In this article, Prashant Kumar Gupta pursuing Diploma in Entrepreneurship Administration and Business Laws from NUJS, Kolkata, discusses Ten innovation driven companies in India.

In the age of globalization and entrepreneurship, India couldn’t afford to stay behind. Today India has a promising start-up ambience. Not just that, low operating costs, less entry restrictions and the government’s proactive approach has made India Asia’s biggest start-up hubs. There was a time when joining a service at an MNC or a PSU was the only aim of the graduates. But today, the scene has changed and the ‘job-seekers’ are turning out to be ‘job-givers’. With the advent of new age startups across different fields, India has earned its reputation of becoming an innovative start-up hub. The author of this article has shortlisted ten innovative companies that have helped the country earn the badge of ‘innovation hub’.

1. Indigo Airlines

Flying in India was a dream until in 2006 when Indigo Airlines came into existence. Indigo Airlines, a subsidiary of InterGlobe Enterprises – a hospitality company, launched an economic class airliner that promised low fares and on-time arrival of flights especially at a time when the Indian airline industry was infamous for not being on time.

Indigo demonstrated the established players in the airline industry that low fares do not necessarily mean that they would provide low quality service. Within years of its establishment, Indigo became a prominent air carrier with a market share of 33%. The no-frills airline has transported nearly about 82 million passengers with 500 plus daily flights. It is predicted that India would become the third largest aviation market in 2020 and the largest by 2030.

Indigo has been able to grow exponentially over the years because it has been constantly innovating to cut costs and please customers as well. The step-less ramps cuts down the boarding times and a pit stop approach to aircraft cleaning to cut down own turnaround times.  Recently, it came up with services like an on-board Braille guide that helps the visually impaired to communicate with the crew. Also, dedicated stair lifts for passengers with special needs have been innovative enough for the airliner to win the hearts of flyers at large.

2. Unacademy

Founded in January 2016, Uncademy is India’s largest free online learning e-platform that aims to provide education to all. The platform allows the educators to create courses on various subjects using Unacademy’s app including content for various competitive examinations. Unacademy aims to get the best minds in the country share their knowledge under this platform. The startup currently garners more than a million monthly views.

The founders of this initiative include Roman Saini, Sachin Gupta, Hemesh Singh and Gaurav Munjal. The latter two were the founders of FlatChat which was acquired by CommonFloor in the year 2014. Roman Saini, an alumnus AIIMS and one of the youngest to crack the Civil Services Examination in the year 2013 was posted as an Assistant Collector in Jabalpur district before he left to pursue his passion to start Unacademy.

In April last year, Unacademy raised over $5,00,000 in its first round of external funding led by Blume Ventures. This initiative, with the help of its creators has created over 200 courses in the past few months since its launch. Some of the creators include Tina Dabi, the 2016 IAS topper and Kiran Bedi, India’s first woman IPS officer and now the Lt. Governor of Puducherry. In a span of few months, Unacademy has benefitted more than 3,00,000 students  from over 2,400 video lessons. The platform’s success stories include students who have cracked some of the toughest examinations in the country, improved their, reading, writing and vocational skills.

The startup plans to use the investment funds in developing its research, development, product technology and hiring.

3. NestAway

This start-up came with a great sigh of relief for the single people who face a great trouble in finding a home/room for rent. This startup, backed by Ratan Tata, offers a list of furnished/unfurnished rooms available for rent for not only single people but also for families.

This startup was founded way back in2014 by Jitendra Jagadev, Smuti Parida, Deepak Dhar and Amarendra – all alumni of the National Institute of Technology, Surathkal. NestAway makes homes available by way of depositing two months’ rent, without an interview by the owner.

This Bangalore based startup primarily aims to cater the homing needs of 22-30 age category. Their homes provide all the necessities including, sofa, mattress, refrigerator, washing machine and a furnished kitchen. The tenant can either rent a single room or the whole flat. Generally, the rent rates vary between INR 7,000-8,000 out of which NestAway charges a commission of 12.5% of the total rent amount per tenant. From support at the time of moving in, maintenance and rent payment, everything can be done by NestAway’s app.

