Exclusive: Traffic Tracker Birds Eye Systems Gets Funding From CIIE

Mumbai-based tech startup Birds Eye Systems Pvt Ltd, a company specialising in traffic info systems and mobile apps development, has raised Rs 0.15 crore ($29,914) in funding from the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE). Birds Eye's flagship Web product 'Traffline' is a low-cost, real-time traffic monitoring system that broadcasts live traffic conditions for road commuters.

The company will use the capital to scale up its infrastructure and also to cover more cities. At present, it operates only in Mumbai and Delhi.

Birds Eye has launched its product in January this year and currently has around 500 visitors a day. The company also launched a taxi booking service in September 2011, and claims to be serving more than 10,000 customers in this space.

Ravi Khemani, co-founder of Birds Eye Systems, said, "Essentially, our product broadcasts live traffic conditions on Indian roads. The product is built on a platform which constantly analyses vehicle movement on the road and the results are displayed on Traffline or the mobile site m.traffline.com. This is how we are able to display live traffic conditions. We also run a taxi booking application suite for all kinds of mobile phones."

Birds Eye plans to include more cities and more taxi service providers, and is looking to integrate more external sources with its Traffline platform to reach out to a greater number of end-users. The company will integrate map vendors and logistic companies as well, to provide custom solutions, and aims to distribute traffic information with improved context through more mediums.

Started at IIM-Ahmedabad in 2002 as a research and training centre, CIIE now fosters entrepreneurship through incubation, investment, research and training. Its incubation and investment activities received an impetus in 2007, following the creation of a dedicated physical infrastructure with support from IIM-Ahmedabad, government of India, Gujarat government and an autonomous investment entity.