15 HOTTEST Indian start-ups

A glimpse into 15 most promising start-ups from India selected by Proto.in in association with Sequoia Capital and BSE Small and Medium Enterprises Exchange. These start-ups were selected on the basis of the people behind them, the impact of their products in solving real world problems, the future potential of the product in terms of market size, the scalability of the start-up, business model, execution and wow factor.

Proto.in is a support platform for the Indian start-up community and these start-ups have been picked up after sifting through 101 entries. Here are the hottest 15...

Company Name: Business Intelligenze

Product Name: Jumbo Analyze

Founder: Rahul Sethi

Location: Delhi

Incorporation Year: 2010
Stage of Funding: Pre-funding
Revenue Situation: Prototype

Product Summary: Jumbo Analyse is the proven technique for achieving a significant business impact in BPO -- from enhancing the top line to discovering new ways to reduce bottom line; from trend analysis to customer retention: from revenues to expenses: from analytics on.

Market Need: The BPO industry is an extremely unstructured one with a large number of data points. Jumbo Analayze seeks to use these data- points and save costs and times for BPO's.

Target Market: BPO Sector

We are at Proto.in for:  Funding, products validation.

Company Name: Membrane Filters

Product Name: Purioin FnP

Founders: Subhash Devi, Arif Fulari, Bhushan Acharya

Location: Pune

Incorporation Year:  2010

Stage of Funding:  Pre Funding

Revenue Situation: Making revenues.

Product Summary: Product specifications

• UF Membrane based five stage water filtration system UF Membrane 5* 2 and interconnected with CPVC food grade tubing 20>1 micro multipurpose pre filter in big Blue Housing Silver impregnated post carbon in 10" Housing, all in pre coated GI sheet lockable box mounted on anti vibrating mounting Filtration capacity 1500 LPH.
• Pressure filter for removal of large particulate with three way special valve having arrangements for rinsing, drain, through flow.
• Water softer for removing temporary hardness with three way special valve arrangements.
• AISI 304, Stainless steel storage  tank storage capacity 500 liters with sanitary finish outlet valve 25mm ball valve tank mounted on steel  frame and anti vibrating mounting.
• Centrifugal Pump 1"*1", 1 HP directly coupled to PTO shaft drive of the three wheeler auto with chain drive and runs when vehicle with PTO shaft drive for running the pump.

Market need: Jaldoot can be used in remote area, waters scarcity areas, it can deliver 100% virus problem both a lack of electricity and lack of mobility in rural India.

Target Market: India's Agriculture Sector

We are at Proto.in for:  Funding.

Company Name: EFarm

Product Name: EFarm Direct

Founder: Venkat

Location: Chennai

Incorporation Year:  2009

Stage of Funding:  Seed invested by Mumbai Angels

Revenue Situation:   Making revenues.

Product Summary: Efarm is an innovative start-up based in Chennai which is both online and offline presence. We; physically work with farmers help market produces to key B2B buyers in city and have built the most sophisticated but yet simple to use technology  platform to manage entire agri supply chain. The efarm direct platform has farmers supply data, purchase order/sales order data, logistics, mobile based front end apps, and local language POS for shop fronts.

Market Need: Though there has been several innovative products / solutions  of IT in various industries, strangely India's largest industry -- Agriculture -- still runs predominantly on paper and pencil! Lack of data, low literacy of primary users have been key challengers for technology adoption.

Target Market: India's Agriculture Sector

We are at Proto.in for:  Series a round of funding.

Company Name: Fetise Retail Pvt. Ltd.

Product Name: Fetise.com

Founder: Abhishek Shah

Location: Mumbai

Incorporation Year:  2011

Stage of Funding:  Seed Capital (Angels and early stage Vcs)

Revenue Situation: Having revenues, but not profitable yet.

Team Size: 30

Product Summary: Welcome to Fetise.com, India's premier online designer outlet dedicated to men. Our mission is to make men's online shopping experience secure, fun, convenient, low-cost, and most importantly hassel-free!

Fetise.com is an exclusive 'by invitation only' club that offers its members that best seasonal fashion finds with an exclusive collection of clothing shoes and accessories from the most prestigious international brands. We have a network of buyers from around the world to bring you the best labels at reduced prices. We've done the bargain hunting for you so that you enjoy upto 80% on retail prices on all high-end fashion brands through limited time based events.

