And the winner of QPrize – Make in India contest is...

Qualcomm Incorporated through its venture investment group, Qualcomm Ventures, along with the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP), today announced Ark Robot as the winner of the QPrize – Make in India contest. Ark Robot will receive Rs 2 crore investment from Qualcomm. This special edition of the QPrize contest was held in support of the Government of India’s vision of Make in India and received a great response from the Indian startup community.

Ark Robot, an advanced and efficient automatic storage and retrieval system, was invented by Rajesh Manpat, who is also a renowned national medalist in rifle shooting. iFuture Systems, established in 2008 is the parent company behind the Ark Robot. As a leading player of machine vision systems in India the startup claims to have clients and customers in over 20 countries.

Based in Bengaluru, iFuture Systems has an in-house R&D team of experienced engineers who have hands on experience in industrial automation, robotics and machine vision. Arkrobot, a warehouse automation robot is currently offered to Indian market and the startup is looking to expand its offering into US and European Markets shortly.

Qualcomm Ventures has been present in India since 2007 and has been actively investing and nurturing the Indian startup ecosystem. It has been holding the QPrize competition since 2009 to identify the industry’s most promising early-stage startups. They have scripted several success stories like Fitbit, Waze and Capillary, among others.

Qualcomm has supported the Government’s vision of Make in India by recently announcing the Qualcomm Design in India Initiative. Now with the QPrize – Make in India contest, the company has further incentivised the startup ecosystem to join this movement towards the goal of local design and manufacturing.

Recomended read from 2015: MyPoolin and Flip Technologies announced winners of QPrize 2015 at MobileSparks

Held on February 18, 2016 at the Make in India Centre, Mumbai, five shortlisted companies were invited to compete for the Rs 2 crore prize. The panel of judges for the competetion included- Amitabh Kant, Secretary, DIPP, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India; Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-founder, Infosys; Chairman, CII Innovation and Entrepreneurship Council and Chairman, Axilor Ventures; Ravi Gururaj, Founder and CEO - QikPod.com and Chairman, NASSCOM Product Council; Sunil Lalvani, VP and President, Qualcomm India and Karthee Madasamy, VP, Qualcomm Ventures India.

The five shortlisted companies were-

• Ark Robot – Army of autonomous Robots for smart logistics.
• Cardiac Design Labs – Democratising advanced cardiac diagnostics: Bringing it to the masses in an affordable way, using intelligent technology.
• NexGear Technology is developing Frodo – an intelligent strap-on adventure camera which not only captures videos but automatically edits hours of raw footage into short shareable summarised stories.
• TeraFlight Data Labs – drone data analytics solutions for solar.
• Threye Interactive – immersive and interactive tech company venturing in AR/VR and robotics and engaged with aerospace and defence.

(Disclaimer: Qualcomm Ventures is one of the investors in YourStory)