Indian Start-ups helping in fighting COVID
May 2021
Bayslope Business Solutions
Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
INTRODUCTION The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS - CoV2), commonly known as COVID-19, is a deadly respiratory and vascular disease affecting not only an individual’s health but the country’s economy as well. Starting with a mere figure of 6,000 confirmed cases worldwide in the month of January 2020, we, currently have a whopping 150 million confirmed cases (by April 2021). Out of these, India accounts for around 18 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. With no signs of the pandemic abating, humans are trying to find solutions to multiple problems posed by COVID-19. However, the phrase, “precaution is better than cure” seems to be a double-edged sword; helping control the pandemic but gravely hindering economic growth and stability. To handle this delicate situation of balancing the favorable and unfavorable conditions posed by the primary objective of containing the virus outbreak, several start-ups project and portray, a promising and sustainable future. While in our previous report, we focused on companies that are using Artificial Intelligence in fighting against the coronavirus, in this report we specifically focus on Indian Start-ups that have helped the nation to sail through this crisis so far. It will not be wrong to say that these startups are the tiny shimmers of light at the end of the tunnel.
Picture Credits - Shutterstock
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Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
WHO IS A START-UP IN INDIA? With millions of businesses growing globally, it is imperative to have an exact definition of a start-up. This makes sure to provide support through Government Schemes to growing businesses that need assistance and support. The Indian government defines a start-up as – “Startup means an entity, which is registered in India, not over seven years, and the annual turnover not exceeding Rs.25 crore in any financial year. It is an entity which works towards innovation, development, deployment or commercialization of new products and services driven by technology or intellectual property.” Source: click here
Globally, India holds the 3rd place when it comes to the number of unicorn start-ups in one country. United States and China hold the 1st and 2nd position, respectively. Even though the Indian start-up ecosystem has a long way to go before it overtakes the other two countries’, the amount of funds the Indian Startups are raising is increasing day by day. For instance, Indian start-ups, in 2019, raised 14.5 billion dollars from investors.
Indian Start-ups Contributing to curb Pandemic Starting the very beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Indian start-ups were preparing a protective net for India. From Crowd Management to Conversational AI used as a chatbot, Large Area Sanitization to Geofencing, PPE to Critical Care types of equipment, all are on the road to progress and development pushed mostly by start-ups. These start-up companies are driven by immense potential, that they have, to fight COVID-19 and stabilize the economy of the nation.
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Because of this POTENTIAL, these companies are helping India survive global recession and economic instability. In this current report, cumulative research has been presented about different Indian start-ups and how they are helping the nation in fighting COVID-19. A brief about the prominent startup companies is included, to shed light on how they are easing the COVID-19 effects.
Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
Globally, India holds rd the 3 place when it comes to the number of unicorn start-ups in one country.
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Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
Start-ups Rising in COVID Times AgVa HEALTHCARE AgVa is a company who has built a low-cost portable ventilator that allows its patients to stay at home while being on ventilator. The device uses a simple technology where your mobile phone can act as a ventilator. Most of the available portable ventilators are costly, bulky, requires a technical person for operation of the device. This company has made a ventilator that runs on an androidphone so that anyone can use it. Moreover, the entire set up is less than 3kgs that makes the device a good choice over other portable ventilators. The ventilator also does not require compressed medical air and directly extracts and supplies oxygen from surrounding air.
NOCCA ROBOTICS Founded in 2017, Noccarc is an incubatee company of SIIC IIT Kanpur that provides MedTech products. The company announced to provide an ICU ventilator at low margins making the ventilator available for every tier of the society. The product Noccarc V310 ICU ventilator provides an advanced, compact yet reliable ICU ventilation solution. The Noccarc V310 is IOT enabled system and allows central data monitoring and logging remotely. This makes the Noccarc V310 an accessible and easy to manage option for the health professionals in the current case of Covid-19 pandemic.
Courtesy – AgVa Healthcare
Courtesy – Nocca Robotics
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Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
organized by the Ministry of Defense and subsequently received funding of INR 3 crore. This startup is also working to create a DIY kit for manufacturing ventilators which can be sent to Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs) all across the country.
INN ACCEL Technologies InnAccel, a Bengaluru-based health company, has made a CPAP device to help patients with breathing problems, which comes at one-fourth the cost of a ventilator. The company launched SAANS PRO, a noninvasive ventilator, developed in response to COVID-19, and can be used with a proprietary Helmet Interface to prevent the spread of the virus, reducing viral load in the surroundings and protecting the medical staff.
