Three Indian startups among 19 selected for Commonwealth Startup Fellowship

Bengaluru, Sep 9 (PTI) Three Indian startups selected for the six-month Commonwealth Startup Fellowship, a flagship Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC) programme funded by the UK government, pitched their ideas to top investors at the Capstone Showcase in London on Tuesday.

The three startups—Ghaziabad-based lifeandlimb.ai, Jaipur-based Hexpressions, and Maharashtra-based agritech startup AgrowSure—were chosen from more than 1,400 companies across 44 countries, said Stephen Johns, International Communications Manager, Imperial College London, which is partnering with the UK government through its Imperial Enterprise Lab to facilitate the fellowship.

Nishant Agarwal, CEO and founder of lifeandlimb.ai, said when he won the President’s Award for Best Outgoing Thesis at IIT Kanpur for his MS thesis on using myo-sensor technology for prosthetics in 2015, he realised he could take the project forward.

“So, after graduating, I worked in a manufacturing company for a bit to understand the nitty-gritties of manufacturing. In 2020, I registered the startup and incubated it at IIT Kanpur. It took us three to four years to build a clinical pilot programme with about 150 users,” Agarwal told PTI.

He pitched their flagship product, bionicli, a multi-articulated prosthetic hand designed to mimic human anatomical function, at the Capstone Showcase.

“In India, we are confident of capturing 30 per cent of the market in the next three years. But to expand internationally, we would need FDA approval in the US and EMA approval in Europe. This is where the Commonwealth Startup Fellowship will help us the most,” Agarwal said.

Akshay Wairale, co-founder and Sales & Marketing Head of AgrowSure, said the fellowship will also help them market their agritech products in Commonwealth countries.

“Our products were developed as sustainable solutions in four categories after studying the market needs of the farming community. Since ground realities are similar in other low- and middle-income Commonwealth countries, they will find our solutions useful as well,” Wairale told PTI.

The bootstrapped startup, incubated at IIT Kanpur, received initial support from grants from institutions such as IIT Kanpur and Kerala Startup Mission, said Wairale, who co-founded the company with his school friend and fellow mechanical engineer, Akshay Kawale.

Abhimanyu Singh, co-founder of Hexpressions, which provides affordable and sustainable homes to underserved communities using composite paper honeycomb panels, said he and co-founder Shiilpi Dua explored paper honeycomb technology as a construction material during their MSc thesis at Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

“Once back in India, we established Hexpressions in 2018 in Jaipur and developed paper honeycomb panels as a fast and modular construction solution. It takes four to five weeks to build a house using our partition walling system,” Singh told PTI.

Singh added that the Commonwealth Startup Fellowship came at a time when they were setting up a company in England.

“So, yes, it was immensely useful, especially the bootcamp in Ghana, where we could meet 18 other startup founders and share experiences. Ours is the first cohort, so we’ll have to see how it pans out with investors,” he said.

Sarah Ranchev-Hale, Head of Imperial Enterprise Lab, said in a press release that even in its first year, the Commonwealth Startup Fellowship is already helping unlock talent, drive growth, and transform communities.

“Imperial is proud to work with these exceptional founders and support their journey to scale innovations that address some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” she added.

Professor Kevin Ibeh, Commonwealth Scholarship Commissioner, said the growing number of jobs created by the selected startups bodes well for communities and economies across the Commonwealth.

“These early contributions show what can be achieved when entrepreneurs are empowered with the right tools, networks, and support,” he said.

He added that the six-month fellowship, which began with a two-week bootcamp in Accra, Ghana, is dedicated to igniting and elevating high-potential startups from low- and middle-income Commonwealth countries. This year’s cohort includes participants from Cameroon, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. PTI JR SSK