16 Social Alpha start-ups that are stepping up to fight the COVID-19 crisis

COVID-19 outbreak has wreaked havoc across the world with ramifications poised to surpass any catastrophe in our living memory. At Social Alpha, we believe that the fight back needs to be supplemented with out-of-the-box innovative solutions and this will significantly enhance our ability to change the course of this raging pandemic.

Here is a look at our portfolio companies that are repurposing their solutions to meet the immediate needs of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Voxelgrids – Voxelgrids Innovations Private Limited has developed a new ventilator that uses state of the art pneumatic components and electronics to provide five modes of ventilation – CMV ( Continuous Mandatory Ventilation) , Assisted Control – Volume Control(VC),  Assisted Control – Pressure Control (PC), Synchronous Intermittent Mandatory Ventilation ( SIMV with VC and PC) and CPAP ( Continuous Positive Airway Pressure). The ventilator is designed to work for not only Covid-19 patients but for all other patients who are in need of  mechanical ventilation.
  • Incredible Devices – Incredible Devices is developing a solution that can substitute the manual reprocessing of ventilator parts with an Advanced Reprocessing System that can decontaminate ventilator parts and can be used efficiently for COVID patients.
  • Blackfrog – Blackfrog Technologies is at the forefront of effective transportation of covid 19 samples with its flagship product Emvolio which maintains a stable 4 deg C platform. Upto 30 samples can be collected from the hospitals or the collection centre and sent to the nearest testing facility in a single unit.
  • Ubiqare– Ubiqare is providing COVID-19 Specialty Telehealth Care to remote patients through their mobile application platform. The patients will be cared for at home during 2 of the 4 stages of the illness trajectory – from the Asymptomatic stage to Mild Symptoms stage. They have been providing continuous support and critical care to to post-acute & chronic patients
  • AI Highway –  AI Highway has developed a Pre-Screening & Triage Tool for COVID-19, an online platform that allows people to feed relevant information pertaining to COVID-19, for eg: age, country, travel history, symptoms etc. Its pin code based – hence helps in contact tracing and to determine heat maps of low/mid/high risk category with wider adoption.
  • Aarna Biomedical – Aarna Biomedicals is developing a holistic wearable & disposable kit called SURAKSHA for frontline workers. This kit comprises of a full face shield, face mask, a coverall with fused head coverage, shoe covers & hand covers to safeguard those in vulnerable environments like security guards, municipal workers and sanitation personnel.
  • Docturnal – Docturnal is repurposing its existing Pulmonary Tuberculosis Screening tool that inputs cough (acoustic) & clinical data and provide near real time results. The TB solution baseline data includes a spectrum of lung diseases not limited to Pneumonia, COPD, TB, Asthma, Empyema, Healthy etc. thus giving more accuracy to Machine Learning. The solution is offered as a home based screening tool via the Mobile Phone hosting the App & is also offered with a Microphone Array (external device) in a clinical setting.
  • Bionic Yantra – Designing an Indigenous Covid-19 Ventilator in partnership with India’s leading engineering firm, TimeTooth which will be released as an open source design.
  • Trustcircle –  TrustCircle’s AI-Driven Social Emotional Learning Programs empower individuals, enterprises, and institutions to foster emotional resilience and wellbeing.
  • Innaumation – Innaumation is currently working on a solution that uses cystokine cells from healthy human to treat COVID-19. The start-up has also been looking at supporting the distribution of protective gear to medical staff across hospitals who are working to fight the pandemic.

Start-ups providing Assistive Tech care for people with disabilities during COVID-19

  • Cogniable – For children with autism who are unable to access in-person therapy from their doctors, special schools or clinics, CogniAble Mobile Application can be used by parents to deliver evidence based ABA (Applied Behaviour Analytics) for their children with Autism Spectrum Disorder  within their homes. The individualized plan comes in areas of language, academics, social skills. CogniAble allows children with Autism access an evidence-based therapy within the comfort of their home, therefore enabling them to continue to progress on their development milestones. A personalized therapy plan is created for the families on the framework of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, Mindfulness-based therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy ensuring better lifestyle and well-being for them.
  • Bleetech – BleeTV, an accessible digital platform for the deaf, is providing necessary Covid19 related news, information, guidelines etc in Indian Sign Language, fully accessible for the deaf community in India. BleeTV also helped the government of Maharashtra to create a series of videos on guidelines to follow during the lockout in Indian Sign Language for our deaf citizens.
  • Tactopus – Tactopus has launched an open-to-all virtual summer camp for all children including activity variations and adaptions for children with disabilities. Using popular platforms like Telegram, Whatsapp and Facebook, Tactopus has ensured the presence of not only parents on the groups but also special educators, teachers and therapists to make ensure the platforms are a safe space to seek help, share experiences and ask relevant questions.
  • Stamurai – Stamurai is allowing users who stutter to learn and practice speech therapy at home via its mobile app where a human therapist assists users over video calls alongside the app. The start-up has seen an 80% increase in new signups and 66% increase in app usage.
  • Trestlelabs – Trestle Labs is providing Access to information is very crucial for everyone but even more crucial for a Blind and Visual-impaired – be it information related to Covid-19, or labels on Grocery packets while living alone during lockdown, listening any of your favourite books, or listening to text in the language of your choice – Trestle Labs’ Kibo app has been making all of that possible.. that too across multiple Indian and overseas languages in real-time.
  • Kidaura – Kidaura invites parents of young school-going children with disabilities, for a series of 3 free webinars to learn how to engage, encourage and take care of their kids (2-12 years) at home during these unprecedented times of COVID-19 lockdown.