IIIT Hyderabad Seed-funds Five Early Stage Startups With INR 10 Lakh

Avishkar, the incubator run by the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H), announced that is has seed-funded five early stage startups with INR10 lakh each. The accelerator would take up 2% equity stake in the start-ups by converting the seed fund into convertible debenture subscription accelerator.

This is the third batch of IIIT Foundation’s Avishkar Deep Tech Accelerator Program. The chosen startups include:

Niche.ai, a visual informatics products supplier for computer vision ecosystem,

 Blue Semiconductors, a semiconductor startup,

Authbase, a cybersecurity startup that utilizes machine learning,

DreamVu, a VR camera technology,

 Docturnal, mobile apps developer leveraging AI/ML and spectral analysis.

Apart from the grant and mentorship in the 6 month acceleration program, the startups will also get access to the research labs and receive various customer development and mentoring support from IIITH Foundation’s partners and ecosystem associates.

The program is in partnership with 50K Ventures and business coaching from CoCreation Consulting. It was started in June 2016 to accelerate growth of startups in machine learning, computer vision, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and Virtual Reality (VR)space. Last May, three startups had been selected for the first batch of the accelerator program. These included Fabulyst, Sastra Robotics, and Endless Robotics.

Last week, three startups won on the spot funding of INR 15 Lakhs each at the third edition of IIT Bombay’s Ten Minute Million contest organised by the Entrepreneurship Cell (eCell) of IIT Bombay during its annual Entrepreneurship Summit 2017.

[This development was first reported in ET.]