HeadStart Summer 2009 shortlisted 20 startups for the Demo Pit (an exhibition where startups get to showcase their products or ideas) last week. These startups are different from the nine that have been shortlisted to pitch to venture capitalists and angel investors. Startups will showcase their ideas to the audience. The panel of venture capitalists has some fresh faces but could have been stronger. The venue seems to have changed to the Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research in Matunga — the badges need to be updated (the one here says Nehru Center, Worli).
Meet the Demo Pit startups:
160by2: Free SMS service launched in 2007 by Hyderabad-based SMSCountry Networks.
creAdivity: Online marketplace for advertising content (designs, concepts, campaigns) founded in 2008 for small and medium enterprises and startups.
Deltecs Infotech: The HeadStart website says this is a DRONA online testing platform.
Design Chords: HeadStart says it is a ‘crowdsourcing based design platform’. The startup has not launched its service or product yet and the Demo Pit will probably be your chance to get to know about them first.
EventBandaas: No weblink but some kind of event management company, probably online.
Guru Labs: HeadStart says the company is into online hosting of contests.
HelloIntern: Online internship service, based in Mumbai and founded in 2007. One of the co-founders, Abhishek Sharma, is still a student at IIT Bombay.
Informate Mobile Intelligence: Captures and analyzes mobile phone usage data. It is a division of Mumbai-based Cross Tab Marketing, a market research and analytics company launched in 2000.
Lattice Purple Technologies: The product being demoed is YouSuggest. This is a product that enables companies to set up a secure intranet or social networking platform to capture suggestions and feedback from employees. Just think of it as the suggestion box in your office now available online.
MoneyVIdya: Online stock picking community. Investors, traders, etc. share tips on stocks and there is a stock pick rating mechanism. The company is based in Mumbai.
Orangut: The four founders call themselves Orangutans and are alumni of Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida. They develop solutions to enable academia to use information technology more effectively. The company is based in Noida.
PerSquareFeet: This is a useful idea because it aims to get you reviews on even small mom-and-pop real estate developers. The company is based in Bangalore.
Seclore: Mumbai-based Seclore is a fairly mature startup compared to the group here. It is focused on the information security space. IIT Bombay alumni and die-hard entrepreneur Vishal Gupta (founder of Herald Logic which was incubated at IIT-B) leads the company as CEO.
SPOXCHANGE: Gaming exchange that lets you “trade in the stocks of sportspeople”.
Swan Suites: Service apartments chain based in Hyderabad.
ThinkingSpace Technologies: The product being demonstrated at HeadStart is EventShelf. Aggregates information on events. The parent company was started in 2007 by three computer engineering graduates from the University of Pune — Saurabh Jain, Gaurang Sinha and Rishi Agarwal.
Uhuroo: Online workspace solution for businesses (software-as-a-service offering) from Mumbai-based CollCraft Technologies, an IIT Bombay incubated startup (still works out of IIT-B). Founders are Kaushal Sarda, Madan Rawtani and NL Sarda.
veriCar: Advisory services for used car buyers. Founded by car enthusiasts Kartikeya Singhee and Jayesh Jagasia.
Zopte: Website development services and solutions. The founder, Harsh Jain, is an IIT Bombay graduate and has also spent a year at Google India’s R&D division.
Way2Franchise: An online community that seeks to provide credible information on the franchising business.
Some of the companies in this list are also among the nine that have been chosen to showcase to investors the audience. The nine are: VeriCar, Zopte, Orangut, Seclore, Swan Suites, Informate Mobile Intelligence, 160by2, Telibrahma and Nautanki.tv.
Complete agenda details here.
Image Courtesy: HeadStart
Thanks Aditya, That helps.
I think there is some reading between the lines here which is leading to erroneous conclusions.
The 9 companies on stage present to a panel of experienced folks who then talk about what they would do if they were in the same situation as the presenting start up. The idea is to provide real inputs around real start ups that help the start ups in question and also help the other participants see what they can do.
Headstart has always focussed on bringing all parts of ecosystem together and not just the investor and start up. Investor is an imp part of the ecosystem but not the most important one. The most important one is the entrepreneur and our efforts go towards supporting him/her irrespective of whether its a scalable business that a VC would look at or not. In fact most of the start ups would never get VC funding and yet several of them could yet be successful in their own ways.