AI startup Actionable Science raises seed funding

Artificial intelligence startup Actionable Science has raised $1 million (Rs 6.8 crore at current exchange rates) in seed funding from online venture capital firm Globevestor and California-based fund Tri-Valley Ventures.

Actionable Science, which has bases both in India and the US, said in a statement that other investors who participated in the round include Shyam Maheshwari (partner, SSG Capital); Jai Mirpuri (managing director, Redwood Group); Sukeert Shanker (chief operating officer of digital banking, East West Bank); Puneet Kaushik (partner, Auctus Advisors); Abhijeet Harolikar (head of global analytics centre, PayPal) and Brahmanand Hegde (founder, Vistaar Finance).

The company plans to use the fresh funds to accelerate product development, reach more customers and for client delivery, the statement added.

Actionable Science uses artificial intelligence, natural language processing and robotics technologies at an enterprise level to automate standard repeatable tasks in support teams such as IT, human resources and customer service.

Besides these segments, it offers its AI-powered digital agents for employee helpdesks.

The firm claims that its AI-powered product, called Virtual People, makes it easy for enterprise support teams to improve productivity, enhance customer experiences, increase employee satisfaction and lower costs.

“We founded Actionable Science to help make sure human employees can focus on value-added work like creative problem-solving, relationship building and innovative thinking,” said Saurabh Kumar, co-founder and chief executive of Actionable Science.

The firm was founded in 2016 by Indian Institute of Management-Bengaluru graduates Saurabh Kumar, Manish Sharma and Udaya Reddy. All three founders are industry veterans with two decades of experience each in IT and finance in the US and India.

Before setting up Actionable Science, Kumar was senior vice-president of the wealth management group at San Francisco-based financial services firm Bank of the West; Sharma was vice-president of banking sales for Tech Mahindra in the US; and Reddy served as chief technology officer for Accenture’s products and platforms division from June 2015 till January this year.

The startup has sales teams in the US and Bengaluru and an engineering and development centre in Dehradun. Its clients are mostly located in the US, Mexico and Europe and operate in financial services and banking, healthcare and several other industries.

"With annual enterprise spend on just IT and HR support in North America estimated at about $7-8 billion, the company is targeting a huge market," said PN Raju, co-founder and partner at Globevestor.

Globevestor

The VC firm’s online platform facilitates cross-border deals by connecting investors from across the world with startups in emerging markets.

In an interaction with VCCircle last year, co-founder Ankur Shrivastava said that the investment platform has invested in 32 startups, of which 21 were based in India.

The startups abroad are based in the US and Canada and are established by Indian-origin entrepreneurs. Shrivastava also added that the firm plans to ramp up its investments to 18 a year as compared to 12 currently and also had plans to launch a second micro VC fund.

Globevestor has a network of 700 investors and oversees the screening process, diligence, terms negotiation, information updates and ongoing supervision till exit.

Some of is portfolio companies comprise self-drive car rental startup Zoomcar, financial products marketplace Rubique, multi-lingual test preparation startup OnlineTyari, and ed-tech startups Springboard and Flintobox.