ETHEREAL MACHINES India has a mere 50 thousand ventilators to meet the needs of 1.3 billion people. To meet the increasing demands of the ventilators during the pandemic, Ethereal Machines was provided with funding of INR 50 Lakh by the Action COVID-19 Team, India. This Bengaluru-based startup provides a ventilator splitter uniquely designed for managing two patients with varying needs via differential pressure splitting.
Courtesy – InnAccel Technologies
Courtesy – Ethernal Machines
BIG BANG BOOM SOLUTIONS This Chennai based defense start-up has developed remotely operated ventilators. This Start-up helps the medical fraternity to remotely monitor the condition of their patients. BBBS has won 2 index challenges
HELYXON This Chennai-based healthcare start-up, situated in IIT Madras’s Research Park was honored with the Covid Champion award by CII Tamil Nadu for its effort in fighting
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Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
against COVID. Helyxon’ s OXY2 is a wireless patient monitoring device that does continuous monitoring of temperature, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, and heart rate.
Courtesy – Mediotek Health Systems
HEAMAC HEALTHCARE This IIT-H incubated startup has developed a tracking wristband called CoWatch with features like prevention, monitoring, tracking, and alerting. It detects the suspects with the symptoms of COVID-19 by monitoring their vital parameters. Besides, it helps the doctors and healthcare workers to monitor the health conditions of the quarantined patients and also of the selfquarantined people to take immediate action. It motivates people to follow social distancing by giving individual reward points for maintaining social distancing and also alerts them if they are close to any others
Courtesy – Helyxon
MEDIOTEK HEALTH SYSTEMS The company built VinCense Digital Health – a Screening/Monitoring Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) Platform (patent pending) built around India's first clinical-grade wearable with detachable straps is capable of measuring pulse rate, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, and skin temperature in just 10 seconds and is the perfect tool for active surveillance. Besides, public health officials and healthcare professionals have access to live actionable data which enables them to make quick decisions to save lives.
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INTUGINE Founded in 2013, by 3 students of IIT Kharagpur, Intugine has provided a method for social distancing and monitoring of individuals. To contain the coronavirus outbreak, Bengaluru-based startup Intugine Technologies is helping government officials to monitor a large number of home 7
Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
quarantined individuals and ensure that they follow social distancing. Interestingly, the solution can work without installing any application, which makes it very effective and easy to implement. It uses SMS-based user consent to initiate the track. With their location intelligence platform, they are enabling authorities to monitor thousands of quarantined people at once, in an effective, least intrusive, and scalable manner.
TECHNOTRONICS GLOBAL
STAQU Staqu’s flagship product is JARVIS, an AI warden that monitors CCTVs in prisons. They modified their technology by making the cameras capable of detecting people who did not wear masks or other PPE equipment. Staqu’s solutions also work in places like temporary hospitals where there are no CCTV cameras and instead of using mobile phone cameras. The Gurgaon-based start-up has also launched an AI-Powered thermal camera for COVID-19 detection.
OXYGARDEN INDIA OxyGarden has developed FOREST- India’s first Air Sanitizer which purifies and humidifies indoor air naturally. They have developed a technology that induces controlled photosynthesis in plants with the help of automated airflows and artificial light sources. They are currently producing 25 units per day as per the data from Startup India
SECURITY SOLUTION PVT LTD Since its inception in 2011, this startup has made their own low cost, intelligent, highly efficient rapid screening, and data gathering technology. Some of its features are- it uses an AI Machine learning - Alert system, tracks the movement of suspects, infected, quarantine and backtracks, low-cost and live monitoring, and GEO fencing.
VIROBLITZ SOLUTIONS PVT LTD "Viroblitz" is an Air Sterilizer that enables disinfecting our environment in an ecofriendly manner. The company uses Low Energy Cascade Oxidation (LECO) process to sterilize the air. This does not need chemicals or HEPA filters or UV for sterilizing the air. Therefore, "the dream of a germ-free and odor-free hospital/home environment can be made a reality by using this technology".
Courtesy – Staqu www.bayslope.com
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Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
towards tackling this serious issue of fake news. This start-up found in Mumbai by Anushree Bishnoi uses Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, and Machine Learning to bring the truth forward. INKERS TECHNOLOGY PRIVATE LIMITED InkVision can track millions of people through their faces. The system can also identify emotional or distress state. InkVision can implement contactless entry for doctors, patients, and other alike. It can also calculate the "interaction" metric between a given set of people.
