Starfleet 4 — India: Meet the Teams
We’re kicking off Genesis Week with 13 startups who are in for the experience of their careers at the Starfleet India accelerator
After three months of preparation, we have finally reached the Genesis Week. Our efforts involved an array of meet-ups, workshops, networking sessions, and more, where we met with numerous startups, students, and enthusiasts who were looking for opportunities to build their projects. In the process we discovered that Starfleet 4 was in the right place, reaching out to the right people who need help to scale their blockchain-based projects and startups. And we can’t wait to reveal to you the team we have selected!
But first, let us provide you with some background:
Presently, the Indian blockchain market is set to grow at a CAGR of 37% until 2024. There are several startups and organizations — both public and private, that are exploring the blockchain landscape. We worked together with the amazing IBC Media team to reach out to these communities in India and we’re happy to have received applications from 176 blockchain startups in total.
Out of this lot, we found that there were a majority of fintech startups applicants (14% of the startups), followed by healthcare startups with 13%, and agritech startups with 10%. Innovation in these industry verticals is booming, and this is a clear indicator to us that these here, are part of the early adopters of blockchain technology in India.
In addition to these, we also received a wide range of applications from projects that we’re building blockchain solutions for social media, public sector use cases, and for the renewable energy sector.
With this incredible traction, we’re excited to begin the Genesis week with a shortlist of 13 startups. Without further ado, we want to introduce you to this year’s MVPs (most valuable players — the sports metaphor:)) of Starfleet 4 — India.
Here are they:
1. Linqed
Based out of Hyderabad, Telangana, Linqed is a blockchain-based vehicle identity system that gives vehicles a unique identity that can be sustained for the rest of the vehicles’ lifetime. With this core offering, Linqed enables the creation of value across the value chain and its stakeholders for an automobile which includes insurance, garage facilities, OEM’s, ancillary part manufacturers, car owners, etc.
As a blockchain-platform in the automobile industry, Linqed enables traditional car manufacturers to be innovative with their business models and facilitates the operation of a sharing economy. They are aiming to be the underlying ubiquitous technology for automobiles, just as the internet is today for the Web 2.0 economy.
2. InfyU Labs
InfyU Labs is a Chennai-based startup that is building blockchain-based solutions for the food industry. They are working on an IoT and blockchain-based low-cost handheld device which determines the condition of fruit without compromising its quality in order to reduce food wastage.
In the food processing industry, the decision of purchasing fruits is made after testing a sample fruit from the consignment. To put this into perspective, almost 20% of a fruit lot is transported as samples to the designated testing lab. In the processes of testing the consumable quality of the fruits, a large amount of fruit ends up as raw material wastage, not to mention the time, money and effort invested in the transportation.
InfyU Labs is developing a hand-held device that can help in making a smart decision about purchasing fruits at the source of procurement in the food processing industries thus reducing costs and wastage incurred during the procedure of testing the consignment.
3. QuillTrace
QuillTrace is a startup that is leveraging blockchain as a service (BaaS) to provide solutions in the supply chain sector. This three-member team based out of Gurgaon, New Delhi, is building a procurement platform using blockchain to ensure complete transparency and traceability in supply chain management for various industries. By leveraging blockchain, they are implementing smart contract-based applications and consortium features to further the creation of well-optimized supply chain models.
They have even worked out the transitioning processes for startups by providing APIs and webhooks that will integrate with existing centralized Enterprise resource planning (ERP) Softwares of the organizations. To ensure live tracking of an asset, QuillTrace has added an IoT network for data monitoring like location, time, temperature, humidity, vibration, etc.
4. OroPocket
Oropocket is a universal blockchain-based investment platform that enables its users to manage their wealth.
Users can buy, sell, pay and get paid using digital assets almost instantly. Their services involve providing facilities for vaulted precious metals and other fractional investment instruments.
5. Kimeo Pay
The Kimeo Pay is a startup run by a three-member team based out of Chandigarh, India. With KimeoPay, anyone can accept payments anywhere. With their minimal fees and blockchain-based solution, everyone can accept as little as a cent to any amount possible. They are creating smart contracts and bridges to help anyone pay or get paid in any currency using a single address.
They offer a simple solution for vendors and customers and help unlock newer revenue streams for sellers, influencers, content creators and anyone who can create something of value. It will be as simple as getting a coffee.
6. Hypersign by Hypermine
Hypermine is a Bangalore-based startup managed by a three-member team. They developed Hypersign — an application that uses smart contracts to verify digital signatures. It leverages cryptographic security to create an identity management system that allows its users to operate without providing their credentials
In its essence, Hypermine uses the underlying protocol to validate a digital signature produced by a standard blockchain algorithm — Elliptic Curve Digital Signature (ECDSA), in a mobile device using authentication service which is a smart-contract deployed on a blockchain. It does not rely on a central authority; it, therefore, provides a completely decentralized environment for identity management.
Hypermine envisions a world where privacy is a fundamental right, where people are given true ownership of their data.
7. MurMur
This Bangalore-based startup has built the blockchain-based equivalent of the microblogging social media platform — Twitter. Murmur, giving the Twitter-approach its own decentralized twist, is built to prioritize people’s agendas over platform goals.
