Software major Infosys has picked up five business ideas from 18 winning employees through an in-house entrepreneurship program to incubate them into scalable business offerings to clients, people familiar with the development told ET.

The selected ventures will receive support including funding, infrastructure, mentorship, validation for the idea from clients, and access to technology through Seeder, Incubator, and Accelerator, the persons added.

Those selected for full implementation will shift into the incubator role full-time and receive up to $2,000 (Rs 1.7 lakh) in rewards, Infosys had said last year.

The five ideas are under the categories of software-centric mobility, services-as-a-software, and software-as-a-service (SaaS).

These are part of the 100 shortlisted ideas from an initial submission of 700 teams under the ‘Business Incubator’ program launched in November last year. The program invited Infoscions to become entrepreneurs by proposing high-impact ideas that can evolve into either new micro service lines or enterprise-focused platforms.

“The themes reflect the evolving needs of global enterprises, from reimagining automotive platforms and agentic AI-led service delivery to building digital public infrastructure and intelligent revenue growth platforms. Each venture is designed to address high-value, emerging market opportunities with scalable, tech-powered solutions,” the sources added.

Infosys did not respond to a request for comment.

In May, India’s second largest IT major conducted a Pitch Day event in Bengaluru where top 10 venture teams showcased their ideas. The five teams will now be part of Cohort 1 of the Business Incubator.

The incubator program comes as companies are looking for fresh avenues of business growth with innovative ideas to cater to the fast-paced AI-led changes that are increasing cost pressures and disrupting the existing model of the IT industry.

This, especially at a time when top tier IT majors are reporting negative to marginal business growth. Infosys, with an annual revenue size of $19.28 billion as on FY25, yet fared better than its peers with a 3.8% on-year growth and 2.6% sequential rise in constant currency dollar revenues at $4.9 billion for the first quarter ending June.

Previously, bigger rival Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) had launched a similar program in 2006 and doubled its capacity to 10-12 projects in 2018. The country’s fourth largest player Wipro has a subsidiary Wipro Ventures, in which it invested $200 million earlier this year, to help accelerate the software service exporter’s investments in early- to mid-stage startups.

“Innovation is core to our work, and we can make significant impact to all our clients by proactively looking for new ideas, opportunities, identifying significant problems to solve for our clients and bring the best of Infosys in every single interaction with our client stakeholders,” chief technology officer Rafee Tarafdar said in a recent mail, announcing the short-list from among 700 teams that participated in the programs over the past six months.

“We recently concluded a business incubator to identify the business ideas for new service lines and platforms for all of you and have now finally shortlisted top five ventures,” the mail added.

Many of the ideas came from mid- and senior-level employees based in India and the US.

The Salil Parekh-led IT major also plans to launch a Cohort 2 later.

“To create an entrepreneurial culture at Infosys, we also launched the Business Incubator club, which is an exclusive membership where innovative Infoscions can come together and build the future of Infosys… Let us all strive to be innovative and entrepreneurial. Stay tuned for Cohort 02 of the business incubator, we would want many more Infoscions to be a part of this journey,” chief delivery officers Dinesh Rao & Satish HC said in a recent mail.