Help centre
For founders on Originn
What this side of Originn is, who it serves, and how it sits next to the platforms you may already know.
Originn is the founder platform where startups get discovered, hire collaborators, validate ideas, and raise working capital from their first customers, without giving up equity. We sit on the founder side of the same Originn that backers and users see at originn.co.in.
Any startup with a working product or a clear path to one. We are particularly built for campus-born startups and pre-incubated teams, but you do not need to come through an institute to apply.
AngelList connects you with investors. LinkedIn is general professional networking. Incubators offer programs in exchange for equity. Originn is none of those, we are a verified marketplace where you list, sell, and hire without giving up equity, with verification doing the trust-building work on both sides.
Anywhere from "we have a working prototype and our first ten interested users" to "we are shipping and want a bigger reach". If you have not built anything yet, this is too early, come back when you have a demo.
Originn Tech operates out of India and is pre-incubated at Nirmaan, IIT Madras. The Platform is available to founders globally, with payouts and pre-order campaigns currently supported for India-registered entities.
How the application works, what we check, and what to expect at each step.
Go to originn.co.in/startup/apply, fill in the short form, and submit. The form asks for your team, your product, your traction (if any), and your legal standing. It takes about fifteen minutes.
We confirm the things a backer or a hire would want confirmed before trusting you with their money or their time. Specifically:
We respond to every application within five to seven business days. Most decisions come back inside that window, approve, reject, or request specific changes.
You will get a specific reason. Most rejections come down to "too early, come back when you have X". You can reapply at any time once that changes; there is no cool-off period.
You can apply as an unincorporated team to start the conversation, but going live with a public profile or a pre-order campaign requires a registered legal entity. We will tell you what is needed and by when.
You need something we can actually verify, a working prototype, a recorded demo, or a piece of software people can use. We do not list slide-only ideas.
What goes on your public Originn page, who sees it, and what you control.
Three things.
Yes. Most fields are editable in your dashboard. Changes that affect verified facts (founder departure, legal standing, registered entity changes) need to be flagged so we can re-verify, see Section 02 of the Founder Agreement.
Anyone visiting Originn, backers, candidates, other founders. The public surface is intentionally lightweight; deeper sections (financials, internal updates) only appear if you choose to share them with specific audiences.
Yes, flip your listing to "paused" from the dashboard. Active campaigns finish out their cycle and active conversations stay open, but no new visitors land on your page until you unpause.
It signals that we have checked the facts on your page and they hold up. For backers and candidates, the badge is the difference between trusting a stranger on the internet and trusting a name they can act on. It does not mean Originn vouches for outcomes, those depend on you.
How you raise working capital from your first customers, without giving up equity.
You set a goal (units, amount, or both), publish a delivery timeline with checkpoints, and accept pre-orders from backers. Funds are collected up front and released to you as you hit each verified checkpoint. The relationship is buyer-and-seller, not investor-and-founder, no equity changes hands.
Most crowdfunding platforms send the founder the money the day the campaign ends, with no protection after. On Originn, funds sit safely in the campaign account from the moment backers pay in, and each checkpoint releases its tranche only when we verify the milestone. If a milestone is missed, backers are made whole.
Yes. A verified profile, hiring, and collaboration are available without a campaign. You only run a campaign when you have something concrete to ship and want working capital tied to the build.
You set the window. Typical campaigns run 30 to 90 days from launch to close, with milestone checkpoints distributed across the delivery window after that. The exact dates live in your campaign approval document.
You get a thirty-day grace period to deliver, with progress updates along the way. After that, the milestone is treated as missed and the corresponding tranche is paused. We will work with you on a recovery plan, see the Refund Policy for the full sequence.
Yes, with notice to your backers. Wind-down follows the Refund Policy: open pre-orders are returned to backers in full, and we will help you communicate the timeline.
Tell us early. Once Originn verifies a startup, the obligation to deliver every milestone is non-negotiable, but where a delivery becomes impossible for a real reason, the right move is to flag it immediately so backers can be made whole through the proper channel. Hiding it ends in a worse place for everyone.
How money moves from a verified milestone to your bank account.
