Arintra and BrainSightAI graduate as part of ExcellerateHER, a focused initiative to include more women entrepreneurs
Four international startups reinforce the global outlook of the programme
Over 40 alumni startups with three successful exits, and follow-on funding for 70% of the graduating startups
Bengaluru, NFAPost: NetApp, a global cloud-led, data-centric software company, announced the completion of its seventh demo day for NetApp Excellerator, the company’s flagship startup accelerator program.
The seven graduating startups include BlinkIn, Litmus Automation, CloudHedge, SynctacticAI, BrainSightAI, Arintra, and Sn126. These startups are set to disrupt technology in the areas of clinical AI, mental health, data management, edge computing, and remote customer service.
In keeping with the times, the cohort was managed virtually, which allowed four startups from around the globe to participate, giving this cohort a unique international flavour. Litmus Automation, CloudHedge, Arintra, and Sn126 are headquartered in the United States. A cloud specialist with a 27-year legacy of data, NetApp focuses on helping these startups pivot their technology and business models to benefit customers today as well as in the future.
Recent NetApp-Zinnov report highlighted the fact that 63% of the 4,200 Indian B2B technology startups work on enterprise technology for sectors like banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), healthcare, retail, and automotive.
SynctacticAI, a graduating startup, is a compelling testimony to the same fact. The company’s smart data science platform extracts insights from structured and unstructured data for verticals like fintech and retail.
Similarly, CloudHedge uses artificial intelligence and machine learning, coupled with DevOps and cloud, to achieve enterprise-wide IT automation. The demo day offered the seven graduating startups the opportunity to showcase all these exciting technology solutions to their primary audiences – investors, customers, venture capitalists, and prominent leaders of the industry.
Speaking on the occasion, NetApp India Managing Director Ravi Chhabria said working with B2B startups applies to NetApp’s industry-leading expertise in data management to provide solutions that will help rewrite India’s economic roadmap, particularly as we emerge from the pandemic.
“This is an opportunity to develop new partnerships, new solutions, and new ways of working that are accelerating digital transformation. With access to our technology and business experience in hybrid cloud data management, the startups are better prepared to create a robust homegrown technology ecosystem,” said Ravi Chhabria.
He also highlighted that it is NetApp’s inaugural batch of the initiative ExcellerateHER with two of startups, Arintra and BrainSightAI, being led by women entrepreneurs. “Both of these startups are highly relevant, with AI solutions applied to healthcare. From reducing clinical overload to providing advanced imaging and improving brain health, these women entrepreneurs are breaking into high impact areas,” said Ravi Chhabria.
NetApp Excellerator cohort 7 startups
| S.No. | Start-up | Description |
| 1 | Arintra | Arintra is an intelligent medical assistant that helps to reduce overload on clinical providers. |
| 2 | BlinkIn | BlinkIn is a visual Alexa to help people install, troubleshoot, or assemble any hardware product, from furniture to devices to machines. |
| 3 | BrainSightAI | BrainSightAI is building a SaaS platform to bring the power of advanced imaging and AI to clinicians and patients to help ensure better brain health. |
| 4 | CloudHedge | CloudHedge is solving the problem of application migration and modernization at scale for business systems (IT) and operational systems (OT) via an intelligent automation platform. |
| 5 | Litmus Automation | Litmus is the only flexible and scalable edge platform for smart industry that collects, analyzes, manages, and integrates industrial asset data. |
| 6 | Sn126 | Sn126 is an automated cloud-based API testing software. |
| 7 | SynctacticAI | SynctacticAI is a predictive data science platform that simplifies and speeds the process of building and deploying predictive models in the cloud, at the edge, or on the premises. |
Expressing happiness over the success of the programme, NetApp Excellerator and director of Engineering Programmes Leader Madhurima Agarwal said the cohort is unique in multiple ways.
“After the success of a completely virtual program for the last cohort, we rode on the momentum for this batch as well. This has enabled participation from international startups, which has further validated the global outlook of the program. Our alumni partnerships continue to reap rewards. An alumnus startup, Kubesafe, is using our SnapMirror technology in the cloud to deliver Kubernetes backup and business continuity on AWS Marketplace and for on-premises deployments,” said Madhurima Agarwal.
The success of the alumni startups is a definite marker of the programme’s effectiveness. Startups SecurelyShare, CloudSEK, Myelin Foundry, and Lightwing received the Emerge 50 awards for the most innovative software product companies. SecurelyShare also won the stage 2 of the Nasscom DSCI grand challenge for development of automated systems. InstaSafe was recognised by Gartner as a representative vendor for Zero Trust Network Access, and Senseforth was named as a Gartner Cool Vendor in Conversational AI Platforms 2020.
BlinkIn from the current cohort won the Global AI Startup Pitch contest at the Ignite Conference, Sweden. The startup was one among nine that participated in the contest during the Sweden Innovation Days.
Registration for the eighth cohort is now open for a 4-month program that offers a fully paid PoC, or an equity-free grant of $15,000. B2B technology startups with products in the areas of cloud, AI, IoT, DevOps, Kubernetes, and data management are invited to apply.
NetApp is a global cloud-led, data-centric software company that empowers organizations to lead with data in the age of accelerated digital transformation. The company provides systems, software and cloud services that enable them to run their applications optimally from data center to cloud, whether they are developing in the cloud, moving to the cloud, or creating their own cloudlike experiences on premises.
With solutions that perform across diverse environments, NetApp helps organizations build their own data fabric and securely deliver the right data, services, and applications to the right people—anytime, anywhere.
