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PuneConnect 2012: An event to connect Pune Startups to Enterprises – 1 Dec

After the huge success of PuneConnect 2011, we are back again with PuneConnect 2012, a mega event for Pune startups to showcase their products and services to the world at large, and specifically to larger companies in Pune. PuneConnect 2012 will be on 1st December 2012, and the idea behind the event is to allow the best startups in Pune a platform where they can find customers, mentors, business partners, affiliates amongst Pune’s established companies, and successful senior entrepreneurs.

PuneConnect is a joint initiative of Software Exporters Association of Pune (SEAP), TiE Pune, PuneStartups.org (POCC), PuneTech, and NASSCOM. SEAP and NASSCOM have large communities of established companies, and PuneStartups.org, TiE Pune and PuneTech represent thriving communities of Pune’s young startups. PuneConnect represents a one-of-its-kind activity that bridges the gap between the new companies and the established ones.

Any startup company from Pune or nearby areas, who has a product that they would like to demo, should submit a proposal by following the instructions at http://PuneConnect.com. A panel of selectors drawn from experts in the industry will select the most promising startups who will be allowed to set up a stall at PuneConnect on 1st December.

Benefits to selected startups include:

  • Exposure to Pune’s top companies, potential customers and potential mentors
  • Exposure to Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors who are being
    invited to the event
  • Press and media coverage before and after the event
  • Winners of the event get automatic entries to other country-level events (e.g. those organized by NASSCOM)

PuneConnect 2011 showcased 12 Pune startups. All the companies got a lot of exposure to potential customers, angel investors, VCs and media.

Media Coverage: The Financial Express, the Financial Chronicle, Business Standard, and the top Marathi newspapers Sakal and Maharashtra Times all carried detailed articles about PuneConnect and the companies. All 12 companies got mentions in various articles. One company, World Without Me, got a half-page article in Pune Mirror as a direct result of being featured in PuneConnect 2011.

Entries to other prestigious events: 4 of the selected companies (InnovizeTech, ReliScore, DroidCloud, and AdMogul) were selected to be featured on an episode ETNow TV Channel’s Starting Up show. 4 of the companies (kPoint, Vaultize, InnovizeTech and DroidCloud) were selected for participation in a national-level conference organized by Zinnov, where they got to demo their products to companies from all over India. Two of the companies (BizPorto, and InTouchId) went on to be a part of the TiE Pune Nurture Initiative where they got in-depth mentoring in becoming ready for funding.

Funding: DroidCloud (now known as AppSurfer) got an invitation to the SuperAngels show on the ETNow Channel as a direct result of being in PuneConnect 2011, and a chance to win Rs. 1 crore in funding on the show. AppSurfer actually went on to win the show and secure the funding.

If you’re interested

PuneConnect 2011 – Event Overview and Results

PuneConnect 2011, held on 5th November, was the event where Pune’s
top tech communities (SEAP and PuneTech) and startup communities (POCC and TiEPune) came together to organize an event to let Pune’s startups mix with Pune’s established companies.

PuneConnect Demo Hall Photo
Demo Hall at PuneConnect was overflowing with the who's who of Pune's IT and Startup community

12 Pune technology startups were chosen from about 30 applicants to showcase their products at PuneConnect 2011. The 12 companies selected were: AdMogul, ApplyEzee, BizPorto, CoTrakr, Deja VU 3D, DroidCloud, InnovizeTech, IntouchId, kPoint, ReliScore, Vaultize, and World Without Me.

Short write-ups of the 12 companies can be found here.

All 12 companies got to demo their product to the who’s who of Pune. Senior members of SEAP, and Charter members of TiE Pune were asked to vote for their favorite demos and the top 4 companies get a chance to present at the bitter “Advantage Pune” conference being organized by Zinnov in Pune, in December 2011. Separately, 4 companies were selected to be part of the “Staring Up” show on ETNow, and their pitches were recorded to be televised nationally on ETNow on 15th November.

Companies selected for Advantage Pune

These 4 companies won the top votes from Senior Members of SEAP and Charter Members of TiE Pune, and hence get a chance to get exposure at the national level at the Advantage Pune conference in December where lots of India’s larger IT companies will be present. The winners are:

  1. kPoint
  2. Vaultize
  3. InnovizeTech
  4. DroidCloud

Companies selected for Starting Up show on ETNow

PuneConnect Starting Up ETNow Photo
4 Pune companies, InnovizeTech, ReliScore, DroidCloud, AdMogul were selected to be part of the Starting Up program on ETNow

These 4 companies were selected by the selection panel consisting of Gaurav Mehra, Suhas Kelkar, Moti Thadani of SEAP in consultation with Sudhir Syal of ETNow, and they got to pitch their startup to a panel consisting of Nickhil Jakatdar, Gaurag Mehra, and Suhas Kelkar on a program recorded by ETNow to be televised nationally later.

