Meet The 16 Defence Startups Selected Under CRPF-Startup India Grand Challenge

Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in collaboration with Startup India, on Tuesday (December 23), shortlisted 16 startups for a demo day to solve the core challenges in the security sector — shoes against spikes, controlling blood loss and effective utilisation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).

The news surfaced after Startup India tweeted about the shortlisted startups showcasing the demos, where they were addressing the essential problems of the security forces.

CRPF in a press statement said that they are searching for new concepts and ideas in the areas identified. Through this program, the CRPF is looking at addressing critical issues that are hampering the growth of the security sector in the country.

Most importantly, the programme provides a unique opportunity to identify startups and individual innovators in the security landscape that are offering commercially viable products or solutions to address the key challenges in the security forces.

CRPF Shortlisted Startups 

The shortlisted startups were divided into three categories based on the challenges that it was addressing.

• Startups that provide effective utilisation of remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS)/UAVs against insurgents.
• Startups that develop lightweight, sterile haemostatic agents, drugs, equipment, badges to control excessive bleeding loss.
• Startups that develop terrain agnostic shoes to protect against hidden iron/bamboo made spikes causing fatal injuries to troops.

Eklavya Aero Sports: Pune-based aerotech startup Eklavya Aero Sports was founded in 2014 by Ajit Sapre. The company offers training solutions and sales services of aeromodelling equipment and kits, including quad, hexa and octa-copters.

Optimized Electrotech: Founded in 2017, Ahmedabad-based Optimized Electrotech is a defence startup that produces Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured (IDDM) surveillance systems to security forces, national defence and aerospace companies. The company was started by Anil Yekkala, Dharin Shah, Kuldeep Saxena, Purvi Shah and Sandeep Shah.

LUMBOBEE: Incepted in 2013, LUMOBEE was started by Deepali Bhardwaj. The company provides software products and technology. The company builds customised solutions to commercial, government and social enterprises, where it helps them leverage the power of technology like Cloud, Mobility, internet of things (IoT) and machine learning (ML).

Visionbot.io: Bengaluru-based Visionbot.io was started by Amit C. and Santhosh Nair in 2018. The company helps customer implement data-driven practices across various industry verticles. It leverages the power of computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) to extract objective analyzable data from subjective visuals.

Innovative Software Solutions: Founded in 2004, Chennai-based Innovative Software Solutions was founded by Liberatus Rozario, Sathya Saravanan, Dalia Parveen Chowdhury and Muralee Krushnaa. The company offers software solutions to companies across industries.

Flatonomers: Kerala-based Flatonomers was founded in 2018 by Aswin L Shetty, Manjunath Bhandary, Probid J Panikkan, Mindhun Jyothis. The company offers drone technology solutions for industrial, environmental and agriculture sectors.

Aiotize Private: Founded in 2018, Chandigarh-based Aiotize was started by Shivansh Sethi. The company manufactures unmanned aircraft systems to business and government, worldwide.

Techraion Systemworks: Founded by Ankush Rai and Abhishek Rai in 2018. The company works towards developing AI-based dense projects and software.

Asteria Aerospace: Reliance Industries-backed Asteria Aerospace was founded in 2011. The company was cofounded by Nihar Vartak and Neel Mehta. It is a robotics and artificial intelligence startup that provides drone-based solutions that offer actionable intelligence from aerial data.

Sagar Defence Engineering: Mumbai-based Sagar Defence Engineering was founded in 2015 by Mridul Babbar and Lakshay Dang. The company provides innovative and efficient unmanned systems solutions in commercial defence and scientific sector.

Dcygnus Automates: Founded in 2017, Mumbai-based Dcygnus Automates was started by Sunanda Rasal and Suyog Rasal. The company offers embedded system designs, specifically used for industrial automation.

Red Carbon Techno Hub: Based in Mumbai, Red Carbon Techno Hub is a nanotech startup that manufacturers nanomaterials like nanocarbons, nanopolymers, nanocomposites, metal and metal oxide nanoparticles, graphene among others. The company is known for developing novel prototypes for startups, government and institutes. The founders of Red Carbon Techno Hub are Anil Reddy, Sushil Ghorpade and Prasen Vinchurkar.

Bharat Wire Mesh: Jammu & Kashmir-based Bharat Wire Mesh was founded in 2012 by Ashish Gupta and Mohit Gupta. The company manufactures wire products like welded wire mesh, woven wire mesh, wire crate, portable gabion system, modular gabion system and more. It offers services to some of the biggest names in construction, defence, flood control and civil engineering sectors.

Axio Biosolutions: Bengaluru-based Axio was started in 2008 by Leo Mavely. The company is focused on advanced wound and trauma care using biomaterials.

Zywie Pharmaceuticals: Hyderabad-based Zywie was founded in 2014 by Mohit Gupta and Udaya Kiran Reddy Boorgula. The company manufactures imports and exports medical textile products with specialisation in compression bandages and absorbent cotton.

Bioscan Research: Founded in 2013, Ahmedabad-based Bioscan Research was started by Shilpa Malik and Anupam Lavania. The company specialises in screening and monitoring medical device design and development for early detection of diseases.

Salvar Vidas Health: Founded in 2018, Salvar Vidas Health was started by Siddhartha Chakraborty and Soumyabrata Moitra.

EnviroChem Services: Founded in 2016, EnviroChem Services was started by Sameer Kumar Dohare. The company provides quality management, design, manufacturing, fabrication in the field of environment, industrial, production, construction, chemical and mechanical engineering.

Lopulent Indutries: Bengaluru-based Lopulent was founded in 2018 by Ravi Kanth. The company is specialised in manufacturing carbon fibre composites.

PupilMesh: PupilMesh is an augmented reality (AR) startup incubated at NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore. The company was founded by Pradeep Parthasarathy and Milind Muraleedharan Manoj. It specialises in investigating and implementing innovative solutions with technologies like AR, computer vision and IoT.

The list also includes Impact Profile which solved problems for the question around effective utilisation of remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS)/UAVs against insurgents.

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