 "AI firm BRAIIN Holdings forays into India, plans to invest $100 million")
New York-based artificial intelligence and robotics firm BRAIIN Holdings is entering the Indian market and has acquired prominent CXaaS (customer experience-as-a-service) company Exato.ai which serves as a strategic foundation for its operations in India.
With this acquisition, the company has bolstered its presence in the customer and employee experience as a service sector along with increasing its revenue. It did not reveal the value of the transaction.
“We think India is a huge market for this. We've committed about $100 million towards expansion into the Indian market over the first eight months,” said Natraj Balasubramanian, chief executive officer, BRAIIN Holdings.
“India is a great market. It's been doing really well as far as the GDP (gross domestic product) is concerned,” he said in an interview.
Balasubramanian said the firm sees a lot of potential in the Asia Pacific region, and India is a critical market for innovation in the fields of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), and data analytics.
In the near future, BRAIIN intends to make a number of acquisitions in order to provide cutting-edge technologies in areas such as agriculture, telecommunications, and services sectors, he said.
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"The (capital) would be used towards mergers and acquisitions and creating new jobs. As the market continues to experience rapid growth, we are even looking to expand our presence into adjacent markets, such as marketing technology, automated processes, and CRM,” he added.
Through several synergistic acquisitions, the company's market capitalisation increased from $215 million to $572 million over the past six months.
“We are excited to join forces with BRAIIN. This partnership will allow us to scale up our innovations and bring value to a broader audience,” said Appuorv Sinha, CEO, Exato.ai.
“BRAIIN's entry into India is set to be a game-changer in the country's technological ecosystem, with the infusion of capital, expertise, and innovation. We are hoping to catalyse significant progress in the fields of agriculture, telecommunications, and the services industry,” Sinha said.
The AI firm is in conversations with the Indian government to introduce such technologies in the area of agriculture on a large scale. It is also looking to tap into the areas of tea and rubber plantations.
The firm leverages technologies such as AI and ML, IoT, and robotics to deliver actionable intelligence to its clients in agriculture, telecom, and the service industry. These technology solutions are also helping farmers cultivate crops with precision, increasing yields, decreasing inputs and providing environmental sustainability.
“When you look at countries India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and in Africa and Southeast Asia, they are still using farming methodologies, which are about 100 years old,” said Balasubramanian.
“The drones are hot now in the Indian market and the government is giving a big push. We not only use drones but other mediums as well such as satellites and IoT, to get data. We have a full holistic solution that we provide to the farmers. Even if you get all this data you need to be able to put it up on the cloud and run AI and ML to do a lot of predictive modelling for providing actionable intelligence to the farmers,” he said.
This enables the firm to address problems related to water, various diseases and fertilisers. However, the data is useless if the connectivity is not good and if there are not enough cell towers in the hinterlands. One of the BRAIIN’s divisions also specialises in last-mile connectivity. This includes installing mobile towers and uploading the data to provide actionable insights to the farmers.