Zone Startups India Selects 15 Women Entrepreneur Led Startups For empoWer Accelerator

Mumbai based Zone Startups India has unveiled the names of 15 selected startups amongst 376 applications across India for the second edition of its flagship all-women accelerator programme “empoWer.” The startups were selected after successful evaluation by the examining committee comprising 12 mentors from its advisory council along with noted industry experts.

The “empoWer” program, which is supported by Department of Science and Technology (Government of India); Social Alpha, an initiative by Tata Trusts; Microsoft, Amazon, ICICI Bank, PayU, CapitalFirst and FlexiLoans has drawn significant interest and support from international markets and from Barreau du Quebec, a representative office of Government of Quebec in Mumbai.

It is one of the four accelerator programmes launched by Zone Startups. The other three include Gateway91, Rise Accelerator with Barclays and Thought Factory Accelerator with Axis Bank. Last month, real estate firm Lodha Group launched the Palava Accelerator in association with Mumbai based Zone Startups. The first cohort of the programme consisted of eight members that collectively raised funds up to $23.6 Mn last year.

“We had surprised ourselves when we received 181 applications for the inaugural cohort of empoWer. We set ourselves an ambitious target of 400 for this year, and almost achieved it, with 376 applications – which is a great pool in itself. We have a cohort member from Imphal; which is great in terms of diversity of the pool, as well as to show that the ecosystem is growing beyond Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi. We believe we have unearthed some solid winners in the final cohort of 15, who will go on to do wonders for themselves and the ecosystem of women entrepreneurs.” says Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director, Zone Startups India.

What’s In Store For The Selected Startups?

The shortlisted startups belong to different domains including IoT, artificial intelligence and deep learning across multiple industries such as healthcare, smart cities, and enterprise solutions.

The selected startups will join the six-week-long community programme which offers valuable mentoring sessions, workshops, industry networking opportunities, case studies, peer-to-peer interactions, bootcamp and investor networking.

The winner of the  2nd Cohort will be offered an opportunity to travel to Quebec, Canada for a week-long business development programme and personal mentorship.

Through empoWer, Zone Startups India will continue to support the selected women entrepreneurs for up to a year after the programme.

Here Is The List Of 15 Women-Led Startups Of empoWer 2017 Batch

Ray IoT Solutions: A  Bengaluru based startup, Ray IoT Solutions was founded in 2015 by Ranjana Nair. It is an IoT-based startup which develops sleep monitoring solutions for babies to track their wellness.

Revol Technologies: Revol is a startup engaged in the creation of smart wallets such as Cashew which is equipped with fingerprint access and smartphone connectivity.

Technology Uncorked: A venture led by Meenakshi Vashisht,  Technology Uncorked offers IoT Framework for energy efficient, Smart and connected Living Spaces. Based in Gurugram, it was founded 2011.

Wowlet: The startup offers toilet maintenance and cleaning services for household, office complexes, and restaurants. It was founded by Akshay Punjabi and Komal Goyal in 2017 and is based out of Faridabad.

Tapu Sustainable Solutions: This startup is providing waterless urinal solutions such as EcoTrapin Xtra and EcoTrapin Plus. Based in Mumbai, it was founded by Neha Bagaria in

ICONICbot: The firm is leveraging chatbot technologies to bring fans and their icons together. By using Artificial Intelligence technology. It was founded by Sandesh and Vishakha.

Morph.ai: Morph.ai is an enterprise ChatBot suite that helps businesses engage in personalised marketing and sales. It was founded in 2016 and is led by Nidhi Agarwal.

Bizlem: Founded in September 2016 by Geetanjali Agarwal, Bizlem deals in chatbot technologies and is based out of Mumbai. The team pioneers in the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Natural Language Processing (NLP) and is developing several innovative products to solve hence unsolved business problems using the core AI and NLP.

Cygen: The startup, launched in 2016 is led by Tanushree Laishram. CyGen is an independent organization that helps individuals in increasing their knowledge and understanding the opportunities which can minimize healthcare challenges and improve the quality of life.

PregBuddy: PregBuddy was founded in October 2016 by Sivareena Sarika and Subhadeep Mondal. It is a mobile application that is designed especially for would-be-moms in India. It is a one-stop platform to stay informed and track changes during the nine months of pregnancy.

Periwinkle Technologies: Periwinkle Technologies Pvt Ltd is a startup incubated at NCL Venture Center, Pashan, Pune. They have various products for Healthcare – commercial as well as for public health settings. The startup was founded by Veena Moktali and Koustubh Naik.

Tactopus: Led by Chandni Rajendran, the Tactopus team is developing an interactive edtech device for blind children.

Bitgram Technologies: The startup is led by Pria Randolph. Bitgram is a trust-based consent-oriented software product for Banks, Micro Finance Institutions and their customers. Bitgram’s aim is to use advanced technology to reduce costs associated with NPAs and reduce Customer engagement costs upfront.

Faasthelp: Based out of Bengaluru, Faasthelp is led by Vidya Vellala. It is a customer support and engagement platform with 24/7 support right from any business application. It offers all business support needs in one place to the client without hindering the business, be it knowledge base, query/issues creation and tracking, or a chatbot.

The Friday Code: Based out of New Delhi, the startup was founded by Mansi Khanna and MuthuSaravanan Sugumaran. The Friday Code is a company whose mission is to demystify the digital ecosystem. The Friday code aids growth of traditional and new age brands, build platforms and transform organizations for the digital age using technology.