Five Indian tech start-ups have been crowned winners of the 3rd edition of the Next Big Idea Contest jointly hosted by the Government of Ontario, Canada and Zone Start-ups India, the Bombay Stock Exchange Institute and Amazon Web Services.
The five winners are Bengaluru based Lightmetrics Technologies Private Limited and Packal; Delhi based Neuron and Swift File Transfer, and Thane based Survelytics.
The Next Big Idea Contest, which started in July 2015, sought to discover India’s 5 most innovative technology companies who are looking to leverage a presence in Ontario, Canada, as a vehicle to expand to North America. Using the DMZ as a landing pad, the entrepreneurs will receive mentorship, business development advice and valuable international experience.
“The Indian start-up space has a massive growth potential. We know that this is also one of the focus areas for the Indian Prime minister. This contest is an opportunity for Indian start-ups to experience the North American market first hand and develop valuable new connections,” said Jens Michael Schaal, Counsellor (Commercial – Ontario), Ontario International – New Delhi Trade & Investment Office. Schaal further adds, “Ontario is a leader in innovation on the global stage. We have seen tremendous ideas come to life through Zone Startups / India, and we look forward to enabling Indian entrepreneurs to bring their innovations to North America. We strongly believe in global sharing of experiences and are happy to nurture these opportunities by offering strong industry connections, mentorship and support from our world-class incubator.”
Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director, Zone Start-ups, said, “The contest was conceptualized in 2013, with the objective of identifying promising tech start-ups from India, and showcasing them in Toronto. This year the contest has been launched across 9 cities, with 7 city-based accelerator partners. This 3rd Edition of the Next BIG Idea Contest saw 308 applicants contesting for the top slots. It was a challenge zeroing down on the top five.”
The winners were selected based on three criterion – whether the business pitch has the potential to go global, whether the contestant already has a footprint in North America, and lastly if the pitch sported an intellectual property with potential to go global.
