This article has been contributed by Anesha Nath and Henna Vij, Co-founders, Cosmofynd.
Spirituality has been an intrinsic part of human experience for millennia. With the takeover of the industrial age from 1870, humans started seeing life as a series of predictable checkpoints: you do this and you get that. This approach seemed to be building a dream world- shiny, polished, and everything looking picture perfect. Until…there were cracks. Cracks that questioned the very foundation of the system, with staggering phenomenons like:
Lone Wolf
8.2 billion people, and still no one to talk to. Loneliness is now a deafening global crisis. The WHO calls it a public health concern. Recent surveys show that over 1 in 5 people worldwide (23%) frequently feel lonely. Experts expect this percentage to grow by 2030 if current social trends continue. More connections, yet less belonging.
Depression to Disability
You meet someone and exchange words, but something feels off. They’re there, but their presence is thin. Like a dimly lit room, something inside them isn’t shining the way it should. They aren’t diagnosed with anything, but you sense the heaviness in their energy. That’s low depressive energy. Depression already ranks among the top causes of disability worldwide (that means it affects day-to-day functioning). Approximately 5% of adults globally (about 280 million people) currently suffer from depression.
Empty Vessel
Trade is thriving. Cultural exchange is at an all-time high. The world is bursting with opportunities- career, travel, entertainment, endless possibilities. And yet…something feels missing. Many wake up with an ache they can’t name. A dull void that no achievement, no paycheck, no vacation seems to fill. It’s not really about having more. People soon realized that it was now about being more. But how?
Surveys of young adults highlight that over half of Gen Z and Millennials (58%) report having little or no sense of purpose or meaning in their lives.
Numbers say it all
No doubt, these figures crack open a wide variety of problem statements- some niche, some massive- for the market to solve.
The spirituality products and services market is valued at USD 180.18 billion and is expected to grow to USD 249.03 billion by 2032, with a CAGR of 4.4%. The rising consumer interest is here to stay. And for startups, the playground couldn’t be wider.
The global market for spiritual wellness applications was valued at approximately USD 2.16 billion in 2024. Projections suggest a robust growth rate with a CAGR of 14.6% from 2025 to 2030.
70% of U.S. adults describe themselves as spiritual in some way, including 22% who are spiritual but not religious.
The shift is fuelled by a decline in organized religion, a rise in alternative spiritual paths, and a growing demand for holistic mental health solutions.
Space for spirituality and tech
Remember when spirituality meant dropping everything and heading to an ashram? The wisdom that transformed Steve Jobs in India or the meditation practices grounding tech leaders like Marc Benioff once required a complete life pause. Now? That’s changing fast.
Tech is democratizing these transformative experiences. Ray Dalio calls his 40+ years of meditation “the single most important reason” for his success. These aren’t fringe practices anymore. They’re essential tools for modern living, delivered through our devices.
The market is more ready than ever for startups and innovators at the intersection of technology, spirituality, and wellness. Those who do it right will see massive growth by 2031. Here are a few places to start:
Spiritual Tech Market Landscape
Culture-Inspired Digital Experiences
The global nature of the mental health crisis means solutions need to resonate across cultures. Look around your home, community, and country. What were some cultural practices that quietly disappeared? What rituals that once anchored people are now lost in the rush of modern life? Bring them back. Digitally.
Prayer and devotion apps like Hallow (for Christian prayer) and AppsForBharat’s Sri Mandir (a digital Hindu temple experience) have seen massive traction. They allow users to engage in worship, scripture, and rituals virtually. Especially among diaspora communities and youth, who may not have access to traditional spaces of worship.
Spiritual and Mental Wellness SuperApp
The fragmented wellness landscape has users juggling multiple apps – one for meditation, another for mood tracking, and yet another for community support. A superapp integrating mental, physical, and spiritual wellness could be just the need of the hour. Depression, loneliness, and existential emptiness require multi-faceted solutions, not isolated fixes.
Wearable Tech for Spiritual Well-Being
Your body speaks before your mind catches up. Stress, anxiety, burnout- it all shows up in your heart rate, breath, body pain, and mental fog. Wearable devices could track-
● Heart rate variability to detect stress levels in real time.
● Breathing patterns, suggesting when to slow down and reset.
● Spiritual rhythms, offering mantras, affirmations, or guided prayers exactly when needed.
Spilling the secrets – Growth tactics for startups
The spiritual tech startups that move fast, think smart, and build where the gaps are widest will define the next decade.
1. Asia is the Growth Engine
With its deep spiritual heritage and booming digital adoption, Asia is a goldmine for spiritual tech. India’s Vedic sciences, China’s feng shui, and Japan’s Zen-based wellness are ripe for digitization. While Western markets explore, Asia already believes that startups that bridge this gap will scale faster than anywhere else.
2. Subscription Models Keep Users Engaged
Recurring models like AI-powered daily guidance or exclusive member communities ensure consistent engagement. The longer a user stays, the deeper they connect, making retention your strongest growth metric.
3. High-Ticket Coaching
Celebrity-level spiritual mentors were once out of reach, but tech changes that. Platforms for personal coaching, live retreats, and 1:1 premium programs can now scale without losing exclusivity. People will pay for deep, transformational experiences. Make packages that are accessible and powerful
Beyond the bottom line
This isn’t just another market trend though, and shouldn’t be looked at as one. It addresses fundamental human needs that our hyper-connected yet spiritually undernourished world has created. As we seek meaning beyond material success and connection beyond social media, spiritual tech startups are creating solutions that bridge ancient wisdom with modern life.
