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Announcing the first batch of 15 companies selected for @InTech50 2016

InTech50, a flagship event of iSPIRT & Terenne Global, running in its third year, is a platform for showcasing of some of the most promising software products created by entrepreneurs from India.

50 companies are shortlisted every year, by an eminent panel comprising of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) of global companies, VCs, and senior executives from Product companies.

The chosen 50 companies will receive advice, on-going mentoring, product marketing support, and funding to scale their offering to the global markets.

This year, we received over 300 applications. The criteria for the first phase of shortlisting were as follows:

  • Products that were already operating in the market were preferred to those at a concept / POC stage
  • Products that addressed horizontal opportunities were preferred over those that focused very deep on a vertical
  • Products that were easy to implement & use were preferred over products that needed deeper integration with enterprise systems (like ERP)
  • Solutions that could be an “add-on”/”bolt-on” to the existing eco-system

Here is the list of the first batch of 15 companies that are selected for InTech50 2016:

  1. CloudCherry: Cloudcherry is a real-time, Omni-channel customer experience management platform that helps customer-facing brands track, measure & improve Customer Delight – thereby resulting in greater customer loyalty and profitability for the brand.
  2. Drona HQ: a mCaaS – mobile container as a service. It offers mobile app as a container preloaded with various engineering components like SSO, push notification, Security and various other features which can be extended by any 3rd party web app that can be loaded on top of DronaHQ.
  3. FT Cash: ftcash aims to empower micro-merchants, small businesses, retail chains and home based entrepreneurs with the power of mobile payments..
  4. Ideal Analytics: Ideal Analytics provides proactive business suggestions using business rules and advanced statistical & data mining techniques.
  5. Ideapoke: Ideapoke is a B2B software platform, which helps companies to find technology partners, connect and collaborate with them to acquire new innovations fast and at reduced cost.
  6. Indusface: Indusface Total Application Security (TAS) is industry’s first truly integrated web application security and compliance solution. It helps organizations detect application-layer vulnerabilities accurately with web application scanning (detect), patch them instantly with web application firewall (protect), and monitor traffic continuously for emerging threats and DDoS attacks, to mitigate them (monitor).
  7. In10stech: A comprehensive application development and deployment platform that is being built on modular architecture of OSGI that helps large enterprises improve business agility.
  8. Reverie Inc: Cloud based platform hosted in AWS which enables web and mobile based applications to go multilingual. The platform provides SDKs which comprises of APIs for content localization and transliteration.
  9. Senseforth: Senseforth’s humanlike conversation platform helps enterprises chat with millions of customers simultaneously. Senseforth’s intelligent assistants can address queries, resolve issues, perform tasks and even help customers shop.
  10. Teamchat: Gupshup is a smart messaging platform that offers APIs for developers to build interactive, programmable, omni-channel messaging bots and services as well as SDKs to enable in-app and in-web messaging.
  11. Tone Tag: ToneTag is a product first company driven to realize mobile payments and revolutionize the payment ecosystem with innovative payment products.
  12. Uncanny Vision: UncannyDL provides Vision framework for using Deep Learning models based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). UncannyDL is the 1st Deep Learning-based SDK available for ARM Cortex-A series processors.
  13. Vymo: Google Now’ for enterprise sales teams
  14. Wavemaker: WaveMaker RAD Platform helps enterprises build custom applications quickly, saving money and time on application development and maintenance. WaveMaker can be used to build both responsive web (browser based) as well as Hybrid mobile (smart phone installed Apps).
  15. Yogurt Labs: FLIX is a business-grade video maker mobile app that is easy enough for business of any size to use, yet powerful enough to create cost-effective, professional looking, on-brand videos within few minutes.

Congratulations to all the above winners !!

Watch this space for the announcement of the next batch of 15 winners.

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3 Years of Volunteering to enable hundreds of experiments to blossom

AnHRA0C0tF4mI0qO-9WAwf-AXl383SqEDMGC9He_wzNoOn Saturday, I was going to attend 3rd year anniversary event of iSPIRT On the way on my bus to meeting, my mind was filled with varied thoughts about 2010 or earlier, when I was outsourced product start-up employee. Looks like little time ago, 6 years has passed from 2010 when I met the volunteers of NPC. Sharing comments to volunteers (Avinash, Rajan, Vijay, Manju, Suresh) on lack of “Made in India” products, I learnt that their thoughts were similar and more advanced. In addition, while I was talking, they had larger dream to create ecosystem where tech geeks are proud of creating products and the first baby step to create pride to come with products was NPC event.

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For a regular visitor in technical meetups of BLR and volunteer for education and health activities in the weekends, their volunteering style spoke more about the volunteer’s real intent. More interaction made me realize that contribution mattered more than the person’s experience or position. This was firs time I heard people work selflessly as part of industry forum and became curious to understand their concept better, leading to a sense of respect for volunteers, motivating myself to volunteer for NPC 2013. In 2013, iSPIRT was formed as new initiative with focus to create a product nation and volunteers drive the vision of iSPIRT. Today, I continue to see the volunteering spirt even today to be similar or better than my experience in early 2010. Hence I have planned to spend whole day to attend 3 In 2013, iSPIRT was formed as new initiative with focus to create a product nation and volunteers drive the vision of iSPIRT. Today, I continue to see the volunteering spirt even today to be similar or better than my experience in early 2010. Hence I have planned to spend whole day to attend 3rd year anniversary function of iSpirit. This blog represents what I learnt about growth of iSPIRT in 3 years. When the first session on “PlayBooks” started, I started to recall that iSPIRT had started to offer Playbooks as first learning program. Playbooks used to represent all programs offered to start-up entrepreneurs. Targeted entrepreneurs on application were invited to participate in playbooks based on specific stage of their start-up. Being in the ecosystem, I am aware of

      • All programs and events are free for participants. Participants apply to attend program or event with details about their startup and applicant registration is approved based on their suitability to programs theme and approved participants attend event for free.

 

 

    • Programs and events focus to impart learning for a category of start-ups that are present in specific stage of their journey namely start-up enthusiasts, Discovery, Product Market Fit and finally Scale To Grow.

