It has been a while since Tata in collaboration with NEN has started a startup contest. The participation was huge and in a never seen before scale. Around 588 startups participated and we are at the penultimate level. 30 hottest startups of India made the final cut. Of these 5 startups will be selected.
This startup list is a well rounded list with startups from all spheres making their entry. From cold chain storage to turning kitchen waste to compost this list has it all. Few startups like Samaan and Sacred Moments went into places where we might think no business existed.
I am very satisfied to compile this list and learned quite a few things along the way.
Here is the list of 30 hottest startups in India :
A2Zapplications.com : Working in a Software as a Service (Saas), a2z is targeting the small and medium enterprises for their IT needs. Typically SME’s are not willing to spend money on the whole infrastructure and Saas delivered on the Internet is the best solution for them. A2Z also have some leaner version of the same software for micro-firms.
Activecubes Solutions : Helps customers across the globe in harnessing the power of information. Organizations collect data over a period of time about their customers and pile up in the databases. Most of this data is useless unless it is converted to some kind of information to make future decisions about their products and customers. ActiveCubes is helping organizations to ferret out important information from their humongous databases. It serves clients in US, Australia and India.
Anantara Solutions : Operating in Consulting and outsourcing space, Anantara offers what it calls the Second Generation outsourcing. It provides business solutions against the technology solutions like the IBM’s and Accenture’s offer. Anantara makes money through the services offered and sharing business gains with clients.
Takeovercode.com : This company provides legal, financial and management help with the help of IT. It solves the intricacies of takeover regulations in India.
Cafegadgets.in : One-stop shop for all your gadget needs. Tied up with more than 75 brands in IT and Digital Lifestyle category. It offers more than 400 products online. Read my complete review here.
Daily Dump : Its product converts kitchen waste into compost at home. The product can be installed at home and Daily Dump provides services, maintenance and advice. Daily Dump’s product can be retrofitted in every home and the compost can be used in gardens.
Ecomove Solutions : Provides environment friendly transport solutions which are also economical for this hot, flat and crowded world. Its solution is bicycles at various depots. Registered user can take the cycle at one depot and leave it another depot. The rent costs less than 15 rupees. best solution for our clogged roads. Cycles might actually be faster for distances less than 4 km.
Elements Akademia : It is the finishing school. It makes the graduates employable by teaching the skills relevant to surviving in an industry. Our academic institutions are more focused on the academics and even things like communication skills are rare to come by from the graduates. I see more need for such schools.
Greycaps India : Operating in the knowledge and education space, Greycaps is empowering 2 million people with its knowledge transfer via CD’s, books, quiz shows, training and web based games. It also has corporate programs which earn a big chunk of their revenues.
Inasra Technologies : Mass market solution for accommodation in India. It has partnered with 4000 hotels across India to provide the best hotel room to suit your needs and budgets. Much needed startup in this highly fragmented and often unorganized industry.
ITCONS e-Solutions : Develops software products for HR and recruitment space. Its software helps companies automate, optimize and streamline the HR activities like recruitment and staffing for higher productivity. It has an integrated solution for Applicant Tracking System, bill management, vendor management, timesheet entry and communication management.
Lakshya Institute : Unlike the finish school of Elements Akadameia, Lakshya targets the students young. It has training’s for students who want to get into IIT and medical courses. It is also offering courses for pre-10th students. It also has distance learning programs.
Ennovasys : Provides real-time asset visibility across the supply chain. This is something Wal-mart uses to perfect it supply chain logistics from the manufacturing in China to the time the goods are sold. Ennovasys uses RFID, GPS and mobile technologies to track the goods through out the supply chain. Its location based engine called Pista is the core.
Evam Entertainment : Evam makes money by making people happy. It is a theatre entreprenurship for youngsters. Evam uses theater to make people happy. It stages English plays, corporate workshops, student interactions, and theatre festivals. Hobby of the founder was turned into business.
GoSports India : GoSports is looking for the next Abhinav Bindra’s and Sachin Tendulkar’s. One of the few sports related startups which concentrates on cricket and other sports like swimming and tennis. It deals with marketing and endorsements of the future talent. When the talent makes it big the company makes money.