For entrepreneurs entering this space, the projections are certainly compelling. But those who succeed here will be driven by purpose-driven profit to create real transformations in the lives of innumerable people for ‘good.’
In the words of spiritual teacher Ram Dass: “We’re all just walking each other home.”
India Accelerator, a startup fostering platform, has launched its Cohort’25 for IT startups and intends to invest $8–10 million in the flagship initiative. Beginning in the first quarter of 2025, this program will develop 30-35 companies in disruptive industries, such as e-commerce platforms, sustainable mobility, GenAI solutions, and defence and civil applications.
The focus of Startup Cohort’25 is on startups making a real difference, whether it be through generative AI increasing productivity across industries or autonomous drones protecting borders and improving eCommerce efficiency. According to Mona Singh, cofounder of India Accelerator, the cohort will provide not only resources but also a strong platform for achieving market readiness. In addition to funding, the initiative says it provides mentor board support. According to Singh, Startup Cohort ’25 will offer complete ecosystem support in addition to investment, including specialised mentor board access to industry experts and customised go-to-market strategies.
India Accelerator Supported 225 Startups Till Now
Two-thirds of the 225 firms that India Accelerator has reportedly helped so far have been successful in obtaining follow-on funding. According to a statement from IA, it launched a new vertical earlier this year to provide assistance to businesses that support waste minimisation, energy efficiency, climate change mitigation, and sustainability business models. In order to support the robotics and unmanned start-up ecosystem, it introduced RUMS (Robotics, Unmanned & Space) in May. Startups including Mopp Foods, Brainwired, Lawyered, STAGE, Janitri, Ethereal, and Matter are currently part of its portfolio.
Numerous mentors and angel investors, including Amit Kumar (CEO, OLX Group), Dewang Neralla (founder, Atom Technologies), and Dharmendra Lodha (CEO, JioMart Grocery), have provided support to India Accelerator. In essence, India Accelerator is a cross-functional facilitator that fosters ideas, offers mentorship, and secures funds and resources through its full-service divisions and strategic mentor-investor connections. It was founded in 2017 by Ashish Bhatia. To help tech startups in India and the UAE grow more quickly and expand internationally, IA provides seed-stage funding.
About India Accelerator
With its own SEBI & GIFT City funds, India Accelerator invests in early-stage startups through its SEBI Cat1 & 2 funds and in comparatively later-stage businesses through Finvolve. IA’s multiverse is a vibrant ecosystem created to help companies at every stage of their development. Its forward-thinking thesis, “Destination Accelerator,” fosters a culture of creativity and teamwork while advancing companies towards development and impact by utilising the strengths of local industry and academia, legal/compliance, and resource support. IA’s main point of differentiation is its accelerator program, which employs a methodical and rigorous approach that has repeatedly resulted in positive outcomes for investors and start-ups alike.
There is almost no big company or enterprise that didn’t start from scratch. From Tesla to Apple to Pixar, most of them started off with a great idea, lots of effort, and a small garage. With every passing day, entrepreneurs come up with amazing startup ideas and newer methods to implement them. This, however, is easier said than done, since startups need both funding and support along with immense hard work in their initial days to be successful. As part of its funding program, Google has helped some of the top startups, and some of those startups have become well-known companies.
This is where equity and venture firms come in. If they find the idea behind a startup reasonably adequate, they make the initial and much-needed investment in the startup. Blackstone and Apollo Global Management are some equity investment firms, while Google Ventures is a venture investment firm. But before knowing what startups are funded by Google, let’s find out how funding works.
Apparently, there are certainly different kinds of funding based on factors such as startup valuation, its customer base, strategy, revenue model and other technical factors. These funding are categorized as follows:
Pre-seed Funding– This is the earliest stage of a startup, and the funding here is mostly the initial investment in the idea and is done by the founders themselves. This stage isn’t even officially included in the funding rounds, however, it is where a startup begins.
Seed Funding– This is where the first official investment for a business or a venture is made. Seed funding helps startups take the initial steps towards making their products. While the failed startups never go beyond this stage, the one’s that do, proceed to the Series A round.
Series A Funding– Once a startup or company has surpassed Seed round, has an established user base, and offers its services or products, they can opt for Series A Funding. This is where startups can use the investment money to further optimize their product, and raise anywhere from $2 million to $15 million.
Series B Funding– After Series A, this round helps a business to advance to the next level. If the company has justified the initial investment with a strong customer base and valuation, Series B funding helps to take the business to the next level. The investment in this round can range from $30 million to $60 million.
Series C Funding– The businesses which are already successful and are looking to build new products to touch newer markets are funded in this round. The companies in this round may also acquire startups and the investors and founders in this round look for exponential growth. The valuation of companies in this round can range in hundreds of millions.
Although there can be more funding rounds corresponding to the alphabet, these are particularly the one’s where most startups reach. There is also private equity funding away from public markets in which private companies can finance startups privately.
Google Ventures is a venture capital investment firm of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, CEO is David Krane. Renamed to GV, the primary objective of Google Ventures since its conception has been to back founders with a vision for the future of entrepreneurship. GV has funded over 500 portfolio companies and is in constant search of new and industry-changing ideas and startups.
GV flaunts a team of founders, physicians, and other professionals, who have been in the startup ecosystem for a long, and understand it more than most people. This team of specialists, engineers, advisors, and fund operatives help GV to solve challenges and deliver feedback to create better services. GV invests across all stages and sectors, with a focus on enterprise, life sciences, consumer, and frontier technology. GV has made 988 investments so far. Recently on July 29, 2022, GV made a $3.3 Million investment in New York-based consumer Software, Studio.
