Bangalore accelerators show a new love for enterprise-focused startups. Here’s the latest batch.

Startup founders and mentors of Axilor’s summer 2017 accelerator batch. Photo credit: Axilor.

Indian IT services giant Infosys has been in the doldrums lately: its results are below par, Trump’s crackdown on visas for tech workers has put a crimp, and its retired founders have been questioning a fall in values.

But an accelerator for startups started by Infosys founders Kris Gopalakrishnan and S D Shibulal along with Srinath Batni and Ganapathy Venugopal, who held senior positions at the Indian IT giant, and Harvard Business School professor Tarun Khanna, is scaling up in Bangalore. Axilor’s summer batch has 20 startups – the largest for any accelerator cohort in India. Software product startups comprise 80 percent of the cohort, showing the winds of change in India from outsourcing of services to innovation. What’s lacking in the ecosystem are sufficient support structures to see startups through the valley of death, and that’s where institutions like Axilor come in.

The institutional capacity to support early stage startups in India is low.

“The institutional capacity to support early stage startups in India is quite low – whether it is structured programs to improve their odds of success, the market access that they need in their early days, or the angel investment capacity. By doubling the capacity of this batch to 20 startups, we have taken another step to bridge these gaps,” says Axilor co-founder and CEO Ganapathy Venugopal.

See: Infosys’ founder: this winter will ‘separate men from boys’

Axilor’s mentors try to balance the nimbleness and agility of startups with the systems and process expertise drawn from their long experience in one of the world’s biggest IT companies. They also have deep connections in global tech enterprises, which are potential clients or partners for the startups.

Axilor provides equity-free support during the 100-day accelerator, but also makes available early funding of INR 2.5 million (US$38,750) in exchange for equity to those startups that need it, provided they meet targets. A further INR 5 million (US$77,500) is offered after the program to those startups that require funds for scaling. Finally, the ones that demonstrate a market fit qualify for early-stage funding of US$100,000 to US$500,000.

Half of the startups in the present cohort aim to serve enterprise clients, in sync with the current rethink about the consumer internet space in India which may take longer to develop than earlier assumed. Recently, the Microsoft accelerator in Bangalore inducted 14 startups and all of them had an enterprise focus.

See: Meet the 14 startups Microsoft accelerator picked to get them enterprise-ready

Here’s a look at the startups chosen for Axilor’s summer batch, domain-wise:

Artificial intelligence / machine learning

Niramai

Healthcare startup Niramai uses machine learning on thermal images to provide breast cancer screening remotely at lower cost. Traditional mammography requires expensive equipment and experienced radiographers. Niramai uses a device that can take high resolution thermal images and cloud-based analytics of the images to provide the screening.

Orbuculum

Enterprise-focused

Fintech

Healthtech

Consumer internet