Nasscom to mentor 30 deep tech startups

According to Nasscom, there has been a spurt in funding in deep tech startups, as investor interest in niche products and platforms has increased significantly. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain, Machine Learning (ML), and virtual reality (VR) are leading the startup space and attracting interest and activity, Nasscom said, in a note.

Over 8-12 weeks, the startups in the third cohort of its DeepTech Club Mentorship programme, will be exposed to mentors, corporates and financiers, Nasscom’s Vice President, Industry Initiatives, K S Viswanathan, said, over the phone. It seeks to “accelerate them to the next level, in terms of revenue, get them ready for seed funding, and help them with market access", he said.

The new cohort has startups that are three to five years old, from retail, fintech, medtech, healthtech, clean tech, and some working in areas such as computer vision and deep learning, he said.

“We launched the 10,000 Startups program six years ago, to help startups in the ideation and concept stages and to become product ready. After five or six years, we started the Accelerate 10X program. As a prelude to that, we started the DeepTech Club to identify potential startups in deep tech areas," he said.

These are mostly in the business-to-business segment, working in the areas of analytics, AI, Augmented Reality (AR), VR and IoT.

The deep tech programme, launched last year, has mentored 50 startups over two cohorts. Though it is a structured mentorship programme, along the way, startups discover areas where they require guidance. “It could be in storytelling, business proposals, product pricing strategy and so on," he added.