Google Ventures on Investment in Startups
Startups Funded by Google
Slack
Industry: Enterprise Software GV Investment: $110.8 Million
Who in the digital world isn’t aware of the most popular cab serviceUber? It has turned out to be one of the most popular cab booking services around the globe, and both cab drivers, as well as people who need them use it on a regular basis. It is a consumer service and has also set its foot in the food delivery services. Uber has offered quality, door-to-door service and continues to do so by constantly introducing safety features in its Community Guidelines.Uber has been Google Ventures’ biggest investment to date. Google Ventures has invested approximately $1.8 Billion in Uber.
Industry: Digital Media GV Investment: $19 Million
Medium | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
Medium is a blogging platform that suggests viewers blog through smart algorithms. World-class publications and experts publish their blogs in different niches, and viewers can choose their preferred subjects to read the latest research papers, articles, and blogs. The popularity of Medium attracted Google’s interest and they invested.Medium currently flaunts its user base of 170 million users and counting, with the writers including journalists, authors, experts, and individuals.
StockX
Industry: Stock Market GV Investment: $22 Million
StocksX | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
As described by Google Ventures, StockX is the world’s first ‘Stock Market for Things’. This is an online marketplace where both buyers and sellers put forth the bidding and asking amount, and as soon as both of them meet, the transaction takes place. The marketplace that StockX offers can be used to sell any sellable product from sneakers to watches; all you need to do is sign up. Google ventures and battery ventures invested $44 M in series B funding.
Industry: Digital Payment GV Investment: $600 million (along with other investors)
Stripe | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
Stripe is one of the most popular payments processor for online transactions and in mobile applications. Today, millions of online and offline businesses from startups to bigger enterprises use Stripe as their payments processor. Be it Software as a Service, an online platform or your marketplace, Stripe can be used in all these cases either through the software or its API.
“Stripe is the best way to accept payments online and in mobile apps.” says Google Venture.
GitLab
Industry: Software GV Investment: $20 Million
GitLab | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
GitLab is a DevOps platform that accelerates development through collaboration and automation. With various organizations relying on its source code, CI/CD, and security, GitLab offers powerful automation with real-time security and vulnerability management. Moreover, GitLab is trusted by some well-known industry-leading companies including Nvidia, Siemens, and Drupal. GitLab has received funding from Google Ventures in both Series C and Series D rounds of funding.
DocuSign
Industry: Software GV Investment: $8.1 Million
Docusign | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
A leader in eSignature transaction management, DocuSign has become an industry and global standard for eSignatures. DocuSign gained popularity with the help of Google. DocuSign has garnered a user base of over 500k customers and hundreds of millions of signers. DocuSign was introduced and established based on the fact that most modern businesses will need to go online and hence the online document management needed to be taken into consideration. Google Ventures invested in Series D round in June 2012.
Magenta Therapeutics
Industry: Healthcare & Life Science GV Investment: $8 Million
Magenta therapeutics | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
Magenta Therapeutics is a leading expert in harnessing stem cell biology for safer transplants. It endeavours to reset a patient’s immune system through stem cell transplant to cure diseases such as blood cancer. It is also developing novel medicines through commitment and excellence. Also, Magenta is revolutionizing medicine by precisely removing disease-causing cells and revamping stem cell mobilization.
“Magenta is harnessing stem cell biology to make transplants safer and more effective for patients with immune and blood-based diseases.” Says Google Venture.
One Medical
Industry: Healthcare GV Investment: $13 Million
One Medical | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
One Medical is currently trying to reinvent healthcare with innovation and technology. As of now, One Medical offers and schedules in-person or over video appointments, 24/7 on-demand video chats with a virtual medical team, over 90 drop-in lab services, along COVID-19 testing and care. Moreover, OneMedical acts as an employee benefits partner for over 7000 companies. Google Venture invested Private Equity round of funding in December 2015.
Zipline | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
Zipline is a company that delivers life-saving medicines and drugs to remote and previously unreachable parts of the world using electric planes and drones. It makes precise, on-demand and critical deliveries, wherever and whenever needed, with safety and reliability. The access to on-demand delivery is made global, owing to Zipline, and it seeks to replace the traditional delivery system with customer-centred and cutting edge technology. Google venture Invested in Series C round of funding in May 2019. In the last funding round in June 2021, Zipline has raised a funding of $250M which made the startup valuation to be $2.5 billion.
Farmer Business Network
Industry: AgriTech GV Investment: $15 Million
farmers Business Network | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
Farmer Business Network is a tool that helps farmers understand and enhance their crops and yields with advanced insights and real-time data analysis. It is a global Agritech company and seeks to help farmers reduce production costs, maximize crop yield and output, and make informed and confident decisions when it comes to crops. Farmer Business Network can help farmers manage contracts, select seeds, monitor fields, and organize operations with premium crop marketing and financial services. FBN raised a funding of $15 million in 2015 from Google Ventures. Recently, they raired $870 million in series G funding round in November 2021.
“Farmers Business Network generates powerful insights from real-time data to help farmers understand and improve their crop performance.” says Google Venture.
Sense
Industry: Artificial Intelligence GV Investment: $16 Million
Sense | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
Sense is an artificial intelligence-driven talent engagement and communication platform that was founded by Dharni and Pankaj Jindal in 2015. The company has its headquarters in San Francisco and is known for providing enterprise-ready solutions that provide a system of engagement for talent acquisition teams.
Sense has so far helped many companies find, recruit, deploy talent and automate manual tasks for recruiters. The company has raised $16 million as part of its Series C round from Avataar, Google Ventures, Accel and Khosla Ventures. The company is said to use these funds to get a foothold in the Indian market, add new products, expand its team and go into newer geographies.
