For this corner of the world that boasts of its unapologetic appetite for piping hot momos, inconsistency in the taste and below standard hygiene aren’t just turn offs, but a sure shot recipe for a food business to fail. In 2020, in an effort to steamroll this burden on the food outlets, Sprengal Food Technologies decided to take it on its shoulder to establish an FSSAI regulated central kitchen for preparing hot selling food items and sell those to hotels, restaurants, cafeterias and other food outlets at affordable prices.

The startup has started with offering momos, but will eventually expand to offering other items too. Furthermore, Sprengal has developed its own brand called ‘Darjeeling Momos,’ having 5 outlets in Guwahati, and 4 more in the pipeline.

Currently, they are selling around 3000 momos per day and have sold around 3 million momos to date. Having clocked a revenue of Rs. 27 Lakhs in FY 2021-22, the startup is aiming for a conspicuous surge in revenue this year, with a target to sell 20K momos a day and expand to other towns in North East India.

While working at Skat Foundation in Switzerland as a Water, Sanitation and Waste Management Expert, Sanjay K Gupta had the epiphany about the excruciating need for a scientific waste management process in his home state, Assam. The fact that his hometown Tinsukia was declared as the least clean town in the country was the final trigger that compelled Sanjay to quit his job in Switzerland and come back to serve his state better. Having sizable experience and exposure in the waste management sector, Sanjay quickly got down to registering an NGO, CARE North East Foundation in 2018. 2 years hence, in 2020, he laid the foundation of his startup, CARE North East Environmental Services.

“I found that there is no end-to-end solution to waste sector issues in Assam. And also, there is no capacity among municipalities to deal with various types of waste,” the founder says. His startup tapped the need effectively and started providing 360° waste management solutions to the Municipal bodies and other semi-government or private organizations in the state.

The startup has trained a team of professionals from the weaker economic strata to create an impeccable waste collection, composting and recycling value chain. Currently working at Nagaon, CARE North East Environmental Services has projects in pipeline at Kokrajhar, Jorhat and Nalbari.

Despite being a relatively new entity, CARE North East Environmental Services has gained decent traction. To date, the startup has provided services to 38000+ establishments, catering to over 4 lakh population.

For the current financial year, the startup has set a target to collaborate with at least 5 Municipalities in Assam and expand its presence in other North Eastern states.

Did you know you can try scuba diving in a waterfall in Meghalaya? You must have trekked the living root bridge, but do you wish to know how a living root bridge is built? Have you heard about an uphill trek at Bongaigaon largely thronged by foreign tourists? Did you know about a large reserve of Gangetic river dolphins somewhere at Mirza in Guwahati? If not, the Guwahati-based startup, Oddessemania, is your go-to travel agency to help you explore the lesser trodden nooks and crannies of the country.

Started in 2019, Oddessemania is the brain and sweat child of Prasurjya Talukdar and Prantika Sarma, who travelled extensively across India to discover unique places holding massive potential for providing wholesome travel experience exclusive to the region. Today, the startup has carved a niche in offering adventure and experiential trips to the wanderlusts looking for quintessential geo-cultural experiences.

Apart from organizing customised trips across North East India and Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Goa, Oddessemania has started a campsite at an offbeat village at Dawki (Meghalaya) and has also opened a one-of-its-kind adventure resort at Bogamati (Assam).

The founders are ably supported by 55 local guides across several states who are thoroughly trained to lead the trips that also include arranging conveyance and homestays. This fulfils the startup’s larger objective to uplift the socio-economic environment of the far flung pockets of the country through tourism by creating employment opportunities and plating a strong reason for developing those areas.

A key factor that gives Oddessemania an edge over its competitors is its significantly budget-friendly packages which are painstakingly curated and executed end-to-end by the Oddessemania team.

Having catered to 2500 happy travellers to date, the startup is gearing up to take the next big step of introducing adventure courses at school and college level in Guwahati.

4 youths from Tezpur – Mrinmoy Kumar, Krishanu Kashyap, Biswajit Baruah, and Rittiz Dutta Hazarika – realized the urgency to create a unified digital platform to store and preserve Assam’s invaluable music legacy that are largely scattered, with some being almost pushed to oblivion due to a lack of access. Driven by a common intention to salvage and rejuvenate the glorious musical heritage of the state, they came together to give shape to a digital music streaming platform, BAAHI, that would serve as a haven for regional music gems for easy access by music enthusiasts from any corner of the globe. Launched in 2020, the BAAHI mobile application is available for download on Play Store apart from having a dedicated website. In just a year, the app has seen over 50K downloads with its over 6K songs, and received more than 2K user reviews.

