Qualcomm Ventures Invests ₹ 730 Crore in Jio Platforms for 0.15% Equity Stake

Reliance Industries Limited (“Reliance Industries”) and Jio Platforms Limited (“Jio Platforms”), announced yesterday that Qualcomm Ventures, the investment arm of Qualcomm Incorporated, an industry leader in wireless technologies, has committed to invest upto ₹ 730 crore in Jio Platforms at an equity value of ₹ 4.91 lakh crore and an enterprise value of ₹ 5.16 lakh crore. Qualcomm Ventures’ investment will translate into 0.15% equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis. The investment will deepen the ties between Qualcomm and Jio Platforms, to support Jio Platforms on its journey to rollout advanced 5G infrastructure and services for Indian customers.

Jio Platforms, a majority-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, is a next-generation technology platform focused on providing high-quality and affordable digital services across India, with more than 388 million subscribers. Jio Platforms has made significant investments across its digital ecosystem, powered by leading technologies spanning broadband connectivity, smart devices, cloud and edge computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, augmented and mixed reality and blockchain. Jio’s vision is to enable a Digital India for 1.3 billion people and businesses across the country, including small merchants, micro-businesses and farmers so that all of them can enjoy the fruits of inclusive growth.

Qualcomm is the world’s leading wireless technology innovator and the driving force behind the development, launch and expansion of 5G. With more than $62 billion in cumulative research and development spend, 35 years of innovation and over 140,000 patents and patent applications, Qualcomm is committed to fueling innovation and fostering Indian technology advancement. Qualcomm Ventures is a global fund that invests in pioneering companies across the wireless ecosystem in areas like 5G, AI, IoT, automotive, networking and enterprise. In India, Qualcomm Ventures has invested in companies that address key domestic issues from Dairy, Transportation to Defense, and build world class products for India and the world market.

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries said, “Today, I am delighted to welcome Qualcomm Ventures as an investor in Jio Platforms. Qualcomm has been a valued partner for several years and we have a shared vision of connecting everything by building a robust and secure wireless and digital network and extending the benefits of digital connectivity to everyone in India. As a world leader in wireless technologies, Qualcomm offers deep technology knowhow and insights that will help us deliver on our 5G vision and the digital transformation of India for both people and enterprises.”

Steve Mollenkopf, CEO of Qualcomm Incorporated, said, “With our shared goal of extending the benefits of digital connectivity to everyone and everything, we anticipate Jio Platforms will deliver a new set of services and experiences to Indian consumers. With unmatched speeds and emerging use cases, 5G is expected to transform every industry in the coming years. Jio Platforms has led the digital revolution in India through its extensive digital and technological capabilities. As an enabler and investor with a longstanding presence in India, we look forward to playing a role in Jio's vision to further revolutionize India’s digital economy.”

The transaction is subject to customary conditions precedent.

Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Reliance Industries and AZB & Partners and Davis Polk & Wardwell acted as legal counsels. Trilegal acted as legal counsel for Qualcomm Ventures.

Automation Startup Zinier Raises $22 Mn from Accel, Founders Fund and NGP Capital

Zinier, a leading provider of intelligent field service automation, today announced that it has raised $22 million in Series B funding to accelerate global growth and expand its platform to meet the growing needs of field service organizations. Returning investor Accel led the round, along with Founders Fund, Nokia-backed NGP Capital, Qualcomm Ventures LLC and returning France-based investor Newfund.

The investment
coincides with the field service industry’s shift toward digitization.
As companies continue to embrace digital transformation, today’s
technologies help them quickly understand the “what,
when and where” of a field service request. However, these technologies
do not provide the deep layer of intelligence required to drive
operational efficiency. As a result, while field service organizations
are able to collect massive streams of the data in
the field, they aren’t able to utilize that data to increase
productivity, reduce costs and boost customer satisfaction.

Built on Zinier’s pure-play, AI-driven platform, Field Service Elements delivers this missing intelligence. The solution combines artificial intelligence and proactive insights to automate critical back office functions while providing an intuitive, all-in-one mobile experience for field technicians. Imagine smart devices that can monitor equipment health and historical data to automatically trigger a preventative service request and assign it to the nearest qualified technician. All of this is possible with intelligent automation.

“Considering the
massive amount of infrastructure under the purview of field service
teams, automated field service has the potential to truly transform a
wide range of industries,” said Arka Dhar, co-founder
and CEO of Zinier. “The market opportunity for platform-based,
automated field service is reflected in the huge demand we’ve seen from
customers in infrastructure-heavy sectors, such as telecom, energy and
financial services. With this additional investment,
we’re able to continue expanding the capabilities of our platform and
extend the reach of intelligent field service automation to new
strategic markets and geographies.”    

