Abee Research Labs Pvt Ltd, which runs artificial intelligence-based platform SwitchOn, has raised Series A funding of $4.2 million (around Rs 34.4 crore) led by a Singapore-based fund.
Existing backers Pi Ventures and Axilor Ventures, with Chennai Angels’ Anuj Bihani and Laxmi Narayan, among others, also took part in the round.
The Bengaluru-based company will use the fresh funds for research and development, hiring and expanding its geographical footprints both across India and overseas as well.
Founded in 2017 by Aniruddha Banerjee and Avra Banerjee, SwitchOn uses its proprietary AI system to help manufacturing companies identify factory plant-level obstacles and improve product quality. The startup counts Unilever, ITC and SKF amongst others as part of its client portfolio.
"Our proprietary deep learning-based algorithms can adapt with limited domain data to provide accurate defect detection. With this funding, we plan to expand our technology and R&D teams,” said Avra Banerjee, co-founder at SwitchOn.
"Over the last 4 years, SwitchOn has scaled with Fortune 500 customers, by using their AI technology to deliver zero-defect to manufacturing," said Shubham Sandeep, managing director, Pi Ventures.
Founded by Manish Singhal in 2016, Pi Ventures is an AI and deeptech-focussed early-stage venture capital (VC) firm. Last week, the firm onboarded Small Industries Development Bank (SIDBI) as a limited partner (LP) for its second fund.
The firm plans to back around 20-25 startups in the AI and deeptech space through its second fund.
So far, Pi Ventures has made commitments in seven startups including ImmunitoAI, Ottonomy.IO, Silence Laboratories, Preimage. Among its latest investments, the VC firm invested in biotechnology startup Zero Cow Factory, in its $4 million seed round along with Green Frontier Capital.
It closed its first fund at Rs 225 crore in 2018, through which it had backed 15 deep tech startups including Niramai, Pixis, Wysa, Agnikul and Locus, among others.
In 2019, SwitchOn raised $1 million in a seed funding round led by Pi Ventures along with Axilor Ventures and Chennai Angels who participated in the round.
