This Shark Tank-Featured Bengaluru Startup is Tackling ‘Lazy Eye’ with VR Therapy - Related to grant, lakh, 2025,, microsoft, from

Microsoft to Pull the Plug on Skype in May 2025, Teams Set to Take Over

Microsoft has presented that Skype will be retired in May 2025 as the business shifts its focus to Microsoft Teams. The move is intended to streamline its consumer communication services and adapt to user needs.

“We will be retiring Skype in May 2025 to focus on Microsoft Teams (free), our modern communications and collaboration hub,” noted Jeff Teper, president of collaborative apps and platforms at Microsoft.

people will still have access to core Skype aspects in Teams, including one-on-one calls, group calls, messaging, and file sharing. Additional aspects in Teams include hosting meetings, managing calendars, and building or joining communities. The corporation mentioned that over the past two years, the number of minutes spent in meetings by consumer people of Teams has quadrupled, indicating growing adoption.

“Hundreds of millions of people already use Teams as their hub for teamwork, helping them stay connected and engaged at work, school, and at home,” Teper added.

Microsoft is offering Skype people two options during the transition period. Skype people will be able to sign into Teams using their Skype credentials. Chats and contacts will automatically appear in the app.

The rollout begins with customers in the Teams and Skype Insider programs. Teams and Skype customers will be able to call and message each other during the transition. customers who choose not to migrate to Teams can export their Skype data, including chats, contacts, and call history. Skype will remain available until May 5, 2025, allowing customers time to make a decision.

To transition to Teams, individuals can download the application from the Microsoft Teams website and log in with their Skype credentials. Microsoft has also provided a step-by-step guide to assist individuals in making the switch.

Microsoft will discontinue paid Skype functions for new consumers, including Skype Credit and subscriptions for international and domestic calls. Existing subscription individuals can continue using their Skype Credits and subscriptions until the end of their next renewal period. After May 5, 2025, the Skype Dial Pad will remain available on the Skype web portal and within Teams for the remaining paid individuals.

Microsoft acknowledged Skype’s role in shaping modern communication. “Skype has been an integral part of shaping modern communications and supporting countless meaningful moments, and we are honored to have been part of the journey,” Teper noted.

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This Shark Tank-Featured Bengaluru Startup is Tackling ‘Lazy Eye’ with VR Therapy

Amblyopia, often referred to as ‘lazy eye’, is a prevalent yet frequently overlooked vision disorder that affects 1-5% of the global population. Its prevalence has reached up to 5% in India. While conventional therapies exist and have proven effective, they come with numerous challenges and are often met with resistance, especially from young children. A Bengaluru-based health-tech startup is using immersive virtual reality to address this issue.

Founded in 2023, NeuraSim uses advanced VR-based simulations to rewire the brain’s visual processing. It offers a breakthrough alternative to traditional treatments for amblyopia, such as patching therapy.

“The conventional therapy is called patching, where we put a patch over the good eye and let the brain be forced to use the weaker eye. This takes nine months, and children often drop out within two to three months. In contrast, our immersive therapy improves vision starting from 20 days of therapy, with results in 45 days,” revealed Ramesh S Ve, founder and CEO of NeuraSim, in an .

Amblyopia usually occurs in childhood when one eye is significantly weaker than the other. This leads the brain to suppress input from the weaker eye. If left untreated, it can result in permanent vision impairment.

NeuraSim’s VR therapy offers a non-invasive, engaging, and scientifically validated approach. By immersing patients in controlled VR environments, the treatment stimulates the weaker eye while simultaneously ensuring the brain integrates inputs from both eyes.

“We need to dissociate one eye as being weak and the other as being strong. The brain is conditioned to only use one eye, and we have to recondition it and rewire it. Virtual reality, by design, brings in that facility,” Ramesh revealed.

The therapy consists of immersive VR simulations customised for each patient’s needs. The technology has been validated through clinical testing, and the results are promising.

“To our surprise, within 45 sessions, from near blindness in the weak eye, a seven-year-old child gained almost 600% improvement. Today, that child has stable vision which she wouldn’t otherwise have had,” Ramesh shared.

This form of treatment also addresses the shortage of ophthalmologists and optometrists in the country. “For India’s [website] billion population, we just have around 30,000 ophthalmologists and 25,000-30,000 optometrists. Even if we include opticians and other support staff, the total workforce is just about one lakh. This is nowhere near enough to provide adequate eye care for the growing population,” Ramesh emphasised.

