A few months ago, law enforcement officers in a north-western African country detected a series of online financial frauds. This led to some arrests and the recovery of money lost by some victims. Interestingly, the hi-tech software tools used by the police in operation were developed by a small IT company based in Belagavi, 600 km away from Bengaluru, the IT capital of India.

In a few weeks, Prosoft, the company that develops such tools, will be celebrating its 25th anniversary. Functioning in a 2-BHK flat, it has a head count of around 30, including management. It is an ISO 9001:2015 certified company that has over 1,000 clients in India and overseas. The tools developed by Prosoft engineers are used by security, vigilance and law enforcement agencies like NIA, CID, ED, ACB, Income Tax and CBI. Their branches utilize Prosoft applications to carry out their investigative analysis and other significant work.

“We are associated with DSCI and regularly participate in cybercrime awareness workshops held across India to educate law enforcement personnel to deal with modern day crime scenarios. Our products and services have helped agencies take swift and insightful decisions by using the power of data analytics,” says Mohsin Dalayat, CEO and Technical Director.

Senior IPS B. Dayananda, who has been working with the Prosoft team since he was posted as SP, Belagavi, says that Prosoft’s C5 CDR Analyzer has been implemented as a state-wide project in Karnataka. All the district police units and Commissionerate officers have been given a copy of the software to do CDR analysis of their cases pertaining to crime. “The software has been quite successful in solving several important and complicated cases,” he says.

Prosoft is not the only success story here. Several entrepreneurs have set up IT and other companies in smaller cities like Belagavi. Their operations are small, but significant. Most of them have international clients.

On cyber security

Another agency in Belagavi is Shreshta IT, a cyber security, threat intelligence company that offers vigilance products and services.

The company specialises in threat intelligence and DNS security, and offers cutting-edge products like DNS Shield, DNS Watchtower, and TLD ThreatPulse, which are used by enterprises, government agencies, and top-level domain (TLD) operators across the globe.

“At the core of our work is proactive threat intelligence,’‘ says Swapneel Patnekar, Chief Security Researcher and CEO. “Our team remains focused on detecting and mapping cyber criminal network infrastructure and delivering pre-emptive threat intelligence data that covers pig-butchering/romance baiting, investment and cryptocurrency frauds, phishing, malware, command-and-control (C2) and more. The company also protects enterprise customers from cyber threats with their cost-effective hardware solutions – network firewall, network attached storage and point-to-point VPN devices,’‘ he said. Constant vigil, across borders and timelines, has made the teams detect or prevent online frauds in more than 50,000 government and private websites.

Among Shreshta’s customers are Indian Railways and the National Internet Exchange of India, besides private companies.

Secure connectivity products

Hitesh Dharmadasani knew that the benefits of long morning walks were good health and mental peace. “I never realised it could be the best method of idea incubation, till I got an idea that changed my life,’‘ he says. The young post graduate from George Mason University in the USA, had come home for a vacation. But the solo walk had a lasting effect. He decided to stay back. Five years ago, he and his wife, a media professional, set up an IT company. The office on the second floor of a clothing retailer shop, has come to employ around 40 techies and sells its products across the globe. What is more, it has set up branch offices in Bengaluru and Delhi. Seven out of ten of their employees are based in Belagavi, Dharmadasani’s home town.

“We build network security and secure connectivity products, Complex Firewalls and Routers for secure connectivity. We have clients all across the board, from small professional services like chartered accountants and advocates , to large NBFCs with 2000+ branches and critical infrastructure government bodies,” he says. “Our competitors are mostly U.S. and Israel companies.’‘

Patenting Ideas

Vayavya Labs founded by a small team of engineers and managers has won several patents in niche technology areas. The company specialises in cutting-edge domains such as digital twins (virtual ECUs), coverage-driven verification and validation (V and V) for ADAS/AV, cybersecurity, and software-defined vehicle architectures. The company also provides full-stack embedded systems development, serving some of the most prominent semiconductor and automotive companies worldwide.

“Our range of products and services is wide,” R.K. Patil, CEO and co- founder, said. “We create embedded software experts for automotive, EDA/semiconductors, and communication, Digital Twins – Virtual Platform Development For Faster SoC Verification, Assisting in migration to OpenScenario2.0, SDV Cloudification, and EDA and Semiconductors,” he said.

