Meet The 46 Startups On Action Covid-19 Team’s Grantee List

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:

1. 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.
2. 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. 
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.  
9. 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. 
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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. 
13. 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.
14. 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. 
15. 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. 
16. 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. 
17. 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.
18. 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. 
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. 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.
22. 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.
23. 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.
24. 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.
25. 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.
26. 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.
27. 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.
28. 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.
29. 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.
30. 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.
31. 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.
32. 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.
33. 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.
34. 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.
35. 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.
36. 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.
37. 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.
38. 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.
39. 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.
40. 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.
41. 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).
42. 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.
43. 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.
44. 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.
45. 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.
46. 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.

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