On the occasion of National Technology Day today (May 11), we take this opportunity to honor India’s grit in proving itself to be a powerhouse of technological excellence and expertise in the past decades. This day not just recognizes the hard work and tenacity of our scientists, but also of the individuals associated with ideating, innovating, and facilitating the dissemination of knowledge, information and taking the products or benefits to people at the grassroots level.

Its history runs back to 1998, when the Pokhran tests were carried, under the leadership of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, that demonstrated India’s scientific and technological prowess.

In one of his tweets today, Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi also remembers the achievements and contributions of Indians to science and technology, especially during these testing times. He mentions, “In any challenging situation, our scientists and innovators have always risen to the occasion and worked to mitigate the challenge. Over the last year, they have worked industriously to fight COVID-19. I appreciate their spirit and remarkable zeal.”

On this note, BW Marketing World has curated a list of new-age startups that are bringing out the best in businesses, with the use of their cutting-edge technology and tools. While India is a notable name in the tech space, this new breed of entrepreneurs is changing the rules of the game, of course, for the better. Their work has been a testament of ingenuity and hard work, aiming to make a difference in the business ecosystem.

1. TorcAI

TorcAI Digital is a global provider of advertising technology & infrastructure solutions to key stakeholders of the digital marketing & advertising ecosystem. 

Powered by Artificial Intelligence, TorcAI specializes in “Programmatic IN-HOUSING, one of the fastest-growing trends among large advertisers and publishers worldwide, empowering them to control audience data, media planning, spends and inventory monetization. 

TorcAI’s AD:TECH platform brings ROI with Transparency for the advertiser, agencies, publishers and AD:TECH companies. Established in the year 2017, the company leads the technology space, providing highly customizable audience platforms, real-time biddable media systems & Marketplace.
The Work
TorcAI has made leaps in providing platforms that optimize the advertising media yield for publishers, a leading payment gateway in the last six months. The said gateway platform with over 600 million users and Billions of Ad impressions wanted to optimize its ad impression utilization using machine learning techniques. TorcAI built the solution that delivers double-digit growth in ROI for the platform. The ML tech uses over 5000 user segments and thousands of user attributes, campaign strategies to deliver positive business outcomes.
 
 They have also designed an Internet ID solution that will empower Advertisers & Publishers to map targeting, retargeting based on user profile. This solution is the most viable alternative to Google’ Cookie ecosystem which is currently being put to sunset for all partners of Google. TorcAI intends to populate its Anchor ID across the AD:TECH world and is currently talking to partners in the US, MEA and APAC.
Future Focus
“TorcAI wants to keep innovating in the sector of AD:TECH. It is currently researching and developing products to bring CTV media into the programmatic fold in India. 

From a Global expansion perspective, TorcAI is planning to enter the US and European market as soon as the business environment is conducive,” mentions Rohit Verma, CEO, TorcAI.

2. Instoried

Instoried is a deep-tech platform that analyzes and optimizes the emotional quotient, tonality and relevance of written content across formats like blogs, articles, social media posts. It helps enterprises and individuals create emotionally engaging content thereby improving ROI. 

It uses a data-driven approach using their proprietary AI-driven technology to make real-time analysis and suggestions to enhance content to increase engagement and interest for the reader. This leads to more clicks and as a result higher ROI for brands, creating a direct impact on sales and revenues for companies.  

It also uses the principles of neuromarketing to offer smart recommendations to increase or decrease a particular emotion in the content. Broadly, Instoried helps companies make their marketing and communications content more human with a data-driven, scalable and repeatable approach using AI.

The Work

Instoried has built a robust AI-based tool that analyzes tonality and emotions of content. With a database of over 10Mn sentences, the tool can accurately show the overall sentiment in any content piece, be it a 5 letter tweet or a 5000-word blog or case study. The tool currently includes a robust Headline analyzer that analyzes the impact, relevance and emotion of Subject lines of emails and Headlines of blogs, a Tone analyzer that measures sentiment and a Emotion Analyzer to measure the overall emotion of the content be it Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear or Surprise. 

Instoried has helped over 30 large and small companies optimize various aspects of their content marketing.  

With Instoried, a southeast Asian Shoe retailer was able to reduce ad spends by 10% and increase click-through rates with more focus on a positive tone.  The tool was used to analyze all google search ads run by the retailer to figure out the right tone that results in the maximum clickthrough. Having discovered the same, the retailer was able to reduce ad spends by modifying ad copies to reflect the perfect tone and emotion.
Future Focus

“We are excited for the year 2021 as we plan to add human collaboration on top of AI analysis to help optimize content even further, keeping in line with key content deliverables such as Branding, Shareability and Conversion. We will also be launching our own content creation automation which not just automatically creates headlines or content pieces but gives you the most optimal content based on tone, emotion and impact using our existing tool,” says Sharmin Ali, Founder & CEO, Instoried.

3. Local Studios

Established by Soham Thakkar and Nirvi Jain, Local Studios is a creative technology firm driven by innovation and advanced technology vision that centers on marketing aims. 

