The Sachin Tendulkar-backed, Smartron is planning to spend Rs 300 crore for acquiring new companies to complete IoT play in India. According to the company’s top executive, Smartron will spend money towards acquisition of new firms in the area of healthcare, smart homes, energy and infrastructure. The startup is taking this step to broaden its IoT product portfolio in India.

A technology OEM (original equipment manufacturer) and IoT player, Smartron had earlier acquired Volta Motors, a Chennai-based automotive player that manufactures electric vehicles. Founded in 2004 by Mahesh Lingareddy, the company further plans to invest Rs 1,500 crore over the next three years towards setting up R&D, engineering, manufacturing and data centre facilities. Apart from this, the Hyderabad-based startup has also have invested in a couple of companies for its Smart Health play.

According to Lingareddy, their TronX platform brings organic growth. It is a platform that learns users preferences and behaviour to give them intuitive experience across devices. Leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence, tronX entertains its users, finds them the best deals on flights and stays, books cabs, saves their time and money.

“TronX platform for us is a real organic asset that brings organic growth. Everything else, I would rather add from outside to build a very fluid ecosystem. That is the only way we can innovate. You can't do everything on your own. Also, 20% of our every dollar we have is towards building the ecosystem. 20% of 1500 crore will go towards acquiring and partnering with companies to build the ecosystem. I would like to spend even more outside,” told Mahesh Lingareddy, Founder and Chairman of Smartron to ET.

Not only this, company has also acquired a team in Hyderabad through acquisition of a majority stake in in the Smart Infrastructure space. Currently they are in pilot phase and will reveal the complete detail about the deal after its completion.

Till date, Smartron has invested close to Rs 125 crore. After raising Rs 250 crore, earlier this year,company is planning to raise another Rs 700 crore this year. If sources to believed,company discussions for the same are underway with institutions.

One of the executive told ET, “In Soft Machines, we had no venture capitalists. I had taken very sovereign route with funds raised from Saudis, Russians, Korean and Abhu Dhabhi government. We have so far followed the same approach. A lot of this money for Smartron is coming from unconventional, non- traditional route. But Rs 600 crore could potentially be institutional.”

Smartron who has already inked partnerships with companies for devices like security camera and industrial automation is also partnering with a variety of companies like Ericsson and IBM for backend support.

Apart from all these development, company is further plans to launch its smart band later this year.
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