Fintech & Education Startup Kredent InfoEdge looks at Raising $8 Mn Fund for Expansion

Fintech-cum-education startup Kredent InfoEdge is looking to raise USD 8 million in the next two years to fund its growth and strengthen the services by leveraging technology, a company official said.

The city-based startup, which began its journey as a platform to provide education-releated services on stock markets, expanded to research data analytics, the official said.

"We will raise USD 8 million (around Rs 56 crore) in two years to expand our reach and capability for the next leg of growth. Immediately, by March 2020, we expect to raise Rs 10 crore," Kredent InfoEdge cofounder Vivek Bajaj told PTI in an interview.

Launched in 2016, the 'StockEdge' is the "fastest-growing" capital market data analytics app and has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times, he claimed.

Kredent was working on a web version of its research and products to reach out to more users, he said.

The company has also received licence from the capital market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), to act as an "independent certified research entity", Bajaj said.

"We will offer fee based independent research and tools to empower investors for taking investment decision.They need not to switch their personal broking relationship," he said.

Kredent has already attracted investment from ace investors like Ramesh Damani.

"Roping in Damani as an investor in 2018 was a landmark achievement as it was his first investment in a
startup," Bajaj said, adding, the company has been holding dialogues with various investors.

Bajaj said he and his family holds 67 per cent of the company's stake and the rest by others. PTI BSM

Softbank's arm Deepcore Launching $55+ Mn Fund Dedicated for Startups in Artificial Intelligence

Deepcore, an AI-focused incubator and subsidiary of SoftBank Group of Japan, is planning to raise more than 6 billion yen (~ US$55 million) for its second artificial intelligence (AI) investment fund dedicated to promising startups in artificial intelligence," reported Bloomberg.

Launched last year by Softbank, Deepcore Inc has reportedly received previous funding from investors including Yahoo Japan and Dentsu. The news of the new fund comes about a week after SoftBank added renowned AI researcher Yutaka Matsuo to its board.

Deepcore is preparing to form a new AI investment fund in two to three years as it expands its core startup incubation business, said CEO of Softbank, Katsumasa Niki, in an interview to bloomberg.

The upcoming AI Fund will be a separate entity from $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund. With the AI fund, the Japan-based conglomerate aims to address deficit of global AI firms in its home country and erect a company that can give a serious competition to GAFA giants -- Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.

“The number of startups here is fewer than the U.S. and Europe, and we need to increase it by providing such environment that engineers can open up a business," said Softbank CEO, Katsumasa, who oversaw investment projects for SoftBank until 2016 and was instrumental in the acquisitions of Vodafone's Japan mobile unit and Sprint Corp.

Softbank founder Masayoshi Son said, what unifies those investments is the way they will use AI, redefining every industry and creating new ones.

Deepcore's first AI Fund counts SoftBank, Yahoo Japan Corp., Dentsu Inc. and soccer player Keisuke Honda as its investors and the fund has so far invested in 18 early-stage startups to date.

Last November, Engineer.ai, a San Francisco-based tech startup, raised a $29.5 million Series A that included contribution from Deepcore.

In December, Softbank partnered with Invest India, a government of India's official investment promotion agency, and SoftBank Group of Japan to launch Tech4Future challenge for Indian startups that have developed a global product in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Face Recognition and Cyber Security.

Earlier this year, Softbank's venture capital arm, SoftBank Ventures Korea, re-branded to SoftBank Ventures Asia to focus its emphasis of investments in Southeast Asia and China.

IFC Pumps In $3 Mn In AI Focused Fund pi Ventures

International Finance Corporation (IFC), a part of the World Bank Group, is investing $3 million in pi Ventures’ maiden fund. Fun plans to utilise freshly infused fund for investing in companies leveraging technologies such as applied artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and IoT across a range of sectors.

Commenting on the development, Ruchira Shukla, Regional Lead, Venture Capital, South Asia, IFC said, “This investment is aligned with IFC’s objective to act as a catalyst to spur entrepreneurial activity and support technology startups that drive innovation in India and globally, and solve complex problems across industries.”

IFC is making investments through the ‘IFC Startup Catalyst programme’ which aims to build local ecosystems to drive innovation and entrepreneurship. IFC has both a direct investment practice and is also a Limited Partner (LP) to local PE and VC funds.

Founded in mid 2016 by Manish Singhal and Umakant Soni, pi Ventures is an early stage investment fund focused on startups in the area such as applied artificial intelligence, machine learning and internet of things (IoT). Till date, fund has made four investments in the healthcare and energy-efficiency space, namely Sigtuple, Zenatix, Ten3T and NIRAMAI. Earlier in March 2017, pi Ventures had announced the first close at $13 million.

“Getting IFC to back us in our journey is very meaningful to us. Not only do they bring a wealth of knowledge but also a world-wide network which can be very useful for our investee companies. We appreciate IFC backing disruptive product companies in the Applied AI space via pi Ventures,” said Manish Singhal, Founding Partner, pi Ventures.

IFC's committed portfolio in India is over $5 billion as of June 30, 2016. In FY16, IFC committed $1.1 billion in new investments in the country. In addition to strengthening local capital markets in India, IFC is focused on boosting financing in infrastructure and logistics, promoting financial inclusion, helping create conditions to attract increased private capital, and helping structure public-private partnerships.

