Accel shortlists 8 AI-focused startups as part of third accelerator programme

Startup cohort: Venture capital firm Accel has shortlisted eight startups with distinct offerings in AI and Industry 5.0 for their accelerator program,‘Atoms 3.0'.

The six-month accelerator programme provides mentorship to ventures to provide more ammunition for these startups to unlock growth and partnerships. 

Providing upto $500,000 in funding to the startups, the Atoms 3.0 program also gives access to over $5 million in perks, one-on-one handholding and a vigorous founder community network.

Among the global venture fund’s portfolio companies,  Flipkart, Cure.fit, Ninjacart, Swiggy and BookMyShow are a part.

The Atoms 3.0 program will provide pre-seed startups in Artificial Intelligence and Industry 5.0, which are new-age models indicating humans collaborating with smart machines.

"The shift to a thematic programme design for Atoms 3.0 has enabled us to provide deeper, sector-focused mentorship for the startups. Atoms has always restricted itself to smaller cohort sizes to stay hyper-focused on the needs of a smaller group of exceptional founders," said Prayank Swaroop, a partner at Accel.

The eight startups as part of the third cohort symbolise the "next wave of disruptors in AI and Industry 5.0", he said.

The eight startups have four of them pushing new frontiers in AI, including Tune AI which is  a GenAI stack for enterprises, Skoob, a generative AI platform for elevating reading experiences, Meritic, a co-pilot for financial storytelling as well as Arivihan, which is India’s first fully automated AI-based learning platform.

Spintly, which is in the Industry 5.0 space, provides an IoT (Internet of Things) platform for smarter building management.

Asets comprises of a multidisciplinary CAD (computer aided design), simulation, and engineering design platform.

The other two startups as part of the cohort are presently in "stealth mode".

"The six-month Atoms 3.0 journey is giving founders insight into critical areas like hiring, getting your first 10 customers, or tuning your pitch for investors,” said Barath Shankar Subramanian, another partner at Accel.

The previous two editions of Atoms were sector-agnostic, but the present cohort minutely focuses on AI and Industry 5.0 startups. 

Swaroop and Subramanian, Accel partners who are leading the AI and Industry 5.0 domains respectively believe that even as these two areas open up incredible opportunities, the momentum of innovation in these categories calls for founders to have the correct mindset for steer the market, provide sector-focused mentorship.

The previous two cohorts saw 24 startups raise over $200 million. It also provides networking and learning opportunities.

(With PTI Inputs)