SUMMARY
ACT Grants is a INR 100 Cr grant setup to support innovative ideas battling Covid-19 challenges
Prominent VCs such as Kalaari, SAIF Partners, Sequoia and Matrix are part of this grant
Some new grantees added on the list include Bharat Health Stack, Housejoy, Qure.ai
Launched by a group of prominent Indian startup founders and investors in early April 2020, Action Covid-19 Team (ACT) Grants has added 49 initiatives to its grantee list. This INR 100 Cr grant was envisioned to help the government and other stakeholders to ramp up the development of innovative ideas, which can help India combat Covid-19.
Some of the solutions supported by ACT include remote ICU monitoring, home isolation management, teleconsultation helpline and drone monitoring among others. Action Covid-19 Team claims to be working closely with six different state governments including Karnataka, Telangana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Delhi, along with creating an impact across 22 states through the fund’s grantee companies.
Speaking to Inc42, a donor to ACT Grants and founding member of the StartupsVsCovid initiative, Mekin Maheshwari noted that the few factors being considered for choosing grantee initiatives under ACT include the use of technology or innovation for leverage, the urgency of need on the ground and speed of creating impact.
Several big investment firms like Lightspeed, Kalaari, SAIF Partners, India Quotient, Sequoia, Matrix, Omidyar Network India, Nexus, Accel, Chiratae and Blume Ventures are part of the ACT Grants.
Prashanth Prakash, partner at Accel India told TimesNow, that ACT has received 1,600 applications to date and has collectively invested close to INR 50 Cr in 49 of these applicants. However, the website has currently publicly listed 46 of its grantee initiatives, as follows:
- C-CAMP
Team: Dr. Taslimarif Saiyed, Dr. Niranjan Joshi
Grant: INR 20 Lakh
Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) expertise in the deeptech life sciences domain is being used by ACT to evaluate the potential of innovations in therapeutics, vaccines, prevention, devices tracks. C-CAMP also contributes towards mentoring the ACT grantees in these domains for their accelerated progress. - Cardiac Design Labs
Team: Anand Madanagopal
Grant: INR 32.5 Lakh
CDL enables remote ICU and HDU monitoring through their device which has non-invasive sensors to measure the main parameters of the patient: temperature, pulse rate, SPO2, respiration rate, ECG and blood pressure. - E-Spin Nanotech
Team: Dr. Sandeep Pail, Dr. J Ramkumar
Grant: INR 50 Lakh
E-Spin Nanotech aims to produce 25K N95 masks daily. To achieve fast manufacturing activity, the company is importing this machine from China, reducing the time to market from the domestic average of three to six months to about one to two months. - HFNC Device Trial By ACT
Team: Anirvan Chowdhury, Simran Saluja
Grant: INR 5.6 Lakh
High Flow Nasal Cannulas (HFNC) devices are expected to be helpful in regulating the respiratory needs and body pressure to battle the coronavirus. ACT is conducting trials of four HFNC devices with a doctor. - CritICU
Team: Dr. Sandeep Dewan
Grant: INR 45 Lakh
Led by former director of Fortis’ eICU initiative, CritICU is a remote ICU monitoring tool already operational and has a pipeline to go live for 100 ICU beds specifically for the Covid-19 crises. - Housejoy
Team: Sanchit Gaurav
Grant: INR 18 Lakh
On-demand house services startup Housejoy is setting up testing centers in 35 apartment complexes to conduct the mass testing of apartment residents. To achieve this, Housejoy has built a team of doctors, lab technicians, and helpers, along with buses converted into mobile clinics. - Cloudphysician
Team: Dhruv Joshi, Dileep Raman, Dhruv Sud
Grant: INR 19.4 Lakh
Cloudphysician has developed a remote ICU monitoring product which uses standardized protocols to provide 24X7 monitoring, assessment, and support to patients in ICUs using intensive EMR, audio-visuals, and alert systems. The product allows the experienced physician to guide junior doctors and reduce exposure of other staff. - EkDesh
Team: Jitender Dabas, Mohit Joshi, Poonam Kaul, Aditya Kothari, Kanchan Dwivedi, Dr. Manuj Garg, Alok Mittal, Jas Singh Gulati
Grant: INR 30 Lakh
EkDesh aims to be a cohesive, consistent and creative communications platform for Covid-19 awareness in India. The platform determines which message needs to reach whom, when and through which medium. And, then owns the dissemination across all media (social, press, government organisations, individuals) facilitated by their partners, influencers, and owned assets such as TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram among others. - Bharat Health Stack
