On June 30, 2016, Cisco India announced Cisco LaunchPad, an open innovation initiative to support startups and accelerate growth in India’s developer community. It is projected that by 2020 India will have 11,500+ startups in the country[i], most of which will be in the technology space. Cisco LaunchPad is conceptualized to streamline the fragmented efforts in the domain of tech innovations by creating an ecosystem of startups and partners to create a greater impact on the next wave of digitization in the country and the region.
Cisco LaunchPad received an overwhelming response from the startup community in India and abroad. The program received 200+ applications from startups for a place in the first cohort. The applications from the startups came from a broad set of technology spaces like IoT, Analytics, IT Infrastructure, Collaboration, Wireless, Mobility, Security, Networking, Artificial intelligence and Augmented reality with some impressive ideas being explored. Cisco’s technology and sales leaders as well as its advisor panel evaluated the startups.
After a fairly rigorous selection process, Cisco LaunchPad is ready with its first cohort of 8 startups which kicked off on Sep 7th with a 4-day bootcamp. AlgoEngines, VuNet, Teslon, Torchfi, Navstik Labs, haltDos, Astrome and IQLECT are part of the first cohort. These startups specialize in very different technology domains. In addition, the selected startups are ranging from still-in-the-garage phase to seed/angel funding to late stage startups with some already having international traction. Both of these factors make it a very exciting first cohort with huge opportunities for peer learning and even potentially creating opportunities for them to work together. All the startups are centered around technology solutions in the B2B and/or B2B2C business domains.
The next 4 months will be focused around helping the startups build out their business model canvas covering deep customer discovery processes, lean startup methodology, revenue models, go-to-market channels, positioning for investments etc. In addition, the Cisco Engineering leaders, Go-to-Market teams, Distinguished and Principal engineers will work closely with the startups on taking their technology to the next level.
Here is a first glimpse at what makes the first Cisco LaunchPad cohort one to watch out for:
AlgoEngines:
Founded: 2012
Startup Location: Mumbai
Algo Engines’ Cloud based SaaS platform for energy analytics provides operational intelligence through integrating the data from wind, solar, hydro and electrical devices. It supports over 2,500 MW of wind and solar capacity across India, Thailand, Philippines and Japan.
VuNet :
Founded: 2014
Startup Location: Bangalore
VuNet’s vuSmartMaps™ is the next generation IT infrastructure management product based on advanced big data analytic and powerful visualization techniques. Powered by VuNet’s innovative Multi Vector Analytic(vuMVA) engine, vuSmartMaps provides correlated views and real time insights into application, security and network performance, synthesized from the vast amount of data spread across network locations, devices, applications, storage, users, security devices and data centers.
Teslon:
Founded: 2015
Startup Location: Bangalore
Teslon Carenation is an IoT based solution for Tele-health market, bridging the clinician-patient divide over geographies and time. It is a highly scalable tele-health product supporting specialist consult, patient monitoring and education that uses cutting edge technologies.
Torchfi:
Founded: 2015
Startup Location: Bangalore
TorchFi is a real world in-store digital engagement between brands and consumers through mobile phones without the need of an application. The solution identifies customers through their mobile phones and enables personalized engagement with brands over in-store WiFi. This solution has multiple widgets for different industries like Restaurants, Food Courts, Retail brands and Salons & Spa.
Navstik Labs:
Founded: 2013
Startup Location: Pune
Navstik Labs offers an operating system for drones. This serves as a platform for developers to build applications for drones such as precision agriculture, delivery, surveys, inspections, etc. The products built by NavStik are being used by 40+ customers in 10+ countries to power a wide range of drones and unmanned vehicles.
haltDos:
Founded: 2015
Startup Location: Noida
HaltDos is a network security company that has developed India’s first DDoS attack mitigation solution. HaltDos uses artificial intelligence to automatically detect and effectively mitigate any kind of DoS or DDoS attack. Its multi-layered, multi-vector protection provides round the clock security from a wide range of attacks without requiring any human intervention.
Astrome:
Founded: 2015
Startup Location: Bangalore
Astrome aims to revolutionize the world of Internet connectivity for the remotest of locations with easy installation and automated line-of-sight deployments. Its GigaMesh product would offer true fibre-equivalent microwave technology
IQLECT:
Founded: 2014
Startup Location: Bangalore
IQLECT is an analytics company with a focus on making Real Time Big Data Analytics (RTDA) simple, pervasive and affordable for all types of enterprises – large and SMEs. The solution is a cost effective, ready to use, all-in-one converged RTDA Platform that is available both as a cloud based software platform as a service and a converged unified box for the Private/Hybrid cloud.
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[i] https://yourstory.com/2016/04/startup-bootstrapping/
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