Delhi-based IoT Communications & Data Analytics Startup Probus Smart Things, focused on Smart grid applications, has raised $500,000 in a bridge round led by Unicorn India Ventures.
The round also saw participation from prominent angels like Anuj Khanna of Trimaster, Kiran Alla, Theia Ventures, Devdutt Shah, Kuntesh Chandaria, Urmin Group and Anmol Rastogi, a release said.
The company plans to use the funds to scale up their team and operations within India and abroad.
Probus develops integrated hardware and software solutions for utility providers and helps digitise their distribution grid and have a clear visibility of their network through Probus integrated end to end IoT platform.
A powerful IOT solution for electricity distribution utilities that helps them achieve distribution grid analytics and automation which subsequently enables a much more efficient distribution of electricity along with quicker restoration of electricity after power disturbances, the release added.
Probus further enables reduced operations and management costs for utilities, and ultimately lower power costs for consumers. Probus has won Seedstars World’s India edition in 2019 & Awards from Indian Smart Grid Forum twice.
Probus Smart Things Co-founder Anand Singh said, “This past year, we have been working closely and continuously with our partner utilities to help save them money in distribution networks by leveraging our communications and analytics solutions.”
“Even during the challenging times of the second COVID wave during peak summers, our field teams had worked as essential services to keep the network up and running,” he added.
In addition to the trust of Unicorn India Ventures, this bridge round also sees participation from some well-known industry experts, who have been mentoring the startup for quite some time. With the current funding round, the startup will be expanding its team and product offerings.
Unicorn India Ventures Managing Partner Anil Joshi said, “We invested in Probus last year and have seen first-hand the impact it is making on the ground.”
“Leveraging IoT to improve electricity distribution and bringing down grid failure rate by giving discoms insights right at the distribution level is cutting edge work. The bridge round being led by Unicorn India is a testimony to our belief in Probus and the change it is pioneering in the utility segment,” he added.
For the next 12 months, Probus plans to build strong partnerships with various utilities, System Integrators and meter manufacturers for catering to various AMI (Automatic Metering Infrastructure) and loss reduction opportunities.
The Indian distribution sector is plagued with minimal real-time information of distribution asset performance, outage information and man-power utilization are still not implemented.
Digitisation of the distribution grid through IoT enabled technology is the only way forward to drive change. Post COVID, the need for a digital grid has been re-enforced. Various interventions have been planned, both at state and national level to overcome these challenges.
Probus, with its agnostic Communications and Data analytics offerings, is helping utilities companies save money in the last mile power distribution, the release added.
