Importance of AI is useful in businesses and trending currently.

Are you searching for the best artificial intelligence startup companies in Switzerland that can help with data security and cybercrime? Artificial intelligence helps businesses identify bugs and unusual user behavior in enterprise systems like ERP and economic institutions. As a result, by integrating artificial intelligence solutions into your company, you can protect your data and prevent cyberattacks.

Find below a list of top 10 AI startup companies in Switzerland to look out for in 2021:

Sophia Genetics

Sophia Genetics offers a platform for optimizing genomic research based on artificial intelligence (AI). The platform processes and analyzes genomic data from patient DNA sequence data produced by the NGS platform using machine learning algorithms. In addition, the organization validates genetic testing and provides services to hospitals and laboratories. The platform gives users access to information about disease diagnosis and precision medicine.

Ava AG

Ava AG is a corporation that specializes in medical technology. Wearable technology, women’s health care, and data science solutions are all available through the company. The Ava bracelet is the company’s first consumer product, allowing women to accurately and easily predict fertile days. Ava uses artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor personal fertility cycles using big data analytics.

Screening Eagle

Cloud-based inspection solution Screening Eagle is designed for the construction industry. Users can handle workflow and reporting with the help of AI-based real-time analytical tools provided by the company. Sensors are available from the company to collect data from the construction sector. Its mobile app for iOS devices is accessible as well.

MindMaze

MindMaze’s groundbreaking neuro-inspired computing technology creates intuitive human-machine interfaces. Multiple industries are set to be transformed by the company’s advances at the intersection of neuroscience, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.

Beekeeper

Beekeeper is a communications channel for businesses in a variety of sectors, including hospitality, retail, manufacturing, and transportation. It enables users to connect with coworkers and employees. Secure one-to-one and social messaging; private and customized alerts to individuals, content management, chatbots, knowledge sharing, employee surveys, interaction analytics, and feedback polling are some of the features. It also has intelligent automation features including workflow-based communication and internal messaging campaign scheduling.

ANYbotics  

ANYbotics is a pioneer in the development of mobile robotics for industrial use. Their autonomous legged robots tackle consumer issues in difficult conditions and are exclusively available to humans – and even beyond.

Teralytics 

Teralytics is a company that provides companies with an AI-based analytic marking solution. It gathers data on human activity around the world, combining geo-location and demographics, as well as online and purchasing habits, to build human profiles. The company then uses predictive algorithms to process and anonymize certain data points in order to design strategies for identifying the best locations for retail stores.

Seervision 

The motion sequences of cameramen in different scenarios are analyzed by Seervision and transformed into video processing algorithms for real-time object recognition and scene optimization. Multi-camera robot setups can interact and perform all tasks of conventional camera work autonomously using this innovation, and the outcome of the software-controlled camera can no longer be differentiated from that of a human-controlled camera.

PIQ 

PIQ has created a multisport sensor with a Swiss design that runs on a platform that provides real-time analytics in the cloud. It’s made to suit the best position and assess productivity without interfering with the sports sensation.

DeepCode 

DeepCode dynamically learns from millions of available software programs and applies what it has learned to make key code improvement recommendations. Its aim is to use sophisticated artificial intelligence and machine learning methods to revolutionize the way it creates programs.

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Led by former engineers from Tesla and Faraday Future, Hemant Sikaria and Mayank Sikaria, Sibros is an automotive technology company offering a next-generation vehicle-to-cloud automotive software platform. 

CEO and co-founder Hemant Sikaria had the light bulb moment to start Sibros when he had to make multiple trips to his car dealer due to a software recall. Upon further research, he realised the majority of OEMs did not have the necessary capabilities for advanced full vehicle updates. In fact, global OEMs have been facing significant software and data complexity challenges as vehicles were increasingly shifting towards electrification and self-driving modes. Synergising Hemant’s experience at Tesla in building systems that could solve these problems with Over-the-Air (OTA) programming, and Mayanks’s significant contributions to the software, data and battery management systems at Faraday, the duo teamed up to form Sibros.

Analytics India Magazine got in touch with the founders to understand how Sibros is leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence to help automakers build new connectivity use cases and business models.

Leading The Way With ML

The advancement in 5G technology along with software-defined vehicles has allowed Over-the-Air software updates to extend beyond just telematics and head unit applications. As a matter of fact, the connected car revolution has made OTA software an industry standard for automakers. For the uninitiated, OTA can reduce consequential software recalls to create new revenue opportunities, and enhance the customer experience by shortening the time required to update, fix, and maintain vehicles throughout their entire lifecycle.

