By Prakash Narayan-
National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), a leading trade association representing India’s $250 billion technology industry, brought in 35 DeepTech startups to Silicon Valley where they got an opportunity to meet potential investors, meet entrepreneurs and talk about their products.
Established in 1988, NASSCOM has over 3,000 member companies that span from DeepTech and AI startups to multinationals and from products to services.
The 35 delegates were hosted by FalconX, an accelerator at a Deep Tech Mixer event on Thursday, September 26, in Milpitas, California, that created an undeniable excitement in the air as these 35 startups prepared to pitch their innovative ideas to an audience of investors, mentors, CXOs, and local entrepreneurs.
The energy in the room was palpable as each founder had just two minutes to showcase their vision to the industry experts in the room. Murali Chirala, CEO of FalconX, kicked the event off welcoming the delegates and the NASSCOM executives in attendance.
The event began with a keynote address by Praveen Akkiraju, MD of Insight Partners, who spoke on the State of Play in AI. Praveen talked about the latest trends in AI. A new paradigm shift is taking place in the industry. We saw the Internet take off in the 90s, which allowied distribution.
This was followed (in about 14 years) by the Cloud that gave us low-cost infrastructure on demand. Now, another 12-14 years later, we have Agentic architectures enabling productivity on APIs. We are moving towards Agent-to-Agent communication, AI agents, and multi-agents.
To reinforce his point that AI enables software to subsume services, he quoted Satya Nadella, “In the coming years, technology as a percentage of GDP will double from 5% to 10% and beyond, as technology moves from a back-office cost center to a defining feature of every product and service. But even more important will be technology’s influence on the other 90% of the world’s economy. From communications and commerce to logistics, financial services, energy, healthcare, and entertainment, digital technology will power the entire global economy as every company becomes a software company in its own right.”
The delegation of 35 startups was led by NASSCOM Senior Director Kritika Murugesan. Her role was to hand-pick the team and bring them to Silicon Valley.
Shivam Sareen and Nehal Pandya were also part of the team (from NASSCOM) assisting Kritika in this task. Kavita Doshi, who heads corporate and digital communications for NASSCOM rounded up the team. These 35 startups presented their businesses in a lightning round to an audience of mentors, investors, and local entrepreneurs.
The key takeaway from their pitches was their deep understanding of customer issues to solve real-world issues, the maturity of their businesses, and their technical expertise. This exchange allowed these 35 DeepTech Indian startups to connect with investors, venture capitalists, and mentors from Silicon Valley. Here is a brief description of some of these startups.
AIVOT AI: The aim is to use AI and Data Sciences in revolutionizing various industries and businesses besides embedding AI in all aspects of life.
AppSentinels AI: They aim to protect more than 50 billion APIs/calls for customers in banking, fintech, e-commerce, technology, broking, media & government utility companies. They do continuous API discovery & posture management, continuous stateful API pen-testing, multi-layer protection, and remediation.
Bankai Labs: The company enhances efficiency, security, and customer experience across various domains, using AI solutions for real-time revenue assurance, fraud management, and other domain-specific solutions with 90-92% accuracy.
Bobble AI: With the advancements in AI, there is a need to re-imagine the smartphone experience across platforms/apps through an always-on mobile native AI assistant that can understand the real-time context and deliver value-added recommendations. The platform has reimagined the keyboard real estate as a mobile native AI assistant to enhance creative expression and daily productivity.
CogniFirst Technologies: They can automatically extract data from semi-structured/unstructured documents or query vast document repositories in natural language. They provide end-to-end automation of document-based workflows within organizations reducing cost, increasing transparency, and driving efficiency.
Contiinex: They are a speech AI platform for healthcare & financial services that can be deployed on a private cloud to drive incremental sales, manage risk, and increase customer retention through a combination of speech analytics and voice bots.
GoCodeo AI Technologies: They are an AI agent for white-box software testing. They leverage the power of LLMs to help companies identify and eliminate software bugs early on, right at the code level.
Life Bound Technologies: They deliver intelligent wireless monitoring solutions, enhancing vital sign measurement with custom AI insights. The technology ensures real-time, medical-grade precision across diverse environments.
Living Things: They are an IoT platform driving the net-zero journey toward a sustainable future. Their solution integrates with existing air conditioners, enabling businesses to optimize energy use, enhance efficiency, and reduce carbon footprints. With real-time data analytics and intelligent insights, their energy-saving algorithms guarantee at least 15% savings on AC energy consumption.
LivNSense GreenOps: They are working towards the management and optimization of greenhouse gas emissions. They target high-energy equipment in industries like asphalts, cement, petrochemicals, and mining, which account for 50-60% of plant energy use. Their goal is to reduce industry emissions by up to 30% in the short term and facilitate the transition to green/biofuels and hydrogen for further reduction in the long term.
QpiAI India: They are vertically integrating AI and quantum technologies. They have built a 25-qubit quantum computer leveraging AI and quantum-inspired algorithms. Their products include QpiAI Pro, an AutoML & MLOps Platform to scale enterprise AI deployments; QpiAI Opt, a large-scale optimization solver for logistics and supply chain industries.
Rezo.ai: They leverage automation and analytics to help enterprises get better results at reduced costs from their contact Center operations. They automate contact centers with AI and utilize its data to boost efficiency and agent performance. They unlock data insights to personalize interactions and drive customer satisfaction.
SCIKIQ Data: They make data accessible to everyone for analysis & decision-making. They empower business teams to embrace analytics and gain real-time insights without complex technical skills. By providing easy access to data platforms, they help enterprises save 80% on data management costs, reduce data transformation time by 75%, and deliver data discovery 40% faster than competitors.
SecneurX Technologies: They are a cybersecurity company dedicated to protecting organizations from targeted attacks. Their customers include government, defense, tech companies, and BFSI sectors, leveraging its advanced solutions to safeguard critical data and maintain robust security postures. They integrate AI, machine learning, sandboxing, and CDR to deliver unparalleled real-time protection against advanced persistent threats. Their solution ensures that only authorized content enters the organization, effectively blocking malicious files and safeguarding organizational data.
SustLabs: They developed an AI-powered bot that empowers users with detailed insights into their energy consumption. By providing clear, actionable data, they enable users to take charge of their energy usage and achieve concrete energy efficiency. Their patented, AI-enabled operating system for electricity meters helps make grids efficient by extracting and analyzing electricity data.
Trinzz: They provide a full-stack platform for medical data management. They have already secured two NY-based biomedical clients. With founders from Harvard, Forbes 30Under30, and ex-Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Adobe, they aim to data processing for healthcare training and medical sciences.
TWYN: They create real-time 3D digital twins of machines and factories, enabling remote monitoring and control. This boosts efficiency, reduces downtime and costs, and enhances productivity. What sets it apart is its no-code SaaS platform, making it easy for users to create immersive digital twins for real-time monitoring, analysis, planning, and maintenance of physical assets and facilities.
Worxogo Solutions: They enhance team productivity and engagement with behavioral science and AI. Its nudge coach provides personalized coaching at scale, benefiting sales and customer service teams. Trusted by Fortune 10 companies in 11 countries, Worxogo is featured as an HBR case study and partners with Stanford researchers to measure productivity impact.
The diversity of the startups that presented at this event is a clear indication of the success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Startup India initiative. We witnessed a sliver of the vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in India – demonstrating that India is emerging as one of the world’s largest startup hubs.