Scribble Data
Industry: Machine Learning GV Investment:
Scribble Data | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
Scribble data is an ML engineering product company that offers ML Feature Store for mid-market enterprise data teams. The company is known for its flagship product known as Enrich, which is a highly customizable Machine Learning Feature. Scribble Enrich is a store product that allows data scientists to develop and manage production-ready datasets that are used to train ML models faster and with confidence.
Data-driven companies such as Google and Amazon have invested an undisclosed amount of money into the company in May 2020. Google funding for startups such as Scribble, has helped the platform to scale and deliver Enrich in international markets for enterprise-grade Machine Learning products.
Jio Platforms is an Indian technology company and a subsidiary of Reliance Industries. The company has its headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The company acts as a holding company for Jio (which is India’s largest and the world’s third-largest mobile network) and other digital businesses of Reliance. As of 2020, Jio platforms became the fourth largest Indian company by market capitalization.
In November 2020, Google-funded $4.5 billion to the Jio platform, which makes it the biggest-ever investment in an Indian company. Google now reportedly holds over 7.73% share in the company. The company has now raised a total of Rs 1.52 lakh crore by selling an almost 33% stake to over 13 financial and strategic investors in under 11 weeks. This will help the company to cut down Reliance’s net debt target for the full fiscal year.
Wysa
Industry: Artificial Intelligence GV Investment:
Wysa | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
Wysa is an AI-enabled life coach designed especially for mental and emotional wellness. The company was initially launched in 2017 and provides its users with the ability to activate coach and chat anonymously. The company provides early intervention through 3 methods, which are an AI chatbot, a library of self-help tools, and messaging-based support from human psychologists.
Google Ventures India, has funded an undisclosed amount in the AI Platform in May 2021. Wysa was a part of the first batch of 10 startups for Google Launchpad Accelerator India, which was held in 2018. In 2021 however, the Sleep by Wysa app was awarded the best app by the Google Play Store. According to Crunchbase, the company has so far raised $3.9 million from three funding rounds.
Dailyhunt
Industry: Social Media GV Investment: $33 Million
Dailyhunt | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
Dailyhunt is one of the leading Indian content and news aggregator app. The company has its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The platform provides news in 14 Indian languages from multiple content providers to over 300 million users. In 2015, Dailyhunt became the largest Indian language distributor of e-books having 70,000 titles in ten languages.
As of December 2020, Dailyhunt has raised over $100 million from Google, Microsoft and AlphaWave among other investors. Google funding rounds helped the company become a Unicorn as its value increased to over $1 billion. The company is planning to use the funds to scale its Josh app, which is an augmentation of local language content offerings. Google-funded startups in India with a budget of over $10 billion over a few years.
Glance
Industry: GV Investment:
Glance | Google Ventures | Startup Funded By Google
A google-funded startup called Glance is a startup that was founded in 2018. The company serves news, media content and games on the lock screen of more than 100 million smartphones. The company is a subsidiary of InMobi Group and is known for using AI to offer a personalized experience to its users.
The company raised over $145 million in a new financing round from Google and existing investors like Mithril Partners. According to Google, Glance is a great example of innovation solving for mobile-first & mobile-only consumption, and providing content across many Indian languages. Google funding for startups like Glance, has helped them evolve and grow their audience.
FAQs
What is Google Venture (GV)?
Google Ventures is a venture capital investment firm of Alphabet, the parent company of Google.
Who is the CEO of GV (formerly Google Ventures)?
David Krane is the CEO of GV.
How many companies have Google Ventures funded?
Google Ventures has funded more than 500 companies. Some of them are:
Slack
Uber
Medium
StockX
Stripe
GitLab
DocuSign
Magenta Therapeutics
Dailyhunt
Glance
What are the sectors Google Ventures invest in?
Google Ventures invests across all stages of startups and varied sectors. The major industries in which Google Ventures invests are:
Enterprise
Life sciences
HealthCare
Consumer
Frontier technology.
How do startups get funded?
Startups use various methods for funding:
Small Business Loans
Trade Equity or Services
Incubator or Accelerator
Crowdfunding.
Who owns Google now?
The parent organization of Google is Alphabet Inc.
What do startups use the funding for?
Startups raise funds for various reasons, mainly for the growth and expansion of their business.
Who are the founders of Google?
Larry Page and Sergey Brin are the founders of Google.
Startups are continuously making noise in every field and India has become the hub of startups. Fintech, digital marketing, cryptocurrency and so many companies related to other industries are now creating buzz all around. Among them Deep Tech is also peeking its head into the startup ecosystem.
Deep-tech, short for ‘Deep Technology’, is solving many real-world problems by developing an innovative idea of technology that can be used to make people’s lives easier. The startups and companies pertaining to deep-tech are based on some substantial scientific advances and high tech engineering innovation. It has gained boom interest from Indian investors and is rapidly growing its market.
Here is a list of Indian startups founded on scientific discoveries and meaningful engineering innovations that are making a big name for themselves:
Genrobotics is a Kerala-based startup that manufactured a robot – called Bandicoot – which is a spider-shaped robot that cleans sewage and aims to eventually end the barbaric practice of manual. This is a 50-kg pneumatic-powered remote-controlled robot that goes down into a manhole, spreads its expandable limbs like a spider and scoops out the solid and liquid garbage that blocks urban sewers. It has a 360-degree motion robotic arm that can sweep the floor of the manhole to collect the debris in a bucket that cleans the manholes in 20 minutes.
