Dispatch #4 - 14th October 2022
This month from Goa - we have a Goan unicorn, Kineco makes news again, biodegradable packaging, a play to win web3 game & more
Happy Hacktober folks ✨
We are out with our 4th dispatch after a long break.
A lot has happened since the last dispatch - A Goa-based health tech firm acquired unicorn status! Also, Goa’s manufacturing sector isn’t far behind, from getting multi-crore contracts to pioneering eco-friendly and sustainable packaging. There’s also some buzz in the web3 gaming space.
We’ve also organised a few meetups during this time. Read more about it and more below.
Warm regards from the StartupGoa team
Featured founders/startup
🦄Goa-based Molbio Diagnostics becomes a unicorn after raising $85M
Molbio Diagnostics, a Goa-based health tech firm, has become India’s 108th unicorn after raising $85M from Singapore-based private equity firm Temasek & existing investor.
The Goa-based company is known for its molecular diagnostic platform, Truenat, which it tweaked for COVID-19 testing, and was approved by the government. The company has also made Tuberculosis (TB) testing faster and has been validated by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for screening. In 2020, it was approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the initial detection of TB and is pre-qualified to be part of the global plan to eradicate TB by 2030.
🚅Kineco bags ₹113-crore order from ICF for Vande Bharat interior works
Goa’s Kineco has obtained a ₹113-crore order from the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai for Vande Bharat Express interior works. The Railway product portfolio includes rail coach interiors, toilet modules, aerodynamic front ends, driver cab interiors and hard seating systems.
🐦FlappyMusk - A web3 play to win based on the popular FlappyBird
Most of us have played FlappyBird, but Noah Martins and his teammates have gone one step ahead & developed a web3 based game where you can earn some crypto. You can also play for fun for free. So go ahead and see how far you can make Musk fly far. To Mars and beyond! They have recently launched another web3 game called Whack a Tate
🤖Goa daily wage worker builds robot to feed his differently-abled daughter
The entrepreneurship spirit seems to be catching on in Goa. A daily wage worker with no prior technical knowledge has built a robot to feed his differently abled daughter. The voice controlled robot was built by Bipin Kadam after researching online on the software required to build the robot. The Goa State Innovation Council is providing him Kadam with financial help and to improve the robot. The council is also looking to commercialise the robot.
Made with ♥️ in Goa or by Goans
🌽Goan startup creates a biodegradable alternative to single-use plastic
LaFabrica Craft is a Dona Paula-based biodegradable packaging startup that recently developed food packets for wet, semi-wet and dry items that is heat sealable and waterproof for 48hrs, which is made using cornstarch-based biopolymer called PLA (polylactic acid) which the company claims biodegrades in just 180 days - and also working on a 90 days biodegradable variant that is faster to degrade than any other biodegradable packaging available in the market.
The startup has also developed packaging and paper bags for food delivery, takeaways, envelopes, protective packaging etc. LaFabrica’s patent-pending paper bag design can carry up to 20 kg of weight. As the company tries to keep prices competitive with plastic packaging, the pouches are priced at Rs 2.2 each and hoping to bring them down further as demand increases.
💧Saaf Water - An AI-IoT platform that monitors and informs people about water quality
Saaf Water, a platform that uses AI and IoT tech to monitor & warn people about water contamination, won the 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge global contest by IBM with a prize amount of $200,000. Sanket Marathe & Hrishikesh Bhandari from Goa helped confound this startup which was praised by none other than our PM during a radio show called ‘Maan ki Baat’ hosted by the Prime Minister himself.
Events & Meetups
Upcoming
👨🏾💻16th October - Goa developer’s summit
StartupGoa is proud to be associated with Goa’s first ever developer’s summit.Goa Developer’s Summit is a day long event showcasing insights & trends that build and empower cutting edge applications. Fetauring industry leading speakers from Goa. Topics include low-code, microservice security, cloud computing, seeverless architecture, blockchain, AI/ML, web dev and creating addictive app experiences.This is one event you dont want to miss. To know more about this event and to register please visit the website.
Done
17th September - StartupGoa Web Folks Meetup 4
After a long break that include the dreaded semester exams and the much-needed Ganesh Chaturthi festive days ✨ Startup Goa hosted an exciting meetup on the 17th of September. Keeping in mind the feedback we got from you - the people, we decided to keep things more interactive & less technical.
We started off with a session on Climate Compatibility For Emerging
Businesses by Tulshe Chowdhury, a Climate Action and Sustainable Development Consultant.
We then had a small elevator pitch session. Attendees were grouped into teams and told to brainstorm ideas on what an ideal Goan startup focussed community should be. A community where people come together to learn, network & build.
It was super fun to see the teams pitch their ideas in front of the audience, with discussions taking place between them.
We hope to see you at the next one.
What we’ve been reading at StartupGoa
🔍A look into the thought behind Figma’s growth, from stealth to enterprise
Insight from the article: This is a nice inside of the sales process at Figma at the end, instead of pitching for companies to use their product, the Figma team focused on individual users at companies. Once the individual user became hooked on the product they would introduce Figma to the rest of the design team. Even if they left this company they would pitch Figma to the next company they joined. This is how they built a community & used it for growth.
Another insight: Multiplayer collab was a game changer that Figma perfected. So Figma initially put a price on how many people can collaborate simultaneously. The logic behind this was that they wanted to keep it free for individual users, but paid for teams (which made sense since hobbyists and individuals would usually not pay, while teams and organisations would have the funds to pay). They figured that by doing this the users would not get to experience the actual magic feature in the multiplayer collab and would miss out on the point of switching over to Figma. So they switched their plan so that free users can get unlimited collaboration but only on a limited number of files.
📋Featured Jobs from the StartupGoa job board
The StartupGoa.org community is grateful for the support from our partners
Numadic
Numadic is on a mission to undisrupt movement by enabling automated vehicle payment applications and infrastructure. Numadic’s vehicle payments platform supports several major banks in India. Proudly built almost entirely in Goa.
Passbolt
Passbolt is the best password manager for teams and collaboration. Secure, flexible, and automation-ready. Trusted by over 10,000 organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, newspapers, governments and defence forces. Passbolt is partially built in Goa.
Feedback
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