Startups dreams that seek to address global challenges
Nov 15, 2022
New Delhi [India], November 15 (ANI/Mediawire): The mission for all the companies was the same - change the world for the better. The iconic business show- 'Meet the Drapers' concluded its grand finale episode of Season5 with two companies- CancerFree Biotech & It's Skinny winning the bumper prize. Hundreds of ideas from around the world. Entrepreneurs who are looking to solve global challenges. Ideas that want to solve pressing social and business problems. Judges who have had to juggle with details for each idea. Ultimately, a million dollar in prize money for the top spot.
This year, the show saw thousands of start-ups from countries like the USA to India, Taiwan, Portugal, Canada, and Brazil competing out of which 36 best and the brightest entrepreneurs were selected. Viewers at home could also root for their home region by voting for the favourite start-ups and fast track their journey to the finale.
Over the next nine weeks, which featured multiple out-of-the-box business ideas, nail-biting competition and eliminations, the finest entrepreneurs were selected for semi-finals.
In the fifth season of Meet the Drapers, Tim Draper- Founder, Draper Associates along with his other fellow judges, Bill Draper - Founder, DRK Foundation and Polly Draper - Actress, Producer and Director, closely analysed the potential of the contestants in search for the next billion-dollar idea. Each episode also has a guest judge which included Indian American businessman and the founder of Hotmail- Sabeer Bhatia, Kirthiga Reddy, President, Athena SPACs, and Naveen Jain, Founder & CEO, Viome Life Sciences among others.
The season introduced us to some of the finest entrepreneurs with unique ideas. There were companies like Magnetic 3D which is a US-based company working to make 3D, VR and Metaverse more accessible to the people by reducing the need for 3D glasses or virtual reality headsets. KA Imaging, a Canadian startup which has created a very innovative X-ray imaging technology offers innovative solutions for medical, veterinary, and non-destructive test industrial markets. Brazilian digital bank - Yours Bank is working towards improving the financial literacy among adolescents.
Tough competition
The first round of semi-finals included entrepreneurs from India, USA, Brazil and Taiwan with Sandeep and Rachna Vyas representing Mild Cares, Felipe Diesel - Founder, Yours Bank, Tom Zerega - Founder & CEO, Magnetic 3D, and Chris Chang and Erix Lin from ioNetworks Inc.
The second semi-finals round had contenders from Brazil, Canada, and USA with Rebecca Clyde - Co-Founder & CEO, Botco.ai representing Arizona, USA, Lilly Sparks - Founder & CEO, Afterglow from the USA, and Brazil's Diogo Machado - CMO, Quiron Digital and Amol Karnick - President & CEO, KA Imaging from Canada,
The last round of semi-finals featured Bened Biomedical, a startup dedicated to developing and supplying psychobiotics, It's Skinny. It is ketogenic and naturally gluten-free pasta alternative. It also had OWO, haptic technology that adds real physical sensations to video games; and Pyxai, an AI-based platform that identifies and pre-ranks talent based on the soft skills most applicable to an organisation's culture and open job positions.
Grand Finale
The grand finale also had an interesting game segment where all the finalists were handed over a pen which they had to go out and trade for something bigger and better.
The teams who were selected for the grand finale were It's Skinny represented by Brian Guadagno, Co-Founder & CEO, and the company's Co-founder- Barb Axelson, KA Imaging represented by Amol Karnick, Never Ending represented by the company's founder and CEO-Jamie Van Doren, CancerFree Biotech represented by its CEO - Po Chen and COO- Amber Wu, AssetVault represented by its Co-Founder and CEO- Vishnu Teja, Pyxai represented by its Co-Founder & CEO- Kurt Edwards and Co-Founder & COO- Angela Edwards, and Mildcares represented by its CEO & Co-Founder- Sandeep Vyas and Co-Founder- Rachna Vyas.
There were two Indian companies in the finals. New Delhi based Mild Cares with their cost-effective menstrual cup innovation- Gynocup and AssetVault, a blockchain-based solution that will help protect both physical and digital assets.
"We at Mild Cares are in the business of solving the issue of unaddressed, menstrual, intimate and toilet hygiene issue faced by 400 million women in India. From a monthly $7000 sales, we have grown to USD 20000 due to Meet the Drapers show. It has been extremely lucky for us and has helped us get international connects. It has also encouraged us to develop our next product which is a pregnancy kit," CEO & Co-Founder of Mild Cares Sandeep Vyas informed.
Vishnu Teja, the Co-Founder and CEO of AssetVault states that succession planning is hugely underpenetrated in India. "95 per cent of Indians do not have a will. Our mission is to make inter-generational wealth transfer easy by leveraging technology. Our semi-final of Meet the Draper was streamed in television in India in two channels and we got 2000 wills just like that. This was my biggest reason to come here," he informed.
KA Imaging won the third position with USD 250,000, AssetVault was the next choice for the judges at second position with USD 500,000 prize money. The top honours were shared by It's Skinny and CancerFree Biotech getting a bumper prize of USD 1 million each.
After emerging from the tough competition, it is now time for these companies to get smiles of the faces of their consumers.
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