 

6The session shared that iSPIRT is offering 3 learning programs and 3 knowledge events. I did not realize that I myself have been attending some of these events. I still see absence of programs and events for the Discovery stage yet, difficult and tricky stage to cross.

iSPIRT has come with a matured structure around programs and events termed KASH Playbook Framework. Playbook are no more a program and had become umbrella representation for all programs. What does KASH represents?

  • K – Knowledge
  • A – Attitude (Mindset)
  • S – Skills
  • H – Habit

Been an entrepreneur, I can relate with KASH as learning theme for programs offered to entrepreneur’s because all programs aims to impart entrepreneur to gain knowledge, develop a mindset, learn skills, identify habits and practice the same to empowers entrepreneur in current stage to create/generate KASH leading to transition from current stage to next stage.

First pic - 3 years

My view of RoundTable is to help happy & confused startups with product market to scale business. I learnt RoundTable (K, S) continues to be an informal closed door interaction (~4 hour) among entrepreneurs and practitioners facilitated by saddle entrepreneur to learn tacit knowledge & skill. Roundtable started as first program of iSPIRT in 2013.

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My view of PNGrowth is to help scaled startups with product market fit to grow leaps and bounds. I learnt PNGrowth (A) is 3 day bootcamp to shake up and instill ‘Panga’ Mindset requisite for category leadership, followed by a 1 year community support. The first program was in 2016 at Mysore The 3 learning events Innofest, SaaSx, InTech50 are focused on large participants. My view of Innofest is to help creators to explore possibility to transform their creation/hobby in to business. I attended the first I attended the first Innofest (A) that happened in Aug 2015 in Bangalore and nice to hear the event travelled to Hyderabad. I wish that sure more cities are eager to conduct event to help innovators take pride in their products and show case them, get feedback of their application in reality. This is “No copy paste entrepreneurship”. My view of SaaSx is that new entrants gain insights in to the tribal knowledge of experienced SaaS folks which helps them to make their offering better more efficient. SaaSx(K) event is to create & nurture community of SaaS entrepreneurs in India at the SaaS capital of India – Chennai. The first event happened in Chennai in 2014, followed in 2015, which I attended and can vouch for the fact that SaaS entrepreneur’s shared their deep intimate learning with others. My view of InTech50 is as experiment with difference. Instead of startups working hard to engage and partner with large corporates with their product offerings, can we make corporates to come together and engage with startups and share feedback and evolve in to partnership. Reversing approach of startup Push model to build relationship and engagement to Corporate Pull model.  InTech50 showcases software products created by Indian entrepreneurs, with aim to help software product companies to enter global markets via our network of early adopters, partners, co-innovators and investors. Companies apply and Chosen companies receive advice, on-going mentoring, product marketing support, and funding to scale in the global markets. This program comes with a cost cover expenses for two attendees and event logistics. 13
Another session I focused was on “India Stack: Powering thousands of experiments”. Before jumping to understand India Stack and session contents, it is good to start with some history in India of how absence of legacy era in telecom and internet has become Indian advantage over time. With absence of telecom legacy, India skipped analog era and leapfrog to digital era of STDs, leading to leapfrog to mobile usage. With absence of internet legacy, India skipped PC based internet and had leapfrog to era where internet technology is available to every Indian via mobile (computing device of choice). Look at the money savings for India from not having to spend to build legacy infrastructure that becomes obsolete with advent of new technologies and money goes waste.

This enables every Indian to access and consume service offered by internet software and mobile apps over internet. It is time to dream and create experiments to leverage this leapfrog benefit to enable Indians to leapfrog to make use of digital applications and the Indian government has jumped in to same with Digital India campaign. One see two fundamental changes happening.

  1. Every Indian can access and use mobile apps, with mobile phones in hands of every Indian.
  2. Every Indian is getting used to electronic banking and payments fueled by e-commerce players.

iSPIRT wants to dreams along with Indian government with belief that this is right time that Indian entrepreneur’s need to leverage Digital explosion wave expected in India soon. One can dream in terms of how technology can be leveraged to create financial inclusion, how apps can create positive interventions in areas of education and health care. When you dream, you are motivated with the potential to leapfrog tech-starved Indians to tech- savvy Indian.
12Dreams are ideas to start with. Dreams need to follow with action to reality. For such a dream to happen, iSPIRT has seen itself a role to contribute to seamless working between entrepreneurs and with government agencies and regulators and has started to proactively engage with government. This joint engagement with stakeholders of Indian government enabled iSPIRT to propose 4 recommendation to serve as backbone for Indian government to realize the dream of Digital India.

          • OpenAPI Policy objectives recommended for Digital India programs

 

      • 7 key principles for to be adhered for implementing Digital India programs.

 

      • Technology Stack to serve as baseline for developing apps for Digital India

 

      • India Stack to serve as baseline for implementing Digital India.

 

              iSPIRT has recommended these OpenAPI policy objectives

          1. Software interoperability: APIs are recommended for all e-governance applications and systems, enabling quick and transparent integration across these applications and systems.

 

        • No Government Silos: Information and data shall be shared through a secure and reliable sharing mechanism across various e-Governance applications and systems.

 

        • Data available to public: Make people’s data public. Provide APIs to enable people to view data.

 

        • Baseline guidelines for Implementers Provide guidance to Government Organizations to develop, publish and use these Open APIs

 

  iSPIRT has recommended these 7 key principles to be followed in developing application by government and integration layer with government applications. 3
The 3 learning programs IKEN, RoundTable and PNGrowth are focused on limited participants.

My view of IKEN to help startup enthusiasts aware of challenges to enable self-assess of their strengths and to identify needed self-improvements. I learnt IKEN (S, H) is a 10 weekend boot-camp for early/Novice entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts and focuses on life skills of an Entrepreneur along with business skills. The first program was created in 2015 in consultation with effectuation with Prof Saras and happened multiple times in Bangalore.

Picture 2 - three years

Based on OpenAPI Policy and guideline principles, here is robust technology stack recommended for creating innovative solutions to India’s hard problems.

