Maharashtra Startup Week 2021

Under the aegis of the Maharashtra State Innovative Policy 2018, Maharashtra State Innovation Society (MSInS) organises the Maharashtra Startup Week, an annual flagship competition to deepen the engagement between government and startups.

It is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for startups with out-of-the-box innovations to engage directly with the government and open doors to scale their solutions further. Startups from across India in sectors like Agriculture, Education & Skilling, Governance, Healthcare, Smart Infrastructure & Mobility and Sustainability (Clean Energy, Waste Management, Water Management) apply for the program. The shortlisted Top 100 startups pitch to sector-wise panels of investors, experts & senior government officials. Ultimately, the winning 24 startups are awarded work orders of up to Rs. 15 lakhs each from Government of Maharashtra.

In the past, Innovation Society has successfully organised three editions of Maharashtra Startup Week and 72 winning startups have worked with various government departments to deploy their solutions.

Devendra Nagle, Marketing Manager at Innovation Society, informed that the current edition of Maharashtra Startup Week received 1846 applications from 27 State and Union Territories this year. This alone indicates the popularity of the program among startups in India. The applications were screened by leading ecosystem partner institutions including Social Alpha, Unltd India, Ankur Capital, Climate Collective Foundation, WRI India and Bharat Innovation Fund.

Pivoting to a hybrid format this year, 100 startups across sectors pitched their innovative ideas virtually to sector-specific panels during August 23^rd – August 26^th. The jury panel comprised representatives from the government, industry, academia and investor community. Apart from more than 50 senior IAS officers, the sessions were also attended by senior Ministers from the Government of Maharashtra such as Shri Subhash Desai, Shri Nawab Malik and Smt. Aditi Tatkare.

The Grand Finale and Award ceremony took place on August 27^th at Trident, Nariman Point, Mumbai.

A masterclass on investment for startups was conducted by Sanjay Mehta, Founder and Partner, 100X.VC. The keynotes were delivered by Dr. Dhaval Shah, Co-founder, PharmEasy, Mr. Sanjay Mehta, Founder & Partner, 100X.VC and Mr. Sandeep Singhal, Spokesperson Maharashtra, ACT Grants. Hon’ble Minsters Shri Nawab Malik and Shri Subhash Desai, Smt. Manisha Verma, IAS, Principal Secretary, Skill Development, Employment & Entrepreneurship Department and Shri Deependra Singh Kushwah, IAS, CEO, MSInS were among the dignitaries who graced the occasion.

A total of 24 startups were chosen as winners across multiple sectors who will receive work orders of up to Rs 15 lakh each from the Maharashtra State Innovation Society to pilot their solutions within different state departments. Moreover, the startups will also receive support in terms of access to government machinery and mentoring from its institutional partners for a period of up to 12 months to deploy their solutions on the ground.

The winning startups of the current edition are:

NAME OF STARTUP: Elemeno Kids LLP

WEBSITE: www.elemenokids.in

There’s this notion that balancing what’s best for children with what makes them happy is impossible. That the two are mutually exclusive. Well, it was in this seemingly gigantic gap that Elemeno was born.

Elemeno believes what’s good for children can be made fun for them too! Now there are tons of companies with products focused on raising smart kids & successful kids, but what about raising happy kids? That’s their mission.

They focus on products that foster connections. For them, products that enabled kids to interact with others were the happiest products. Imagined, designed, developed, and proudly manufactured in India, Elemeno has a wide-ranging theme of products for kids aged 0-15 years.

Their product range includes interactive bedding, personalized books, card games, larger-than-life activity mats, story-based developmental adventures, multi-sensory activities and India centric products that glorify the nation.

NAME OF STARTUP: Reservoir Neurodiversity Consultants

WEBSITE: www.reservoirnow.com

Reservoir is an Inclusion Advocacy platform, which aims at unleashing new opportunities for individuals with neurological differences and disorders. They are building India's largest research and advisory firm to help families with special needs persons find trusted information, build local support groups and increase awareness.

Reservoir has a comprehensive understanding of this community, which allows them to curate innovative solutions for social participation.

NAME OF STARTUP:Hesa Technologies Private Limited

WEBSITE: www.hesaglobal.com

Hesa connects India Phygitally by enabling end to end access to the untapped rural markets as the one-stop solution provider. Hesa is revolutionizing the eco-system of rural commerce with their unique aggregated platform. Their core offering is a physical network of village level entrepreneurs, called “Hesaathis”, spread across villages connected digitally through Hesa’s Tech platform.

