IoT Test Automation Platform Doppelio Raises $1.2 Mn in Seed Funding from Axilor Ventures and Mela Ventures

Funds to be utilized in product R&D and to expand in the US and Europe

Doppelio, a leading IoT Test Automation platform provider, has raised $1.2 Million in pre-series A funding from Axilor Ventures and Mela Ventures. Founded in 2019 by Gaurav Johri, Sharmila Saha, and Rajesh Kathirvelu, Doppelio is already adding significant value to Fortune 1000 companies from diverse industries, such as Automotive, Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing and Connected Products.

Research organizations have estimated that the number of IoT devices will exceed 40 billion by 2026, with a strong CAGR. The number of connected endpoints is expected to be even higher than that. Due to this extensive scale, it is imperative that organizations guarantee their products function seamlessly, minimize product recalls, and, most importantly, prevent any negative consequences on users. However, lab testing of IoT applications is time-consuming, expensive, and still insufficient. This increases the time to market and the risk of failure of connected solutions.

Doppelio enablesthe testing of IoT applications without dependence on physical devices. Its device virtualization, simulation and test automation capabilities enable clients to test comprehensively with speed and reduce their dependence on field trials. With Doppelio, companies can test a wide range of functionalities (including FOTA, remote command and control) and test for performancewith up to a million devices.

Gaurav Johri, CEO at Doppelio, said “The response we are getting from large global enterprisesvalidates that we are solving an important problem for these companies.As connected products proliferate in the coming years, we expect Doppelio to become a critical piece in the IoT ecosystem,We are excited to have Mela and Axiloras investors and this funding will deepen our investments in the product and go-to-market.”

Ganapathy Venugopal, Co-Founder & CEO at Axilor Ventures, said, “Axilor and Doppelio share a common vision of creating category-leading solutions for large global enterprises. IoT devices are becoming pervasive but testing them is still hard. This leads to slower release cycles. Doppelio's advanced testing and simulation capabilities can help enterprises launch better products faster.”

Krishnakumar Natarajan, Managing Partner at Mela Ventures, said, “Doppelio is a great example of a company identifying a relevant and complex global problem and having a simple and impactful solution that can deliver value instantly. I am excited with the traction Doppelio is getting and am confident that they are on a path to becoming the category leaders in this space and being one of the game-changing global product company out of India.”

Doppelio will be at the IoT Tech Expo, Santa Clara, CA, on 17 May, 2023. Visit us at Booth#263 if you are in the area.

About Doppelio

Doppelio enables companies to rapidly test IoT apps by virtualizing and simulating devices at scale. The platform enables the testing of IoT applications for any device, protocol, and scenario.Fortune 1000 to emerging growth leaders across the industries leverage Doppelio’s IoT Test Automation platform to reduce dependence on physical devices, reduce the risk of failure, faster time to market and lower the cost of quality. Visit www.doppelio.com for more information.

About Axilor Ventures

Founded in 2014, Axilor Ventures is among the top 3 most active seed funds operating out of India. Axilor Ventures invests in early-stage startup across sectors in the supply chain/B2B commerce, Enterprise SaaS, Healthtech, AgriTech, Fintech, and consumer internet space. Axilor Ventures was founded and backed by Indian tech pioneers, including Kris Gopalakrishnan, SD Shibulal, Prof. Tarun Khanna, Srinath Batni, and Ganapathy Venugopal.

About Mela Ventures

Co-founded by Krishnakumar Natarajan and NS Parthasarathy, Mela Ventures aims to put Indian B2B SaaS companies that are solving real-world challenges on the global map. They celebrate and support the spirit of entrepreneurship at every stage of the journey. In addition to investment, they also provide guidance and support to achieve collective goals defined by their portfolio companies.

Mela Ventures provides investment, strategy, innovation, research, networking and other mentorships to start-ups and next-generation entrepreneurs.

Smart Grid-focussed IoT Startup Probus Raises $3 Mn Led by US Family Office and Unicorn India Ventures

• Round saw participation from other existing investors.
• This is Unicorn India Ventures’ third round of investment in Probus
• Signals strong belief in Probus’ IOT platform to bring in digital transformation in the power and utility sector
• Probus is an integrated IoT platform based service for distribution grid monitoring and automation
• Funds raised to be used for strengthening product R&D, expand team and grow GTM partnerships with ecosystem partners
• Probus has clocked 8X revenue growth and has achieved profitability in the last 12 months
• The Company has deployed over half a million products automating the grids and monitoring the last-mile power distribution segment. 

IoT Communications & Data Analytics Startup Probus Smart Things focused on Smart grid applications has raised $3 million from Unicorn India Ventures and Family Office from the US. The round also saw participation from existing investors. Funds raised will be used for strengthening product R&D, expanding the team and grow GTM partnerships with ecosystem partners.

Probus develops integrated hardware and software solutions for utility providers and helps digitize their distribution grid and have a clear visibility of their network through Probus integrated end to end IoT platform. A powerful IOT solution for electricity distribution utilities that helps them achieve distribution grid analytics and automation which subsequently enables a much more efficient distribution of electricity along with quicker restoration of electricity after power disturbances. Probus further enables reduced operations and management costs for utilities, and ultimately lower power costs for consumers.

 

Smart Meters Testing

Anand Singh, Co-founder CEO, Probus Smart Things, says, “Probus has been at the forefront of digitization of the last mile electricity distribution grid. With the GoI mandate of 270 million smart meters deployment by 2026 to reduce the $40 billion annual losses that India is incurring in the last mile power distribution segment, Probus's deep-tech in massive scale communications network and data analytics will be of immense value in achieving this goal. This is just the beginning of the automation that we are seeing in the energy sector. As more assets like EV, storage and renewables get deployed, IoT automation and private communication networks would become a must by all utilities and private players operating in the space. Once the data is acquired, the next step is to connect all of them and use it to resolve all the climate change issues pertaining to energy efficiency that the world is facing - optimum use of energy (demand response), reduce manual intervention and corresponding CO2 emissions.”

In the last 12 months, Probus has demonstrated 8X revenue growth and has achieved profitability at PAT level. The Company has currently deployed over half a million smart meters products in 4 geographies and doubled the team size. In addition to expanding further in India, Probus will also be looking to launch operations in MENA and SEA over the next 12 – 18 months. 

Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures, says, - “At Unicorn, our belief has always been to identify disruptive business ideas from sectors which may not necessarily enjoy the limelight whether it is CyberSec or InsuranceTech or power and utility. We back startups that have the potential to be the market leaders in their sector and back them with conviction. Probus is a company in which we have led the round for the 3rd time. We truly believe that the power sector and last mile distribution is a sector waiting to be disrupted and Probus’ IOT platform and smart meters are helping some of the largest utility companies adapt a technology-led approach to monitor their assets better.”

Probus has recently launched a new product for the solar sector to monitor the production efficiency of solar modules in the central inverter solar plans through wireless sensors. The Company has already bagged its first order from a major utility company covering 78MW solar plant. The Company is aiming to grow its revenues by 6X and double its team size in the next 18 – 24 months.

About Probus Smart Things

Probus Smart Things Private Limited is in the business of developing integrated hardware and software solutions for utility providers. Current scope of solutions encompasses asset management, outage management, energy management, operations management and smart metering. It aims to increase the per capita consumption of electricity in India by 10X, which is presently 1/3 of the global average- by reducing the distribution losses in the Indian electricity distribution grid.

About Unicorn India Ventures

Unicorn India Ventures is a Mumbai-based early stage fund house started in 2016 by Anil Joshi and Bhaskar Majumdar. From its first Fund, UIV has invested in 17 companies like SmartCoin, Open Bank, Inc42, Sequretek, Pharmarack, Genrobotics, Futurecure to name a few. Unicorn India Ventures Fund II, which is a Rs 300 crore fund launched in 2020 which has invested in 20 companies so far like Gamerji, ForeignAdmits, Probus, SocialSwag. The Fund has emerged as the best performing early stage fund in India with the stellar exits provided by the fund to its LPs.