Zinier will use the investment to:

• 
  Continue developing and
  enhancing its technology platform to build out-of-the-box solutions for
  industry-specific customer use cases
• 
  Further expand into new
  regions (Zinier currently operates in North America, LATAM and APAC) and
  vertical markets (Zinier currently focuses on the telecom and energy
  industries)
• 
  Build out its global team to continue supporting Zinier’s rapidly growing customer base with the industry’s best talent

This investment underscores Zinier’s exponential growth over the past year. In 2018, led by a leadership team with decades of experience and expertise from ServiceMax, Salesforce, AT&T and Singtel, Zinier launched Field Service Elements behind a Series A funding round. These milestones enabled the company to add several of the largest global telecommunications providers to its customer roster, and positions Zinier for significant growth in 2019 and beyond.

“Field service management
has plenty of room for improvement. However, injecting intelligent
automation across the entire field service delivery chain allows for
significantly reshaping the landscape and capturing
even larger value,” said Dinesh Katiyar, Partner at Accel. “Zinier's
AI-driven field service automation platform has resonated with customers
in the telco sector, and our re-investment in the company is a
testament to the technology’s potential in other high-growth
markets.”

“Field service
organizations suffer from the same issue facing many sectors: the amount
of data being collected outstrips companies’ ability to make use of it.
Zinier’s intelligent automation technology
is directly addressing this problem for an industry in which the pace
of innovation over the past 20 years has been glacial,” said Trae
Stephens, Partner at Founders Fund.

NGP Capital said on its investment, “Field service organizations are still primarily run manually, with lack of automation and real-time visibility into the field work. Having reviewed the Field Service software industry extensively, we were impressed by Zinier’s platform, which enhances workflow automation with predictive intelligence and a delightful user experience," said Upal Basu, Partner at NGP Capital. "Zinier enables companies to draw meaningful insights from data to automate their processes and drive efficiency, which is the ultimate promise of IoT. We look forward to working with Arka and his team to help scale their business in the Telecom sector and beyond."

Qualcomm Ventures, said, “We were impressed with Zinier’s novel approach to proactive field maintenance, using IoT to increase productivity through automation and intelligence," said Varsha Tagare, Sr. Director, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Managing Director of Qualcomm Ventures India. “Their end-to-end field service automation solution will help companies work smarter and faster while also enabling a more efficient deployment of 5G services worldwide.”

About Zinier

Zinier is an intelligent field service automation platform that helps organizations work smarter, faster, and more efficiently. Zinier’s end-to-end solution, Field Service Elements, uses artificial intelligence, proactive insights, and an intuitive, all-in-one mobile experience to supercharge every aspect of an organization’s field service operations, from the back office all the way to the field. Zinier has international offices in Silicon Valley, Mexico City, Singapore, and Bengaluru.

Logistics Tech Firm Shadowfax Receives $22 Million in Series C Funding

Bangalore-based Shadowfax, India’s market leader in the Online-2-Offline (O2O) logistics segment, announced today that it has closed $22 million in Series C funding led by NGP Capital. Qualcomm Ventures (the investment arm of Qualcomm Incorporated), Mirae Asset and existing investor, Eight Roads Ventures, also joined the oversubscribed equity round.

Shadowfax survived the O2O logistics industry’s chaotic infancy period to emerge as the winner amongst India’s hyperlocal delivery start-ups. The company’s unique futuristic platform makes delivery seamless for diverse categories of products like grocery, food, fashion and electronics. Shadowfax currently fulfils 90,000 unique orders per day. It has multiplied its capabilities three-times in the last 16 months alone and is projecting 150% year-on-year growth for the next five years. The company will use the funds for a concentrated 360 scale-up and by the year 2021 it aims to connect 4 lakh new businesses and Delivery Partners to its platform, up from the current 40,000 connections.

Speaking on the funding, Abhishek Bansal, CEO, Shadowfax, said, “We are extremely glad that the market has recognised our work and our potential. This latest funding is a manifestation of the investors’ faith in us and our technology. We are ready to take multiple steps forward towards our mission of connecting the next million micro entrepreneurs and suppliers in logistics using a singular platform to bridge the information gap and eradicate inefficiencies across the value chain.”

