IITMIC NEWSLETTER
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Startup Spotlight Nov 2018 | Grinntech (an IITMIC and RTBI incubated company) works on lithium battery technology for different Electric Vehicles (2W, 3W, cars, buses etc). It is focused on developing ecosystem for scaling up of electric buses with battery swapping for city transportation | |
3 Sept 2018 Event | 2nd Edition of 'Investor meet' hosted by IITMIC 20+ deep tech startups incubated at IITMIC present / demo to a group of angel investors & VCs - a day long event for startup-investor interactions. Ft. Dr. Subhash Chandra (Chairman, Essel Group and Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha) “Anybody who thinks that India has to be the follower, and not world leader, needs to definitely visit IITM Incubation ecosystem. I shall be the brand ambassador of this vibrant ecosystem" - Dr. Subhash Chandra, Chairman, Essel Group | |
| 24 May 2018 | Meet Point, an electric vehicle charger from AtherGrid. Now live with 14 locations across Bengaluru. Find one at your favorite cafes, your workplace and malls. To know more about AtherGrid, visit https://www.atherenergy.com/grid | |
TOI 16 May 2018 | We will be a unicorn in 5 years: Uniphore CEO > Products line-up: Uniphore offers three products based on #SpeechRecognition. This includes its flagship offering auMina, which is a speech #analytics product, Akeira that provides voice-based virtual assistance, and amVoice, which reduces human error by using voice biometrics. Uniphore’s speech recognition products can understand over 80 Indian and global languages. More than 70 enterprises globally use these products and solutions to deliver customer experience. The company has raised $20 million across rounds and counts John Chambers, Krish Gopalakrishnan, IDG Ventures, Indian Angel Network amongst its investors. | |
Economic Times 14 May 2018 | Conzumex: An IITian's dream to improve manufacturing ecosystem in India > Founder CEO, Prashant (an IITM alumnus) shares their journey in developing consumer electronic products. Company will be launching their smart analogue watches soon, globally | |
Forbes India 4 May 2018 |   With incubators for deep tech startups, funding for students and support for corporate R&D, the institute is fostering an entire ecosystem of cutting-edge ideas. The incubation cell on the third floor of the IITMadras Research Park is an epicentre of nervous energy. The glass door is flung open every few minutes as entrepreneurs, fresh out of brainstorming sessions with their mentors, storm to their workstations to put the learnings to test. Some are building energy-efficient batteries and smart Farming technologies while others are putting together remotely-operated vehicles that would deep dive into oceans to facilitate underwater inspections. But what a majority of the startups at the incubator have in common is they are the so-called deep-tech startups, that are heavily reliant on science and technology—artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, computer vision and robotics—and are seldom consumer-focussed, a sharp contrast to investors’ favourites such as online retail, payments or ride-hailing companies. | |
Forbes India 2 May 2018 | There are two kinds of academia: Ashok Jhunjhunwala > In an interview to Forbes India, he talks about the benefits of Industry-Academia collaboration, Innovation and the evolution of #deepTech #startups in India | |
Startup Spotlight 1 May 2018 | Meet Solinas, new incubation at IITMIC. Solinas Integrity Pvt Ltd provides robotic solutions for online inspection of pipelines. Company is founded by IIT Madras alumnus and faculty members. "At Solinas, we build next-generation inspection technologies for critical pipeline infrastructure to detect existing defects and also prevent failures and thus maximiz es the lifespan of the assets. We serve Oil and Gas, Petrochemical, Power Plants, Water, #Wastewater and Process Industries "co-founder CEO, Solinas (Ajay Raj, DD 2016, ME, IIT-Madras). | |
TechConnect 25 Mar 2018 Award | Sirab Technologies offering “Reliable lane keeping and platooning Technology for #automated #driving” wins an award at 2018 TechConnect World > | |
India Today 24 Apr 2018 | This IIT Madras Prof is using "AMRIT" to fight arsenic contaminated water > Nanomaterials-based water technology AMRIT is running successfully in the country to remove arsenic from drinking water. | |
Startup Spotlight 10 Apr 2018 | #IITMICSpotlight World Theatre Day: How theatre is a means to educate > Vaayusastra is an education company that teaches complex laws of aerodynamics through theatrics and movement. They take theatre to classes in villages and Government schools, with the help of story-telling and short skits the children watch the play unfold and learn. Theories of friction, evaporation and rainbows are taught through story-telling techniques fascinating children | |