Chennai based IoT solutions company Denvik Technology raises strategic investment round for global expansion

Denvik Technology will use this investment to expand global office footprint to better serve customers looking for cutting-edge Industrial IoT solutions, scale the team and accelerate commercialization of their new product for the global poultry farming market

Denvik Technology, a Chennai-based provider of cutting-edge IoT solutions has raised a strategic investment round led by CI Hub, an investment firm that invests growth capital in high potential Indian companies to help them accelerate their global expansion. The investment will be used by Denvik to expand their customer base for Industrial IoT solutions further in Europe and the MENA region (Middle East, North Africa), scale the team and accelerate market adoption of their latest IoT-driven smart solution for the global poultry farming market.

The market for IoT solutions is expected to grow rapidly over the next decade. The global IoT market is projected to grow from USD 478.36 billion in 2022 to USD 2,465.26 billion by 2029 at a staggering CAGR of 26.5%. Agriculture is expected to be one of the fastest growing sectors as IoT can be leveraged to help farmers improve profitability and increase operational efficiencies. With over a decade of expertise in building cutting-edge technology solutions, Denvik Technology is well positioned to help companies leverage the granular insights that will be available from connected smart devices.

Founded in 2007, Denvik Technology has been building robust, market leading technology solutions for global corporations and startups for over 15 years. Their customers include global leaders in industrial and equipment automation in Europe and India. The team is especially passionate about leveraging technology to improve sustainability and help leave a better planet for future generations.

Denvik Technology is incubated by the Crescent Innovation Incubation Council (CIIC), the incubation arm of Crescent Institute of Science and Technology. Two of Denvik’s co-founders are alumni of the Crescent Institute of Science and Technology.

Denvik’s latest proprietary product offering “Ornithon” is an IoT driven smart solution for helping poultry farmers world-wide improve profitability, operational efficiency and compliance. Their unique technology offering leapfrogs existing market solutions and provides modern day poultry farmers a significant competitive advantage.

Commenting on the strategic investment, Syed Bukhari, Founder & Vice Chairman, Gibraltar Technologies; Founder Director, CIIC; Founder & Director, CI Hub, said “We are excited to invest in a deep-tech company like Denvik Technology with a proven track record of success. The team at Denvik have a wealth of experience in building and deploying cutting-edge, robust, easy to use IoT solutions. The global IoT market is a huge opportunity as enterprises of all sizes look to benefit from IoT technology. We believe that Denvik is uniquely positioned to grow and take advantage of this large addressable market.”

Mohammed Mohideen, Co-founder, Denvik Technology Private Limited, said “We have been successfully delivering cutting-edge technology solutions for global clients for the last 15 years. With this strategic investment, we will be expanding further in key markets like the Middle East and Europe and establish near-shore offices to better service our clients there. We will also use the investment to accelerate sales and scale adoption of our latest product offering “Ornithon” which tackles the unmet needs of poultry farmers world-wide.”

About Denvik Technology Private Limited

Chennai-based Denvik Technology Private Limited builds cutting-edge IoT solutions for global corporations and startups. The company has been in existence for over 15 years and has an established client base in Europe, Middle East and India. The team at Denvik is especially passionate about leveraging technology to improve sustainability and help leave a better planet for future generations.

About CI Hub

CI Hub is an investment firm that invests growth capital in high potential Indian companies to help them accelerate their global expansion.

About CIIC

Crescent Innovation Incubation Council (CIIC) is the incubation arm of Crescent Institute of Science and Technology. CIIC has incubated 120 startups since its inception.

ThingsUp, An IoT Platform Raises Seed Funding from Silverneedle Ventures & Others

Early-stage technology fund, Silverneedle Ventures announces its investment in a Pune-based startup, ThingsUp, a low-code platform helping businesses to build and deploy IoT applications in a short duration of time. The startup has raised $600K in a Seed round from Silverneedle Ventures, Udyat Ventures, Lead Angels, GSF (an existing investor), and other angel investors. The investment will be used to double down on the product development, sales & operations teams.

The market already has 14 Billion+ IoT Nodes connected to the internet which is growing at the rate of 25% year on year. With the launch of 5G, the market size is expected to increase 10 times in the next 4-5 years. Usually, the development & deployment time of any IoT application or use case is 8 to 12 months, but ThingsUp fills this gap with its low code platform which reduces the development time by 80%. It has built-in application templates for popular use cases such as electric vehicles (EV) monitoring, supply chain monitoring, telematics, logistics and asset tracking which businesses can use and go live within weeks.

Founded by Akshay J Ghadage and Pranav H Naiknavare, ThingsUp is currently focusing on the Electric Vehicle mobility & cold supply chain logistics segment, Thingsup counts 30+ Enterprise companies including some of India's largest EV OEMs as customers. With the help of ThingsUp, enterprise customers can make their products smart and connected within weeks saving 80% of development efforts and time. Thingsup’s EVe monitoring platform offers a connected vehicle ecosystem that has electric vehicle diagnostics, monitoring, vehicle performance analytics and other features in compliance with the EV policy of India. Started 2 years ago, Thingsup already has 12000+ IoT nodes on its platform processing more than 1 terabyte of data every day. Thingsup is currently solving the problem of Electric vehicles diagnostics, monitoring and Cold supply chain monitoring via its SaaS solution. With this fundraise Thingsup will launch 2 more solutions focusing on solving EV OEM's problems related to vehicle performance, diagnostics and Compliance.

On the fundraising, Mr Pranav H Naiknavare, Co-Founder & CTO of, ThingsUp said, “ThingsUp will be utilizing these funds to add further integrations and analytics to current products, which will allow customers to get more data insights and improve operational efficiencies on global scale.”

Mr Abishek Balendran, Investment Partner, Silverneedle Ventures on the investment said, “The IoT platform SAM for ThingsUp is ~$5.0 Bn+ and use cases within subsegments such as EV mobility and smart devices are expected to grow at ~30%+ CAGR over the next 5-7 years. Hence, the market is large enough for Akshay and the team to be able to gain a fair share of the pie. Additionally, with offerings around the entire IoT tech platform (low code, on-premise deployment support, pre-built templates etc.) + an end-to-end IoT app and the core tech platform being fairly sector agnostic, we believe, ThingsUp has created a local product but with a fairly wide-range and comprehensive global application”

Mr Akshay J Ghadage, Co-Founder & CEO of, ThingsUp said, “IoT is not just hype anymore, more than 50% of physical things will be connected to the Internet in the next 5 years. In this growing trend of digitalization and IoT, we believe we have got the right timing with the right offering”

About Silverneedle Ventures

Silverneedle Ventures is an India-focused venture capital firm which invests in early-stage technology-led businesses. They primarily focus on Pre-Series A/Series A rounds in B2B SaaS, Deeptech, Sustainability, D2C/Consumer Internet, and emerging technologies. They partner with entrepreneurs to increase their probability of success through an active hands-on approach. The fund is backed by marquee Indian and global investors which include LPs, Family Offices, Institutional Investors, and others. The approach is a mentor-driven model, wherein segment-specific experts (partners/advisors / LPs) across the globe would ensure that a startup is taken on a growth trajectory. The fund was founded by Mr Ajay Jain and Mr Deepesh Agarwal in the year 2022.
https://Silverneedle.vc

About ThingsUp

Thingsup is the low code platform helping businesses to build and deploy IoT applications within weeks. Currently focusing on the Electric vehicle mobility and Cold supply chain logistics segment, Thingsup counts 30+ Enterprise companies including some of India's largest EV OEMs as customers.

https://thingsup.io/

iLink Digital Acquires Connexis to Expand Global Data Analytics & IoT Footprint

Rohan Shinde, Founder of Connexis

Connexis, a high growth Data and AI services company, has entered into a strategic acquisition agreement with iLink Digital, a global technology consulting solution firm, in India. As part of this acquisition, Connexis will offer solutions and consulting services in the areas of Data Engineering, Data analytics and IoT solutions. Some of their key offerings include revenue analytics solutions, 3D digital twin, integrated healthcare analytics platforms, text analytics, operational intelligence, and conversational AI solutions.