He further added, “Shadowfax is continuously growing and delivering enviable results in a demanding and burgeoning O2O logistics sector where many other players have not been able to survive. Our technology, Frodo, gives us the edge by driving cost optimisations and enabling us to achieve higher service levels. The unique Shadowfax platform works on the concept of flattening the demand curve across the day which also ensures a much higher earning for our rider partners”.

NGP Capital has been investing in the sector globally. Upal Basu, Partner at NGP Capital said, “The rise in Indian consumers’ expectations for door-step deliveries at a time of their convenience has created a critical need for a national last-mile, independent logistics provider that can serve the needs of these demanding consumers and diverse suppliers at scale. The team at Shadowfax has demonstrated its ability to scale and serve customers using sophisticated mobile technologies and strong execution capabilities to create India’s last-mile logistics leader. We are excited to be a part of Shadowfax’s team and look forward to helping the company continue its rapid growth”.

Speaking about this investment, Varsha Tagare, Managing Director of Qualcomm Ventures India, said, “We were impressed by Shadowfax’s ability to deliver efficiencies in the hyperlocal segment by harnessing the power of mobile. We look forward to supporting the company through our investment and enabling collaborations with technical experts, who have domain expertise in mobile, to help the company’s quest towards delivering enhanced user experiences”.

Ashish Dave, Head – India Venture Investments for Mirae Asset said, “As we move into the next phase of Indian O2O story, the market needs efficient and distributed hyperlocal logistics platforms such as Shadowfax that serve evolving customer needs of faster and cheaper product delivery. Shadowfax marks our first of many other investments to follow in India”.

Last month, Shadowfax started its WINGS program as an endeavor to converge small and mid-sized logistics entrepreneurs and assimilate kirana stores, transporters, franchises, DCOs (Driver cum owners) and individual vehicle owners.

Shadowfax previously raised funds amounting to $18.5 million from Eight Roads Ventures in 2015 and 2016.
Affirming his faith in Shadowfax, Aditya Gurunath Systla, Principal at Eight Roads Ventures, said, “Eight Roads Ventures’ backing of Shadowfax in this third funding round reflects our belief in the Shadowfax model and its ability to deliver outstanding results to customers. It’s been a fascinating ride so far, and we are excited to see the next chapter of the Shadowfax story unfold.”

Shadowfax, founded in 2015, has successfully outrun its competitors with its unique Frodo technology, an AI based location stream processing engine which enables high frequency decision-making which in turn drives cost optimisation and enables the highest service levels in the industry. Shadowfax has been able to maintain high partner efficiency which has enabled best in class unit economics of 20% on a transaction level.
Currently present in 80+ cities across India, the company plans to increase coverage to 100+ locations in the next three months.

Since start of this year, a number of logistics startup have raised funds in a continuous chain of funding rounds. In May, Chennai-based logistics tech startup FreightBro raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round from Suresh Kumar, former global CIO of Bank of New York Mellon. Prior to which, Bengaluru-based Mojro, raised $650K in a funding round led by 1Crowd and its investor community

This was followed by $2 million funding of Chennai-based Pando, in a seed funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners.

Mumbai-based startup in the CleanTech-led cold chain logistics startup, Tessol, recently raised an undisclosed amount in follow-on equity funding from early stage venture capital firm 1Crowd, and existing investors Infuse Ventures and Ankur Capital.

Logistics Tech Firm Shadowfax Receives $22 Million in Series C Funding

Bangalore-based Shadowfax, India’s market leader in the Online-2-Offline (O2O) logistics segment, announced today that it has closed $22 million in Series C funding led by NGP Capital. Qualcomm Ventures (the investment arm of Qualcomm Incorporated), Mirae Asset and existing investor, Eight Roads Ventures, also joined the oversubscribed equity round.

Shadowfax survived the O2O logistics industry’s chaotic infancy period to emerge as the winner amongst India’s hyperlocal delivery start-ups. The company’s unique futuristic platform makes delivery seamless for diverse categories of products like grocery, food, fashion and electronics. Shadowfax currently fulfils 90,000 unique orders per day. It has multiplied its capabilities three-times in the last 16 months alone and is projecting 150% year-on-year growth for the next five years. The company will use the funds for a concentrated 360 scale-up and by the year 2021 it aims to connect 4 lakh new businesses and Delivery Partners to its platform, up from the current 40,000 connections.

Speaking on the funding, Abhishek Bansal, CEO, Shadowfax, said, “We are extremely glad that the market has recognised our work and our potential. This latest funding is a manifestation of the investors’ faith in us and our technology. We are ready to take multiple steps forward towards our mission of connecting the next million micro entrepreneurs and suppliers in logistics using a singular platform to bridge the information gap and eradicate inefficiencies across the value chain.”