NeuraSim, founded in 2023 and headquartered in Bengaluru, has its research and development incubated at the Manipal Bioincubator. The organization initially received funding from a Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) grant and later secured a €1 million Indo-European research grant to develop its VR technology.

NeuraSim’s VR solution is built on years of research and clinical trials. Ramesh, who has a background in public health and vision science, worked with leading institutions like Johns Hopkins University and Manipal Academy of Higher Education before founding NeuraSim with Girish Somvanshi. His extensive experience in epidemiological studies and telehealth inspired the creation of the startup.

Despite being a relatively young startup and even in recent times getting featured in Shark Tank India, where they failed to receive funding, NeuraSim has already gained traction among India’s top eye care institutions and received a number of inquiries following the airing of that episode.

Aravind Eye Care, an ophthalmology institution known worldwide, was among its first paying consumers. “We wanted to validate if there was a real business case. Today, we have over 20 consumers, including repeat clients from the Aravind chain,” Ramesh presented.

NeuraSim offers two pricing models for its VR-based amblyopia therapy. One of the models includes a monitor, mini-computer, and VR device and is priced at ₹[website] lakh. For this variant, therapy is administered by a clinician. Meanwhile, the second model is available for rent at ₹12,000 per month. “That comes to around ₹200 per session, making it more accessible for parents who would otherwise spend ₹400 on travel for clinic visits,” he further noted.

While VR-based vision therapy reveals great promise, the road to adoption doesn’t come without its challenges. One of the primary hurdles was the availability of suitable VR hardware.

Initially, NeuraSim relied on imported devices like Pico, which later became difficult to procure due to geopolitical issues. This pushed the business to partner with Pune-based startup Question What’s Real (QWR) to manufacture VR headsets locally.

“We are very proud to say that we are now hardware agnostic. Our software can work on QWR devices, Oculus Quest, and other VR platforms. But as a medical device organization, we need a hardware partner who can support regulatory compliance and long-term servicing,” Ramesh noted.

By transitioning to domestic hardware partners, the business has managed to cut costs by nearly a third, making the solution more affordable.

Moreover, parental scepticism about VR-based therapy posed an initial barrier. Many parents questioned whether extended VR exposure was safe for children.

“We explain that this is a temporary, structured treatment, not long-term VR exposure. It’s like a prescription, a controlled use of VR to improve vision function,” he clarified.

Looking ahead, NeuraSim aims to expand its VR therapy offering beyond amblyopia. The startup is developing AI-based retinal imaging tools and neurorehabilitation programs for conditions such as glaucoma and Parkinson’s disease. The organization’s roadmap also includes expanding its clinical partnerships, increasing accessibility through home-based therapy solutions, and entering international markets.

“Our target is to be in 150-200 clinics by December 2025. Each clinic treating at least five patients per month for home therapy will allow us to reach a scale where vision therapy becomes more accessible,” Ramesh outlined.

With the rising number of patients, AI, telehealth, and VR-based therapy can help bridge the gap in healthcare access, ensuring more people receive timely treatment despite the shortage of specialists – a vision NeuraSim is actively working towards.

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Zasper Receives ₹9 Lakh Grant from Zerodha, FOSS United for IDE Development

FOSS United has presented a co-sponsored grant of ₹9,00,000 to Zasper, 50% of which is being sponsored by Zerodha.

Zasper, a tool developed by Hyderabad-based developer Prasun Anand, is an open source alternative to JupyterLab. Notably, JupyterLab is widely used by data scientists. AIM lately had an .

The IDE is designed from scratch to support massive concurrency. It aims to provide a minimal memory footprint, exceptional speed, and numerous concurrent connections. While it is currently available on macOS and Linux, the IDE intends to be a versatile, user-friendly, and cross-platform solution.

Jupyter notebooks are one example of the read–eval–print loop-style data applications that the IDE is geared for running.

With the grant amount, Zerodha and FOSS United have committed to financially supporting the creator’s development and improvement of the project full-time over the next six months. The focus will mostly be on improving the UX, platform support, documentation, performance, and creating advanced aspects and extensions.

Addressing the announcement, Anand revealed, “I am very grateful to FOSS United and its industry partners for creating the FOSS grants program. FOSS developers need more than GitHub stars and FOSS United grants solve that.” “I believe a lot of developers from India will gain from this program and more FOSS projects will come out from India,” he added.

On the same note, a number of exciting grant programs, such as Y Combinator’s Summer Fellow Grants, are emerging to encourage developers and entrepreneurs to use AI to build. With more joining the list, it should only get more exciting for developers and aspiring students.

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