This merger will allow Connexis to integrate their deep Data, IoT and Product engineering expertise to iLink’s portfolio of technology consulting which will enhance customer experience. These services will further enable iLink to drive experience-led transformation at scale for clients across multiple industries.

Talking about the partnership, Rohan Shinde, Founder of Connexis, said, “We are very excited to associate with iLink Digital ecosystem to expand our disruptive Data, Analytics and IoT solutions. This merger will be instrumental in developing and integrating innovative software solutions which cover all our client needs and beyond.

According to Sree Balaji, Group – CEO of ILink Digital, “Connexis has been at the forefront of delivering cutting-edge technology solutions in conversational AI, operational intelligence and enterprise data platforms. We are excited to announce this acquisition of Connexis as they bring rich and diverse experience in disrupting solutions in Data Analytics and IoT. Their strong engineering and technical support capabilities will continue to accelerate iLink’s ability to leverage data and automation technologies to drive digital transformation services.”

Connexis was founded in 2017 by Rohan Shinde, a graduate from National University of Singapore. The company offers digital solutions to its clients in domains such as Fintech, Pharmaceutical, Industrial, Healthcare, Retail and ISVs through its system integrator partnerships with major software OEMs like Amazon Web Services and PTC. At the time of acquisition, Connexis had close to 50 employees with skills ranging from data engineering, cloud native development, and data science.

13 IoT and Hardware Startups Receive Grants of INR 9.7 Mn + from MeitY and T-Hub

The grant will support startups in their innovation journey as well as nurture them in offering unique solutions.

MeitY along with T-Hub disbursed a grant of INR 7.5 Lakhs each to selected startups.

T-Hub, India’s pioneering innovation ecosystem, in partnership with MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) today announced grant disbursement to Indian startups in the hardware and IoT sector. 13 startups were selected from across the country for Digital India’s Scale Up program to receive a grant of INR 7.5 lakh each from MeitY. The grants will support the startups in accelerating the development of their innovative solutions.

This is the partial grant that has been disbursed to the startups who have demonstrated proof of concept, built an existing customer base, and exhibited the potential for scale across the country. The selected startups are Bariflo Labs Pvt Ltd., Startoon Labs Pvt. Ltd, Ayasta Technologies Pvt Ltd., BluArmor, Detect Technologies, Greenies, MLIT Solutions, Mobilytics, Nemocare Wellness, Rizel Automotive Pvt Ltd, SatSure Analytics India Pvt Ltd, Swaayatt Robots Private Limited and RoadMetrics Pvt Ltd. Rest of the grant will be disbursed post the completion of the program.

MSR, CEO, T-Hub, said “T-Hub's collaboration with MeitY is targeted to support startups who are ready for the growth phase and make the best use of the grants provided. T-Hub enabled these 13 startups and mentored them to be ready for this growth leap, and it all started with an idea to further support Indian innovators on the Internet of Things (IoT) and hardware. 

Further, the selected startups now can leverage the provided leading corporates and specialized mentors and continue the acceleration journey for respective businesses. This program has enabled us to help startups push past the roadblocks they face to scale their innovations and excel in the modern business environment.”

Digital India’s Scale Up program received 230 applications from early and growth-stage startups across the country, who shared their proposals last year. In addition to the grant funding, the startups received access to unparalleled mentorship through bootcamps on business model development, Go-to-Market strategy, pitching process, and fundraising tips.

T-Hub, for this six-month acceleration program, onboarded a pool of experts namely Ravikiran Prabhakara, Entrepreneur, Investor, and Partner at Shirak, Srikar Y.V., Director Government Relations at redBus, Rajeev YSR, Mentor with TSIC, PanneerSelvam Madangopal, VP Corporate Innovation, T-Hub, Madhusudhan Rapole, Managing Director of Oorja Energy, and many others.

The mentorship and guidance from T-Hub and MeitY through this acceleration program helped the selected startups in acquiring more customers, receiving incentive opportunities from the State government, fundraising from investors, global expansions, and successful launch of new products.

About T-Hub

T-Hub (Technology Hub) is an innovation hub and ecosystem enabler. Based out of Hyderabad, India, T-Hub leads India’s pioneering innovation ecosystem. With a mission of enabling and empowering an ecosystem hungry for innovation, T-Hub is creating impact for startups, corporations, and other innovation ecosystem stakeholders. Incorporated in 2015, it has provided over 1800+ national and international startups with access to better technology, talent, mentors, customers, corporates, investors, and government agencies. It has elevated innovation for leading national and global corporations, transforming their business models for the better. Working in collaboration with innovation partners and enablers in Telangana, India and worldwide, T-Hub is building a future-ready innovation ecosystem.

For more information about T-Hub, visit www.T-Hub.co.

Made in India IoT Startup Kazam raises INR 7 Cr in Seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures.

Vaibhav Tyagi & Akshay Shekhar, Co-founders, Kazam (L-R)

Kazam is India's first intelligent IoT based charging station

Funds raised will be used for product development, ramping up sales, operations and marketing

IPV announces Kazam as its 19th deal for 2021; likely to invest Rs. 155 crore this year across 60 plus startups

IPV has so far invested Rs. 207 Cr across 77 deals

Delhi, June 23rd, 2021: India's first intelligent IoT based charging station, Kazam has raised INR 7 crore in a seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures, one of India's largest angel investment platforms in India.

The funds raised will be used for product development, ramping up sales, operations and marketing, as Kazam continues to provide the most affordable and smart electric vehicle charging stations made in India, and has set up over 30 charging stations in 5 states – Karnataka, Maharashtra, Delhi/NCR, Telangana and Tamil Nadu.

The Electric Vehicle (EV) market has a large unaddressed need for charging infrastructure for all vehicles (2W/3W/4W), in both personal & commercial applications. Kazam aspires to be the most innovative, profitable and consumer obsessed product company through a network of charging stations enabled with IoT device for connectivity, analytics, BMS and ability to meter and bill users through a simple app. According to a report by India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA), the EV market in India is projected to cross over 63 lakh units per year by 2027. The rise in the number of electric vehicles on the road would have a positive effect on cutting down carbon emissions of India and will also help Kazam scale up at an accelerated rate.

Vinay Bansal, Founder and CEO, Inflection Point Ventures says, "In the last 5 years, the Government of India has announced multiple beneficial initiatives to increase the sales of EV vehicles. Many startups in electric mobility are scaling well and we have invested in quite a few. Thus, Kazam fits in organically as we believe with more electric mobility startups getting launched and scaled, the infrastructure and discovery need (specially charging the vehicles) will be critical in the overall success of this sector. Kazam's strong founding team has in-depth understanding of technology and physical infrastructure needed to help the sector grow faster and this encouraged us to invest in the Company."

In a short span of 5 months, Kazam has gone deep in the EV ecosystem. It has built the hardware & software tech for affordable and smart EV charging infrastructure. It has also built an open architecture to help other charging hardware manufacturers to use their protocols and APIs. Businesses can easily connect with the APIs to start their EV journeys.

Akshay Shekhar, Co-Founder, Kazam says, "Electric Vehicles, especially 2W & 3W are growing at a rapid pace and Kazam has a solution for all the EV charging needs for fleet operators, home charging and public charging. We not only provide hardware but the software needed to manage and operate on a daily basis. Our partnership with one of the leading EV fleet operators has already taken a good shape where we are seeing very high transaction rates on our station. We expect to put 10,000 charging station in 2021-22 and build a robust team to support it. Even with the 2nd wave of Covid hitting our way, IPV and our other investors have stayed resilient and continue to believe in our vision to make electric mobility accessible to all."

