Deep tech is creating new market opportunities across healthcare, climate, mobility, and aerospace. Yet a significant share of that innovation potential remains untapped, largely because women-led ventures continue to face structural gaps in access to capital, networks, and pilots.

Building a deep tech venture is hard. For women, the barriers run deeper. Beyond securing capital and accessing the right networks, women founders often navigate a landscape where social perceptions still question their place in hardware and engineering, where breaking into the right rooms takes longer, and where finding a community that understands their unique challenges is rarely straightforward.

iCreate built the Women in Deep Tech Programme with this reality in mind. For women founders working on breakthrough solutions, iCreate offers more than an incubation pathway. It offers a community, a network, and an ecosystem specifically designed to give founders the infrastructure, connections, and visibility they need to move forward on their own terms.

The momentum is already building

Across India, women entrepreneurs are already building impactful deep tech ventures. Geetha Manjunath’s Niramai Health Analytix developed an AI-powered, hardware-led solution for early breast cancer detection, while Hardika Shah’s Kinara Capital used technology to expand financial access for underserved small businesses at scale.

Within the iCreate ecosystem, Nidhi, founder of Nema AI, built a deep-tech platform using EEG-based AI to deliver cognitive insights across healthcare, education, and corporate wellness, earning a spot on Shark Tank India Season 3 and securing seed funding in 2024. Dr. Prafulla Vedula Agarwal, founder of Tokere Energy Solutions, is leveraging blockchain to bring transparency to carbon markets and renewable energy, supporting net-zero transitions for businesses and investors. Both founders demonstrate what becomes possible with the right ecosystem behind them.

Built for founders who are ready to build

The Women in Deep Tech Programme is designed for women innovators developing scalable solutions to real-world challenges through deep tech. Applicants should be at the Idea-to-Proof-of-Concept (PoC) stage or have a PoC ready for validation. The programme is open to individual innovators, students, and startups, and applicants must be Indian citizens. Formal registration of a startup or LLP is not mandatory to apply.

From prototype to minimum viable product

Selected applicants receive end-to-end support to progress from idea or proof of concept to a minimum viable product. This includes structured mentorship, capacity-building workshops, and hands-on technical and business guidance at every stage. Participants also gain access to an extensive network of regional and international mentors, corporate connections, and strategic partnerships that enable long-term commercial growth.

iCreate’s campus in Ahmedabad provides state-of-the-art infrastructure for product development and testing, including its rapid prototyping and digital innovation lab, on-campus accommodation, and participation in relevant ecosystem events.

For women founders in deep tech, access to this kind of ecosystem is not just valuable, it is transformative. The Women in Deep Tech Programme is iCreate’s commitment to ensuring more women have what it takes to move from lab bench to market-ready product.

iCreate invites applications for its exclusive Women in Deep Tech Programme.

Apply now: https://icreate.accubate.app/ext/form/3861/1/apply?source=social&medium=post