Sibros’ flagship product, OTA Deep Updater executes full vehicle Over-the-Air (OTA) software updates while logging vital vehicle data in real-time from every sensor and microchip. The solution supports any vehicle platform, architecture and hardware, starting from two to four wheelers, commercial trucks/busses to electric, and internal combustion to hybrid vehicles. 

Explaining the process, Hemant stated: Sibros collects data at the edge that is processed with machine learning and artificial intelligence to help automakers build new connectivity use cases, and business models, like variable insurance, driver personalisation, fixing software recalls overnight, crash detection, etc.

With its modular system that provides full vehicle OTA updates to every sensor or engine control unit (ECU) while logging real-time vehicle data, Sibros’ deep connectivity platform really stands out in the market. “As modern vehicles can produce petabytes of data monthly, Sibros selectively capture the most meaningful data based on customisable events and triggers. This data is then further compressed and uploaded to the cloud backend,” explained Hemant. “This method enables efficient cloud computing throughput and enables OEMs to leverage live vehicle data for fleet/service management, developing new connected apps, building third party marketplaces and much more.” 

The company uses machine learning, data pipelines and IoT to abstract, process and interpret vehicle data, such as fault codes, into human-readable formats on visual dashboards. “Our efforts on the AI and analytics front are all geared towards improving capabilities around safety measurement, failure detection and preventative maintenance,” said Mayank. “We offer insights into driving behaviour of each user on the platform by combining vehicle data such as speed or harsh acceleration and braking with external data sources like traffic, data and time.”

Sibros OTA Deep Updater can also automatically detect vehicle movement risks by flagging abnormalities in a vehicle’s manoeuvring patterns. Component usage like blending weather, altitude and region information, battery health, and performance also play a crucial role in providing insights to automakers for determining the optimal configuration of a battery in different markets.

Sibros’ core technology stack leverages Golang as the primary backend language to handle high currency workloads, with an outstanding balance between performance and developer velocity. However, for the frontend, the company leveraged React.js and React Native to deliver the product to multiple platforms without having to rewrite the stack from scratch. “We also heavily leverage cloud-native solutions including SQL/No-SQL and Kubernetes for container orchestration to avoid reinventing the wheel, and build our infrastructure as code using Terraform,” said Mayank.

COVID Impact

“While initially, the COVID pandemic has ground the automotive industry to a halt, slowing the progress with plants shutting down, the things have now started to pick up slowly, and we see a tremendous uptick in business traction,” said Hemant. 

As remote working and contactless interactions are becoming the new norm, Sibros was able to deliver an embedded software and cloud/analytics solution remotely. The solution is also enabling field technicians not to be physically present while performing R&D and testing the beta vehicles. “As our solution is designed to enable fully Over-the-Air remote services, this ultimately benefits end customers to limit their exposure for visiting a dealer for servicing or utilising new connected services, such as in-vehicle payments for goods/food/tolling/parking,” added Hemant.

Despite COVID, Sibros has been able to build a diverse and inclusive work culture. The employees can work directly with clients in their initial months to see their ideas become a reality in their product roadmap and offerings. “Our current and future job requisitions span the gamut — from embedded firmware engineers and full-stack engineers to UI/UX, sales and marketing. We look for people who are coachable and rising stars, instead of necessarily looking for specific skill sets,” said Hemant.

Wrapping up

Sibros currently has presence in multiple locations and is engaged with the largest Indian OEMs of two, three, and four wheeler vehicles. The founders believe that India is a high growth area for Sibros in terms of talent acquisition and building a customer base. The country holds great promise for the future of major automotive trends, particularly in areas of rapid charging infrastructure and EV production/adoption, they said.

The company has grown to over 40 employees and has raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners. “Our customer base includes the vehicle manufacturers directly spanning some of the world’s largest funded EV startups to some of the biggest makers of two and four-wheeler vehicles,” added Hemant.

Speaking about the company’s five-year plans, Hemant said Sibros intends to enter other verticals where the technology can be applied with minimal changes. “We also plan to stand up a centre of excellence in Pune as well as expanding our presence in Germany, Japan and China. Our vision is that in five years, the connected vehicle ecosystem will become a mainstream reality, powered by Sibros. Much like smartphone ecosystems gave birth to disruptive services and apps such as Uber or Airbnb, so will the vehicle ecosystem. It’s moving rapidly, and we expect to gain much progress over the next five years to accomplish this vision,” he added.

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Robotics startup Genrobotics on Wednesday said it has raised Rs 2.5 crore in pre-series A round funding from existing investors led by Unicorn India Ventures, along with industrialist Anand Mahindra and SEA Fund. The Kerala-based firm, Genrobotics has been working with the Centre and state governments with a mission to eradicate manual scavenging from the entire country and has deployed its Bandicoot robots across 11 states.

