Eligibility for the competition:

 Individuals or Teams may apply. However, team of two persons or more is preferred by the
time of application deadline. There should be a single designated Point of contact for the
entire Challenge duration.
 Age: All team members should be 18 years old or older on the date of submission of the
application.

Start-up status

 Incorporation is not mandatory but should be done within a year.

 Products/Services/Process must be based on an original innovative technology developed by
participating team.
 At least one member of every selected team must be present at the Pitch day event of the
Challenge. Absence should be intimated in advance; else it will result in disqualification of the
team.
 These conditions shall be strictly adhered to by the challenge organizing committee, any
noncompliance by the applicant will lead to disqualification.

Registration for the challenge

 No charges for applications.

 All entries must be submitted online (paper submissions will not be accepted) on the
following platform: http://www.ci-tic.com
 Entries must be submitted on / before 7 th October 2019.
 The decision of the organizing committee regarding incomplete, delayed or non-conforming
applications are final.

Selection and judging criteria

The Chennai Next Start-up Challenge organizing committee will initially shortlist the Top 50. Then, Top
25 finalists will be given the opportunity to pitch and the final Top 10 will be chosen by a selected jury,
comprising of experienced technocrat’s, investors and incubation managers. The Jury operates under
the guidance of a Chairman.

The Start-ups/Proposed start-ups will be selected and judged using the following criteria:
 Novelty and innovativeness of the technology,
 Team (expertise in the field, experience and plan for division of roles and responsibilities)
 Market (size, scalability, competition),
 Overall project viability (time to market, Intellectual Property strategy, entry barriers),
 Potential impact on industry sector and societal implications such as jobs generated, women
empowerment, environment safety.

Maintaining Confidentiality

Information as per the submitted application is the only information permitted for access by the jury,
organization committee and IT support, who all agree on Non-Disclosure. However, all applicants need
to permit the discussion and publication of brief product details during and in the Contest
Communication material, especially to the written or audio-visual media.Also the applicants explicitly
authorize the Chennai Next Start-up Challenge 2019 organizing committee to use and disseminate, for
the purpose of the Challenge, their public information, names and images in any format, to the
members of the jury, Media and IT Support .

Use of Applicant information

 The members of the judging panel are entrepreneurs, Technocrats, incubation managers and
investors. They will use this information to judge the Start-ups/ Proposed Start-ups, select the
finalists and winners of the Challenge. They will have access to this data until the selection of
winners only.
 The Chennai Next Start-up Challenge 2019 shall use the public information for their reporting
purposes to project sponsors, also they reserve the right to use this data to contact
entrepreneurs, offering them opportunities from CI-TIC or from its resource network to leverage
the growth of the Start-ups.

Intellectual property

At the time of submitting the application to Chennai Next Start-up Challenge 2019, the applicant
assures that they have all right, title and/or interest in the application submitted and that the
information it contains is accurate and complete, and that by submitting the document, they are not
and will not be violating any contract or third party rights, any patent, copyright, trade secret,
proprietary or confidential information, trademark, publicity or privacy right. Any team that violates
this will be automatically disqualified from the contest. Before submitting entries, the Chennai Next
Start-up Challenge 2019, organizing committee urges contestants to confirm with appropriate legal
advisors that all intellectual work pertaining to their innovations are adequately protected and can be
shared in their applications.
Awards and Recognitions:

Top 50
 Recognized as the top 50 promising start-ups by the Challenge Committee.
 Opportunity to connect with potential investors, mentors, expert professionals etc. Also
eligible of subsidized, but full course Incubation services and investor readiness training.

Top 25
 Recognized as the top 25 promising start-ups by an eminent jury
 Invitation to the Pitch day to pitch before an eminent panel and get exclusive feedback from
them.
 Subsidized incubation workspace and personalized strategic and financial mentoring for a
period of two years, leveraging the venture visibility in the global markets.

Top 10
 Recognized as the top 10 promising start-ups by an eminent jury based on the Pitch.
 Access to seed fund support.

50 lakh seed support:

 The top 10 finalist will be eligible for a seed fund support of up to INR 50 Lakhs.
 The Start-Up must be incorporated or registered in India to receive the seed fund support.
 The seed support will be in the form of Equity /Loans.
 The funding decision is based on the venture readiness and the final decision of the seed
fund committee of TREC-STEP and CI-TIC.
 The fund release will be in two or three phases, on satisfactory achievement of venture
milestones.

Media Interaction
 All teams are required to participate in media and press opportunities related to the Chennai
Next Start-up Challenge 2019.
 All teams may be asked to speak to the media for competition related interviews when
requested by the organizing committee.
 All teams may be asked to provide brief content for any competition related press releases.
 The teams are advised not to disclose any proprietary or otherwise confidential information
related to their businesses in the media interaction.

Submitting the application

By submitting the application, each participant confirms the acceptance and adherence to the above
mentioned challenge conditions and the organizers’ decisions as final and binding in all respects.
Rules of competition are available to all applicants on the website www.ci-tic.com.
In case of any queries, email us @ chennainext@ci-tic.com.