Meet The Winners Of National Startup Awards 2020

Indian startup ecosystem has grown to be the third-biggest in the world. In order to appreciate entrepreneurs and innovation in the country, the government of India organised its first National Startups Awards on Tuesday. A number of startups from 12 different sectors received the national award from commerce minister Piyush Goyal.

Here Is The List Of Startups That Won The National Award This Year:

Agriculture

Allied Areas: Cornext Agri Products Pvt Ltd

The startup addresses green fodder shortage by preserving green fodder when in the form of silage.

Farmer Engagement and Education: Mandya Organic

The Bengaluru-based startup helps farmers to adopt organic farming and provide a sales platform through supermarkets.

Post-Harvest: Intello Labs

It has digitised food quality assessments, allowing people to buy fresh food and help stores pinpoint and cycle out old stock.

Productivity: Nava Design Innovation & Innovation

The startup’s solar-powered robotic device for coconut sap tapping increases productivity and safety.

Education

Access to Institutional Education: Robotguru Education Technologies

It teach robotics in an integrated manner, by enabling students to explore and perform experiments.

Access to Open Education: Kickhead Softwares

The Noida and Bengaluru-based startup has created a platform that allows students to prepare for exams for no charge.

Energy

Clean Energy: Aloe E-Cell

The startup has created the world’s first 100% eco-friendly and non-hazardous 1.5V AA batteries. This can lead to a 71.6% reduction in environmental pollution.

Energy Efficiency: Esyasoft

Its smart grid platform run by machine learning and deep learning analytics, improving energy efficiency and distribution system of utilities

Enterprise Technology

Enterprise Solutions: Unnati Online

Unnati is an automated, voice-enabled digital assistant that aids informal sector workers in finding job opportunities. It helps reduce unemployment by operating an automated job helpline service, calling job-seekers about openings in their state.

Fintech

Finance: BharatPe or Resilient Innovations

The Delhi-based startup works on offering services to merchants in SME sector, enabling acceptance of UPI payments from over 150 payment apps in India.

Food

Access to Food: Food Cloud

Food Cloud is an online portal that connects consumers with home chefs, with over 80% of the registered home chefs being women.

Food Processing: God’s Own Food Solutions

The Kochi-based startup streamlines the organised market for Indian jackfruits, developing a patented ‘green jackfruit flour’

Health

Access to Healthcare: Wellthy Therapeutics

The startup integrates electronic medical reports for physicians and designed to engage beneficiaries at multiple levels.

Diagnostics: Niramai Health Analytix

It has an accurate, affordable solution for detecting early-stage breast cancer, having screened over 25,000 women in 12 states.

Life Sciences: Bonayu Lifesciences

The startup has developed cost-effective topical thin films as an alternative to traditional ointments, creams, gels, etc.

Medical Devices: Innaumation Medical Devices

The Bengaluru-based startup has built Aum Voice Prosthesis, a device that enables throat cancer patients who have lost their voice to speak again.

Industry 4.0

Big Data: Uptimeai Tech

The startup has developed a software platform which enables plant engineers to predict equipment and performance issues in advance.

Internet of Things: Minionlabs India

The Bengaluru-based startup uses machine learning and AI to derive actionable insights, bringing savings to electricity bills, helping with savings upto 30%.

3D Printing: Fabheads Automation

The startup designs and manufactures 3D printers using carbon fiber, allowing them to print parts that are strong as steel but light as plastic.

Augmented Reality Products/Wearables: Scapic Innovations

They are building a platform for brands to create 3D and augmented reality experience without coding themselves.

Robotics: Planys Technologies

Planys specialises in smart underwater inspection solutions identifying anomalies in a variety of assets located underwater.

Computer Vision: Gingermind Technologies

Gingermind builds AI-powered smartphone apps and wearables which aid visually challenged individuals.

Security

Citizen Security Solutions: Staqu Technologies

The Gurugram-based startup helps police forces in 8 Indian States digitize and archive criminal records through speaker identification solutions.

Cyber Security: Lucideus Tech

The startup’s product SAFE has cyber risk quantification, providing real-time cyber risk assessment & contain over 100,000 nodes of connections at once.

Space

Launch Vehicles: Skyroot Aerospace

Its launch vehicles carry a wide range of payload capacity and are building cost-effective small satellite launch vehicles.

