Meet the 15 startups who made it to the inaugural batch of GSF Accelerator

GSF Accelerator, a startup accelerator programme launched by former Reliance Entertainment president and GSF Superangels founder Rajesh Sawhney, has announced the names of the 15 startups who are attending its inaugural session. The 7-week programme has started from Oct 15 in three cities – Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR. A total of six startups come from the National Capital Region, followed by Bangalore (5) and Mumbai (4).

Each startup has attended 10 workshops so far and met more than 25 mentors during the first two weeks of the ongoing programme. Over the seven weeks of coaching, they will attend 25 workshops and meet more than 100 mentors one-on-one. GSF Accelerator has also inducted 15 Entrepreneurs-in-Residence who are working closely with these startups.

"We had reviewed more than 400 startups and the initial plan was to induct only 12. However, the final list includes 15 of them. These startups operate across diverse domains, such as mobile, Cloud, enterprise solutions, developer tools, imaging apps, cab share, hyper local services, payment solutions and reverse logistic platforms," said Sawhney.

"The 15 startups will now meet over 400 investors at the GSF 2012 conference where they will seek further financing. GSF Superangels will provide seed funding to 5-6 startups this year," he added.

GSF Accelerator got backing from 30 leading entrepreneurs including Naveen Tewari (CEO and founder of InMobi), Avnish Bajaj (founder of venture fund Matrix Partners and the Indian auction site Bazee.com, which was later acquired by eBay), Sharad Sanghi (founder of Netmagic) and Atsushi San of Softbank, among others, and five VC funds such as Kae Capital, Blume Venture, Dave McClure's 500 Startup and Seedcamp of Europe.

Here's a city-wise list of the 15 startups attending the inaugural session.

Mumbai (4 startups)

Tushky: It claims to be India's first online marketplace for free time. Users can monetise their time by organising and offering fresh experiences. They can also discover and book new choices for activities and getaways.

BucketBolt.com: It claims to be India's first online managed marketplace for used educational books. For students, BucketBolt provides access to the largest repository of used books – delivered to their doorsteps. The company is building an inventory by integrating a highly fragmented supplier network of students and bookstores.

Sharedcab.com: Offers cost-effective and comfortable shared travel solution to the Indian masses. Its systems pool commuters and match routes in real time.

Pokkt.com: It brings together two of the biggest drivers of digital business in India "the online services sector and the e-commerce players – to provide value to end-customer. Pokkt.com is a transactional advertising platform that rewards customers with exclusive offers from online/offline retailers in return for sharing information with advertisers.

Bangalore (5 startups)

Little Eye Labs: This startup is building next-generation tools for mobile app developers. Its tools enable easy visualisation of the inner workings of a mobile app – just like a CT scanner does in the medical field, claims the company.

EmployeeSocial: It is a cloud-based social rewards system. Integrated with an enterprise social network and a corporate price store, EmployeeSocial enables organisations to manage employee loyalty and engagement.

Zoomdeck: A platform for conversations around photographs. By letting users add interactive tags to snapshots, Zoomdeck enables meaningful conversations – spot on.

HackerEarth: A platform that puts real-world programming problems at the centre of the tech hiring process, ensuring faster and cost-effective hiring. It allows engineering managers to create online programming tests across several programming languages and platforms. An applicant's code is compiled, tested and evaluated using a range of metrics to help companies filter candidates.

Eduflix: PowerPrep creates a personalised problem-solving experience using its adaptive technology platform and provides real-time feedback to students – enabling them to monitor progress and see instant improvement in their test ­scores.

Delhi-NCR (6 startups)

Zapper: Its platform helps brands identify and engage personally with ad-viewers in real time. Through Zapper, anyone can interact with their favourite brands, discover fresh content and dive into a gamified environment.

Playcez: Built on proprietary, soon-to-be-patented technology, Playcez mines social media data in real time to provide location-specific suggestions based on who is saying what and where. Whether they are looking to eat, play or shop, the company wants to become the tool of choice for India's mobile-savvy youth.

GamesInc: Owned by Exit10 Marketing Pvt Ltd, it allows consumers to trade their electronic goods at their doorsteps. The company makes new products affordable for its customers by monetising their existing ones, which are then resold or recycled. It also claims that its GamesInc portal is a leading buying, selling and certification site for video games in India.

AadhaarUp: With its easy-to-use and secure mobile app, payments to individuals and merchants are just a click away (at least, that is what it claims). According to the company, its point-of-sale terminals for merchants cost a fraction of the existing options, with near-instant activation.

Gingr: Claims to be India's first mobile service that lets users communicate with businesses seamlessly. Gingr is making this possible with a mobile chat platform where users can query multiple businesses at once and receive quick responses.

SilverPush: The company allows app owners and ad networks to intelligently connect with mobile users. SilverPush's algorithms analyse multiple sources of data and identify the most lucrative opportunities to deliver targeted content to users via push notifications, SMS, e-mail and more.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)