Robotics startup Emotix raises $2 mn in pre-Series A round

Mumbai-based robotics and consumer electronics company RN Chidakashi Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates under the brand name Emotix, said on Wednesday that it has raised $2 million (Rs 13 crore) in a pre-Series A funding round led by venture capital firms IDG Ventures India and YourNest.

Emotix said in a statement that existing angel investors including Keshav Murugesh, group chief executive officer of IT firm WNS, had also participated in the round.

Sneh Vaswani, Emotix's co-founder and chief executive officer, said the investment will help the firm boost research and launch new products.

Satish Mugulavalli, director of technology at YourNest, will join the board of Emotix.

Email queries sent to Emotix seeking details about its funding history did not elicit an immediate response.
Vaswani and fellow Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay alumni Prashant Iyengar and Chintan Raikar had set up Emotix in 2014.

Emotix is the creator of Miko, an artificial intelligence-based companion robot which educates and entertains children above the age of five years.

The startup began selling the robot in October last year. The product is available both offline and through e-commerce websites such as Flipkart and Amazon.

Sudhir Sethi, chairman and managing director of IDG Ventures India, said Emotix has identified a niche market with its offerings that combine robotics, artificial intelligence and psychology.

Sunil Goyal, director and fund manager of YourNest, said Emotix meets Electronic Development Fund's (EDF) objectives of nurturing ventures in areas of IoT and robotics.

EDF, an anchor investor in YourNest, is a fund of funds which was set up as part of the government's Digital India initiative. It will invest in daughter funds which in turn will provide risk capital to companies developing new technologies in the areas of electronics, nano-electronics and information technology.

Another well-funded company in this space is GreyOrange, which is backed by Tiger Global Management and Blume Ventures.

Investors
YourNest is an angel fund which has backed more than 16 startups, including Mycity4kids (now Momspresso), Proof of Performance, Uniphore Software, Simpli5D Technologies, Bookmycab, GolfLan, BetaOut and Rubique.com.

It recently topped up its investment in Bengaluru-based Bottle Lab Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs food-tech startup SmartQ. 

Bengaluru-based IDG Ventures India is a sector-agnostic VC firm. It invests in Indian startups or ventures that consider India a key market.

IDG recently led a $1.85 million (about Rs 12 crore) seed investment in Singapore-based Kristal.AI, an artificial intelligence-powered digital asset management platform. 

It has over 70 portfolio investments across a range of technology sectors. Its portfolio firms include Myntra, NestAway, Manthan, FirstCry, Lenskart, Uniphore and Zivame.

Cisco Investments, the venture capital arm of networking technology giant Cisco, last month came on board as a limited partner.