Team: Mukesh Bansal, Prashant Tandon, Shashank ND
Grant: INR 10 Cr
Bharat Health Stack (BHS) aims to aggregate the delivery of various health services under one platform. First off, the app is working on enabling nationwide teleconsultations through integration with the Indian government’s Aarogya Setu app. The app’s teleconsultation service will include various mediums including IVR, chat, voice call, and video call. - InnAccel
Team: Siraj Dhanani, A. Vijayarajan
Grant: INR 36 Lakh
InnAccel is developing a non-invasive ventilation system which provides respiratory support to moderately severe hypoxemic Covid patients, before incubating them and starting invasive ventilation. The system is reportedly equipped to deal with infrastructural challenges such as unreliable electricity, compressed oxygen and is designed for use by semi-skilled health workers with minimal training. - MicroGo
Team: Rachna Dave
Grant: INR 24 Lakh
MicroGo has developed an IoT-enabled hand hygiene device called GoAssure. The device ensures compliance of hand hygiene process which includes six steps of washing hands and 20 secs hand rubbing. It also collects data on each person’s compliance. The devices are currently deployed at the Airports Authority of India (AAI) operated airports. - Log9 Materials
Team: Akshay Singhal, Kartik Hajela
Grant: INR 50 Lakh
Log9 Materials has built a UV disinfection box called Corona Oven. It used UV-C technology to disinfect N95 masks, allowing the users to use their N95 up to 10 times. The oven can also be used to disinfect personal items. - Arvind Mills
Team: Kulin Lalbhai
Grant: INR 10 Cr
Arvind is working on producing 120-200K N95 masks daily. The company is well connected with raw material providers and has the necessary technical expertise owing to their huge experience in the clothing industry. - MahaKavach
Team: National Health Authority- Government of India, Maharashtra State Innovation Society – Govt of Maharashtra, Nashik District Administration, Nashik Municipal Corporation, Digital Impact Square, Kumbhathon Innovation Foundation, Corporates, Academia Researchers, and Innovators
Grant: INR 30 Lakh
The National Health Authority along with the Maharashtra government has developed MahaKavach for digital contact tracing and checking compliance to quarantines through an online dashboard. The dashboard includes data visualisation and geofencing based alerts which could help the state government in making informed decisions. - Qure.ai
Team: Prashant Warrier, Pooja Rao
Grant: INR 31 Lakh
Qure.ai has built a platform called qXR to predict and prioritise testing for the samples which are most likely to be positive for Covid-19 based on their lung condition. The platform can also be equipped with mobile vans and booths that are used as screening tools. - Dost Education
Team: Sneha Sheth and Sindhuja Jeyabal
Grant: INR 20 Lakh
Dost Education is a non-profit working in the field of child development and wellness. The organization delivers one-minute long podcasts over phone calls to blue-collar families, through partnerships with other prominent NGOs. These ‘phonecasts’ contain both informative content and suggestions for activities and behaviours that can be adopted to prevent the infection spread. - Portea
Team: Meena Ganesh
Grant: INR 30 Lakh
In partnership with the local government, Portea is providing a complete at-home process including patient condition assessment led by a healthcare professional, regular symptom monitoring, education, teleconsultation and daily on-call monitoring. - Sahas Softech
Team: Sagar Shah and Sohrab Kothari
Grant: INR 16 Lakh
Sahas Softech is working on manufacturing superior quality face shields and goggles using injection molding. The team has already sold over 80K units since April and is planning to manufacture 24K face shields and 9.6K googles per day. - Haqdarshak
Team: Aniket Doegar and Asha Krishnan
Grant: INR 50 Lakh
Haqdarshak has developed a citizen-facing app for citizens to check eligibility for all COVID- 19 related relief measures and other welfare schemes on one platform. They have also set up a helpline which supports 11 Indian languages. - 1mg
Team: Dedicated team within 1mg
Grant: INR 20 Lakh
Gurugram-based epharmacy 1mg is developing a network of online healthcare-related services linked to coronavirus. The company is currently offering teleconsultation with healthcare professionals and has also developed drive-through booths for Covid-19 testing. - Clovia
Team: Neha Kant, Pankaj Vermani
