Starting up a business is not an easy endeavour. The first few years lay the groundwork and base for things to come. So, it is important for startups to get the right kind of mentorship and guidance, in their early days. The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Bangalore chapter recently announced the 2014 edition of AnthahPrerana. 10 start-ups which were selected out of a total of 300 applicants will now be mentored by TiE Bangalore over a 90 day program.
Criteria for inclusion:
Start-ups should not have received any form of angel or venture capital funding,
They need to be less than three years old and the ideas must be financially viable and for profit.
As a part of the program, the winners were showcased at a recognition night on 5th December in which the companies received constructive feedback from VCs, Angels, TiE Charter Members and senior representatives of leading corporates who attended the event.
List of the top 10 start-ups
EventsHigh
Team: Nikesh Garera, Arvind Batra, Parag Sarda
Local events can have a huge social impact and help communities come together. But, with information scattered everywhere on the web, event discovery is a challenge. EventsHigh crawls the web for event related information and brings it all at one place. Users can explore the gamut of events by using navigation tools that allow them to discover events by their interests, locality or just see the best events to go to for any given day.
Market: Events is a Rs. 5000 crore market in India growing at the rate of 20-25% per year. Consumer impact starts with a few million users in the early years and eventually, the destination for knowing about any event globally. Event organizers of all sizes can have a customized online/mobile presence, and be able to reach the right audience.
Swarmverse
Team: Manjunath Nanjaiah, Arun Kumar, Dhara Desai and Vikram Salot
A big data solutions focusing on pre-paid payment data and intelligent big-data analytics, Schemes Central aims to provide offers to customers, increasing conversions. Prediction of customer profitability, offer response and prediction of CLTV, helps the merchants.
Market: Household savings in physical gold (jewellery & ornaments) is an Indian reality, and there is a huge demand for savings in gold, in all classes of society. Gold or Jewellery Prepayment Schemes is the first target market. Expansion will include consumer electronics (TV, smartphones), consumer durables (Washing machines), travel (vacations) etc.
Pristech Analytics
Team: Shampa Ganguly, Pritam Ganguly
In order to resolve the issue of parking in the city, Pristech aims to connect all key players in the parking industry – from the motorists, parking lots, merchants, shopping centres, airports, universities and large organizations via mobile devices. An attempt to organize the parking and make parking information available for public use whenever/ wherever needed through app/cloud.
Market: The market size in India in terms of parking as of 2014 is Rs. 200 crore and Rs. 1800 crore for private and public spaces respectively with a projected growth rate of 30% every year. The primary goal is to organize the parking sector for economic growth and to ensure sustainability in the future.
Related read: Can’t find parking space? Pparke app helps you reserve your spot
Let’s Drive Along
Team: Srinath Sudarshan, Ghanashyama D
Developed by Spantad Solutions, this startups aims to make car-pooling a measurable initiative addressing security, flexible time aspects using a mobile app and many other features for a car-owner to adapt to car-pooling. Let’s Drive Along aims to provide flexible, secure and measurable car-pooling for all multi stake holders (Individuals, Corporates, Agencies, Society).
Market: Customers include individual car-owners who commute to office by cars and corporates who want to measure the initiative, get carbon footprint reduction reports and reduce the demand of car-parking in the premises. In Bangalore, over a million personal cars and thousands of corporates could benefit.
Discover Dollar Technologies
Team: Subrahmanya Rao, Praveen
Large retailers often overpay their suppliers due to complexity of transaction, communication gap, human or system errors etc. Large retailers lose up to $1 million dollars for every $1 billion dollar in sales. Discover Dollar aims to help detect and resolve overpayments in real-time using all data sources including unstructured data like emails & contracts.
Market: Global Market Size is estimated to be $10 Billion worth, considering recovery from the organized retail sector. Target customers are typical Brick & Mortar /Ecommerce Retailers, Distribution firms & Pharma Retailers. The primary market is North America with South Asia and Europe/Middle East as the secondary and tertiary markets respectively.