Through Hesa, the rural entrepreneur at the village level, becomes a one stop aggregator for a wide portfolio of products and services including financial transactions and bill payments. Businesses in rural India thrive on trust and relationship –Hesa’s deep understanding of the rural customer and the presence of a tech-savvy, local village level entrepreneur makes Hesa the go-to rural connector.

Empanelment of a vast pool of local human resources as village level entrepreneurs from Kiranashop owners, progressive farmers, youth, women led self-help groups and truck and auto drivers makes it a diverse, inclusive and sustainable business.

NAME OF STARTUP: Civis

WEBSITE: www.civis.vote

Civis is a scalable, multi-sided platform that provides targeted stakeholder engagement services to governments. Civis supports governments in their public consultations by providing end-to-end support, including a secure platform to gather public feedback, AI driven insights of feedback data and outreach to impacted communities.

Civis has been incubated by INFED, IIM Nagpur; NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore as well as the Nudge Centre for Social Innovation. They have received the Agami Prize for Legal Innovation; the D-Prize as well as Forbes Asia: 30 Under 30 for social impact.

NAME OF STARTUP: Definitics Software Solutions Private Limited (Roadbounce)

WEBSITE: www.roadbounce.com

RoadBounce helps Municipal Corporations to quickly find potholes on their entire road network, and to prioritize their budget to spend money where it is actually needed. RoadBounce surveys all roads using its technology and builds a ‘Digital Road Condition Dashboard’ for remote monitoring of road quality. Their professional offerings are: Survey (service), GIS dashboard for live monitoring and record-keeping of roads.

RoadBounce, in a quick span of 3 years has collected pothole data for more than 50,000 km in India and internationally. This is the first such achiveement in the world. Winner of FICCI road safety award, they are operating in multiple states in India.

NAME OF STARTUP: Praantech Media Privtae Limited (RTIwala)

WEBSITE: www.rtiwala.com

RTIwala is empowering the masses through sensible content and affordable justice-driven legal solutions. They are helping people in exercising their Right to Information, Consumer Rights and resolve the legal issues. RTIwala Team saves their time, money and efforts by perfectly drafting the RTI applications, Appeals and Complaints at just a few clicks.

They currently offer online RTI Filing, 10mins Micro Consultation, First and Second Appeal Filing solutions. Their upcoming products LegalBot, RTIwala.Store and RTI Bot are leveraging AI and providing meticulously prepared drafts in less than 50 seconds and at 2/10th of cost, which will revolutionize the way legal services have been delivered so far in India.

NAME OF STARTUP: Aryadhan Financial Solutions Private Limited

WEBSITE: www.arya.ag

Aryadhan offers assisted fintech solution for post-harvest finance needs of smallholder farmers, FPO’s and microenterprises. Aryadhan works in underbanked markets with small and marginal farmers (SMF) and prioritises offering post-harvest loans against warehouse receipts to farmer.

Earnings of small holder farmers are often under duress since majority of them resort to distress sale of their produce during the harvest season. Often, they have an opportunity of improving their income to the tune of 25% by storing produce and selling during off season. Aryadhan supports this storage of produce by advancing loan to farmers and their organisations.

NAME OF STARTUP: Krushak Mitra Agro Services Private Limited

WEBSITE: www.krushakmitraagro.com

Krushak Mitra Agro Services is a unique platform set up as a partnership between Farmer Producer Companies, their supporting NGO and individual investors with immense corporate sector experience to work with 10,000+ farmers through their Producer Companies (FPCs) by creating sustainable, scalable linkages across the value chain covering inputs and market access; in turn fulfilling the needs of the consumers of high quality fresh and value-added farm products.

NAME OF STARTUP: GramHeet Private Limited

WEBSITE: www. gramheet.com

Since agrarian distress is a complex issue, solving it requires a holistic approach with several inter-linked micro-solutions. Even if one such aspect goes missing, it doesn't bring about the necessary change.

GramHeet proposes an integrated model that aims to provide a one-stop marketplace for farmers at the village level called GramHeet Mandi (Village Trade Centre), collaborating with community-based organisations that operate as franchises. As a social enterprise, GramHeet is committed to the 'farmers-first' approach and increase their income significantly.

NAME OF STARTUP: Shapos Services Private Limited (Reshamandi)

WEBSITE: www.reshamandi.com

ReshaMandi is India's 1st agritech startup digitizing India’s silk supply chain. They provide AI & IoT-led digital ecosystem for silk starting from farm to consumer. ReshaMandi’s mission statement is to make India the silk superpower with their processes and by helping farmers improve their crop yield and quality. They are looking to improve silk production and the quality of finished products, while trying to reduce the import of foreign silk and thus giving the farmers better rates and higher demand

ReshaMandi wants to enable the reelers and weavers with high-quality silk which decreases their dependence on imports. As a grassroots-level enabler, ReshaMandi works directly with sericulture farmers, fabric weavers, silk reelers, and retailers, enabling them to get the best price for their produce, reducing the time to market, and making sure that they are supplied with the best raw materials and testing kits.

