The IoT space in India is maturing and there is a huge potential in the b2b segment to solve industry problems using sensor data and analytics. Some key sectors include food and agriculture, retail, automotive and manufacturing. As the adoption is increasing in the market, there is a huge opportunity for startups to cater to the increasing demand of IoT services. Especially when it comes to the food industry as a whole, there is growing acceptance for IoT services with the emergence of many good supply chain start-ups. Therefore, there is a need for IoT service providers who have subject specific knowledge of the industry and can integrate IoT systems accordingly.

qZense Labs was started in 2019 where both of the founders come from an extensive science and technology background. With knowledge of the supply chain inefficiency in fresh food, they decided to use power of IoT and data science to solve the problem. The qZense solution is a data driven approach for decisions to be made in the postharvest supply chain. “Our analytics platform looks at data throughout various stages of the food supply chain, from farms, to logistics, storage and retail. Our IoT sensor products are

integrated at various levels, helping in taking informed decisions. Our hardware devices are easy to install, ensuring smooth scaling up and our software platform is completely based on cloud hence ensuring smoother functioning and easy scale-up”, says Rubal Chib, CEO, qZense Labs.

Eyes on Excellence
qZense is employing a unique combination of near infrared spectral and olfactory sensors for analysis and providing a holistic solution for procurements, grading as well as storage and logistics with real time alerts. All the hardware is developed in-house ensuring total data privacy. None of its competitors is capturing olfactory data or providing an end to end solution capturing data throughout the lifecycle at grading as well as at storage and logistics. qZense is currently catering to fresh fruit growers, exporters, wholesalers, retailers and e-retailers.

Our analytics platform looks at data throughout various stages of the food supply chain, from farms, to logistics, storage and retail

The company has built two devices namely QScan and Qlog. Qscan is an inspection device and uses near infrared spectroscopy for measuring the quality parameters of fresh produce. Qlog is a logger that employs olfactory sensors to assess the rate of degradation and predict spoilage and shelf life of stored produce. “We have a web dashboard that uses sensor data to analyse and share insights about the inventory in the form of reports to our customers”, mentions Dr. Srishti Batra, Co-founder.

Looking at the Future
This year the company has added clients from Maharashtra and NCR region apart from serving clients in Karnataka. This year it has added three large clients to its portfolio. It has now added growers as a customer segment apart from retailers and exporters. qZense is building automation solutions for large scale sorting grading as well as adding new commodities in the solution it offers. “We are also testing novel sensor methods for application in food assessment and developing IP around the same. Our Business team is building partnerships in fruit centric geographies to amplify growth”, concludes the CEO.