“The funds raised will be used for further scaling up production of Bandicoot to meet the growing demand in light of eradicating manual scavenging and to develop new products and R&D (research and development) to leverage the technology for the health care segment,” the company said in a statement. Commenting on the fundraise, Genrobotics Co-founder and CEO Vimal Govind said: “It was a great moment for us when Anand Mahindra took a personal interest in favour of robotic solutions for the real crisis hidden in manual scavenging.

Mahindra has offered his full support on implementing Bandicoots in each and every corner of India for putting an end to this dehumanising activity completely and it has accelerated the process of transforming the manual scavenging to robotic scavenging. Unicorn India Ventures Managing Partner Anil Joshi said the company decided to back Genrobotics as it saw the potential robotics can bring to certain socially important issues, especially if the team backing the business is as passionate as the ones in Genrobotics.”We believe that they have developed a globally relevant product and are already in talks with some international governing bodies for its deployment. To facilitate their expansion plans, we have decided to back them up with additional funds,” he added.

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Entrepreneur First (EF), a leading UK-based global talent investor with a presence in India since 2019, announced its second Online Demo Day of the year, and its third cohort of startups since inception. EF has supported over 200 founders, helped create and invested in 20 startups in just over 18 months.

As industries embrace a new normal the investor has adopted a remote first approach to its programme, today’s event will be fully virtual. EF has seen a 100% increase in applications received since it first launched, with over 1500 applications in the most recent cohort. Today’s Demo Day has unveiled 12 exceptional founders and their 6 deep tech startups showcasing new age, cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning across different industries. There are over 180 investor confirmations from the Investor Day, and over 50 investor meetings are already booked in with the startups.

“The scale of this year’s global crisis is unprecedented. However, this hasn’t stopped Entrepreneur First’s third cohort of ambitious and talented founders to start globally relevant companies here in India. We believe every crisis offers opportunities for innovation and we are confident that these companies will gain unprecedented investor interest as the new normal encourages the new wave of entrepreneurs to think beyond physical borders. ”said Matt Clifford, Co-founder and CEO, Entrepreneur First.

The startups showcased solutions ranging from AI-powered technology platforms for industries like fintech and retail to Machine Learning enabled solutions in the video streaming industry. One common element that binds them together is the implementation of new age technologies.

Matt further added that, “We encourage budding entrepreneurs and groups of like-minded potential co-founders by providing mentorship, financial support and pre-seed funding to help them form companies. Entrepreneur First dares ambitious people to dream big. We provide the right support to talented individuals who find their cofounders here to unleash their potential.”

Following are the startups that were showcased:

MedPay: MedPay is an AI-powered technology platform that creates a large connected network of Clinics, Pharmacies and Diagnostic centers for the first time ever, thus enabling real-time insurance claim processing

Retail Pulse: Retail Pulse is an AI powered Computer Vision solution that enables Consumer Goods companies to harness the immense data across unorganized retail stores to gain operational transparency, optimize product visibility and re-capture 8% of lost revenue

LitmusEye: LitmusEye is using 3D Vision and Deep Learning to build a package dimensioning system for stakeholders in Express Logistics, to help them bill, plan & utilize assets efficiently

Vadoo: Vadoo uses peer-assisted streaming, powered by ML, to help video streaming platforms significantly reduce bandwidth cost and improve latency

Marlin AI: Marlin is building an AI enabled platform to optimize the land-side movements of containers for shipping lines, helping enhance their utilization and revenue streams

BrainEntech: BrainEntech is disrupting the online education industry by using Deep Learning on brain activity of learners to enhance content creation and consumption

Speaking about the third cohort, Esha Tiwary, General Manager, India at Entrepreneur First said, “The founders from this third cohort have faced incredible headwinds and adversity. But we continue to be impressed by their resilience and resolve to build globally important companies. At EF we encourage outliers to choose their own path and found companies for the future. EF believes that connecting such talented, resilient tech founders with the investor community will create tremendous value for the Indian startup ecosystem.”

Esha further added that, “Since we launched, we have seen a very high quality of founders and startups at EF India – we are convinced that world class innovative technology-led startups can be created from our region. Our applications are growing significantly with each new cohort every 6 months. We are also very closely working with other ecosystem players and investors to create a robust structure for supporting early stage tech entrepreneurs in India.”

