Kryptos Mobile, the Bangalore-based DIY app building software company has been selected by the govt backed Innovation in Mobile App Development Ecosystem (I-MADE) project as the official mobile app platform, to help develop 1 million mobile app start-ups which can eventually become Indian unicorns.
I-MADE program, is an initiative of Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital (EVC) and was launched in association with Telecom Centres of Excellence (TCOE) India & Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Government of India on 9th February by Mr. J S Deepak, Secretary, DoT, Government of India and Mr. N Sivasailam, Additional Secretary, Telecom, DoT, Government of India.
It is a 5-year program in which 100 institutes will be selected to be a part in Phase I of the program. Phase II will include up to 3000 institutions. The goal of the program is to help Indian entrepreneurs, provide them a level playing field to build 1 million mobile app start-ups. Phase 1 for this project will include institutions such as IIIT Bhubaneswar, NIT Silchar, IIT Kanpur, NIT Delhi, IIT Roorkee, Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology, Institute of Engineering & Technology, Lucknow, IIT-Delhi, IIT- BHU (Varanasi), Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women and IIIT-Delhi.
Kryptos Mobile platform will help these universities to customize and build their own mobile application.
“We are pleased to associate with the prolific I-Made project. We have seen great success in the US and it will be more exciting to see how much success these 35,000 Indian institutions will be able to achieve through their unique mobile application that we help them built,” Aashutosh Bhardvaj, CEO of Kryptos Mobile said.
Aashutosh, who spoke exclusively to NextBigWhat.com, said that although Kryptos’ founder Anjli Jain, is a Managing Partner of EVC, the company was selected after a rigorous selection process by the EVC commissioned non partisan technical committee. The other companies nominated included, AppMachine, among others.
The CEO said us that Kryptos scored high for its “super focused education centered framework,” which is what EVC was looking for in a partner. “Education is our domain, and in the US we come second in the education app building market. More than 130 schools, colleges and universities across USA, Australia and Canada use the platform to create their official mobile app for their institution,” he added.
Aashutosh disclosed us that, they are in talks with companies in India, including Vodafone to explore options to monetize the program, however their primary focus currently is to build an education centered app ecosystem in the country. The revenue it currently generates through its app business in the US, will be funding the program, in the meantime.
I-MADE program includes, mentoring students in areas including writing an app, making business presentations to investors and developing viable business models and setting up of start-up hubs in major cities across the country, among others.
It is funded by Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital (EVC), which is a $50 million fund focused exclusively on early stage enterprise software, Internet and mobile companies that target the education market or companies created from intellectual property technology transfer from colleges and universities.