Fetise comes from Fetish -- an extreme craving.

Market need: International Luxury and Fashion brands at affordable prices and home dilevery!

Target Market: Indian males

Revenue Model: Margins on sales

We are at Proto.in for:  To network within the start-up ecosystem.

Company Name: Techno purple IT Solutions Pvt Ltd

Product Name: TechnoPurple Asset Tracking

Founder: Amit Jain

Location: Mumbai

Incorporation Year:  2010

Stage of Funding:  Personal, Friends and Family Funds

Revenue Situation:  Having Revenues, but not profitable

Team size:   20

Product Summary:  Just imagine a world where every movable asset communicates with us 24/7 via web /SMS! echno Purple's award winning Asset Tracking Application makes this dream a reality with live, accurate and proactive monitoring using the widest range of GPS tracking devices.

From the world's most compact tracker to the most rugged one, we have it all. We ensure safety and optimum utilization of all resources by application customization for user defined alerts.

Market need: India is unpredictable and this unpredictability offers reasons to fear about. Car Theft, Kidnapping, Accidents, Traffic Snarls no longer make news. Just in a city like Mumbai, on an average 5000 Vehicles get stolen each year and the recovery rate is meager 20%. People are concerned about the safety and security of their assets be it kids or cars and a technology which offers proactive location based monitoring is need of the hour.

Target Market:  India has one of the fastest growing automotive industries in the world having sales of over 3 million new vehicles just in FY 2010-11.

Rising concerns about vehicle theft and misuse has opened a huge opportunity in vehicle tracking space. In corporate sector too, vehicle tracking can help companies in optimizing the utilszation of their fleet and keep customers informed about shipments. Government source to desired destination.

As crime against kids is on the rise, parents are increasing concerned about safety of their kids. In case of emergency, at the press of SOS button on GPS Personal Tracker, kids can send their location to parents.

Revenue Model:  Vehicle Tracking Services for individual car owners, transport companies, security, infrastructure, school, hospitals. Personal Tracking Services for kids' safety and safety of the elderly, safety of baggage and pet tracking.

We are at Proto.in for:  Techno Purple wishes to showcase its innovative Asset Tracking service portfolio to corporates and investors. Also it is a big opportunity to collaborate with other Start-Ups and increase the reach as well as spectrum of services. We feel Proto.in can help us attract talented guys to our top management too.

Company Name: nextLeap Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Product Name: nextLeap

Founder: Suruchi Wagh

Location: Pune

Incorporation Year:  2010

Stage of Funding:  Personal, Friends and Family Funds

Revenue Situation:  Having Revenues, but not profitable

Team size:   9

Product Summary:  nextLeap is a recommendation engine which acts as a virtual career counselor to help students make smarter career decisions. It involves a suite of applications, which use psychometric evaluations and math models on past admission patterns, to give out personalized suggestions. Applications like University Suggestor and College

Suggestor help students increase their chances of admissions into colleges and Branch Suggestor helps students choose stream of study.

Market need: Students often make uninformed decision based on peer pressure and limited anecdotal information. The virtual counselor helps students make smarter career decisions based on analysis of past admission data; thus increasing their chances of admission into desired colleges and streams.

Target Market:  The target audience consists of several million students which vary from high school students to graduates and young professionals.

Revenue Model:  nextLeap makes money on a freemium model, where the basic recommendations are free and advanced suggestions are paid for by students.

We are at Proto.in for:  To share our learning of building a good product and connecting with like-minded people.

Company Name: moneysights.com (RUPEESTREET Financial Services Pvt. Ltd.)

Product Name: Moneysights.com

Founders: Santosh Navlani and Mukesh Kalra

Location: Bangalore

Incorporation Year:  2010

Stage of Funding:  Seed Capital (Angels and early stage VCs)

Revenue Situation: No Revenues as yet

Team Size: 10

Product Summary: Most people find investments complex, boring and stressful. Moneysights is here to make investing simple!

Market Need: Money sights are solving key consumer problems at pre-buying, buying and post-buying stage when it comes to making investments.

Target Market: Internet savvy "working" youth with an annual income of less than Rs. 12 lakhs per annum.

Revenue Model: Should a money sights user choose to invest from moneysights.com in any scheme, moneysights is entitled to a commissions.