EF had recently collaborated with Foundation for Innovation and Research in Science and Technology (F.I.R.S.T.), a section 8 company promoted by Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (“IITK”) to build a strong support ecosystem for aspiring tech entrepreneurs. This partnership facilitates the journey for exceptional and talented individuals who aspire to start tech ventures. EF will support with the process of finding a co-founder at the very early stage of a startup, as well as provide close mentorship on the idea and business model, and pre-seed investment. The startups formed will have an opportunity to access IITK business incubator as the next step to build a network of expert advisors, access to prototyping facilities and grants. The partnership will also help expose smart technical graduates and researchers from IITK and affiliated institutions to the potential impact they can create through entrepreneurship.

EF appointed Venkat Raju as Venture Partner recently in India. He has more than three decades of experience in strong business, technology and general management. Venkat will work closely with the Entrepreneur First startups in India across areas such as technology, business model and go to market strategies. His expertise will help the Entrepreneur First start-up ecosystem build on its foundation in India.

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Zscaler will acquire Cloudneeti for an undisclosed amount in a deal that adds cloud security posture management (CSPM) to its platform.

CSPM companies provide security processes and tools to prevent and fix cloud misconfigurations. This is important because these misconfigurations are the leading cause of data breaches and compliance violations in cloud applications — the Capital One data breach is one recent example. In fact, the most recent Cloud Security Alliance’s threat reports ranks data breaches and cloud misconfigurations as the No. 1 and No. 2 cloud security threats, respectively.

Gartner recommends all cloud security vendors invest in CSPM, and forecasts “through 2024, organizations implementing a CSPM offering and extending this into development will reduce cloud-related security incidents due to misconfiguration by 80%.”

CSPM “is only becoming more important,” said Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald. “It allows organization to identify where they have known or unacceptable risk in their cloud configurations, and there’s been multiple acquisitions in this space.”

Hot M&A Market

Last year Aqua Security purchased CloudSploit, Trend Micro bought Cloud Conformity, and Sophos acquired Avid Secure to add CSPM to their portfolios. And in 2018, CheckPoint acquired Dome9 and Palo Alto Networks bought a couple of CSPM vendors: Evident.io and RedLock. Also that year VMware bought CloudCoreo and CloudHealth to round out its CSPM.

“It does raise the question of what some of the other competitors will do here, like Cisco or Fortinet, as they evolve their offerings,” MacDonald said. “I think this CSPM market will continue to change shape. There will be more acquisitions and more vendors adding this to their portfolio. This won’t be the last change we see in this space.”

Cloudneeti’s CSPM

Cloudneeti’s technology collects actual configurations from cloud service providers, compares them against cloud security best practices, and then analyzes risks and fixes misconfigurations. It works across software-as-a-service (SaaS), infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) providers including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Microsoft’s Office 365.

The company, which is one of the earlier CSPM vendors, differentiated itself by being “one of the first to focus on Azure because everyone else was focusing on AWS,” MacDonald said. “The other thing they did that was smart: the extended their CSPM capabilities to Office 365. They realized that this problem of misconfiguration and mismanagement is not just a problem in infrastructure-as-a-service, it’s at the SaaS layer as well and there are very few CSPMs that have gone up to the SaaS layer.”

In fact, Cloudneeti’s Microsoft expertise made it an attractive acquisition target, said Punit Minocha, Zscaler SVP of business and corporate development. While many CSPM companies start with AWS before branching out to other public cloud providers, “these guys took a different stance as it relates to cloud of choice. They started with Azure, and we as a company do a fair amount of partnering with Microsoft.”

Boost to CASB, Zero Trust

Zscaler last year added out-of-band cloud access security broker (CASB) capabilities to its platform to provide visibility and enable data protection for SaaS applications. And after adding CASB, “the second piece that started to come up in discussions with customers was ‘we have a fair number of workloads running in public clouds — AWS, Azure, GCP, you name it,’” Minocha said.

Customers expressed concerns about public cloud misconfiguration leading to noncompliance and data breaches. “So to address this need, we went down this path of adding CSPM,” he said. “Think of it as yet another add-on to make sure we are bolstering our data protection services.”

Cloudneeti’s capabilities strengthen Zscaler’s existing data protection capabilities across its internet access and CASB services, Minocha explained. It also expands application protection capabilities in Zscaler Private Access by allowing developers to find and automatically correct misconfigured applications and compliance violations in cloud service provider environments.

Additionally, the Cloudneeti company culture meshed well with Zscaler, Minocha said. “We have been public for two years and going down this path of inorganic growth, and we want to make sure that we acquire companies that are a good cultural fit.”

Zscaler’s Security Strategy

This is Zscaler’s third acquisition. It acquired artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) startup TrustPath in August 2018, and browser isolation startup Appsulate in May 2019.

