January 29th, 2018

New Delhi, January 29, 2018: NASSCOM 10,000 Startups today announced the top 10 start-ups for second edition of Code for the Next Billion program. Haqdarshak, Eye-D, Bodhi Health Education, TheTeacherApp, JioVio Healthcare, KrishiHub, PublicVibe, Right2Vote, ChainFrame, Helper4U are among the top 10 emerging start-ups that are now the part of ‘Code for the Next billion’. The program brought out in partnership with Facebook, is a one of a kind initiative that casts the spotlight on social innovation start-ups in the country. The second edition of the program strengthened by a strategic alliance with Invest India as its Outreach Partner, not only aims to foster growth among the developer community, but also aims at bringing India at the centre-stage of app development and innovation, globally.

The selected start-ups which belongs to sectors such as health-tech, edu-tech, socio-tech, agri-tech, blockchain among others, will be provided with technical, marketing and financial mentoring, and leadership skills, to build their applications and businesses. In the final stages of the program, also known as the graduation stage, start-ups will be made to connect with the industry leaders (CEOs, thought leaders, VCs, ecosystem evangelists, social change leaders), funders to bring public attention to their commitment, solutions and impact such that they inspire many other developers to build innovative solutions for new-to-internet users.

At Facebook, we are committed to support the start-up ecosystem and are happy provide to a platform to those who are working to solve social, economic and technical challenges that currently exist in connecting people. Through Code for the Next Billion programme, with NASSCOM, we will provide mentorship and tools to select 10 startups to boost a developer ecosystem that inspires innovation and also help create social impact”, said Satyajeet Singh, Head – Platform Partnerships – Facebook India & South Asia.

The program saw around 246 submissions from start-ups this year which were screened and scrutinised on various business and technology parameters by the funding partners Unitus Seed Fund, Ankur Capital and Indian Angel Network; and incubation partner Social Alpha. Out of the total applications, 20 start-ups were shortlisted for an in-person pitch with 5 eminent jury members that included K S Viswanathan, Vice President (Industry Initiative), NASSCOM, Satyajeet Singh Head – Platform Partnerships – Facebook India & South Asia, Sarita Raichura Regional Head -South India – ‎Indian Angel Network, Senior Entrepreneur Naganand Doraswamy, and Sucharita Eashwar ‎Founder and CEO, Catalyst for Women Entrepreneurs at NASSCOM’s Bangalore Startup Warehouse.

Extending his acknowledgement to the selected start-ups, KS Viswanathan, Vice President, Industry Initiative NASSCOM said, “This collaborative program is one of the foremost initiatives under our 10,000 Start-ups vision, to empower the developer community and encourage large scale innovation in the country. Aimed at unlocking the vast pool of entrepreneurial energy, the program is not only an effort towards encouraging adoption of mobile internet applications in India but also reward critical thinking and problem solving skills among innovators who will create smart solutions for the next billion”

In addition to the above mentioned partners, the initiative will continue to receive support from Design4India as Design Mentorship Partner and YourStory as Media Partner in the coming months.

About NASSCOM 10,000 Start-ups

10,000 Start-ups is an ambitious attempt by NASSCOM to scale up the start-up ecosystem in India by 10x. 10,000 Start-ups aims to enable incubation, funding and support for 10,000 technology start-ups in India over the next ten years. The program’s vision is to foster entrepreneurship, build entrepreneurial capabilities at scale and strengthen support for tech start-ups. The initiative brings together key stakeholders of the ecosystem including start-up incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, start-up support groups, mentors, and technology corporations. Since its launch in April 2013, the program has done about 800 events in 25 cities of the country which were attended by a whopping 30,000 attendees and received 17,800 Applicants, 2934 Start-ups Shortlists.

In 2016 alone, the program received over 4000 applications of which 658 startups were shortlisted, 130 women leaders were inducted and 300 influencers were involved in mentorship. The program is supported by Google for Entrepreneurs, Microsoft Ventures, Kotak, Amazon Web Services, Facebook, IBM and DigitalOcean.