Five Hyderabad young entrepreneurs on Forbes 30 Asia list

Hyderabad: Five young entrepreneurs and startup founders from Hyderabad have made it to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2020 list released on Thursday. They include Prem Kumar Vislawat of Marut Drone, Ashwin Mocherla of The ThickShake Factory, Sandeep Bommireddi of AdonoMo, Vihari of Urban Kisaan and Pawan Kumar Chandana of Skyroot Aerospaces.

Prem Kumar Vislawath, Suraj Peddi, and Sai Kumar Chinthala co-founded Marut Drones, India's first drone technology developed to eradicate mosquito larvae and water hyacinths on lakes. The startup uses AI to predict mosquito density and larvae count, creates mosquito maps by location, gender, species and subspecies, and also offers real-time reports to identify high and low risk areas using predictive analytics for diseases like malaria, dengue and chikungunya. Prem Kumar Vislawath is now CEO of Marut Drones which has already covered more than 4,230 hectares of lakes in the city of Hyderabad.

Ashwin Mocherla, who is also on the Forbes list, and his brother cofounded the ThickShake Factory, a specialty milkshake retailer startup, with the aim to introduce the beverage to ordinary Indians at an affordable price. Since its launch in 2013, the ThickShake Factory says it has served more than 7 million customers across its 125 outlets in India.

Sandeep Bommireddi, another city-based entrepreneur in the list, is the cofounder of India-based Adonmo, an adtech startup that helps advertisers target their audience outdoors through its 'car-toppers' a network of digital screens mounted on top of taxis that display ads based on time and location. Pawan Chandana's company Skyroot Aerospace is building space rockets- a first for a privately held company in India. It plans to launch its first rocket in 2021 to put commercial satellites into space.

Vihari Kanukollu cofounded UrbanKisaan in 2017 which builds indoor vertical farms to grow pesticide-free produce that are later sold to retail consumers on a subscription and walk-in basis.