Picture 3

With payments being accelerated by regulatory Innovation and a continuous rise of smart phones, here is robust solution stack recommended for developing Digital India applications.

Picture 4

What I liked about iSPIRT is

  • Supporting entrepreneur’s with learning that they need and that is not easily available.
  • Focus to get feedback for their initiatives and working to bring a structure to their work.
  • Contribute by promoting and facilitating the use of IndiaStack creating curiosity and real interest.

If APIs are made open, secure and available for developers (through sandbox), I am sure iSpirt would jump to volunteer to evangelize IndiaStack APIs and promote IndiaStack APIs through Hackathons and developer Events.

To end with, Saturday meeting made me realize that iSpirt has matured from an unstructured volunteer initiative for entrepreneurs and is on the path to become think tank to create product nation.
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Guest Post by G. Srinivasan, 

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Calling all Indian B2B companies: InTech50 2016 – the global platform beckons again!!

With two super successful events in 2014 and 2015, InTech50 2016 is back – bigger than ever before.

For the uninitiated, InTech50 is a showcase of some of the most promising software products created by entrepreneurs from India. A panel of Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Venture Capitalists, and Product Leaders from previous successes will look out for fifty companies to make the cut to InTech50 selection criteria. Here are few reasons why you should apply( last date is 22nd Feb ’16).

  • An opportunity to showcase, get validation of the concept and product direction, better understanding of business value in the enterprise from Global CIOs.
  • High probability of being selected by Global CIO’s for pilot or early adoption.
  • Possibility of being selected by large product companies for add-on/bolt-on value add/partnerships to their large scale product solution sets.

Is it relevant for you? Yes it is, if you are a software product company that has aspirations to go global. Most importantly, you don’t need to travel abroad to seek your fortunes but rather the panel of experts comes to you in Bangalore, in India.

17220053885_5aa4bbf407_bThe program combines prospective buyers (CIOs) who will constructively critique your offering, funders (VCs and other investors) who will tell you why they will fund your product and mentors who will offer you that timely bit of advice that will give you the extra edge.

What’s in it for me? To answer that question, we are sharing some enthusiastic and overwhelming responses from people who were a part of InTech50 2015.

InTech 50 was an excellent opportunity to get attention from some of the top decision makers from India and US. I am very happy to say that some of the largest deals we did in the past year had their origins in Intech 50. It is probably the best networking and showcasing platforms for Enterprise technology companies in India. Sanjoe Jose, CEO, InterviewMaster

Congrats to you both on amazingly successful and proactive event. I have always had so much respect for how you all do all the right things to build be ecosystem. It is really commendable and we all entrepreneurs appreciate it so greatly. Thanks again! Valerie R Wagoner, Founder & CEO, ZipDial

This is a very unique event happening in India where in you are getting Global CIOs under one roof. I think this is god send for Indian CIO-focussed product companies like ours who want to go global. Manjunath M Gowda, CEO, i7networks

In my view, this was one of the best organized events in Bangalore in the recent past! I was quite impressed with the concept, companies that participated, their offerings, their passion and expertise etc. I have decided to buy the solutions offered by 2 of the companies for our internal use Kris Nair, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ascemdum

Thinkflow was one of the 50 companies that was chosen to be part of the first edition of InTech50 2014. It turned out to be a wonderful platform because we got an opportunity to showcase Thinkflow to a 50 global CIO’s and Intech50 gave us the opportunity to interact 101 with CIO and VC community. Conversations on the sidelines of InTech50 2014 led to multiple discussions on funding for Thinkflow and connecting with people who have helped us open conversations around sales and partnerships. Although we had a few good customers by April 2014, our selection to InTech50 and the press mentions made people take note of Thinkflow and our reach and recall with the CIO community increased substantially. For start-ups who are selling to the west, you cannot miss the InTech50 opportunity. Praveen Hari, Director – Alliances & Partnerships, ThinkFlow

When we at Whatfix decided to participate in inTech50, our initial expectations were limited to networking. But, the event turned out to be much more than that thanks to amazing participation by investors, start-ups and Fortune 500 company CIO’s. We were able to close big name clients like Procter & Gamble, iLantus and Nanobi. We are most definitely going to return every year! Khadim Bhatti, Whatfix

Thanks for organizing a wonderful event, esp, getting the top buyers in one place, is no easy task. KiSSFLOW had 5-6 inquiries and few VC interests too” Suresh Sambandam, Founder & CEO, KiSSFLOW

This year again, our Global Advisory Team has stalwarts like Ned Curic, Suren Gupta, Harmeen Mehta, Jack Pressman, Sashi Reddy, Narendra Kale and more… The startups will get an opportunity to showcase their wares to this highly selective team, giving them the opportunity to get a global footprint, right here in India.

Startups, please note – There is no application fee. 50 companies will be shortlisted by the Advisory Board comprising global and Indian CIO’s, product company heads, venture capitalists, and analysts. The selected companies will need to pay a fee of Rs. 25,000 to cover the expenses for two attendees. Only the 50 shortlisted companies will get to attend the event.

22nd February, 2016 is the deadline to submit your entry.

Apply now for the InTech50 2016, 13-14th April in Bangalore. Click here to submit your application.

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Validated: InTech50 – boosting India’s next-gen tech innovations

Did you know that India is ranked as the fourth largest startup hub in the world with over 3,100 startups? According to the economic Survey 2014-15, the startup scene has been mainly driven by ‘hyper-growth’ in the technology startup and software product landscape. Owing to some great software product innovations of late, India is no more tagged merely as a technology service provider, but is also known for its innovations. Investors and big tech giants from across the world globe are acknowledging the tech startup momentum in India, thanks to initiatives like InTech50 which have given these companies a platform to showcase their products and potential to the world.

InTech50A joint initiative of iSPIRT and Terrene Global Leadership Network, the InTech50 event was held at Bangalore on April 15th and 16th this year and received great acclaim from startups, investors and the industry in general. India’s ‘fantastic fifty’ innovative software product startups, that had made it to the finale, got a unique opportunity to interact closely with a panel of renowned CIOs/CTO’s and investors from across the globe, in this two-day action-packed event.

