Haptik To Raise INR 50 Cr From Reliance, Gets First Tranche

Update: September 12, 2020 |

Haptik received the second tranche of INR 18 Cr from Reliance’s Jio Platforms. According to the ministry of corporate affairs filings, Haptik has allocated 22,50,000 equity to the Mukesh Ambani-led company.

Mumbai-based conversational AI assistant Haptik is securing cash from its parent company, Reliance Industries. 

According to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs filings accessed by Inc42, the company in a board meeting on May 29, decided to offer and issue upto 62,50,000 equity shares with a face value of INR 10 and premium of INR 70, worth INR 50 Cr to Reliance Industries in multiple tranches. The first tranche of the deal came in on June 17, with Reliance securing 15 Lakh equity shares with a face value of  INR 10 and premium of INR 70, worth INR 12 Cr.

Founded in 2013 by Aakrit Vaish and Swapan Rajdev, Haptik lets customers chat with voice assistants to complete daily tasks such as online shopping, travel bookings, food delivery among others. The company claims to have reached over 100 Mn devices and processed more than 2 Bn conversations to date. Some of its clients and enterprise partners include Samsung, OYO, KFC, Coca-Cola, Tata Group, and Club Mahindra among others.  

In April 2019, Reliance Jio had announced acquiring 87% stake in Haptik for about $100 Mn. At that time,  the company said that this partnership will give a boost to Haptik’s existing enterprise-grade business, as it continues to build innovative AI solutions for corporates globally. 

With the deal, Reliance Jio is looking to leverage Haptik’s capabilities across various devices and touchpoints in the consumer’s journey. Reliance said that the investment focus is on the enhancement and expansion of the platform, with an addressable market opportunity of over 1 Bn users in India.

Since then, the company has acquired two startups:

• July 2019: Haptik acquired Los Angeles-based conversational AI startup Convrg, to strengthen its operations in North America. 
• September 2019: Haptik acquired an AI recommendation chatbot Buzzo.ai for around $3 Mn – $4 Mn.

The global conversational AI market is expected to reach $15.7 Bn by 2024, as compared to $4.2 Bn in 2019. Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of the sector is predicted to be 30.2% between 2019 to 2024.

In its Annual Tech Startup Funding Report for 2019, DataLabs by Inc42 noted that VCs and angel funds preferred to play it safe in the deeptech sector. The total funding for deeptech in 2019 was $136.14 Mn, which is slightly lower than the $152 Mn in 2018. While in the context of the overall ecosystem, the fall is not that significant, for the nascent deeptech sector, it’s a big drop.