India is a melting pot of opportunities when it comes to startups and innovation. The whole ecosystem has become very strong compared to a few years ago. There are many accelerators, early-stage funds, mentors and various other support systems in today’s environment for budding entrepreneurs. As the overall startup ecosystem strengthens and thereby creates a fertile environment for startups to bloom and mature, it’s the most ideal situation that would see the rise of sustainable SME’s who would in turn strengthen the economy, lead GDP growth and create several job opportunities. Similarly, as cutting edge AI based solutions gain more adoption and standardize across industries, over the next decade, there would be a paradigm shift towards an AI-first and AI-led economy.
This exceptional story unveils the journey of Drive Analytics– an Computer Vision / AI solutions company that excels in deep analysis of visual data to solve real-world problems for businesses. Incepted in 2015 Drive Analytics is a VC backed, award-winning startup in the Visual Big Data analytics space. Their image and video analytics platform is built on the most advanced Computer Vision / AI techniques and is applicable to a diverse range of solution domains.
The core engineering team is comprised of dynamic young professionals from the most prestigious institutes. They are inducted and trained rigorously on diverse areas of computer vision, Data Analytics, User experience, and product engineering, thereby acquiring the acumen to build world-class solutions. The company aims to empower a new generation of intelligent applications by leveraging computer vision and deep learning.
In a very short span, Drive Analytics has successfully managed to cement its presence within the industry and its innovative approach has been well received and appreciated across various platforms. In a quick snapshot, it has amassed popular awards including:
- NASSCOM AI game changer award in 2018
- The Best startup Internships in India, 2017-18 – India’s largest hiring portal ‘Internshala’
- The Top 10 startups at India’s largest VC and Angel event ‘LetsIgnite’ in 2017
- The Top 10 finalists in the Wharton India Startup Business competition in 2016
Powered by the latest advancements in Computer Vision and AI, it caters to the B2B segment by offering innovative cutting edge products and solutions that help the clientele to attain or retain market leadership in their respective segments. AI driven Sports Coaching for budding sportsmen, Sponsorship Analytics / Brand Insights in Sporting events, Health and Fitness, Online fashion retail, are some of the domains in which niche solutions have been developed in today’s competitive market. Core Research & Development and strategic GoTo market alliances, are the two integral factors that have fuelled Drive Analytics to gain prominence and have attracted the eye-balls of the business fraternity. Getting an early feel of the industry pain points and analyzing the market pulse through strategic partners has helped the company to chart out farily accurate product roadmaps, and to refine the product features in order to meet the pressing unmet needs of the market.
The Erudite Leader
Pradeep Janakiraman, Founder & CEO – is a seasoned technocrat having a sprawling career spanning over two decades. He has amassed expertize in the areas of Product development, Software Services Delivery, and R&D. Commencing his career with the prestigious IBM Watson research labs, New York – USA, he has managed to create countless milestones in his professional journey. He has 3 patents filed under his name for the projects he had worked on while his stint at IBM research labs.
Having completed his Bachelor’s degree from BITS Pilani, Pradeep did his Masters in Computer Science from Syracuse University – the US. Also, he completed the Ph.D. coursework that he pursued part-time from Columbia University. While heading the engineering team at a Big Data Analytics start-up, Pradeep realized that there weren’t enough solutions in that space to cater to the kind of features that were required while designing a proposal. This market-gap prompted Pradeep to craft the idea for his startup venture and was supported by an early Angel investment.
Talking about role models, Pradeep asserts –“Nothing or no one in specific. I usually get motivated by leaders who have built things from scratch, and done it the hard way and the proper way. There are 100s of startups, and many might even be successful in their own yardsticks, but to me, the ones that I regard highly are the ones that built solutions addressing real customer problems, the ones that are built on solid fundamentals and the ones that are run ethically.”
An Expert’s Advice
Expressing his thoughts on the budding entrepreneurs, Pradeep feels that people need to understand the fact that a startup journey is not only about flipping money, either for themselves or the investors. “Good businesses are built on solid fundamentals. It is actually important to have a solid product, which solves some real customer problem and/or addresses some unmet need in the market, and it has to be able to fetch revenues and be profitable and sustainable. Technology and other things are just incidental” – explains Pradeep.
The Prototype for Future
Since the last few quarters, Drive Analytics has dug deep into solutions in the Mixed Reality (MR) and targeted some niche domains like Sports Coaching, Health and Fitness, Online retail reverse logistics. With innovative solutions in the offering, it aims to disrupt the current business models and the way solutions were being delivered so far. The entity is confident to evolve and be known as a company that is reckoned among the best of breed in a particular category of solutions.
