Tiger Global and Accel Bet Their Cards on This Indian Tech Start-up. Open to Decode In an exclusive interview with Entrepreneur India, Prabhu Ramachandran, Founder & CEO, Facilio Inc, makes a checklist of important points for start-up founders and funding
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India has extraordinary potential to grow and blossom businesses, including the small ones. And this is something that the international investors are realizing and acknowledging. The latest testimony of this statement is provided with the instance of Facilio which is a Facilities Management Tech start-up offering the world's first unified IOT and AI-driven facilities optimization software.
Recently this Indian start-up announced a funding of USD 6.4 million led by international venture capitalists Tiger Global Management, LLC and existing investor Accel. Tiger Global has several successful early stage investments in companies including Flipkart, Freshworks, Peloton and Invision. Accel is also a leading global venture capital firm with investments in ventures like Facebook, Slack, Flipkart and Freshworks among others.
Entrepreneur India in conversation Prabhu Ramachandran, Founder & CEO, Facilio Inc deconstructs the success of this start-up. Their mission is summed in a line, "As a company, we are persistent about leveraging technology to connect together the three integral parts of a building - people, sustainability, and machines - in real-time."
Expansion Driven Efforts
The success of Facilio deserves all the limelight. But the role of the founders or start-up doesn't end at funding. So what is the next step? Ramachandran says they are going to work on two things from here on- making their software suite more powerful and extensive and expanding their operations. "We will remain committed to our vision of helping CREs achieve continuous efficiency in real-time. And this means we'll be stepping on the gas to expand Facilio's product offering, improve our machine learning infrastructure to produce more predictive models of building performance, establish AI-driven RPA capabilities to unlock long existing pain points, and much more."
The action plan, of course, doesn't end here. The funding will also allow Facilio to pursue expansion in operations across the US, Middle East, and other territories. They will also be setting up regional sales and support offices to focus on customer success and partner training while also investing in R&D for product innovation.
The Road Ahead
2019 is eagerly knocking at the doorstep. But the business plan is already ready. "We're hoping to be at the forefront of leading the tech-driven transformation in the built world." Ramachandran and the co-founders of Facilio have a tunnel vision of where they see themselves going. "Facilio's goal is to empower CREs to not only be proactive but also become efficient value-partners. Our vision is to facilitate a disruptive evolution in the facilities management space, similar to the transformation in e-commerce, ride sharing and travel stay."
Ramachandran also highlights that the potential of AI & IoT driven solutions to bring in real-time OPEX efficiencies and sustainability, savings and ROI, without high upfront costs is very high. But institutions and enterprise customers have opted to adopt their holistic and modern facilities optimization solution which that they are realizing it's increasingly tangible benefits - perhaps an important milestone for the Facilio team.
A Checklist to Convince Investors
Ramachandran gives a checklist for things that would help convince investors to fund the start-up.
Identify the gap and build distinctive products with a clear vision and execution.
Strong team
A sharp go-to-market strategy
Finesse in product execution
