Six Indian startups have been crowned winners of the 4th edition of the Next Big Idea Contest organized by the Government of Ontario, Canada, and Zone Startups India. The winning startups have secured a two-week market incubation at Ryerson University’s DMZ.
While the competition was to discover India’s 5 most innovative technology companies, one additional winner from Zone Startups India’s empoWer program was also selected to be a part of the group.
The five winners are Navaneethan Sundaramoorthy, Co-founder & CMO of Uncanny Vision; Mukund Mudras, Co-founder & CEO of Heckyl Technologies Pvt. Ltd.; Dhruv Khanna, CEO of Data Resolve Technologies Pvt. Ltd.; Satish Kashyap, Co-founder & Director of Algo Engines Pvt. Ltd.; Shridhar Marri, Co-Founder & CEO of Senseforth Technologies Pvt Ltd. The accompanying winner from empoWer is Tarusha Mittal, Co-Foudner of Cloudrino.
Expressing his hearty congratulations to the winners, Michael Chan, Minister of International Trade, said,
These winners will be part of an innovative ecosystem comprised of advisors, influencers, successful entrepreneurs and investors dedicated to helping winners take their company to the next level. Ontario is proud to drive disruptive innovation to bring breakthrough concepts and technologies to life.
Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director, Zone Startups India also had a few words to share:
We are really excited at how the Next BIG Idea contest has shaped up, since its launch in 2013. This year, we had roadshows across 12-cities and got 389 applications. It was all the more special that during the contest, our first-ever winner, CitrusPay (Winner – 2013), got acquired by Naspers-backed PayU. Earlier this year, Konotor (Winner – 2014) got acquired by FreshDesk. It establishes the credentials of the competition to identify hi-tech, hi-potential companies at an early stage. We now look forward to making our 5th year bigger!
Using the DMZ as a landing pad, the winning entrepreneurs will now receive mentorship, business development advice, access to investors, industry connect and valuable international experience.
DMZ is a part of Ryerson Futures Inc., which is a Founders First Accelerator program, focused on assisting early-stage tech companies as they grow and scale their businesses. Zone Startups India, on the other hand, is an international accelerator program, set up as a joint-venture of Toronto-based Ryerson Fututres Inc. and the BSE Institute, a subsidiary of the BSE Limited. It has recently also launched its fourth accelerator program ‘Gateway91’ to provide potential foreign startup an avenue for making investments in India.
