Four deep-tech Kerala startups win NASSCOM’s 2023 Emerge-50 Awards

Kochi: Four nascent companies incubating under Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) have made it to the NASSCOM’s Emerge-50 Awards (2023). The list of honours has been instituted by the National Association of Software and Service Companies, a non-governmental trade organisation whose members include organizations engaged in software development and services, besides IT-enabled or BPO services.

The Kerala companies that won the honour are Prophaze Technologies, Fuselage Innovations, Sascan Medtech and Inntot Technologies.

Prophaze’s web application security can easily monitor, detect and mitigate the cyber-attacks in real time in just a fraction of seconds. It can protect all sets of web API, web applications, mobile backend apps, ERP solutions and CRM, among others. Thus, Prophaze can secure anything which is exposed to the real world and coming through http traffic. Prophaze WAF is world’s first company to launch pure Kubernetes-driven SD-WAF, it has also an AI/ML-based behaviour detection system for cyber threats.

Fuselage’s innovating drone ensures crop protection, aiming to also enhance farming efficiency amid labour shortages and evolving environmental conditions. Tailored to agriculture 4.0, the idea was developed in the aftermath of the floods Kerala faced in 2017 and ’18, leading to depletion in soil nutrients that impacted crop yields. Seeking the need for precise plant treatment methods, the Drone FIA addresses issues of crop damage and unscientific practices by prescribing solution after considering the characteristics of the soil and leaf so as to minimize the impact on the entire acreage.

OralScan, by Sascan, is a revolutionary multispectral imaging camera that employs multiple LEDs and a high-resolution monochrome camera to detect changes in tissue autofluorescence and reflected light, crucial for early oral cancer detection. Its cloud-based ML algorithm processes real-time images, guiding accurate biopsy and histopathological diagnosis. Implemented by institutions such as Tata Memorial Hospital and NGOs such as Ekohum Foundation, OralScan is the world’s first handheld intraoral device, offering objective cancer screening, surpassing subjective methods.

Inntot innovates by replacing dedicated radio chips with its software-defined radio-based digital radio receiver solutions. Patented improvisations (eight granted patents, six pending) prioritize superior quality, executing complex operations through software rather than dedicated chips. This eliminates the need for specialized hardware, enhancing flexibility and reducing costs.

Inntot Managing Director & CEO Rajith Nair, while highlighting the cost-effectiveness of the superior-quality solution, said the company has been gaining global acceptance with the deployment of the chip in more than four lakh cars. “Major companies are considering us for their next generation of radio receivers,” he revealed, highlighting Inntot’s strategic focus on dominating the digital radio receiver solution sector.

The NASSCOM jury comprised 24 members. KSUM is Kerala government’s nodal agency established in 2006 for entrepreneurship development and incubation.