Although starting with Assamese music, the startup plans to emerge as an exclusive platform preserving the regional music of the country as a whole in the years ahead.

Moving into a new city comes with its own set of hardships, and finding the right place to call ‘home’ can be a daunting task. With a huge amount of brokerage, deposits, denials, and untimely eviction, finding a PG or a place on rent becomes a challenging job.

To solve this predicament, a duo from IIT Guwahati, Madhurjya Bora and Gitartha Kashyap, decided to develop an application in 2019 under their startup, Magitech Innovision that could serve as a one-stop solution for searching and booking rented houses and PG accommodations sans any broker interference.

Allay, unlike any other application, helps users choose from numerous options listed on the app from the comfort of their homes without having to worry about brokerage or any registration fee. One can browse through and check photos of listed properties without personally approaching every property owner. In addition, the users can earn referral points. On crossing the threshold points, they can avail discounts and get cashback on the rental property. Points can also be collected each time rent is being paid through the app.

A year after the launch of the application in 2020, the startup encountered the latest need for quarantine facilities in hotels during the second wave of the pandemic. While helping the patients find quarantine facilities in the hotels, the startup founders decided to expand their services to hotels, resorts and homestays as well. Magitech Innovision formally launched this new range of services last week at Assam Startup – The Nest.

With its operations slowly getting a grip in Guwahati, Tezpur, Dibrugarh and Delhi, Magitech Innovision has successfully clocked a revenue of Rs. 7.5 Lakh from April to October this year.

Allay is currently available on Google Play Store.

Being a restaurateur, Maninder Kalsi had felt the heat in restaurant supply procurements. Issues like long waiting time, unorganised bills, missing invoice, outdated deals and last moment order cancellations have been the most common headache triggers for restaurant owners when it comes to supply procurements. Spotting the gap, Maninder sprung on his toes to start developing an online solution that would serve as a one-stop platform for businesses to purchase restaurant supplies at best prices. That was the birth of ChfMart.

Founded in 2020 by Maninder Kalsi and Kavita Verma, ChfMart has been bringing whiffs of respite to the restaurateurs in the region by providing them a hassle-free option to just place the orders and wait for the supplies to be delivered at the doorstep. ChfMart has partnered with local farmers, vendors as well as major brands catering to restaurant supplies to make the best items available to the restaurants at affordable prices, with assurance of timely delivery and an uncomplicated payment process.

ChfMart automatically creates different orders for different vendors instantly with real time updates on the dashboard. Restaurants can review the orders and make the pending payments with ease. The App has also introduced a Savings Calculator, which the restaurants can use to calculate the amount saved on an average.

Despite being hardly 2-year old, ChfMart has gained impressive traction and has clocked a revenue of over Rs.1.4 Cr this financial year (March-February’21). To date, the Startup has served 282 local restaurants in Guwahati and 52 from other states of North East India, including national chains like PVR, Hard Rock Café, Barbeque Nation, INOX, MBA Chai Wala, Chai Sutta Bar and Fat Tiger, among others.

In 2017, when childhood friends Sudarshan Deka and Surjya Prakash Borthakur set down to brainstorm on the unconventional ideas that could possibly disrupt the long standing tea manufacturing process, the discussion unanimously boiled down to devising an energy efficient tea processing mechanism. After several sketches, the duo arrived at an idea which had the potential to entirely eliminate the use of coal and LPG in tea manufacturing. Coal and LPG contribute significantly to the direct carbon emissions. Thus the foundation of Deroi Innovations was laid in 2017.

After spending months designing the technology and fabricating a production line along the philosophy of sustainability, the startup had set up a tea manufacturing unit in Guwahati in 2021. Currently, Deroi Innovations is processing single origin whole leaf green and black tea products under controlled pressure and temperature, with zero carbon emissions.

What’s more having realized the challenges faced by the small tea growers, the startup has consciously made it a point to procure raw materials exclusively from the small tea gardens. The tea line will soon be made available on Deroi’s online store as well as on Amazon.