Vaibhav Tyagi, Co-Founder, Kazam added, "In the consumer segment, customers do want their hands on EVs but the lack of infrastructure makes them hesitant. Kazam's affordable charging stations and its approach to create micro-entrepreneurs who can host these smart charge-points to earn income, will create a network of charge-points across the country."

In 2019-20, India's EV sales totalled 3.8 lakh units, with the EV battery demand totalling 5.4GWh. Last fiscal year, electric two-wheelers were the most common in the entire segment and the sale of high-speed electric two-wheelers is expected to increase rapidly in 2020 as more companies obtain FAME-II certification. The Indian government is eager to improve EV infrastructure and the environment. Various national and state-level policies are currently being developed and implemented. The charging infrastructure specifications are being developed and enforced across the country, from the Bharat EV policy to state-by-state EV policies, Kazam is rightly poised to leverage this momentum and roll out their services to key markets in India.

About Kazam

Kazam was founded in 2020 by Akshay & Vaibhav with the mission to make electric mobility accessible to all. The founders met in PepsiCo and later worked in early-stage energy sector startups, new product development & managing P&L across various countries. Kazam is a brainchild to provide the most affordable and smart internet based electric vehicle charging stations which can be used both for personal and commercial use without any manpower to manage the devices. 

Kazam's solutions can be used by Businesses, Fleets and EV OEMs to integrate even their existing hardware on Kazam's software platform to gain access on utilization, cost saving & environmental impact. Kazam also aims to provide seamless experience to EV drivers including charger discovery, navigation, fast and affordable charging and payment solutions. Website - https://www.kazam.in/


About Inflection Point Ventures

Inflection Point Ventures is a 3800+ strong members angel investing firm that supports new-age entrepreneurs, providing them monetary & experiential capital by connecting them with a diverse group of investors. Believing that 'Everyone can Grow with Startups', IPV was started in 2018 and plans to invest INR 155 Cr in 2021 across 60 startups. IPV's investors' base is seeing a massive influx of highly accomplished CXOs and HNIs, looking to invest in startups with rational valuation and sustainable business model.

Low Code IoT Platform Thingsup Raises Funding from GSF Accelerator

iobot Team

Mumbai, May 4, 2021: Pune-based iobot, parent company of Low Code IoT platform Thingsup today announced it has raised USD100K from GSF Accelerator, India's leading startup accelerator, backed by founders including Rajesh Sawhney, Founder and CEO of GSF Accelerator, Pras Hanuma, CEO of Infoquest; Dinesh Agarwal, CEO of Indiamart; and J. Murugavel, CEO of Matrimony.com. iobot said that the investment will be used to cater to the burgeoning demand for digitalising the cold chain logistics, the market for which is rapidly expanding due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Thingsup is a low code, SaaS-based platform that comes with ready to use wireless IoT sensors and enables businesses to digitalise their entire supply chain operations within a few days, instead of months. The platform analyzes the IoT sensor data with ML-based predictive algorithms to help cold chain stakeholders to get end-to-end supply chain visibility, reduce wastage and optimize their operations with data driven insights. Thingsup was launched in 2020, while iobot was founded in 2016 by Akshay Ghadage and Pranav Naiknavare.

Founded in 2012, GSF is India's number one technology accelerator, with a portfolio of hits including Whatfix, Slintel, Quizizz, Docsapp, Flinto, Citymall, Gamezop, Well Being, Zen Duty, Khabri and Vaultedge. The accelarator has also had several successful exits including Little Eye Labs (acquired by Facebook), Dailyrounds (bought by M3 Japan) and Pokkt (acquired by Anymind, Japan) among others.

Pranav Naiknavare, Co-founder at iobot said, "The global cold chain and asset monitoring needs are growing exponentially to maintain shipment quality and operational optimisation. Thingsup is today ready to meet this demand and this investment will go a long way in helping us scale up and reach more clients."

Thingsup's wireless sensor nodes are specifically designed for package health monitoring and enable individual-level package health monitoring possible and economically viable at scale. The platform includes dedicated modules for asset monitoring, fleet management, real time temperature monitoring and shipment Integrity monitoring. The startup already counts a diverse clientele from sectors like dairy, F&B, healthcare and e-groceries.

Rajesh Sawhney, Founder and CEO of GSF Accelerator said, "The iobot team has built a fantastic low code IoT platform in Thingsup and the feedback from their customers universally underlines the tremendous business value that their platform is already delivering. We are really excited to partner with them and are confident that they are going to be among the biggest IoT success stories to emerge from India in the months and years to come."

"With Thingsup, we are helping businesses continually track the condition of their assets and have real-time and journey wise status of packages using easy to deploy IoT sensors and a powerful analytics platform," said Akshay Ghadage, Cofounder at iobot.

iobot is also aiming to expand their market and target other fast-growing verticals like EV mobility connectivity. "While the cold chain logistics market is our primary and core target, we are looking to take advantage of the sector-agnostic nature of our technology to serve customers in other industries as well," Akshay added.

"As a case in point, one of our customers in the Liquid Gas segment was recently able to detect theft in the delivery of very low temperature liquid gas to his customers. They are now able to monitor his gas tankers in real-time on route as well as during loading and unloading," Akshay said.

Angel Platform Inflection Point Ventures invests in IoT Startup Eden Smart Homes

• First institutional round raised by the Company
• 11th investment by IPV since March this year
• IPV emerges as one of the most active angel platforms in India continuing with deals even during the pandemic
• Funds raised to be used for launching new product lines and scaling up sales and marketing efforts
• Founded by IIT Delhi students, present across 5 cities in India

Inflection Point Ventures, one of India’s most active angel platforms has invested an undisclosed amount in Eden Smart Homes. This marks IPV’s 11^th investment since March this year.

Started in 2018, Eden Smart Homes is an IoT startup which has a range of smart homes solutions. The funds raised will be used for launching new product lines and scaling up sales and marketing operations to acquire more customers.

Vinay Bansal, Founder & CEO, Inflection Point Ventures says, “We are known to back great founders with great business models with a sustainable growth path. With the ease with which all of us are embracing technology and the Smart City projects currently underway, there is a demand for IoT enabled homes. Eden has been able to position themselves as an aspirational product for Indian households as the disposable income rises. We believe that their fast and seamless technology coupled with a promise of power savings will wow their customer segment."

Eden Homes was launched with an aim to develop an indigenous and cost effective smart home automation system. Eden's solution includes monitoring power consumption, the ability to view real-time status of appliances, scheduling on and off times for appliances and creating custom scenarios. Also, one-button control of the entire smart home makes them an attractive smart home solution in the market where there is currently no clear leader.

Pranjal Kacholia, Co-Founder of Eden Smart Homes says, “We aim to become India’s leading IoT company in the next 3 years. In India, the smart home market is expected to be $8 billion by 2023 and we aim to be one of the well-known brands in this segment. Our product helps save power significantly in both the residential and commercial segment. To have investors like IPV, which can leverage their huge network strength to not only sign cheques but also help us scale up our business quickly makes this a win-win partnership."

Eden Smart Homes is currently present across 5 cities in India. Eden Smart Homes will be using the funds raised to set up their distribution channel across 30 major cities for driving more business in the Home segment. The Company is also in talks with large brands and SMEs to license a part of their technology for bundle up sales and even listing it online on targeted platforms for better visibility to the customers.

About Eden Smart Homes

Eden was founded in 2018 by two IIT Delhi students with an aim to build advanced innovative IoT solutions for India’s Home and Office Automation industry.  The team consists of young founders who bring in a perfect blend of technology and business acumen.

