science and Technology’s umbrella programme for innovation and startups, run largely through incubators.
- NIDHI-PRAYAS
- A NIDHI programme that gives young innovators grants to build a prototype, through host incubators known as PRAYAS centres.
- BioNEST
- BIRAC’s scheme for bio-incubators. The name stands for Bioincubators Nurturing Entrepreneurship for Scaling Technologies.
- TIDE 2.0
- The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s scheme for Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs, run through incubators.
- Grant-in-aid
- Money given by the government to an institution for a purpose, which has to be accounted for.
- Utilisation certificate (UC)
- A certificate that shows how a grant was spent, filed with the body that gave it.
- Form GFR 12-A
- The utilisation certificate format in India’s General Financial Rules, 2017.
- General Financial Rules (GFR)
- The Government of India’s rules on how public money is handled, including grants and their utilisation certificates.
- NAAC
- The National Assessment and Accreditation Council, which assesses and accredits higher education institutions in India.
- NIRF
- The National Institutional Ranking Framework, the Ministry of Education’s ranking of higher education institutions.
- NBA
- The National Board of Accreditation, which accredits technical and professional programmes.
- IIC (Institution’s Innovation Council)
- A council an institution sets up under the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell to run and report innovation and entrepreneurship activities.
- MIC
- The Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell, which runs the IIC programme.
- NISP
- The National Innovation and Startup Policy for students and faculty of higher education institutions.
- ARIIA
- The Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements. From 2023, innovation is ranked as a category within NIRF.
- DPIIT recognition
- Recognition of a startup by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade under Startup India.
- CIN
- Corporate Identification Number: the 21-character number on a company’s certificate of incorporation.
- GSTIN
- The 15-character Goods and Services Tax Identification Number of a registered business.
- PAN
- Permanent Account Number: the 10-character tax identity issued by the Income Tax Department.
- Udyam registration
- The registration number for micro, small and medium enterprises, which starts with UDYAM.
- GSTR-1
- The GST return in which a business reports its outward supplies, filed monthly or quarterly.
- Form 26Q
- The quarterly TDS return for tax deducted on payments other than salary.
- TDS
- Tax deducted at source: tax taken out of a payment before it is made, such as on a mentor’s honorarium.
- Honorarium
- A fee paid to a mentor or expert for their time, usually per session.
- Maker-checker approval
- A rule that one person records a payment and another approves it.
- Deal room
- A shared space where an investor and a founder keep the conversation, meetings and documents of one deal.
- Term sheet
- A short document that sets out the main terms an investor offers, before the final agreements are signed.
- Incubator holdings
- The shares an incubator holds in the startups it supports, often taken in return for support or seed money.
- Runway
- How many months a startup’s cash lasts at its current burn: cash divided by monthly net burn.
- Burn rate
- How much money a startup spends in a month beyond what it earns.
- MIS report
- A management information report; in incubators, usually the monthly report each startup sends.
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