Aditya Birla Group lists 24 startups for incubation programme

Diversified conglomerate Aditya Birla Group has chosen 24 startups for a 20-day incubation programme it had launched in October to provide entrepreneurs an opportunity to do business with some of the group's companies.

The group has not made a formal announcement yet on the selection of startups. But it said on its Bizlabs website that it received over 1,200 proposals across the sectors of retail, financial services, mobility and data analytics and new tech.

"These pitches were carefully evaluated and subsequently filtered down to 20+ startups, who have collaborated with the Aditya Birla Group for possible scaling up opportunities. The innovative technologies and solutions of these startups are also expected to benefit the Group's businesses," it said.

The startups are: CloudCherry, Nanobi Data & Analytics, Tookitaki, Truck Sumo, Nifty Window, ePaisa, Torch, Dressy, Red Monster Games, Iken Solutions, Vserv, Enstage, mSwipe, Tonetag, Touchfone, Gradatim, Instakash, Easypolicy, Uniphore, Coverfox Insurance, Bankbazaar, Faircent, Wealth Pack, and GeoSpoc.

CloudCherry is a Chennai-based software-as-a-service firm. It has raised over Rs 6 crore (around $1 million) in seed funding from The Chennai Angels (TCA) and IDG Ventures India.

Nanobi Data & Analytics was founded in Bangalore in 2012 by a group of five - Ramakrishnan, Sumant Sarkar, CV Vinod, S Jayaprakash and Abhishek Purohit. The cloud-based business intelligence platform lets customers build analytic applications for use and consumption by consumers of information.

Tookitaki is a Singapore- and India-based data intelligence startup. It raised $1 million in seed funding led by Singapore-based Jungle Ventures in January 2015.

Truck Sumo was launched in November 2014. It is an on-demand platform for small commercial vehicles. It aggregates these vehicles and connects them to businesses and individuals in need of local transportation.

Nifty Window is a distributed content marketing platform that helps brick and mortar businesses drive in-store sales across search, social media and mobile channels. It provides a suite of content generation and distribution tools, via a single SaaS platform.

ePaisa is a Mumbai-based startup which offers a multi-lingual mobile-based ecosystem that enables anyone to accept credit and debit card payments via their smartphone and tablets.

Torch offers a system that monitors store traffic allowing better understanding of guests while they are shopping. It was also among the five startups picked for the 2nd batch of Target Corp's accelerator programme in India.

Dressy, run by Imaginate Software Labs Pvt. Ltd., is engaged in providing augmented reality and virtual reality based technology solutions. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in Hyderabad.

Red Monster Games is a mobile social gaming company. Last year, it got investment from Matrix Partners.

Iken Solutions is an IIT Bombay research spin-off backed by India Innovation Fund. It is a software product company specialized in intelligent business systems backed by hybrid Artificial Intelligence techniques.

Vserv is a Mumbai-based smart data platform for mobile marketing. In March 2015, the company raised $15 million (Rs 91 crore) from hedge fund Maverick Capital Ventures and existing investor IDG Ventures. Recently, Vserv appointed former Google India executive Nadeesh Ramachandran as vice president of sales.

Enstage is a software company offering payment solutions for the emerging payment channels of debit and stored value cards, global remittances, mobile payments and electronic payments. The company was founded in 2000 and is based Bangalore.

mSwipe is a Mumbai-based mobile point of sales (PoS) payment services provider. This year, the company had raised $25 million (Rs 159 crore ) in its Series C round of funding from hedge funds Falcon Edge Capital and Meru Capital besides cabs aggregator Ola.

Tonetag - Bangalore-based Naffa Innovations Pvt Ltd runs a mobile payment technology startup under the brand of ToneTag. Founded in 2013, ToneTag allows mobile payments using sound (tone) or NFC (tag), thereby enabling any mobile device to make payments without the need of internet. It recently raised $1 million (Rs 6.4 crore) in funding from Reliance Venture Asset Management.

Touchfone, now rebranded as Strmeasy, is a Bangalore-based technology company that has products in the areas of Video streaming, Video on demand, and Live streaming. It got selected for Microsoft Ventures' summer acceleration programme last year.

Gradatim is a Bangalore-based financial services company. It offers microfinance, microinsurance, micropayments, micro pensions verticals and litigation support services.

Instakash is an online lending marketplace for SME loans. It mainly offers 'auto loans' for drivers who want to work with taxi aggregators such as Uber, Ola, Taxiforsure and Meru and 'SME loans' for people who wants to kick-start their business and become sellers on online marketplaces such as Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, etc. In September 2015, the startup also made it to GenNext's second accelerator batch.

Easypolicy -- Noida-based EP Online Marketing Pvt Ltd sells insurance policies through its website Easypolicy.com.

Uniphore is a Chennai-based Indian language speech recognition solutions firm. This year, it raised funding from IDG Ventures.

Coverfox Insurance -- Mumbai-based Coverfox Insurance Broking Pvt Ltd runs a portal for comparing and buying insurance online. It recently secured an undisclosed amount of funding from Catamaran Ventures, the private investment arm of Infosys' co-founder NR Narayana Murthy.

Bankbazaar -- Chennai-based A & A Dukaan Financial Services Pvt Ltd sells third-party financial services products through the online platform BankBazaar.com. The startup raised Rs 375 crore ($59.1 million) in Series C funding from e-commerce giant Amazon and other investors this year.

Faircent is a peer-to-peer lending marketplace run by Fairassets Technologies India Pvt Ltd. In October, it got an undisclosed amount of investment from Aarin Capital Partners.

Wealth Pack is an Android-based personal finance app.

GeoSpoc is a global GIS consulting and solutions company, with offices in the Americas and Asia.