Librarywala.com : Virtual library with a wide range of book selection. Works like Netflix, where you can order your books based on your plan. The books will be delivered and you can read them at your leisure. No time to return back the books but there is a limit on the number of books you can hold at any time.
Mantis Technologies : Provides technology solutions for the bus travel industry. Mantis connects 1000 bus travel agents instant access to 20,000 live bus tickets. Mantis has the state of the art global distribution system which connects most of west India’s bus industry. Redbus and ticketwala operate in the same space down south.
Medsphere India : Radiology on the move and remotely is the main mantra of Medsphere. The images of X-rays, CT scans and MRI’s are streamed over the Internet and the radiologist can look at the images and offer diagnosis remotely. It plans to enter telemedicine and telepathology. Medsphere has a 70% market share in the teleradiology industry in India.
Munificient Ventures : Rentimental.com is a search engine which helps your rent anything. You can go online search for a product you would like to rent and you are good to go. The business makes money from subscriptions, advertisement and other value added services.
Perfint Engineering Services : A medical devices company which focuses on image guided minimally-invasive procedures and early tumor detection. It has a first of its kind device which has a greater precision and allows radiologist to get inside the body in minimally invasive way, touch the tumor and conduct a biopsy.
Rasilant Technologies : One more RFID company after Ennovasys. Rasilant is a pure RFID player which helps companies to track everything anywhere. It reached a turn-over of 1 billion rupees in 3 years.
Sacred Moments : It is the company too look for your religious taste. Sacred moments offers customized pooja kits customized for the various festivals in India. India’s festival economics is not sized up but I am guessing it is pretty big. Sacred Moments just tried to capitalize it. It has kits for Diwali, Ganpati, Holi, Satyanarana, Durga, General pooja and also a muslim kit.
SammaaN Foundation : Organizing the Rickshaw pullers under one roof. I did not know that cycle rickshaw pulling sector contributes to 30% of the urban transport until I came across this startup. Samaan gives rickshaw’s and collect a nominal fee per day. In return Samaan helps them with a accident insurance and savings bank account. The pullers can even sell mineral water, juices, mobile recharge, courier and bill collections. Passengers traveling in one of these rickshaw’s is also insured.
Star AgriWarehousing and Collateral Management : Targeting the post-harvest management services in the oldest yet hottest field of agriculture. It provides warehousing services for the produce of the farmers in the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh. StarAgri is not limiting itself to the warehousing.
Synage Software : It has a very popular online project management tool called DeskAway which puts the organizational and desktop tools to shame. Check out my review of the tool DeskAway here.
Fieldturf Tarkett : Your maintenance free dream lawn without any grass. Fieldturf provides artificial grass lawns for corporate’s, stadiums and households. With over 1000 clients in India, Fieldturf makes money by import, marketing, sales and installation of the artificial grass.
The Loot : A retail chain which sells odd sizes in odd numbers. It is a multi-brand discount store. A bit older of the lot in the startups The Loot is quite big to be a startup. I have reviewed this startup at Trak.in.
ValueMinds Solutions : Get the bugs out is their mantra. It has been more than 30 years of software developlment and we still have bugs in the code. The main reason for that is the testing part which is often neglected. ValueMinds product TestersDesk is trying to fill that gap with a suite of online system-independent tools to test your code.
Vayavya Labs : Electronic System level tools provider, which is working on patent idea in the semi-conductor domain.
Wyn brands : Manages fresh vegetables supply chain for fast food restaurants like McDonald’s Pizza Hut, KFC, Dominos and Yo China. For Yo China it manages the entire process of planning and procuring raw material to storing and preparing the vegetables. This startup is based out of Bangalore and makes money on raw material procurement and yield management.
Of these 30 startups 5 will be selected. It has been a while and the contest was supposed to declare the results by now. Not sure where the held up is. Could be the credit crunch.
I liked Ecomove Solutions : Provides environment friendly transport solutions which are also economical for this hot, flat and crowded world. Its solution is bicycles at various depots. Registered user can take the cycle at one depot and leave it another depot. The rent costs less than 15 rupees. best solution for our clogged roads. Cycles might actually be faster for distances less than 4 km.