Grant: INR 20 Lakh
Online lingerie retailer Clovia is manufacturing PPE kits. The company is also adding additional features to make the PPE kits safes. These features include products made of higher GSM fabrics with lamination, sealed seams with anti-bacterial tapes, flap over zipper sealed with velcro. - CoronaSafe Network
Team: CoronaSafe Team
Grant: INR 50 Lakh
CoronaSafe is a verified crowdsourced guide to tackle Covid-19. The project which is implemented in Kerala is led by a group of professional volunteers. The project has also developed a live data system for the Kerala government to keep a track of the number of cases. - COVID Response Helpline
Team: Siddhant Khurana, Akanksha Chandele
Grant: INR 30 Lakh
COVID Response is a special helpline that is offering mental and emotional support to the vulnerable sections of the society, who have been hit by the current crisis. In the last two weeks, it has answered over 30,000 calls. COVID Response team is also partnering with state governments and startups to benefit more people. - Drone Maps
Team: Utkarsh Singh, Ayushi Mishra
Grant: INR 20 Lakh
Gurugram-based DroneMaps is offering drone-based high-resolution 3D mapping and photography to help the government monitor and track Covid-19 patients in a scalable manner. The company is leveraging data management/structuring and geographic information system (GIS) visualisation to create a full-service technology-enabled war-room solution. - Drone Federation of India
Team: Smit Shah
Grant: INR 30 Lakh
Drone Federation of India is an industry body that is developing a platform to connect state authorities with drone pilots. The company believes that this will provide a simple monitoring solution to local police. The drones can also be used for conducting sanitation drives or delivery with manufacturers. - ePsyclinic
Team: Shipra Dawar, Ashish Dwivedi
Grant: INR 15 Lakh
ePsyclinic is a Gurugram-based online counselling startup that is providing instant 1-on-1 therapy sessions with mental health professionals. - Ethereal Machines
Team: Kaushik Mudda, Navin Jain
Grant: INR 50 Lakh
Bengaluru-based Ethereal Machines is a deeptech startup which is leveraging its technology to manufacture ventilator splitters. These splitters allow two patients to share a ventilator simultaneously with varying needs via differential pressure splitting. The product also prevents cross-contamination. - Fashinza
Team: Abhishek Sharma, Pawan Gupta
Grant: INR 20 Lakh
Fashinza offers a scalable demand-supply matching platform by connecting PPE manufacturers with third-party logistic providers to meet the shortage of raw material. - Goodera
Team: Goodera Team
Grant: INR 30 Lakh
Goodera is a corporate social responsibility (CSR) management platform that will raise funds for hospitals to buy personal protective equipment (PPE). ACT will add 10%-20% matching donations for any grant given through Goodera. - Healthians
Team: Deepak Sahni
Grant: INR 25 Lakh
Gurugram-based healthtech startup Healthians is working on three solutions — at-home testing, drive-through testing and Covid testing kiosks — to help manage the current crisis. - HiMedia
Team: Dr. Vishal Werke, Dr. Rajas Werke
Grant: INR 1 Cr
HiMedia is a bioscience company looking to facilitate mass scale Covid-19 testing. The company supplies viral transport media (VMT) used in the sample collection kits. It is also the largest supplier of ribonucleic acid (RNA) extraction kits. Both the solutions are important components in the testing processes. - HuWel Lifesciences
Team: Shesheer Kumar, Dr. Rachana Tripathi
Grant: INR 1 Cr
HuWel is a healthtech company that manufacturers high-end molecular diagnostics kits. The company has developed a Covid-19 testing kit, which has been approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) as well. - Impact Guru
Team: Piyush Jain, Khushboo Jain
Grant: INR 40 Lakh
The Mumbai-based crowdfunding startup is raising funds for personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospitals. The company is relying on crowdfunding, corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporates, rotary, and other clubs for the same. The fund will directly be given to PPE suppliers through B2B platform Moglix. The company is now looking to raise 5x to 10x the grant received from ACT. - Infinite Analytics
Team: Akash Bhatia, Puru Botla
Grant: INR 20 Lakh
Infinite Solutions provides a tech solution, which allows authorities to track high-risk individuals based on the users’ historic proximity and time of contact with infected individuals. - Intugine
Team: Harshit Shrivastava
