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In May 2016, BCCL’s (Bennett, Coleman and Company Ltd) strategic investment arm Brand Capital, formed a joint venture with GSVlabs, a global innovation centre in Silicon Valley that accelerates startups called BC-GSV Accelerator.
It hosted its first cohort yesterday in Gurugram at the ‘Demo Days’- the inaugural ceremony of BC-GSV Accelerator Summer 2016 Programme, where it featured the 15 enrolled startups.
Commenting on the venture, Puneet Suri, Director, North Brand Capital said, “The platform is another step towards our vision to work with next generation entrepreneurs and partner with them in their growth journeys. We’re excited to be working with GSVLabs to bring the Silicon Valley ethos to the Indian startup ecosystem.”
The startups selected for the programme hail from sectors including edtech, healthtech, real estate, travel, and AI among others, as per an official statement.
Talking about the journey so far, Marlon Evans, CEO, GSVlabs said, “The growth of the startups over just 15 weeks has been truly impressive. As each looks to scale their operations, the hard work they put in during our accelerator programme will pay dividends down the road.”
Here’s the list of the selected startups:
Clorik: It is an interest-based social networking platform that enables users to connect with people along the lines of common creative interests.
enytime: Founded in 2015, it is an app-based portal that allows its users to book a hotel room by the hour. It takes a step ahead from the conventional check-in and check-out system and users can pay only for the time they spend in the hotel via the app.
FinUp: An AI-based news app that provides news related to the business and finance sector. As per its website, it shortens the stories and delivers news with an estimated reading time of 30 seconds per story. It also offers the users content based on their interests.
GeeksDemy: An edtech startup, it offers technical skill development courses on its platform through a personalised pedagogical framework.
GrokCare: GrokCare is a cloud-based care coordination platform between schools and parents, which provides health insights on the basis of Personal Health Records(PHR). Founded in 2016, it allows parents to access and share the information in real-time as well.
LivSharbati: Founded in 2016, the startup claims to be India’s first on-demand and subscription-based wheat flour, prepared on order. It also offers homestep delivery services for its products. It claims to use ‘Sharbati wheat’ to offer premium quality to its customers.
Mate: It is an AI- and machine learning-based conversational search engine that incorporates a user’s context and emotions to deliver more personalised search results. It also offers businesses to train machine learning models with zero coding skills.
MindIQ: It is a chatbot portal that enables its users to interact with customers using conversational interfaces and provide customer service using artificial intelligence. Its in-house intelligence platform is able to respond to more than 50% customer queries without human intervention, according to its website.
OneLease: The startup belongs to the real estate sector and uses technology to offer its users standardised offices with flexible leases.
Original4Sure: Founded in 2015, it is a technology-based anti-counterfeiting and original product identification solution for consumer products. With this as the foundation, the team plans to build an augmented reality-(AR) based platform for enhanced consumer engagement.
Perpule: It aims to build applications for the retail commerce industry to improve the shopping experience of customers. As per its website, its latest product enables express checkouts from partner stores, thereby reducing billing costs for retailers.
Ping2Park: It is a Delhi-based on-demand valet company. It offers an app-enabled solution for availing valet services in high traffic areas and at events. It aims to provide hassle-free parking solutions to its users.
Puzzelo: It is a tech-based gaming platform for brands and businesses to promote themselves to customers via promotional offers and contest prizes.
WrapUp: It is a news aggregator that provides its users news in a condensed manner. It uses its personal five-point software for developing the stories.
Zaprest: It is a customised apparel brand management startup. It uses technology to offer designs to its users and has a tech-based supply chain management system.
GSVlabs is a global innovation centre based in Silicon Valley that accelerates startups. It connects corporations to innovative technologies, business models, and entrepreneurs. It incubates startups focussing on verticals like edtech, big data, sustainability, mobile, and entertainment.
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