Routematic, a transport software provider and a cab aggregator for enterprises, said it has raised fresh capital in a round led by existing investors Vamm Ventures, based in Dubai, and Naresh Malhotra, a serial entrepreneur and former chief executive of Café Coffee Day.
Routematic, which is owned and operated by Nivaata Systems Pvt. Ltd, said it has raised $2.5 million (Rs 17.4 crore at current exchange rate) as part of pre-Series A round of funding.
Routematic said in a statement it will use the major portion of the funds to build its electric-vehicle supply-chain technology. The funding will also be used to expand operations, it added.
Routematic was co-founded in 2013 by Indian School of Business (ISB) alumnus Surajit Das and software engineer Sriram Kannan. It currently has a presence in Pune, Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region), Hyderabad and Chennai, and it aims to focus on these regions for the next 12 months.
Das, chief executive of Routematic, said that the company has increased revenue per asset for its fleet marketplace members and has more than doubled the revenues in the last 12 months. "We are extremely capital efficient, as is evident in our data models, which allows us to execute at sub-1% variation to projections," added Das.
Nivaata had first received funding from Malhotra in 2011. The next year it had received its first round of institutional funding from early-stage venture capital firm Blume Ventures. Both the investments were made in Nivaata’s internal tech stack called Verayu, said Das. Back then, Routematic didn’t exist. This was followed by investment from Vamm Ventures in Verayu in 2013. "In 2013, Routematic was born from the tech stack called Verayu," he explained. From 2013 till 2017, Blume Ventures, Vamm Ventures, and Malhotra provided follow-on funding, according to VCCEdge, the data and research platform of Mosaic Digital.
Deals in the space
In January last year, MoveInSync raised $8 million (Rs 52 crore) in a Series B round of funding led by homegrown venture capital firm Nexus Venture Partners.
The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) had announced in 2016 that MyOfficeCab, one of the six startups incubated at IAMAI-sponsored Mobile10X Apps Hub, had raised seed funding.
In February 2017, Noida-based Cloud 1 Enterprises raised an undisclosed amount from JLL Technology Ventures.
In March 2015, Cubito raised $160,000 in seed investment led by early-stage investor Sol Primero.
Investors
Vamm Ventures is a Dubai-based seed and early-stage venture capital firm. Its first investment in India was in Routematic.
The venture capital firm's other-known investment in the country is in an online marketplace for merchandise printing called Inkmonk.
Serial entrepreneur Malhotra, who had led Café Coffee Day as its chief executive till 2007, is a founder of Bengaluru-based Modern Family Doctor Pvt. Ltd, a chain of neighbourhood clinics and pharmacies. Global private equity firm Bamboo Finance is an investor in Modern Family.
In 2017, The Economic Times had reported that Malhotra is setting up a family office with two other individuals to invest in early-stage startups.
