Meet the 5 Indian startups that just won a ticket to Canada

Zone Startups India, a joint venture of Toronto-based Ryerson Futures Inc. and the Bombay Stock Exchange Institute, today picked five Indian startups for its accelerator program. They will be incubated in the Digital Media Zone (DMZ) of Ryerson University in Canada, which is ranked fifth in the world by the University Business Incubator Index.

Zone Startups picked the five startups in a contest involving over 300 startups. Two of the winners are from Bangalore – Lightmetrics and Plackal – two from Delhi – Neuron and Swift File Transfer – and the fifth one, Surveylytics, is from Thane, a satellite town of Mumbai, where Zone Startups India is based.

The main criterion for selection was the potential of the business to go global. The selected startups can leverage their presence in Canada for launch and expansion into North America. “It’s an opportunity for Indian startups to experience the North American market first hand and develop valuable connections,” says Jens Michael Schaal, commercial counsellor in Delhi for the state of Ontario, Canada.

Here’s a look at the 5 startups going to Canada:

Lightmetrics

Bangalore-based Lightmetrics is developing a smartphone-based tool to gather data on driving behavior – from swerves and hard stops to trip route and direction. This can be analyzed for fleets or insurers, as well as used for improvement in driving and reducing risk of accidents. “We are very lucky to receive global exposure, from technical expertise to mentorship, all at one place,” says Krishna AG, founder of Lightmetrics, on its selection for incubation in Canada. Krishna was earlier a researcher for Nokia in image processing and pattern recognition.

Plackal

The second startup from Bangalore to win a ticket to Canada, Plackal, is developing a range of consumer-oriented mobile apps. The first of these is Love Cycles, a reproductive health app that tracks pregnancy as well as monthly cycles for women. This has already gained traction worldwide. The startup’s founder John Paul is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore.

Neuron

Delhi-based Neuron is a data analytics firm promising to help ecommerce sites as well as large enterprises target their consumers better. It was earlier incubated at TLabs, where it received US$20,000 in seed funding, to which the founders added US$30,000. The pay-as-you-go model has already broken even with its current clients.

Swift File Transfer

The second startup from Delhi, Swift File Transfer, claims to help transfer files at 50 times the speed of Bluetooth. It requires no sign-up or pairing between devices, and also works without network connectivity. This was the winner of an Intel app challenge earlier.

Surveylytics

Thane-based Surveylytics is a digital market research platform. It has a number of templates to make it easy to deploy online or mobile surveys. Geo-location, timestamp, and real-time results are among its features. Founder and CEO Mandar Vaidya says he is looking forward to what the international startup community has to offer at DMZ in Canada.

Is Canada a great launch pad to the North American market? And do any of these startups catch your fancy? Drop us a line below.

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