About Inflection Point Ventures

Inflection Point Ventures is an initiative of accomplished CXOs & Angel Investors who firmly believe that ‘Everyone can Grow with Startups’. Started in 2018, IPV has invested more than Rs 100 crore across 35+ startups. IPV’s investors’ base, currently at 2500+ is seeing a massive influx of highly accomplished CXOs and HNIs, looking to invest in startups with rational valuation and sustainable business model.

IoT-based Solar Energy Firm Okra Closes Funding from Schneider Electric, Japan's GGG

Okra Solar, a tech company that helps communities in developing countries get access to electricity through its IoT (Internet of Things) based Solar Smart Grids, has just secured a round of investment from electricity giant Schneider Electric and also GGG (a conglomerate of Japanese power giants Tepco and Chubo Power). This funding shows in challenging times with COVID-19 looming, corporates are looking for new ways to be profitable — what better way than by bringing power and development to the 900 Million people who still don't have electricity.

The Australian technology startup has recently released two new products -- the Okra Edamame IoT Pod and the Okra Harvest software platform. Together, they enable energy utilities to rapidly energise off-grid communities using solar smart grids. We will use this additional funding to continue our expansion into key South-East Asian markets whilst prospecting pilot projects in Nigeria in Q4 of this year.

Okra Distributed Micro-Grid

Okra’s modular DC smart-grids enable households to receive 24/7 electricity for half of the operating costs of traditional AC minigrids. Its modular node-to-node distribution architecture and IoT to remotely control and monitor, enables unparalleled reliability for end-users and grid operators.

Okra's plug & play IoT controller, aka. the Okra "Pod"​, uses machine learning and remote monitoring to ensure power is efficiently distributed throughout a network of solar households. Its cloud software provides grid owners with real-time data so they know when and how networks should be scaled.

Okra Solar works with local utilities to transform #offgrid communities into energy abundant #microgrid economies. Connecting households together using smart distribution techniques makes energy more reliable and up to 10x cheaper than grid extension or AC micro-grids.

Wireless Building Automation Startup 75F(R) Raises $18Mn led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Oil & Gas Climate Initiative

75F, a US and India based global market leader in energy-efficient, IoT powered wireless building automation for commercial buildings, today announced it has completed an $18M Series A round of financing co-led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Climate Initiative with participation from Building Ventures, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, and Clean Energy Trust, making it the largest investment to date in the energy-efficiency technology category in the Asia Pacific region. The company, founded in 2012, has raised a total of $25M to date.

This marks the first investment for Oil & Gas Climate Initiative in the buildings space, and 75F aligns with Breakthrough Energy Ventures’ work to significantly reduce emissions from buildings, one the largest contributors to climate change.

[caption id="attachment_134673" align="alignleft" width="300"] Deepinder Singh- Founder & CEO- 75F[/caption]

“We are honored to have this incredible group of investors backing our vision and helping 75F take an enormous step as the global leader in the industry,” said Deepinder Singh, CEO for 75F. “This strategic funding will allow 75F to invest in key positions, continue to innovate our product and customer solution, and strengthen our partner network across North America, Middle East, and APAC including India, Singapore China, and Australia."

Energy use in buildings is a $400bn to $500bn a year problem. Developing countries in Asia account for two-thirds of global energy growth, driving the growth of energy-efficient Smart Building Technology in this market. 75F’s intuitive, self-optimizing system is uniquely positioned to cater to this market as it saves up to 50% on HVAC and lighting energy, improves occupant comfort and enhances operational efficiency.

[caption id="attachment_134672" align="alignright" width="300"] Gaurav Burman- President, VP & APAC President- 75F[/caption]

Gaurav Burman, VP & APAC President, 75F added “The Asia-Pacific region is a key part of 75F’s global road map. It represents a unique opportunity given the high economic growth, increasing energy costs and the rising demand for cooling in warm climate regions. We have been gaining ground in this market, growing at triple-digits year on year, and see promise for continued growth in an addressable market of $10 Bn. We are targeting success in various directions such as expanding to new countries, addressing new customer segments, developing new products and a new platform, and we look forward to delivering better services to our existing clients. APAC is also home to our R&D hub, the center for our supply chain operations. The capital infusion will help us strengthen our operations, build on our technological differentiation, and accelerate the pace of our pan-APAC expansion."

Traditional building controls systems are overbuilt and require extensive resources to install, setup, custom program, and maintain which creates high costs of acquisition and ownership. The 75F system reduces install time, makes occupants more productive and comfortable, while cutting costs for facility managers.

75F offers a vertically-integrated smart building solution that includes wireless sensors, equipment controllers and cloud-based software, delivering predictive, proactive building automation right out-of-the-box. Benefits of 75F’s solution include:

• Energy savings
  
  
  
  • 75F’s predictive, intelligent system reduces energy costs by 30 to 50%
  
  
  
  


• Improved air quality
  
  
  
  • 75F’s system knows when to take advantage of outside air to provide free cooling and improve the health and well-being of occupants
  
  
  
  


• Faster Return on Investment (ROI)
  
  
  
  • The smart technology allows businesses to make better use of their resources. Quick, non-disruptive installation, enhanced productivity and savings from reduced energy use results in a typical ROI of under 3 years
  
  
  
  


• Weather forecasting/Increase comfort
  
  
  
  • Your smartphone knows when it's going to rain – shouldn't your HVAC system? 75F’s machine learning can track things like weather and room occupancy to regulate space and ensure comfort all year round.
  
  
  
  


• Self-optimization
  
  
  
  • The smart HVAC solution begins learning the behavior of your building from the moment it is installed, offering maximized energy savings without sacrificing comfort
  
  
  
  


• Scaled deployment
  
  
  
  • 75F’s system offers solutions that allow cloud scaling that can go across a businesses’ entire portfolio right out of the box
  
  
  
  

Funds from this round will be used to scale support and operations, invest in R&D, upgrade office locations in both the Twin Cities and Bangalore, India, and open additional satellite office locations. 75F recently filled key marketing, supply chain, and finance leadership roles in the U.S. as well as a finance leadership role in APAC. The company is currently recruiting for sales, software engineers, and product engineers as well as service, support, and supply chain associates in both the U.S. and APAC.

Breakthrough Energy

 

Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) invests in companies that leverage innovative technologies to help address climate change. Backed by many of the world’s top business leaders, BEV has more than $1 billion in committed capital to support bold entrepreneurs building companies that can significantly reduce emissions from agriculture, buildings, electricity, manufacturing, and transportation. The fund was created in 2016 by the Breakthrough Energy Coalition.

“Six percent of global and 12 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere come from buildings,” said Carmichael Roberts of Breakthrough Energy Ventures. “We know we can combat this by designing the next generation of buildings, but we can also make significant gains by upgrading existing real estate with smart technology. 75F has created a unique software and hardware solution powered by machine learning that reduces energy costs and emissions at the same time.”

Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI)

OGCI is a $1+ billion fund investing in technologies and business models which lower the carbon footprint of the energy and industrial sectors and their value chains. The fund was created by the CEOs of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative to take practical action on climate change.

OCGI invests in innovative companies with late-stage technologies and business models that can lower the carbon footprint of the energy and industrial sectors. They actively support these companies in achieving commercial success by using the expertise and resources of their OGCI member companies and broader network.

Pratima Rangarajan, CEO of OGCI Climate Investments, said: “Reducing emissions across all sectors is crucial to meeting our climate goals. 75F’s innovative smart building solution is easy to install, provides savings for building operators and cuts energy loss from buildings. These types of scalable technologies are needed if we want global adoption that can make a significant impact on carbon.”

About 75F:

75F is a U.S. and India based building intelligence company making smart building automation affordable and easy to deploy for all commercial buildings to optimize the occupant experience and deliver operational efficiencies.

The startup leverages IoT, Cloud Compute and Machine Learning for data-driven, proactive building intelligence and controls for HVAC, lighting and energy optimization. 75F is a proud portfolio member of Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2) facilitated by NREL, and is national winner for energy efficiency in the CleanTech Open.

