VR startup Imaginate raises $500K from SRI Capital

Imaginate Technologies, Inc, an augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) startup, has raised Rs 3.35 crore ($500,000) in seed investment from venture fund SRI Capital, a top company executive told Techcircle.

"The funds will be used to scale up operations in the US and run pilots with large-scale organisations," Imaginate's managing director Hemanth Satyanarayana said, adding the company was looking to raise more capital next year.

As part of the transaction, SRI Capital founder and managing partner Sashi Reddi will join Imaginate's board.

International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad, which invested in the Indian subsidiary of Imaginate Software Labs Pvt. Ltd four years ago, exited in the funding round.

Imaginate's product NuSpace can be used in industrial training and collaborative design, from a manufacturing point of view. Its technology can be used to provide customised VR and AR solutions to those in the retail, healthcare, defence, education and entertainment segments, among others.

The Hyderabad-based company has worked with the likes of MetLife, Aditya Birla Group, Aga Khan Foundation and the Indian Army in the past.

Satyanarayana, who founded the company in November 2011, is an alumnus of IIT-Madras and Indian School of Business.

SRI Capital had earlier invested a total of $1.3 million (Rs 8.8 crore) in YellowDig and Zuppler, two US-based companies that operate on the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. In the same week, it had invested in WorkApps, an enterprise workflow collaboration firm.

Startups using VR and AR to solve problems have received a lot of investor interest of late.

VR game studio Xanadu Heights Inc. secured seed investment from Dheeraj Jain, managing partner at London-based investment firm Redcliffe Capital, in November 2016. Foyr.com, a Hyderabad-based online interior designing and home décor startup that uses AR and VR, has raised funding from a new real estate technology investment vertical set up by property consultancy firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) India.

In March last year, VR solutions startup SmartVizX raised over $500,000 (around Rs 3.4 crore then) from Indian Angel Network (IAN) and Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs India (SA&E India).