BRAIIN Holdings, the New York-based artificial intelligence and robotics firm, is making a strategic entry into the Indian market. BRAIIN has acquired Exato.ai, a prominent Indian CXaaS (customer service-as-a-service) company, serving as a strategic foundation for BRAIIN’s operations in India. With this acquisition, the company has bolstered its presence in the customer experience and employee experience as a service sector, along with increasing its revenue. The company did not reveal the value of the transaction.
After initially focusing on the agriculture sector, the company tactically diversified into other sectors, such as customer experience in the service industry, fintech, and telecom, expanding its domain expertise.
‘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 Nataraj Balasubramanian, Chief Executive Officer, BRAIIN Holdings, in an interview. ‘India is a great market. It’s been doing really well as far as the gross domestic product (GDP) is concerned.’
Balasubramanian said BRAIIN sees a lot of potential in the Asia-Pacific region, and India is a critical market for innovation in the fields of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and data analytics. In the near future, he said that BRAIIN intends to make a number of acquisitions, in order to provide cutting-edge technologies in areas such as agriculture, telecommunications, and service sectors. He said this demonstrates BRAIIN’s commitment to the Indian market, allowing Indian consumers to utilize AI and machine learning across industries.
‘The (capital) would be used towards mergers and acquisitions and creating new jobs,’ said Balasubramanian. ‘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 (Customer Relationship Management),’ said Balasubramanian.
Through several synergistic acquisitions, the company’s market capitalization 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 Dr. 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.’
BRAIIN is also in conversations with the Indian government to introduce such technologies in the area of agriculture at a large scale. It is also looking to tap areas such as tea and rubber plantations.
‘We are also in talks with senior government officials, and we are seeking their collaboration in terms of how we can bring these innovative solutions here,’ said Sinha of Exato.ai.
BRAIIN’s overall growth plans will be centred on continued R&D and sales across divisions, robotics and IoT growth, and robotics in mining. While going public is underway, this will enable the EBITDA-positive tech company to access a much larger pool of capital and create greater awareness and adoption of its products. The company currently has over 340 employees and offices in six countries.
BRAIIN leverages technologies such as AI and ML (Machine Learning), 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 like Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Southeast Asia, they are still using farming methodologies, which are about 100 years old,’ said Balasubramanian. ‘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.’
This is enabling the firm to address problems related to water, various diseases, and fertilizers. However, the data is useless if the connectivity is not good and if there are not enough cell towers in the hinterlands. One of BRAIIN’s divisions also specializes in last-mile connectivity. This includes installing mobile towers and uploading the data to provide actionable insights to the farmers.
‘Our sensors then collect data like soil health, moisture, and weather and analyse patterns,’ said Balasubramanian.