Indian startups win fellowships in Toronto, Canada

The third edition of Next Big Idea Contest that sought to discover India's five most innovative technology companies, that are looking to leverage their presence in Ontario and Canada, announced the emerging winners today.

The contest, which was conceptualized in 2013, with the objective of identifying promising tech start-ups from India, and showcasing them in Toronto, had been launched across 9 cities, with 7 city-based accelerator partners this year.

Jointly hosted by the Government of Ontario, Canada and Zone Start-ups India, the Bombay Stock Exchange Institute and Amazon Web Services, the contest entitles the five winners to two-week incubation at the Ryerson University’s Digital Media Zone (DMZ), which is ranked first in Canada and fifth in the world by University Business Incubator Index.

“The 3rd Edition of the Next BIG Idea Contest saw 308 applicants contesting for the top slots. It was a challenge zeroing down on the top five,” said Ajay Ramasubramaniam, director of Zone Start-ups.

The winners were judged on three parameters– whether the business pitch has the potential to go global, whether the contestant already has a footprint in North America, and if the pitch sported an intellectual property with potential to go global.

“We have seen tremendous ideas come to life through Zone Startups / India, and we look forward to enabling Indian entrepreneurs to bring their innovations to North America,” said Jens Michael Schaal, counselor, Ontario International at the New Delhi Trade & Investment Office.

The five winners are Bengaluru based machine learning startup Lightmetrics Technologies Private Limited and Packal; Delhi based Neuron and Swift File Transfer, and Thane based Survelytics.

Mandar Vaidya Founder and CEO of Thane based Survelytics, “I would recommend each and every budding tech entrepreneur to participate in this contest and win a chance to explore the possibilities that the International start-up community and DMZ have to offer.”