NASSCOM launches its second start-up warehouse in Kolkata

In continuation with NASSCOM’s 10,000 start ups program with Bengaluru being home to the first start-up, Kolkata bags the crown of being the second.

After a receipt of 30 potential applications, NASSCOM selected four start ups to be a part of its start-up warehouse located in Kolkata’s Salt Lake Sector V spread over 10,000 sq feet of area.

On a recent visit to the warehouse, The DQWeek met up with the brains behind the emerging entrepreneurial scenario in Kolkata.

Founded by Saptarshi Basu, B.Tech, Mechanical from Budwan University with Nayaran Murthy as his idol, Basu founded Analyse Tech around 7 months back. Basu’s product StoryBI is a big data analytics company that works on cloud web visualization to track the demographics of social media pages for organizations giving them a fair idea of the market interested in their product. The product aims to equip organizations who use social media tools to launch campaigns and products, to get an idea of the market that is most responsive to their product.

Easy Coach, another start-up by Om Agarwal, is an innovative platform that helps ambitious students write application processes expertly. Agarwal believes that most students seek guidance for competitive examinations. However, preparing for exams is one thing and applying to the right set of colleges with their requisite format is another.

Many a times, students fail to portray their skill set in a convincing manner resulting in application denial. Agarwal is witnessed this gap in the education landscape and has set to address it. With Agarwal’s software, a student can get in touch with a mentor who can guide him through the process. The mentors are experienced professionals in the academic world who can give expert guidance on the admissions applications. Currently, Agarwal is only targeting the IVY League Colleges, MBA segment and will spread his wings phase by phase covering the overall global market.

Third in line was IMangemyhotel, innovative software targeted towards midsize hotels and tour operators. Abhijit Sanyal, the inventor of this software with a keen eye observed that most midsized hotels and travel agencies operated from registers and diaries making the industry un-professional. He came up with his cloud based software which was not only simple to understand (keeping in line with the managers of such hotels who posses little or no education) but also reasonable to afford. With this software, hotel owners and tour operators can mange their inventory, packaging, restaurant bookings with expert efficiency leading to no loss of information. Currently, Sanyal has tapped the Manali and Gangtok market, with seven clients to boast of and will foray into further geographies soon.

Rajat Tandon, senior director, NASSCOM on being asked as to why he chose Kolkata only after Bengaluru replied that this was one part of the nation which lacked a support system for the skill set available. NASSCOM has taken it upon its shoulders to address this belt with sufficient infrastructure to boost the start-up potential present here. NASSCOM is all set to search more such potential start ups from Guwahati, Bhubaneshwar, Siliguri and other tier II markets of the East.