GUWAHATI:
The two-day-long second edition of Kickstart 2.0 Industry conclave hosted by Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG) BioNEST concluded on February 15.
The conclave was organised to create a unique template in the Northeast to explore avenues for market creation, technology transfer, and product commercialization, thereby helping startups across India by promoting their market reach and business expansion.
BIRAC sponsored BioNEST at the IIT Guwahati Technology Innovation and Development Foundation of Research Park and Free Flow Venture Builders hosted over 80 start-ups across the country, primarily from the Northeast who showcased their products to investors, healthcare providers and enablers.
The event was graced by senior IAS officer and state health commissioner Dr Siddharth Singh as the chief guest.
The economic advisor of North Eastern Council (NEC) Sherry Lalthnagzo and Tata Medical & Diagnostics CEO Girish Krishnamurthy graced the event as the guests of honour.
In his address, Dr Siddharth Singh emphasised the need for technologies and innovations in the field of healthcare accessibility, organizing patient load at hospital OPDs and the products that can optimize the efficiencies of hospital ICUs.
Speaking during the event, Sherry Lalthnagzo expressed the huge potential the Northeast has to offer in terms of biodiversity and human resource and stressed the need of building of strong startup ecosystem.
Girish Krishnamurthy showcased Tata Medical & Diagnostics initiatives in point-of-care diagnostics and solving healthcare accessibility problems in Indian system.
Speaking during the event, IITG’s officiating director Prof Parameswar K Iyer outlined the institute’s Incubator network and explained the cutting-edge infrastructure that can be pivoted for product development and build the generation next startup ecosystem in the Northeast.
Dipankar Bandyopadhyay, Head of Jyoti & Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciience& Technology and principal investigator for IITG BioNEST added that it is very encouraging to see huge participation by startups from Northeast and across India and encouraged them to collaborate with IITG and NE ecosystem. The key attraction of the event was the startups’ pitch battles.
The conclave hosted 20+ of India’s top investors, both VCs and Angel Investors, including Hyderabad Angels, Mumbai Angels, GenVantage, Encubay Angel Network, Dextor Angel, FAAD, Realtime Angel Fund, WeFounder Circle. This was achieved through partnering with a boutique Venture Building Partner – FreeFlow Ventures, who were also responsible for cumulative investment intent management from the visiting delegation. Notably, the number of unique intents for the startups was over 80 with a cumulative investment intent being upwards of 120+ crores via the equity and debt routes.
FreeFlow was able to engage with a pool of 600+ Indian Startups and founders amongst whom, 30 startups pitched in front of 25 esteemed investors representing various investment sensibilities.
Along with this, a parallel Doctors’ Conclave was also concluded as a part pf Kickstart 2.0 involving 6 specialists professors and HOD at Gauhati Medical College Hospital, one from TATA MD & one from Apollo Hospitals Chennai.
During the interaction with Health tech startups and researchers, the doctors spoke about the existing technology gap between what is required and what is available and identified some of the major areas which will define the progress of health sciences in the NE of India and India as a whole.
20 such areas were identified through vibrant discussion and interactions, these will now be further followed up by deep dive discussions in the interdisciplinary environment that has been created.
Dr Muralidharan, Apollo Hospitals Chennai and Dr Taslimarif Sayed, director & CEO, who joined online, CCAMP engaged the audience during their Plenary talks.