Elon Musk had once stated that “AI will be the best or worst thing ever for humanity.”
And today, we’re witnessing the many, many, marvels of Artificial Intelligence that are ruling our lives. From the IT sector to banking and fintech, from healthcare to education, from e-commerce to the business sector – AI has penetrated every major industry across the globe. The pace at which AI is escalating is simply stunning. Since 2000, the number of AI startups has increased by 14 times, and since 2013, the number of jobs demanding AI skills has grown by 4.5 times! Furthermore, Statista maintains that between 2017-22, the global market revenue of AI will grow by tenfold.
Moving on to the Indian AI startup scene, it can be safely said that the market is booming at an impressive pace. According to Inc42 Data Labs 2017 report, the AI startup sector saw a 100% increase in 2017 as compared to 2016 (with respect to deals attained and closed). Bengaluru takes the limelight here – nearly $88 million was obtained from over 58 deals in the AI sector.
Here are AI startups in India that have made their mark in 2018!
Niki.ai is a Bengaluru-based startup founded by four ambitious alumni of IIT Kharagpur. It is essentially an AI-powered personal shopping assistant that helps users shop for products and services online by leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology. The services offered by Niki.ai span across twenty differentiated categories such as travel, entertainment, shopping, and much more.
It has partnered with many reputed brands including HDFC, BookMyShow, OYO, Redbus, Ola, and Uber, to name a few. Furthermore, it has obtained funding from business moguls like Ratan Tata and Ronnie Screwvala.
Another Bengaluru-based AI startup, Absentia VR is the creator of Norah AI – a revolutionary, state-of-the-art, AI-empowered workflow that allows for both game creation and incorporation of game elements for enhanced story weaving and texturing. At its core, Norah has AI, Deep Learning, and Neural Network.
It was founded in 2015 by three college dropouts from BITS Pilani with an aim to create the first unique AI gaming experience in India. Like Niki.ai, Absentia too has obtained funding from renowned investors including V. Balakrishnan, Girish Paranjpe, Astarc Ventures, Exfinity Venture Partners, and 50K Ventures.
Innefu Labs is a Delhi-based AI startup that provides cybersecurity solutions including multi-factor authentication, biometric authentication, and Big Data analytics to both predict as well as prevent cyber threats. Rising cyber threats are a serious issue for companies today and to address this, Innefu has developed its patented security solution – AuthShield that leverages image and speech-based authentication system. AuthShield works something like this – if a user wishes to access an application/system, he/she first needs to click a selfie from the phone and speak a few words. The image and speech are then matched and verified with the user’s features by a 3D modeling pattern and if it matches, access is granted.
Innefu caters to the security needs of clients spanning across diverse industries such as the Indian Army, intelligence agencies, police departments, e-commerce, IT/ITES, telecom, BFSI, and BPOs, among others.
NetraDyne is a one-of-a-kind commercial vehicle technology provider headquartered in Bengaluru and San Diego. Its IoT-based product, Driveri combines AI and Deep Learning to identify and determine the causality of unfortunate accidents on the road by providing commercial fleets with real-time and meaningful data. With the data at their disposal, commercial fleets can detect risky driving and the possibility of unforeseen incidents and prevent it from happening by applying their resources promptly. The aim is to enhance commercial fleet safety.
In June 2016, NetraDyne obtained $16 million in funding from Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL).
Staqu is a Gurgaon-based AI startup specializing in advanced image and video analysis, speech recognition, facial recognition, text processing, and language and text-independent speaker identification engine.
The core focus areas of Staqu include Deep Learning, NLP, Computer Vision, and image processing. Combining these innovative technologies together, Staqu aims to enhance a user’s mobile experience. The AI startup has developed a pioneering contextual content recommendation engine designed to provide in-platform and cross-platform recommendation facilities to smartphone companies while giving the users complete control of the platform too. Apart from a smart recommendation engine, Staqu also provides a robust security framework with fully-customizable facial and speech recognition features.
These are only five among the numerous AI startups that are rapidly transforming the AI scenario in India. As such innovative startups continue to rise and shine, it can be safely said that India’s future looks bright with AI!
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