It was our first event, it did have minor glitches, but at the end, it was amazing to see the kind of response we got from Investors and Participants alike, who really liked the infusion of a brand new 60 Seconds Pitching concept into India’s start-up scene.
So who won ? It was Infraeyes, the healthcare start-up which we featured a while back. As a part of winning the contest, we are providing Infraeyes, a chance to bypass the review/selection process and go through to Jaarwis Accelerator’s India Accelerator program, which is due to start anytime next month.
Infraeyes won the contest riding on their Vein-detecting hardware, Veinus. Incredibly smart name, with an incredibly smart idea- this device is non invasive. That means it uses infrared rays to display a map of veins under the skin, the area the device focuses on. It won’t matter where the vein is present- if it is there, Veinus will find it.
Veins carry deoxygenated blood back to the heart after it has circulated the entire body. Haemoglobin, a metalloid protein found in our blood responsible for carrying oxygen is deoxygenated in the journey back to the heart. The absorption spectra of the two states of the protein are different for different wavelengths of light falling on them. Under infrared, veins look black- and they show up on the device display. This automatically takes care of infections- zero probability now, and it is unerringly accurate.
The engineers behind Infraeyes ran an appraisal test St John’s Hospital in Bangalore on 80 cases, of which around 40 had veins that were not detectable manually, also helping with six critical cases. The prototype development happened with the help of continual feedback from doctors hospitals in Bangalore and Mysore. The device has a battery back up of 30 minutes, giving it ample time for 4-5 cannulation procedures.
To the surprise of many, we also had guys from Teewe (who were the associate sponsors of the event)who distributed Teewe units to a few selected startup founders and one of our Jury members.
It was fun to see startups sitting in casual surroundings, without any sort of usual investor pressure. We arranged a pre-Pitch Off mentoring session for the startups so as to make sure they know what to say and what not to, during their extremely short, 60 Second pitch.
We also announced tentative dates for our next pitch off, and its happening in June 2015. Applications will open by May beginning and the next city which we aim to disrupt, will be announced by April end. Till then, See ya and hope to see some fresh, new startups in our next pitch off.
1 comment
Congratulations Infraeyes!