HDFC Bank To Disburse Rs 20 crore To Social Impact Start-ups In 9th Edition of Parivartan Start-up Grants

SRINAGAR: HDFC Bank on Tuesday announced the launch of the FY26 edition of its Parivartan Start up Grants programme, a flagship initiative aimed at supporting social impact driven innovation across India.

Building on learnings from previous years, the FY26 edition will support 10 strategic initiatives across priority sectors including climate innovation, agriculture and sustainable livelihoods, manufacturing and MSME innovation, financial inclusion, and gender diversity and inclusion. The programme will also extend support to emerging areas such as artificial intelligence and deep technology.

Under the FY26 programme, HDFC Bank Parivartan will disburse Rs 20 crore through non dilutive grants to enable pilot projects, validation and early stage scale up of selected startups. The latest edition also marks steady progress towards the programme’s 10 year milestone, alongside an expansion of partnerships with incubators associated with reputed institutions across regions.

The Parivartan Start up Grants programme follows an incubator led, portfolio based model, under which partner incubators lead programme design, startup outreach, evaluation, mentoring, monitoring and impact reporting.

For FY26, the programme adopts a sharper sector led approach with institution mapped focus areas. These include deep technology with IIT Madras Incubation Centre, IISc Bangalore FSID and SINE IIT Bombay, financial inclusion with IIM Bangalore NSRCEL and IIM Lucknow Enterprise Incubation Centre, manufacturing innovation with T Works, climate innovation with BITS Pilani, and waste management with Villgro Innovation Foundation.

Beyond startup funding, the programme will also focus on ecosystem enablement, including regional ecosystem development initiatives for the state of Punjab led by India School of Business i Venture in partnership with Startup Punjab. A pan India incubator capacity building programme will also be rolled out in partnership with the Indian STEP and Business Incubator Association, hosted across multiple regions for emerging incubators supported by the Department of Science and Technology, DPIIT Startup India, MeitY Startup Hub, BIRAC and state startup promotion agencies.

Commenting on the announcement, Kaizad Bharucha said Parivartan has evolved as a benchmark programme that works closely with institutions to support innovation addressing clearly identified social and environmental challenges. He said the FY26 focus is on deepening sector engagement, strengthening ecosystems and building institutional capacity to ensure sustained support for startups.

Arup Rakshit said early stage social impact innovation benefits from strong institutional backing that provides mentorship, networks and structured support. He said the FY26 edition strengthens this approach through partnerships with leading incubators across climate action, financial inclusion, deep technology and livelihood focused sectors.

Since its inception in 2017, the Parivartan Start up Grants programme has supported more than 500 startups, including 87 in FY25 alone, through partnerships with over 130 incubators across India. Cumulatively, the programme has deployed more than Rs 85 crore in grant funding, with nearly 40 percent of supported startups originating from Tier II and Tier III cities. At a portfolio level, these startups have raised over Rs 900 crore in external funding, with around 40 percent co founded by women. In FY25, the programme deployed Rs 20 crore across 20 incubation centres.

Applications for the FY26 edition will be routed through partner incubators, which will independently share timelines and application details.