Users will create content worth 256 characters called a “murmur”. Each murmur will increase in its value based on the validation of other users with engagement points: ‘snoop’(like); ‘yell’ (share); ‘whisper’ (encrypted private chat); comment, and yell + comment. Murmur distinguishes this experience by incentivizing the creator of the content and the users who validate it. Such a value is unlocked in the form of “decibels” (similar to Reddit’s Karma Points) and based on a proportionate basis, the users and those who engaged with the murmurs are awarded MUR toked at the end of the week.
The team derived the idea by realizing how intrinsic and extrinsic rewards incentivize the creation of a value-based social platform. They also address the issue of censorship on conventional social media platforms.
8. Bank of Hodlers
Bank of Hodlers is a startup that is building a retail banking platform for the crypto-first world.
This platform is aiming to create a solution that is absolutely relevant to the crypto community in India — transacting with cryptocurrencies without defaulting on any legal obligations and regulations.
In its essence, Bank of Hodlers aims to give its users a platform to borrow and lend cryptocurrencies, given users high yields on cryptocurrencies, and procure loans while hodling. They also leverage smart contracts to be non-custodial for tokens permissibly.
This three-member team came together to enable the free use of cryptocurrencies as digital assets of value in a country that is still finding its way to the safe haven of crypto regulation.
9. Dokters
(no logo yet)
Dokters is a four-member team that is building healthcare solutions on blockchain technology. They are working on a vision to add value to society with a dApp that will help manage healthcare records to gather analytics and predict the medical conditions of patients.
The task of managing data in the healthcare industry is a crucial aspect of providing medical care. Accessing the medical history of patients via a database that is up-to-date. Dokters has been enabled with a prediction algorithm and a machine learning algorithm that works with encrypted patient data. Currently, they have been able to predict cases of breast cancer with 96.84% accuracy. This will make for efficient and dynamic healthcare service and can really aid in enhancing services for the elderly.
Additionally, in order to ensure that the data is gathered securely, Dokters leverages blockchain technology to allow users to control who can access their health records. The dApp can be used by anyone from the average Joe, to doctors, to insurance agents, to developers and data scientists.
10. Pontis
Pontis is a DeFi solution for centralized exchanges built by a two-member team based out of Bangalore, Karnataka. The value proposition of Pontis lies in its ability to aggregate the best tools in DeFi and integrate them with the exchanges, providing a single gateway for engaging with all of them, comparing their rates and switching between them. This is built as a cross-platform plug-n-play model that is a B2B product for enterprises.
Users of centralized exchanges can leverage Pontis to integrate their individual wallets seamlessly with DeFi Dapps and explore, transact and leverage the offerings of DeFi. Pontis intends to maintain the same branding and other UX elements as that of the exchanges for consistent and seamless user experience. All the cryptocurrency staked using Pontis is held in smart contracts owned by the exchange (or Pontis) depending on the terms of the contract. Pontis plans to build the necessary backend, smart contracts and other on-chain elements that brings the two worlds together.
11. Drife
Drife is a Bangalore-based startup that is building a decentralized ride-hailing platform. It aims at empowering both the driver and the rider’s community. Drife is developed with the intention of solving the current concerns in the drivers’ community, alongside enhancing the quality of rides for the customer.
This is a one-person-show that is enabled to disrupt the ride-hailing industry. The platform deals with a whole new economic model and will incentivize all the value creators equally. Drife in no way undermines the need to circumvent the obstacles of a bureaucratic world; however, in its own way, this app creates an organic system for the ride-hailing industry to thrive well on the internet.
12. GoFinito
GoFinito is a Bangalore-based startup that is building Finite — a SaaS platform for retailers to enable faster checkouts and build engaging a customer experience at their outlets. Their idea is built to seamlessly build relationships between retail brands and their customers with Finite.
Once a retailer is onboarded as a partner on the platform, he/she will be able to facilitate multiple checkout touchpoints like MobilePOS (for floor staff), self-checkout app & kiosk (for the end consumer) and RFID bin (for fixed billing stations). Additionally, the Finito app lets a floor staff/consumer SCAN barcodes of SKUs and build a virtual cart on the app, the purchase amount is then settled digitally from the app without having to stand in a queue at the billing counter.
Creating a loyalty program is a pain point for large and small companies alike (they usually pay high subscription fees to centralized tools or build their own tech). Finito solves this issue by helping retailers deploy the loyalty program in simple steps and pay a nominal transaction fee per transaction.
13. ESGRobo
ESGRobo is a company focused on corporate sustainability that is addressing challenges faced by the global fashion industry.
With over 40 million workers, the fashion industry supply chain is among the biggest employers in the world. Our end-to-end solution addresses the twin challenges faced by the fashion supply chain: operating inefficiencies and workplace violations.
Their IoT-based solution coupled with blockchain technology and powerful analytics platforms plugs critical information gaps and provides useful insights.
They aim to deliver tangible value to a range of target customers, which include factory owners, fashion brands, machine & spare suppliers, NGOs and government agencies.
With such a strong list of blockchain startups and disruptive ideas, Starfleet India is promising to be very exciting!
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A promising bunch of projects, huh?
We believe so! We’re excited to see what unfurls as we begin Day 1 of Genesis Week today. Stay tuned with us to learn more about the Genesis Week!