Farmers can sell their produce directly to ReshaMandi and they ensure that these farmers get the best price in the market while also enabling the logistics aspect of the supply chain and reduce the burden on the farmer.

NAME OF STARTUP: Blackfrog Technologies Private Limited

WEBSITE: www.blackfrog.in

Blackfrog seeks to improve the efficiency of immunization supply chains. They have developed patented technologies for precision cold-chain and vaccine traceability systems with support from BIRAC (DBT) and leading impact investors in the nation including Venture Centre (NCL, Pune), CCAMP Bangalore and Social Alpha to provide logistical support in the last-mile delivery of vaccines.

Their product Emvólio is a portable, battery-powered refrigeration device that strictly maintains any preset temperature for over 12 hours for last mile transport of vaccines. The device capabilities include continuous temperature monitoring, location tracking, state-of- charge indication, communication with headquarters via live tracking, and vital statistics for improved coverage.

This system has been helping remote hospitals relieve the economic burden of wasted vaccines. Further, it helps optimize human resources in vaccine delivery by removing the need for repeated immunization visits to account for the administration of unviable vaccines.

NAME OF STARTUP: Periwinkle Technologies Private Limited

WEBSITE: www.periwinkletech.com

Periwinkle Technologies designs and develops technologies for greater healthcare coverage. They have their focus on impact, innovation, and indigenous production. They have been granted with 2 patents in India with national phase filings. With their presence in 6 states & 2 countries since commercialization in 2019, their associations and channel partners are spread across India.

Their product Smart Scope® is a handheld device for single-visit, efficient screening of cervical cancer & provides 4X population coverage in same spend. It is nurse-friendly & works independent of electricity or setup. The AI-enabled telehealth software Net4Medix® provides a result and opportunity to triage & counsel in the same visit. Tertiary center expert can review case via telehealth or provide appointment for treatment.

NAME OF STARTUP: Health Wheels Private Limited (Dial4242)

WEBSITE: www.dial4242.com

Dial4242 is a technology platform for ambulance access across India on subscription basis. Their product provides features like ambulance service membership subscription, standby ambulance services, and ancillary healthcare services.

Dial4242 network is active in 400 cities in India with 5000+ ambulance operators on their network. With a market penetration of about 1,500,000 corporate and retail members on their platform, they have additionally tied up with Insurance company for providing service for policy holders. Mumbai Police has been recommending Dial4242 for requests received by them.

NAME OF STARTUP: Windmill Health Technologies Private Limited (NeoBreathe)

WEBSITE: www.windmillh.com

Empowering frontline health workers to resuscitate newborns easily and effectively - thus reducing IMR. Their product, NeoBreathe was invented by researchers and faculty at the prestigious Stanford India Biodesign Program at AIIMS, New Delhi.

Windmill Health was co-founded by Dr. Avijit and Dr. Ayesha to further develop this pathbreaking invention into a life-saving product. In a short span the product has been adopted and used across facilities in 22 states of India and in 6 other countries including South Africa, Kenya, Mali, Rwanda, Uganda and Nigeria.

NAME OF STARTUP: GroundReality Enterprises Private Limited (Potholeraja)

WEBSITE: www.potholeraja.com

PotHoleRaja® is a next generation technology infrastructure social enterprise, with a vision to make India pothole-free. PotHoleRaja has its focus onto solving the pothole problem using eco-friendly & waste materials. With their products, PotHoleRaja® GridMats™, they aim to make long lasting roads from 100% recycled plastic waste.

NAME OF STARTUP: Yotaka Solutions Private Limited

WEBSITE: www.yotaka.co.in

Yotaka creates innovative and customized applications of Computer Vision technology, using Deep Learning techniques, that automate the use of camera feed in three simple steps: Detect, Identify and Notify, all in real time. Using their product Automated Land Encroachment Prevention System, they have developed an India centric solution created to prevent illegal settlements on government or privately owned plots of land.

NAME OF STARTUP: QED Analyticals LLP

WEBSITE: www.qedanalyticals.com

QED helps clients solve complex business problems by applying our expertise in Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics and Mathematical Modelling. QED provides a customised and comprehensive predictive maintenance solution for machines.

