Wins Swiss-based Seedstars World regional competition
Strike, a start-up which helps people do research inside their Gmail App, has won the regional round of Seedstars World, a global start-up competition.
Based in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded by Alisee de Tonnac and Pierre-Alain Masson, the competition is supported by the venture builder Seedstars. It promotes, connects and invests up to $1.5 million (Rs 9.9 crore) in start-ups in emerging markets, ranging from Shanghai to Cairo.
The Strike team will now travel to Geneva in March 2016 and win up to $500,000 (Rs. 3.3 crore) in equity investment. It will compete with regional winners from 55 countries as part of the Seedstars World final event in front of top investors and an international jury.
“We have developed a global product in India. Seedstars’ network will help us to target almost every market in the world,” said Aishwarya Jain, 25, chief executive at Strike. “It is rare to find product start-ups getting funded by venture capitalists in India.”
Mr. Jain cofounded Strike last September along with Akshay Katyal, his former colleague at tech company HackerEarth. The start-up has developed a technology that provides insights to users about people while checking mails on mobile. For example, how they look like, where they work, their social profiles and public updates. The start-up aims to provide all the public information about anyone through its app.
Ten start-ups from different parts of the country pitched their ideas to an audience of angel investors and industry experts at the one-day event held in Bengaluru on Saturday.
“Strike, by its unique idea of giving an outlook of personalities of people with one tap on your phone, has won the chance to represent India,” said Mahesh Bhalla, president at gift card tech firm QwikCilver. Mr.Bhalla was one of the jury members at the event.
EventsHigh, a local event discovery platform that brings all the events and things to do in a city, was placed second in the competition. The firm was founded by former WalmartLabs engineers Nikesh Garera, Arvind Batra and Parag Sarda last year. Another start-up, SayPay Technologies, co-founded by Ramsyam Missula was placed third in the competition. The firm enables users to make bill payments and online purchases on their mobile device by using their voice.
Last year, Scandid, a Pune-based shopping technology start-up, won the regional round of Seedstars World. The venture enables shoppers do price comparison by scanning the product barcodes with their mobile phones.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Bengaluru / by Peerzada Abrar / Bengaluru – September 08th, 2015