Bandicoot has been deployed in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Gujrat. Genrobotics was launched by engineers Vimal Govind MK, Arun George, Nikhil NP and Rashid Abdulla Khan in 2015. The Bandicoot uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine intelligence (ML) to determine the amount of unclogging needed and can complete the work in 45 minutes, which requires three or four hours of manual labour hours otherwise.
The Manhole Monitoring System (MMS) is also manufactured by Genrobotics. MMS is a complete sanitation solution that monitors the manhole network, it collects the crucial data and processes it using machine learning and AI technology to give an overall idea about the health of the manhole and give an alert when it is getting clogged/overflowing.
G-Robotic Suit, manufactured by Genrobotics is a 10 ft. high robot that can be operated by an individual by placing himself inside. It’s a prototype of the technology that can be used for defence purposes, space applications, weight lifting and anywhere that requires some extra power and protection.
Cogknit
Cogknit Semantics Pvt. Ltd. is an ISO certified innovative product company based in Bangalore. It applies machine learning to text, speech and computer vision. The company’s Nimit is a personalized learning platform that uses data science and machine learning algorithms to identify users’ learning patterns and user activity to identify user context and deliver content based on the context, enabling them to receive an extended blended learning platform.
Congknit envisions that they are going to tap on the voice-based transactions that are going to disrupt industries. It runs many video content in its stores, and wants to make sure those have scripts that even a visually challenged customer can follow. The startup’s competence and innovation focuses on Semantics, Web 3.0, Big Data, system engineering and associated technologies to solve various market problems.
Cognitifai
Cognitifai is a startup founded by Kanishka Nithin that helps retrieve the exact information using cameras by using a video intelligence platform that uses computer vision to index physical world phenomena. They have specialized in urban monitoring such as surveillance, healthcare and hyper-local intelligence discovery for smart cities and retail enterprises.
Cognitifai can detect even one bottle from the store’s inventory through its computer vision so that the store can replenish the shelf much quicker than depending on a manual store worker to check and fill the stock. Thus enabling real-time intervention to facilitate inventory management.
Cognitifai has founded some products and they are:
Visionapi.ai is an open marketplace for the state of the art video intelligence use cases and algorithms, enabling diverse enterprises to effortlessly discover, access and consume use cases and algorithms. Focus on Solving your business problem instead of spending all your time researching.
DevSuite.ai is a suite of intuitive no-code visual modelling tools that supports the full lifecycle of AI algorithm or AI product development – From research to production.
HPCOS.ai is a fully managed highly parallel and distributed operating system for Training, inferencing and continuous learning of AI at scale. Automating and optimising the end to end operations lifecycle for the deployment of AI at scale. All agnostic to where to run AI and how AI was built. Therefore shrinking your time from months to minutes to production AI at scale.
Dataplatform.ai is a framework for secure distributed storage, governance and processing of large, multi-source data sets.
Nautilus Hearing
Nautilus Hearing Heath care is a startup founded by audiologist T. Uday Raga Kiran that is accessible and affordable. The startup makes a new kind of hearing care company products using the best technologies to make hearing care simple, accessible and reliable by providing revolutionary technology that opens up new possibilities in audiometric testing.
People often use their hearing aids for short durations and stop using them as soon as they find them unsatisfying. The company has developed a booth-less, portable audiometer that is helping doctors conduct ear tests with ease. Nautilus Hearing is available in two variations.
A diagnostic product for certified healthcare practitioners and a screening device that can be used at schools, colleges, NPOs, and industries with loud machinery and devices. Nautilus Hearing won the Karnataka Government’s ELEVATE 100 Programme, through which it raised an undisclosed round of funding. The startup has completed preliminary tests, and will soon start clinical trials. The team tested the device at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing in Mysore.
Streamoid
Streamoid is an AI – Artificial Intelligence Stylist founded by Nvidia, Manthani, Rajesh Kumar and Haricharan Lakshman in 2014. Streamoid Technologies uses its expertise in image recognition and extracts product and style information from images and process it through its AI engine to give trendy or contextual and personalized results for fashion shopping.
The startup focuses on the fashion and retail industry. Streamoid understands the natural language, images, voice and the context of the user’s fashion query. The users can also interact with it like a highly knowledgeable fashion sales assistant. With the fashion and clothing industry booming more than ever, Streamoid is sure to make a big name soon.
Streamoid gives you, your own conceptualised, developed, hosted and maintained style bot. Streamoid enables you to guide your customers with personalized style advice in a natural conversational interface. Using advanced NLP and deep integration, style bots offer many advantages over human agents. Style bots are online 24×7, can reply instantly to concurrent conversations, deliver personalized support and offer cost savings.
Desintox Technologies
Desintox Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is a Kerala-based startup that was founded by Sooraj Chandran and Don Paul in 2016. Desintox Technologies Pvt. Ltd deals with the design, manufacture and marketing of rehabilitation, and health equipment and currently, has four products called EasyMover, Hoist, Smartmotive and an Electric Wheelchair.
He started working as a design engineer at Crabwrist Technologies. When one of his friends got into an accident, Sooraj realized the need for supporting machines for paraplegic patients. And then, Desintox Technologies was born in Kochi’s Maker Village. The device called ‘Hoist’ transfers the patient from bed, chairs and toilets; it has a leg spreader facility with includes high quality imported motors controlled with a display and safety switch.
Smartmotive is a standing wheelchair that can help paraplegic patients stand and it does so by helping in muscle development and has the benefits of a wheelchair and tilting table. The Electric Wheelchair helps the paraplegic to travel by themselves and can be adjusted with a joystick switch with speed options.
“We gifted the device to help a child in Thrissur. I can never forget the tears in the mother’s eyes when she saw her child stand for the first time using our device,” says Don Paul.
