the journey from the starting line to the milestone of success is often a rough one. Not every venture that starts

out, succeeds. But the one that does, often makes a huge impact. Everything about these ventures—from their teams, their product offerings, their business model and their execution of a plan—is concerted and focused.

The global recession might have slowed down some enterprises, but it is heartening to see the Indian entrepreneurial eco-system abuzz with activity. A number of start-ups have emerged in the tech domain and some have achieved notable

Start-ups To Watch Out For In

As 2009 arrives, we decided to look back at the year gone by while also casting a glance at the start-ups that industry observers and experts predict will make it big in the coming years.

success too. In our attempt to bring you

success stories from the tech start-up arena, we approached a few experts and industry observers for their opinion on successful Indian tech start-ups worth emulating. Naturally, everyone had their own favourites. We present you with a list of nominations received from these experts, along with brief descriptions of the companies nominated and testimonials from the industry-watchers.

Now, we leave it to our readers to select the best amongst these, by voting for their favourite. The votes can be cast at www.itmagz.com or e-mailed to itedit@efyindia.com

The result of this poll will be published in the subsequent edition.

Compiled by

Janani Gopalakrishnan Vikram & Vandana Sharma

2009

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success too. In our attempt to bring you

success stories from the tech start-up arena, we approached a few experts and industry observers for their opinion on successful Indian tech start-ups worth emulating. Naturally, everyone had their own favourites. We present you with a list of nominations received from these experts, along with brief descriptions of the companies nominated and testimonials from the industry-watchers.

Now, we leave it to our readers to select the best amongst these, by voting for their favourite. The votes can be cast at www.itmagz.com or e-mailed to itedit@efyindia.com

The result of this poll will be published in the subsequent edition.

The company is into creating customised gifts and merchandise. It has pioneered the trend of enabling customers to create their own products.

“Great team with passion. Phenomenal execution. Large corporate gifting market. First-time entrepreneurs who are executing their plan really well, and are laser focused.”

rohit agarwal, charter member, TiE & CEO, techTribe

Kanaga Networks (www.kanaganetworks.com/)

The company provides solutions and software services for enterprise mobility and service provider markets. Its products are aimed at enabling enterprises with greater business process efficiency and its carrier customers with highly reliable and scalable next-gen services.

The company provides services that deliver measurable advantages in terms of development cycles, quality and time-to-market.

“Kanaga has a team of talented and dedicated young IT professionals. Overall, I would say Kanaga is dynamic and very customer focused.”Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MaIa Intelligence

Mondial Consulting (www.mondialit.com)A ‘one-stop mall’

with various divisions that dispense advice on probably everything—from top-level strategy, choosing software and training, to saving money on paper clips.“A very young team of professionals with a unique blend of technology and functional expertise and exposure. The executive team’s premier education and rich experience in accounting makes them strong professionals for deliveries in insurance, financial and other sectors. Mondial also specialises in financial consolidation reporting.”Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MaIa Intelligence

iYogi (http://www.iyogi.net)A direct to

consumer computer support service for people faced with increasing computing complexity.

The company leverages the expertise and experience that India has developed over the last 20 years in providing technical support to customers across the globe.“iYogi brings a price-performance disruption into the consumer desktop support business. In markets such as the US, technical support to consumers and small businesses is very disorganised, and the few organised players offer services at fairly high incident-based pricing. iYogi is unique in providing a fixed annual

subscription for unlimited support throughout the year. Its innovations in enabling personalised remote support services offer added convenience to the consumers.”

alok Mittal, managing director, Canaan Partners

Myntra (www.myntra.com)

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Zoomtra.com (www.zoomtra.com)India’s first travel

search engine and the country’s first and largest online travel deal aggregator, with offerings on the Internet, SMS and WAP platforms.“It is the first Indian travel portal to launch an application on Orkut and Facebook (India Dekha) to connect travel enthusiasts with each other. Zoomtra is now the largest travel network platform for travel reviews with more than

4,00,000 travel reviews already posted. It is powered by state of the art technology with a strong focus on the Web’s usability.” Himani Pahwa, business manager—new Initiatives Smile Interactive Technologies Group

Pothi.com (www.pothi.com)A print-on-demand

(POD) platform for all kinds of self-publishers in India, it caters to authors, NGOs, organisations and anybody who has an idea or content with a niche or small audience and cannot be served by traditional publishing.“They are building a platform with a clear focus on India, which includes providing good support for Indian language content. Pothi is bridging the gap between the flexibility offered by digital content and the convenience offered by a traditional book. Using Pothi’s platform, books can be personalised for buyers, content can be re-purposed for people with vision disabilities, and even collaborative content creation and distribution is very easy. People can even create books of their own.”Himani Pahwa, business manager—new Initiatives Smile Interactive Technologies Group

Inbiopro (http://www.inbiopro.com/)

A science and technology driven KPO organisation, which takes a biological molecule through product development cycles and makes it ready for animal toxicology and clinical trials.

