First batch of start-ups graduate from GenNext Innovation Hub

The four-month programme had started in October 2014

Reliance Industries and Microsoft Ventures led GenNext Innovation Hub, on Friday announced the graduation of 11 teams that are part of the first batch of the start-up incubation programme. GenNext Ventures is being jointly run by Reliance Industries Ltd and Microsoft Ventures.

The four-month programme, which started in October 2014, has eight startups that work in the business-to-business (B2B) space and three that are in the business-to-customer (B2C) segment. The companies operate across several industries such as education, health care, transportation, retail and human resources.

GenNext Innovation Hub had said that the start-ups of the first batch now have clients such as Snapdeal, Ecom Express, Reliance Logistics, Raymond, Jealous 21, Aditya Birla Group, Tech Mahindra, Flipkart, Fortis Hospitals, Credit Suisse, Nielsen, Danske Bank and Nihilent among others.

"We are happy to have many entrepreneurs in the batch who gave up lucrative careers in India and overseas to create companies to innovate and build businesses to address global needs," R A Mashelkar, chairman, GenNext Ventures and board member at Reliance Industries Limited said.

The companies included in the first batch of the programme include  CarIQ (a connected car platform), LogiNext (an analytics and optimisation engine for logistics companies), Playport (a mobile device-based entertainment service for travelers), Coitor (an augmented reality-based virtual trial rooms for apparel retailers) and Piron (a personalised learning platform), among others.

Axlerate (a passenger security platform for public transport operators), Health Vectors (a health risk predictive and prescriptive platform) and Interview Mocha (a pre-employment testing solution), Mocioun (a mobile app to organise group activities), Oztern (an test preparation platform) and Light (an alternative to search engines providing answers instead of web links).

"Paying customers are the best validation for a start-up. These start-ups started closing business deals within weeks into the GenNext Accelerator Programme, which shows that corporates around the world appreciate the companies and products accelerated by Microsoft Ventures."

Rajinish Menon, director, Microsoft Ventures, said. "We will continue to work with these start-ups as they evolve into billion dollar companies of future." The next batch will start in June for which applications have been invited by GenNext Innovation Hub.