Announced in April this year for seed to Series A startups, ‘Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First’ programme received 1,030 applications
The programme is targeted at AI-first startups operating across sectors such as gaming, manufacturing, healthcare, education, data analytics and cybersecurity
Figr, Kommunicate, Kroop AI, upliance.ai are among the startups that have been selected for the accelerator programme
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Tech giant Google has selected 20 Indian startups for the first cohort of its ‘Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First’ programme.
Announced in April this year for seed to Series A startups, the accelerator programme received more than 1,030 applications. The initiative will offer three months of equity-free support to 20 early-stage startups using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud technology in their core business practices.
“The programme will include exclusive training, credits for cloud infrastructure, mentorship from industry leaders and various Google teams including Google Cloud, Google DeepMind, Android, Web and access to a global network,” the company said in a blog post.
The programme is targeted at AI-first startups operating across sectors such as gaming, manufacturing, healthcare, education, data analytics and cybersecurity.
The selected startups will receive training on building human-centred and responsible AI solutions and be granted access to the Google mentor network, tech stack credits and state-of-the-art AI tools.
Here’s the list of the 20 startups that made it to the first cohort of ‘Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First’ initiative.
3DAILY
Founded In: 2016
Headquarters: Bengaluru
The brainchild of Harsha P Deka, 3DAILY is a GenAI startup that creates production-ready 3D models of characters of mobile games, animations, 3D printing and metaverse.
It boasts an impressive clientele, catering to big names such as Marvel, McDonald’s, Sony, Samsung and Hermes Paris among others.
Figr
Founded In: 2023
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Founded by Moksh Garg and Chirag Singla, Figr offers AI-driven tools, including Flash UI and Prokit for app and website design.
The company is also working on the development of two new products — Identity and Construct — to enable users to build a brand identity from scratch and visualise concepts in a UI format.
Notably, Figr appeared in the October 2023 edition of Inc42’s ‘30 Startups to Watch’ list.
In September last year, the startup raised $250K in a seed funding round led by Antler India.
Hypergro
Founded In: 2022
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Founded by Rituraj Biswas, Abhijeet Kumar, Arijit Mukhopadhyay and Neha Soman, Hypergro offers AI-powered solutions to brands, enabling them to create compelling video ads using user-generated content (UGC).
Additionally, Hypergro.ai’s AI platform helps brands manage the video creation process and track campaign results.
In August last year, Hypergro raised $842.22K in seed funding from a clutch of investors, including Silverneedle Ventures, TVD Partners and Dholakia Ventures, according to data compiled by Inc42 Datalabs.
Hypergro also featured in the September 2023 edition of Inc42’s ’30 Startups To Watch’ list.
Kommunicate
Founded In: 2020
Headquarters: Middletown, Delaware
The brainchild of Devashish Mamgain and Adarsh Kumar, Kommunicate is an AI-powered customer service automation platform for enterprises.
The startup, which also has an office in Bengaluru, last raised $100K in seed funding from Upekkha AI SaaS Fund in September 2023.
It counts KPMG, GAP, Bridgestone, HDFC and Tax Buddy among its clients.
Kroop AI
Founded In: 2021
Headquarters: Ahmedabad
Founded by Jyoti Joshi, Kroop AI enables users to accurately differentiate between real and fake audio and video via its multimodal detection platform ViZMantiZ.
Its product suite also includes Artiste AI Studio, a web app and API for synthetic data generation from avatars in different languages.
Kroop AI, which counts 100X.VC and LetsVenture among its investors, has raised $230K in funding till date.
LearnTube
Founded In: 2022
Headquarters: Mumbai
Founded by Shronit Ladhani and Gargi Ruparelia, LearnTube is CareerNinja’s GenAI-driven upskilling platform that transforms internet and YouTube content into bite-size courses.
The learning platform offers upskilling courses on YouTube in domains such as data science, web development, digital marketing and design among others. The startup is backed by the likes of Naval Ravikant’s AngelList Quant Fund, Capria Ventures, Goodwater Capital, among others.
MarianaAI
Founded In: 2023
Headquarters: San Francisco
Founded by Kaustubh Sharma and Vishal Agrawal, MarianaAI develops AI models to automate multilingual AI medical scribe, medical coding, clinical decision support and patient communication assistance.
The startup competes against the likes of Fathom, Nyv and Aviacode in the B2B SaaS healthtech market.
