Announcing the 2023 Class of Appscale Academy with MeitY Startup Hub

India is home to the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem. Our entrepreneurial talent continues to power India’s rise as an innovation hub for the world and enable the rapid digital transformation we’re seeing unfolding in the country. This is exemplified by a vibrant ecosystem of homegrown apps across categories that’s helping millions of people in their daily lives.

Let’s take the example of Pramit Bhargava, a corporate professional that turned his experience of struggling with regular tasks to build Louie Voice Control, an app through which people can operate other apps using their voice, making technology more accessible for the visually impaired. On the other hand, 12-year old Naisha Kapoor, along with her father Sachin Kapoor, has co-founded Trumsy to help parents of pre-teens and teenagers get more organized and build social skills.

At Google, we’re always inspired by the stories behind these creative solutions and remain committed to supporting the growth of the Indian startup and developer ecosystem through locally-relevant programs. Last year, in partnership with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Startup Hub, we launched Appscale Academy to help startups improve their app’s performance and scale their growth. We were thrilled to see our first cohort adapt learnings from the program to improve their product experience, security, and grow their user base.

Today, we are pleased to announce Appscale Academy’s Class of 2023 comprising a fresh cohort of 100 early to mid-stage startups chosen from over 950 applications. The cohort was selected following an in-depth selection process that took into account their creative ideas and innovation, product quality, product scalability, and talent diversity.

We’re excited by the range of India’s critical needs that the selected startups are solving for across diverse sectors such as education, health, social, gaming, agriculture, and more. This includes creative solutions such as Enguru (live learning platform), BabyG (parenting and baby development app), Dhenoo (knowledge sharing platform for dairy farmers), GeeCom India (ecommerce opportunities for farmers), EyeCan (helping the visually impaired with virtual assistance), Glii (Queer dating app), Neend (mindfulness app that’s helping people sleep better), ProjectHero (networking platform for construction workers), Kurukshetra (strategy game inspired by Indian mythology), ZenOnco Cancer Care (app for cancer patients and caregivers), and many more.

Part of our commitment includes nurturing a diverse app ecosystem and helping every innovator across the country, regardless of size and location, turn their creative idea into a helpful and scalable app. This year, we’re glad to see ~50% of our cohort comprising startups from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India. We’re also happy to see 37% of the cohort have a woman founder at the helm.

We thank MeitY Startup Hub for partnering us on this vision. We would also like to thank our jury members for helping us shortlist these 100 creative startups that represent India’s enterprising homegrown talent.

Congratulations to all the startups - and welcome to Appscale Academy 2023! Check out the Class of 2023 and program details here.