The company’s Cloud Security Platform processes “well over 100 billion transactions daily,” Minocha said. “And the word ‘platform’ I know is used bastardly by almost everyone out there. Ours is a true, in-line, active inspection element. Nothing good leaves the organization and nothing bad comes in. And when you are processing as much traffic as we are, we have to be mindful of in-line inspection abilities we can build in, and then capabilities that we can add inorganically that might be less performance sensitive.”

These inorganic additions to the platform include secure browser isolation via the Appsulate acquisition, he added. Also, processing 100 billion transaction requires “a fair amount of AI and ML,” and the TrustPath purchase plays into that.

The Cloudneeti acquisition advances Zscaler’s security capabilities and “it’s a logical progression,” MacDonald said. “They started with secure web gateway, they they added branch office firewall-as-a-service and Zscaler Private Access — what we call zero-trust network access.”

The vendor also acquired Appsulate and built its own CASB, he added. “This is the latest in a series of capabilities they are building out on top of their global security fabric.”

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Zaggle had a turnover of INR 1800 Cr in FY 2018-19 and aims to target INR 3500 Cr in FY 2019-2020.

The company has successfully provided innovative and disruptive fintech solutions to over 3500+ Corporates Clients and has Merchant Partner Relationship with over 8500 + merchants and has 3.5 million users. Their eminent list of clients includes Microsoft, Vodafone, Samsung, Zydus, Star Health Insurance, Hiranandani and many others.

Talking to Express Computer, Raj N Phani, founder and Chairman, tells us about his voyage ahead.

How do you think is the Fintech sector is going to upsurge in the near future?

The digital payments industry will give a big boost to the economy because Partners, FinTech Players and Merchants are urging people to go cashless. Banks have also been asked to use disinfectants on cash notes while dealing with transactions. The impact on payment apps is not yet clear as the country’s financial system is already reeling under the burden of Yes Bank’s collapse. On the whole, caution and a wait-a-watch approach are clouding the mood within the world of start-ups.

What is the exclusiveness of your startup, that’s unique from other gigantic players in the market?

This is Demonetization 2.0 for Digital Process Transformation and Zaggle will play a Crucial Role since Employee Reimbursement and Expense Management Automation & Digitization will Save upto 80% cost. Companies will have to ensure overall Manual Process Automation to rationalize the cost since digital solutions are cost-saving and efficient.

Zaggle has been winning new client contracts in spite of the sales teams and clients working from home because companies have now realized how important is it to quickly digitize processes to save cost and be efficient. Zaggle sees 100% growth in business in the next 9 to 12 months and it will only increase since the digital adoption will be the new mantra from most of the companies.

What is the latest mode of technology that you are catering to?

Zaggle is an award-winning Fintech company digitizing spends to unlock value and drive business growth. Zaggle uses Deep Tech and Artificial Intelligence to provide platform solutions to businesses for expense management & employee reimbursements as well as for Rewards & Recognition.

Zaggle deploys cutting edge technologies AI (Artificial Intelligence), ML (Machine Learning) and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) in providing seamless experience to businesses and users.

How important do you think is it for people to rely on technology? Are there any major follies per se?

Today is the era of technology, you are nobody without technology, Online Presence is a compulsion for running any business. Technology has improved our lives and the present things are now better, faster, easier and more convenient and everyone is getting used to it. The birth technology has brought Fintech or the era of digitalization that we are living up to.

Coming to the financial perspective, are you a bootstrapped venture? If not, kindly elucidate on the nature and amount of funding raised.

Yes, we are a funded company.

What are your immediate and long-term milestones like?

Short term milestone would be managing losses with speed and adequacy where we have to do cut staff cost if required,

Zaggle will be hiring 100 New Employees in the next 12 months because we see this as an opportunity to hire good talent since there are mass layoffs happening around. We are going to see a minimum of 100% growth in the next 12 months because CXO’s are realizing the Value of Process Digitization and Zaggle being an enabler will see the maximum growth.

Lastly, any words of advice for the wantrepreneurs?

So, looking at the current situation the wait could be long so there isn’t any right or better time it is the right time to start the venture but cut the budget and ensure that if you wanted to start today you should have started yesterday. Make sure your venture can create an impact on the economy, use this time to reach out to the clients to help them save more and do more and more business.

Launch before you feel ready. If you wait until your product or service feels perfect, someone else will already be doing a better job of helping your customers solve their problems. Validate your business idea by launching fast, bringing on a small group of paying customers and adapting to make your solution great for them over time. The right availability of Technology, capital investment, emergence of government policies and an entrepreneurial and innovative mind-set are the ones to grow.

