WhatsApp just awarded $50,000 to these 5 Indian startups

The use of internet is booming in India but not everyone has access to fast data connectivity. Added to that, online content is only going to get more data-heavy as advertisers get more creative.

Melzo, an affordable virtual reality content platform, is trying to bridge the gap by allowing people to consume content easily on low-end devices.

The company is working with over 140 brands all over the world — not just in India. So far, they have managed to reach 3 million views for audiences across 200 countries.

This isn’t Melzo’s first award. During the Vibrant Gujarat Startup Summit 2018, they came in first and won another grant of $50,000.

Farmers in India have always complained about the low margins on any crop that they try to sell. Gramophone, an agri-tech platform, is trying to increase that margin and reduce the cultivation costs by 15% to 20% using agronomic intelligence.

The aim isn’t just to make farming more lucrative in India but to increase the overall production of a given crop, by more than 30%.

Javis might not be the same as Jarvis out of the Avengers, but it’s trying to solve the problem just like Tony Stark’s virtual assistant. The aim of the WhatsApp-based conversation AI platform is to make sure that the right people get connected to the right information in the shortest amount of time possible.

It’s essentially a very smart research tool. So far, the platform only has 1,500 users and deals with around 3-4 individual queries per day. But Javis is set to expand its footprint, pun intended, to 15,000 footwear outlets starting next month.

India’s energy crisis is a reality that a lot of business have to deal with when the power bill comes in at the end of the month.

MinionLabs wants to help cut down on that cost by 12-16% by giving businesses real-time insights into how they can reduce their energy consumption — using machine learning.