IFC’s focus areas in venture capital include consumer internet, edutech, healthtech, cleantech and emerging technology solutions based on data analytics and AI.  IFC’s venture capital investments in India include online grocery major Big Basket, edtech startup Byju, Portea- a company providing affordable home-care and Blackbuck, a leading player in elogistics.

IFC Pumps In $3 Mn In AI Focused Fund pi Ventures

International Finance Corporation (IFC), a part of the World Bank Group, is investing $3 million in pi Ventures’ maiden fund. Fun plans to utilise freshly infused fund for investing in companies leveraging technologies such as applied artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and IoT across a range of sectors.

Commenting on the development, Ruchira Shukla, Regional Lead, Venture Capital, South Asia, IFC said, “This investment is aligned with IFC’s objective to act as a catalyst to spur entrepreneurial activity and support technology startups that drive innovation in India and globally, and solve complex problems across industries.”

IFC is making investments through the ‘IFC Startup Catalyst programme’ which aims to build local ecosystems to drive innovation and entrepreneurship. IFC has both a direct investment practice and is also a Limited Partner (LP) to local PE and VC funds.

Founded in mid 2016 by Manish Singhal and Umakant Soni, pi Ventures is an early stage investment fund focused on startups in the area such as applied artificial intelligence, machine learning and internet of things (IoT). Till date, fund has made four investments in the healthcare and energy-efficiency space, namely Sigtuple, Zenatix, Ten3T and NIRAMAI. Earlier in March 2017, pi Ventures had announced the first close at $13 million.

“Getting IFC to back us in our journey is very meaningful to us. Not only do they bring a wealth of knowledge but also a world-wide network which can be very useful for our investee companies. We appreciate IFC backing disruptive product companies in the Applied AI space via pi Ventures,” said Manish Singhal, Founding Partner, pi Ventures.

IFC's committed portfolio in India is over $5 billion as of June 30, 2016. In FY16, IFC committed $1.1 billion in new investments in the country. In addition to strengthening local capital markets in India, IFC is focused on boosting financing in infrastructure and logistics, promoting financial inclusion, helping create conditions to attract increased private capital, and helping structure public-private partnerships.

IFC’s focus areas in venture capital include consumer internet, edutech, healthtech, cleantech and emerging technology solutions based on data analytics and AI.  IFC’s venture capital investments in India include online grocery major Big Basket, edtech startup Byju, Portea- a company providing affordable home-care and Blackbuck, a leading player in elogistics.

AI Focused Fund pi Ventures Announces the First Close of Their Fund at $13M

Applied Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning & IoT focused early stage venture fund pi Ventures announced the first close of their maiden fund at $13mn. The $30mn fund is expected to close within this year. Limited partners include India’s top lender to small businesses, SIDBI, prominent family offices from USA, Canada, Singapore & India and leading entrepreneurs like Mohandas Pai, Binny Bansal, Deep Kalra, Sanjeev Bikchandani and Bhupen Shah among others.

Co-founded by Manish Singhal and Umakant Soni, pi Ventures will invest in early stage start-ups that focus on solving problems in healthcare, logistics, retail, fin-tech and enterprise sectors using AI, ML and IoT. The Bengaluru based VC plans to invest in 18-20 start-ups from this fund over a 3-4 year time frame.

Manish Singhal, Founding Partner, pi Ventures and hardware techie at heart says, “India is the dark horse in the AI race given it has lot of data, brilliant data science talent & early adoption environment due to broken processes and we are happy to play a part in helping India leapfrog with AI. We are thankful to our early backers, investors and founders who have chosen to work with us. We are very excited to play a role in building a strong AI based product ecosystem in India.”

pi Ventures has made three investments so far in the healthcare & energy-efficiency space, namely SigTuple, Zenatix and ten3T. SigTuple is in the medical diagnostic space and is creating a deep learning driven, cloud based solution for detection of abnormalities and trends in medical data, for blood diagnosis. Zenatix is a data-driven energy efficiency company that uses advanced machine learning based models and delivers 10 to 30% energy efficiency to large commercial consumers of electricity along with predictive insights to prevent downtown. ten3T is in continuous monitoring of medical data like ECG in real time through its own smart patches to enable mobile ICU for smaller hospitals.

pi Ventures is India’s first Applied Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning & IoT focused early stage venture fund and was founded in mid 2016 by Manish Singhal and Umakant Soni. Both come with rich experience in setting up, building and scaling companies. Manish has been Cofounder & CEO at LetsVenture and a prominent angel investor. He has rich product experience having worked with Sling Media, Ittiam Systems, Motorola and wrote a part of MPEG 4 standards, the dominant video standard even today. Umakant Soni was Director India, Science Inc & Co-founder of one of the first AI BOT company out of India, called Vimagino

pi Ventures holds interesting #chAI (AI over a cup of chai) sessions to bring together and encourage the ecosystem. An open-for- all session, it has been attended by researchers from universities, startups, large companies and students. Startup founders share how they use AI to solve problems. With eight
sessions so far (5 in Bangalore and 3 in New Delhi) it leads to a lot of cross pollination of ideas among founders and educates the audience about best practices in building AI companies.