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It is estimated that one in three women will move towards customised products by 2025. The trend is slowly catching up in India and it is not restricted to the affluent metro dwellers. As more and more people are moving towards customised beauty care products, a handful of innovative startups across the globe are exploiting the potential of data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to transform skincare solutions.

In India, this transformation is spearheaded by SkinKraft, a Hyderabad-based startup. Established in 2017 by three resourceful technology entrepreneurs Chaitanya Nallan, Veerendra Shivhare and Sangram Simha, the company has already assisted more than four lakh women. Data is at the core of SkinKraft as it customises each kit according to the individual’s needs through its proprietary ‘SkinID’.

Nallan, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and International School of Business Hyderabad, has years of experience in building and growing high-performance tech startups. In an email interaction with CNBC-TV18, the young entrepreneur talks about the concept of SkinKraft, its business strategy and the road ahead.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

Artificial intelligence and data analytics are reportedly revolutionising the cosmetics industry. What are the latest technology trends? What is the role of technology in enabling personalisation of skincare and wellness products?

With AI and customer insights, companies are now able to get unique information about an individual’s skin — skin characteristics like type, skin issues, lifestyles, environment, and geographic location, that give an accurate picture of the individual to base their customised solution on.  At SkinKraft, data is at the core. Data aids us in understanding the skin profiles of individuals better and match it to the right set of products. It also assists us in further improving the efficacy of our products and further expand to new products that a particular skin profile needs. Technologies like ML will further change the landscape of skincare, haircare and the beauty industry in the next three-four years leading to even more personalised choices.

Customised beauty products regime is an innovative concept in India. How did you come up with the idea of launching SkinKraft? Could you explain the concept of customised skincare solutions?

SkinKraft was born out of two undeniable truths about the current skincare industry. First, women trying to find even basic skincare products are often caught in an unrewarding cycle of experimentation. Second, despite growing levels of frustration among their consumers, skincare brands continue to churn out generic formulations catering to the mass market. Skin type, skin issues, skin support systems, pigmentation levels, skin damage levels, hydration levels, and several other aspects make an individual’s skin unique and have to be catered uniquely. So, a generic product, mass-produced by an FMCG company cannot be the most effective way to care for your skin. In fact, these products encourage trial-and-error skincare which in the long term leads to premature aging of the skin. This led us to build our customised skincare brand – SkinKraft.

At SkinKraft, skincare starts with the customer. Through a holistic assessment of the customer’s skin, similar to a dermatologist assessment, we create a skin profile. A detailed analysis is given to the customer in which we explain the problem areas and also the ingredients required to manage their skin. Along with this, we recommend a customised skincare regimen that includes the ingredients corresponding to the specific requirements as outlined in the customer’s skin profile. SkinKraft has generated over a million skin profile records until now.

What were the initial challenges you encountered when entering this segment?

When we initially started, the main challenge was to create awareness around the new and innovative concept of ‘customisation’. It was about breaking the current habit of buying generic, off the shelf product, or ‘keyword’-centric product. Instead of positioning ourselves in the market, what we did was drive awareness and conversation around the subcategory of customization itself — how it differs from the traditional setup and more importantly empowering the customers with the knowledge and hence the confidence of picking the right products.

Where does India stand in the global cosmetics sector? In fact, India’s plan to introduce an exclusive set of regulations for cosmetics remains snarled in red tape. Are there any regulatory challenges?

The Indian cosmeceutical and cosmetics industry currently has an overall market standing of $6.5 billion from a global market of $274 billion. It is expected to grow to $20 billion by 2025. The regulatory framework around cosmetic products came to place in India in late 2011. It came as a measure to regulate and prevent the offering of low quality and false cosmetic products in India and to convey consistency to the import arrangement of such items.

Till now, we have not faced any regulatory challenges.

Could you tell us about the services of SkinKraft?

Our customers are taken through SkinID, a dermatologist-approved questionnaire pertaining to their skin type, skin concern and lifestyle choices which has a direct and indirect implication on their skin health. Once the responses are recorded, the algorithm evaluates all the parameters and the customer is classified into one of 72 broad profiles, each of which breaks down into thousands of combinations. Depending on the individual’s current skin health and needs, a customised kit is then created to include a customised cleanser and moisturiser. Currently, we are catering to skin issues such as dark spots, dark patches, skin lightening/tanning, and acne. We have recently expanded to anti-aging products and will be adding customised sunscreens to the regimen next. We will also launch customised shampoos and conditioners by December.

There are many companies offering similar solutions. How do you stand out from the crowd? Who is your biggest competitor?

