Coimbatore varsity's incubator to invest $200K across 3 startups

Technology Business Incubator (TBI), set up by Coimbatore-headquartered Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, has said that it will invest a total of $200,000 (Rs 12.8 crore) across three startups.

Yellow Messenger, Linksmart DNA and Bookmydiamond.com are the three startups selected for seed investment as part of the university's annual PitchFest programme.

Yellow Messenger is a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) platform that lets enterprises automate and orchestrate intelligent conversations with customers across channels such as web, app, Alexa, Google Assistant, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and email.

Linksmart DNA is an Intellectual Property-oriented mass market vertical startup which secures products and packages from counterfeiting, tampering, re-fill, and warranty fraud. 

Bookmydiamond.com is a technology platform that helps jewellery retailers search for live inventory of loose, certified diamonds, and buy them.

“This year, Amrita TBI focused on selecting startups that have successfully combined innovative technologies with a high impact on India’s development," Krishnashree Achuthan, chief executive officer of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s Technology Business Incubator (TBI).

Two other startups, Saukhyam Pads - which produces reusable sanitary pads made from banana fibre - and Banashree - a startup that develops advanced datapath architectures - received special mention awards at the event.

Established in 2008, Amrita TBI is a non-profit startup incubator. It has conducted the PitchFest programme every year since 2012 to find promising startups. Amrita TBI claims to have incubated 83 startups and mentored 216 ventures so far.

According to TBI, more than 800 startups from 22 states in India participated in the competition this year, which was the sixth edition of PitchFest.

Last year, the incubator had selected five startups in which it pledged to invest a total of $350,000 (around Rs 19 crore). Cookifi, Swasti Agro & Bioproducts, Bizbee, Nextsky Technologies, and MiQasa Home Automation were the startups selected for seed investment in 2017.

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham was founded by spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi and is spread across three southern states.