This Startup, Innogle helps the fishing industry with its innovative solutions

• ByStartupStory     |    September 18, 2021

Innogle, a startup founded by Shobhana Uthayashankar, provides Award Winning Fishing solutions and ocean data to ensure the life safety of ocean workers. They actively make use of IoUT (Internet of Underwater things ),  artificial intelligence and robotics to develop various creative products. We got in touch with the inspiring founder, Shobana, to know more about her story and the startup, Innogle.

Shobhana is a B.Tech graduate, she graduated in the year 2012, after which she joined a company where she learned about product designing. They had to go abroad to learn about various types of product designing since then she has been involved in Project management. Shobhana started the company in 2019, after seven years of extensive research to build their product. “Since then we are providing comprehensive solutions to the fishing industry, coast guards, also researchers by focusing those on pain points”, Shobhana tells startup story.

The inspiration behind Innogle

An Idea Sparked from The Real Story: “ I was working in a previous company, we had a team get-together during the Diwali festival and one of my colleagues, who’s from the fishing community, we all were happy and he was sitting quietly, we asked him what the problem was? Everyone was enjoying it except him. And he said he had lost his family due to tsunami. Okay. Also, one week before that time, he had lost his cousin brother as well while he was sailing on the sea. His family did not know if he was alive or not”, she shares. Shobhana’s concern for the lack of adequate technology for finding fishermen, and providing them safety,  in today’s tech-dominated world, led to her establishing innogle.

Shobhana and her team started to conduct research on the ocean; they found it especially difficult to find the right technical infrastructure, with technological advancement being very basic in the sector. So they flew to different countries like UAE, China and India to gather product requirements, in accordance with their needs. This gave birth to new ideas, and they started merging products to develop a helpful solution for the fishing industry.

Innogle aims to create environmental and socially friendly solutions, wishing strongly to give back to the environment as well as society. The data they collect will also be shared with the government as they plan to work together with the maritime industry and the government.

Product & customer service

At the moment, We successfully installed 31 devices in boats and also in the UK. Though we haven’t yet approached or mapped the global potential, we already have enquiries/orders from Australia, UK & UAE.

We are happy to Announce that , now We are Working Under the Department of Telecommunication to Integrate 5G module into Our product on Sea to provide effective solution in this Ocean Space, Shobhana tells us,”

Even Though most of the industries are booming with Many Emerging Technologies, still there isn’t  any solution that has not identified and addressed the Challenges and Problems faced by  Fishermen Society, coastal guards, Researchers and Related Governments.

What’s more precious than life itself?

Introducing Kadalcompass- “The dreams of millions of fishermen”.

A women Led Startup Innogle Presents  “Kadalcompass “ – “A Number of  Award Winning Solution for Fishing and Ocean Deep Technology” using an  emerging technology of 5G to create Digital Ocean integrated with  IoUT (internet of Underwater things) and AI , to provide comprehensive solution  to sector of  fishing Industry, coast Guards and For Ocean Researchers. We have patented and trademark Solution named “Kadalcompass” a display device  has 26 Unique Features in Multilingual, user friendly Interface integrated with IoUT ,  AI based device which will be fixed on Each fishermen’s Vessels to have  real-time Potential fishing Zone on the Go.

we designed the system which runs under compliance which will guide fishermen to catch the right fish and which be seen visually without damaging the fishing ecosystem and also prevent (By-Catch) endangered species to caught in the fishing Net, this system integrated with Life safety Technology which alert automate and Identify the Missing fishermen in  fraction of second  and it also alert Boat Neighbours and Nearest boat to track and trace. And also this device will do wonders to perform Sensitive Granular Carpet Data-Mining of Ocean bed which is useful for  Mineral Mining , weather Prediction, Cleantech on Ocean  and others for Ocean researchers/ universities.

It is basically products for now because our service would primarily be offering Ocean data, which will start flowing after we have collected three years’ worth of data on the ground, then we will start providing those reports and trends. Statistical analysis demands at least three years of data to be able to give meaningful insights. But as far as the products are concerned, there are various products in the kitty” And also we are working for Coast Guards, rescue Robotic Solution called SARROF(search and Rescue Ocean Floater and flyer) to identify the security Threats on sea and also monitoring the submarine Activities.

And this Product supported and Awarded by

Won Very First MeitY Award winner as “INNOVATIVE STARTUP OF THE YEAR” 2019 was give by Hon. Ravishankar Prasad, won Best 5G usescase by Dept ofTelecommunication & more Shobana proudly states,” the customers are very happy about this solution because it’s very difficult for them to determine the danger points on Mid sea, what type of fish down the water. We are getting a good push from them. They’re also giving us feedback, like how we can improve further. So we are getting good feedback from them” Innogle has filed an international patent for one of its products. They expect to confirm it in the next 6 months.

Team & The pedamic

Innogle has a core team of about 6-10 people. Each of the members has a marvelous educational background with a tremendous amount of experience. The product manager is a marine engineer with an MBA. Their CFO is a chartered accountant with a lot of experience in the field. They have a couple of mentors, including the ex-director of SAP in Switzerland, and a Google scholar who handles sensor and wireless communication. Their marketing manager has worked in ITC before. The team also has an engineer with over 29 years of experience. Shobhana feels the pandemic has only delayed the launch of the product. They could not perform on-field market surveys to confirm the revenue variable, also, due to the quarantine protocols, the manufacturing had to be pushed back by 6 months.

Overcoming Challenges

The main challenge they face is investments. Since the maritime industry is not well known yet, investors are not aware of the company and often prefer to invest somewhere else. They have to spend a lot of time on the products to spark their interest.

Till now, they have pitched to 10 investors, out of which 3-4 of them have shown interest in the product. spreading awareness about the sector in the public would minimize the issues, but the problem is the lack of funds. Innogle is trying its best through social media, to make people aware of the neglected sector.

Funding

Innogle is currently a bootstrapped company, and they have spent around Rs 3-3.5 crores in testing and research. They have raised 50L Grants and Award Money and generated a revenue of Rs 61 lacs. They are looking for funding of around Rs 6.5 crore.

Future plans

Innogle already has a business model prepared, they are looking to create working capital for manufacturing and sales expansion in the initial stages. They want to expand the manufacturing to a large extent and recruit more salespeople to form a stable pillar for the revenue to start flowing. Once innogle has stabilized in India, they plan to expand the business overseas.

Lastly, Shobhana leaves a message for young people who wanna follow this path, she says,” If you have interest, you can execute it. So whatever the interest you have, you have to take it further. There will be ups and downs, definitely but we are not supposed to go down. We have to move on further. And as a start-up, if any person is going toward starting this startup course, I would say, go ahead, and see what’s going to happen. Of course, I have also faced a few problems, but I have taken a challenging process and have moved on from them.”

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