We examine how some Indian start-ups have used AI to draw growth and investment

India is a breeding ground for many industries. The increase in educated population and the run towards growth has unraveled technology into the country. Today, technology is a core element of growth in the Indian ecosystem. While well-established companies are embracing artificial intelligence for further improvement, Indian start-ups are ballooning like never before.

Fortunately, technology-based Indian start-ups landscape has evolved to become the 3rd largest in the world. Since 2010, the start-up radar has seen significant growth with more government initiatives and technological evolutions. But things got spearheaded when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. The lockdown pushed people to rapidly adopt technology, resulting in more Indian start-ups gaining funding and making it into the unicorns list. AI unicorns are opening their door for Indian companies to make it big. According to a report in 2018, around 8,900-9,300 start-ups were functioning in India, and 1,300 of them were tech start-ups. This has drastically surged ever since. Just in the first four months of 2021, nine Indian start-ups have entered the unicorns list. Remarkably, all of them were using artificial intelligence and sub-technologies to power their working system. Henceforth, we examine how some of the companies have used AI to drive growth and investments.

Digit Insurance

Digital Insurance is an Indian start-up based in Bengaluru. Founded in 2016 by Kamesh Goyal, who is now the Chairman of the company, Digit focuses on selling insurance online and through partnership channels. The company maintains a human presence through its product support team, which it claims is available even during holidays. The company has recently entered the unicorns list by raising US$18 million from existing investors and pushing the total valuation to US$1.9 billion.

However, like many other companies, Digit also has technology as its core element of success. Digit is a fully cloud-based insurance firm that utilizes artificial intelligence, machine learning, image analytics, tracking technologies, and data lakes to build general insurance products such as motor, health, travel, and home insurance. Fraud management is a critical element that insurance companies undergo. Since the level of money circulation is high, attackers prefer to target insurance companies to get critical data. Fortunately, Digit uses AI, ML, and image analytics for better fraud management and claims settlement.

LinkedIn- Digit Insurance

Twitter- @heydigit

Innovaccer

Innovaccer is a healthcare data action platform that delivers healthcare through pioneering analytics and transparent data. The company aims to connect and curate the world's healthcare information to make it accessible and useful. With innovaccer, everyone works in the service of patients like never before, as one. The company has raised about US$229 million in 2021, bringing the company into the list of AI unicorns.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the need for healthtech have contributed greatly to the growth of Innovaccer. The company debuted an artificial intelligence-based data activation platform that integrates with 300+ EHRs, claims systems, laboratory systems, and financial systems. Another Hadoop-based big data repository was also launched by Innovaccer. The platform runs state-of-the-art analytics, collects raw data scattered everywhere, integrates it, normalizes it, and parses it through algorithms to provide trends and predictions in a structured, consumable and ready-to-use manner.

LinkedIn- Innovaccer

Twitter- @innovaccer

ShareChat

ShareChat is an Indian social media start-up that offers content consumption and sharing platform in Indian vernacular languages. It is available in 15 Indian main and regional languages. ShareChat was founded in 2015 by three IIT Kanpur alumni. The company has made it into the unicorns list by raising US$828 million in eight funding rounds.

Fortunately, ShareChat is a major user of technology, especially, artificial intelligence. The local social media platform is leaning on artificial intelligence-based solutions to expand its user base among the non-English speaking population. After the ban of TikTok, a Chinese entertainment platform in India, ShareChat gained its place in the country. In 2020, ShareChat was looking at tie-ups with IITs and other premier engineering colleges to work on regional language frameworks. The company has already built out Natural language Processing (NLP) models which involve video, speech, and text in languages such as English and Hindi.

LinkedIn- ShareChat

Twitter- @sharechatapp

CRED

CRED is a member-only club that rewards individuals for their timely credit card bill payments by providing them with exclusive offers and access to premium experiences. The platform allows credit card users to manage multiple cards along with an analysis of their credit scores. The fintech platform recently entered the unicorn club at a whopping valuation of US$2.2 billion. CRED uses eighteen technology products and services including HTML5, Google Analytics, jQuery, etc in its working system.

LinkedIn- CRED

Twitter- @CRED_club