Former Grab employees' start-up Nextbillionai raises $7 mn in funding

Company has launched an AI-driven mapping solution that customises APIs based on the size of the vehicles.

AI-driven solutions start-up Nextbillionai has raised $7 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Falcon Edge Capital. The company will use the funds to scale up hiring and launch new AI-enabled products.

The company--founded by former Grab executives Ajay Bulusu, Gaurav Bubna and Shaolin Zheng about three months ago--has launched an AI-driven mapping solution that customises APIs based on the size of the vehicles. The company has got 10 clients in India for its first product from sectors such as logistics, ecommerce, food delivery and freight.

“Globally, Google doesn’t provide any API except four wheeler. When you do that. Our first product Nextbillionmaps provides enterprises with a range of APIs like routing, navigation, direction and distance matrix,” said co-founder Bulusu, who is a former Google executive.

The Nextbillionai team aims to build products with AI as the backbone. For this, the founders have hired engineers from global companies like Alibaba, Tencent, TikTok and Google. The second product that the start-up is working on is a full stack AI labelling platform called Nextbilliontasks. The product decodes data and simplifies multi-lingual texts, image classification, and video annotations. It is also working to roll out products in the facial recognition segment.

“The opportunity in solving hyperlocal challenges is huge, and mapping is just one of them. We at Lightspeed are excited by the prospect of partnering with this team as they build a range of turnkey enterprise solutions around Maps, Facial AI and NLP to address the needs of the next billion consumers both in developing and developed markets,” said Hemant Mohapatra, Partner, Lightspeed Ventures.

Quikr no longer a unicorn, Swedish investor pares valuation by 45%

Scandinavian firm refers to exaggerated revenue resulting from fraudulent transactions that rocked the company.

Online classifieds marketplace Quikr is no longer a unicorn, or a start-up valued at more than $1 billion. In its year-end report, major shareholder Kinnevik, a Swedish investment firm, devalued Quikr by 45 per cent, referring to the exaggerated revenue resulting from fraudulent transactions that rocked the company. Quikr is now valued at about $577 million, a significant drop for the Bengaluru-based startup.

“Our assessed fair value of our Quikr investment is lowered by SEK 764 million, or 45 per cent, reflecting the impact of fraudulent transactions as well as a reduced footprint and amended revenue recognition principles,” said Kinnevik this month, in its presentation of the fourth quarter and full-year 2019. “The valuation is established using forward looking net revenue multiples, moving away from the DCF (discounted cash flow) method applied in previous quarters to solely reflect near-term projected financial performance in our net asset value statement.”

Quikr has a slew of online businesses covering real estate, discover and bookings, jobs search, used-goods buying and selling, and home services. The drop in valuation comes at a time, when the company had to suffer crores of losses due to internal employee fraud and as reported, the firm had to lay off hundreds of employees across the organisation late last year.

In the earning call, Samuel Sjöström, Head of Strategy at Kinnevik, explained that Quikr discovered that certain dealers and vendors within their managed rentals and car segments had placed fictitious or misrepresented transactions on its platform. The direct effect of this was twofold.

“Firstly, the value of revenue generated in these categories may be overstated. And secondly, there is a risk that some receivables may not be entirely recoverable. As a response, the company has reduced its footprint in the concerned segments as managing its overall cost base. Quikr has also strengthened its internal operational controls and is pursuing legal actions against those responsible,” said Sjöström, in the earnings call.

Indian aviation startups to pitch for support at Singapore Air Show 2020

More than 60 startups from 10 countries, including India, are scheduled to make presentations on a wide range of domains during the show.

Startups from India with innovative technologies in the aerospace, civil aviation and air services are expected to pitch for support to industry heavyweights such as Airbus and Boeing at the Singapore Air Show 2020 next month, the organisers said.

The Singapore Air Show would be organised from February 11-16 and will witness the participation of some 65 top aerospace and defence companies.

The show, which is being organised by Experia Events Pte Ltd, will also be joined by 1,000 industry exhibitors from 50 countries and 55,000 trade visitors from 150 countries.

"We all know that there is a lot of technologies that these companies hold. We are looking forward to see these startups during pitching sessions," said Leck Chet Lam, the managing director of Experia Events Pte Ltd during the pre-show press conference on Monday.

More than 60 startups from 10 countries, including India, are scheduled to make presentations on a wide range of domains during the show.

The presentations will cover sustainability, smart transport, automation, smart manufacturing, digital solutions, artificial intelligence and cyber security apart from other vital subjects.

"The startups are to pitch for investors and industry support from the global aviation industries, which would include chief executives of industry heavyweights such as Airbus and Boeing," said Leck.

The Indians have been long-term participants as they value participating in the Singapore Air Show, he added.

Also, planned along the show is the Singapore Airshow Aviation Leader Summit to be attended by more than 300 aviation experts.

The summit is to be held from February 9-10 and will be addressed by industry experts, including Ajay Singh, chief executive of SpiceJet, the organisers said.

Business Standard