Startup accelerator Seattle will invest in three Indian companies in its 15th cohort—Visonify, Produx AI, and ZippiAI.
Techstars expanded to Seattle in 2010 and has since facilitated 144 companies through its programme. Further, these companies have collectively gone on to raise more than $2.8 billion in private capital. It said that the 2011 class alone produced three unicorns.
“TechStars stands as one of the world’s prominent global venture accelerators. Speaking of deal terms, we offer up to $120,000 in exchange for anywhere between 6-9% of the cap table. The deal structure is standardised, yet companies have flexibility in choosing specific elements they wish to pursue,” Carson Nye, Investment Manager, Techstars tells YourStory.
The accelerator has doubled its class size—supporting 24 companies now from 12 earlier. “Notably, in each cohort I’ve been involved with over the last couple of years, there have consistently been one or two Indian companies, making up around 16 to 20% of the total cohort,” he added.
According to Carson, few Indian companies have already successfully raised funds during their pre-seed round, often with a million or more in funds. “However, they highly value the hands-on mentorship and network opportunities in the United States, seeking access to capital and partnerships,” he added.
Techstars Seattle actively seeks startups globally for a three-month accelerator programme in the innovation hub of Seattle, which is home to tech giants such as and . It offers early-stage startups the opportunity to accelerate their growth with access to funding, office space, and experienced mentors. It aims to help founders find product-market fit and overcome common startup challenges.
“We maintain an agnostic approach when it comes to sector and vertical focus. Currently, a significant majority of over 60% of our portfolio companies, operate within the sphere of machine learning and artificial intelligence. We don’t view this as a standalone category but rather as a prominent trend,” says Carson. Similar to the shift witnessed 20 years ago with internet investors, he believes that these sectors will follow a comparable pattern.
To join Techstars, startups have to apply online, followed by a series of interviews upon selection. This follows a 15-minute interview aimed at gaining insights into the company. “Based on mutual interest, we delve deeper into the business, evaluating the product division—a standard procedure for any startup,” says Carson.
He adds, “Founders must focus on deeply understanding the problem and customers you’re addressing. While we receive many applications, unique and compelling insights that are backed by market validation, make an impression.”
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Here are the three Indian startups from the Techstars Seattle Cohort 2023:
Visionify
Founded in 2021 by Harsh Murari and Priyesh Sanghvi, VisionAI is a workplace safety startup that leverages computer vision to automate workplace safety. It particularly focuses on tasks such as verifying employees wearing appropriate safety gear, detecting smoke, or identifying environments at risk for falls and accidents.
The platform can be integrated with existing CCTV cameras, allowing users to choose required vision AI apps, quicker onboarding and affordable subscription models. It further provides notifications and ease of monitoring via the dashboard and reporting facility.
“We are delighted to welcome Visionify into Techstars. Given Harsh’s background, I feel strongly that he has the right founder-market fit that will enable them to gain great traction during their time in Seattle and well after as they expand their team back in India,” said Marius Ciocirlan, Managing Director at Techstars Seattle, in a statement.
Produx AI
Produx AI is an advanced product intelligence tool that helps businesses gain insights from customer feedback. It enables smarter decisions for B2B product teams by analysing prospect feedback from multiple sources and extracting insights for product teams.
Founded in 2022 by Tony Tom and Jerin Mathews, Produx AI leverages ML models and agents to analyse sources of qualitative data (ie , Gong, Rapidr, , etc) and couple the insights with revenue and usage insights to deliver actionable insights to the product teams. This enables the product teams to use the qualitative data gathered through the platform for accurate and fast prioritisation decisions.
ZippiAI
Founded in 2022 by Upinder Singh and Parminder Singh, ZippiAI is a predictive maintenance software designed to predict and reduce machine breakdown and improve energy efficiency. The platform leverages a hardware sensor and powerful software layer to enable organisations with real-time machine energy throughput which feeds their predictive model.
This helps organisations identify maintenance needs before they become expensive. The result is identifying malfunctioning machines, eliminating unplanned downtime and increasing production output.
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Edited by Kanishk Singh