He further added, “Shadowfax is continuously growing and delivering enviable results in a demanding and burgeoning O2O logistics sector where many other players have not been able to survive. Our technology, Frodo, gives us the edge by driving cost optimisations and enabling us to achieve higher service levels. The unique Shadowfax platform works on the concept of flattening the demand curve across the day which also ensures a much higher earning for our rider partners”.

NGP Capital has been investing in the sector globally. Upal Basu, Partner at NGP Capital said, “The rise in Indian consumers’ expectations for door-step deliveries at a time of their convenience has created a critical need for a national last-mile, independent logistics provider that can serve the needs of these demanding consumers and diverse suppliers at scale. The team at Shadowfax has demonstrated its ability to scale and serve customers using sophisticated mobile technologies and strong execution capabilities to create India’s last-mile logistics leader. We are excited to be a part of Shadowfax’s team and look forward to helping the company continue its rapid growth”.

Speaking about this investment, Varsha Tagare, Managing Director of Qualcomm Ventures India, said, “We were impressed by Shadowfax’s ability to deliver efficiencies in the hyperlocal segment by harnessing the power of mobile. We look forward to supporting the company through our investment and enabling collaborations with technical experts, who have domain expertise in mobile, to help the company’s quest towards delivering enhanced user experiences”.

Ashish Dave, Head – India Venture Investments for Mirae Asset said, “As we move into the next phase of Indian O2O story, the market needs efficient and distributed hyperlocal logistics platforms such as Shadowfax that serve evolving customer needs of faster and cheaper product delivery. Shadowfax marks our first of many other investments to follow in India”.

Last month, Shadowfax started its WINGS program as an endeavor to converge small and mid-sized logistics entrepreneurs and assimilate kirana stores, transporters, franchises, DCOs (Driver cum owners) and individual vehicle owners.

Shadowfax previously raised funds amounting to $18.5 million from Eight Roads Ventures in 2015 and 2016.
Affirming his faith in Shadowfax, Aditya Gurunath Systla, Principal at Eight Roads Ventures, said, “Eight Roads Ventures’ backing of Shadowfax in this third funding round reflects our belief in the Shadowfax model and its ability to deliver outstanding results to customers. It’s been a fascinating ride so far, and we are excited to see the next chapter of the Shadowfax story unfold.”

Shadowfax, founded in 2015, has successfully outrun its competitors with its unique Frodo technology, an AI based location stream processing engine which enables high frequency decision-making which in turn drives cost optimisation and enables the highest service levels in the industry. Shadowfax has been able to maintain high partner efficiency which has enabled best in class unit economics of 20% on a transaction level.
Currently present in 80+ cities across India, the company plans to increase coverage to 100+ locations in the next three months.

Since start of this year, a number of logistics startup have raised funds in a continuous chain of funding rounds. In May, Chennai-based logistics tech startup FreightBro raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round from Suresh Kumar, former global CIO of Bank of New York Mellon. Prior to which, Bengaluru-based Mojro, raised $650K in a funding round led by 1Crowd and its investor community

This was followed by $2 million funding of Chennai-based Pando, in a seed funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners.

Mumbai-based startup in the CleanTech-led cold chain logistics startup, Tessol, recently raised an undisclosed amount in follow-on equity funding from early stage venture capital firm 1Crowd, and existing investors Infuse Ventures and Ankur Capital.

Meet 8 Finalist Startups Selected for Qualcomm Design in India Challenge II

Qualcomm Incorporated finally revealed the names of the top lucky eight finalists in the first cycle of Qualcomm Design in India Challenge II (QDIC II), registrations for which began in January this year.

Launched in association with National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), QDIC aims to encourage product companies in India to come up with out-of-the-box, innovative hardware product designs that incorporate Qualcomm technologies and platforms.

For the uninitiated, Qualcomm's technologies has been credited for powering the smartphone revolution and connecting billions of people as a result of it. Its products are now revolutionising several industries, including IoT, healthcare, automotive, computing, and data center, and are allowing millions of devices to connect with each other in ways that could never be imagined before.

In January this year, Qualcomm announced an investment of a whopping USD $8.5 million for expansion of its design initiatives in the Indian subcontinent under a newly formed program called the ‘Qualcomm Design in India Program’ (QDIP). Under this program, it announced two key initiatives:

• The Qualcomm Design in India Challenge II, which will be conducted in two Cycles through the year, one in one in January and the second in May.