‘Know-it-all’ before you hit the launch pad is the mantra at InTech50 and startups are made to do their homework quite well, before they meet the CIOs. In keeping with this, when the countdown for the event was on, Mr. NRK Raman, Co-Founder of iFlex, the man behind closing the famous USD 909 million iFlex acquisition deal with Oracle back in 2005, was instrumental in helping the startups fine-tune their pitch for investors so they could derive maximum value at the event and get a POC from the investors. To further complement the effort, the Business Catalyst Program that we had launched this year, helped in generating the required traction for these startups, a crucial step in ensuring their long-term success.

Overall, InTech50 lived up to its promise of connecting the startups with investors and CIOs of global repute so they could interact and explore synergies in their operations, thereby mutually benefitting in the process. The startups managed to forge ties with the right people in every field right from funding, product marketing to sales etc., which could not have been possible otherwise in such a short time frame, that too without spending a bomb. It is now the prerogative of these startups to convert these relationships into business opportunities and prove their mettle.

Here are some testimonials from the participants this year:

“InTech50 gave our small startup the opportunity to mingle with industry leaders and titans, something that we would never have dreamt of before!” – Kiran, Tydy

“Amazing effort by the iSPIRT team! Makes it possible for Indian innovators to get direct feedback and prospects from the global markets, which would otherwise entail a substantial financial investment.” – Eashwar, Uniken

“InTech50 was a wonderful platform to meet Global CIO’s, Indian CIO’s and ecosystem enablers. We received good interest from multiple companies and thank the team for putting together a flawlessly executed event. Thank you for being a strong enabler for the Indian product ecosystem.” – Sudarshan, RippleHire

“It’s a must for all startups looking for strategic consult, marketing support and media exposure to validate ideas, scale-up business or expand into Western markets. A great place where great products meet great people.” – Sumit Goswami, KeyPoint Technologies

“InTech50 is a well organised event giving product companies a good opportunity to interact with some of the top CIOs from India and US. Some of the CIOs also spent time with us discussing about our product roadmap and how we should prioritize some features for roll out.” –  Tom, Talview

“InTech50 2015 was a super-useful event for Reverie. It helped us pitch better, position ourselves well, open business partnerships with some dream prospects, expand tech partnerships to enrich our Language Gateway, explore sales channel alliances, and above all, build some great relationships.” – Dheeraj, Reverie

Please note that we intend to continue the process of mentoring and advising the companies, even after the conclusion of the event.

Feel free to reach out to us …

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D-Day at InTech50 (2015 edition)

Finally…

Here is wishing all of you – happy pitching, selling and buying…

Today, ‘fantastic fifty’ Product Founders will showcase their solution potential, and work collaboratively with buyers, investors and partners to shape, and create a plan to take their solutions to global markets—a true sign of India’s potential in innovation.

We are satisfied to see not only the quantity, but the impressive quality of our startups this year. It was indeed a tough call to curate ‘the fifty.’  Go on people, enjoy your place under the sun.

We would like to reiterate here that we are not seasonal. Please feel free to reach out to us, whenever…

Look forward to some ‘real’ business today and tomorrow.

Cheers

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Announcing the 5th and final batch of 10 companies @InTech50 2015

Happy to announce the final and last batch of finalists (out of a total of 50) of InTech50 2015, a flagship event of iSPIRT and Terenne Global.

Congratulations to them all!

The first, second, third and fourth batch of finalists has already been announced in our previous blogs.

Here is the final list –

  • Crayon –  MAYA is a personal concierge, powered by Crayon’s SimplerChoices™ platform. SimplerChoices™ maps affinities based on taste (from review sites, social networks), influence (from social networks), context (from public data, location-based data), and behavior (from internal enterprise data) to build a massive cross-category taste graph.
  • Datonis – Altizon helps the industrial world create smart, connected products within a very short span of time and with minimum investment in infrastructure. Altizon’s flagship product the Datonis™ platform is offered in PaaS and on-premise models and is built to handle a Billion events a day from a million devices.
  • Druva in Sync – Druva’s inSync endpoint data protection and governance suite UNIQUELY integrates secure, scalable, high-performance endpoint backup, file sync across all user endpoints, remote file access, data loss prevention, IT-managed file sharing, and governance – including eDiscovery enablement – in a single platform.
  • Nifty Window – Nifty Window is a hyper-local marketing based new customer acquisition platform that helps offline brands and businesses attract consumers online. The platform uses content marketing and distribution to help brick & mortar businesses drive in-store sales across search, social media and mobile channels.
  • Nowfloats – NowFloats enables local businesses to get online, generate relevant content, and be highly discovered for online users to consumer this information in a meaningful way.Using the NowFloats platform, any enterprise whose channel is a small business, can bring the entire local channel online and drive local consumers towards that business.
  • RateGain – RevGain is an ultra sophisticated price recommendation engine for hotels. It continuously tracks over 11 big-data, environmental factors such as market supply, competitor prices, inventory levels and more to tell hotels how much they should price their rooms at.
  • RippleHire – RippleHire is a technology product that gamifies employee referrals and enables social recruiting. By empowering the best way you hire (Employee Referrals), we reduce your hiring costs & efforts. Game mechanics make the process fun, engaging and drives great results.
  • RobusTest – RobusTest is providing SAAS based Automation Solution for Web/Native/Hybrid applications. Its does not require any pre-configuration or setup. User can automate any mobile application from their browser without any scripting/coding knowledge.RobusTest also provides detailed Automation Test reports (including CPU, Memory, network and battery usage).
  • Vymo – Our vision is to help sales teams make a Million Smarter Decisions every minute. Our marquee product is a mobile first Lead Management System. Our operational analytics help in better lead prioritisation, smarter allocation, better pitches, quicker conversions and higher frontline productivity.
  • Zing HR – ZingHR is an End-to-End INTEGRATED Hire-to-Retire Management Cloud platform. You name any process, right from the time a potential talent is called for an interview, through the employee’s entire lifecycle with the organisation, till the employee moves on. Talent Acquisition, eRecruitment, Onboarding, Leave, Time & Attendance, Claims, Payroll, Compliance, Performance Management…more.

