Learn more about TechSparks 2012 – The largest India-wide discovery platform for Indian tech startups

SGE caught up with Chandan from YourStory.in via email to learn more about TechSparks 2012, the largest India-wide discovery platform for tech startups.

What is YourStory’s TechSparks campaign all about?

TechSparks 2012, in its third edition, is India’s Biggest Tech Startup Discovery Platform by YourStory.in designed to discover and showcase emerging high potential product and technology start-ups from across India. As part of this year’s TechSparks campaign – YourStory.in organized Regional Round Tables in 5 cities – Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad and through this five month campaign have interacted with over 2000 emerging entrepreneurs from across India, many of whom are building some really cool and innovative products and solutions.

We have shortlisted the best 30 startups from all of them and will be showcasing them at the TechSparks 2012 Grand Finale in Bangalore as YourStory’s 2012 TECH30. 15 of these best 30 startups will be pitching their venture at the event, which also includes other insightful sessions on scaling sartups and engaging panel discussions.

How has the Indian Startup scene grown over the last two years?

We are in a very exciting phase of the evolution of the Indian startup eco-system and the last couple of years have been just the beginning of what is yet to come. Startup and Entrepreneurship being a buzzword five years ago has now taken a centre stage, especially in the tech community. Thanks to the Facebook, Twitter, and Zynga’s of the world and the latest Instagram buzz which has encouraged many Indians to dream big, be courageous and startup. And few local success stories like Gluster, SlideShare and few soon to be billion dollar start-ups like InMobi, Flipkart, SnapDeal and others have upped the mood and brought in lots of optimism in the whole Indian startup ecosystem and we are looking forward to how things pan out from here.

How has TechSparks been part of that growth?

TechSparks, being a discovery platform for emerging Indian product and technology start-ups has been constantly helping and supporting early-stage entrepreneurs during their initial phases of their startup journey providing them with visibility, access to investors, mentors and strategic corporate connect as appropriate to enhance and scale their businesses.

15 of the 30 emerging tech start-ups discovered through TechSparks last year have successfully raised funding, one has got acquired and one is scaling globally and has acquired a Northern Ireland startup. So, we are very proud of the quality and pedigree of our TechSparks start-ups till now and are striving hard to discover and showcase more such emerging product and technology innovations from across India. The complete list of last year’s TECH30 start-ups is available here.

What are some of the more notable startups from the previous TechSparks?

All of our previous TECH30 startups are working on innovative products and solutions in their own space. Some of the notable ones are -

United Mobile Apps, a mobile / broadband / wireless technology company that focuses on connection management, device management and data synchronization software with products like UConnect, UManage, and USync (Raised $1Mn Series A funding from Mumbai Angels)

Heckyl, provides real time financial information, news analytics and heatmaps to get exclusive coverage of markets, companies and businesses (Raised $1mn funding from Seedfund)

Freshdesk, an on demand customer support software that allows companies to support customers across their traditional customer support channels like phone, email, chat etc. and also through new social channels like Facebook, Twitter, etc. (Raised $5mn funding from Tiger Global and Accel Partners)

Forus Health – Developing low-cost portable, intelligent, non-invasive, non-mydriatic eye pre-screening device that can detect the above 5 major ailments (Raised $5mn from IDG Ventures and Accel Partners)

Which startups (or what type of startups) should attendees look forward to seeing at TechSparks 2012

At this year’s TechSparks 2012 we are looking forward to unveiling our next batch of TECH30 startups who are working on innovative and cutting-edge technology solutions in the fields of Education, NLP, Big data analysis and reporting, e-payment, mobile streaming, financial analytics, secure enterprise cloud, voice signatures, agri tech and more.

SGE’s readers have a 50% discount code – TS2012SGE50.

If you need more information about TechSparks, please get in touch with chandan@yourstory.in

SGE is proud to be a Media Partner of TechSparks™.

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