Exclusive: Enterprise networking startup Lavelle gets fresh funding

Bengaluru-based enterprise networking startup Lavelle Networks Pvt. Ltd, has raised around Rs 2 crore ($270,000) from infotech consulting and software services company ASM Technologies Ltd, which is headquartered in the same city, a person in the know told TechCircle.

The infusion is expected to value the startup at $5.2 million (Rs 38.4 crore), the above-mentioned person added. The fundraising comes more than eighteen months after Bengaluru-based Ideaspring Capital invested $600,000 (Rs 4 crore) in Lavelle in March last year. 

E-mail queries sent to Lavelle co-founders Shyamal Kumar and Karthik Madhava and ASM did not get a response till the time of publishing this report. 

Lavelle chief executive Kumar studied electrical and electronics engineering at BITS, Pilani. (BITS is Birla Institute of Technology and Science.) 

Product vice-president Madhava is a computer engineer from the University of Mysore.

Founded in 2015, Lavelle offers a software defined networking (SDN) platform for wide area network (WAN) management. WAN is a telecommunications or computer network that extends over a large geographical distance.

The company offers SDN gateways and user interface to deploy, manage and monitor hybrid WAN networks. The solutions cater to retail, banking, e-commerce, logistics and other industries.

Lavelle was one of the 14 firms selected by Microsoft Ventures for its 2017 summer accelerator programme.

For the financial year 2016-17, Lavelle’s operational revenues declined to Rs 2.31 crore from Rs 3.82 crore the previous fiscal, according to data available with VCCEdge (www.VCCEdge.com), the data and research platform of News Corp VCCircle.

Likewise, the company’s gross expenses also reduced to Rs 2.10 crore for 2016-17, from Rs 3.82 crore in 2015-16. Net loss stood at Rs 21.11 lakh for 2016-17, up from Rs 54,047 the previous year.

Established in 1992, ASM Technologies is a BSE-listed company with presence in the US, Singapore, UK, Canada and Mexico. The company provides consulting and product development services in the areas of engineering services and product research and development, according to the firm’s website. It also has offshore development centres.