There will be no greater joy for us than to see our finalists leverage the associations they’ve built and emerge as truly global companies over the next few years, further validating the credibility of India as a ‘product nation’. That is exactly what we had set out to achieve in the first place.

Looking forward to meeting the ‘Fanastic Fifty’ at InTech50 in Bangalore.

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Announcing the top global CIO’s/CTO’s for InTech50 2015

It only gets better …

We are proud and happy to share the names of the CIO’s and CTO’s – the best that the tech world has to offer – globally.

And we will do it right here, in Bangalore.

In three weeks from now, high on our success from last year, we will again showcase carefully and diligently selected 50 tech companies from India, to a congregation of CIO’s – who have changed the tech scene in their own respective companies. Visionaries and experienced, they will interact and deep dive into what these 50 startups have to offer, thereby creating credibility for these startups through their support and validation.

Through a strict and comprehensive selection process, our eminent jury has already declared the first 20 finalists of InTech50 2015. We will announce the remaining 30 shortly.

Here is whom they can expect to interact and hobnob with during InTech50 2015 –

Encouraged by the overwhelming response from the startup community, we look forward to closely working with them and are committed give India its rightful place under the sun as a ‘product nation.’

Guest Post by Arvind Kochhar, Co-Host, InTech50

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Announcing the 3rd batch of 10 companies @InTech50 2015

InTech50 2015 (a flagship event of iSPIRT & Terenne Global) is happy to announce the third batch of 10 finalists.

Congratulations to all the following finalists…listed alphabetically. The first and second batch of 10 companies has been announced before.

InTech50

  • 42Gears – 42Gears Mobility Systems Pvt. Ltd is software company based in Bangalore, India.More than 5000 companies in 50 countries around the world use 42Gears products to increase their mobile workforce productivity, reduce costs and increase profits. Businesses in retail, manufacturing, healthcare, government, logistics, education and other industries form our customer base.
  • Aujas – Aujas helps organizations manage information security risks by protecting data, software, people and identities in alignment with best practices and compliance requirements. We also help strengthen security governance and intelligence frameworks.
  • Customer XPS – CustomerXPs is revolutionizing Sales, Marketing and Fraud Management in fortune 500 banks by harnessing the power of extreme real-time BIG DATA
  • Ideal Analytics – Helps you in free data analysis in cloud; connect to your data and explore;
  • I-exceed Technology – i-exceed is a technology products and services company. We currently operate across two major business lines, viz. products (Appzillon) and services (BFSI consulting services, Mobile Consulting Services Performance Management and Oil & Gas Technology Services). Appzillon, our flagship product, is a feature rich, agile and flexible cross-platform suite to build apps for smartphones, tablets and browsers
  • Indusface – Indusface provides organisations with a complete suite of comprehensive application security solutions to protect their web and mobile applications from online attacks and assist them in meeting the standards set by compliance regulators.
  • KPoint Technologies – kPoint Technologies offers kPoint – a cloud-based enterprise video platform – that makes your video content discoverable, mobile and social. kPoint enables organizations with a complete range of do-it-yourself tools, packaged as an integrated platform, for use of videos in the enterprise.
  • Olivo – Fully Integrated Patient Centric Care Solution
  • Uniken – Uniken provides a digital access platform REL-ID which provisions mutual trust in the digital relationships and protects digital interactions and data.
  • Zenatix – Zenatix’ mission is to empower energy consumers with data, insights and recommendations that will drive energy savings. Our solutions enable the energy consumers monitor their energy consumption pattern at various system/appliances levels, and take actions based on the recommendations driven by our energy analytics.

Watch this space, as we will announce the fourth batch shortly. Check the first batch of 10 companies and the second batch of 10 companies here. 

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Announcing the first batch of 10 companies shortlisted for @InTech50

InTech50 is a flagship event of iSPIRT & Terenne Global. It is a showcase of some of the most promising software products created by entrepreneurs from India.

The top 50 companies that will make it to InTech50 are selected by an eminent panel comprising of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) of marquee companies, VCs, and senior executives from Product companies.

These chosen 50 companies will receive advice, on-going mentoring, product marketing support, and funding to scale their offering to the global markets.

We received over 228 applications (As expected, we had a slew of applications that came in on the last day). Thanks to the efforts of our core team and jury members we have now closed the first leg of InTech50 2015 selection process.

Our eminent jury had a wonderful, but tough time in shortlisting from among the applicants the top 100 that will make it to the next round. According to a jury member – “We were thrilled with the quality of applications we saw. It was an exhilarating experience to see so many good ideas that are tryignt o shape the world for a smarter future.”

The criteria for the first phase of shortlisting were as follows:

  • Products that were already operating in the market were preferred to those at a concept / POC stage
  • Products that addressed horizontal opportunities were preferred over those that focused very deep on a vertical
  • Products that were easy to implement & use were preferred over products that needed deeper integration with enterprise systems (like ERP)
  • Solutions that could be an “add-on”/”bolt-on” to the existing eco-system

Here are the ten shortlist of our first batch(in alphabetical order)