Indian beauty and personal care industry is estimated to be worth $8 billion. Overall we are witnessing the market moving towards ‘premiumisation’, with the premium segment growing at 6.3 percent, as compared to 1.1 percent for the mass market.  Indian brands have a sizeable presence in the mass category, while premium markets are largely dominated by international brands.

Some of the customised skincare brands abroad that have been disrupting the skincare market include Skinsei, Skin Inc and Function of Beauty. Data-driven customisation as a concept has emerged only in the last few years in the country. In India, Clinique has introduced custom-blend hydration systems that offer unique combinations that enable personalisation.

There are few players who are working in the ‘customisation’ category, but nobody is doing at a mass scale as we are. Our biggest competitor is the current behaviour of customers — buying mass-produced products.

Investments into cosmetics and beauty startups are going up in the recent past. What are your future plans?

We believe that in the next 5-10 years, consumption pattern in the beauty industry will shift significantly from mass-produced products to customised products across segments like skin, hair colour, etc. This is because of the confluence of three significant trends: Mass internet adoption enabling feedback loops and user input, AI-enabled understanding of ingredient effectiveness and modern manufacturing technologies.We are expanding the lineup of our skincare range to include customised sunscreens, anti-aging products with more powerful and efficacious ingredients. We are also set to launch our customised hair care products by December 2019.

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Healthcare has always been a difficult industry to tap into. Every day, new devices and procedures are launched but are not adapted readily because patients may be at risks. Yet, in the past one decade, a major player has entered the healthcare industry – artificial intelligence.

While this is not a singular product, or service, or a startup, it is still a development sought by many. Artificial intelligence brings to the fore solutions for many discrepancies that are currently present in the healthcare industry.

Here are 7 ways in which AI will impact healthcare:
Wearable Health Measures

Almost all consumers today have the access to a FitBit or a Smartwatch or some kinds of electric trackers. While most of these wearables are used to get connected to your smartphone or check your fitness activity, they can also help one track their daily health.

With in-built measurement qualities like a pedometer, heart-rate tracker, and sleep tracker, these wearables can generate 24 by 7 worth of data related to your well being and health. The collection of this round-the-clock data and then its addition as a complement to one’s regular doctor visits can change as to how diagnoses are perceived.

While this data is still being collected by the wearables, artificial intelligence can determine what to make of this data. It will play a significant role in interpreting data inputs and then in effectively communicating with patients and the doctor.

Providing Multiple Data Points and Solutions for Research

While there are tons of data available in the field of medicine, it is very difficult for doctors to go through them, interpret them, and then make a viable diagnosis. Artificial intelligence can take over. AI with its faster computing skills can look at and correlate multiple data points and complex sets of data which will, in turn, help doctors interpret information quickly and more efficiently.

For example, a lot of cancer research depends on the study of immunotherapy. And one of the best ways to get ahead in the field of immunotherapy is to get multiple points of data in large numbers. Cancer therapies are relatively new and collecting data helps doctors determine what drug tests are working on a more populous level.

Turning Health Records into Risk Predictors:

As discussed before, one of the main functions of artificial intelligence is to collect data for every passing moment. So, soon the growth of data will be exponential and there will be multiple data points of a patient that health experts can work with.

If programmed well, these data points can be interpreted by AI to detect high-risk scenarios or life-threatening stages in a patient. Once a patient is detected to be at a high risk of contracting a certain disease or developing symptoms, AI can help doctors to get on preventive rather than curative measures.

Illnesses like diabetes, heart attacks, seizures, and Alzheimer’s are preventable if a patient is detected during the high-risk stage. Artificial intelligence helps exactly with this.
Clinical Solutions:

Artificial intelligence will make a huge impact in the healthcare workspaces. The healthcare industry is generally known to be extremely labor-intensive, in which the end consequence is the lack of quality patient care.

AI will help streamline this. Clinical optimization means that net patient outreach is improved, there is more remote engagement with patients, and easy recording of patients’ healthcare and diseases.

There are healthcare technology solutions (such as Interpreta) that work on AI prove beneficial both for healthcare centers and consumers by creating prioritization software. This software is where high-risk patients and their appointments are prioritized accordingly. This is just on the lens through which clinical optimization and artificial intelligence can be looked at.

Predicting Patient Care:

Doctors more often than not work on human instincts rather than textbook teachings. Decisions like how long should a patient be resuscitated for, are there any chances for improvement in the long-term scenario, how long will a patient take to recover, are all claims based on instincts and experience.

