Meet The Top 14 Startups From NASSCOM 10,000 Startups’ #TechMarch2016 Bengaluru Edition

Nasscom 10,000 Startups recently announced TechMarch – an initiative to bring together smart hardware startups driving innovation. The programme includes an eight-city tour to invite applications from startups in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Cochin, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Delhi, and Kolkata. So far, 300+ applications have been received.

Supported by NASSCOM COE/IOT, TechMarch is being backed by Tata Communications, Kalaari Capital, Robert Bosch, Microsoft Accelerator, Buoyanci, and Tata Elxsi. The list also includes various hardware accelerators, communities, and makerspaces of the country such as Forge, Revvx, Makers Asylum, IOTBLR, Workbench projects, Echai, Innov8, Delhi startups,Delhi angels, Mingle.

The panel of judges includes Vani kola (Founder, Kalaari Capital), Manjunath Hebbar (Nasscom Executive Council member and founder of Buoyanci), Manohar Sreenivas (Head, Startup Alliance, Bosch India), Naveen Asrani (Director, Microsoft), Avinash Kaushik (Revvx Accelerator), Vaibhav Chhabra (Founder, Makers Asylum), Pavan Kumar (Founder, WorkBench Projects), Nihal Kashinath (Founder IOTBLR), Vishwanathan (Founder, Forge Accelerator), and Praveen Jhajhria (Operations Head ,Tata Elxsi) and Sachin Pukale (Startup Alliances head, Tata Communication).

Rajat Tandon, Vice President, NASSCOM 10K Startups said, “Startups in the hardware space have started to disrupt India’s ecosystem. This is also because of the PM’s Make in India programme which gave them much-needed attention to further prosper. TechMarch is an effort to provide a strong support to the hardware innovators in the country and help them grow in an efficient and proficient way. With this initiative we aim to build a strong, smart hardware space in India which can compete at a global level.”

Nasscom 10K Startups team is also doing in each city a roadshow, thereby meeting influential people in hardware ecosystem, big organisations, maker spaces etc. Below are a few pictures from the two-day event in Bengaluru:

Here are the selected startups from the TechMarch Roadshow in Bengaluru:

Linkeddots: Linkeddots provides IoT-enabled tracking devices such as smart tags, smart readers, smart controllers, and smart monitoring alert control systems for tracking and monitoring assets for SMEs. These solutions can be integrated with existing ERPs, enterprise, and mobile applications.

Saankhya Labs: Saankhya Labs is an Intel Capital-backed supplier of software defined demodulation IC solutions for universal digital TV, analog TV, radio, and other broadcast media. The demodulator finds its applications in TV, TV dongles, tablet devices, and surveillance.

SirenaTech: SirenaTech’s home-grown robotic platform brings a unique value proposition for the technical colleges providing them an opportunity to experiment with it. It further plans to introduce ‘humanoid-robots’ as teaching assistants in education space in India.

WireLess Controls: It is a portable remote telemetry IoT device for factory automation. It allows machines/equipment to watch live (video) and control it remotely over a wireless link (no internet necessary) either using a phone/tab/laptop using a simple web-browser.

Thingscloud: Thingscloud is an AI-focussed startup on cleantech. It has four products – ThingsHiFi – a solar grid tie inverter, ThingsWiFi – a plug and play device that can monitor energy consumption from any device, ThingsCloud and ThingsApp – the cloud and the mobile application on which the data is hosted and monitored, respectively.

Thinqbot Technologies Pvt. Ltd: It plans to offer a plug and play infrastructure to convert any home into a smart home. The features include remote monitoring, remote control and automation of appliances. The startup is currently in stealth mode and part of Excubator’s portfolio.

Wisys Technologies: Wisys Technologies is a provider of M2M technologies that enables consumers to monitor and control street lighting-usage based on the requirements. Its technology platform based on Zigbee wireless technology, provides solutions for, but not limited to, cold storage, street lights, and smart homes.

vChalk Education: vChalk provides learning programmes to low-cost private schools. They are delivered as an extra service as in-school tuition using in-house developed content and methodology.

IOT Pot India Private Limited: IOTPOT is a startup in the smart kitchen space. It offers products to make cooking safe, smart, and simple.

Cheermap Foods Pvt Ltd: cheermap foods is a chai-brewer which prepares authentic, consistent, and variety of Indian Chai & loose leaf teas.

ReWango: ReWango offers a SaaS-based platform along with a mobile app for retailers to multiply their footfalls and increase sales. The technology uses geo-fencing, Bluetooth and WiFi to broadcast contextual marketing messages to customers’ mobiles when they are near the business’ location.

Wagr: Wagr is a dog-tracking app which reports on a user’s pet’s activity and movements. Also, it lets the user to discover, book, and chat with vets, boarding places, groomers, and trainers. Users can also interact with people and dog lovers within the community of the app.

titanObots: Children fantasise about their toys coming alive and playing with them. titanObots built a little robot ‘MOJO’ and gave a human-like character so that he can react, make sounds as a human would do when scared, surprised, or startled.

I2U2: It is a teleconference robot for homes, which can interact, monitor, play, and move around with the family.

What’s In It For Startups

The five selected startups in the smart hardware space will receive mentorship, investment and partnership opportunities.

As a part of the programme, startups will be provided with technical, marketing, and financial support, and leadership skills to build their applications and businesses. They will also be connected to industry leaders (CEOs, thought leaders, VCs, ecosystem evangelists, social change leaders), and funders.

Furthermore, the winning team will be get funding support from Kalaari capital.

The journey will continue to Hyderabad (September 28), Cochin (October 1), Mumbai (October 3), Ahmedabad (October 5), NCR (October 8), Coimbatore (October 15) and Kolkata (October 18). The finale will be held on October 26, 2016 on the sidelines of National Product Conclave in Bengaluru.

The applications for these cities are still on, interested startups can apply here.