75F's mission is to improve occupant productivity through enhanced comfort and indoor air quality – while saving energy and the environment. 75F has delivered thousands of energy-efficient, comfortable and healthy spaces to enthusiastic customers who rave about the results. 

Using IoT and BLDC Technology, Two Ex-IITians are Effectively Solving for India’s Energy Crisis

One cannot ignore the fact that energy efficiency has been identified as the key to affordable, sustainable energy systems and as one of the best cost-effective ways to address rising energy demands.

Ex-IITians - Manoj Meena and Sibabrata Das, understood the energy crisis challenge of India and decided to solve this problem through innovative smart BLDC technology and IoT devices. Smart fans that have BLDC or DC Motors or are certified by Energy Star consume much less energy than any other ceiling fan in the market. Low power consumption also results in reduced electricity costs of Indian households.

[caption id="attachment_134096" align="aligncenter" width="450"] (R to L)
Atomberg-Manoj Meena and Sibabrata Das[/caption]

Smart Internet of Things (IoT) fans basically use 1/3rd electricity and runs three times longer as compared to an inverter. India's most energy efficient fans enables in a lower power consumption of 28W as compared to 65-70W of energy consumption by Atomberg. The BLDC powered smart Gorilla fans help the Indian consumers to cut down on 65% of electricity i.e. Rs 1000- Rs 1500 per household each year.



For the first three years, Manoj Meena and Sibabrata Das- Ex IITians, struggled a lot to find the right fit in terms of data acquisition and process control. The co-founders executed many ideas as projects for research labs like IITs, VRC etc. These projects were related to motor control, electronics, software development and hardware design. This helped them to learn more about hardware designing manufacturing, electronics and motors. They used their knowledge on BLDC motors and decided to solve the energy crisis in India.

For creating an outstanding impact on energy efficiency and electricity saving, Meena has been recognised with various awards and recognition. In 2017, he was awarded 'National Entrepreneurship Award' by Govt of India. In the same year, he was the winner of 'Global Climate Solver Award' organised by 'WWF' (World Wildlife Fund) and 'Global CleanTech Innovation Program' in Energy Efficiency category organised by 'United Nations Industrial Development Organisation' held in San Francisco, USA. Manoj also received special recognition from the Prime Minister and Niti Aayog as ‘Champions of Change’ in the startup ecosystem.

 

IAN-Incubated IoT Startup Tsecond Raises $370K from US Based Tech Fund, LEPL

Nagpur, Maharashtra-based Tsecond Generation Technology Pvt. Ltd., an Internet of Things (IoT) startup incubated by Indian Angel Network's Incubation and Mentoring Services and Nagpur Angels, has raised approximately US$370,000 in a fund round led by a US based Tech Fund, LEPL USA, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of US-based FutureTech Holding Company, reported The Hitavada, a regional daily.

Other investors who participated in this round includes Jayant Chopde, CEO at Emergys Corporation, John Janakiraman - CTO at Emergys Corporation and Jai Shankar, CSO/Founder of Emergys Corporation.

With this funding, the total funding raised by Tsecond counts close to US$750,000.

Founded in 2014, by Sahil Gurucharan Chawla, Tsecond provides innovative solutions to problems by doing Research & Development to come up with innovative electronic products. besides, the startup also provides consultation and development services for customized electronic hardware solutions.

Tsecond has developed ​an ​IoT-based Fuel Monitoring System called 'E-Funnel'. The IoT devic can be installed at the inlet of fuel tanks that gives real-time notifications of fuel events. The US patent has been granted to the product.

All the data can be accessed on real-time basis by a beautifully designed , easy to use application on your smartphone or through a web application. It works for fuels, chemicals and oils.

The startup is technically supported by Napino Auto Electronics Ltd, a Gurugram-based leading manufacturer of power and auto electronic products that manufactures components for several automobilee giants including Hero MotoCorp, Honda, Audi, Ford, Mahindra, Cummins and Suzuki etc.

Sahil, in a message to budding entrepreneurs, said "We faced tough times related to product development, team and funds, but as the old saying goes. Tough times don’t last but tough people do and so does the startup / company. When I chose the path of entrepreneurship I decided that there is no turning back. Turning your idea into reality takes lot of efforts. Sometimes I felt as if there are a million disassembled pieces of a puzzle and I have to complete it without an image, the image of the complete puzzle you hold is only in your mind."

Recent Funding of IoT-based Startups

Last week, SwitchOn, an Industrial IoT startup, had raised $1 Mn in seed round of funding from pi Ventures, Axilor Ventures and angels from The Chennai Angels.

This month only, an another Industrial IoT startup Sparkyo Technology Pvt. Ltd., which owns and operates Syook, a real-time location intelligence System, had raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Inflection Point Ventures (IPV), an early stage investing platform and a sub-initiative of CXO Genie.

In April, Pune-based Altizon Inc, which is also an Industrial IoT platform addressing the manufacturing industries, had closed its series A+ funding round of $7 million, led by TVS Motor Company (Singapore) Pte. Limited, the Singapore based Subsidiary of TVS Motor.

Industrial IoT Startup SwitchOn Raises $1 Mn in Seed Funding from pi Ventures, Axilor and Others

SwitchOn, an Edge-AI enabled Industrial IoT company, today announced that it has raised $1 mn in seed round of funding led by pi Ventures, India’s first Applied Artificial Intelligence, IoT and Blockchain focused early stage venture fund. Along with pi, Axilor and eminent angels from The Chennai Angels have also participated in the round.

Founded by Aniruddha Banerjee and Avra Banerjee in 2017, SwitchOn is an Industrial tech company that helps manufacturing industries identify plant-level bottlenecks and improve equipment efficiency. Industries can create digital twins of their heavy assets, monitor and predict availability and performance bottlenecks in advance, thus ensuring better Efficiency for the Equipment as well as the Plant.

The Company graduated from the Axilor Accelerator Program in 2018. The Automotive and FMCG Discrete Manufacturing are the key industries that SwitchOn has seen significant traction in both India and APAC markets. The fresh funds will be used for strengthening the edge-compute architecture, expanding the team and market adoption in India and other countries in the EU and APAC region.

Aniruddha Banerjee, Co-Founder, SwitchOn said, “SwitchOn is leveraging deep expertise in hardware and software design to create state-of-the-art edge solutions for increasing transparency, reducing turn-around, and improving quality on the shop-floor of manufacturing industries to ultimately achieve operational excellence. We are very excited about the new investment and the deep expertise of our investors in scaling IP-led hardware-software businesses. We believe that our customers will benefit heavily from our expanded global footprint and deep technology differentiators."

SwitchOn has a proprietary set of algorithms which combines vibration data, electrical data and other signals to give accurate and relevant Digital Twin of the machine. This leads to a variety of outcomes for their clients across the globe - from transparency of the operations to increasing the availability of the machine to predictive maintenance. SwitchOn has their own hardware which attaches on top of the machine (non-intrusive) along with the ability to carry out complex number crunching. The implementation of their technology reduces the need to transfer gigabytes of data to the cloud thus saving valuable dollars and achieve a faster turnaround on the insights. The solution is implemented very simply - it almost attaches itself like fitbit and does not need a deep integration.

[caption id="attachment_131236" align="alignright" width="259"] Manish Singhal, Founding Partner at pi Ventures[/caption]

Manish Singhal, Founding Partner, pi Ventures, added, “What attracted us to invest in them was their clear understanding of the technology and customer needs. Another winning point was their minimally intrusive solution, the need of the hour in the Industrial IoT space. We are happy to partner with a brilliant team working hard at addressing a crucial need."

SwitchOn with their solution are well poised to be a dominant player in the Industrial IoT space which is expected to be >$200B by 2023. Industrial operations for a large part are still highly manual with only 8% of the pre-existing sensors in the machines are connected to the internet. With ample opportunity and need to automate various aspects of a machine to achieve a reduction in downtime, improve operational efficiency and maximize asset utilization, the industrial IoT market is set to advance rapidly.

