Indus OS raises $5 mn from Omidyar Network

Indus OS, a regional-language smartphone operating system, today said it has raised USD 5 million (about Rs 33.8 crore) funding from investors led by Omidyar Network.
The Series A funding will be used to invest in technology, recruit new talent and expand into international markets.
Formerly known as Firstouch, the company was founded by three IIT-Bombay graduates -- Rakesh Deshmukh (CEO), Akash Dongre (Head of Product) and Sudhir B (Head of Technology).
"We are looking at expanding our presence in Bangladesh and a few other countries," Deshmukh told PTI.
The company is also funded by angel investors like as Snapdeal co-founders Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl, Quikr founder Pranay Chulet and InMobi co-founders Naveen Tewari and Amit Gupta, Hari Padmanabhan and Mayank Singhal from Temasek.

Indus OS has developed its indigenous operating system with a simple user interface, deep integration of language and technology and App Bazaar (a mobile application store targeting the regional-language audience).

The company claims to have an installed user base of over 2 million and is the OS is available in 12 Indic languages.
Only 10 per cent of Indians count English as their first or second language but it dominates the country's Internet and mobile phones.
"We want to transform this landscape and place Indian Internet on a similar trajectory to that of China," Deshmukh said.
Indus OS aims to help users in discovering and using content in vernacular languages including Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Assamese and Urdu.

"Indus OS is well poised to reach 100 million users in the next three years and emerge as the leader in indigenous- language technology in emerging markets," Deshmukh said.
The company has partnerships with Micromax in India and Elite (a phone brand in Bangladesh).
"We plans to work with other domestic and global phone brands to bring digital connectivity to smaller urban centers, non-metro and rural areas," he said.
It has also signed an agreement with the Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY) to develop a native operating system with integrated text-to-speech technology in regional languages.