New Delhi: For the past 20 years, Conquest — Asia’s largest student-run startup accelerator — has been a key driver of innovation in the Indian startup ecosystem. A dedicated team of 25 students has helped provide a boost to the growth trajectory of multiple prominent startups, like Thinkerbell Labs, Atlan and BiteSpeed, from a small room in BITS Pilani, Rajasthan.
Every year, Conquest meticulously selects an exclusive cohort of over 25 startups from thousands of applications, offering them comprehensive support that includes mentorship, networking opportunities, branding, publicity, workshops and funding.
The Conquest 2024 cohort features a significant number of cleantech and B2B (business-to-business) startups, reflecting the current trends in India’s startup scene. The B2B sector, in particular, serves as a crucial backbone to consumer-facing enterprises. Here are some of the standout early-stage B2B startups that have earned their place in this year’s cohort:
Deepfleet Energy
Founder: Arun Vijayan
Founded in: 2022
Location: Bengaluru
Current Stage: Production/Live
EV drivers in India can access only 20 percent of the chargers installed around them, highlighting a key issue in the already insufficient charging infrastructure.
Deepfleet Energy addresses this problem with their product, Roamcharge, which makes chargers ‘sharable’ and allows drivers to book an EV charger through any charging network app. Roamcharge aggregates Charge Point Operators’ (CPOs) energy demands to charger owners.
Currently raising an angel round, Deepfleet has onboarded major CPOs, like Statiq, BluSmart Charge & chargeMOD, demonstrating impressive traction and growth potential.
Alchemyst AI
Founders: Uttaran Nayak & Anuran Roy
Founded in: 2023
Location: Bengaluru
Current Stage: MVP
Redundancy is a key issue across teams in startups, whether it be redundant sales prospect loops or feedback loops for marketing campaigns. Most of these can be avoided by structuring data, instead of siloing it across the company knowledge base.
Alchemyst AI addresses this issue by building next-gen AI employees that can automate entire workflows. These AI models integrate themselves into the workplace within minutes, mimic human behavior, and interact directly with teams to streamline operations.
Currently, Alchemyst is in contact with over 80 customers and is running paid trials with more than five of them. They are actively helping their clients increase revenue by 85-90 percent.
MiClient
Founders: Chandan K Ghosh & Swati Sharma
Founded in: 2018
Location: Gurgaon
Current Stage: Revenue making
India is rapidly evolving into a technology and innovation hub. However, the B2B space has lagged in Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) solutions, resulting in around 70 percent of leads dropping off due to inefficient sales processes.
MiClient addresses this by offering affordable SaaS-based CPQ solutions. It helps clients close deals faster, more efficiently and at lower costs by providing a lean, user-friendly platform, specifically tailored for SMBs.
MiClient has over 100 active customers. Backed by 100X VC, they have raised Rs 2 crore in revenue.
Logout.studio
Founders: Mohit Nagaria
Founded in: 2023
Location: Gurgaon
Current Stage: Revenue making
COVID-19 dealt a huge blow to the global travel industry, strongly impacting travel SMBs. However, the Indian travel industry has now regained momentum.
Logout.studio addresses the challenges of travel-related SMBs with a no-code, scalable tech platform that automates workflows. Their end-to-end solution includes lead generation, sales and customer support.
Logout.studio stands out as the only Indian travel-tech SaaS partnered with Google Things to Do and has attracted significant funding.
RealBetter
Founders: Gaurev Kapur & Chakrapani Gollapali
Founded in: 2023
Location: Gurgaon
Current Stage: Revenue making
The real estate industry is complex and fragmented. Small to medium agents, who drive 90 percent of sales, often struggle to find buyers or sellers with little assistance available.
RealBetter is India’s first modern B2B-tech marketplace for real estate agents and builders. Their platform unites all stakeholders to manage daily buying and selling requirements, with verified agents and listings, while digitising the home buying process.
Launched on 25 April, RealBetter has gained substantial traction and is valued at Rs 25 crore.
These are five of the 27 groundbreaking startups to secure a spot in Conquest’s 2024 cohort. Conquest’s Demo Day is set to be held on 11 August, where this cohort will engage in competitive pitching in front of a board of jury.
Conquest 2024 is being organised by BITS Pilani. ThePrint is its Digital Outreach Partner.
Also Read: Startup Accelerators: The Hidden Gems Fueling Entrepreneurial Success