Hardware, software etc.

Ajit Patil is a serial entrepreneur who has his hands in both hardware and software. He started with a business to provide fast internet to students and households in Belagavi. He later founded a company that provided out of box cloud services. Presently, he is producing Revolt RV1, an electric bike that has gained a cult market among the youth.

Another entrepreneur Virendra Kadam’s Deltasys E-Forming makes 3D printers. His machines are being used by various industries now. Amey Kadle of Ajinkya Technologies recently signed a MOU with Samsung for developing mobile software. There is a wide variety of start ups and other companies of significance here. Some of them include SenseGiz founded by Abhishek Latthe, Ecobillz by Ameet Patil, and Akxa Infotech by Amit Agarwal.

Benefits immense

Many of the founders say the benefits of such a move are immense. “The choice of my office is a give away,” laughs Patnekar. “We set up an office next door to our house. That shows how tired we were of Bengaluru traffic woes.” In the initial years, his wife Puja Patnekar who is Shreshta’s head of operations, juggled her duties as a mother, home maker, and corporate leader, by literally running between the house and office, several times daily.

Patnekar recalls an interesting incident. Shreshta had developed `Sherlock,’ a wireless digital device that could scan a mobile phone or tablet to see if it was infected with viruses or other threats. They wanted to put it up in a public place like the police head quarters. “One day, Police Commissioner Iada Martin Marbaniang and Deputy Commissioner Rohan came visiting after office hours, unannounced. All our team members had gone home. But within 15 minutes, our whole team was back at the office. I told the commissioner that we could do that only because we are situated in Belagavi. This is impossible for a metro-based company,” he said.

Patnekar does some pro-bono consulting and lecturing. He has addressed college students, working professionals, senior citizens and members of organisations like Rotary Clubs. He is regularly consulted by victims of cyber frauds and investigators.

During the COVID -19 pandemic, Dharmadasani proved to be the go-to man for the district administration for data crunching. He helped officials at the war room to aggregate and analyse data of infections, admissions, deaths and vaccinations, other than helping with the logistic chains managing supply of oxygen, food and other materials.

R.K. Patil and Ajit Patil have been trying to build an ecosystem that promotes entrepreneurship and develop industry and business around small towns. They have helped the State government fine tune its Beyond Bengaluru policy.

They are active members of the Belagavi Technology Companies Association (BeTCA) that has been organising annual conferences and networking events. “The annual BeTCA sessions have proved that high-quality tech solutions are accessible and that has led to several exciting collaborations,’‘ said Uday Kinjwadkar, a member.

Ajit Patil is keen not to romanticise this. “It is just our way of working. We like it here and are bound to stay here. We want to prove the real potential of tier-two towns like Belagavi in producing globally competitive products,” he said. He plans to partially fund the Centre of Excellence in electric vehicles in Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU).

“While our faculty members are training young people in traditional courses and in new frontiers, our laboratories are enabling further research,” said VTU Vice-Chancellor S Vidyashankar. “It will be a hub for start-ups to promote their skills,” the VC said. “We have been hearing the complaint that most graduates these days, especially engineering graduates, are ‘unemployable’. But our centre will help them turn entrepreneurs. We will encourage students to come up with innovative solutions to long standing problems in traditional and new industries and even in fields like agriculture, veterinary and animal husbandry.”

With the aim of encouraging and mentoring students’ ideas and turning them into feasible projects, VTU has set up the Visvesvaraya Research and Innovation Foundation (VRIF). It has an incubation centre in the VTU campus on Goa road. It is set up to provide opportunity to students and faculty for innovation, incubation, start-ups and IPR.

Need to do more

However, complaints remain. Rohan Juvali, former president of the Belagavi Chamber of Commerce and Industries, feels the State government’s Beyond Bengaluru initiative has remained a mere slogan. “The government has to be more serious about promoting industries and businesses in tier two and tier three cities and towns. Whatever we are witnessing here is being done by entrepreneurs on their own. With necessary support, we will grow several times,” Juvali said.