Second cohort of start-ups graduate from Facebook’s India Innovation Accelerator Program in partnership with T-Hub

by Samiksha

This edition of the accelerator program focused on mentoring AI start-ups working to create social impact

New Delhi, 26 November 2019: Facebook and T-Hub, which leads India’s pioneering innovation ecosystem, today concluded the second edition of their India Innovation Accelerator program with a demo day and graduation of the cohort of AI start-ups at the Facebook office in Gurgaon. 10 start-up companies presented their strategies and products to investors and industry and ecosystem players.

This year, the four-month accelerator program supported a cohort of startups with outsized/ enormous social impact potential focused on building technology to solve complex social problems in the domains of: Empowerment of Women and Girls, Agriculture, Healthcare, Education, Climate Change, Resilient Cities etc.

Start-ups accepted into the program received four months training and guidance from Facebook via a rich curriculum of interventions, specifically designed to support product development and growth in the field of artificial intelligence. Furthermore, the start-ups got access to T-Hub’s ecosystem of mentors, corporates and industry network enabling them to scale their business prospects. 

The program also offered mentorship from experts who assisted start-ups to build scalable business models and manage team dynamics, thereby setting the right approach to go-to-market with valuable support in product development.

Manish Chopra, Director and Head of Partnerships, Facebook India while commenting on the completion of the program said, “We are thrilled to play a key role in India’s start-up ecosystem, being a catalyst for future growth, using the potential of emerging technologies like AI, to solve the major problems India is facing today. We are committed to support start-up and are focused on creating programs like India Innovation Accelerator, with partners across the tech community to fuel startups, to build businesses of tomorrow.”

Ravi Narayan, CEO, T-Hub, said, “Social startups in India haven’t been able to get the spotlight unlike those from the other sectors. We need an innovation ecosystem that allows entrepreneurs to think beyond the limits and empower them to address the critical challenges faced by two-thirds of the population in our country. The India Innovation Accelerator program by Facebook, in collaboration with T-Hub, is one such initiative to support start-ups that are using technology such as AI to make an impact.”

The final cohort was selected from over 140 applications received from across India, after a rigorous evaluation process. The top 3 startups, shortlisted at the demo day, namely, ftcash, Marut Drones and Innerhour will receive further support for a month of Go-to-Market strategies to increase funnel conversion rates, picking up the sales model, taking product to entire market, and building company

The 10 start-ups graduating from Facebook’s India Innovation Accelerator program today, are as below.

• ftcash aims to empower micro-merchants and small businesses with the power of credit using digital payments.
• StaTwig is building blockchain based solutions to ensure that every child is vaccinated with high quality vaccines.
• Signzy has built a digital trust infrastructure which enables completely secure digital on-boarding using the following three products: Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted on-boarding (RealKYC), Algorithmic Risk Intelligence (ARI), Blockchain technology to store and verify consumer information.
• Blue Sky Analytics is a geospatial data intelligence startup, leading the fight against air pollution, water crisis, and environmental degradation by building a stack of environmental indicators.
• Pensieve aims to democratize legal data and make it accessible to the common man. They do this through two tools - Mitra (providing access to judicial cases and an AI algorithm that provides the most relevant responses) and Smriti (enabling people to build, amend, review and analyse their contracts)
• Greenturn Idea Factory helps enterprises reduce energy spends through realtime data driven insights from their IoT based analytics platform, Greenie.
• Sensegrass deploys Smart Soil Sensing NPK Sensors for pesticide and fertilizers detection using IoT and AI algorithm-based prediction software to help farmers by transferring real time for better decision making, reduce fertilizers and to maximize crop yield.
• Marut Drones uses AI powered computer vision to identify the mosquito infestation and hyacinth growth in urban ponds. Based on the information, repellents are sprayed to safeguard localities from various diseases caused by mosquitos.
• Shortlist Professionals is helping enterprises in recruiting through their platform that screens candidates using predictive chat-based interviews and online competency-based assessments, letting employers skip these stages altogether and hire candidates based on demonstrated skill, not just what’s on their CV.
• Innerhour provides access to psychological tools and services through their emotional health app which helps in fighting the stigma and lack of access of qualified professionals in the mental health space.