We are at Proto.in for: We are here to showcase what would be known as one of India's best Product- internet companies. Our objective is reach out to start-up enthusiasts, early adopters of consumer internate products and create buzz as one of the hottest internate start-ups!focused consumer.

Company Name: i2V

Product Name: i2V Systems Pvt. Ltd.

Founder: Sumit Aggarwal

Location: Gurgaon

Incorporation Year:  2010

Stage of Funding:  Only Personal fund

Revenue Situation:   Having revenues, but not profitable

Team Size:   7

Product Summary: i2V is a Intelligent Integrated video security software with Video Management System, built-in video Analytics options to integrate third-party devices and/or applications. I2V is designs to be a pro active Surveillance solution by dding Intelligence to Surveillance solution to Detect Events from different devices and to take actions thought different devices.

Market need: Problems with currently Prevalent human guard and CCTV surveillance: Current CCTV surveillance is totally PASSIVE -- Still continues human monitoring of live video feed is needed -- Often leads to human fatigue and restlessness -- No real Time event alerts and alarms -- when abnormal event is detected, later manual actions are needed like making emergency Phone calls, Sending Sms, emails -- costly installation and maintenance -- Lack of integrated solutions with other security devices -- Majorly dependent on physical cable technology for data transfer which makes it difficult to expand the security and surveillance to large geographical areas.

Target Market: i2V is aimed at providing security solutions to following sectors:  Public security Sector : City Surveillance, defense and Border Survillance, Nuclear power plants, Coastal Security, museums, National highways for traffic management, Govt offices  Industrial security sector: large Machinery Industries, Assembly Line surveillance, Hotels, banks, Schools. Retail security sector: Point of sales (POS) surveillance, shopping mall, Super markets, Homeland Security sector: Low cost integrated solution for homes

Revenue Model: We have opted a mixed revenue module by by building a global distribution partner Network with companies who will serve as following players:

• Premium Distributors
• Value added resellers 
• System integrators
• Solution Partners

Company Name: Artoo IT Solutions Pvt Ltd

Product Name: Artoo Slate

Founder: Sameer Segal

Location: Bangalore

Incorporation Year:  2010

Stage of Funding:  Personal, Friends and Family friends

Revenue Situation:   No revenues yet

Team Size:   6

Product Summary: Artoo Slate is a software solution that tries to remove paper from any field intensive industry like Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and Rural Healthcare. It captures rich data from the field, dose away with the back and forth of paper, avoids innumerable delays and drastically reduces expenses. Our framework enables field agents to operate remotely and helps distributed enterprises to centralize their operations. It is an intuitive interface that has been designed keeping in mind the field staff's limited educational training and exposure to technology.

Market Need: If you try to pitch to a Microfinance borrower a marginally lower interest rate product, they are most likely to ask you return "That's ok, but, how quickly can you get me my loan?"  We are trying to removing the inefficiencies in field processes by talking the entire process online. We have validated through a pilot with Ujjivan Financial service pvt. Ltd that we can increase productivity by 35%, save them INR 74.4 Crore annually and reduce Turn-Around Time on loans to 2 days.

Target Market: Based on our pilot with Ujjivan Financial services Pvt Ltd, we can save the Indian Microfinance industry at list US $ 2.3 Billion in 2015. Our technology is not only portable across geographies and but could also be used in other industry verticals very easily.

Revenue Model: We have a volume based subscription fee (per field agent per month), which works out to less than 10% of the field agent cost. This fee covers hosting and basic customization while the enterprises can choose any Android enale device.

Company Name: Nuru Energy Private Limited

Product Name: Nuru Portable On Demand (POD) Light and Nuru POWERCycle

Founder: Deepak Punwani

Location: Mumbai

Incorporation Year:  2010

Stage of Funding:  Personal, Friends and Family friends

Revenue Situation:   No revenues yet

Team Size:  5

Product Summary: Nuru Energy has designed the world's first commercially available pedal generator (patent pending) to charge low energy devices including LED based lights and mobile phones. These lights (called Portable On Demand POD lights) can be charged through 20 minutes of easy pedaling. The lights can be charged '"5 at oce" on the pedal generator and modular nature (patent pending) of the lights allows a rural houseshold to buy light in increments thus reducing upfront cost.

Market Need: 90% of rural households in our target market use Kerosene as a fuel for light. Kerosene is uneconomical dangerous and environmentally unfriendly. Other solutions are either expensive or ineffective in long run. We solve the pain of the rural consumers by offering optimum light at low cost.

