Online consultancy startup Akosha raises Rs.100 crore

Product information portal and online helpdesk Akosha has successfully raised $16 million or Rs. 100 crore in a funding round. The round was led by existing investor Sequoia Capital that has resulted in the Delhi-based startup’s value to become around $70-80 million. Currently, the company has raised about $21.5 million and has a workforce of around 250 workers – a number that it plans to double this year with the funding received.

“Funding will be used to hire over 200 software engineers and product managers, mostly in Bengaluru. We plan to raise another $50 million in this year to scale up more,” said Ankur Singla, co-founder at Coraza Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs web portals Akosha and OneDirect.

Akosha may soon shift its base of operations from Delhi to Bengaluru as Singla believes that the tech capital of the country has a better scope of talent in context to Akosha’s expansion. The tech startup uses a B2C Android application and currently faces competition from Haptik, LookUp and Yellow Messenger.

“We have always believed that consumers need a better way to interact with businesses. We are inspired by the vision of Akosha becoming a single destination on the smartphone for users to interact with hundreds of businesses and online services,” said Shailendra Singh, managing director of Sequoia Capital India Advisors.

For Sequoia Capital, this is the third time they have participated in a funding round for Akosha. Their first step was a seed investment worth $200,000 in 2011.

Akosha also runs an online complaints redressal forum as well. Besides that, it also has a B2B helpdesk software platform called OneDirect that faces competition from Airwoot, Freshdesk, Zendesk and Kayako.