  • Germin8′ Social Intelligence stakeholder insights and engagement platform that collects and analyses conversations in real time from public sources and private sources, and converts them into industry-specific actionable insights and leads.
  • Framebench is the easiest way to view, annotate, discuss and collaborate over any file online. Be it an presentation, a high res image or even a video.
  • Freshdesk is a full-fledged cloud based support software that lets businesses support their customers across email, phone, chat and social media.
  • Indix App and Indix API – They collect, organize, structure and analyze a huge amount of product and product related info so that businesses can use their apps and APIs to improve product search, optimize offers, better target product ads, enrich their catalog and do ad hoc analysis.
  • Qubole Data Service is a self-service platform for big data analytics that runs on the three major public clouds: Amazon AWS, Google Compute Engine and Microsoft Azure. QDS provides platorms like Hadoop, Hive. Spark and Presto as a service along with programming interfaces like SQL, Pig, Cascading, Scala and Python – all through an intuitive user interface that encourages collaboration.
  • Sapience is a patent pending software product that catalyzes a Mindful Enterprise. By combining self-quantification at work for individuals and enterprise effort analytics, Sapience enables data driven decision-making in empowering employees and management towards productivity and wellness.
  • Seclore FileSecure helps enterprise define, control and audit the use of information as it flows within and outside of the enterprise. It allows enterprises to embed security, privacy and compliance policies within information itself.
  • Talview Video Interview platform is reinventing the way screening and selection happens in the industry. They are the second largest player globally in video-mobile recruitment tools augmented with talent engagement and state of the art Hiring Analytic Technology.
  • ToneTag is a patent pending proximity tech that allows easy, frictionless and secure proximity payments using sound (Tone) or NFC (Tag). Depending upon user device and retail pos hardware, mobile application can toggle to initiate in-store purchases using sound or NFC. It works on any mobile device and no internet is required on user device at time of initiating payment.
  • Tydy – The documents we use today were built for the desktop world. Microsoft Office was launched in 1990 and not much has changed since then! PDF, PPT, XLS and others were not built for mobile consumption. Tydy is a new mobile document format. The Tydy doc harnesses the interactivity & sensors of mobile devices to create a completely new document consumption experience.”

According to Piyush Singh, co-host, InTech50, “The shortlisting process was an intellectually stimulating exercise. Am happy to see the escalation in not just the number of applications from last year, but also the quality. Jury members unanimously concurred that the software product eco-system seems to be evolving very well”

We are delighted that InTech50 has emerged as a platform that connects high-potential products to CIOs, investors, Executives from product companies and other stakeholders of the co-system from across the globe. That individuals and organizations from across the world consider InTech50 as the annual event that showcases a well curated and end-user driven platform for “Innovation for a Smarter Future” is encouraging. iSPIRT is committed to work with each of the selected companies to make a difference in their entrepreneurial journey, with support/advise/mentoring/guidance and giving their ventures a thrust as they scale up.

Do follow this space, as we will soon announce the next batch of 10 InTech50 companies. 

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In conversation with Sanjoe Jose, Founder of TalView, participant in Intech50 2014.

Talview was founded as Interview Master in 2012. Starting up as an asynchronous video interview platform, in 3 years they have grown to a full-fledged Video Interaction Platform, with use cases as varied as hiring-training, telemedicine and customer engagement. In 2014, Mayfield funded them. Today, they have more than 60 large-enterprise clients, including many Fortune 100 companies.

TalViewDo you think that product companies in India have the mettle to go global? What was your experience?

In my opinion, a company’s ability to go global is defined by vision of the team. We strongly believe that every product company in India can go global if they get the right assistance. iSPIRT is doing a good job in this regard. As a company which has successfully acquired many global clients, we try and share our experience whenever possible with aspiring product companies.

Is India geared up to be a ‘product nation?’

Today, India is a services nation and I think we should be very proud of that. Service companies have tremendous capability to provide job opportunities to millions of our youth. Having said that, product companies are also great value creators and I would like to see a right mix of both.

Why did you consider participating in InTech50?

Initially, InTech50 looked like an exciting opportunity to connect directly with the decision makers of large enterprises. The scale and focus of the event was also very interesting for us when we considered applying for Intech50.

How has getting shortlisted for InTech50 helped you?

InTech50 helped us connect with many potential clients in India and the US. Some of the largest deals we closed in 2014 had their origins in Intech50. 

What advice would you give to other emerging companies as they plan their scaling up?

I think clarity and speed are very critical in building a global company. Identify the milestones; set timelines for milestones; and ensure that you have access to the resources you would require to execute your plan to reach those milestones on time.

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InTech50 – helping software product companies connect with influential CIOs from across the world

In a recent article in ET, Mohandas Pai and I suggested that if India does not produce enough product companies, our economy will not be sustainable in the future. The data is compelling. To quote from that article, “Boeing and Airbus alone generate almost as much profit as all global airlines put together. Pfizer’s profits are more than those of the top 100 hospitals in the US. Cisco’s profits are more than those of all European mobile operators. Microsoft generates more profit than those of top 20 pureplay global IT services firms.While Indigo is a very well run airline, being a Boeing creates far larger value.”

Indian entrepreneurs and businesses can be world-scale and world-class. We have demonstrated that convincingly in services. Airtel, Jet, Indigo, Apollo Hospitals, Fortis Healthcare, TCS & Infosys, etc. are fine examples of companies that are respected across the globe. There is no reason why we cannot create world-scale and world-class product companies in India. The environment is conducive for entrepreneurs to now think ‘products.’

We created iSPIRT as a non-profit think tank with the aim of accelerating the software product eco-system in India. Since our inception in 2013, iSPIRT has focused on solving tough problems that will foster software product companies in India. Making M&A happen is one such problem. iSPIRT’s M&A Connect Program has made a big difference there. The last one-year has changed that perception of India as just a software services destination, and we have now generated early but enthusiastic interest in the international markets for our software products.

Some of that change in outlook started becoming apparent when, in January 2014, Facebook acquired Little Eye Labs, a Bangalore based startup that develops performance analysis and monitoring tools for mobile app. This was followed by Yahoo’s acquisition of Bookpad, whose document-viewing product is similar to Google Docs. The latest in the series of acquisitions is that of ZipDial (a mobile and analytics company) by Twitter. Some of these acquisitions, which got significant media attention in the startup eco-system, will hopefully encourage more entrepreneurs to think products.

Another hard problem

Another problem, which is equally hard, is to do with getting quality access to big-name CIOs in US. InTech50 address this issue. It is a one-of-a-kind forum where shortlisted software product companies get an opportunity to showcase and interact with some of the most influential CIOs from India and other parts of the world. This unique platform is a springboard that provides software product companies a connect with potential customers, investors, partners and influencers – that they would otherwise find it difficult to access, and certainly impossible to access over a 2-day period. InTech50 – a collaboration between iSPIRT and Terrene Global Leadership Network – serves as a platform for recognizing the most promising software products by entrepreneurs in India. After a thorough screening of applications, 50 innovative technology startups from the software product space are shortlisted to interact face-to-face with a panel of renowned CIOs and investors from across the globe. Through their close interaction with them, these startups gain valuable insights, which can facilitate them in scaling up globally.