Target Market: Our total addressable market consists of grid villages and all other areas that receive less than 4-6 hours of grid electricity per day. The total market that we can reach is around 35 million households in rural and semi urban India.

Revenue Model: Nuru makes money from sale of lights. There is healthy margin in the value chain for us and distribution partners. We also make some revenue every time a light comes back for recharge as we collect small charge for recharging the lights. Monetizing carbon credits is another revenue source.

We are at Proto.in for:  Showcasing our product, team and Go to market modle. We will love to connect with lik minded partners who are passionate about sloving the problem of energy deficiency in India.

Company Name: Syndeon Technologies

Product Name: FieldEZ

Founder: Balasubramanyam Mohan

Location: Bangalore

Incorporation Year:  2011

Stage of Funding: Personal, Friends and Family Funds

Revenue Situation: Having Revenues, but not profitable

Team Size: 6

Product Summary: FieldEZ is mobile based solution  that makes managing field Sales service team very efficient and easy. It enables call Scheduling, location tracking, on mobile call update &  Clouser and remote attendance. FieldEZ thus ensures maximum productivity and effective deployment of field  Personnel,while providing reliable field data to management Starting at Rs.49/ 1$ per user per month subscription, Organization of any size anywhere can adopt the solution with minimum spend and effort.

Market Need: Large organization , even with CRM, suffer from inaccurate field data and turn to expensive Medium  to small organisation find a dearth of low cost solution to Manage field staff customer service. Our product is low price easy to use, feature rich and supports low-end devices.

Target Market: Verticals, across the globe, where field organization form A big part of the business Engineering, Construction, Office Equipmnt, Hospitality, Utilities, BFSI, Consumer  Durables, Pharma, FMCG & Retail. Start with  Undreserved Indian Service Industry (160 million  Workforce), followed by US (90 million), UK   (25 million), APAC and EMEA.

Revenue Model: Primary Source of  Revenue : Subscription to our  On-Demand Service. Secondary  Sources : ProfessionalsServices, Bolt-On / premium solutions, Partner  Refferal  Fees from phone providers and Telcos. Future streams of Revenue could include "Ntework" fees charged to Service Providers to be a part of our Service network.

We are at Proto.in for: Great launch-pad into the startup ecosystem in India.Good platform to validate what we are doing as a business.Meet like minded, passionate people and lasting relationships!

Company Name: XLabz Technologies

Product Name: GeoSocials

Founder: Krishna Prathab R V

Location: Pondicherry

Incorporation Year:  2010

Stage of Funding:  Only personal funds

Revenue Situation: No revenues yet

Team Size: 5

Product Summary: Geosocials is a hyper-local, locating based, real life social networking game that lets you play, win and socialised all the same time, unlock real and virtual goodies and move up life's leader board anywhere and everywhere you are. In short, GeoSocials is a social game that helps you find friends, fortune, and fame at a place near you.

Market Need: Social context existing social networks doesn't facilitates social connections which are relavant in real life and relevant to the place where you live, work or study. Location Gamining on text Almost all location based games are restaurant focused and lack fun except for the badges you receive. Would you be friends with someone just because you both like chinese food?

Deals have to be relevant to the place you live/work and people like to buy things other than just food. Brands need relevant "local" exposure which doesn't cost them a lot.

Target Market: As per data shared by Navteq, the global market place for Location Based Services is Slated to cross $16 billion by 2014. Gartner's top 10 consumer applications to watch in 2012 include Location based services (LBSs) and social networking. Expects the total user base of consumer LBSs to reach 1.4 billion users by 2014 and spending on gaming to exceed $74 Billion in 2011. Group buying market in the US is estimated at $2.7 billion in 2012 (up from $1.1 billion last year) Since GeoSocials focused on multiple aspects like social, gaming and deals, the total addressable market is too broad to be defined.

Revenue Model: Virtual Goods (in-app purchases), brand marketing and advertising, group buying and deals

We are at Proto.in for: Product feedback, to find mentors/co-founders who share our vision and to seek investment.

Company Name: Optinno Mobitech Pvt. Ltd.