4. EduKart

This startup aims to help students in their academics right from the initial years. Founded by Ishan Gupta, an alumnus of Stanford University and Mayank Gupta, an IIM graduate, EduKart has a huge platform with a plethora of online and distance learning courses affiliated to some of the world’s reputed universities. Also to note, some of the courses are designed by EduKart team as well. The startup already offers courses in diverse fields like Software Engineering, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Digital Marketing to name a few. To add more to it, these course are supported by telephonic support. This startup aims to target people who intend to develop their skills, improve industry knowledge to become market ready. Within a month of its official portal launch, its website witnessed a significant rise in its website traffic, not only from the metro cities but also from towns and cities as well.

5. ClearTax

ClearTax is one of its kind startup that helps the individuals to file their tax returns online. One would just have to upload Form 16 and the ClearTax software prepares the tax return instantly.  This company, founded by Archit Gupta along with his father Raja Ram Gupta, has a B2C tax filing platform and ClearTDS (for TDS returns), TaxCloud (for CAs and enterprises) on the B2B platform. It recently raised a Series ‘A’ funding from SAIF Partners. Apart from that, they received funding from Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund as well.

With funding from above, ClearTax also plans to launch two more B2C products and three more   B2B products for businesses in the next 15 months. Not just that, the firm has also launched GST software by the name of ClearTax GST that will help the firms/companies to manage compliances in a hassle free manner.

Looking at the future, the startup plans to get 50 Lakh individuals and entities file their tax returns on their platform and also help over 10 Lakh people save their taxes. The funding by SAIF Partners and Sequoia Capital has give ClearTax a bellwether to take this endeavor to a whole new level.

6. InShorts

News in Shorts, InShorts’ full name, was started by three IIT dropouts – Azhar Iqbal, Anunay Arunav and Deepit Purkayastha in 2013. They started this initiative with a thought that the youth of this country were ready to spend hours on Facebook/WhatsApp and other social media forums but were not even aware of the happenings around them.

Inshorts app gives a 60 word summary of the day’s top stories across diverse categories including sports, entertainment, politics, national and international affairs. Each news summary is written by an in-house team of editors and also includes a link to the news if the reader wants to read the news in detail. The reader can also opt for push notifications on their phones to get regular updates.

The company had in February 2015 raised a $4 million Series ‘A’ funding from Rebright Partners (Japan) and other angel investors namely – Nijhawan, Gaurav Bhatnagar, Manish Dhingra. The startup also raised funding from Flipkart founders – Sachin and Binny Bansal.

The app is free to download and for all users. The team is currently focusing on the quality of their content and getting more users on their platform. They have so far not monetized with in-app advertisements or other means.

The app is free to download for all users and the team is working on developing the quality of their content and simultaneously attracting more users n their platform. The company intends to monetize their app with in-app adverts and by other means as well. The company is also looking forward to raise more funds in the near future to augment their operations. On Google Play Store, the app has over 2.6 Lakh downloads and has been rated 4.7 out of 5 which is a clear indication that the startup has set its foundation right and is set for a steady growth in the near future.

7. Perfint Healthcare

Perfint Healthcare is one of a kind healthcare startup that aims to introduce minimally invasive, image guided robotic systems that can guide doctors through surgery, cancer diagnosis etc and help them perform, navigate operations accurately and in a safe manner. A step in this direction is the introduction of Perfint’s new product called ‘Maxio’, a image guided robotic system that pinpoints precisely where a needle should enter the tumor. This technology has been used in 1500 procedures across the United States, Germany, Russia and India. It has also made inroads in Korea, Japan and other parts of Asia.

Perfint’s robotic systems can be easily transported from one place to another and is a first of its kind cancer therapy device. It is estimated that the global ultrasound guide abdominal procedure market is expected to cross more than a billion dollars by 2020 and this startup aims to capture one-tenth market of it.

