Six new-age tech startups on-boarded in the second cohort of Lodha Group's Palava Accelerator

November 21, 2018

Established in November 2017 by Lodha Group in partnership with Zone Startups India, Palava Accelerator has on-boarded six startups for its second cohort from application pool of 80 startups. These include Faclon Labs Pvt Ltd, Calamus, Edge Canvas, Tilt, Russsh and One Wallet.

Since the launch, the accelerator program has mentored 8 startups at various stages, of which 3 were able to convert Lodha as clients, one of them being UtopiaTech. The startups are from varied technology domains such as CleanTech, Governance, Ed-tech, Fintech to name a few etc. The second cohort of the Palava Accelerator comprises startups providing new-age tech & digital solutions such as electric bikes, bike sharing platform for e-cycles & e-scooters, asset automation solution for water, AI based learning management system, mobile-based same-day delivery service, and web applications for city vendors.

Startups accepted into the Palava Accelerator program receive support and services including co-working office space, free residential options, business development support, an opportunity to pilot their products at Palava City, access to high quality investor networks, mentorship programs and networking events. The program provides early stage companies a test bed and launch pad for their businesses.

Shaishav Dharia, Regional CEO, Lodha Group said, "Palava is a great opportunity for emerging startups, given the scale of infrastructure and being home to over 100,000 residents. It is also home to fully functional international schools and retail mall; thereby presenting wide-ranging opportunities to emerging tech startups."

"Palava Accelerator has been working with a diverse set of startups, under multiple models of engagement, and enabling them to establish their product validation by providing them with a test-bed. Over the past 15 months, we have seen a steady traction in terms of awareness of the accelerator program across India, and startups aspiring to be a part of the same, which is a win-win situation.", says Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director (India), Zone Startups.

"It's really difficult to validate product idea in the B2B domain and especially if it's a hardware (IoT) product. Palava city was a great opportunity to pilot our product and understand user behavior. The best part of this program was that potential customer (Palava City) was hand holding us to devise a perfect solution." says Ayush Jain, CoFounder, Utopia Tech.

In addition to attracting startups from Mumbai and other parts of the country for its accelerator program, Palava Accelerator has also conducted two editions of its preaccelerator program called Ideathon. The focus of Ideathon is on idea stage companies and startup enthusiasts having commercially viable ideas which require support in product building. Till date, five startups have emerged from the Ideathon PreAccelerator program from which three have successfully built the product and are now in launch phase. One of the pre-accelerator startup Neuronet has also gone on to implement their AI based Chabot solution in Palava and get Lodha as first customer.

Palava citizen and Founder, Neuronet, Vijay says "This has been a great platform at the right time to start building our vision. Accelerator has always pushed us to perform more and helped us to achieve the product milestones. Within 3 months we networked with several companies and got an opportunity to validate our product. All the workshops that we participated in this program helped us to define our roadmap."

Note to Editors:

About Palava Accelerator

Palava Accelerator is an initiative to identify new age technology companies ranging across smart city solutions, real estate tech, hyperlocal commerce, sustainable development and analytics and provide them a platform to test their products/services at scale. The test bed is the Palava City, India's No.1 Liveable City ranked by JLL, which is spread across an overall 4500 acres development plan, and currently home to more than 30,000 families.

About the 6 on-boarded startups in the 2nd cohort of Palava Accelerator

Faclon Labs Pvt Ltd

Driving sustainability in the water and Energy Sector using AI and IoT Founders - Rishi Sharma, Archit Naraniwal, Utkarsh Narain Srivastava Founded by IIT Grads, Falcon Labs uses IoT to track and automate pumping stations, and provide stakeholders with eccentric insights around performance, maintenance, and utilization. Falcon uses predictive analytics and other data mining technologies to detect leaks, predict local consumption patterns, etc. This solution enables management of utilities from a centralized system independent of site locations and availability of resources. Falcon is undertaking pump automation in Palava Phase 2 which aims to reduce water and electricity wastages.

Calamus

Designs innovative electric cycles to revolutionize personal transport

Founder - Nilesh Bothra

Calamus aims to make affordable electric bicycles built on quality, safety, and reliability by using the best components and materials, all in an affordable price. They are currently seeking a possible collaboration with Tilt in their dock solution for enabling electric bike sharing at Palava city.

Tilt

Founder - Deepak VS

Enhancing sharable mobility

Feynman Technology is working on a solution for sharable mobility called Tilt, which is a pool of shareable bikes, where a customer can borrow a bike from a Tilt station by scanning a QR code from the app or by using a smart card that would be provided to them. Once they are done using the bike, the customer may return the bike at any Tilt station and complete their trip. Currently, their bikes are being used in cities, corporate campuses, and townships across India. The startup is in progress with Palava city management for installing electric bike sharing docks in Palava city.

Edge Canvas

Founders  - Kundan Singh, Rajan Chaudhary, Varun Richharia

AI-based education technology solutions

EdgeCanvas is India's first AI-based education technology company providing comprehensive LMS & ERP to Schools, Colleges and Coaching Institutions. EdgeCanvas brings all stakeholders (Students, Parents, Teachers, Administration) to a common platform and makes institute functions efficient, costeffective through advanced automation. They are currently in piloting with Lodha World School at Palava for implementing the LMS and the ERP Solution.

Russsh

Founder - Bharat Ahirwar

Same-day delivery service Russsh is a same-day delivery service to run any kind of personal & official errands. Russsh is exploring integrations with MyPalava App to enable citizens to get daily services and errands.

One Wallet

Mobile application for newspaper/milkman and other vendors.

Founder - Neeraj Tiwari, Ritesh Raghuvanshi, DK Pandey

One Wallet has developed an integrated online system to digitize payments received by small merchants. They make Mobile ERP focused on billing and payments of vendors handling households and connect them with their customers online. They have now designed India's first mobile app for newspaper vendors and are bringing the solution to Palava city.