Chatbot Firm Niki.ai Raises ₹11.6 Crore in Convertible Debt Funding from Unilazer, RSP India, Others

Bengaluru-based Niki.ai, an AI-powered chatbot service startup, has been raising a convertible debt funding since February this year. According to RoC filings accessed by YourStory, Niki.ai has secured around Rs 11.6 crore in covertible debt funding from investors that include Unilazer Alternative Ventures LLP, RSP India Fund LLC, Tarun Nayyar, Vistra ITCL as a trustee of AL trust, Asian E-commerce Alliance, Hansjoachim Koehler of HJK Capital, and Ramakant Sharma, Co-founder and COO of Livspace, among others.

The startup had received Rs 7.8 crore in February and Rs 3.8 crore between March and May.

Backed by Tata Chairman Ratan Tata, and SAP.iO among others, Niki.ai boast of a 3mn+ user-base, a massive 430% revenue growth in FY18 along with 75+ partners on board such as HDFC bank, ICICI Bank, Federal Bank and Intex to name a few.

In June 2017, Niki.ai secured $2 million in Series A round of funding from San Francisco based fund SAP.iO and existing investor Ronnie Screwvala's Unilazer Ventures. The funding also saw participation from other Indian investors including Haresh Chawla (Partner at True North) and Arihant Patni, along with some US and German investors.

In September 2017, Infosys Finacle tied up with Niki.ai to provide chat-based service to its banking customers.

The AI startup currently provides 20+ services to over 2 million consumers ranging from utility services like mobile recharge, bill payments, travel services like cabs, buses, hotels and entertainment services like movies and events. The startup is planning to offer services for flights and healthcare industry.

Founded in May 2015 by Nitin Babel, Shishir Modi, Keshav Prawasi, and Sachin Jaiswal, Niki.ai is touted as India’s first fully automated chat bot app with no human intervention.

In a report published early this year, AI Chatbots and Cross Channel marketing are voted as the Top 2 most promising marketing technologies for the India marketer in 2019.

Last month, a Pune-based AI chatbot start-up, Quinto.ai, got acquired by Netcore Solutions, a Global Marketing technology company. With the IP and talent acquisition, Netcore gets access to Quinto's conversational AI-powered chatbot engine and its employees. Quinto’s co-founder Hrishikesh Rajpathak also joins Netcore as Chief Data Scientist and will lead its Machine Learning and Conversation Analytics initiatives.

Last August, Richard Socher, the Chief Scientist at Salesforce, had invested in Visit, an AI driven Chatbot for health advice. Based out of Delhi, Visit also counts Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and Snapdeal founders - Kunal Bahl & Rohit Bansal, as its backers.

[Top Image - (Left to right) Nitin Babel, Sachin Jaiswal, Shishir Modi and Keshav Prawasi via Forbes India]

Neo-Banking Startup Open Raises Pre-Series A Funding from Unicorn India Ventures, Others

Fintech startup Open, which offers a digital banking service for small businesses, announces its pre-series A funding led by Unicorn India Ventures and Recruit Co. Ltd, through its investment subsidiary RSP India Fund LLC. Existing investors ISME-ACE and Vaibhav Domkundwar’s BetterCapital AngelList syndicate also participated in the round.

The startup had earlier raised investments from Citrus Pay founders Amrish Rau & Jitendra Gupta, TaxiforSure founder Apremaya Radhakrishnan, Chiranth Patil of BetaPlus Ventures, Archana Priyadarshini of Unicorn India Ventures and Vaibhav Domkudwar’s BetterCapital AngelList Syndicate.

Founded in May 2017 by serial entreprenuers Anish Achuthan, Mabel Chacko and Ajeesh Achuthan along with ex-TaxiforSure CFO Deena Jacob, Open offers a digital current account in partnership with banks that offers all the features of a traditional bank account with integrated tools to automate finances for small businesses. The account has all the tools that’s required by a small business to send and receive payments combined with an AI based accounting engine, that automates bookkeeping and expense management.

Apart from enabling the businesses to run their finances effectively, the platform also offers an APIs for developers to integrate banking and payments into their business workflows. The startup which has about 1000 customers is also getting ready to launch an innovative business expense card with an attached credit-line called DUO for enabling pay-outs and employee expense management for employees. Open has currently partnered with 7 Banks for powering the banking services on the platform.

According to Anish Achuthan, Co-founder & CEO of Open, “Banking is broken for the 51 million small businesses as traditional business banking services have not focused on the needs of these businesses. This presents us with a large opportunity to disrupt this segment in partnership with banks. The funding will help us accelerate customer acquisition and growth as we target to onboard 2 lakh small businesses into the platform in the next two years. Further the funding will be used to enhance our core platform to launch new products on lending and wealth management using AI and financial analytics.”

Speaking on the investment, Archana Priyadarshini, Partner, Unicorn India Ventures says, “Fintech in India is one of the fastest growing sectors because technology can play an enabler in taking banking solutions at affordable rates to the unbanked population. Open’s business model of extending traditional banking services through digital route is a unique proposition within fintech and this prompted us to lead the round.”

What is Neo-Banking

A Neo-Bank is an institution that provides checking, a prepaid debit card and some form of savings account without the traditional brick-and-mortar buildings or put simply, a ‘neobank’ is a bank sitting on a 100% digital and mobile platform (so no branches). It usually includes features like mobile deposits, P2P payments, mobile budgeting tools and real-time digital receipts.

In India, Neobanks are relatively new concept and Paytm Payments Bank, Fino Payments Bank, DigiBank (India) by DBS and Open are few neobanks operating in India. Open claims that it is Asia's first neobank for SMEs