A few months, WhatsApp in association with Invest India came up with a new content to enable young entrepreneurial minds to come up with new ideas for business base don WhatsApp.
Called the ‘Startup India – WhatsApp Grand Challenge’, the contest promised to reward the winners with total prize money of $250,000. The contest was open to participants from all over the country. Now, the winners of this contest have been announced.
WhatsApp says that it saw a total of 1,700 entries from almost all over the country — 25 states to be exact. Out of all the entries, almost 70 per cent were from just-born startups who were less than three months old and weren’t even past the prototype stage. All the ideas required to use WhatsApp as a platform for propagating the business idea to the masses.
WhatsApp says, “The entries were evaluated for their innovative thinking, scale of impact and the ability to solve real problems faced by Indians. A shortlist of 10 entries were then given a chance to pitch their ideas live to a mix of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs including Shailesh Lakhani (Sequoia Capital), Vani Kola (Kalaari Capital) Deep Kalra (MakeMyTrip), Harsha Kumar (Lightspeed Ventures), and Abhijit Bose (WhatsApp).”
After extensive evaluation, five winners were chosen and their ideas have been documented as follows:
— MedCords digitally manages patient medical records, provide comprehensive e-consultations, and deliver insights using data science. Their usage is spread across 2,000 villages with online health profiles managing medical records for 7,00,000 patients.
— Melzo is an affordable virtual reality content platform, enabling masses to consume content easily on low-end devices.
— Javis is a WhatsApp-based conversational AI platform that connects the right people with the right information to get business done quickly. Their AI platform receives an average of 3-4 individual queries per day and currently has 1500 active users.
— Gramophone is an agri-tech platform providing agronomic intelligence to farmers and aims to be a one-stop-shop for all agricultural input needs. They help farmers reduce cultivation costs by 15-20 per cent, and increase production by more than 30 per cent.
— MinionLabs help businesses reduce electricity costs, leveraging a machine learning approach, and improve productivity by providing real-time electricity consumption insights. They have helped businesses save 12-16 per cent on their annual electricity costs.
Each of the winners will get grant money of Rs 35 lakhs to turn the idea into reality.
India has proven to propel highly innovative ideas that are making a significant impact on society and the economy, said Mr Abhijit Bose, Head of WhatsApp India. We at WhatsApp are proud to have a role in helping the next generation of innovators use technology to help improve lives in India and around the world. Congratulations to the winners and we look forward to seeing their ideas come to life.
