Civic-tech startup CivilCops raises capital from Alfa Ventures

New Delhi-based CivilCops, which builds civic-tech and government-tech solutions, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from newly launched Alfa Ventures.

CivilCops provides tech-based communication solutions that enable better citizen-government collaboration. Owned and operated by Tavroi Research Pvt. Ltd, the startup was founded by Ashish Sharma and Vaibhav Gogia in 2017.

For citizens, the company provides a slew of grievance reporting channels where its artificial intelligence-based chat and voice interfaces are integrated onto all the major social media channels. They help citizens report issues in public service delivery like water, sanitation, electricity and transport.

For government agencies, it builds work-management dashboards that help them aggregate, manage and analyse public data in real time for city management. It converts manual administrative processes like assignment, allotment and complaint segregation into automated processes using AI and machine learning.

“Public services account for a large proportion of government’s budget but the increased spending has often not been matched by improvements in outcomes. We aimed to change this situation by building a product to help the authorities with a technology architecture to improve efficiency and at the same time, engage the residents in the decision making process. Hence, creating a new kind of city service approach,” the founders said in a statement.

Its social intelligence tools aims to empower citizens and facilitate governments to be more accessible, efficient and effective in public service delivery.

The company works with government agencies in India and the UAE. It is incubated under Nasscom’s 10,000 Startups programme in Gurugram and was part of the 2017 cohort of the StartupBootCamp smart city accelerator in Dubai.

“CivilCops comes across as a very promising venture as it provides a very unique solution for the government authorities to improve governance and public service delivery by putting the citizen’s needs at the centre of decision making,” said Dhianu Das, founder, Alfa Ventures.

Angel investor and serial entrepreneur Das launched the Rs 100 crore ($14 million) proprietary fund Alfa Ventures in February to make seed investments in startups. Around 25% of the fund has come from Das himself while the remaining is raised from co-investor Anil Kotawala of Delhi-based jewellery firm GDK Jewels Pvt Ltd, friends, angel investors and family offices.

The fund is sector-agnostic but will prefer to invest in startups that have an element of technology and a good team.

As an angel investor, Das had previously invested in companies like automobile servicing platform GoMechanic, online eyewear marketplace ClearDekho and CleanseCar, a mobile-based platform which offers car wash services.