Hyderabad-based startup iBot aims at driving IoT-led innovation for Indian businesses

A lot has already been said and written about how Internet of Things (IoT) is the tech trend of the future. Big tech giants and startups alike are trying to leverage the technology and get everything we use in our day-to-day lives connected. iBot Control Systems is one such Hyderabad-based company in the startup space that claims to be on a mission to drive IoT innovation for Indian businesses in alignment with the Make in India initiative. This B2B IoT startup is working with Microsoft across three continents and also bags a position among Nasscom’s Top 5 Iconic Startups in India. In a year, founder Ravi Subramanyam aims at making iBot world’s pioneering company in the IoT space. Subramanyam said it was during a conversation with a CEO (of a large durables company) that he realised consumer durables companies or manufacturers were losing a lot sales and services were channel driven and had no consumer connect. This resulted into misplaced warranties and losses. This gave birth to iBot Control Systems in 2011. “iBot was started with the objective of connecting manufacturers and owners of products/machines with themselves, thereby enabling two-way chatter which would lead to improved efficiencies and better consumer satisfaction,” he tells us. It basically builds products, presents solutions and finally invoices for managed IoT services. The revenue model includes one-time fee for setup and activation of the connected processor and a then recurring subscription fee for a machine/month. “The business/revenue model of providing a managed service and charging subscriptions makes sure that we are as much tied in to our customers as they are into our technology. iBot is a winning proposition with global scale opportunities,” adds Subramanyam. iBot was one of the 11 startups chosen (from 1400 applicants) by Microsoft Ventures for its Spring 2015 batch. It was a later stage startup and its journey with Microsoft began with the four month program. “We could associate with the synergy and didn’t look at it like a startup. “During the program, we introduced them to Microsoft’s head of enterprise sales of India. We found the technology a good way to bundle with our products. The India journey then started replicating outside the country,” Ravi Narayan of Microsoft Ventures tells us.

“At Microsoft Ventures, there’s a gamut of support we provide all the way from mentoring to technology enablement, market support, access to funding, investors,” Ravi adds. But IoT is still at a nascent stage and caters to niche audiences. The journey for iBot too hasn’t been very smooth venturing into this no-so-well-known territory. “One of the major hurdle iBot had was to design a platform that could be used for multiple purposes; and especially, one that could connect with any kind of product or machine. Conventionally, most electronic devices were designed for single or specific purposes only, such Xbox for gaming, a Wi-Fi router for hotspots, etc,” adds Subramanyam. While early stage funding and mentoring is important, the problems get even deeper and grave when startups move ahead in their journey. That’s where Microsoft Ventures wants to make a difference. “We found that there are not too many companies that provide support after a point. We have a scaleup program for startups looking to scale beyond initial prototyping of technology as they look to make the prototype a business model. Then there are high potential companies that are pretty much in the mainstream. There are newer hurdles like they’ve never raised extremely large amount of money earlier, not build two products at a time, want to go beyond the boundaries of India. So, there is a certain dimension of complexity that they want to get past. This puts us in a position wherein we aren’t competing with any other incubators and accelerators. In fact, they look at us as partners to take some of their graduates,” Ravi explains. Subramanyam points out that most electronic device manufacturers do not care about security at the hardware level. “When we talk about connecting physical objects that can perform autonomous functions (doors, access gates, refrigerators, power generators, etc.), the thought of an intrusion is potentially more dangerous, when compared to a virus attack on an email,” he explains. iBot claims to ensure that industrial grade technology is deployed, and security is part of the design and not an afterthought. He further adds that this has been possible due to cloud computing and platforms such as Azure. “Microsoft Ventures’ program has helped us in more ways that we can ever describe. It was the launchpad for iBot to get everything right – the business model, the market focus, our GTM with Microsoft, continued guidance and support for various other growth opportunities,” adds Subramanyam. The bootstrapped company that spent the first two years in garage with two employees, now has a team of 25 today.