Perfint aims to become all the more perfect by working closely with physicians al;l over the  world. Investors like Norwest venture Partners, IDG Ventures, Accel Partners have invested in this startup. Perfint now intends to penetrate its products into the hinterlands of India and Indonesia. The company also expanded its product into the Chinese market in 2014 and it already accounts for 20% of its total revenues.

8. NovoPay

A financial solutions startup started way back in 2014 by Gautam Bandyopadhyay, Sridhar Rao and Srikanth Nadamuni, NovoPay uses mobile as a medium to help the banking industry augment their customer size not only in the urban areas but also in the hinterland. The proposition simple – the startup would use Aadhar based UID database by issuing fingerprint scanners to the grocery stores as money deposit and fund transfer centres. So far, NovoPay has worked with more than 40,000 grocery stores in the country’s hinterland which serve as banking outlets. It has tied up with banks like ICICI, RBL, Axis, Bank of India, IDFC among others to deliver its banking services through a customer friendly app.

Novopay has been backed by Silicon Valley-based Vinod Khosla, the owner of Khosla Ventures, for an undisclosed sum. It wants to go after 400 million unbanked Indians and has created a business model to thrive on that segment.

This startup is backed by Vinod Khosla, the owner of Silicon Valley based Khosla Ventures. Rating agency CRISIL estimates there are over 5 crore (50 milion) grocery stores in the country and many of them carry NovoPay advertisements in their stores in the hinterland part of India. To transfer or deposit money.

The reason behind this venture’s success is that is gives the customer protection of his/her money. Whenever there is a transaction, the customer gets a message on his/her mobile regarding the transaction. Even after the implementation of Jan Dhan Yojana which aimed to provided banking to all, this venture is going strong. Even if a customer has a bank account, he/she does not have to travel miles far to the bank get a transaction done. They can do it by visiting their local grocery store affiliated to NovoPay and get the transaction done easily.

9. Tata Swach

Tata Swach is a water purifier developed by Tata Chemicals with the sole aim to provide affordable drinking water to the lower strata of the society. This technology uses processed rice husk ash soaked in silver nano-particles that provides clean drinking water removing upto a billion bacteria and over 10 million viruses from one litre of water at a minimal cost of just $ 0.003 per litre. More of all, this technology doesn’t require electricity making it all the more affordable. In the year 2013, Tata swach water purifiers wer provided to all the pilgrims who went on a pilgrimage to Mahakumbhmela, on the river Ganges in Allahabad, free of cost. This product definitely qualifies to be called innovative.

10. YourDost

Founded in the year 2014, YourDost is a one of its kind startup that provides online counselling and emotional support to foster mental health. People who are distressed emotionally or mentally can connect anonymously to experts, psychologists, counsellors, life coaches, psychotherapists who can understand problems well and guide them through via one-to-one confidential online sessions. YourDost was founded by Richa Singh, an IIT Guwahati alumnus who came up with this idea when her roommate at college committed suicide. The reason for here committing suicide was because of her placements and relationship issues. But she never spoke about it and kept it to herself. She says most people don’t talk about their problems openly fearing social implications.

Richa along with Puneet Manuja, an IIM graduate conceived the idea of creating YourDost. The founders not being from psychology backround was a drawback initially. The duo then approached many psychologists, took notes and authored many blog posts after inputs from the psychologists.

The startup has a ‘freemium’ model where individuals can receive text based counselling from over a team of 75 experts for no cost. The website witnesses over 4,000 unique visitors daily.

In September 2015, the startup had raised over $4,00,000 in the seed round of funding. Few days back on 26^th June 2017, YourDost raised over $1.2 Million from SAIF Partners and others in the pre-series ‘A’ round. The founders plan to utilize this investment to hire senior executives for domains like marketing, technology and operations. Currently, the team totals at 22 and with this funding, the firm will also establish a research division. This model is innovative in nature and differentiates exclusively from other forms of startups.