Coolest Start-ups in India 2014: Insieve Technologies predicts your preferences based on your searches, app use

Bharath Mohan grew up in what he calls an "information hoarding society". That drives his obsession to help you discover information you don't know you need. "If someone can predict what's going through your mind depending on your context, that can be very powerful," says the CEO and Co-founder of Insieve Technologies, which launched its content discovery app, Pugmarks, in December.

Content discovery is an extremely difficult task, though it may sound easy. Think of Google Now, for instance, which tracks where you are and overlays that with, say, your calendar and throws up information on commute time and weather. Only complex algorithms running on brute computing power can deliver that "wow" user experience. Pugmarks is getting there. A customer at MTR, a popular Bangalore restaurant, can be presented reviews on why the filter coffee there is the best in that part of the city and tipped off that there's a coffee shop close by that's started roasting and grinding beans for a French press - all on the fly without asking for it and all in two-three seconds. "It is a precious moment of engagement," says Mohan, who earned his information retrieval spurs working at Google while completing his Ph.D.