Never too late to start up

At 68, Amitava Choudhury would be perhaps the oldest person to run a start-up, with his company, asc Computer Grassroots, close to launching a software suite for housing societies. He was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug after a long and arduous 42 years of service with corporate India.

The start-up is in advanced stages of launching an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution — SMART ELEC — for large housing complexes. Even though the solution has many modules — such as ownership and tenancy management, visitor management and service management among others — security of the residents is what it harps on.

“It was during my stay in Mumbai that I saw the problem faced by senior citizens residing alone in housing complexes. In 2007, four senior citizens were murdered in their flats in certain parts of suburban Mumbai. Such incidents still continue to take place across the country,” Choudhury said.

SMART ELEC, Choudhury claims, uses a non-contact biometric solution — face and iris recognition technologies — to identify a visitor. The proprietary solution, which is linked to cameras, records the visit impact and relays it to the gates. “The idea is to detect and identify the person and purpose of the visit,” he said, adding the suite is being rolled out for computers and Android and iOS platforms.

Choudhury bootstrapped the company, up late last year, from his 800-square feet home at Joka, in Kolkata. Later, he roped in a part-time developer, making the start-up a two-man organisation. With solution, asc Computer dreams big — to take on the behemoths such as Commonfloor.com, ApartmentADDA and Housejoy.

Choudhury had a career spanning 31 years as senior divisional manager (engineering) with Tata Steel in Jamshedpur. He was then an executive director with Rolta India for about 4.5 years, and later an independent consultant for Essar Oil and Aegis Logistics.

For the sexagenarian, the biggest hurdle is fund raising, especially as age is not on his side.

“To launch the product, I need funds, which is not much, and I am not been able to raise a single copper to move my product. I am told VCs (venture capitalists) and private equity firms are not keen to provide financial support to people over 30 years,” said Choudhury, who has been travelling to Mumbai, Chennai, Benguluru and Pune regularly to meet venture capitalists.