Windrose Capital Backs the Maker of the Robot that Greeted PM Modi & Ivanka Trump

Pune based Venture Capital Firm, Windrose Capital and Mumbai based ITI Growth Fund have invested in an INR 2 crore seed round of Invento Makerspaces, the company building the ‘Mitra’ robot which greeted Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi and daughter of US President, Ms. Ivanka Trump at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017 at Hyderabad. The round also saw participation from a few other domain investors.

‘Mitra’ which means friend, is a Humanoid Robot helping various brands across sectors to improve their physical customer experience and access. Currently, the Mitra Robot is deployed in varying capacities with about 50 different companies such as HDFC, Accenture, Suzuki, Morris Garages, General Motors, Zomato, PVR and many more from different industries. Being run by technology entrepreneurs, Windrose Capital believes it can understand the technology start-up lifecycle well and will be able to add value beyond capital. Rohit Goyal, Managing Partner of Windrose Capital said, “Companies like Invento which practice a culture of innovation, will spearhead India’s economic transformation. Invento is a pioneer of commercial and economically viable Humanoid Robotics in India, and, its product ‘Mitra’ will be a game changer in the way big brands interact and service their clients.”

Invento Makerspaces was founded by Balaji Viswanathan in Bangalore along with 2 co-founders with extensive experience in robotics, consulting, R&D and management. The ‘Mitra 2’ was launched by PM Modi at GES 2017 and the more advanced ‘Mitra 3’ was recently unveiled this year at the World renowned Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.The robot is designed to interact with humans using facial and speech recognition contextual help and autonomous navigation. It is capable of seamless autonomous movement and obstacle detection, along with speech synthesis in regional Asian languages like Hindi, Tamil, and Sinhalese.The company is looking to launch subsequent variants of robots for applications in different industries and operating verticals.

Sharing his views on the investment Mr.Balaji Viswanathan, Founder of Invento Makerspaces said, “We had excellent conversations with the Investors — MohitGulati from ITI Capital, RohitGoyal from Windrose Capital, Kevin Saboo (an angel investor) and Vikash Sharma from IC 1101. Even in the initial conversations, the investors showed a deeper understanding of our business and were providing specific recommendations on scaling up. It is very essential that start-ups of our size not only look for money, but also the right expertise and connections from the prospective investors. We are lucky to have found the right grouping”

The company is planning to use the funded amount for Research & Development in building and innovating new Robot variants, Business Expansion into new industries & verticals.

Windrose Capital decided to back Invento and its founders in their initial round after looking at the potential value the company unleashes for its clients. Through the Mitra robot, companies will be able to engage many more consumers efficiently. The upcoming variants would also enable the robotizing of manufacturing operations, HR processes and other roles in various industries. This will not only lead to swelling top lines but also rapidly growing bottom lines. “Invento has officially brought the dawn of the autonomous age in India and we are excited to be a part of their journey. It’s thrilling for us to see how quickly, banks, event management companies, hotels, malls, airports, cinema halls and hospitals are befriending this robot”, Goyal added.

Smartworks Debuts 'Smart Mitri', An AI enabled She-Robot at its New Bangalore Center

L-R Balaji Viswananthan, CEO - Invento Robotics, Smart Mitri, Neetish Sarda, Founder - Smartworks, Harsh Binani, Co-founder -Smartworks

Smartworks, India’s largest agile workspaces player today launched its flagship facility in Bengaluru. Spread over 3 lakh sq. ft., with 6,000 seats, this is the firm’s largest centre located in Global Technology Park (GTP), Bellandur. 

One of the key highlights of the flagship centre is the introduction of ‘Smart Mitri’, which the company claims to be the world’s first female AI robot. Smart Mitri will be Smartworks’ in-house productivity mascot and will play an influential role in handling the overall office management for the facility, ranging from the visitor system to being a counsellor eventually. This is a first time in the world that a co-working firm is introducing robotic technology to the co-working management eco-system.

This is Smartworks second facility in Bengaluru, the first being in Cessna Business Park. GTP has received a tremendous response, with more than 60 percent of the space having been pre-booked by leading enterprises including Deluxe with 1200 seats, Altron with 220 seats and Playgames 24X7 with 450 seats.

Interior Of Smartworks, Bangalore

The Smartworks facility is a combination of modern aesthetics with the latest technology and a high emphasis on safety, wellness and productivity. Built across seven floors, it features smartly configured floor plans designed to promote employee productivity in a collaborative environment. It is designed to have plenty of natural light that has been proven to reduce stress, improve emotional health, increase productivity, and boost mood. It features fully glazed fire-rated lift lobby doors, marble-finished double height lobbies, green feature wall and fresh air filter for AHUs providing 0.25 Micron filtration.