Satellite Technology: Dhruva Space / Bellatrix Aerospace

The startup builds small satellite constellations for Earth observation and scientific application, helping countries to have satellites in orbits.

Tourism

Hospitality: Feeinsta Consulting & Services

The startup’s smart e-toilets has automated seats, inbuilt night light, touch free and waterless to improve public hygiene.

Travel Planning and Discovery: Param People Infotech

It allows travelers to transact with verified highway services and amenities, covering more than 60,000 km’s in India.

Urban Services

Construction Development Monitoring Solutions: SnPC Machines

SnPC has the first of its kind brick-making machines that moves like a vehicle and lays down bricks.

Traffic Management: Wickedride Adventure Services

They offer a keyless, dockless, shared mobility solution having already reached 2.5 million users within a year.

Waste Management: Sukriti Social Foundation

Sukriti’s Eco-Mitra is a self-cleaning and self-maintenance toilet, treating wastewater and reusing it for flushing.

Water and Water Networks: Taraltec Solutions

The startup’s product Taraltec Reactor, decontaminates water and provides clean drinking water to half a million people in India.

Other Winners

Top Incubator: Villgro Innovations Foundation

Villgro’s virtual knowledge tool leverages nearly 200 stakeholders interested in establishing incubators.

Top Accelerator: Brigade Real Estate Accelerator Program (REAP)

It offers self-contained workspaces across 3 cities along with mentors who have expertise in various disciplines.

Campus Initiated Startups: Genrobotic Innovations

The startup offers human-controlled robots as alternatives to manual scavenging, having already been deployed successfully in various states of India.

Startups Having a Rural Impact: Bodhami

Bodhami is an online learning platform, matching students and jobseekers to counsellors, driving advanced learning interventions.

Women-Led Startups: Azooka Labs

It provides genomic research and molecular diagnostics. Their product Tino Rang is an affordable test for everything from DNA forensics to crop breeding.

DPIIT also launched an online discovery platform for startups called ‘Startup India Showcase‘ which will capture details about the startups. It will include startups from across sectors such as fintech, enterprise tech, social impact, healthtech, and edtech, among others.

Further, it launched a blockchain-based verification system certificates for startups which will allow easy access to startups recognition certificates while minimising falsification. 

The first edition of these awards was announced by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and invited applications from the above mentioned 13 sectors, which were further sub-classified into a total of 35 categories. Startups were also shortlisted on the basis of innovation, enterprise, employment generation, and social impact.  

The winners will get cash prizes of INR 5 Lakh each, along with opportunities to present their solutions to relevant public authorities and corporates, for potential pilot projects and work orders. The award ceremony comes a month after DPIIT named Gujarat and Andaman & Nicobar Islands best performers released the State Startup Ranking. 

DPIIT also launched a website called ‘Startup India Showcase’ which will capture details about the startups. It will include startups from across sectors such as fintech, enterprise tech, social impact, healthtech, and edtech, among others. 

The nascent India startup ecosystem, which came into relevance from 2014, has grown to register over 36,000 startups across sectors. According to data shared by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), India has at least one startup from 586 districts of the 739 districts in India. 

Overall, there is at least one registered startup from all 28 states and eight union territories. As per data revealed by the government in the Parliament, the number of jobs provided by DPIIT-recognised startups increased from 49,648 in 2017 to 95,338 in 2018 and 1,54,558 in 2019.

According to Inc42 Plus report, The State Of Indian Startup Ecosystem Report 2020, Indian startups have raised $63 Bn between 2014 to H1 2020, with the entry of 34 startups in the unicorn club having a combined valuation of $115.5 Bn. The report also adds that the Indian startup ecosystem will touch nearly 55K startups by the end of 2020. 

While there is absolutely no doubt in the capabilities of the Indian startup ecosystem, but there sure is a lack of equal opportunities among entrepreneurs in the rural and urban regions. Analysis by Datalabs by Inc42 shows that only 20% of the total startups in India are based in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, with over 5,800 startups in Tier 2 cities alone.

The total funding for startups from Tier 2 cities alone is $1.3 Bn (2014-Q1 2019), when compared to Tier I startups the imbalance is clear. 

[With Inputs From Kritti Bhalla]