Their specialization incorporates customized virtual experience for brands by incorporating AR filters, Interactive Web Apps, Messenger bots, Web AR, Interactive Videos, and facilitating extensive engagement among the audience. As compared to the conventional techniques of marketing, their interactions produce approximately 3.5-5% more recall value. Similarly, if marketed adequately, this attracts an audience of more than a million.

The Work

Their past collaborations include influential brand names such as Amazon Prime, Garnier Men, Nykaa, Tata Sky, Olay, Tata Housing, Hero Honda, Betty Crocker, Asian Paints, and many more.

Recently, they collaborated with Astral Pipe and launched an IPL filter that is a fun ball balancing game for the audience to enjoy in the meanwhile. Nearly 250 people made insta reels using the filter, creating up to 2 million impressions in under a week.

They have also created India's first AR-enabled T-shirt for the South Indian Movie 'Yuravathna'. The T-shirt had a QR code, which on scanning took the user directly to the Instagram filter. It was used to create a pre buzz for the film and it attracted fans in massive numbers. The film was a blockbuster, making it a perfect example of how influential and powerful marketing today certainly is.

Future Plans

“Playclub.live is another vertical launched by us where we conduct Web games increasing web interactions for brands. Playclub is where brands get things done and also have a little fun. Furthermore, we are not restricting ourselves to AR for marketing but we are expanding in various distinct dimensions which covers AR Menu Cards, AR museum tours, AR Children Book and much more.

Our future strategy comprises Interactive Entertainment Videos and Virtual Reality to conceive more genuine virtual experiences,” describe the founders.

4. Rubix

Rubix Data Sciences helps businesses to take prudent credit risks, build a robust supply chain and monitor compliance for their business partners in India and around the world. 

It has been a part of the ‘Start-up India’ scheme by the Government of India, since 2018. The Rubix Automated Risk Management & Monitoring Systems (ARMS) platform and its suite of reports, products and services are based on its extensive database of structured and unstructured data aggregated from over 120+ sources, customized predictive analytics and proprietary technology. Through its solutions, Rubix protects businesses from financial defaults by their customers and suppliers.

The Work

Very recently, Rubix helped a leading advertising agency with the Compliance Process for onboarding suppliers and vendors, including small freelance contractors. This included completing a detailed KYC process to ensure the physical and legal existence of the supplier. Rubix also ran checks on its Platform for Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) to ensure that the vendors were not compromised in any way. Legal checks were also run on the vendors to ensure that they were clear of any significant legal issues because this could cause Reputation Risk to the Agency.

Cash flows have been highly strained during this period for all Agencies. Rubix has worked with a few agencies in assessing the credit risk of prospects at the time of onboarding and then monitoring their credit risk on a continuous basis. This is done by aggregating structured and unstructured data from over 120+ Data Sources (including statutory sources, financial data sources, eCourts, social media etc.) and using Risk Analytics to provide Rubix Scores to each of the Agency’s customers. These Risk Scores indicate the possibility of a Credit Default and help Agencies avoid risky customers.

Future Focus

“Rubix has just completed its second funding round and the proceeds are being invested in enhancing the technology and analytics of its ARMS platform.

It has developed APIs which enable it to connect to the Credit Workflow systems of companies (including Agencies). The focus is on providing Risk Scores and Data on a near real-time basis,” points Kaushal Sampat the founder, Rubix Data Sciences. 

5. Acies

Acies provides technology applications and platforms, advisory and implementation services, content and learning and development solutions, and strategic investments. Founded in 2017, the firm’s vision is to provide practical and tangible outcomes to support institutions and industries through its businesses rooted in using next-generation technologies and tools to innovate, implement, skill and scale businesses to support growth and sustainability.

Since its inception, Acies has worked with over 75 large global corporates and financial institutions around the world across its businesses. The technology business of Acies, Acies TechWorks has developed over five applications and platforms that power various institutions ranging from digitized processes, complex risk management and balance sheet management operations, and trade processing and analytics in the financial derivatives space. Additionally, Acies TechWorks has recently developed a next-generation no-code platform that powers end-users in an organization to develop enterprise-grade applications and undertake complex compute operations.

The Work

Over the past year, Acies supported one of the top 5 private banks in India to accelerate the digitization of the wealth management business with respect to performance management and customer journey monitoring. Today, Revolutio-enabled applications are trusted by large institutions in the banking and insurance space.

Acies’ learning and development business also supported a large Middle-Eastern bank to continue their management trainee program through a virtual environment and one of the largest banks in India on a specialized training program for their risk management specialists.

Its strategic investment and consulting businesses helped a UK-based B2C and B2B2C startup to setup their Indian operations to accelerate their global footprint and continue to support the firm to operationalize their Indian business.

Future Focus

With the advent of truly no-code platforms, Acies aims to spearhead the no-code revolution through Revolutio by enabling organizations to build SMB and B2C-focused applications for any industry that are equally enterprise-grade and packed with cognitive and next-generation technologies.

As part of the ongoing mission to support sustainability through technology and skill-building, Acies plans to offer more digital-enabled interactive and easy-to-learn courses around technology and financial services that can be accessible to students and professionals around the globe,” adds Muzammil Patel, Global Head Strategy and Corporate Finance, Acies.