Product Name: smsBlocker

Founder: Sagar Bedmutha

Location: Pune

Incorporation Year:  2009

Stage of Funding:  Personal, Friends and Family Funds

Revenue Situation:   Having Revenues, but not profitable

Team Size: 3

Product Summary: smsBlocker is the world's most advanced and effective spam SMS blocking mobile app. It's unique intelligence identifies if an SMS is a spam and blocks it automatically if detected so. smsBlocker functions intuitively and can be customised as per specific needs. If you want to get complete freedom from unwanted, untimely and irritating spam SMS, get smsBlocker.

Market Need: All existing SMS blocking apps need the user to always feed in (changing) number/titles of the spammer, which itself is painful than actually deleting the spam. Moreover, their inability to distinguish between a legitimate SMS (ex. Bank alert) and a spam, makes them almost useless.

Target Market: Our target customer is a smartphone user who wants to get relief from unwanted and spam SMS. Since spam is growing big time and prevalent in most of the countries, there are more than a billion potential customers across the world.

Revenue Model: Our Company will make money in 3 ways:

• One time download charge
• Ad revenue (free version)
• Revenue share from the mobile operator (monthly subscription based VAS)

We are at Proto.in for: Launching the Android version of smsBlocker, getting guidance from the experts on scaling and fund raising.

Company Name: Ossian Agro Automation Pvt Ltd

Product Name: Nano Ganesh

Founder: Santosh Ostwal

Location: Pune

Incorporation Year:  2010

Stage of Funding:  Personal, Friends and Family Funds

Revenue Situation:  Profitable

Team Size:   9

Product Summary:  Nano Ganesh is an electronic hardware system based on mobile technology allowing farmers to remotely control and monitor their water pumps from any place. A mobile phone has been innovatively used as a low cost wireless device along with Nano Ganesh unit in the existing system. With a simple calling and punching of particular key numbers any illiterate operator can use this system with ease.

Market Need: The need of Nano Ganesh aroused from the routine problems faced by the farmers or irrigation operators in operating the pumps viz. fluctuations in power supply, difficult terrain, fear of animals on the way to pumps, hazardous locations of the pumps along rivers or water storage beds.

Target Market: The demand for Nano Ganesh is a derived demand from the demand for irrigation pump sets. Estimation of Indian pump industry is around $ 980 million and is expected to grow by around 7 per cent in the medium run.

There are currently approximately about 25 million irrigation pumps in rural area and 0.3 million water pumps in drinking water supply schemes.

We have decided to focus on 1.5 million water pumps for Nano Ganesh.

Revenue Model: With the investments of INR 5.5 Cr, a revenue of INR 7.5 Cr is estimated in the first year. The growth rate would be 100% in the first year but rising to 250% from the second year leading to the revenue of INR 150 Cr in the fifth year. The specialty of rural technology business is that it takes slow pace in the beginning but rises rapidly once the market has been.

We are at Proto.in for: Let the business potential of telecom applications in the irrigation market and educate in the investors about opportunities in this sector in India and overseas. 

Company Name: Fermentech Biologies

Product Name: NutriBran

Founder: V R Sarath Babu

Location: Bhimavaram

Incorporation Year: 2009

Stage of Funding:  Only personal funds

Revenue Situation:  No revenues as yet

Team Size: 10

Product summary:  NutriBran, anovel Biotech based feed stuff for livestock. This low cost, high efficiency feed will lower the feed costs by 30 per cent and increase productivity like meat and milk yield by 25 30%. This feed is manufactured using a high end Biotechnology process from very low cost, nutritionally poor agricultural.

Market Need: The present market is suffering from fluctuations in price, quality and quantity of feed stuff available, and depends on several feeds stuffs which are not available throughout the year. Nutribran provides a one stop solution for all feed consumers by offering a consistent quality, availability and price all round the year.

Target Market: Aquaculture farms, Dairy farms, Poultry farms, small farmers reaching milch and meat animals. The present market in the organised sector is valued at Rs 10,000 crores per year, and the unorganised feed sector is valued at around 60,000 Crores per year and is growing at per cent AAGR. Nutribran fits into both thease sectors and targeting around 2 per cent of the market initially we will be able to have revenues of Rs 80 million by the third year.

Revenue Model: By manufacturing and selling 7200 tonnes of NutriBran annually to 3000 acres of Aqua farms, 2000 tones of NutriBrans to feed industries as a raw material, and 800-1000 Tonnes through institutional sales, government Tenders etc., we expect to break even within the 12th month of operations.

We are at proto.in for: Seeking investment, mentoring, expousure of NutriBran to the world.