Synopsis
After two rounds of deliberations and voting, Solinas edged out ClaimBuddy, a Gurgaon-based Mediclaim support startup, in a close contest with the jury praising IIT Madras-incubated deep-tech startup's attempt to solve what they said is a massive problem in India.

The ten-member ET Startup Awards jury got into a detailed discussion before picking Solinas Integrity, whose robotics solutions help eliminate manual scavenging, as the winner of this year's Best on Campus category.

After two rounds of deliberations and voting, Solinas edged out ClaimBuddy, a Gurgaon-based Mediclaim support startup, in a close contest with the jury praising IIT Madras-incubated deep-tech startup's attempt to solve what they said is a massive problem in India.

"Human lives are lost cleaning sewage pipes... This is a major issue which needs to be addressed," a jury member said. Founded in 2018, Solinas develops robotic solutions for the pipeline and sanitation industry, addressing leakages and eliminating manual scavenging. It focuses on short-range and long-range pipeline inspection and robotic cleaning of septic tanks.

"It is truly a campus startup... A student teamed up with his professor to solve a problem with a clear impact on a societal issue like manual scavenging," one of the jury members said. Solinas' products have been deployed in multiple cities including Coimbatore and Chennai, and have been showing a strong impact in terms of savings (600,000 litres saved every km of inspection) as well as reduction in manual labour.

"Sanitation workers clean sewers at great personal risk and every few months one or two of them lose their lives doing their jobs," said jury member Sanjeev Bikhchandani, cofounder at Info Edge. "Saving lives is more important than any financial return," he added, justifying the jury decision to choose Solinas over ClaimBuddy.

As for ClaimBuddy, a health insurance claims support company that works with patients and hospitals, the jury was of the view that it is tackling a real challenge which will compound over the next few years, giving the company a long runway. "This award recognises and validates our efforts and our business idea... We are on track to expand our business to Maharashtra, Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and some areas in Bihar, and receiving the Best on Campus award at the ET Startup Awards gives us strong credibility as we build our partnerships," said Divanshu Kumar, cofounder and CEO of Solinas Integrity.

The idea for Solinas came during the final years of a project that Kumar worked on along with his professor Prabhu Rajagopal. Seeing the plight of manual scavengers, they decided to develop a robot. In 10 months, they were able to design and develop a prototype that won the best masters project at IIT Madras.

The startup now has six people sharing major responsibilities - Kumar, Bhavesh Narayani, Moinak B, and Linda Jasline, along with faculties Rajagopal and Krishnan Balasubramanian. The startup is looking to ramp up its talent in software and electronics as it looks to improve its city-based dashboard where pipeline data can be fed in for greater ease of data-driven decision making. It is also looking to hire for sales and business development roles.

Solinas recently closed a seed funding round of Rs 4.5 crore where the investors included 8x Ventures, Lister Ventures, and Kotta Enterprises of Weizmann Group.