StartupGoa Dispatch #5 - 3rd May 2023
Funding rounds for Spintly and iXRLabs, electric ATV manufacturer Powerland, Audiopen.ai a no-code tool, Pulze Batteries and Buildoor Labs' innovative solutions in sustainable power and dApp adopt.
Welcome back to the Startup Goa Dispatch! After a hiatus of six months, we are excited to bring you the latest updates from Goa. We know it's been scorching hot lately; all we can do is sweat and pray for the monsoons. But hey, the startup & tech scene in Goa is just as hot, and we're here to bring you all the deets. So sit back, relax, and read on!
Warm Cool regards from the StartupGoa fam 🤙🏽
Missed out? Get up to speed on the latest startup funding gossip from Goa
Spintly is a really cool startup based in Goa that makes smart devices for homes and businesses. These gadgets are perfect for people who want to control their doors, gates, and locks with their phones. With Spintly's technology, you can even use your phone to operate elevators and other access barriers! Their stuff is super convenient and makes life so much easier. Plus, big companies like OYO, MyGate, and L&T are already using their contactless tech to create a safer and more futuristic world.
👨🏽🏫 iXRLabs raises $800K in a seed funding round for their VR EdTech startup
iXRLabs co-founded by Goan Nihar Madkaiker, is a Gurugram-based VR EdTech startup that provides highly immersive, interactive, and insightful virtual reality experiences for higher education that helps users keep up with the rapidly changing pace of industry and technology. The startup provides experiential and immersive virtual reality (VR) educational modules in engineering, medicine, and sciences to universities and colleges.iXRLabs has collaborated with iVAR Lab at IIT Kharagpur to explore VR for higher education. The funding will be deployed for scaling up the product.
Made with ♥️ by the people of Goa
⚡️From diesel to electric: Goan startup Powerland, India’s first and only electric ATV manufacturer
Powerland is a Goa-based startup that manufactures and exports electric all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) for agriculture, defence, and adventure sports segments. They produce their ATVs at Goa’s Verna Industrial Estate with a team of 25 workers, producing 400 units annually. Their ATVs are used for agriculture, defence, and adventure sports segments. In August 2022, Powerland raised $1.2 million in equity and debt finance in its pre-Series A round from Germany-based ILAFA Vertriebs GmbH, for an 18% stake in the startup to scale up its production.
Louis Pereira's journey with AudioPen is an inspiring one to follow. He built the MVP with No-Code and grew it to around 500 paid subscriptions in just 30 days after launching. Starting as an experiment with GPT-4 and Whisper, AudioPen proved to be the most popular of Louis' experiments on Twitter. Building in public from the start and involving his followers helped Louis build the MVP. Excitement grew among early users and Louis received his first payment within hours. Thirty days later, 2500+ users had signed up, and about 500 people bought his lifetime deal for the launch. A promising product indeed.
Innovating by the sea: Goan tech & startups in the spotlight
🔋From Coimbatore to Goa: Pulze Batteries Leads the Charge for Sustainable Power
Pulze Batteries is a brand of Lithium batteries produced by Pinnacle Lithium Power, a Coimbatore-based start-up in partnership with Syamantaka Technologies, a Goa-based start-up. Pulze batteries are used in various applications such as Electric Vehicles, Solar, Robotics and Marine. It has a state-of-the-art facility with the production capacity to produce and test 100 batteries daily. They have an efficient Supply Chain and minimized lead time. Pulze Batteries have also tied up with Lucas TVS to produce Make in India Battery Packs. They are working in the field of advanced thermal management and thermally stable battery packs.
📊 Engage, Earn, Repeat: How Buildoor is changing the game for dApp adoption
Buildoor Labs is a Goa-based tech startup that envisions devising a platform with an engage-to-earn economy as its force that drives adoption for dApps (or decentralised apps for the uninitiated 😛) like never before. It aims to solve the lack of adoption/conversion for developers, lack of feedback mechanism for developers, and lack of motivation/patience to learn web3 for users. With Buildoor, users can come and engage with a wide array of dApps and get paid to perform some key tasks on their way.
🌱Goa’s E-Rickshaws: Accessibility Meets Sustainability!
The office of the state commissioner for persons with disabilities in Goa has introduced wheelchair-accessible e-rickshaw services managed by Ezy Mov to make travel hassle-free for persons with disabilities. The service will be available from 7 am to 10 pm and can be availed by calling on 9029090880. Two family members can accompany the passenger with disability in this vehicle, which has a ramp that doubles up as the door in the rear and the wheelchair is strapped on all four sides for safety.
What we’ve been reading at StartupGoa
The Happiness Hypothesis - If technology is so great, why are people so unhappy about it?
The tech industry is facing criticism from various groups, including those who are unhappy with technology and the venture capitalists who fund it. While the purpose of technology is to increase the potential for happiness, most people do not feel like technology makes them much happier. The tech industry often produces products that seem unimpactful or silly at first, but through natural selection, the useful ones survive and contribute to human happiness. Technological progress is an infinite hedonic treadmill, where people quickly take for granted the things that once brought them happiness. Despite this, the tech industry promises to fix our problems, but with the caveat of giving them carte blanche to potentially cause harm
📋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.