Niki.ai, the ecommerce company based in Bengaluru, which operates a personal assistant that is based on artificial intelligence, has lifted $2 Million (almost Rs 13.3 Crore) in “series-A” round of funding from current investor Unilazer Ventures and San Francisco-based SAP.iO.
The fundraising also witnessed participation from other Indian sponsors comprising partner at True North, Haresh Chawla, and Managing Director at Hive Technologies, Arihant Patni, along with some German and the U.S. sponsors.
“The shot of the new fund will be employed in further building multilingual and voice functionalities, intensification our machine learning abilities, and extending our distribution system,” claimed Sachin Jaiswal, CEO, Niki.ai. The Ratan Tata-supported firm’s mobile app supports over 20 sections comprising travel, entertainment, and daily utilities, with partners counting Redbus, BookMyShow, Ola, OYO, JustRechargeIt, and Uber.
The media had initially reported last month that the firm was ready to conduct “series-A” round of funding. This is the first time SAP.iO, premature-phase software funding startup of German software firm SAP, has spent in India.
Managing Partner of Unilazer Ventures, Ronnie Screwvala, claimed, “In less than 2 years we have made development in various spheres and smacked different relationships with a greater part of corporate India. In 2016, I did 3 follow-up rounds with Niki even though being aware of its track record.”
For businesses, Niki.ai has rolled out its Software Development Kit (SDK) for Chatbot, which allows companies to install conversational commerce through a simple integration on their platform. The SDK is already live across original wallets and equipment manufacturers, such as Intex, HDFC Bank, Zopo Mobile, and Oxigen Wallet along with multiple banks. Apart from this, over 40 SDK joint ventures are set to go live almost immediately. The company targets to train its engine to understand Indian languages, commencing with Hindi.
For now, the $2 Million raised in the “series A” round of funding will surely be a boost for the company and will set up the direction of the arrows in its profit chart always pointing to the North. Let us see as to how the company invests this money and how will it use for its benefits.
