India’s startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem displayed its prowess and range of innovative business ideas to global investors from the UAE and world over at the fourth edition of the ‘Elevate’ pitching series yesterday. Founders of nine Indian startups, including seven from the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and one each from Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Delhi NCR, presented their business ideas and made strong pitch to investors at the popular pitching series.
‘Elevate’ is a key initiative of the India Pavilion at EXPO2020 Dubai that aims to display unconventional solutions created by 500 Indian startups over the course of five months under the Innovation Hub umbrella and supported by HSBC.
Highlighting the significance of the ‘Elevate’ platform, UP based, Tech Eagle Innovations, a drone delivery startup for last and mid mile logistics, announced that they have entered into a strategic partnership and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Astral Aerial Solutions, a Kenyan UAV technology company.
The startups presented their ideas across sectors like health & wellness, sustainability, agriculture, IT, technology, education, industries and many more.
Some of the startups from UP to present their ideas were Life and Limb Pvt. Ltd that provides solution to people with upper limb amputation; Phool, a social enterprise that has pioneered the ‘flowercycling’ technology to reduce pollution in rivers by up-cycling flower temple-waste in India; Atma Nirbhar, a social venture that trains women to ride motorized scooters with the goal of increasing female labour force participationand Farmers Family, providing healthy and quality farm produce directly from farms to consumers.
Other startups from UP were Edu Gorilla and E-Spin Nanotech, while SOQO, makers of reusable leak-proof underwear for women, was present from MP and Vizara Technologies from Delhi NCR.
India is amongst the top 3 creators of unicorns in the world. Amidst the challenges posed by the Covid pandemic, 35 new unicorns have come into existence in India, taking the total number of unicorns to 72. The Indian startup ecosystem currently has over 57,000 startups from 628 districts across all 28 states and eight Union Territories, registered with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and it is growing even further.
Elevate platform provides startups the opportunity to gain knowledge about the global sectoral trends, best practices followed around the world, and get mentoring from sector experts and a networking window to interact with new-age entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors.
The first Elevate session saw 10 startups across sectors from the States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, pitching their ideas to over 15 investors, while the second session had 13 startups from Telangana presenting their ideas. The third session showcased 10 startups from Karnataka, Kerala and the UAE.
The event was attended by eminent dignitaries including Mr. K Kalimuthu, Consul (Economic, Trade & Commerce; Arshi Ayub Mohamed Zaveri, CEO, Trust with Trade Group; Prashant Pitti, Co-Founder, Ease My Trip; Paras Shahdadpuri, Chariman, Nikai Group of Companies; Neeraj Agrawal, Group CFO, Crescent Group Holdings; Sai Narain CDK, Regional Head, International Markets, EMEA; Hari Padmanabhan, Chairman, Themepro Technologies; Venkatesh Mahadevan, CIO, Dubai Investments; Nilesh Bhatnagar, CEO, NB Ventures; Kamal Vachani, Group Director, Al Maya Group; Vikas Dwivedi, MD Retail Banking, Standard Chartered, Ramkumar Thangaraj, Consul (Education, Passport & Attestation) among others.