Their solutions are based on applications of rigorous academic research and combine Mathematical Modelling, AI, IOT, Big Data and Cloud Technology to reduce maintenance cost, asset downtime, fuel consumption, inventory costs and increase environment and plant safety and asset life.

NAME OF STARTUP: Small Spark Concepts Technologies Private Limited

WEBSITE: www.smallsparkconcepts.com

Small Spark Concepts was founded in 2015 to revolutionize the automotive industry with performance driven air filters backed by cutting-edge technology. As an innovator, they strive to develop energy efficient products and technologies in the automotive space.

An R&D advent pioneering to improve fuel efficiency and diminish vehicular carbon emissions, their product is a Patented Air Filter Technology that assists to gain more mileage and curb emissions. Their product is washable, reusable, lasts 100,000 kms, satisfies ISO 5011 and is replaceable and retrofit.

NAME OF STARTUP: Solinas Integrity Private Limited

WEBSITE: www.solinas.in

Solinas is an IIT Madras start-up that brings the state of the art robotic technologies in the water & sanitation sector through inspection, analysis & prognosis of pipelines and tanks to impact millions of people. They want to disrupt the highly unorganized and manually managed industry that creates lots of problems for the end customers as well as for the asset management companies.

Their product Endobot is a tethered pipeline inspection robot capable of inspecting any pipeline above 50 mm in diameter to detect leaks and cracks. Another product HomoSEP is a homogeniser and suction based septic tank cleaning robot to eliminate manual scavenging and clean septic tanks faster and better.

NAME OF STARTUP: PakshiMitra Poultry Technologies Private Limited

WEBSITE: www.pakshimitra.com

PakshiMitra, a first-generation startup, is developing power-driven and waste to energy solutions to effective and efficient waste (litter) management in poultry farms. Their product and technology solutions for waste management improves the overall productivity and sustainability of poultry farms with a prime focus on improvement of farmer and animal welfare.

They currently have developed two products, HERO – a power driven raking machine and FREEDOM 4.0, an IoT enabled raking machine.

NAME OF STARTUP: iCapotech Private Limited (Living Things)

WEBSITE: www.livingthings.in

Living Things is an IoT product platform that aims to make things IoTenabled to enhance their interaction with human. Their maiden product is Living Things AIRCON. Living Things Aircon makes an Air Conditioner smart and energy efficient. It helps to automate, schedule and monitor the air conditioner via Living Things Mobile application while saving a minimum of 15% on energy consumption. The energy consumption and savings per Air Conditioner can betracked through the Living Things Dashboard.

NAME OF STARTUP: Maclec Technical Project Laboratory (P) LTD

WEBSITE: www.maclec.com

MACLEC is Delhi based Core R&D Driven Organization who indigenously invented and commercialized many technologies for nation’s interest. Their product, SHK Turbine is a next generation, robust, plug and play type, military grade, indigenously developed and completely customizable (500 Watts to 500 kW customizable modular capacity) and calable (few kW to several megawatts) Hydrokinetic Turbine Modules.

These modules are capable to get installed in any running stream with negligible structure required for just anchoring and mooring of turbine.

NAME OF STARTUP: JHKP Technologies Private Limited (BillMe)

WEBSITE: www.billme.co.in

Billme is a digital billing platform that helps businesses send digital bills and engage with their customers. BillMe’s digital billing integrates with any billing system and helps businesses with the following; sending digital bills, gaining business analytics and increasing engagement and sales.

NAME OF STARTUP: NatureDots

WEBSITE: www.naturedots.com

At NatureDots, the dream is to create a Digital Twin of all the freshwater ecosystems in the world, to understand complex natural resources at scale for establishing nature-positive growth. With their novel hard-tech product, AquaNurch® they have combined ‘Nature-based Science + DeepTech tools’ to de-risk aquaculture from ecological stressors for establishing climate-resilient sustainable fisheries.

“AquaNurch” has been awarded at multiple Indian and Global platform including European Institute of Innovation & Technology. AquaNurch is a unique hard-tech product. AquaNurch, combines the power of ‘Nature + DeepTech’, de-risking freshwater fisheries from ecological stressors.

It provides a multifold return to fish-farmer by increasing fish production/acreage, optimized input resource-usage, enables remote-control and real-time monitoring of aqua-farms operations and helps establish market connect. It ensures high revenue with ease to fish farmers and healthy protein for all.

The Maharashtra Startup Week aims to establish “Government as a Platform” to achieve the dual objective of not only improving citizen services but also leveraging and nurturing the thriving startup ecosystem with opportunities for growth and collaboration. For more information on Innovation Society visit www.msins.in