The winners were:

  1. InnovizeTech
  2. ReliScore
  3. DroidCloud & AdMogul

In this program, InnovizeTech got the top marks from the judges and hence gets a direct entry to the final round of ETNow’s SuperAngels’ show where they get a chance to pitch for a million dollars of funding.

The Starting Up now show recorded at PuneConnect will be telecast on Tuesday, 15th November at 11pm on the ETNow channel. It will be re-broadcast 9pm on Saturday, 19th November, and 10:30am and 7:30pm on Sunday, 20th November. It should also become available on YouTube and PuneTech will post a link to the YouTube video.

Other Media Coverage

The event was very well covered by local and national media. The Financial Express, the Financial Chronical, Business Standard, and the top Marathi newspapers Sakal and Maharashtra Times all carried detailed articles about PuneConnect. Three of the articles mentioned all 12 companies, and one of the articles mentioned ReliScore and InnovizeTech.

Pune Mirror had a half page article on World Without Me as a direct result of being featured in PuneConnect 2011.

Overall, we believe PuneConnect 2011 was a huge success, and we hope to do many more such cross-organizational initiatives in the future.

(Disclaimer: Navin and Amit of PuneTech were deeply involved in the creation, conceptualization and organization of PuneConnect, and are also the founders of ReliScore one of the companies that had applied for PuneConnect, got selected in the final 12, and also got selected for the ETNow Starting Up show. Due to the potential conflict of interest, Navin and Amit did not play any part in the selection process which was done entirely by people from SEAP, TiEPune and ETNow. For similar reasons, non of members of POCC who are in the PuneConnect organizers team played any part in the selection.)

PuneConnect 2011: Showcase for 12 interesting Pune startups – 5 Nov

PuneTech takes great pleasure in inviting everyone to PuneConnect 2011, to get to know 12 of Pune’s most interesting startups, on 5th November 2011, 12noon-2pm, at MCCIA, ICC Trade Tower, SB Road. (Register here)

PuneConnect 2011 is an event where Pune’s top tech communities (SEAP and PuneTech) and startup communities (POCC and TiEPune) have come together and chosen 12 Pune technology startups from a larger pool of applicants to showcase their product to the tech and startup communities.

The event consists of two parts – a demo room, where all the startups will first be demonstrating their products, followed later by an on-stage session where 4 of the startups will pitch their product to a PuneConnect panel. This panel pitch session will be televised to a national audience on Economic Times’ ETNow channel.

Event Details

11am-12noon: Closed Demo Session

From 11am onwards, all 12 startups will set up demos in Bajaj Gallery, 5th Floor, A Wing, MCCIA, ICC Trade Tower. This is a closed session that is open only to members of SEAP and charter members of TiE Pune; this is intended to allow intimate discussion between Pune’s tech startups, and senior members of Pune’s more established software startups. If you are not a member of SEAP or a charter member of TiE Pune, but would like to attend this session and you’re a CXO or MD of an established software company or an investor, please write to puneconnect@punetech.com with a little background about yourself to request an invitation.

12noon-12:30pm: Open Demo Session

From 12noon onwards, we’ll open the demo room (Bajaj Gallery, 5th Floor, A Wing, MCCIA, ICC Trade Tower) for everybody. The bottom of this article gives an overview of the companies that will be present.

12:30pm-2pm: PuneConnect-ETNow Session

4 selected companies will pitch their product to a distinguished panel followed by Q&A with the panelists, in a session that will be televised on Economic Times’ ETNow channel. This session will happen in the Sumant Moolgaokar Auditorium (Ground Floor of the same building, A Wing, ICC Trade Tower), and is open to all subject to availability of seats (on a first-come-first-served basis).

Registration and Fees

This event is open to all after 12noon, and is free. Please register here

The Startups

The following is the list of 12 chosen startups in alphabetical order. These were selected from amongst the startups that applied to PuneConnect, by a panel of selectors from SEAP. The following selection criteria were used:

  • Is the vision of the startup clear?
  • Do they have a differentiation and is the potential market correctly identified? In other words, can they make a valid business out of it?
  • Do they have a novel idea or IP that is hard to replicate? i.e. Sustained competitive advantage.

Note: PuneTech and POCC did NOT play any part in the selection, due to potential conflicts of interest. See the bottom of this article for details.

AdMogul

The AdMogul is a social (Facebook) game built around the concept of TV commercials which rewards and encourages people to rate commercials from a pool of choices from a particular campaign. (For example, Cadbury’s recent Diwali Campaigns). When people rate commercials, they capture basic demographic details which help us generate insights which can help advertisers refine and re-target their commercials.