• The launch of a new Qualcomm Innovation Lab (QIL) at Hyderabad and expansion of the corporation's current Innovation Lab in Bangalore to enable Indian mobile and IoT ecosystem by providing advanced Camera, Audio, and RF design assistance.

The final eight startups of the first cycle of QDIC II were selected through a selection process which concluded with an extensive pitch session in March 2017.

The selected eight companies will now be incubated in the Qualcomm Innovation Lab and two winners will each receive a prize money of USD $75,000 at the end of the incubation period expected in August 2017.

Here's a brief description of the eight shortlisted companies for the second edition of the QDIC:

1) Name: iBot Control Systems India Pvt. Ltd.
Founders: Ravi Subramanyam
Website: www.iamibot.com

Founded in the year 2011, iBot is working towards creating the world's first DIY for the Internet of Things, targeted at consumers, manufacturers and operators globally. Backed by Microsoft Accelerator, iBot aims to do for machines, what Intel did for the computer. Its product suite enables machine-to-machine (M2M), human-to-machine (H2M) and machine-to-system (M2S) interactions; thereby giving birth to a framework for interconnectedness between humans and machines to create smarter everything a.k.a “Smartiverse”. The startup's mission is to make a single board that can be used by industry and academia to build IoT apps with iBot Toolsets.

2) Name: Avanijal Agri Automation Pvt. Ltd.
Founders: Channabasappa Kolar, Vijayeendra H S
Website: www.avanijal.com

Born with an aim of addressing farmer's irrigation needs in India, the startup designs and develops Irrigation Systems/Controllers that helps farmers in growing more produce with less water, labour and electricity. The controllers designed by Avanijal make it extremely easy for anyone to irrigate, fertigate and flush water filter through mobile phones and helps farmers avoid those odd hour farm visits. The controller supports basic time, volume and sensor based precision irrigation. It also supports wired and wireless valve/sensor connections.

3) Name: Alexapath
Founders: Duval Palsana, Lou Auguste, Shishir Malav
Website: www.alexapath.com

The Bengaluru-based startup is working towards disrupting traditional microscopic imaging by turning smartphones into medical diagnostic and imaging tools that too at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. Traditional telepathology methods are known to depend heavily on over-priced legacy solutions, with costs anywhere between a whopping $20,000 to $230,000. But Alexapath claims that its patented technology offers a portable, rapid, and a more cost-effective solution. The recipient of 2016 USISTEF Funding, Alexapath is successfully leveraging the smart phone technology to overcome inaccessibility to microscopic diagnosis across the world.

4) Name: iSquare Mobility Pvt. Ltd.
Website: www.isquaremobility.com

Founded in the year 2012 with a specific goal of becoming the go-to Design House for end-to-end mobility solutions across hardware, software, and cloud, iSquare Mobility has come a long way today. The startup is working towards a better India by making a positive impact on the lives of professionals in the Public Health and Education sector by solving day to day problems through clever innovations and cutting-edge technology. Currently, the startup is in the focus for having a solution in the concept stage for a portable wireless tele-medical device to pre-screen breast cancer.

5) Name: Hug Innovations
Founders: Raj Neravati
Website: huginnovations.co.in

Trying to bridge the gap between humans and technology through its wearable technology products, Hug believes that the world is currently in the growing need of a technology that is more of a companion than a gadget. The startup is looking to collaborate and create an ecosystem of service providers, developers and smart devices to continually augment and enhance consumer experience.

The startup's first-of-its-kind device developer platform, “Hug Gestures SDK” enables the integration and extension of a proprietary gesture control technology with smart devices, mobile apps and PC software. This solution is currently in the concept stage.

6) Name: Steradian Semiconductors Pvt. Ltd.
Founders: Apu Sivadas, Ashish Lachhwani, Rakesh Kumar, Gireesh Rajendran
Website: www.steradiansemi.com

Founded by Industry experts in Wireless and RFIC design with more than 50 patents and several publications to their credit, Steradian Semiconductors is fabless semiconductor company focused on CMOS millimeter wave products for Radar. The startup is currently working on building a high resolution 4D radar that will potentially enable true all-weather vision for autonomous vehicles and drones

7) Name: Stellapps Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Founders: Ranjith Mukundan, Mr. Ravishankar G. Shiroor, Praveen Nale, Mr. Ramakrishna Adukuri, Mr.Venkatesh Seshasayee
Website: www.stellapps.com

India's first of its kind end-to-end dairy technology solutions company, Stellapps has been founded by a group of IITians and technologists with a strong industry background and rich experience. Funded by Omnivore Capital – a fund anchored by Godrej Agrovet Limited and investment patrons include a large group of IIT alumni, Stellapps produces and procures comprehensive farm optimization and monitoring support, which helps dairy farmers and cooperatives maximize their profits while minimizing effort.

