Former Google exec Amit Singhal to join GOQii board

Former Google executive Amit Singhal, who is also an angel investor in GOQii Inc, will join the board of directors of the wearable devices startup.

Singhal recently resigned as head of Google's flagship search business after spending nearly 15 years in the company.

The former Google executive will help guide Vishal Gondal-founded GOQii's expansion into new global markets, as per a company statement.

Singhal, an IIT Roorkee alumnus, was instrumental in shaping Google Search across desktop, mobile and other platforms. He joined the technology giant in 2000 and was named Google Fellow in 2006 for his engineering work on the company's early search engine interface. Singhal has an MS in computer science from University of Minnesota and a PhD from Cornell University. Prior to joining Google, he worked with AT&T Labs.

GOQii, led by Gondal, who had earlier founded Indiagames, had recently raised. an undisclosed amount in funding from the venture capital arm of Edelweiss Financial Services Pvt Ltd.

In November 2015, it had raised $13.4 million (Rs 90 crore) in Series A funding led by global venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with participation from China's Cheetah Mobile and Great Wall Club, besides existing early-stage investor DSG Consumer Partners and other angel investors.

Google India head Rajan Anandan is also an angel investor in GOQii. Besides Singhal and Anandan, the other angel investors in the startup include former Microsoft executives S Somasegar and Vijay Vashee, actor Madhuri Dixit-Nene and husband Shriram Nene, DSG Consumer Partners' MD Deepak Shahdadpuri, Seagate's Steve Luczo, Dell's Kanwaljit Bombra and Flextronics' Mike McNamara. Habitera's Anil Godhwani, Simply Hired's Goutam Godhwani, Bharat Vasan of My Basis, and Prashant Gulati of The Indus Entrepreneurs are also angel investors in GOQii.

Founded in 2013, California-headquartered GOQii has offices in Mumbai and Shenzhen, China. It offers a combination of a health-related wearable band, expert-led personalised coaching and elements of social philanthropy.

It competes with New York Stock Exchange-listed Fitbit Inc. Many other tech companies globally, such as Apple Inc, have launched wearable devices.