The AdMogul is started by Saurabh Jain (BE Computer Science from UoP) and Gaurang Sinha (BE Computer Engineering UoP) in November 2010, and the game was launched in August 2011. This is their second startup.

Link: http://intellista.com/#/what-we-do/the-admogul

ApplyEzee

ApplyEzee.com is a platform for students to apply to a large number of educational institutes across the globe via a common application form. It makes finding institutes much simpler, with easy-to-use tools that quickly let you find institutions and finally applying to them via the common application form. The Institution Eligibility Calculator that instantly tells you your chances of getting into your favorite institutions Institutions Profiles for 1,000+ institutions.

ApplyEzee has been started by Himanshu Jain and Sanjay Kumar, entrepreneurial sales and marketing strategists with over 40 years of composite experience in the domain of education & training having a record of demonstrated success in driving multi-crore sales.

Link: http://applyezee.com

BizPorto

BizPorto provides an Internet based business-to-business (B2B) marketplace where business buyers (outsourcers, wholesalers) can find and buy b2b goods from sellers (manufacturers, suppliers). Customers are both the sellers and the buyers, typically from the medium and small scale industries, who create online stores through the BizPorto website & advertise their products or needs. BizPorto has operations in 6 different cities in Maharashtra and Karnataka.

BizPorto is founded by Suresh Salunkhe, who has 10+ years of experience in MSME sector.

Link: http://bizporto.com

CoTrakr

CoTrakr is a platform that allows organizations to collect and use the collective knowledge of their employees, customers, and partners by leveraging open innovation techniques. This allows organizations to discover new ideas, business opportunities, locate subject matter experts and utilize their expertise in taking an idea from concept to cash.

CoTrakr has been founded by Abhijeet Dhamankar who has 10 years of IT experience in knowledge management and information architecture.

Link: http://cotrakr.com

Deja VU 3D

“DejaVu 3d” is an image processing service, that works with its channel partners to process and convert 2d photographs to 3d that can be viewed as print or digital content without the need of expensive electronic hardware. The resultant 3D content would not require any special screen, viewing device or glasses. DejaVu 3D will tie up with event photographers to create 3D images, promote 3D services across the country, and in general become a technology processing and marketing company with future ventures in Realtime 2D to 3D video conversion and glasses free 3D.

Deja Vu 3D is founded by Krunnal Gharre (MBA Thunderbird, BE E&TC UoP), who has 5 years of experience in operations, sales and marketing in US and India. Customers: TATA, Kirloskar, PARI, Warade Automation, Accurate Gauges, Arrow MachineTools, PCMC, Patsons, Surya, Aurora Towers, Ashtekar Jewelers, Fine Equipments. Also winner of Times of India’s Power of Ideas Program in 2010.

Link: http://www.wix.com/krunnal/dejavu3d

DroidCloud

DroidCloud allows users to try and use Android apps from any desktop web browser. Normally, applications intended for Android phones cannot be used by people who do not have an Android phone. DroidCloud gives every user a virtual Android phone in the cloud that they can use to run apps. This is useful for app developers to demo apps to clients, app publishers to show demo of apps to potential customers and users, and different teams in large organizations to collaborate on apps.

DroidCloud is founded by Aniket Awati, who has experience building many mobile apps for many different platforms and Ratnadeep Deshmane who is an avid code enthusiast who has developed complex back-ends for intelligent education service applications.

Link: http://rainingclouds.com

InnovizeTech

InnovizeTech’s Sapeince is a software product that when installed on employee PCs automatically figures out what work was done, by whome, for how long, and for what purpose. It produces reports that highlights gaps and deviations from pre-determined goals. The basic idea is to provide managers with data that can be used to drive efficiencies, detect underutilization, and compare with industry metrics. Sapeince protects privacy of individual employees by only providing aggregate data and trends for teams > 10 employees in most cases.

Innovize has been founded by Shirish Deodhar, Madhukar Bhatia, Swati Deodhar, Hemant Joshi – Each has 25+ years of technology and leadership experience in US and India. They are Serial Entrepreneurs with 2 previous successes in outsourced product development.

Link: http://innovizetech.com

IntouchId

IntouchId is a cloud and mobile based solution that allows people and businesses to securely maintain and share their contact information. Just update your contact info in one place and all your contacts’ automatically see the updates in their address books. Conversely, your address book is always up-to-date since it is being managed by the contacts themselves. The auto updating address book is always at your fingertips – visible directly in your mobile’s native phonebook. IntouchId brings these benefits to the corporates by providing an auto updating corporate directory accessible to employees and customers alike, ensuring you stay in touch with your customers, forever.

