Kolkata:  The 5th day’s programme started with a pitching session by Agro, Health & Other Service Sector Startups. Some of the most important were:

H2M Food and beverages

H2M induce the super food ingredients into all our daily food choices including meals, snacks, and even beverages. They deliver similar tastes, enhancing nutrition and taking you a step ahead to fighting conditions and diseases like obesity, malnutrition, diabetes, hypertension and other chronic diseases.

Saint Sita Ram Innovation Lab Pvt. Ltd

SSR deals with patented and high-tech products. SSR Innovation lab’s main objectives are: To work on new ideas and transform them into products. To develop, manufacture and market innovative products (Patented).

Other startups who participated in the pitching session were:

• Gomophy online services private limited
• YouCreed Edutech Pvt. Ltd.
• Jobskul, Apogee CTS LLP
• FELIS LEO VENTURES Private Limited
• Bonv technology private limited
• DeepFacts Private Limited

After the pitching session, the session on “Startup ecosystem in the healthcare sector” started. Mr. Sundeep Lal, CEO & Founder, BioConnexus said that we have seen significant impact on products coming in infotech, pharma and the vaccine segment under Made in India for the world. It is time that the healthtech and medical device sector also witness a boom.

Cdr. Divya Joshi, Head of Medtronic R&D center, Hyderabad said that beyond Make in India for the world, we need to also focus on design in India for the world. He opined that the immense talent in the country, bio compatibility and pharma presence in the country gives the edge to India to make an impact all over the world in the healthtech sector in elevating pain, restoring health and extending life. He said investment in healthcare and driving innovation is the call of the day that the pandemic has taught us. The healthtech ecosystem in India is not as good as automobiles or aerospace and that is an area where much work needs to be done.

Mr. Raghavendra Shenoy, former MD J&J & Independent Heathcare Consultant said that over the last decade a lot of innovation has happened in India. But startups need to watch out for challenges. He stated, “We are very good at ideation and prototyping, but our challenge is in scaling up of operations”. He suggested startups in the healthtech space to understand the universal problems and demands and consult the end customer-surgeons- before designing products. He informed of the Astrazeneca- Business Sweden   collaboration, that holds a startup challenge where startups can apply and get access to VCs, renowned Govt institutions etc, IITs and good mentors for guidance and if their technology passes the challenge, they get access to the Swedish market. He said, if Indian startups can tap more of these opportunities, we can fastrack the process. He also informed of the GOI’s similar Atmanirbhar Challenge for startups and its focus on healthtech now.

Mr. Mangesh Patankar, CEO Veol Labs said that Make in India, Design in India etc. needs to be made more profitable. Going ahead startups should first understand the problems and demands of the world and develop products accordingly under Make in India and Design in India to cater to the global market. This will help accelerate the scaling up process.

Mr. Tathagato Rai Dastidar, Co-founder and CEO, Sigtuple said that if the problem that we are addressing is well identified and the product is made to work in one Geography it will work for other geographies too. He said that India is lagging in terms of manufacturing compared to China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. This hurdle needs to be crossed. But that said Indian companies designing can always reach out to large scale manufacturers for manufacture and distribution. He suggested that more transport testing labs are needed in India to bring down the massive costs of transport tests. He also stated that PPP in health tech is the way to go enable last mile delivery. The need for remote monitoring, remote diagnosis etc. is mostly in the last mile and it can be possible through PPP. This will also reduce costs in a large way, he said.

Mr Arvind Modi, Partner, Sathguru Catalysers said that healthcare investment industry has grown manifolds in India. Statistically Startup investment in 2020 was USD 10 billion and in the first two quarters of 2021 only it has reached USD 10 billion implying a 100% growth. Healthcare investments is number 3 in ranking among this. So healthcare is the focus for lot of investors and VCs. Huge investments are happening in healthcare startups and around 70% of theses startups are having a global connect. R&D is happening a lot in this sector and startups are getting huge investments. The new trend is that lots of VCs are now facing competition from corporate VCs which is good news for startups, he said.