Clonect raises $250K from former Infy execs Balakrishnan, Mohandas Pai & others

Clonect Solutions Pvt Ltd, an IT solutions company focused on products in the area of enterprise governance, risk management and compliance management (GRC) & software services, has raised Rs 1.5 crore ($246,517) in funding. The investment was done by former Infosys chief financial officers (CFOs) and board members V Balakrishnan and TV Mohandas Pai, along with a few unnamed investors, according to a report by The Times of India.

Pai, who is also the chairman of the board of Manipal Global Education, and Balakrishnan invested Rs 50 lakh for a minority stake in the company.

"Clonect gives a single view of compliance across the organisation. It has a repository of all the documents on compliance in a structured way with an audit trail at a click of a button," said Balakrishnan, who makes his debut as an investor in the Indian product ecosystem with this investment.

The Bangalore-based startup was founded by Balaji G S Rao and Shailesh Agrawal in May this year. Prior to launching Clonect, both the founders were working at Infosys. While Rao was AVP & Head - corporate accounts & India tax at Infosys; Agrawal was AVP, practice manager - IT services at the company.

An IIM-Bangalore alumnus, Rao also holds a BE degree in electronics and communications from PES College of Engineering, University of Mysore. A chartered accountant, Agrawal also has an M Com degree in accounts and financial administration from Rajasthan University.

"Efficient management of risk, compliance and governance is central to success of any organisation in the current globalised business environment. With a complex and dynamic regulatory requirements to adhere to, managing compliance with just spreadsheets and emails is inadequate and error prone," reads a statement on the site.

The company's flagship product ricago Compliance Management System (CMS) is an enterprise-class compliance management system capable of tracking and managing compliance items, notices and critical action items related to regulatory & internal compliance requirements of an organisation.

With a web browser-based interface, ricago CMS offers an integrated view of the compliance health of an organisation. Additional tasks can be added in the web form by the workflow participants on a need basis, increasing the flexibility of the system. Also, a dashboard with drill-down capability and exhaustive reports provides up-to-date information about the compliance posture of the organisation.

"The opportunity for us is enhanced with Section 134 of the Companies Act that requires the boards of companies to file their directors' responsibility statement to certify that there is a compliance management system in the organisation and all applicable laws are complied with. Earlier, the onus was on CEO and CFO, but now it's on the board and independent directors," Rao told the publication.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)