On 3 July 2020, NASSCOM, IT industry body, announced the 17 start-ups chosen for the DeepTech Club under the fourth cohort.
NASSCOM is a not-for-profit industry body. It focuses on building the architecture integral to the development of the IT BPM sector.
The four-month-long program by which they will receive guidance and access to enterprise connect sessions has selected 17 start-ups.
The programme will also help them get identified, recognised and funded by NASSCOM through various events and platforms. In addition, it will also promote world-class DeepTech companies. Devnagri, Exxar and Stylumia Intelligence Technology are a few of the start-ups chosen under the fourth cohort.
There has been a rapid increase in funding of deep tech start-ups in India as investors’ interest in niche products and platforms has increased significantly. There were over 1,600 DeepTech companies in India in 2019.
The fourth cohort
According to NASSCOM, technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), internet of things (IoT), blockchain, and virtual reality (VR) are leading the start-up space. These start-ups attract investors’ interest and activity. Therefore, under the fourth cohort, a lot of the start-ups are working on areas like AI, natural language processing, computer vision, immersive technologies, IoT and quantum computing. Products that can be implemented in various industries including healthcare, manufacturing, cybersecurity, public safety, e-Governance etc have been built.
Debjani Ghosh, the president of NASSCOM, said, “Prowess in deep tech and artificial intelligence will be one of the main drivers of economic competitiveness in the near future.”
NASSCOM believes the deep-tech start-ups chosen will drive innovation and spearhead the broad structural transformation of the economy. She also said that it was heartening to see Indian start-ups continue to prove their resilience by developing innovative solutions. These solutions contribute to helping society cope up with the pandemic on a daily basis.
Therefore, NASSCOM aims to ensure the growth trajectory of the start-up ecosystem is not derailed. NASSCOM believes in providing them with coordinated support from all stakeholders.
