Meet The 12 Startups That Graduated From The 2nd Batch Of Intel India‘s Accelerator Programme Maker Lab

Semiconductor behemoth Intel India’s plugin programme Intel India Maker Lab recently held its demo day at its Bengaluru campus. The event featured 12 startups that were part of its 2nd accelerator programme.

Started two years ago by Intel India in association with Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (SINE), IIT-Bombay, and Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India, the one-year long plugin programme called Intel India Maker Lab aims to promote hardware-related startups. Under the collaboration, while Intel India provided the necessary infrastructure to the shortlisted startups, DST sponsored the programme. SINE IITB mentored the startups and imparted knowledge expertise to them.

Speaking of the accelerator programme, Jitendra Chaddah, Senior Director, Strategic Development & Operations, Intel India said, “There has already been a startup ecosystem in place as far as software startups are concerned; however, our effort is to extend our facilities to hardware startups. Moreover, the collaboration with DST and SINE, IIT-Bombay in this journey has been hugely enriching and I am confident these experiences will help us enable more such success stories.”

The 12 startups were shortlisted out of 250 startups which applied for the accelerator programme. Out of these 12 startups, four have market-ready products, five have completed product development and three have proof-of-concepts ready. At the demo day, a jury from DST, SINE IIT and Intel India awarded some cash prize to top three startups.

“Besides Intel India, DST has also collaborated with 150 other incubators. As part of the collaboration programme, DST also provides an incubation fund of $15.4K to each of these startups,” said Dr Anita Gupta, Director and Associate Head Innovation and Entrepreneurship, DST, Government of India

She further added, “DST and Intel India have been collaborating over 10 years in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in India. The beauty of this programme is that some of the startups that made to the top 12, are from tier II/III cities and states like Odisha. This also tells that how the startup ecosystem is spreading across the various parts of the country.”

IIT Bombay’s entrepreneurship cell, SINE has been organising and participating in the startups’ mentorship programmes since early 2000.

Meet The 12 Startups Graduated From The 2nd Batch Of Intel India Maker Lab.

Ayata Intelligence: Founded by Shreyas Upasane, Rahul Karunakaran, Arpit Jain and Sanchit Agrawal, in 2016, Ayata Intelligence employs machine learning and IoT to provide a holistic understanding of the environment and subsequently process it into audio/tactile cues to aid differently-abled people in tasks such as navigation, object placement/manipulation etc.

Bharati Robotics Systems: Founded by Debashis Das in 2015, the startup provides fully autonomous Industrial Floor Cleaning Robots which can move all over the facility on its own and cleans the floor. The automatic scrubber drier is also capable of sending reports to the users’ smartphone

Afresh Technology Solutions: Founded by Diptesh Mukherjee and Pradipto Bose in 2014, the startup helps in direct-to-wall printing The device may be used in conjunction with the graphics simulator to achieve a perfectly customized wall mural or may take inputs of ad hoc designs provided by the customer. The device is designed to be assembled or disassembled quickly with minimal effort so that it can be transported easily and can be assembled to print on site.

Linkeddots Engineering Solutions: Founded by Devaraj Srinivasan in 2015, the startup offers smart tags, smart readers, and smart tracking systems and SMACS that can be easily customized for Small & Medium Enterprises.

Redcherry Analytics: Founded by Kuldip Kamat and Dr Shiva Gopalakrishnan in 2016, the startup offers smart IoT solutions that allow objects to be sensed or controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems.

Aperion Mobility: Founded by Giridhar Raju in 2016, the startup offers sustainable mobility (transportation) solution for all kinds of business cargo mobility applications (two-wheeler).  The product is a purpose-built cargo bike meant for carrying rider and cargo in various swappable configurations. The applications could be food delivery, last mile retail e-commerce delivery, last mile courier, app-based laundry, home services and more.

Bleetech Innovations: Founded by Janhavi Joshi in 2015, the startup has come up with a new smartwatch designed especially for hearing impaired individuals. Blee can listen to the environment and notify the user about all the sound alerts with vibrations, colours and icons. It can speak out words or sentences to the user.

Fraggingmonk Technologies: Founded by Vaibhav Shetty in 2014, Fraggingmonk VR vest is a lightweight wearable VR system that leverages Intel integrated graphics for custom untethered AR and VR solutions.

Revsmart Technologies: Founded by Sunder Jagannathan in 2016, the startup has developed a ride assistant system for two-wheelers. The device fits the bike, and offers connected experience to two-wheeler riders.

Epocare: Founded by Deepak Kumar, it has developed a smart handheld portable device for real-time wound analysis. The device eliminates the need for existing invasive techniques and helps monitor microvascular blood flow, oxygen saturation and melanin absorption.

Udiyate Technologies: Founded by Chinmayananda Padhya in 2016, the startup has built an IoT-based tea vending machine named Herbio which makes personalized authentic tea with a click of the button.

Magveh Energy Recovery Systems: Founded by Rahul Kumar in 2016, Magveh Energy Recovery Systems is focused on the development of Suspension Energy Recovery System (SERS) for commercial vehicles. It harnesses the energy dissipated from the motion of a vehicle and uses it to power hybrid/electric vehicles.

Conclusion

Hardware startups take their own time to bootstrap. Most of the startups’ products showcased at Intel India Maker Lab on November 4, 2017, involved not only hardware but software at its top, dealing with IoT, big data and analytics, AI and ML. Out of the 17 startups graduated from the first batch of the accelerator programme, nine have introduced their products in the market so far. While Intel India promises to extend their support to their graduated startups too, unlike software startups, hardware startups have a lot of issues to deal with; for instance, closing on the final design that could appeal the consumers, production facilities, distribution and logistics, and so on.