5 new hardware startups aiming to simplify your daily life

Photo credit: tec_estromberg.

For a nation that produces more engineers than the US and China combined, technology hardware innovations in India have been abysmally low. India’s preference is lopsided towards software and services. While the government has taken up several initiatives like Make in India and Startup India campaigns to encourage entrepreneurs to develop products here, one of the main challenges for the country’s hardware startup ecosystem is a lack of testing and development infrastructure.  

When we talk about successful startups, it is always ecommerce ventures that steal the limelight. The imbalance is evident from the attention and publicity showered upon companies like Flipkart, Ola, or Snapdeal. Hardware startups, on the other hand, do not have it easy.

“From an investor’s point of view, software-based startup is preferred. Integrating and scaling up hardware requires manual intervention of engineers and requires constant updates. The product may also become obsolete in few years,” says Vani Kola, founder of one of India’s leading venture capital firms, Kalaari Capital.

There are several accelerators in India such as RevX, Forge, IoT Bangalore, and Intel Maker Lab that encourage hardware innovations, but these hardly make it to the market. Firstly, because creating a prototype is a long-drawn process, and secondly, due to the lack of funding for hardware.

To bring hardware startups to the fore, India’s IT tech body Nasscom’s 10,000 Startups initiative recently announced a new program, TechMarch 2016. It aims to build an ecosystem of smart hardware startups and prospective investors. Hardware startups will be provided with technical, marketing, and financial support, as well as leadership skills to build their applications and businesses.

A series of road shows and events were conducted across eight cities in India, including Bangalore, Hyderabad, Cochin, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Kolkata and Coimbatore. The initiative received over 300 applications.

The final seven startups pitched to a panel of judges including Kalaari Capital’s Vani Kola; Margaret Burgraff, vice president of Intel; Aveen Asrani, director at Microsoft; Uday Prabhu, head of IoT- Bosch; and Manjunath Hebbar, founder of Buoyanci. Five out of the seven startups were declared as the winners of TechMarch 2016.

Here’s a look in to the five winners that use Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud infrastructure to make your daily life a little more convenient.  

Velmenni

It works where radio frequencies are restricted; can be used for alternate internet access in conferences and summits; doesn’t require licensing, and it is free.

This startup is an answer to India’s problem of low internet speed and crammed up radio frequencies which carry the network signals of your phone network among others. Delhi-based Velmenni has built new wireless technology for high speed data transmission of up to 1 GBPS, using light. Yes, light; from your LED bulbs, street lighting, and so on. It’s called Li-Fi. Deepak Solanki and Saurabh Garg started Velmenni in January 2014. They created some demos of Li-Fi in where they sent data through a laptop screen to a hardware device. Then they created a smart LED bulb which can be controlled through a smartphone, and changes color and intensity.

In July 2014, Deepak and Saurabh received an incubation offer and seed investment from Estonian hardware accelerator Buildit. Recently, it bagged US$100,000 in funding from Kalaari Capital. A complex technology, Li-Fi is used in very few research labs in Europe, Japan, and the US.

Advantages of such a technology are that it is very secure, because the spectrum of light will not penetrate walls or a certain area, thus limiting access for hackers. The technology can be embedded in smartphones to replace WiFi. It works where radio frequencies are restricted, such as defense areas. It can be used as an alternative internet connection in conferences and summits. It doesn’t require licensing, and it is free.

The team is also creating an in-flight entertainment system for smaller aircraft, which doesn’t have screens for individual seats. A small device can be connected to smartphones and laptops, receiving data through light.

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