All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA) in association with Startup India has launched 'Ayush Startup challenge' to encourage early-stage startups and individuals working on innovations in the Ayurveda sector and alternative healing. The winners of ‘Ayush Startup Challenge’ will receive both a cash prize and incubation support from AIIA.

The ‘Ayush Startup Challenge’ is open for participation from both early-stage start-ps as well as individuals as a group. A group of three to five individuals can come together to participate in the programme, however, if selected they would need to register a legal entity before the cash prize is disbursed to them. 

There are 3 entry categories for participating startups - Ayush Food Innovations, Ayush Bio-instrumentation (Hardware solutions) and Ayush IT Solutions (Software solutions).

There will be two winners in each of the 3 categories with a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh for the winner and Rs 50,000 for the runner-up. Therefore overall, there would be six winners.

In addition, winners will receive incubation support from AIIA. The incubation support would entitle winners to tap into the vast knowledge and resource pool of AIIA across the three wings of the institute namely research, academics, and Hospital.