Tech-driven startup Vahanalytics that aims at making Indian roads safer and better has raised $200 USD through Venture Catalysts, led by Vikram Lakhotia and Anirudh Damani.
On-road transportation efficiency has been one of the biggest concerns lately with many tech giants increasingly imploring driverless smart cars as a viable medium. This investment is taking one step towards that enhancement on a local scale.
Shivalik Sen, Co-founder, Vahanalytics, said, “We started out as an on-demand driver service and built a driving analytics module to help track and train our drivers. While doing so, we 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 in areas which require improvement.”
“Seeing how this tool could have a number of use-cases across industries such as transportation, logistics, and insurance, we spoke to several businesses and received an overwhelming response for the idea. This was what made us go all in with VA,” Sen added.
Launched in 2016 by Shivalik Sen, Arun Gandhi, Nikhil Tavora and Someshwar Dash, the company aims to make drivers and roads better through smarter data and machine learning. It captures real-time data about driving habits and road conditions using smartphones, which is then processed and refined by leveraging the power of Big Data in order to extract useful insights.
Earlier this month, the founders sold their brand “Driven” to DriversKart in order to focus fully on Vahanalytics.
Vikram Lakhotia, managing director of Standard Transport Corporation and one of the investors, said, “Vahanalytics’ solutions address a major industry pain point by improving both fuel efficiency and road condition monitoring through smart technology and data analytics.”
Anirudh Damani, Partner – Artha India Ventures, said, “India is currently the road accident capital of the world, and with urban transport witnessing a rapid growth, there was an urgent requirement for a smart solution that can aid in improving the extant road conditions. Vahanalytics has created a low-cost, high-value product that can seamlessly collect information on key driver metrics and identify bad drivers from the good through scientific analysis. We have complete faith in Vahanalytics and their approach to analyse how proficient the person in the driving seat realistically is.”
Venture Catalysts has previously enabled investments into promising start-ups such as vPhrase Analytics, Siftr, ConfirmTKT, and LenDenClub. The key emerging areas have been Fintech, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security, and Data-driven Intelligent Software.
