inFeedo Inc., a people analytics-focussed software-as-a-service company, has raised $700,000 (Rs 5.25 crore at current exchange rates) in funding from a clutch of investors including global startup accelerator Y Combinator.
Other investors that took part in this pre-Series A round include Innov8 founder Ritesh Malik, Lenskart chief executive officer Peyush Bansal, former Cloudcherry CEO Vinod Muthukrishnan, former Snapdeal chief product officer Anand Chandrasekaran, former Kwench CEO Sunder Nookala and Inventus Law CEO Anil Advani.
The 100x Entrepreneur Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm, also took part in this funding exercise via investment platform LetsVenture, inFeedo said in a statement.
inFeedo was founded by Tanmaya Jain and operates employee experience chatbot Amber, which helps human resources departments measure several data points. These include analytics on employee engagement, individual employee and organisational sentiment, attrition prediction and insights on company culture.
The startup said it will use the capital to hire managerial talent with a goal of achieving $10 million in revenue.
It will also concentrate on its product roadmap, which includes features such as capabilities for remote workforces, leadership and managerial effectiveness, and pulse surveys.
“In spite of running a cash flow positive business, our main aim to fundraise during the [coronavirus] pandemic was to double down in SouthEast Asia and build a leadership team,” Jain said.
Muthukrishnan said that Jain’s persistence and the massive growth opportunity in the employee experience market brought on by the shift to remote work prompted him to invest in the startup.
In December 2016, inFeedo had raised $200,000 led by Dheeraj Jain, managing partner at UK-based hedge fund Redcliffe Capital, and Anupam Mittal, founder and chief executive of People Group.
That infusion of capital came after inFeedo in September 2016 raised $150,000 in angel funding led by Redcliffe Capital’s Jain and Palash Jain, former head of Google India’s core operations.
Deals in the SaaS startups space
inFeedo is the latest startup operating in the SaaS space to raise funding. Companies in the segment are using their stacks to address gaps within traditional ecosystems and introduce new products and services.
In May, for example, no-coding platform CodeNinja.ai raised capital from the Early Adapters Syndicate of LetsVenture. It did not disclose the amount raised, but said it was in the range of $100,000-$300,000.
In April, Aavenir Software Pvt. Ltd, a source-to-pay solutions provider raised around Rs 15.22 crore in a seed funding round from Accel India. The startup offers contract lifecycle management and procurement management solutions.
Also in April, video meta-tagging platform Toch raised $400,000 from Inflection Point Ventures. Toch said it would use the capital to build out its technological infrastructure and add more talent to its team.