Meet top startups from IIIT-Hyderabad’s CIE - Avishkar Deeptech and MedTech Programme
IIIT-Hyderabad’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) is known for its accelerator programme that focusses on deeptech startups across different sectors.
The Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) cell of IIIT-Hyderabad has announced the success of the eighth cohort of Avishkar Deeptech and Medtech Accelerator Programme. Every year, the programme shortlists a few startups and offers them with mentorship and support.
Founded in 2008, the CIE has supported over 200 startups and has funded 30 of them. The Avishkar Deeptech Accelerator has been in operation for two years now.
Both the deeptech and medtech accelerators are intensive six-month mentor and research-led programmes. A total of Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh have been invested in these startups.
Commenting on the success of the Avishkar and Ojas Programmes, Prof CV Jawahar, Dean R&D, IIITH said, “We, as an institute, are very keen on ensuring that our research helps startups solve real-world problems. Many of our startups have successfully leveraged on the research done here to build their products and solutions.”
From a learning app that helps students, to building products to detect lung disorders and infections, and smartphone-based retinal imaging to prevent blindness, many noteworthy startups successfully graduated this year.
There were startups like Hyderabad and US-based XMachines, who are currently building autonomous mobile robots for various applications in manufacturing and warehousing facilities, and in advanced academic robotics research. There is the enterprise AI-platform Mashinga, Indibots that develops robots for cleaning solar panels.
Subtl.ai, that is built a bot that can create expert knowledge bots on documents. Altor builds helmets that provide accident prevention. And Nexrea is an AI-enabled augmented reality video call platform for remotely repairing medical equipment.
YourStory takes a look at eight startups of these startups.
Scholr
It is an AI-powered learning app to help students study more in less time. The app works as a personal learning assistant, which helps students solve their doubts during their study time.
Scholr doesn’t use any tutors and works purely on artificial intelligence. The Mumbai-based startup was started by a team of IIT alumni - Piyush Agarwal, Manil Gupta, and Himanshu Ninje.
The team claims to have a monthly active user base of 250,000, and over 750,000 app downloads. The team is looking to raise Rs 1.5 crore.
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Instoried
Bengaluru-based Instoried is an augmented writing platform, which improves customer interest and engagement. Founded in 2018 by Sharmin Ali and Sutanshu Raj, Instoried has created a tool to help brands to strategise, execute, and deliver content using predictive analysis to increase customer engagement.
The B2B SaaS-based startup helps brands to boost engagement and increase content productivity in real-time. The tool is currently available in English and Hindi, but will soon cover a larger set of regional languages in the future.
The team claims to have eight paid customers, and is looking to raise $3 million.
Paymatrix
This Hyderabad-based startup is an analytics-driven interface that helps avail a short-term credit at a click by using an existing credit card.
The platform currently helps enable timely rental payments and collections through the facilitation of credit for rent and rental deposits. In addition to the rental payments, it also facilitates digital rent documentation, tenant screening services, and the renter’s insurance, all of which enable hassle-free renting or leasing.
The startup was started in November 2016 by Mukesh Chandra Anchuri, Anusha Kurupathi Parambil, and Muralidhar Nayak. The team claims to have over 12,000 registered users and has transacted over Rs 37 crore.
Indibots
This Hyderabad-based startup was founded by Suraj Parthani in 2018. It develops robots for cleaning solar panels using dry technology.
The startup’s target customers are utility, operation, and maintenance companies of size greater than 1 MW.
Currently, the startup has paid pilots with over three large solar farms, and is looking to raise Rs 5.5 crore.
Onward Health
A predictive healthcare analytics platform with a core focus on oncology, Onward Assist is building different automated diagnostic tools that serve as assistants to pathologists.
Founded in 2016 by Dinesh Koka, Hyderabad-based, Onward Health’s Onward Assist provides valuable insights on one’s health, which are passed on to oncologists. The team is also looking at risk scoring for patients.
Docturnal
With one-third of the world’s population infected with tuberculosis (TB), the disease is a leading cause of death today. Rahul Pathri founded Docturnal in 2016 to deal with the disease with its app TimBre.
An individual is made to cough into a special microphone attached to a mobile device, which is connected to the TimBre app. The sound of the cough is recorded (using a microphone array) by a medical practitioner or a healthcare worker along with their demographic and clinical variables.
The data is then processed in real time, leveraging machine learning/deep learning to detect if the patient is TB positive or negative. The team is also working on building products to detect other lung disorders and infections. The Hyderabad-based startup has so far raised a seed funding.
Rayd8
Rayd8 was started with an aim to prevent blindness in low-income countries. Founded by Abhishek Kaushal, Puneet Raj, Dr Jaitra PG and Krishna Kalyan in 2018, the team realised the need for good quality retinal images for eye testing and in detecting blindness.
Therefore, they brought to life research work on smartphone-based retinal imaging. It is currently beta-testing with over 25 specialists.
(Edited by Megha Reddy)
