Greentech startup Zenatix raises $1.2M from pi Ventures, Blume

Zenatix helps enterprises save up to 30 per cent energy using its IoT- and Machine Learning-based solutions

Zenatix Solutions, an IoT- and Machine Learning-based  energy efficiency startup, has raised $1.2 million in pre-Series A round of funding. pi Ventures, an early-stage fund co-founded by seasoned investor Manish Singhal, led the round, with co-investment from existing investor Blume Ventures.

Earlier, Zenatix has received capital infusion from a group of angels, including Rahul Khanna (Trifecta Capital), Rajan Anandan (Google) and Snapdeal co-founders, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, in addition to Blume

Zenatix was co-founded by Rahul Bhalla, Vishal Bansal and Dr. Amarjeet Singh. It uses advanced machine learning based models and delivers 10 per cent to 30 per cnet energy efficiency to large commercial consumers of electricity. The models are built by collecting and analysing more than 30 million of previously unseen data points every day from electrical assets.

These models allow for automated and intelligent controls along with predictive and preventive maintenance of these assets, resulting in consistent and comfortable consumer experience in retail and banking sites while delivering high energy savings.

Zenatix aims to address the energy efficiency problem across a range of customers and eventually help grids turn smarter. Its flagship product WattMan addresses the problem for large retail chains and banking/financial set-ups. WattMan is built over a scalable Internet of Things (IoT) stack and includes robust connected hardware developed in-house by Zenatix through extensive research and development.

Given the distributed nature of retail/banking set-ups (hundreds of thousands of outlets/branches, spread across the country), having a control over the electricity spend and providing the right customer experience at the same time is a big challenge.

For example, in a Quick Service Restaurant (QSR), maintaining the right temperature in customer areas, kitchen areas and cold storages is crucial. Also, they need to make sure that all their air-conditioning, kitchen and refrigeration appliances are working optimally all the time. WattMan addresses these challenges in an automated manner through its cloud based intelligent controls driven by advanced machine learning algorithms.

WattMan has won 20 customers (large retail chains/banks) since its launch in April 2016. The company aims to continue adding more customers with additional focus on scaling up with the existing customers.

“We have a subscription based engagement model — the customer doesn’t have to pay anything upfront. It is a fixed annual fee whereby the energy efficiency benefit itself outweighs the fee. Additionally, there are multiple other benefits such as improved consumer experience and ability to automatically audit the usage of electricity. Typically, the customers become cash flow positive from 1st quarter itself,” said Rahul Bhalla, Co-founder and CEO, Zenatix.

The company is currently focused on Indian market, with a plan to expand internationally over next 6-12 months. The current round of capital will be used primarily for hiring across all its functions, viz., Technology, Product, Operations and Sales.

Speaking about the company and opportunity, Manish Singhal, Founding Partner of pi Ventures said, “Zenatix’s integrated approach of building connected hardware, with sophisticated machine learning algorithm to work on resulting dark data generated is what will set them apart. In India cost of electricity is same as in the US, despite the purchasing power parity. Thus it’s a big space with plenty of innovation & upside possibility, given the kind of data, Zenatix is starting to lay its hands on. Current use case of Wattman is a great one, which allows them to sustainably get good quality data sets, while building deep customer value. As they amass more richer data sets, we should be able to tap into predictive insights for equipment and energy usage for their customers”

Rahul further added, “One obvious solution for solving world’s electricity problem is to increase the generation capacity. However, since the demand for electricity is increasing much faster than the supply, only sustainable solution is energy efficiency. Zenatix is committed towards delivering data driven energy efficiency with the aim of building a sustainable planet. We are now at an inflection point in our journey. We worked hard in 2016 to streamline our product offering and value proposition. We now have a strong base of almost 20 customers, each of whom have a very large presence across the country. The money can now be used to expand the customer base and deliver additional value from the product in an automated fashion.”