T-Hub startup Hug Innovations makes it to top 10 of ‘Nasscom Emerge 50 2017’ awards

Gesture control smartwatch maker Hug Innovations has been picked by Nasscom as one of the 10 hottest startups to watch out for. It has won ‘NASSCOM Emerge 10 2017 Awards’, part of a marathon search for India’s most innovative top 50 emerging software product companies.

Founded by Raj Neravati, Hug Innovations is a gesture-control technology and devices startup based out of T-Hub in Hyderabad that has developed the world's first gesture controlled smartwatch. 

Hug smartwatch comes with Contextual Intelligence that instinctively understands the intent of your actions, be it to turn up the music, dim the lights, play console games, switch presentation slides, or fly a drone using just hand gestures. It can also send out SOS signals using hand gestures. These devices are manufactures by Foxconn.

It also recently launched Hug Elan, a multi-sport fitness tracker that has intelligent sports detection to recognize the sport or activity the wearer is doing.

Hug also bagged the Design4India award where Nasscom recognizes companies with the best design and user experience strategy. The award saw 500 applications, of which 153 were shortlisted and 20 pitched to jury pitching. Three winners were finally picked.

“This is the first time Nasscom introduced the category of League of 10 award from Emerge 50 and Hug feels so special to be recognized in this elite league of 10. The Design4India award makes it special for Hug because we always looked at making user experience different and innovative. We sincerely thank Nasscom for recognizing the efforts and acknowledging us with this,” Raj said.

The ninth edition of Nasscom Emerge 50 identifies and supports the top 50 high-potential emerging product-centric organisations in the country that are redefining the benchmarks of excellence for the technology industry.

The nine other startups to win Emerge 10 are Intellicar Telematics, IndiQus, Cyclops Medtech, Elastic Beam, Uniphore Software Systems, eMart Solutions, Uber Diagnostics, Minjar and SmartMoo.

The assessments are based on a number of parameters including financials, growth, market differentiators, customers, market visibility, scalability and innovation. Over 400 startups applied for the Emerge 50 awards and over 75% of them were from the B2B segment.

Among the 40 others shortlisted as part of Emerge 50, three more T-Hub startups Paymatrix, Gayam Motorworks and Ayasta bagged the Emerge 50.

Founded by Ravi Teja Avasarala, Saideep Reddy K and Raghu Kumar M, Ayasta uses data to monitor the electrical grid within a facility to identify any anomalies.

Paymatrix, founded by Mukesh Chandra Anchuri, Anusha Kurupathi Parambil and Muralidhar Naik, is an analytics-driven property rental management platform that streamlines rent payments and collections for tenants, landlords and property managers.

Gayam Motor Works, founded by brother Rahul and Raj Gayam, develops electric bikes and smart e-autos. Its electric bikes offering is called ‘Limitless’ e-bikes.

This article has been produced with inputs from T-Hub as a part of a partner program.