· Company has raised Rs 2.5 crore from existing investors Unicorn India Ventures, Anand Mahindra, and SEA Fund join as new investors
· Anand Mahindra Invests in his personal capacity
· The funds raised to be used for scaling up production of Bandicoot and development of new products for the healthcare segment
· Bandicoot is a fully automated robot for cleaning manhole with an aim to eradicate manual scavenging
Thiruvananthapuram, NFAPost: Robotics startup Genrobotics has raised Rs 2.5 crore in Pre Series A round from existing investors Unicorn India Ventures.
Anand Mahindra, who has invested in his personal capacity, has also joined as a new investor in this round along with SEA Fund. The round has been led by Unicorn India Ventures.
Genrobotics has already been working along with the central government ministries as well as with state governments in the mission of eradicating manual scavenging from the entire country.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs & Smart City Mission India has recognised the Automated Manhole cleaning robot Bandicoot 2.0, within a short span of time, they have deployed Bandicoot robots across 11 States in the country and hundreds of sanitation workers went through the rehabilitation process.
Smart city
Soon after the implementation at Coimbatore smart city, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has suggested and quoted Bandicoot 2.0, as an excellent example for enabling Zero Human-Intervention in the sewerage cleaning process.
The Young startup professionals at Genrobotic got a shot in the arm when one of India’s biggest industrialist Anand Mahindra, praised their innovation and expressed interest to help them scale up.
Anand Mahindra has always been truly one of the motivators to youth who share a deep passion for philanthropic activities, after seeing this aspiring team’s work and thoughtful intentions on reaching services to the unreached ones.
He tweeted once that “There’s a lot of nervousness about the role of robots & AI in the future. But frankly, if robots can liberate people from this most degrading job in the universe, then I promise I will discard any doubts & always pray at the shrine of technology & robotics” and Mr.Mahindra has offered his full support on ending manual scavenging through robotic scavenging.
Robotic solution
Genrobotics Co-founder CEO Vimal Govind says the startup is so happy that Bandicoot is bringing smiles to those innocent ones and we believe that our efforts brought light into the stinking realities of manual scavenging in India.
“It was a great moment for us when Anand Mahindra took a personal interest in favour of robotic solutions for the real crisis hidden in. Mahindra has offered his full support on implementing Bandicoots in each and every corner of India for putting an end to this dehumanising activity completely and it has accelerated the process of transforming the Manual scavenging to Robotic scavenging,” said Genrobotics Co-founder and CEO Vimal Govind.
The funds raised will be used for further scaling up production of Bandicoot to meet the growing demand in light of eradicating manual scavenging and to develop new products and R&D to leverage the technology for the health care segment.
Ready product
Commenting on the investment, Unicorn India Ventures Managing Partner Anil Joshi said he is happy that Unicorn India Ventures went against its rules of not investing in just an idea in the case of Genrobotics.
“When we met them 2 years back in Kerala, the prototype was ready and they needed funding for a commercial-ready product. We decided to back them as we saw the potential robotics can bring to certain socially important issues especially if the team backing the business is as passionate as we have seen in Genrobotics,” said Unicorn India Ventures Managing Partner Anil Joshi.
Unicorn India Ventures Managing Partner Anil Joshi said the company believes that Generobotics has developed a globally relevant product and are already in talks with some international Governing bodies for its deployment.
“To facilitate their expansion plans, we have decided to back them up with additional funds,” said Unicorn India Ventures Managing Partner Anil Joshi.
Welfare of mankind
GENROBOTIC Innovations is a leading Robotics company in India and started with a mission of providing better & safer methods to the people, using Robotics & AI for working with extreme & unsafe environments and also for the welfare of mankind.
They primarily focus on designing and development of Robotic solutions to address the most relevant social issues and recently introduced their sister wing in bringing new perception for the country’s affordable Medical Mobility Research. The Promising Robotics company seamlessly on for achieving the dream of India’s prestigious mission – Building Atma Nirbhar Bharat, thereby making India for the world in all means. They have already been an important part of the country’s greatest initiatives Swachh-Bharath Abhiyan and Make in India.
Unicorn India Ventures is a Mumbai-based VC that started in 2015 by Anil Joshi and Bhaskar Majumdar. The Fund has also launched a UK India cross border fund for funding UK startups looking to enter India and have invested in 7 UK startups.
From its Fund, UIV has invested in 18 companies like Inc42, Sequretek, Pharmarack, Genrobotics, NeuroEquilibrium, SmartCoin,Open Bank, Open app to name a few. Unicorn India has also announced Fund II, which is a Rs 400 crore fund launched in 2019. It has also marked its first close of Rs 90 crore and has announced 4 investments.
