SureWaves raises $5.7M in Series B led by Canaan Partners

Bangalore-based SureWaves MediaTechnologies Pvt Ltd, which offers a cloud-based media grid that enables large-scale aggregation of audiences across multiple television channels, has secured Rs 35 crore ($5.7 million) led by Canaan Partners, with participation from existing investors India Innovation Fund and Accel Partners.

"The funding from this round will be used to invest in the growth of the company and support further innovation," said Rajendra Khare, managing director, SureWaves.

In August 2011, SureWaves had secured Rs 10 crore in first round of funding, led by India Innovation Fund and Accel Partners.

The startup was founded in 2006 by former Wipro colleagues Rajendra Khare, Anant Kansal and Tapan Datta. A BITS Pilani alumnus, Khare has earlier co-founded Indusedge Innovations. Previously, he was managing director at Broadcom India. Prior to setting up SureWaves, Kansal was general manager at Aztech Software. He had earlier co-founded Baysoft Pvt Ltd.

Datta is an Indian Statistical Institute alumnus who is running Upasana Advantage, an advertising agency focusing on technology companies. Prior to starting SureWaves, he was group manager (marketing communication) at Digital Equipment Corp.

SureWaves's media grid offers an integrated ad aggregation, content delivery, network management, media planning & reporting platform to media publications. It is building media applications on top of this grid, called SureWaves Media Grid, to allow its media clients to attach to the grid through specific devices. It has filed for more than 40 patents to date on the above technology. It also offers a single window interface to large national advertisers to reach out to mass audience on a market-by-market basis. The firm claims its connected TV network spans across 28 states and seven union territories in India through partnerships with over 280 cable TV channels that reaches more than 80 million households and 400 million viewers.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)