Nandan Nilekani Invests In Robotics Firm Systemantics

Bangalore-based robotics firm, Systemantics, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from existing investor Accel Partners, and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, reported ET.

Systemantics develops robots and custom automation solutions for industries. It was founded in 1995 by IIT Madras alumnus, Jagannath Raju. In the year 2000, the company reoriented its focus towards developing products in the robotics market.

Since its inception, Systemantics has worked on custom robotics projects with the Government, and companies, such as Titan and Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL). It aims to to enable widespread adoption of flexible automation in industry, for tedious and mentally fatiguing or hazardous tasks that humans are ill-suited to perform, as evidenced by high labour turnover.

Prior to this, Blume Ventures had backed Systemantics in 2013. Sanjay Nath, managing partner at Blume Ventures, said, “Systemantics is Make In India truly at work — with India’s cost structure advantages and innovative design efficiency at full strength. This core belief drove our decision to back them. Their seasoned management team’s executional ability, coupled with deep-tech IP, could eventually challenge global incumbents.”

Nandan Nilekani has been actively investing in early-stage startups. Prior to this, in February 2016, Tracxn Technologies Pvt. Ltd. raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a group of angel investors including Nandan Nilekani, Mohandas Pai, and others. Nilekani has also backed Team Indus, Fortigo, Mubble, Juggernaut, and Power2SME.

The investment in Systemantics comes at a time when early-stage investments in India are on a high, but homegrown unicorns such as Flipkart are struggling to raise follow-on rounds, amid fears of a valuation bubble. Earlier this month, Flipkart’s investor Morgan Stanley, marked down the price of the unicorn’s share by 27%.

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