Startup Spotlight 29 Mar 2018 | #IITMICSpotlight Meet Grinntech Motors - develops and licenses low cost smart storage Lithium-ion battery technology for automotive and stationary energy storage. Founded by Puneet Jain, an IIT-Roorkee alumnus, the startup works with Center of Battery Engineering and Electric Vehicles (CBEEV), IIT Madras for technology development under the guidance of Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala and Dr. Prabhjot Kaur, Director, CBEEV. Read more | |
Event 25 Mar 2018 |   Honoured to have had the opportunity to host His Excellency, President of Federal Republic of Germany Dr. Frank-Walter #Steinmeier during his visit to IITM Research Park today afternoon. #IITMadras Director Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, IITM Incubation Cell CEO Dr. Tamaswati Ghosh and IITM Research Park COO Mr. Rajendra Mootha welcomed /accompanied the Delegation | |
Business Line 19 Mar 2018 | The pivots that changed Uniphore > Umesh Sachdev says the start-up’s speech recognition tech now has a global voice | |
Event 17 Mar 2018 | 1st Investor Meet hosted by IITMIC for select Incubatee Startups working in deep tech sectors including manufacturing, cleantech, EVs, IOT, ML/AI/AR/VR, agritech. The startups presented their product/services before a distinguished panel of Angel Investors & VCs: Ventureast, Ankur Capital, Indian Angel Network, Keiretsu Forum, The Chennai Angels, Unitus Seed Fund. The presentations were followed by demonstrations and a tour around the IITM Research Park facility. | |
TOI 16 Mar 2018 | How the state can incubate its startups on campuses > IITMIC is a proven model of success for other incubators in the state to follow and an example of how a Startup Incubator must function. "Our incubator is not just for IITM students and faculty. More than 38% of founders are not from IIT-M. We are not a general purpose incubator. The entrepreneur has to demonstrate why he or she needs IIT-M" says Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras | |
Award TOI 8 Mar 2018 | Venkat Rajaraman, CEO, Cygni Energy and Ankit Poddar, CEO, Swadha Energies have won the prestigious Diamond Level ISGF Innovation Awards 2018'' from India Smart Grid Forum as a part of the 4th edition of India Smart Grid Week 2018. Cygni was awarded under ‘Best Rural Electrification Projects by Industry’ category and Swadha awarded under ‘Smart Startup by Young Entrepreneur (below 30 years of age)’ category | |
Startup Spotlight 8 Mar 2018 | IITMIC wishes all the women a very Happy Women's day! On today's IITMIC startup Spotlight, we feature incubatees lead by strong, visionary & passionate Women: FibSol, GUVI, Kamal Kissan, WeThink, ConzumeX, Dhvani, Desicrew, Yaathum | |
Forbes India 6 Mar 2018 |  2018 W-Power Trailblazers: Kavitha Sairam is addressing age-old problems of agriculture > IITM incubated company Fib-Sol Life Technologies's co-Founder Dr Kavitha Sairam featured as one of the 2018 W-Power Trailblazers by Forbes India | |
Award 23 Feb 2018 | Stellapps adjudged as winner (along with IBM ) for Innovation in IoT at the 8th Edition of Aegis Graham Bell Awards 2017. Other participants in other categories included Wipro, Reliance, Airtel, Huawei, Vodafone, Cisco, Accenture, HCL etc. This Award is intended to promote innovation, entrepreneurship in the field of Telecom, Social, Mobility, Analytics, Cloud, Security to provide recognition for outstanding contributions by the innovators | |
Inc42 26 Feb 2018 | Submersible Robotic Inspection startup Planys Technologies closes $2.16 Mn Series A Funding Round > IITMIC incubated company, Planys raises Rs 14 crore Series A Investment from India's top investors and largest oil & gas company: round led by Senapathy "Kris" Gopalakrishnan (cofounder, Infosys) Oil and Natural Gas Corporation-Start-up Fund and #RanjanPai’s MEMG Family Office. #KeiretsuForum (Chennai and Singapore) and other HNIs also participated in the round | |
23 Feb 2018 Event |   MoS Civil Aviation, Shri Jayant Sinha's rendezvous with technology indigenously developed & being commercialised by startups incubated @ IITMIC | |
Startup Spotlight 23 Feb 2018 |  Meet Detect Technologies - co-founded by Tarun Mishra, Daniel D David, Hari, Prof Krishnan Balasubramanian & Karthik - turned 2 today! | |
Startup Spotlight 21 Feb 2018 |  Meet PiBeam - co-founded by Visakh and Jacob, manufactures solar–electric three wheeler with pedal assisted technology. Realizing the usage and the design flaw of conventional three-wheelers, the duo went on to design a torque management & assist system with a torque sensor, which help riders decide on how much assistance is required from the motor. PiBeam has 3 variants of its product - PiBeam M03(manual), PiBeam E03(electric), PiBeam S03(solar): Read More | |