Skyriz
Team: Anandghan Waghmare
For the visually impaired or blind, using regular mobiles or smartphones is only possible with assistive technology or built-in accessibility functionalities. Ray, aims to be the first smartphone which will be completely Braille based. It aims to solve the problems inherent in the existing solutions, especially the problem of interacting with the phone. This phone aims to provide the functionalities provided by any regular smartphone, in Braille script. Additionally, this phone will have utilities specifically designed for the visually impaired keeping in mind the daily issues they may face.
Market: According to the 2011 census, 2.4 million blind people in India can read Braille. Worldwide, 285 million people are visually impaired and 39 million are blind.
Chipster Technologies
Team: Navaneeth Rao, Nachiketh Rao
Chipster has come up with a compact computing device with a wireless display, mouse and keyboard for an uncluttered setup that aims to make traditional desktop obsolete. The device aims to consolidate and replaces the traditional desktop computer, gaming console and home entertainment hub. The cubical design is aesthetically pleasing and a variety of colours are available to choose from.
Market: Target customers are people looking for a new desktop PC or an upgrade from the tradition-al bulky desktops.
Sastra Robotics
Team: Aronin P, Akhil A, Achu Wilson
One of the major problems faced by developers is the unavailability of efficient and fast testing devices for applications. SR-SCARA-Pro V2 claims to be the world’s fastest touch screen testing Robotic Arm, which can efficiently and accurately test devices and softwares at speeds unattainable by a manual tester.
Market: Every device today has a touch screen, so the market for developing applications and software associated with the same is growing exponentially. Mobile phones are ranked first in touch screen applications on a unit basis, while mini-Note PC/Slate PCs have emerged as a new growth segment. Touch screens are also moving into new applications, such as e-readers and casino gaming.
Lostclikfound.com
Team: Param, Prashanth, Mythili
With the aim of being the ‘Google for all lost and found items’, LostClikFound aggregates all lost and found items on their portal creating a virtual lost and found ecosystem on the cloud. The company claims to be the first to launch such a service in terms of creating a virtual lost and found portal with maximum strategic partners being part of the ecosystem and still growing.
Market: The target is to have 6 Million found items on the portal in the next three years and about 20 Million clicks on the site.
LabP53 Cancer Research
Team: Abhilesh M Gunasekar
Cancer is a cruel disease and poses many inherent risks. A medicine which is supposed to cure a patient may even kill the patient within a few hours. This is because it all comes down to a person’s DNA and no two cancers are alike just as no two people are alike.
LAB P53 analyses patient’s DNA and finds out the most suitable treatment for their genetic makeup. Since this genetic testing procedure is expensive compared to other tests it will be affordable to patients from Tier 1 hospitals, which amounts for 15-20% cancer population in the country.
Market: There are 3 companies in India offering Cancer Genomics solutions till date. But LAB P53 has its USP in Pharmacogenetics associated reporting which every doctor looks for. The average treatment cost for cancer patients convert to $20 BN market. For each cancer patient the test charges will be Rs. 1, 20,000/- and their analysis reports will be delivered to their doctors.
What next for these 10 startups ?
The startups will go through a two day boot camp at IIM Bangalore’s NSRCEL campus where they will indulge in speed-dating with mentors comprising of IIM-Bangalore faculty, successful serial entrepreneurs and start-up experts from TiE Bangalore.
Once the companies are ready to seek funding, their profiles will be highlighted on angel investor network like LetsVenture. Industry partners Microsoft Ventures will also select 3 of these start-ups and provide them will cloud resources worth Rs. 60,000/- from Microsoft Azure. 3 Qualified start-ups will also get wild-card entries to Microsoft Ventures jury round. Additionally, the winners will go through a 90-day program, which will provide an avenue to early stage entrepreneurs where they can assess themselves, meet prominent leaders from the start-up ecosystem, gain invaluable advice and get their ideas shaped and be market ready.