Accelerators In India: Microsoft Accelerator Gets 14 Startups For 11th Cohort

Microsoft Accelerator has announced its 11th cohort. The Bengaluru-based programme by tech giant Microsoft has selected 14 startups for the current batch. The selected startups are solving problems for very diverse markets and sectors, like GST-readiness, natural language processing, machine learning, etc.

This year the Microsoft Accelerator has focussed on late-stage startups, with the average age being 3.5 years. To date, the participants have cumulatively raised close to $64 Mn in funding. An official statement confirms that they are clocking an Average Revenue Rate of $2.6 Mn.

During the four-month duration of the programme, the startups will work closely with the Accelerator team to further improve their enterprise readiness quotient. They will also focus on development and execution of GTM (Go To Market) strategies and leverage on Microsoft’s customer and partner network.

The startups will also adopt Microsoft Azure, to make use of its advanced cloud services in areas such as big data, IoT, advanced analytics and cognitive services.

This time around, the Microsoft Accelerator has also entered into strategic partnerships with various corporates, including TCS, Temasek and Wipro to help these startups with their GTM efforts globally.

The Selected Startups For The Microsoft Accelerator 11th Cohort

Clonect: Bengaluru-based Clonect is an IT products and solutions company building software products in the area of enterprise Governance, Risk and Compliance Management (GRC), including the area of GST. Clonect was founded by two former Infosys employees, Balaji Rao and Shailesh Agarwal. It helps organisations to leverage technology address GRC, GST as well as other finance IT solution needs.

Ace Turtle: Ace Turtle is a Bengaluru-based startup that helps to reduce the costs and complexity of omnichannel transformation for enterprise retail clients. Founded in September 2013 by Nitin Chhabra and Berry Singh, the company provides ecommerce development tools and fully managed services, with a focus on omnichannel retail solutions. Through its proprietary platform, it integrates online and offline retail channels by automating and optimising omnichannel fulfilment. The platform also provides brands with a single view of inventory and a single view of the customer.

VideoKen: New Jersey and Bengaluru-based VideoKen is a collaborative social learning platform aimed at aligning employee skills with business needs. It provides easy and effective access to publicly available learning content. VideoKen aims to make self-learning intuitive, engaging and fun by its indexing, curating and self-learning capabilities.

Kata.ai: Indonesia-based Kata.ai is an artificial intelligence startup that builds natural language understanding of Bahasa Indonesia. The startup was founded by former Silicon Valley engineers who have previously worked with Google Deepmind, IBM Watson, VMware and Airbus.

Simplilearn: Bengaluru and US-based Simplilearn is in the field of providing certified corporate training. Founded in 2009 by Krishna Kumar, Simplilearn offers a multitude of training and IT certifications in areas like advanced cloud computing and Six Sigma, through a combination of online classes and in-person workshops. It also provides online training in disciplines such as cyber security, cloud computing, project management, digital marketing, data science and other emerging technologies.

Udaan: The startup is a network-centric B2B platform, designed specifically for small & medium businesses in India. Launched in 2016 by three former senior executives at Flipkart, Sujeet Kumar, Vaibhav Gupta, and Amod Malviya, Udaan runs a web platform connecting SMBs, manufacturers, wholesalers, traders and retailers. It currently functions in two categories: mobile accessories and fashion products. It brings traders, wholesalers, retailers and manufacturers in India on a single platform, and enables goods trading by enabling logistics and payments through the platform.

Docswallet: Formerly known as MyEasydocs web application, Chennai-based Docswallet is a digital document vault. Users can store digitally certified documents and share them with visa applications, employment, higher studies, trade applications, etc.

MegDap: MegDap enables enterprises to engage with customers in the language of their choice. It has offices in Pune, Bengaluru and the US. Its machine learning and AI platform Texlang enables enterprise grade language processing across translation, text and voice extraction and cognitive analysis.

Liv.ai: Bengaluru-based Liv.ai is a deep learning and artificial intelligence-based speech recognition and natural language tool for Indian languages. It has speech recognition API in all major Indian languages, dialogue systems in Hindi and English, machine translation and transliteration.

KrypC: Bengaluru-headquartered KrypC is a blockchain technology company focussed on accelerated blockchain adoption in enterprises across domains. Its platforms, KrypCore and KrypC, help enterprises to swiftly map their business use cases and build blockchain applications with all the required elements to deploy on any standard protocols such as Hyperledger, Ethereum or Multichain.

I-exceed: i-exceed is a fintech company with offices in India, Singapore and the US. It enables banks and financial institutions to offer digital solutions and services to its customers. i-exceed offers digital transformation to banks and financial institutions using its mobile platform.

GIEOM: Bengaluru-based startup GIEOM is used for intelligent compliance management, change management and operational risk management. Regulations keep changing in the banking sector and there is a need for analysing the impact of regulatory change on business operations of the bank and communicate to users on the need to know basis.

Hotelogix: Noida-headquartered Hotelogix is a cloud-based, end-to-end, hospitality technology solution provider, built to manage independent and multi-property hotel chains, through a single window for all hotel operations and bookings (online and offline). Hotelogix is currently used by properties in 100+ countries.

MintM: MintM is a Bengaluru-based in-store customer engagement startup.  Founded in 2012 by Sachin Garg, Ashutosh Chouksey and Vibhor Gupta, MintM is a marketing and advertising startup that helps in engaging with the customers through its intelligent customer engagement platform, Magnet. It is a robotics platform which can convert any digital display device to an intelligent robot enabling enhanced sales and marketing experiences.