Courtesy – Viroblitz Solutions
CARDIAC DESIGN LABS This Bengaluru startup has developed a device to monitor multiple COVID-19 patients simultaneously. Cardiac Design Labs has developed ‘Telemetric Patient Monitoring System’ to help healthcare workers monitor multiple patients simultaneously from a central location. Anand Madanagopal, CEO of Cardiac lab explains, “The system has wearable devices, which are put onto the chest of the patient. The data collected is then shared with the nursing station, which can be located out of the COVID-19 wards. It also has algorithms to alert the healthcare professionals if something goes wrong with any particular patient,” Anand explains. “The data can also be accessed by senior specialists through a mobile app, thereby reducing the need for nurses and doctors to go around the wards.”, in a conversation with YourStory.
RISES Rises aims at providing AI solutions to the world. The “Treatment Response Assessment & Predictions” (TRAP) powered by the rises.AI platform, acts as an assistant for medical professionals. It facilitates instantaneous indicative diagnosis, in chronic and critical care. The algorithms analyze data like X Rays, CT Scans & MRIs, and build correlations with patient data including various pathology tests. The technology is extended and calibrated to specific viral pneumonia in general and COVID-19 in specific. It tracks patients’ progress during subsequent visits to generate an automated assessment of patient response and disease progression. The differential analysis provided by Rises TRAP plays a crucial role in customized treatment.
UNFOUND Fake news, especially in case of a pandemic, can spread like a wild forest fire. This can cause an unnecessary commotion and might prove to be a threat to national peace and security. Unfound is a Start-up working www.bayslope.com
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Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
DETECT TECHNOLOGIES This start-up assists in crowd management. An intelligent drone, called Noctua M, for reliable inspection of assets- is a first of its kind truly automated drone and is an effective solution to monitor large and dynamic crowds. Noctua M comprises of the visual camera and smart megaphone and helps in the live monitoring of people. It also uses GIS mapping which is being exploited extensively to fight the pandemic.
BIZONGO Bizongo is a digital supply chain platform for packaging auto-replenishment. This platform, co-founded by three IITians in 2015, is helping in fighting COVID-19 by providing ready to ship bulk orders of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) across the country. They have already delivered around 860 million packaging units all over India till Jan 2021.
COROVER In collaboration with Fortis Healthcare, Corover develops an innovative AI-based VideoBot to answer any question related to COVID-19 disease transmission and contagion control supported with multilingual voice and text formats. This start-up was initiated by Ankush Sabharwal in the year 2016. CoRover’s AskDoc is the world’s first-ever AI doctor and is in coherence with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines and also the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. The authentication is assigned to physician Dr. Pratik Yashavant Patil, who specializes in infectious diseases in the Fortis Hospital.
MAYURA ANALYTICAL LLP This start-up is testing its hand in the production of Ozone gas to kill the SARSCOVID19. As already known, Ozone gas has been proven to kill the SARS coronavirus earlier. Since the structure of the new 2019nCoV coronavirus is almost identical to that of the SARS coronavirus, it is relatively safe to say that it will also work on the new coronavirus. This could be a cost-effective large scale sanitizing process for industries, homes, public spaces with multiple applications for surfaces, indoor-air, and even water. as it does not need anything.
Courtesy – Mayura Analytical www.bayslope.com
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Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
Courtesy – Corover
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Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
Indian startups recorded over $11.5 Bn in funding in 2020, with deal count 14% higher than in 2019
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Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
Conclusion COVID-19 has shaken our lives to the core. Efforts are being made, globally, to tackle different problems faced due to the novel coronavirus. One such dimension which has proved to be productive and helpful in these desperate times is the Start-Up fraternity. Despite being hit hard by the pandemic, Start-Ups are playing a critical role in fighting these tiny groups of viruses. Now, when a second wave has hit the country, where we have vaccines but do not have enough medical resources to accommodate the needs of COVID positive patients, start-ups are the tiny shimmers of light at the end of the tunnel that are going to lead the race by innovating products and solutions that can help us defeat this deadly virus. Researchers across PAN India must embrace the challenge of upgrading existing technologies and devices to build a new device/solution that can relieve the burden of pandemic on our medical system. On date we have ever increasing number of COVID cases in India, but there is a hope that we will soon have more innovations that can help us defeat this virus.
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Indian Start-ups during COVID Times
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