Photom
Photom Technologies is a startup started by Himmant Singh which was incorporated in 2018. Photom Technologies provides solutions for Operation and Maintenance of renewable energy plants to increase their efficiency. Innovative products and solutions for renewable energy plants are what Photom aims at developing.
Their objective is to be a key stakeholder in establishing the renewable energy sector in India. Photom robots provide a fully dry system that cleans the solar panels without using any chemicals or water and thus can save more money. It is about two to four meters in length.
They are now planning to do pilots in Gujarat and will launch commercially soon. The startup has already received equity seed funding from iCreate. The founder, Himmant Singh, was among the fifteen entrepreneurs from India that were invited by the UK government’s Royal Academy of Engineer for Leaders in Innovation Fellowship.
Jumper.AI
Jumper.ai is an AI-enabled software co-founded by Nyha Shree that helps businesses connect with consumers on social media platforms to purchase their products. With the rise of mobile, social and cloud technologies, customer expectations continue to increase. More than ever, they demand seamless and hyper-personalized experiences.
For many businesses, customer experience is the new battlefield – a competitive advantage that attracts and retains loyal customers. It converts the social media pots into a shop-able post so that when customers comment on your post with their queries, Jumper will automatically answer them and talk to the customers on the company’s behalf and also walk them through the sale right within the platform so that they don’t have to go to another website.
The startup wants to make social commerce easier through hashtags and its artificial intelligence. The information given at the time of payment is secured and tokenized (encrypted by companies like VISA) with the payment gateways. Any company or startup which is regularly using social media as their major acquisition channel can get the utility of the platform.
Conclusion
The world is continuously evolving, thanks to the technology, it is now nothing less of a Sci-fi movie. Deep tech startups are also becoming a big part in the startup ecosystem. In India, some of these startups are already quite popular and are trying their best to offer innovative products and services to the people and solve their problems.
FAQs
What is deep tech?
Deep tech or technology is a types of organisation or startup companies that provides scientific technology based products and services to their customers.
Who founded Jumper.ai?
Jumper.ai was founded by Yash Kotak and Nyha Shree.
One of India telecom giants Bharti Airtel launched its Startup Accelerator Program in 2019 to supportgrowth of early stage Indian tech startups. With the advent of its Startup Accelerator Program, Airtel aims to support the creation of a vibrant startup ecosystem that contributes to Digital India. Airtel believes that new technologies like AI and Machine learning could be leveraged to aid the growth of startups.
The program will help early stage startups get access to Airtel’s online and offline distribution network, deep market understanding and ecosystem of global strategic partners. With the Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) becoming the next big thing in technology, the program has also developed strong in-house capacities for using these new age technologies.
Moreover, the startups will also get access to advisory services form Airtel executive team. Chief product officer of Bharti Airtel, Adarsh Nair on the launch of the accelerator program shared that early startups in India have exciting ideas but face multiple challenges in scaling up. He added, “With Airtels scale and digital capabilities around distribution and payments, we have the potential to drive the accelerated growth of emerging startups that are solving hard problems”.
Airtel is a global telecommunications company with operations in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa. The company ranks amongst the top three mobile operators globally and its mobile network covers a population of over two billion people. Airtel is India largest integrated telecom provider and the second largest mobile operator in Africa. At the end June 2020, Airtel had approx. 420 million customers across its operators.
The portfolio of airtel includes high speed 4G/4.5G mobile broadband, Airtel Xstream Fiber that promises speeds up to 1Gbps and converged digital TV solutions through the Airtel Xstream 4K hybrid box. It also has digital payments through Airtel Payments Bank as well as an integrated suite of services across connectivity, collaborations, cloud and security that serves over one million businesses.
Airtel OTT services that includes Airtel Thanks app which is made for self-care, Airtel Xstream app for video, Wynk Music for entertainment and Airtel blue jeans for video conferencing. In addition, Airtel has forged strategic partnerships with hundreds of companies across the world to enable the Airtel platform to deliver an array of consumer and enterprise services.
How does the Startup Accelerator Program help Startups?
Airtel Startup Accelerator Program allows startups to leverage Airtels robust ecosystem including its core strengths in data, networks, payments and distribution. The program includes an access to a vast range of online and offline distribution network that touches 300 plus customers, deep market understanding and platform of global strategic partners.
Madhav Krishna, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Vahan with Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, Airtel
Further, startups also get access to advisory services from Airtel’s executive team. In India, Airtel serves customers across mobile, landline and DTH verticals. The program was introduced on 25th October 2019, Airtel will help early startups with its online and offline distribution network, deep market understanding and global strategic partner ecosystem.
The company said in a statement, “With its Startup Accelerator Program, Airtel aims to support the creation of a vibrant startup ecosystem that contributes to Digital India”. Airtel has also developed in-house capabilities around machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), which could be leveraged to aid the growth of startups. The statement added that the startups will also get access to advisory services from Airtel’s executive team.
Some Startups under the Accelerator Program
The companies under the airtel startup accelerator program
Vahan
Vahan is a Bengaluru-based tech startup and the first company to come under this program. The telecom has brought 8.8% stakes of the tech startup and will partner with them to achieve their visions of enabling jobs for the next billion internet users with the help of AI based technology. The company was founded in 2016 and is backed by YCombination and Khosla Ventures.
The company is focused on finding blue collar jobs for millions of young Indians in Delivery, Driving, Retail, BFSI, BPO and Hospitality sectors with companies such as Zomato, Swiggy and Dunzo as clients.