“Excellent business model, innovative product development, clear vision, a workforce that is aligned to this vision, and good HR practices.”

L. Venkata Subramaniam, manager—Information Processing and analytics, IBM India research Lab

Sporting Mindz (www.sportingmindz.com)

Sports products that help monitor and enhance a player’s performance. The company focuses on both elite athletes and on grassroots athletes in rural areas. It focuses on currently popular sports like cricket, and upcoming (in India) sports like football. “They have good plans in place, a dedicated team and so far their implementation has been excellent.”L. Venkata Subramaniam, manager - Information Processing and analytics, IBM India research Lab

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely of Venkat and in no way represent the opinion of IBM India Research Labs.

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Aspiring Minds (www.aspiringminds.in)

The company seeks to identify employable freshers and match them to jobs at par with their skills. It also seeks to help unemployable freshers to improve their skills to become suitable for the job market.“Great team. Large market. Great execution. Young entrepreneurs who have tackled the gap between colleges and careers.”rohit agarwal, charter member, TiE & CEO, techTribe

Desicrew (www.desicrew.in)A BPO service

provider that works to create a win-win situation between urban clients and the rural workforce of India. While the company provides solutions to its clients, it also pays close attention to a social agenda. “I think it has a unique leaning towards getting

people from rural areas involved in the IT revolution, which does two things: it gets them to participate early in the curve, and makes good commercial sense.”

Sunil Malhotra, CEO, Idea farms

Farepool.com (www.farepool.com)An online

open marketplace for travel suppliers and travel agents to do business with each other, seamlessly. The portal offers some of the best deals and deep discounted inventory on multiple products like air tickets, hotels and package holidays through suppliers from across the world.“Experienced team. Sharp, hardworking people who have domain expertise in the travel market. Expanding to new markets after establishing themselves in the enterprise space.”rohit agarwal, charter member, TiE & CEO, techTribe

MAIA Intelligence (www.maia-intelligence.com)

The company is into developing business intelligence reporting and analysis products. These BI products are next generation reporting solutions built from the ground up on Microsoft .NET technology. “MAIA is the only Indian BI product company in the country and named in the Gartner Hype Cycle for India 2008 report. In a short span of 30 months and with a team size of less than 35, this company

has successfully developed and marketed its innovative and affordable software in the business intelligence (BI) space. 1KEY BI, MAIA’s flagship product is real value for money—a Mercedes at the price of Maruti.”

Zoeb adenwala, CIO, Essel Propac

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EKO India Financial Services (www.eko.co.in)

The company offers a platform that connects financial service providers to the unbanked customers. The company’s mission is to be a master outsourcer and help its members get better value from service providers, and help service providers get better profits while serving its members.“With the usage of mobile phones as a channel, EKO is able to reduce transactional costs below Re 1, and thus is able to create a scalable

financial services infrastructure with a sustainable business model. Backed by a fantastic and a passionate team EKO has the potential to scale.”

Digbijoy Shukla,director-Strategic relationships, techTribe and supporting evangelistTM to many start-ups

Robhatah provides robotics technology licences, new concept and product development and consultancy services to its clients.“A robotics IP (intellectual property) company, with years of leading research, an experienced team and renowned investors, plus a huge portfolio of patents.”Digbijoy Shukla,director-Strategic relationships, techTribe and supporting evangelistTM to many start-ups

RouteGuru (www.routeguru.com)RouteGuru

makes geographical information and related services accessible, usable and valuable to consumers and businesses.

The company’s recently launched landmark, intelligent, turn-by-turn directions service uses ubiquitous access tools like SMS, Voice and WAP (wireless application protocol), without any hardware requirements like a GPS device.“A great team, innovative product, good overall potential, excellent brand presence.”Digbijoy Shukla,director-Strategic relationships, techTribe and supporting evangelistTM to many start-ups

Robhatah Robotic Solutions (www.robhatah.com)

Studiosmile (www.studiosmile.com)

An incubation centre with the unique philosophy of setting up an entrepreneurial eco-system to help budding entrepreneurs turn their business ideas into successful ventures, by allowing them to focus on the core idea while Studiosmile takes care of all other requirements of the business, and provides traditional and e-business analysis, strategic planning, development, design, and implementation support.“Studiosmile excels in providing infrastructure, technology and help desk services, HR services for building the right team as well as legal and financial expertise. In addition, veteran entrepreneurs and senior industry professionals are available for

mentoring and guidance, allowing new ventures to benefit from their years of experience. Studiosmile’s track record includes the successful incubation of the likes of Quasar, Tyroo, Zoomtra and Zumtra.”

Gopikaa Davar, business director—International Business, Quasar Media

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