IntouchId is founded by Dr. Sarang Lakare (PhD in Computer Science from SUNY Stony Brook, USA). Previously he has worked in the areas of medical imaging analysis software and helped built the world’s first Virtual Colonoscopy device, and led the development of software for automatic cancer detection.

Link: http://www.theintouchid.com/

kPoint

kPoint is a cloud-based solution for aglie knowledge transfers based on innovative video search technology backed by 5 pending patents. It is basically a browser based software system that allows customers to create interactive videos that embed slides and other data that makes them easier to search and browse than regular videos. This can be used by enterprises to facilitate knowledge capture and collaborative learning. It can be used by product managers, team members, subject matter experts, trainers, and support.

kPoint is led by a team of 5 experienced industry veterans (including Shridhar Shukla and Sunil Gaitonde, founders of GS Lab) with repeated technology business successes, with seed investment by GS Lab, and now self-funded.

Link: http://kpoint.in

ReliScore

ReliScore.com is an interactive web portal that enables job-seekers to showcase their technology skills across various domains. Users of the portal solve problems and upload sample programs. This allows companies to search for the right candidate based on actual competencies and examples of work.

ReliScore is founded by Navin Kabra (PhD in CS, University of Wisconsin, USA, B.Tech IIT Bombay) and Amit Paranjape (MS University of Wisconson, USA, B.Tech. IIT Bombay) who each have 15+ years of software industry experience in the US and India – in large companies and in startups.

Link: http://reliscore.com

Vaultize

Vaultize is a cloud-based backup solution for enterprises. It is built ground up specifically for the cloud, with enterprise class SLAs and features, data de-duplication and encryption at source, and with clear return on investment in mind. Target customers are SMBs/SMEs/Enterprises – for files, emails, app databases on laptops, desktops and servers.

Vaultize is founded by Anand Kekre (MTech CSE IIT Bombay, BE CSE SGSITS Indore) who has 17 years of experience in large software enterprises, and 53 US Patents, and Ankur Panchbudhe (MTech CSE IIT Bombay, B.E. CSE VNIT Nagpur) who has 10 years of experience in large software enterprises, and 17 US Patents.

Link: http://vaultize.com

World Without Me

World Without Me is a website that allows people to create a digital “afterlife” so that they can store their web passwords in a vault to be bequeathed to heirs after death, send messages in the future, create an autobiography on the go by archiving and curating social networks, and create private discussions. In the future, they would be able to offer country specific estate planning tools, and mentoring and coaching for life challenges.

World without me is founded by Bhaskar Thakur, a seasoned marketer and entrepreneur with over 13 years of experience. Bhaskar was one of the first wave of Internet Marketers in India and specializes in creating strategies, solutions and platforms for the Social Web.

Link: https://www.worldwithoutme.com/

(Disclaimer: Navin and Amit of PuneTech were deeply involved in the creation, conceptualization and organization of PuneConnect, and are also the founders of ReliScore one of the companies that had applied for PuneConnect. Due to the potential conflict of interest, Navin and Amit did not play any part in the selection process which was done entirely by SEAP. For similar reasons, non of members of POCC who are in the PuneConnect organizers team played any part in the selection.)

Inviting Pune Startups to Showcase their Products at Pune Connect 2011

The Software Exporters Association of Pune (SEAP) and the Pune Open Coffee Club (POCC) are inviting proposals from Pune startups and small companies for Pune Connect 2011, an event to be held on November 5th in Pune. In this event, the most interesting Pune startups and small companies will be selected to showcase their products and services to the world at large, and specifically to members of SEAP (which comprises some of Pune’s top IT companies). The idea behind this event is to allow the best startups in Pune a platform where they can find customers, mentors, business partners, affiliates amongst Pune’s established companies, and successful senior entrepreneurs.

The best three start-ups from this event will be further showcased at Zinnov Consulting’s Conference in Pune on Nov 17th.

SEAP will be lining up press coverage behind both events to make sure that the start-ups get maximum mileage.

If you’re interested, and have a product that you can demo on November 5th, and if the target audience includes mature software/IT companies in Pune, please submit a deck of slides to puneconnect@punetech.com, on or before Monday, 24th October, 2011.

The slide deck should cover the following aspects of your company/product:

  • Overview
  • Explanation of the core idea/offering
  • Value prop to the customer
  • Customer case-studies/references
  • Differentiators / unique features
  • Cofounders and sr mgmt team background
  • Short term and long term Plans
  • One slide with company profile including the following information:
    • When was company started
    • When was your product launched
    • (Approx) number of employees currently
    • (Approx) number of customers using your product currently (if any)

Also, please mark the date & time of the actual event (5 November, Saturday, 10:30am-3pm) in your calendar.