upGrad has invested Rs 30 crore in TurningMinds for ideating and making technology products for the new economy. TurningMinds was set up a year back to provide for traction from multiple enterprises for outsourced research as well as product development.
“TuringMinds specialises in taking an idea, quickly building prototypes and accelerators (apps), testing them with the industry, and picking the cherries among them. We are seeing tremendous response from industries globally (SMEs to MNCs) for developing world-class products and services in emerging technology areas like AI and ML,” Prof Anuradha Sharma, President of TurningMinds, said.
It is functional through over 15 offline facilities in the US, India, Europe, UK and the Middle East. Their offices in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Detroit are operational with a professional workforce of 250 product engineers, and it aims to double the business in the next quarter.
The brand is in the process of building an ecosystem of senior data scientists and ML engineers through campus recruitment in the country. “Our teams will work as the core team to incubate 50 prototypes (including products and accelerators) and file 8 to 10 patents to support small and medium-scale industries in the next eight months,” Prof Sharma said.
“We have always worked with a very strong industry-centric DNA, and we further saw this as an opportunity to leverage the expertise of our talent through TuringMinds. It provides a one-of-a-kind opportunity for industry-focused academicians to directly work with corporates and create business-ready products for them,” Dr Dakshinamurthy V Kolluru, the CEO of uGDX and TurningMinds, said.
“In addition to our LifeLongLearning suite, we are hiring bachelor’s to doctorate degree holders in large numbers to fuel our mission of developing full-fledged marketable products. This further gives One upGrad an edge over its peers and strengthens our stature as the key employment enabler within the country,” Co-Founder and Chairperson of upGrad, Ronnie Screwvala, said.
With its base in India, TurningMinds is in the process of the expansion of its global footprint aiming for a strong business, thus incubating and designing over 50 prototypes each year. The brand has set out a target to build a business of Rs 800 crores in the next five years.