Meritic
Founded In: 2023
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Founded by Nipun Gupta, Pallavi Chakravorty and Swapni Basak, Meritic develops AI-powered tools for automation in the business intelligence workflows of business teams.
The startup counts marquee investors such as Accel, Peak XV and Neotribe among its backers.
Merlin AI
Founded In: 2022
Headquarters: California
Merlin AI is an AI Chrome Extension and web app that offers AI models such as ChatGPT 4, Claud, Opus, Llama and more to help users generate AI responses on Google search, summarise YouTube videos, blogs, documents, write post and replies to comments on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter and Gmail.
PrivaSapien
Founded In: 2019
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Founded by Abhilash Soundararajan and Deepika Abhilash, PrivaSapien offers AI-enabled solutions for privacy risk management, mitigation and data collaboration.
Segwise.ai
Founded In: 2023
Headquarters: Lewes, Delaware
Founded by Brijesh Bharadwaj and Shobit Gupta, Segwise.ai allows deep integrations across multiple data sources and tools and is fine-tuning AI models tailored for tasks in the mobile product growth universe.
It recently raised pre-seed funding of $1.6 Mn (around INR 13.3 Cr) led by Powerhouse Ventures, along with participation from Antler India, Blume Ventures, Everywhere Ventures, Saka Ventures and the Untitled Ventures.
SellerApp
Founded In: 2016
Headquarters: Singapore
Founded by Brij Purohit, Dilip Vamanan, Gaurav Manchanda and Kunal Agarwal, SellerApp is an ecommerce intelligence platform facilitating sellers with business solutions, including competition analysis and real-time data analysis among others.
Simplismart
Founded In: 2022
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Founded by Amritanshu Jain and Devansh Ghatak, Simplismart enables businesses to build production-grade AI systems, along with streamlining the whole process. The startup facilitates users to train, monitor, deploy and optimise machine learning models in production.
SpotDraft
Founded In: 2017
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Founded by Shashank Bijapur, Madhav Bhagat and Rohith Salim, SpotDraft is an AI-based end-to-end contract lifecycle management platform enabling businesses to automate their contract analysis, contract management and contract creation processes.
In 2019, the startup raised $1.5 Mn (around INR 11 Cr) in its pre-Series A funding round led by 021 Capital.
Supersourcing
Founded : 2020
Headquarters : Bengaluru
Founded by Mayank Pratap Singh and Aditi Chaurasia, Supersourcing offers AI-based solutions for hiring. It facilitates companies with features like precision talent matching, efficient candidate screening, immediate talent onboarding and comprehensive hiring management.
SwitchOn
Founded In: 2017
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Founded by Aniruddha Banerjee and Avra Banerjee, SwitchOn is an AI-based inspection platform helping precision manufacturing industries reduce their manufacturing defects.
In 2023, the startup raised $4.2 Mn in its Series A funding round from a host of investors, including Axilor Ventures and pi Ventures.
upliance.ai
Founded In: 2021
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Founded by former Ather Energy executive Mahek Mody and former Chaayos employee Mohit Sharma, upliance.ai sells an AI-powered ‘Smart Jar’ that can perform multiple cooking tasks such as chopping, sauteing, blending, heating and steaming.
In February, the startup raised INR 34 Cr (over $4 Mn) in its seed funding round from Khosla Ventures to scale its production.
vidyo.ai
Founded In: 2021
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Founded by Vedant Maheshwari and Kushagra Pandya, vidyo.ai provides AI-based video solutions including video editing, caption generation and clip making to help users increase their reach.
VisualDub.ai
Founded In: 2021
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Founded by Mandar Natekar, Subhashish Saha, Anjan Banerjee and Subhabrata Debnath, VisualDub.ai offers AI-powered tools to sync recorded voice overs with lip movement so that the content appears truly localised. The platform claims to support more than 35 languages.
Vodex.ai
Founded In: 2022
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Founded by Anshul Shrivastava and Kumar Saurav, Vodex.ai is a GenAI SaaS platform that facilitates businesses to set up AI-based sales agents which communicate with customers in a human-like voice. The startup aims to eliminate the need for traditional call centres.
In April, it raised seed funding of $2 Mn (around INR 16 Cr) from Unicorn India Ventures and Pentathlon Ventures for its overseas expansion.
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