5 Startups selected for 3rd Batch of IIIT Foundation's Avishkar Deep Tech Accelerator Program

Hyderabad, January 28, 2017: 5 Startups selected for 3rd Batch of IIIT Foundation's Avishkar Deep Tech Accelerator Program.

Five startups selected are in VR, Medical Diagnosis, Robotics, Machine Learning space. They include 01. Niche.ai - Visual Informatics products for Computer Vision ecosystem; 02. Blue Semiconductors – Patentable Semiconductor Startup; 03. Authbase – A cyber security startup that utilizes Machine Learning; 04. DreamVu – VR camera technology startup and 05. Docturnal - "Non-invasive" apps that are "point of care mobile devices" leveraging AI/ML and spectral analysis.

The selected startups receive a 10 Lakh Seed Fund and will go through a 6-month accelerator program, where they would receive both technology assistance and business coaching along with access to resources of the IIITH Foundation incubator.

These early stage startups will be on board to the program by the end of January and will go through a rigorous handholding and a program designed to take them to the next level in their journey.

AVISHKAR program takes in startups at a seed fund stage and takes them through a 6-month structured program of business building. Various elements of building a strong foundation for the startup is considered for the milestones for the program. The startups go through a journey characterized by strategic interventions in their business cases, market approach, customer segmentation, team building, etc. By the time they graduate they would be a significantly better position to grow into a mature company. Along with fixing their business cases, the startups also receive assistance in setting their technology roadblocks through different models of engagement with IIIT Hyderabad Research Labs.

The program draws its strength from investment partnership with 50K Ventures, Business coaching from CoCreation Consulting. The startups also receive various customer development and mentoring support from IIITH Foundation's partners and ecosystem associates. ( GCP, AWS, F6S alpha card, Legal assistance and more ).

The accelerator takes a 2% percent equity. The seed fund is provided as convertible debenture subscription.

AVISHKAR is India's first deep-tech accelerator program. The program is managed by IIITH Foundation in partnership with IIIT Research Labs and other partners in the ecosystem.

IIITH Foundation, also known as CIE (Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship) is a DST approved incubator operational since 2009. IIITHF has so far supported around 160 startups and has seed- funded 18 startups, 80% of which are cash positive. IIITHF was also instrumental being the kiln of the initiatives that culminated into the foundation of T-Hub.
Since 2009, IIITH Foundation has been supporting technology product startups. The AVISHKAR Deep Tech accelerator is the new initiative to provide the much-needed support for deep-tech startups in the country.

"The Start-up ecosystem in India is currently very vibrant. However, most of these ventures cannot survive and are successful unless they have huge differentiation in terms of technology. With AVISHKAR, IIIT Hyderabad will give these companies a massive edge by providing the required base technology, mentorship, and talent on a need basis in addition to initial funding. Using our resources, our impact on startups should translate into substantial benefits while scaling and rapid internationalization of these ventures”, informed Prof. Vasudeva Varma, Dean R&D, IIIT Hyderabad. CEO, IIITH Foundation.

As the first batch is graduating in January 2017, the startups are already landing up with customer connections and sales deals as well as investment commitments. A demo day is also in the offing for creating business and investor connects.