The event, scheduled for April 15-16th 2015, is our 2nd edition. In our inaugural InTech50 event last year, we curated some high-potential companies. The audience of CIOs and other stakeholders took note. They now recognize that India is on the cusp of becoming a product nation.

InTech50 is the only forum of its kind where startups can get unparalled access to top global CIOs and investors, closely interact with them and showcase their products extensively with the end goal of closing deals. The best part is that CIOs from across the globe will assemble right here in India with the sole objective of finding interesting software product companies that they can engage with.

Though the applications for InTech50 are closed, if you are convinced about your product and feel that it deserves every chance to be showcased at the event, you have ONE LAST CHANCE TO APPLY by getting one of the Fellows, Founder or Product Circle Donor at iSPIRT to recommend you. (You can view the list of iSPIRT Fellows).

13897639212_c86c8c02ed_cIf you are shortlisted, do work with Mentor Panels and Business Catalysts, to prepare your pitch, and interact with our team and past participants to understand how to best leverage this unique opportunity. Take a look at our illustrious panel of Business Catalysts here.

NRK Raman, Co-Founder of iFlex (instrumental in its acquisition by Oracle for a whopping USD 909 million in 2005), is driving our effrots to help product companies sharpen their pitch and presentation.

With InTech50, you have everything you need to GO BIG, right here, on a platter – the right connections, the requisite support and everything else that you’ll need in the process.

Watch this space. India is on its way to becoming a Product Nation.

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‘Finding’ Innovation

In a highly competitive market, and one where market dynamics are changing faster than ever, innovation is the key to long-term sustainability and success. History has proven that companies that have a culture that encourages innovation stand a far better chance at sustaining their leadership position or emerging as market leaders.

1Harvey Firestone, an American businessman, and the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company once said, “Capital isn’t so important in business. Experience isn’t so important. You can get both these things. What is important is ideas. If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and there isn’t any limit to what you can do with your business and your life.”

Businesses recognize that. Most progressive businesses have put in place people, processes, resources, and investments and encourage a culture that fosters innovation.

Considering the fact that companies need to innovate faster than ever before, many companies now are also looking for absorbing innovation that is independently created outside their company. Smart companies recognize that they cannot hire all the smart people, and that smart and relevant innovation is also happening outside of their organization. Their efforts are therefore directed not just in innovating within the organization, but on engaging with innovations from outside as well.

By ‘outsourcing’ innovation, many leading companies have managed to minimize innovation costs and associated risks by as much as 60% to 90% while simultaneously reducing cycle times. In addition, they leverage tens to hundreds of times by internally investing the resultant savings. By engaging with innovators outside the organization, larger companies are able to look at a significantly larger pool of concepts and products, and thus are able to significantly reduce the cost of deploying innovative solutions and products for their businesses.

To enjoy the benefits of outsourcing innovation, the executives and the front-line should be on the lookout for the latest and most innovative technologies emerging across the globe and then figure out which ones they can leverage to derive the maximum synergy.

What is important is that you catch innovative companies’ young, i.e., when they are still in the startup or early-growth stage. Identifying and engaging with companies at an early stage has significant benefits for a large company, not just in monetary benefits, but also in being able to guide the product / concept design to best suit their own use case.

Larger companies who may not have the ability and bandwidth to scout for innovation independently can easily collaborate or partner with enablers in the entrepreneurial eco-system like accelerators, incubators, early-stage funds, and also the emerging online platforms that showcase startups and early-stage companies. Domain specific ‘hackathons’, mentoring clinics, and boot camps are some other ways in which larger companies can connect with relevant innovators.

Once the organization has identified which of these innovations fits into their scheme of things, there are 3 options before them:

  1. Acquire the company – in some situations for competitive reasons and to get a longer lead-time compared to competition it might make sense to acquire the company.
  2. Use the product – – sometimes it is worthwhile to simply use the product as an add-on or bolt on to the existing eco-system to provide a unique offering or enrichment to the existing solution.
  3. Partner with the company – This option involves jointly developing the product or innovation further, keeping in mind your specific requirement. This way, the innovation can be customized to suit your needs.

These are interesting times, particularly for software products. The pace and quality of innovation in India has gone up significantly. At iSPIRT, we have seen the quality of entrepreneurial talent, ideas and products, improve rapidly. We have quite a few global standard companies as witnessed by the global scale acquisitions, and the pace at which newer ideas are being introduced is very encouraging. It is also encouraging to note that a number of larger companies have already connected with us to get an early glimpse into innovations. The InTech50 event is a great initiative to showcase innovation to CIOs, product leaders and VC’s that provide the platform for the innovators to springboard.

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If you have a B2B Product, here are 5 reasons why you should apply for #InTech50

If you have built an B2B Product and have aspirations to take it to a global scale, here are the 5 reasons why you should apply for #InTech50.

InTech50

  1. An opportunity to showcase, get validation of the concept and product direction, better understanding of business value in the enterprise from Global CIOs.
  2. High probability of being selected by Global CIO’s for pilot or early adoption.
  3. Possibility of being selected by large product companies for add-on/bolt-on value add/partnerships to their large scale product solution sets.
  4. Potential possibility of getting investors attention due to interest/validation from Global CIO’s/large product companies.
  5. Getting selected in the elite #InTech50 list and subsequently getting a high degree of visibility from different stakeholders especially media coverage.

The possibility of all this happening without the need to travel out of country is real! This is the 1st and only platform for Enterprise products to showcase their products to Global CIOs.

Only the 50 shortlisted companies will get to attend the event. So what are you waiting for, go ahead and apply, the last date is 18th Feb 2014.

Read more details here – Announcing InTech50 for 2015

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Announcing InTech50 for 2015

Welcome to the second edition of InTech50. We’re happy to report that we achieved some spectacular results from our first edition last year and are all geared up to announce the dates for the next version of the program.

What did we achieve?

