Neethu Mariam Joy, the first woman GenAI founder from Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), has been selected for the prestigious Antler Entrepreneur in Residence Program, which will help her company establish next-generation e-commerce solutions.
Neethu is the founder of ‘Mila’, a GenAI firm that offers an online shopping experience that improves personalization, consumer pleasure, and engagement.
The Singapore-based Antler residency, which operates in 27 sites across six continents, is an intensive and in-person talent accelerator program that provides a platform for going from an idea to a worldwide venture-backed firm in weeks.
This year’s residence scheme received 9,200 candidates, including solo entrepreneurs and early-stage businesses. Of these, approximately 7,700 applications were examined. Eventually, 110 founders were chosen to attend the residence and launch their businesses. “This is a tremendous boost for me as well as the entire ecosystem,” Neethu stated, citing the high selectivity rate of 1.4%. Neethu said her interest in AI began during her doctoral studies at IIT-Madras.
“It continued through my postdoctoral studies at King’s College London, where my research focused on ASR (automatic speech recognition).”
Neethu then worked as an AI scientist for two international companies for three and a half years in total. In March 2023, she resigned her job to launch an artificial intelligence firm. Mila began as an enterprise search company before transitioning to e-commerce. The KSUM-incubating startup, which aims to alter how customers engage with online platforms, received a seed funding from Startup India in September 2023.
Antler, as a day-zero investor, enables outstanding innovators to create and grow successful businesses from the ground up. The program provides a global community of co-founders, access to talent, expert advisors, growth support, and financing, allowing innovators to establish and scale their businesses faster.
KSUM is the nodal organization established by the Kerala government in 2006 to promote entrepreneurship and incubation in the state.
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