Madhav Krishna, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Vahan, in a statement said, “Most blue-collar job seekers are unaware of the opportunities that exist in the market, especially new-age on-demand jobs. Airtel’s distribution channels will help us reach the depths of the country and in turn, help them take control of their economic destiny.”
Vahan leverages advanced Artificial Intelligence to match job seekers with employers inside messaging apps such as Whatsapp.
Waybeo
Waybeo is a Trivandrum headquartered startup which focuses on deep AI based analytics for cloud telephony, is the fifth to join the fast growing Airtel Startup Accelerator Program, which helps promises startups unlock their potential. Airtel has chosen Waybeo to be a part of the program as it is part of its strategy to scale up its cloud offerings. As per IDC, the public cloud services market in India is likely to reach US$7.1 billion by 2024.
Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, Airtel said: “Cloud technologies are transforming the way businesses serve and delight their customers. We are thrilled to onboard Waybeo to our Startup Accelerator program and provide them a platform to scale up their technologies as part of Airtel’s world-class cloud services ecosystem.”
Waybeo has managed to build a cutting edge analytics tools for the enterprises cloud telephony segment. Under the Airtel Stratup Accelerator program, Waybeo solutions will get larger distribution reach while giving Airtel access to waybeo proven as well as emerging technologies. Airtel serves over 2,500 large enterprises and more than a million emerging businesses with an integrated product portfolio, including Airtel cloud, a multi cloud product and solutions business.
The other company that came under the program was Voicezen, which is a Gurgaon-based startup that works on developing advanced solutions that leverage machine learning, AI, speech to text and voice technologies to offer real time analytics to help brands serve customers better. The global conversational AI market size is expected to grow from USD 4.2 billion in 2019 to USD 15.7 billion by 2024. The megatrend will be driven by surging demand for AI powered customer support services and Omni channel deployment.
Increased customer engagement through social media platforms and integration of advanced AI capabilities will offer massive opportunity. The investment will give Airtel preferred access to Voicezen’s technologies, which can be deployed across its customer touch points in multiple languages. These intelligent solutions will offer real time analytics and insights to make Airtel’s conversations with its customers more engaging and frictionless and enable faster resolution.
It will also allow Airtel to make contextual offers to customers based on real time conversations. Voicezen is the third startup to become a part of the Airtel startup accelerator program. By becoming a part of this program, Voicezen will get the opportunity to deploy its technologies on a massive scale and work closely with Airtel on developing India first platforms of the future. Voicezen helps brands deliver a better customer experience in Indian language using Conversational AI.
Apurba Nath, founder Voicezen said , “Having worked on AI solutions in the past, we knew what works well in a lab most often doesn’t work in the real world, because either the training data is not large and relevant or the problem has little business significance. Our partnership with Airtel helps us solve these challenges. With this strategic investment, we will work even more closely with them to continuously improve our AI models and build out an enterprise grade battle hardened product that will make customer interactions more efficient, especially in this post Covid world where business operations are facing large disruptions.”
Spectacom Global Pvt. Ltd
Airtel has also picked stake in Spectacom Global Pvt. Ltd which is a fitness focused startup, through its Airtel startup Accelerator Program. Airtel will work with the startup to increase the adoption of its services by leveraging its digital platforms, including Xstream and Wynk Music. Adarsh Nair said that, “This also fits into Airtel strong focus on connecting with the youth and providing them digital platforms to fulfill their aspirations”.
The Gurugram based Spectacom, set up by Adnan Adeeb and Zeba Zaidi, says it create digital content that allows consumers across geographies and languages to access health and fitness training initiatives and programs. The firm will also work to creating and promoting product lines such as training and nutrition videos along with live sporting events.
Lattu Kids
Foraying in the edtech sector, Bharti Airtel has acquired a 10% stake in Lattu Kids for as part of the Airtel Startup Accelerator Programme. The startup is Mumbai-based and was founded in 2017 by Vivek Lath, Vivek Bhutyani and Arvind Kumar. They offer learning and development content through streaming platform for kids between three to eight years of age.
Bhutyani, CEO of Lattu Kids, commenting on the investment by stating, “With Airtel, we have found an equally passionate partner and our synergies in this space will allow us to scale Lattu to millions of kids in India across classes and make it a much-loved homegrownn edtech brand.”
With the pandemic the edtech sector has seen a huge boost so this investment will pay off definitely. Airtel will be able to add edtech to its premium digital content portfolio and offer quality learning material compiled by the company.
Conclusion
With these investmet, Airtel will be able to capture a larger audience. They forayed into fitness, edtech, AI as well as blue collar job provider platforms. These startups will also be able to reach a wider audience and get mentorship from industry experts. Overall, it’s a win-win for all.
FAQs
How do Accelerator programs work?
Accelerator programs are mainly programs of limited-duration that help startups with the new venture process. They usually provide a small amount of seed capital, plus working space and mentorship help with their growth in the ecosystem.
What are the benefits of Airtel startup accelerator program?
The program will help early stage startups get access to Airtel’s online and offline distribution network, deep market understanding and ecosystem of global strategic partners. With the Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) becoming the next big thing in technology, the program has also developed strong in-house capacities for using these new age technologies. Moreover, the startups will also get access to advisory services form Airtel executive team.
What services does Airtel provide?
Some Airtel services include high speed 4G/4.5G mobile broadband, Airtel Xstream Fiber that promises speeds up to 1Gbps and converged digital TV solutions through the Airtel Xstream 4K hybrid box. It also has digital payments through Airtel Payments Bank as well as an integrated suite of services across connectivity, collaborations, cloud and security that serves over one million businesses. Airtel OTT services that includes Airtel Thanks appwhich is made for self-care, Airtel Xstream app for video, Wynk Music for entertainment and Airtel blue jeans for video conferencing.
