Meet the five startups selected by Amrita University's incubator

Coimbatore-based Amrita University's Technology Business Incubator (TBI) has chosen five startups from its annual PitchFest programme for seed investment.

TBI will invest a total of $350,000 in these startups, the university said in a press statement.

The PitchFest is conducted every year to find promising startups. This was the fifth edition of the programme and the five startups were shortlisted from a pool of 720 firms.

Krishnashree Achuthan, chief executive of TBI said the total investment amount has been increased from $200,000 to $350,000 this year.

"The quality of startsups which participated this year has been amazing even though the startup climate is a bit dampened currently," Achuthan said.

Below are the shortlisted winners:

Cookifi: This firm helps people discover and hire chefs. In June last year, the startup raised seed funding in from Kunal Shah, chairman of FreeCharge; Aneesh Reddy and Krishna Mehra, co-founders of Capillary Technologies; Tracxn Labs; Venkat Tadanki, chief executive of Secova; Amit Rathore, founder and chief executive of Quintype and other angel investors.

Swasti Agro & Bioproducts: Swasti develops preventive 'vaccines' for plants to save them from various diseases, thus enabling farmers to avoid crop loss. The firm was founded in 2011 by Dr Abhay Shendye with expertise in agricultural biotechnology.

Bizbee: The company offers business process automation software to small and medium businesses (SMBs) and enterprises. Bizbee comes with a default list of over 100 apps that address the day-to-day business processes for firms across multiple industries. The Telangana-based firm was founded in August 2016 by entrepreneur Sridhar Gudiseva, whose specialty lies in building software-as-a-service (SaaS) products.

Nextsky Technologies: Nextsky builds analytic software that provides brief technical insights about all operations and trends in an organisation. The Aurangabad-based firm was founded in 2014 by Prathamesh Adep (CEO) and Dinesh Satpute (CTO).

MiQasa Home Automation: This firm manufactures wireless, affordable smart home solutions under the brand name QASA smart switch boards.

In addition, two other startups, Iotranic and HappyOffice, received Special Mention Awards at the event. Iotranic helps hospitals provide personalised maternal care solutions that addresses the different needs of pregnant women in urban and rural markets. HapyyOffice is an automated smart employee feedback system that allows real-time action for improving employee engagement and retention. Another startup, AmbuPod that operates low-cost micro ambulance and mobile clinic, received the Sector Impact Award.