Exclusive: Invento Robotics raises bridge round from angels, others

Bengaluru-based Invento Makerspaces, which makes and markets robots under the Invento Robotics brand, has raised an undisclosed amount in a bridge funding round from iron ore mining company MSPL, textile firm Chiripal Group and a clutch of angel investors.

Soami Saran, former head of alternative technologies at Mahindra & Mahindra, and angel investor Ratish Kumar Nair participated in the round, Balaji Viswanathan, founder and CEO of Invento, told TechCircle.

The fresh capital, he said, will be used for global expansion and to build new technologies for its artificial intelligence (AI) platforms.

The latest fundraise follows two rounds of undisclosed seed investments. 

It last raised capital in January from Mumbai headquartered ITI Growth Fund, Pune-based Windrose Capital and other undisclosed domain investors. 

The startup, a September 2019 participant in Horses Stable, the Indian adaptation of American TV show Shark Tank, raised the first tranche of seed capital from investors on the show.

One of its humanoid robots, Mitra, greeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump’s advisor and daughter Ivanka Trump, at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Hyderabad in 2017. The summit also saw Modi launching Mitra 2. An advanced version, Mitra 3, was unveiled this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Mitra, a Hindi word meaning ‘a friend’, helps brands improve physical customer experience and access, the company said. Mitra also has a female counterpart called Mitri.

These robots are capable of interacting with humans using contextual facial and speech recognition, as well as autonomous navigation, the company said. They are designed with speech synthesis capabilities in Hindi, Tamil and Sinhalese and offer AI features to help businesses ensure that their customer interactions are contextual and data centric.

The robots are deployed by banks for customer interactions, retail outlets for guest engagements and hospitals for patient engagements. Its clientele includes HDFC, Accenture, Suzuki, Morris Garages, General Motors, Diageo and PVR.

Invento Makerspaces was founded in 2016 by Viswanathan, Mahalakshmi Radhakrushnun and Bharath Kumar.