Interaction with SiliconIndia magazine

May 2018 Edition of SiliconIndia

1.      Tell us about the points that you would like us to highlight regarding your Electronic Design Services.

a.       It’s not what we do – it’s how we do. There are many design service providers, but we are the only one whose vision is to “be the most Valued Partner for Socially, Financially and Environmentally inclusive complete VLSI & Embedded solutions across the world, in established and emerging markets alike.” We want to be the partners, not vendors, to our clients. And we envision to create solutions for our clients which would be “Socially, Financially and Environmentally inclusive”, thus instilling a sense of meaningfulness and pride among our employees and clients alike that we all are associated with something that would add value to the society.

b.      Insilico’s AI enabled Smart Lighting solution for reducing the overall power usage for street lights and lights at public places has led to its selection in the Top 10 for the “ELECRAMA Startup Awards 2018” for the most disruptive and potentially game changing start-ups in the ecosystem that directly impact the Electrical and Electronics sector.

c.      We have created a model which would help us sustain the R&D required for Smart Lighting. We’ve created two lines of business – one is Services Line where we would be doing design services in VLSI & Embedded. We’ve created a very attractive business model for this and got a decent amount of funding to grow this business line. Service line would generate the cash. Parallelly, we’ve also started the Solutions Line which is working on the Smart Lighting project. So, effectively, we are not raising money for Smart Lighting. We’re sustaining it through a different but related business line which will generate the cash to sustain this entire project. We’re doing this as a Proof of Concept, POC, to prove a viable business model for entrepreneurs to do something socially impactful, without being bothered about the finances. We are calling our model VSR, Viable Social Responsibility, against CSR.

d.      Insilico believes in excellence through diversity and multi-ethnicity. It's co-founded by four of us – Sudipto Das, a Bengali domiciled in Bangalore for the past twenty-one years, Parag Bhatnagar, hailing from Pilani, Rajasthan, Minakshi Sharma, a Haryanvi from Kurukshetra and Syed Imran Ali, who has connections with both Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The four directors Shishir Sharan Rai, Priyank Shukla, Uttam Panda and Pankaj Verma, hail from Bihar, UP, Orissa and Haryana and the HR is from Orissa. Among our 100+ people in India we've representation from almost all the states, except for some of the North Eastern states. We actually have people from everywhere, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Assam to Ahmadabad. We are very particular about maintaining the cosmopolitanism and multi-ethnic nature of our company. And the interesting thing is that we don't have to put any extra effort to do it. We just hire the best people from the best of the colleges and we never go by any prejudice.

e.       Our tag line is “To unpathed waters, undreamed shores”, which speaks everything about us and our culture.

f.        Our logo, derived from the organic shape extracted from the letter “S”, evokes movement and flow of information. The “S” shape is also present in sand dunes, the natural source of silicon.

2.      As per a recent survey, the electronic design services market is expected to reach $171-228 billion by 2020. What are your strategies to leverage this vast business opportunity?

We would like to eventually transform into an end to end solutions company, rather than providing design services in VLSI & Embedded. IOT solutions have a much wider prospect and that’s what will also be the dominant force behind the electronic design services market.

3.      What benefits do your company’s services offer to your clients that other players in the market fail to deliver? Explain your USP.

Unlike anyone else in the industry our vision is to deliver services and solutions which would be Socially, Financially and Environmentally inclusive, thus instilling a sense of pride among our clients that they are associated with something that would add “value” to the society. We don’t believe in USP, Unique Selling Point, our mantra is UVP – Unique Value-Add Point.

Our mission statement says, we want to “faithfully serve our customers with the pledge for the best quality and keeping up with the right values.”

4.      You offer a wide array of services such as Embedded Design & Software, VLSI design, and many more. Tell us about them, and briefly explain your flagship offering.

Insilico’s service portfolio caters to products that empower the world of Communication, Networking, CPU/Servers, Automobile, Bio-Medicals, Consumer Electronics and a wide range of IOTs.

Insilico has very flexible business models to suit a plethora of client needs. With a present clientele of top semiconductor companies, Insilico has a wide and diversified spectrum of service offerings in expansive domains within the ambit of Embedded Design & Software, and in almost all areas of VLSI design, from Spec-to-Silicon, on a wide range of ASICs & CPUs/GPUs in all the latest technologies, including 7nm.

5.      What are the various technologies you leverage in the process? How do you ensure the quality of your products/services?

We ensure the quality through a very elaborate feedback mechanism working at multiple levels comprising the clients, extensive internal assessments, peer reviews and regular tracking.

More than everything, we believe that the best performance is achieved only when an organization provides meaningfulness and safety to all its employees so that they can ensure the availability of their real selves completely for the organization, thus enabling the engagement of all their energies, physical, cognitive and emotional, in their work – we strive to provide meaningfulness and safety to all our employees.

6.      What are the various pain points clients come up with? How do you help them through these challenges?

Quality and stability are the only two concerns for any client. We take care of our employees and they in turn take care of all the pain points of our clients. As mentioned above, we just strive to provide meaningfulness and safety to all our employees and they engage all their energies, physical, cognitive and emotional, in their work, taking care of all the pain points of our clients.

7.      Name some of your clients, along with a case study about your company’s electronic manufacturing services.

We can’t take names of clients.

The most important case study is “Smart Lighting” which led to our selection in the Top 10 for the “ELECRAMA Startup Awards 2018” for the most disruptive and potentially game changing start-ups in the ecosystem that directly impact the Electrical and Electronics sector.

Insilico has come out with a Motto “Save & Be Safe”, “Light & Enlight”, working on making India Smarter in terms of utilizing the power starting from Home --> Street --> City --> State --> Country in a very smart way and making the whole of India lighten up from the Wastage of Electricity and attain Zero Wastage of Electricity.

• Highlights of the Solution:
• IOT based “Smart Light” solution controlled by Artificial intelligence (AI) from private place (Homes) to Public places.
• Completely indigenous – Make in India
• Significant wastage of power because lights are kept on much beyond necessity – AI based solution to minimize the “ON” time of lights (Both Public and Private): Save 
• More crimes in darker places – AI based solution to increase intensity of lights whenever movement of people detected: Be Safe

8.      How do you update your employees with the latest technologies and industry trends? Tell us about the work culture followed in your company.

We have extensive training programs, seminars, webinars, presentations, talks to keep our employees apprised of the latest and the greatest technologies relevant to our field.

We believe that the best performance is achieved only when an organization provides meaningfulness and safety to all its employees so that they can ensure the availability of their real selves completely for the organization, thus enabling the engagement of all their energies, physical, cognitive and emotional, in their work

We strive to provide meaningfulness and safety to all our employees – that’s our work culture.

9.      Tell us about your company’s recent revenue growth, and your future roadmap.

We’re just a year old and we’ve more than 120 engineers and 15+ clients across India and the US. Our future roadmap is to become be the provider of end to end IOT based solutions.

Company Information

Founded: 2017
No. of Employees & Office locations: 120+ across Bangalore, San Diego, San Francisco Bay Area & Austin.
Awards/Recognitions: Selected in the Top 10 for the “ELECRAMA Startup Awards 2018” for the most disruptive and potentially game changing start-ups in the ecosystem that directly impact the Electrical and Electronics sector.
Key Persons: Sudipto Das, Parag Bhatnagar, Minakshi Sharma & Syed Imran Ali.