Last week, an another Industrial IoT startup Sparkyo Technology Pvt. Ltd., which owns and operates Syook, a real-time location intelligence System, had raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Inflection Point Ventures (IPV), an early stage investing platform and a sub-initiative of CXO Genie.

Before that, Pune-based Altizon Inc, which is also an Industrial IoT platform addressing the manufacturing industries, had closed its series A+ funding round of $7 million led by TVS Motor Company (Singapore) Pte. Limited, the Singapore based Subsidiary of TVS Motor.

pi Ventures is India’s first Applied Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, IoT and Blockchain focused early stage venture fund. pi is a $33 Million fund based in Bangalore, India, and invests around $1 million per startup. pi Ventures focuses on healthcare, logistics, retail, fin-tech and enterprise sectors. Backed by some of the leading entrepreneurs globally, pi Ventures brings hands-on product and entrepreneurial experience to the India venture investing ecosystem.

In April, pi Ventures had invested in Bengaluru-based ten3T Healthcare, a health technology startup that has commercialized patented technology for the early detection and prevention of medical episodes to patients in hospitals, during transport, and at home. Prior to that, pi led the $4.2 million seed round of FrontdeskAI, a developer of artificial intelligence assistants for small businesses.

Industrial IoT Startup Syook Raises Fund from Inflection Point Ventures

Bangalore-based Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) startup Sparkyo Technology Pvt. Ltd., which owns and operates Syook, a real-time location intelligence System, has raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Inflection Point Ventures (IPV), an early stage investing platform and a sub-initiative of CXO Genie.

The startup plans to use the fresh capital to scale up its operations in India, apart from expanding to the Southeast Asian market, reported VC Circle.

Founded in 2016 by Arjun Nagarajan (IIT Guwahati), Saurabh Sharma and Aman Agarwal (IIT Madras), Syook is an Industrial IoT solution that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons to generate highly-accurate location data of all your resources, both assets and people, at much lower costs than comparable technologies.

The startup's flagship product, 'Syook InSite', is a real-time location system that allows businesses to visualize their operations. Based on Syook's proprietary Indoor Positioning Engine, it provides information that translates into a positive impact on the bottom-line through productivity gains, safer environments and better compliance.

Founded in 2017, IP Ventures is a sub-initiative of CXO Genie, a networking platform for executives. Its founding members include former Myntra CFO Dipanjan Basu and BookMyShow finance head Mitesh Shah. Currently, it has 250+ angel investors including CXOs and HNIs.

Based out of Gurgaon, IP Ventures' portfolio of investments include Fitso, Intugine and Wishup ammonng others.

To recall, an another Industrial IoT startup, Altizon Inc, had recently closed its series A+ funding round of $7 million, which was led by TVS Motor Company (Singapore) Pte. Limited, the Singapore based Subsidiary of TVS Motor Company Limited, with participation of existing investors The Hive, Wipro Ventures, and Lumis Partners.

Last month, TagBox, a Bangalore-based IoT and Analytics solutions startup catering Cold Chain Logistics supply chain market, also raised $3.85 million in Series A round of funding, which was also led by TVS Motor.

Probus Smart Things wins Best Startup in India at Seedstars Delhi 2019

Seedstars World, the largest seed-stage startup competition for emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes, brought its India round to a successful close during Seedstars Delhi. The event took place this Monday 3rd of June, at Amazon Web Services, and 8 selected startups were invited to present their companies in front of the local jury panel.

The local winner, Probus Smart Things, digitizing distribution grid and improving 2-3% annual efficiency of their network through an integrated IoT platform based service, was named “Best Startup in India” for its innovative sustainable solution. “It was very exciting to take part in the competition. It was very well organized and only curated startups were selected. Thank you for giving me this opportunity as we will get the exposure to meet potential international partners, investors that would help us scale up geographically. Thank you Seedstars.”, explains Rahul Mishra, Co-founder & COO at Probus Smart Things.

As a part of the prize,Probus Smart Things will be participating at the Seedstars Asia Summit and get a chance to go to the Seedstars Summit, which takes place in Switzerland, in April 2020. It is a week-long training program, with the opportunity to meet the 65+ winners from other fast growing economies, as well as investors and mentors from around the world. The final day of the Summit is dedicated to pitching in front of an audience of more than 1000 attendees, with the possibility of winning up to USD 500,000 in equity investment and other prizes.



The 8 startups pitched in front of a prestigious jury, including Bipin Shah, Ankur Warikoo, Aparna Dua, Ashish Taneja, Sandro Stephen and Satwik Govindarajula.

Remedo, with its patient engagement platform that grows doctor practices and changes clinical outcomes for chronic conditions, came second and Agrowave, with its solution to optimize fruits & vegetables supply chain by connecting farmers directly to business using data driven technology, grabbed the last spot in the top 3.

The other startups invited to pitch were The Knotty Tales, Farmton Agro Services, Cogniable, Sensegrass and FitPhilia. They all win 1-month access to the Investment Readiness Program, a non-time bound and data-driven acceleration program focused in boosting tech startups looking to get ready for fundraising.

After this stop at India, Martin Courtinat, Associate for Asia at Seedstars, says “We were looking forward to coming back to India to find promising startups after Wobot won the innovation prize last April at the Seedstars Summit and we were not disappointed! The selected candidates all had high quality, impact focus projects and we are happy to continue to support them with the Investment Readiness Program and take them to the next level.”

Continuing on its world tour of fast-growing startup scenes in emerging markets, Seedstars World’s next stop is Seedstars Manilla 2019 organised in partnership with IGNITE, to select the best startup in the Philippines. Seedstars World is looking for smart startups that solve regional issues and/or develop profitable products for the global market. Startups are invited to apply here: https://www.ignite.ph/, until Friday 7th.

The event was also supported by AWS, Ingenious Faces, StartupsClub, Chatur Ideas and Nexus and CoWorkin.

ABOUT SEEDSTARS

"They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds." - Mexican proverb
Seedstars is a Swiss-based private group of companies with a mission to impact people’s lives in emerging markets through technology and entrepreneurship. The groups’ activities cover over 80 emerging ecosystems through a variety of events such as the Seedstars World Competition, acceleration programs, physical hubs called Seedspace, venture capital investments and company building activities.

IoT Product Startup Vervetronics Launches AI based Crane Monitoring Solution

Pune-based VerveTronics Imagineering, an Embedded & IoT product development startup, has launched fully indigenous overhead crane monitoring solution with alerts for overload, brake gap, usage based preventive maintenance, electric consumption etc.

The startup, which is now partnering with crane manufacturers, claims the solution to be its most advanced, fully indigenous, overhead crane monitoring solution. The main benefits include usage tracking, preventive maintenance alerts, brake effectiveness monitoring, and overload alerts.

Vervetronics’s industrial crane monitoring unit comprises of responsive design web/cloud application, sensor devices, hardware (electronics) with GSM (SIM card) and an optional smart phone (Android) application.



The connected sensors collect information from various parts of the crane and brings it to the Hardware Unit. The cloud server would collect data from several such hardware boxes and display it in the browser and store it for future use. AI (Artificial Intelligence) based algorithm track and alert users for preventive maintenance which avoids breakdowns. The standard daily and weekly reports are sent to the management using email. There is also a provision to demand the reports from the web interface.

Founded in 2014 VerveTronics Imagineering is a complete product development company with engineering expertise in embedded software development and functional safety.

With customer base in Europe and India, the company has proven track record with unique combination of product engineering skills, domain knowledge and technology expertise in segments such as aerospace and defence, automotive, agriculture, medical, industries etc. We have customers in Europe and India.