Grant: INR 24 Lakh
Intugine is a Bengaluru-based location intelligence company which works on logistics and supply chain tracking. The company has so far tracked over 1 Lakh drivers every month for brands like Phillips, Mahindra, Flipkart, Arvind lifestyle etc. It is now using its developed technology to keep a track of the quarantined individuals. - Karkhana.io
Team: Sonam Motwani
Grant: INR 20 Lakh
Mumbai-based Karkhana.io is leveraging technologies like 3D printing, injection moulding, machining, fabrication and design facility to produce PPEs — face shields, aerosol boxes, goggles and more. The startup is also offering tools to help others manufacture PPEs and other ICU equipment such as valves, connectors and ventilator parts. - Max Ventilators
Team: AB Industries Ashok Patel
Grant: INR 2 Cr
Max Ventilators is working on a new advanced ventilator model, WeanX, which will be rolled out next month. Currently, the company has four existing models for sale, which include advanced intensive care use Proton Plus, a multipurpose intensive care equipment Respimax and small non-intensive use Neo. - MolBio Diagnostics
Team: CEO Sriram Natarajan and CTO Chandrasekhar Nair
Grant: INR 1 CrVerna-based diagnostic company Molbio Diagnostics has developed a real time-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) machine and testing kits. RT-PCR is a nuclear-derived method of detecting the presence of specific genetic material including a virus. The machines are battery operated and can last up to 8 hours. Besides this, it can also conduct over 30 to 150 tests per day with a turn around time of 45 minutes. - Mozark
Team: Kartik Raja, Chandrasekar Ramamoorthy
Grant: INR 40 Lakh
Mumbai-based Mozark provides telecom data analytics to the government through its open platform. Its solution allows authorities to identify the geography of the population, the density of infection, monitor densely visited public spaces and retrace infected people’s local travel history as well. - Mylab Discovery Solutions
Team: Hasmukh Rawal, Shailendra Kawade
Grant: INR 1 Cr
Mylab Discovery Solutions is a biotechnology startup that has locally developed and manufactured a real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) kit, which can be used to detect Covid-19 infection. A single kit costs INR 80K and can test over 100 patients. - Nocca Robotics
Team: Nikhil Kurele and a team of 15 domain expert from IIT Kanpur
Grant: INR 25 Lakh
Pune-based Nocca Robotics is developing and providing a low-cost invasive ventilator. A team of eight engineers from Nocca Robotics is currently working on it, alongside a team from IIT Kanpur and Indian Angel Network (IAN). - Project PCR Sample Pooling
Team: University of Chicago Law School professor Anup Malani, Duke Sanford School of Public Policy associate professor Manoj Mohanan, and MapMyGenome founder Anu Acharya
Grant: INR 53 Lakh
Project PCR Sample Pooling works on reducing the cost of testing by 60% -80% by pooling RT-PCR samples, which would reduce the cost of the PCR machine. The company aims to identify hotspots in Karnataka. - Project StepOne
Team: Qikwell’s Raghavendra Prasad, Pregbuddy’s Subhadeep Mondal, Times Internet’s Rahul Gupta, Recotap’s Ganesh Chithambalam
Grant: INR 25 Lakh
Project StepOne is powering state helpline numbers by leveraging an existing network of cloud telephony, queuing systems and doctors. The project also highlights that data generated from Interactive Voice Response (IVR) will provide valuable inputs to state administration on how and where to mobilise healthcare resources. - Sattva
Team: Shruti Deora as project lead, Ojas Malpani, Abhishek Modi and Kanika Kandoi as a consultant, and Srikrishna Sridhar Murthy as an advisor
Grant: INR 30 Lakh
Sattva is a social impact consulting firm that provides services to ACT. The two entities — Sattva and ACT— are working together to support project management, reporting, volunteer engagement, support, grantee responsive support, ecosystem engagement, and network amplification. - Specialist Teleconsultation
Team: Cure.fit founders Ankit Nagori and Mukesh Bansal, Madan Somasundaram
Grant: INR 30 Lakh
The Specialist Teleconsultation project looks to provide healthcare teleconsultation for patients. If successful, the project will help reduce unnecessary visits to the hospital. - Zetwerk
Team: Zetwerk’s cofounder Amrit Acharya, Srinath Ramakkrushnan
Grant: INR 50 Lakh
Zetwerk offers to augment the supply chain by reducing the time it takes for a product to hit the markets. The company is also connecting manufacturers to suppliers of raw materials for faster procurement.
