Microsoft Ventures announces fifth accelerator batch of 12 statups

Microsoft Ventures today announce its fifth batch of 12 technology startups that will be incubated between July and November 2014 under its accelerator program. The 12 have been shortlisted from over 1,300 applications that Microsoft Ventures received for this batch.

Microsoft Ventures is the global technology giant's venture arm, which looks into funding and incubation of technology start-ups.

The Accelerator runs a four-month incubation program for startups, which helps these teams take their businesses a step forward. The teams that join Microsoft Accelerator at an idea stage are helped in developing their product, while those that already have clients are helped in expanding business. The program has so far incubated 51 start-ups, including those that graduated in the latest batch.

The program, which was launched in August 2012, will for the first time include non-Indian startups-CryptoPhoto of Australia, AppKnox of Singapore and DabKick of US.

Other startups that would be a part of this batch include, Fairket, FlatPebble, NiftyWindow, Playblazer, RHLVision, DeltaX, ProHance, Tallenge and TruTech.

"As Microsoft Ventures grows another batch wiser, we've been seeing a trend of more and more diverse companies and ideas coming into our program--ideas that challenge us to work harder to be able to help our start-ups grow inorganically," Ravi Narayan, director at Microsoft Ventures in India said. "For the first time in the history of our Accelerator, the current batch will have a start-up from the gaming industry, namely Playblazer. Simultaneously we have TruTech, which is into gesture control and works with existing operating systems and devices to make them gesture compatible. We are excited to see how this batch develops over the next four months, as well as in the years to come."