Indians To Demonstrate Products To Top London Investors
Indian startups showcase innovations to global investors at Commonwealth Fellowship event Three Indian startups showcased their innovations to investors in London. These startups were selected for the Commonwealth Startup Fellowship. The fellowship is a UK government-funded program. Lifeandlimb.ai, Hexpressions, and AgrowSure represented India. The startups aim to expand their reach internationally. The fellowship provided them with valuable networking and support. The program helps to address global challenges.Bengaluru, Three Indian startups selected for the six-month Commonwealth Startup Fellowship, a flagship Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC) programme funded by the UK government, pitched their ideas to top investors at the Capstone Showcase in London on Tuesday. The three startups-Ghaziabad-based lifeandlimb.ai, Jaipur-based Hexpressions, and Maharashtra-based agritech startup AgrowSure-were chosen from more than 1,400 companies across 44 countries, said Stephen Johns, International Communications Manager, Imperial College London, which is partnering with the UK government through its Imperial Enterprise Lab to facilitate the fellowship.
Nishant Agarwal, CEO and founder of lifeandlimb.ai, said when he won the President’s Award for Best Outgoing Thesis at IIT Kanpur for his MS thesis on using myo-sensor technology for prosthetics in 2015, he realised he could take the project forward.”So, after graduating, I worked in a manufacturing company for a bit to understand the nitty-gritties of manufacturing. In 2020, I registered the startup and incubated it at IIT Kanpur. It took us three to four years to build a clinical pilot programme with about 150 users,” Agarwal told PTI.He pitched their flagship product, bionicli, a multi-articulated prosthetic hand designed to mimic human anatomical function, at the Capstone Showcase. “In India, we are confident of capturing 30 per cent of the market in the next three years. But to expand internationally, we would need FDA approval in the US and EMA approval in Europe.
This is where the Commonwealth Startup Fellowship will help us the most,” Agarwal said. Akshay Wairale, co-founder and Sales & Marketing Head of AgrowSure, said the fellowship will also help them market their agritech products in Commonwealth countries. “Our products were developed as sustainable solutions in four categories after studying the market needs of the farming community. Since ground realities are similar in other low- and middle-income Commonwealth countries, they will find our solutions useful as well,” Wairale told PTI. The bootstrapped startup, incubated at IIT Kanpur, received initial support from grants from institutions such as IIT Kanpur and Kerala Startup Mission, said Wairale, who co-founded the company with his school friend and fellow mechanical engineer, Akshay Kawale.