Award TOI 20 Feb 2018 | Three IITM startups, Intelizon Energy, Cygni Energy and Stellapps Technologies wins 'Best Emerging Entrepreneur 2017' award from India CII -Southern Region > | |
Factor Daily 19 Feb 2018 | Meet QuNu Labs, the Bengaluru startup making data safer for the quantum computing era > IITM incubated startup QuNu Labs featured | |
Award 16 Feb 2018 | Umesh Sachdev, co-founder CEO of Uniphore wins the prestigious 'Entrepreneur of the Year' award at the Small Business Awards (7th National awards for small & emerging businesses) organised by Franchise India | |
Forbes India 6 Feb 2018 | Founders of IITMIC incubated companies, DocsApp (getting the doctor on chat) and Ather Energy (electrifying scooters) featured in Forbes India 30 under 30 > | |
Award 24 Jan 2018 | Cygni Energy wins the Millennium Alliance award under the Clean Energy category > #USAID, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), World Bank and Technology Development Board (TDB) are the partners | |
TED Talks India 24 Jan 2018 | Technology can be made accessible to everyone using Speech Recognition,” says Umesh_Sachdev, founder CEO of Uniphore (an IITM incubated company) in his recent inspiring talk TED Talks India: नई सोच hosted by Shah Rukh Khan - Watch Video | |
TOI 22 Jan 2018 | Robots with HD cams to monitor underwater portions of railway bridges > IITM incubated startup Planys working with Ministry of Railways, Govt of India, to make Bridges safe | |
The Hindu 18 Jan 2018 Event |  IIT Madras Research Park gets dubbed as modern temple; this is how it earned the title > IITMIC hosted Hon’ble Human Resource Development Minister of India at IITM ResearchPark; IITMadras incubated startups to interact with him & accompanying journalists | |
The Hindu 22 Jan 2018 |  A space to generate Superstar ideas > One of the four startup lounges at the @IITMIC Incubation Floors at IITM Research Park - creative spaces among startup offices and workshops for out of box thinking & discussions | |
2017 HIGHLIGHTS (complete) | ||
 IITMs RTBI's Annual Report for FY 2016-17: view | ||
Financial Express 18 Dec 2017 Award | Stellapps Technologies was adjudged at #2 in the coveted "Cloud Solutions" category of the Financial Express IT Awards that saw the likes of IBM, Infosys, TCS, L&T Infotech, Swiggy, Zoho, MakeMyTrip as winners in other categories > Incidentally, the #1 in the same category is an IITM DAA founded company - Zoho | |
YourStory 13 Dec 2017 | Online doctor consultation platform DocsApp raises $7.2M funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and others > | |
Entrackr 1 Dec 2017 | Muse: Smartwatch that needs no charging for year, aims to take on Fitbit, Apple > ConzumeX Industries featured | |
Live Mint 30 Nov 2017 |  John Chambers, executive chairman of Cisco & chairman of recently-formed US-India Strategic Partnership Forum, leads Uniphore's Series B round (picks up 10% stake in his personal capacity), his first investment in a startup outside of US > | |
Economic Times 24 Nov 2017 | Here's how IIT-Madras has become a haven for startups > This has been possible not due to any single spectacular effort but because of IIT-M doing several simple things right — creating a thriving alumni network, pushing a faculty-industry connect, providing the necessary infrastructure to let students and alumni experiment with ideas, and importantly, listening to feedback and learning on the move. Since 2006, 140 startups have been a part of the IITM Incubation Cell. Of these, 32 startups have raised a total $108 million from investors, with Ather pocketing a chunk of it. "Success breeds success," said Mehta. "When we started, a couple of our seniors had... (made) successful hardware attempts. The community builds up. They encourage each other." | |
Entrepreneur India Aug & Sept 2017 |  India's Top 25 Incubators featured in the Aug 2017 issue: IITM Incubation Cell & ecosystem placed at #1 position Article on 18Sept > Facebook Post | |
Award Economic Times Startup Awards 18 Aug 2017 |   For Two consecutive years, 4 out of 5 finalists of the 'Best on campus' award category were IIT Madras incubated startups Watch the Award Ceremony: video | |
Award 11 May 2017 |   IITM Incubation Cell wins 'National Award for emerging Technology Business Incubator' for 2016 from Dept. of Science & Technology, GoI. Award was handed over to IITMIC CEO by Hon'ble President Shri Pranab Mukherjee on 19th National Technology Day in New Delhi, 11th May 2017. This is dedicated to all IITM incubated startups, mentors, Institute/IITM Research Park and alumni/industry donors. Proud moment for all. | |
| 6 Mar 2017 |   New IITMIC office (Phase II, IITMRP) inaugurated by Hon'ble Minister of State for Commerce & Industry, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, in the presence of Shri Amitabh Kant (CEO, Niti Aayog) Minister's interaction with IITM incubated companies: video link |
