Mumbai-based Vahanalytics, run by Urbtranz Technologies Pvt. Ltd, has raised $200,000 in a seed funding round from Venture Catalysts, led by Vikram Lakhotia, partner at Arth India Ventures, and Anirudh Damani, managing director of Standard Transport Corporation.
The startup was founded by BITS Pilani alumni Shivalik Sen, Arun Gandhi, Nikhil Tavora and Someshwar Dash in early 2016. It was started out as an on-demand driver service, but soon founding team realised that there was a distinct lack of a similar scientific metric to quantify and judge driving behaviour as well as to identify and train drivers. The firm's analytical tool could have a number of use-cases across industries such as transportation, logistics and insurance.
The platform captures real-time data using smartphones about driving habits and road conditions, which is then processed and refined by leveraging the power of big data in order to extract useful insights.
Vahanalytics' founders had earlier founded Driven, a startup that provided on-demand chauffeurs, which was acquired by Chennai-based rival DriversKart earlier this month. The team is now using their learnings from Driven in this new startup.
Venture Catalysts has previously invested in startups like LenDen Club, ConfirmTKT, SIFTR Labs and vPhrase. The firm recently added 50 new angel investors to its network even as it plans to expand its investor base to 800-1000 members. It is also building a corpus of Rs 100 crore to provide early-stage investment support to promising ventures.
Other players operating in data analytics segment are ActOnMagic, raised seed investment led by NetMagic’s co-founder Jayabalan Subramanian and in 2015 Ratan Tata also invested in two data analytics firms, including Jungle Ventures-backed big data analytics startup Crayon Data and and predictive marketing and analysis company Infinite Analytics.
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