Nextbillion.ai, a startup that offers a wide range of AI-powered hyperlocal solutions, from business mapping to data management, announced that it has raised $7 million in Series A funding, led by Lightspeed India Partners and Falcon Edge Capital.
The company said that it will utilise the current financing to grow its team, product and R&D in future focus areas.
Founded in 2020 by Ajay Bulusu, Gaurav Bubna and Shaolin Zheng, NB.ai is headquartered in Singapore with offices in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Beijing. The startup is looking to build AI-based hyperlocal solutions, starting with mapping as its core offering.
The company said it was currently working with over 20 customers on a pilot basis, across industries such as social media, ride-hailing, food delivery, freight and logistics. Half of those customers are based in India, while the rest are spread across the United States, Southeast Asia and China.
“Mapping is our first use case, but as we progress in our journey, we want to get into more verticals with an AI-first approach. Natural language processing, facial recognition and cybersecurity will be some of these areas,” said Ajay Bulusu.
The latest investment will see Hemant Mohapatra, partner at Lightspeed, and Navroz Udwadia, co-founder and CEO of Falcon Edge Capital, join its board of directors.
“We have a lot of hyperlocal nuances. For instance, no company gives you a specific API for route optimisation of trucks, or autos, or two-wheelers. But the route a truck takes to deliver a package versus a bike might be significantly different,” added Bulusu.
While large players such as Google already exist in the mapping space, Nextbillion.ai is looking to build more tailored products for emerging markets, he said.
“We at Lightspeed are excited by the prospect of partnering with this team as they build a range of turnkey enterprise solutions around Maps, Facial AI and NLP to address the needs of the next billion consumers both in developing and developed markets,” said Hemant Mohapatra of Lightspeed Ventures said.
NB.ai provides enterprise location tools and API’s that help companies adopt a AI first approach to solving real business problems related to maps.
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