IoT Startup for Cold Chain Logistics Tagbox Raises $3.8 Mn from TVS Motor

Just a week after investing in Pune-based Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) startup Altizon Inc, TVS Motor Company today announced that it has invested $3.85 million in Series A round of funding of TagBox, a Bangalore-based IoT and Analytics solutions startup catering Cold Chain Logistics supply chain market, reported Business Line.

The fund round was led entirely by TVS Motor Company and its Singapore-based subsidiary TVS Motor (Singapore) Pte. Limited, which led the $7 million series A+ funding round of Altizon, in late last month.

TagBox plans to use the funds to strengthen product innovation and R&D, while expanding its global footprint. The startup, which uses IoT, Machine Learning and Automation for its solutions offerings, will continue to invest in its BoxLens and AssetLens platforms and develop new predictive analytics and automation solutions to solve various customer use cases.

Tagbox was founded in 2016 by Adarsh Kumar, Sameer Singh and Saumitra Singh. It was started with the vision of enabling organizations to make their Supply Chains more reliable using IoT based monitoring, Advanced Analytics and Automation & Control. Accordding to the company website, the name 'TagBox' itself comes from the fact that the company wants to cost-effectively and reliably tag any supply chain shipment at the highest level of granularity (box), monitor its health real time and ensure that the shipments’ quality is not compromised.

The startup is working with Retail, Pharma, F&B, Dairy and Glass companies in India and APAC.

speaking on investment in Tagbox, Rajesh Narasimhan, Board Member of TVS Motor Company, and CEO of TVS Motor (Singapore), said,"We evaluated many companies providing IoT solutions in the Supply Chain and logistics space and found TagBox’s product offerings and solutions to be an unique blend of IoT, Machine Learning and close-loop AI."

TVS Motor's investment in Tagbox is part of the initial set of investments being made in strategically relevant digital startups. In August last year, Bengaluru-based electric vehicle (EV) startup, Ultraviolette Automotive Pvt Ltd, had received an additional investment of ₹6 crore from TVS Motor, who bought a 14.78% stake in Ultraviolette Automotive Pvt Ltd., in December 2017.

Pune-based Industrial IoT Firm Altizon Raises $7Mn from TVS Motor's Singapore Subsidy

Pune-based Altizon Inc, a global Industrial IoT (IIoT) platform company addressing the manufacturing industries, today announced the closure of its series A+ funding round of $7 million. This important round was led by TVS Motor Company (Singapore) Pte. Limited, the Singapore based Subsidiary of TVS Motor Company Limited and participated by existing investors The Hive, Wipro Ventures, and Lumis Partners.

Altizon plans to use the funds to strengthen its international presence and continue its investments in IP development. Altizon’s Datonis Industrial IoT platform addresses the breadth of industrial IoT needs from intelligent edge computing to business applications for smart manufacturing.

With the latest funding, Altizon raised a total of about $11 million in five rounds. The startup had earlier raised undisclosed amount in July 2018 from a non-equity assistance round. Prior to which, it had raised $4 million in Series A funding round led by Wipro Ventures, the $100-million venture capital arm of India's third largest software exporter Wipro, in February 2016.

“The Industrial IOT market continues to expand at a rapid pace and this investment brings on board TVS Motor Company which is the flagship company of the multi-billion $ TVS Group, with deep experience building companies in the industrial sector,” said Vinay Nathan, CEO of Altizon. Vinay further added, “We have a strong roster of global industrial majors as our customers and they can now gain further benefit from our global footprints and enhanced technology offerings.”

Rajesh Narasimhan, Board Member of TVS Motor Company and CEO of TVS Motor (Singapore) quoted “After detailed assessments around industrial IOT platforms we found Altizon’s technology portfolio of definitive value in driving digital transformation with Industrial IOT. We are hence delighted to invest and have the opportunity to partner them in their exciting journey of growth and market leadership. This is amongst our first set of investments in digital start-ups focused on the Automotive and Fintech Industries.”

TVS Motor (Singapore) Pte. Limited, headquartered in Singapore is the wholly owned subsidiary of TVS Motor Company that is being leveraged to operationalize a digital technology startup focused on the Automotive and Fintech industries with portfolios and offerings that will deliver high quality solutions to help address real life business challenges by harnessing the power of Analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning (ML) and Virtual reality (VR). The strategy adopts both inorganic and organic means for the initial build out and subsequent expansion and growth.

Founded in 2013, by Ranjit Nair, Vinay Nathan and Yogesh Kulkarni, Altizon is an Industrial IoT company empowering Industrial Digital Revolutions globally by helping enterprises use machine data to drive business decisions. With a global footprint of over 100 enterprise users, Altizon is recognized by Gartner in its Magic Quadrant for IIoT Platforms and by other analyst firms including Forrester Research, Frost & Sullivan, VDC Research and BCG.

TVS Motor Company is a public listed company headquartered in India. It is a highly reputed two and three-wheeler manufacturer, and the flagship company of the USD 8.5 billion TVS Group. Rooted in the 100-year legacy of Trust, Value, Passion for Customers and Exactness, it takes pride in making internationally aspirational products of the highest quality through innovative and sustainable processes. TVS Motor Company is also the only two-wheeler company to have received the prestigious Deming Prize. It is the third largest two-wheeler manufacturer in India and ranks in the top 10 globally. The company has an excellent track record with innovation and quality and is the market leader in customer service.

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IoT Startups in India Grow 10x in Last Four Years

Startups in the Internet of Things (IoT) segment has grown ten fold, according to IoT Forum, a think-tank to build the IoT Ecosystem in India.

In 2014 India had only 126 IoT Startups and today the number of IoT startups in India have increased to 10X in last four years, with 31% growth alone since last year, according to Venkatesh Kumaran, Somshubhro Pal Choudhury and Arvind Tiwary, co-chairs of IoT Next.

IoT Forum, which was launched in 2014 is an initiative by TiE and IESA to engage startups, corporates and investors across the country.

Back in 2014, it was just a handful of IoT start-ups, with no ecosystem support and hardly any investors. Today, we have over 1,250 IoT start-ups, many generating revenue not just in India but globally and smaller size exits already happening, they added.

The effort is to raise the IoT Quotient of India by developing business case and ROI for industrial IoT, cyber security and edge computing, as companies globally are increasingly getting digitised.

According to 2017 study report by Management Consulting firm Zinnov, the city of Bengaluru is the prime destination for IoT startups to set up a base in the Indian subcontinent. Bangalore comprise nearly 52% of India's total Internet Of Things startups.

Additionally, the major MNCs are doing substantial portion of their IoT development in India. A number of Systems Integrators with IoT practices, and a growing ecosystem of investors, incubators/accelerators, angel community, mentors/advisors are there to add the IoT Quotient of India.

Between 2014 to 2018, a lot had been done in IoT ecosystem in India by global as well as local industry bodies. In 2015, global chipmaker giant Intel had launched Intel Maker Lab in India for IoT innovators and startups in the country.

In the same year, a report by Gartner had predicted that India will boast of at least 5 IoT startups with billion dollar valuations by the year 2018. The report also suggested that about 20% of the Indian white-collar workforce will be able to access enterprise data on their personal electronic devices by the end of year 2017.

Prakash Mallya, Managing Director, Intel India, Sales & Marketing Group said that with the introduction of the technologies like 5G, coupled with affordability of sensors, IoT is set to be a part of our daily lives.

The annual IoT Next 2018 summit brought the entire community together discussing and debating state of affairs and future trends, connecting with global IoT counterparts, and showcasing the start-ups from India.

Ravi Gururaj , President, TIE Bangalore said that the aim to build IoT landscape from sensor to the cloud for making the technological evolution deeper.

Research by McKinsey Global Institute estimates the impact of the Internet of Things on the global economy will be $6.2T by 2025. NASSCOM and Deloitte recently pegged the IoT market in India at $5.6B in 2016, growing to over $15B by 2020.

Source - Business Line