Feedback is the truest essence of business operations. With all the branding marketing initiatives undertaken by the brands, it becomes imperative for them to garner correct and complete feedback from their consumers. With the vision to build an optimum feedback software out there, Mike Slaats launched Upvoty in 2018.
Upvoty is a user feedback tool with feature voting. With Upvoty you, as a software owner, one can easily collect and manage all of the user feedback such as feature requests, bug reports, or other ideas. Also, one can implement the feedback boards and product roadmap seamlessly into the application. Users can submit new feedback or upvote on existing ones. This way, as the product owner, one is always on top of customer needs.
Upvoty is the solution to an endless feedback loop. The Upvoty team themselves has experienced the hassle of collecting and managing feedback from different channels such as chats, emails, and phone calls. With this platform, the users have a central place for all of your customer feedback. They can create different boards for different purposes. Users can submit new requests and upvote on existing ones. Through Upvoty they can also communicate each step of the way by notifying all the voters that a request has gone ‘in progress’ or set to ‘live’. One can also comment and create discussions with users about why they need certain features and can even create a product roadmap to show your users what’s next. That’s how the platform provides one simple overview.
Upvoty – Target Market Size
Upvoty is focusing on SaaS companies. It launched its product as a general feedback tool for basically everybody. The team that thought every startup needs feedback to build a better version of their product, so they all would want to have software like Upvoty. Wrong. If there’s one thing the team has learned is that one has to narrow down the target audience and focus on one core (smaller) group. And that’s when the Upvoty team started to focus on SaaS specifically and since then has grown tremendously.
“The SaaS market is an amazing community-driven world. We are getting tons of great feedback about our product, which helps us make it better and better.” Says Mike.
Founders of Upvoty and team
Mike Slaats, Founder of Upvoty
Mike Slaats is the sole founder of the company. Currently, Upvoty is a team of five and the team works fully remotely. Upvoty is looking forward to expanding its remote team with people in Europe, the Americas, and Asia because it is managing clients from all over the world. And this would improve customer support if the team can be present in all timezones.
How was Upvoty Started?
Upvoty is not the first startup that this team came up with. Before Upvoty, the team worked on another startup and it grew very quickly and because of the user growth, the amount of feedback quickly grew too. They received feedback on many different channels such as chat, phone, email, and social media. Thus, the team was required to find a way to collect and manage feedback in a better and efficient way.
They researched the existing feedback tools and concluded that there wasn’t any who was either good enough or affordable for a startup. And that’s when they decided to build one.
To validate the idea for a feedback tool like Upvoty, the team launched a landing page with an animation video and explained what Upvoty was all about. “We shipped it into the wild and quickly we received sign-ups from potential customers. After a few weeks, we hit 500+ sign-ups and that’s when we knew we were on to something.” Says Mike
And they started coding the SaaS and after 5 months shipped the first beta product in November 2018. Upvoty offered the product for free to the first few customers in exchange for feedback, which helped the team build a better first version. In February 2019 they finally launched publicly and grew to an MRR of over $1,000 in just a couple of months.
Upvoty – Name, Tagline, and Logo
Upvoty logo
The founder Mike had come up with the name “Upvoty.” He was playing around with some names and eventually stuck with Upvoty because it was playful and would suggest immediately what it does: upvote! The tagline ‘Instant feedback, instantly better products’ really assist in telling the audience what can do with this product.
Upvoty – Startup Launch
Upvoty was launched on the founder’s social media channels, who had a big follower base on both Instagram as his newsletter. He also did a small YouTube series from designing the tool to the launch. Upvoty also launched in beta on Betalist, and later on publicly on Indie Hackers and Product Hunt. This resulted in new signups for the beta type and helped spread the word of the launch.
The founder did a lot of interviews, shared a lot of the progress on his Indie Hackers profile, Twitter, and Instagram, and the team mainly focused on content marketing on the blog. Since they are more focused on their ideal ICP, with everything they do in marketing, they are getting more and more hits on the website. This resulted in more signups and paid clients. “We recently released an eBook which helped us get in front of 10s of thousands of new potential customers.” Said, Mike
Upvoty – Business Model and Revenue Model
Upvoty does not have a free plan or a freemium model. It started with paid plans right from the beginning. Its cheapest plan starts from $15 a month and allows the user to create 2 boards, have 3 team members, and 150 tracked users. Tracked users are users who participated on the boards by either upvoting, commenting, or posting new ideas. If one needs more users, team members, or boards, Upvoty has two other plans: Super Power ($25 a month), or our Unlimited Plan ($99 a month) which has everything included unlimited.
Upvoty – Startup Challenges
Branding is a major challenge in the SaaS world. There are a lot of SaaS competitors and Upvoty is in the constant need to stand out. That’s why the team focuses so much on sharing the progress with the community. They are all very appreciative. Launching the eBook, for example, wasn’t written to target potential customers, but just to share the process and progress on launching SaaS. “Because we gave away free knowledge in a space where our target audience is actively present, it did target some new customers.” Said Mike. Also, Upvoty tried to grow with paid ads, but it has too much competition from bigger software companies.
Upvoty – Growth
Upvoty recently signed its first enterprise company which is a major bank from India. They are coming on board with Upvoty for a great annual revenue plan.
Upvoty – Future Plans
Upvoty is aiming for an MRR of $10,000 before the end of 2020. “We’re hoping to accomplish this by doing more demos, making our product better for bigger teams so we can acquire bigger companies and enterprises. This should boost our MRR.” Said, Mike.
Damini Bhandary