Commenting on the launch, Neetish Sarda, Founder Smartworks said, “Smartworks is tapping the vast potential of India’s tech capital by building its futuristic office experience in Bengaluru on an unrivalled scale.” Speaking about the distinct edge that Smartworks provides, Neetish added, “Unlike other agile workplaces, Smartworks offers its clients a cost advantage of up to 30 – 40 % achieved through technology intervention that keep operating costs low. Our key focus remains on providing spaces that are modern, technology-rich, productive, collaborative, safe and promote wellbeing so that employees feel taken care of. Bengaluru has and will be a key market for us and we have plans to increase our presence here by ten-fold in the next few years."

With the launch of the Belladur facility, Smartworks now has a total portfolio of 2 million sq.ft. across India. The firm plans to expand their workspace portfolio to 10 million sq. ft. within the next 3-4 years.

The GTP facility marks the way forward for bigger and better technology innovations in the workplace for Smartworks. As the Silicon Valley of India, Bengaluru, has emerged as the Co-working capital of the world. Over the past few years, the city has witnessed massive adoption of the concept of co-working/agile office spaces, with companies and employees finding a co-working culture not just rhythmic to their working style, but also a key enhancer of productivity. As a tech park with state-of-art facilities such as crèche, meditation room, gym, angry man room, sleeping pods, connectivity, vending machines, employee engagement activities, multi cuisine food court and an enhanced user experience, GTP is a much sought after location for enterprises looking to establish or expand their footprint in the city.

Present at the launch of the Smartworks Bengaluru facility was Balaji Viswanathan, CEO of Invento Robotics, a Bengaluru based start-up and the brainchild behind Smart Mitri. Speaking at the event, he said, “It’s a great day for us today, to see our invention come to life! We would like to congratulate Smartworks on their vision to transform robot fantasy and fiction into robot reality with Smart Mitri as their visitor concierge. Smartworks is bringing this reality to life by expanding the possibilities for innovation."

To recall, in September last year we did a story on Invento Robotics in which discussed about how the startup had collaborated with manufacturing hubs in China to give birth to an intelligent robot called Mitra.

“Productivity and employee engagement are big focus areas for every employer today. In the knowledge era, the traditional approach to employee engagement and productivity needs to be turned on its head. Invento in partnership with Smartworks is finding new ways to enhance these interventions. The Mitra AI robots are a key element to making this a reality!” he added.

Smartworks has been on an expansion drive in Southern and Western India since the beginning of this year. The competition of Smartworks include WeWork, Cowrks, AWFIS among others. The firm is India’s preferred choice for top enterprises with these companies accounting for 90% of its seats. It is India’s only profitable co-working space player of its size.

With 20 locations across 9 cities, the firm caters to more than 500+ organizations across large enterprises, SMEs, start-ups. Select marquee clients that work out of its centres include Tata Communications, Microsoft, Arcelor Mittal, Amazon, Carrier, Otis, Daikin, Lenovo, Bacardi, and OLX.

Meet Mitra - An AI Robot Designed By Bengaluru Startup and Built In China

In what could be considered as a perfect example of the greatness that can be achieved if both India and China come together and join hands more often, Bengaluru-based robotics start-up Invento Robotics has collaborated with manufacturing hubs in China to give birth to an intelligent robot called Mitra.

A 4.5 feet tall humanoid, Mitra has been designed by Invento to interact with humans through natural ways - voice and vision. It recognizes speech and then converts that into actionable information, which is then run through the startup’s algorithms to both respond to that query through past learning. This is then conveyed through speech output.

No, we’re not just talking about an idea in thin air. Mitra’s first prototype is actually currently functioning at Canara Bank’s headquarters in Bengaluru. Though at 30 kg, the robot is quite bulky, the robot is working quite efficiently as a receptionist at the bank and giving tours of the bank’s “experience zone” to customers.

When Invento Robotics started developing Mitra, they had an idea, they had the skills to design and come up with a working prototype, but what they lacked was the ability to manufacture it on a scale. That’s when they decided to jump on a flight and head to China’s manufacturing hubs of Shenzhen and Dongguan where they finally found suppliers who can fulfill what they were looking for.

Balaji Viswanathan, one of the founders of Invento Robotics, told Hindustan Times, “The computer-aided designing has been done in India, its plastic mould is being made in a factory in Dongguan and the printed circuit boards and motor controls are being manufactured in Shenzhen (both cities in south China).”

Talking about what made them choose China as their manufacturing hub, Viswanathan said, “The quality of assemblage is good and so is the speed of delivery (of products) in China.”

According to media reports, four Mitra prototypes, moulded in a Dongguan factory with circuit boards from Shenzhen, are currently on their way to India. If they prove to be successful, hundreds more robots could be headed our way.

Yesterday, the Dalian government signed a first of its kind MoU with Nasscom, the Indian National Association of Software and Services Companies, which entails Dalian government helping Indian IT companies setting up units there. The MoU aims to take forward the long-heralded coming together of Chinese hardware and Indian software that has been generally slow to crystallise.

Mitra is just one example of what’s more to come our way if India and China continue on this journey together.