    • 39 companies had active deals in progress
    • In September alone, a 100 days after the last edition, 5 companies had closed deals
    • 19 had active deals in the pipeline

Spurred on by this success, we believe we are ready for edition two.

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So, what is InTech50?

For the uninitiated, InTech50 is a forum where 50 carefully chosen software product companies have an opportunity to interact face to face with a panel of CIOs, product leadership and venture capitalists. On conclusion of the event, these companies will receive ongoing mentoring, product marketing support and even funding to scale their operations to global markets.

Is InTech50 for me?

Yes it is, if you are a software product company that has aspirations to go global. Most importantly, you don’t need to travel abroad to seek your fortunes but rather the panel of experts comes to you in Bangalore, in India.

We want you to succeed and to that end, this program is designed to offer you all the encouragement and support possible from product strategy, UI assistance, product marketing help and so on that will enable your product to become the best in class.

The program combines prospective buyers (CIOs) who will constructively critique your offering, funders(VCs and other investors) who will tell you why they will fund your product and mentors who will offer you that timely bit of advice that will give you the extra edge.

When and where will it be held?

Intech50 will be held on April 15 and 16 @ Bangalore, India.

How much does it cost?

There is no application fee. 50 companies will be shortlisted by the Advisory Board comprising global and Indian CIO’s, product company heads, venture capitalists, and analysts. The selected companies will need to pay a fee of Rs. 25,000 to cover the expenses for two attendees. Only the 50 shortlisted companies will get to attend the event.

So what are you waiting for, go ahead and apply, the last date is 18th Feb 2015.

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Innovation and User experience are two areas where CIOs are willing to look at new things: Highlights of #InTech50 2014: Day 2

This post covers the highlights of day 2 of InTech50 2014.  The highlights of day 1 are here.

Before getting into the highlights of the pitches of the 50 companies, here are some important points from the expert talks and panel discussions.

View from the VCs:

Rob Heiman, Alok Goyal, Sandeep Singhal and Tim Goddard gave practical tips to the entrepreneurs.  Some highlights:IMG_3032

Quality of the team trumps everything else. Everything else – product, technology etc. are not as important as the team. In a startup journey, the product will change, technologies will change and pivots will happen. Hence the quality of the team is paramount to make corrections along the course.

The team has to be focused on one thing and believe in what they are doing.

VCs get tons of unsolicited mail. While they try not to miss any of them – it is better to go through a warm introduction through some common person. Otherwise, getting together will be difficult.

View from the CIOs

Chris Hjelm, Dawn Page, Jay Jayaraman, Damn Frost discussed their view of startups and what startups should consider when engaging with large enterprises.

  • Startups need to understand the business needs of the enterprises.
  • The startup’s product should solve their business problem.
  • Be relevant to their needs. For example, Mobile Security is a big pain point – and they will be very willing to anyone who has a good solution for them.
  • Don’t talk jargon to CIOs – cloud, unstructured data etc. do not excite them. That is not relevant to them. Talk to them on how you can solve their problems.
  • CIOs get tons of emails – identifying a good startup is like finding a needle in a haystack. Word of mouth is a very good medium as CIOs are very well connected with each other.
  • Be realistic about what you can and cannot do.  If a small startup promises to solve world hunger, credibility will be at risk and it can adversely affect the next steps.
  • Do your research on the CIO’s company, their technology choices and current technology investments. Most of the time, this information is freely available. Try to experience the business the CIO’s company is in and then explain to them how your solution fits into their scenario.
  • CIO’s are also looking at the business model of the startups to see if they are going to be long term players.
  • Innovation and User experience are two areas where CIOs are willing to look at new things.
  • One of the big challenges for large companies to work with small companies is scale. Usually, smaller companies do not have the resources to handle requests from a large company.
  • A good and respectable CIO has a lot of say in the company. So it is good to go through the CIO. At the same time, the business group should be excited about your solution so they can back the CIO’s decision.
  • For large companies – data is their most valuable asset. Non-essential data can be put on cloud, but the essential data has to remain on premise e.g. customer data, financial data, as that is very sensitive information.

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Rapid Fire Pitches

The 50 InTech companies chosen to present in the rapid-fire pitch were selected out of the 200 applications.  Each jury member independently scored all the applicants, and the top 50 were chosen.

The InTech50 companies are of different sizes and operate in varied domains. While some of them are leaders in their space and mentioned in Gartner’s magic quadrants, some are pre-funded startups with just a handful of customers.

Most of the companies have a global customer base.  Some of the companies have customers from more than 100 countries.

The 50 companies were categorized broadly into:

  • Experience and Engagement Management
  • HR – Recruitment, Survey, Talent Management
  • BI/Analytics/Social Analytics
  • E-Commerce
  • IT Security
  • IT Services Development

IMG_3063Each company got exactly five minutes to present their product in a rapid fire pitch. Thanks to the excellent planning and execution by Manjunath Gowda of I7 Networks, it was all smoothly executed and on-schedule.

You can learn more about these 50 companies in the InTech50 Booklet.

Awards

Five awards were given at the end of the day under the following categories.

  • Most Scalable Idea – Zipdial
  • Most Original Idea – Uniken
  • Best Value Proposition – Linguanext
  • Best Pitch – Unmetric
  • Most Popular Company – Sapience/TouchMagix

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Benefits to InTech50 Companies

In addition to the great learning from the expert talks and panel discussions, several companies got very good feedback from the CIOs on their product and many got good leads to pursue.   Overall, all the participants found InTech50 very valuable and were extremely grateful to iSPIRT for providing this platform.

Vasanth Kumar, Co-founder and COO of Sheild Square, said that  they got two “proof of concept” (POC) engagements at the conference.

Manjunath Gowda, CEO of I7 Networks also got two POCs and quite a few leads.

Satya Padmanabham from Zapstitch said he got to learn a lot from other companies as well about the different business models and it was a great exposure overall.

Varun Sharma from iViz security said they got good response from CIOs as well as other InTech50 award winning companies.   And it was a great platform to network.

Next InTech 50 is on April 15th and 16th 2015 at Bangalore.  Mark your calendars and be there!