Each tranche is released to your settlement account once the corresponding milestone is verified, typically within two business days of approval, with funds landing in your bank account within five to seven business days after that.
Backer payments sit safely in a campaign account from the moment they pay in. They are not in your possession and not in Originn's revenue, they sit ring-fenced for that specific campaign, and release to you on the schedule documented in your campaign dossier.
Payouts are settled in Indian Rupees (INR) to an India-registered bank account in the legal entity's name. We do not currently support international wire transfers, foreign-currency settlement, or cryptocurrency as a payout method.
We provide a per-payout statement that breaks out the gross amount, any platform fees, and any TDS or GST we are required to withhold. Filing your own returns and paying your own tax remains your responsibility, we don't act as your tax agent.
Where a backer is owed a refund (cancelled order before fulfilment, missed milestone, voluntary refund), the refund is settled directly to the backer through the platform. You do not action it manually. The Refund Policy covers the full mechanics.
How posting roles and collaboration projects works, and the rules that protect candidates and you.
From your dashboard, choose Post a role or Post a collaboration. Fill in the scope, compensation, work mode, and duration. Posts go live within an hour, with no manual approval queue.
Yes, where that genuinely reflects the role. Be explicit about it in the listing, unpaid roles must be labelled "unpaid / equity-only" so candidates know up front. Misrepresenting compensation is a removal-grade violation under the Founder Agreement.
No. Originn does not charge an anti-circumvention or buyout fee on hires made through the Platform. If you hire someone you met on Originn, you owe nothing per-hire. You only owe a small disclosure: mark the hire in your dashboard within fourteen days so we can keep the match signal honest.
The same rule that applies to you applies to candidates, they're expected to respond inside a reasonable window. Where a conversation goes silent on the candidate side, the system auto-archives it and you can move on. Their response rate is visible to you on subsequent matches.
When you shortlist a candidate or open a conversation, you commit to reply, decline, or move them forward within seven business days. Conversations left without a response after that window are auto-archived. We don't penalise normal hiring pace, we penalise ghosting. Your aggregate response rate shows on your public profile.
Once you're actively interviewing, calendar invites, video calls, take-home briefs, moving off-platform is normal. What we do not allow is pushing candidates to email or WhatsApp during the first conversation to bypass our vetting funnel. After first contact, you and the candidate decide where the relationship lives.
What costs money on Originn, what does not, and where the current numbers live.
Listing a verified profile is free. Hiring through the Platform is free. We charge only on pre-order campaigns, a small per-campaign service fee that's published on the Fees & Pricing page. You see the exact number before you launch any campaign; nothing is back-loaded.
Yes. You can apply, get verified, run a profile, post jobs and collaborations, and use the founder dashboard without paying us anything. Fees only kick in if and when you choose to run a pre-order campaign.
No. Every charge that touches your account is itemised in your dashboard before it bills. We do not charge an anti-circumvention fee on hires, a renewal fee on your profile, or a fee to read these policies. The Fees & Pricing page is the single source of truth.
On the Fees & Pricing page. Linked at the bottom of every page of the startup portal. Pricing changes are notified at least thirty days before they take effect on active campaigns.
Account basics, data handling, and how to reach a human.
Founder data is stored separately from end-user data, on separate systems. Public profile fields are public by design; everything else (financials, internal updates, KYC documents, candidate conversations) is access-controlled to the people you have explicitly invited. Full details live in the Privacy Policy.
Yes, from your dashboard. Active pre-order campaigns must be wound down per the Refund Policy before your account closes. Historical data needed for tax, audit, and legal-retention reasons is kept per the schedule in the Privacy Policy.
Your public profile is removed within twenty-four hours of confirming closure. Internal data we are required to retain (tax records, settlement history, compliance artefacts) is kept for the periods set out in the Privacy Policy and then deleted.
Yes. Add co-founders and team members from the dashboard with role-based access, for example, finance for payout actions, growth for campaign content, hiring for the roles inbox. Each gets their own login.
Email contact@originn.co.in. We respond within two business days. For urgent issues affecting an active campaign (a milestone deadline at risk, a payout question, a backer complaint), mark the email as urgent in the subject line and we will look at it the same day.
Originn Tech