AI will help take this a step further and remove the guesswork out of patient care. By using previous data points, AI can be successful in predicting the future course of action for patients with more surety.
“…if you have an AI algorithm and lots and lots of data from many patients, it’s easier to match up what you’re seeing to long-term patterns and maybe detect subtle improvements that would impact your decisions around care.”, says Brandon Westover, MD, Ph.D., Director of the MGH Clinical Data Animation Center.
Precise Analytics for Pathological Images and Reports

The main function of pathological labs is to know what is wrong (or not working) with patients using minimally invasive procedures. Procedures like sonography, MRI scans, CT scans, blood tests, and urine tests are all examples of pathological tests. Conducting these tests is just the first part. Analyzing and implementing a solution according to the test results is another.

A lot of the times, the data in these scans and reports can be misread due to human error and can result in the wrong medication or implementation.

Artificial intelligence and analytics can look at these scans and break them down to the pixel by pixel. This software can identify objects, dimensions, depths, and sizes that can otherwise be misinterpreted by the human eye.

The software can also help in efficiency and productivity by identifying features of interest in these scans. This is to prevent an unneeded wastage of time in areas that are not of particular concern.

Artificial Intelligence in Medical Devices

AI can not only be included in wearables and computer software but can be a part of all our day-to-day devices including the medical ones. These devices can be programmed with respect to each patient and made intelligent as time progresses.

Some healthcare devices that can be made smarter by incorporating AI are heart rate monitors, IV’s, ICU monitors, etc. These devices can be programmed to regularly dispense liquids into patients systems, trigger alarms when abnormalities are detected, and also to understand external tamperings such as mistaken overdoses and abnormal drug measurements.

“When we’re talking about integrating disparate data from across the healthcare system, integrating it, and generating an alert that would alert an ICU doctor to intervene early on – the aggregation of that data is not something that a human can do very well,” said Mark Michalski, MD, Executive Director of the MGH & BWH Center for Clinical Data Science.

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To build out a more elaborate personal assistant for the Messenger users, Facebook has acquired an artificial intelligence (AI) startup Ozlo that specialises in understanding text-based conversations. The four-year-old start-up claims that its virtual assistants can understand and provide answers to questions which do not have simple “yes” or “no” answers. “By joining a team (Facebook) that shares our values and our vision, we will be able to continue to work on building experiences powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning,” a post on Ozlo’s website read. Ozlo has raised $14 million from a number of investors, including Greylock.The start-up has 30 employees, the majority of which will be joining Messenger in Facebook’s offices in either Menlo Park, California or Seattle, Washington. “They’re just going to be working with [Messenger] to continue their work with artificial intelligence and machine learning,” a report in ReCode on Monday quoted a Facebook spokesperson as saying.

However, there are no details so far on the financial terms of the deal. Earlier this year, Messenger’s product head Stan Chudnovsky said Facebook was focused on text-based AI because voice conversations like that of Apple or Google required an extra step. “Until we nail [text] we don’t want to go into the world where we teach people what we cannot do well. Otherwise, we’re going to be in the world where people very quickly realise certain things that we don’t do well yet and then they may not give us another try,” Chudnovsky said.

Facebook shut down one of its AI systems on Sunday after chatbots started speaking in their own language defying the codes provided. According to media reports, the social media giant had to pull the plug on the AI system that its researchers were working on “because things got out of hand”.”The AI did not start shutting down computers worldwide or something of the sort, but it stopped using English and started using a language that is created,” a report in Tech Times noted.Initially, the AI agents used English to converse with each other but they later created a new language that only AI systems could understand, thus, defying their purpose.

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BOULDER, Colo. – A new startup in Boulder is looking to make a splash in the quickly-growing field of artificial intelligence.

Boulder AI just launched this week, billing itself as one of Colorado’s only AI consulting companies. Boulder AI’s aim is to help other businesses create artificial intelligence systems that can perform menial work that is costly or dangerous for humans.

“It’s really [about] taking boring, monotonous tasks and allowing computers to do those tasks in an automated way,” Founder Darren Odom said.

Odom says his company offers a breadth of experience that other companies in the AI space can’t match. While most companies focus on either hardware or software, Boulder AI is firmly focused on both.

“We have both hardware and software experience that we can bring to the table,” Odom said.

For example, Boulder AI already has built a rugged, AI-equipped camera that the company says has a wide range of uses, from counting wildlife and identifying fish to tracking customer behaviors in a retail setting.

“Our team can design AI hardware, with either on-board or cloud processing. We’ve also got a deep bench of AI software developers,” Odom said.

Boulder AI joins a quickly growing field of tech companies calling the city home. Odom said he knew Boulder was the perfect place to set up shop, in large part because of the huge pool of tech talent.

‘Boulder is this amazing hub of really intelligent folks and it’s really, I believe, the new Silicon Valley,” Odom said. “I can’t imagine launching Boulder AI anywhere else.”

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