The startup's innovative applications and state-of-the-art mechanization tools leverage Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, Cloud, Mobility, and Data Analytics to improve Agri- supply chain parameters, including milk production, milk procurement, cold chain, animal insurance and farmer payments. Its concept includes a Wi-Fi sensor module, a wiimote and IoT router that can be used for smart automatic milk collection unit and cold-chain monitoring, as part of Stellapps IoT platform.

8) Name: Tagbox Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Founders: Adarsh Kumar, Saumitra Singh
Website: www.tagbox.in

The Bengaluru-based startup enables its clients to create more reliable and sustainable cold chains through providing them solutions at the intersection of Internet of Things, Advanced Analytics and Automation & Control. It is currently working towards creating an ultra-low power wireless platform that can significantly improve the efficiency of cold storage and logistics by monitoring and controlling key health parameters such as temperature, relative humidity, gas, energy, and others.

Matrix-backed Ridlr Raises $6M Series B Funding

India’s leading local transport app, Ridlr, has announced $ 6 million in series B funding by Times Internet as well as existing investors Matrix Partners India and Qualcomm Ventures.

Ridlr provides real-time public transport and traffic information across 24 Indian cities, serving an engaged community of over 2M users. Public transport ticketing has also recently been added to the platform. The new round of funding will be used for scaling up public transport ticketing in focus cities, growing user base, as well as hiring across key roles. Current partner agencies for Ridlr include BEST, NMMT and MMRC.

Commenting on the fundraise, Brijraj Vaghani, CEO of Ridlr said, “This is a significant milestone for Ridlr in its journey to become the leading local transport information and ticketing platform in India. This round is great validation of our growth, team strength and ability to execute. It gives us the confidence to continue to disrupt the local transport space.”

“Ridlr seeks to give customers a seamless public transport commuting experience. This aligns with our investment philosophy of backing companies and products that pass the ‘toothbrush test’ i.e., products that are used by consumers on a daily basis. We are excited to partner with the Ridlr team on their journey of changing the way people commute in India”, said Miten Sampat, VP Corporate Development, Times Internet.

“Ridlr’s vision is to be the de-facto app for every urban commuter in India. Their approach of working closely with transport companies to bring real-time information and ticketing online, and their focus on their user community, makes them uniquely positioned to create impact in the lives of millions of users. We look forward to partnering with Brij and the team on this journey and welcome Times to this partnership”, said Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix India.

AppsDaily Gets $2M in Bridge Round from Kalaari Capital, Others

Mobile app development and distribution company AppsDaily Solutions Pvt. Ltd has raised $2 million (around Rs 13.5 crore) in a bridge round of funding from existing investors Kalaari Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Russian venture capital fund ru-Net and Zodius Technology Opportunities Fund. Ambrosia Infotech Ltd also participated in the round, as reported by VCCircle.

The company had earlier raised Rs 100 crore (around $16 million) in a Series C round of funding led by Zodius Capital with participation from existing investors. In October 2013, it had received over $5 million in Series B funding round from ru-Net, IndoUS Venture Partners (now Kalaari Capital) and Qualcomm Ventures. Prior to that, it had secured $4 million in Series A round from IndoUS Venture Partners and Qualcomm Ventures.

Also, the firm had raised around $1 million from around a dozen angel investors and seed-stage investor Blume Ventures in 2010.

Founded by siblings Arun Menon (CEO) and Ajay Menon (director) in 2008, AppsDaily focuses on developing and distributing software for mobile phones. Some of its products include mobile anti-virus, mobile insurance, backup solutions, mobile privacy, SOS, mobile utilities and games.

It was started off as Onward Mobility and was later re-branded as AppsDaily. Arun Menon holds a B.Tech degree in mechanical engineering from IIT Bombay and has earlier worked at BillDesk and Tata Infotech. Prior to AppsDaily, Ajay Menon had founded Ambrosia Infotech Ltd, a product engineering and consulting services provider across different verticals such as telecom, Internet, healthcare and retail.

AppsDaily operates in 400+ cities, with more than 400 distributors and 10,000+ outlets - with more than 2500+ In store demonstrators. The company has more than 2 million happy customers.