Kaha, an IoT platform startup based out of India and Singapore, has announced closure of a $6.2Mn Series B round of funding. The round was led by ICT Fund, a specialized deep-tech venture capital fund and an existing strategic investor from Europe.
Founded in 2015, KaHa provides consumers with its proprietary end-to-end IoT platform for smart wearables including electronics design, printed circuit board assembly, application framework for iOS and Android, cloud services, data analytics and smart after-sales service tool. The platform enables partners and customers to incorporate the latest technology without prohibitive financial costs and speed up their go-to-market time for smart products including smart bands, smartwatches, smart accessories and smart apparel.
With in-built Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms, COVE — a product from Kaha — provides innovative, exciting and personalized user experiences and enhanced engagement with consumers.
Talking about the fresh fund-raise, Kaha’s Founder and CEO Pawan Gandhi says, “Apart from helping us expand our product line, this new round of funding will allow KaHa to discover more breakthrough products that can support the health and wellness, sports and fitness, safety and digital payments needs, as well as increase the COVE platform’s availability internationally and improve our accessibility and affordability. Gandhi further adds, “With the continued support of our existing strategic investor and new partner ICT Fund, we are strategically positioned to make our mission possible.”
The funds raised in this round will primarily be deployed to boost the company’s overall R&D efforts, and scale its operations in the Asia Pacific region. APAC is the world’s fastest growing smart wearables market, outperforming Europe, the Americas and Africa, and hence, is a core focus point for the company. Additionally, KaHa will be expanding its presence in Singapore. This year, the firm launched the COVE R2C IoT Innovation Lab, a multipartite IoT innovation and research lab in one-north technology hub.
Kaha is also one of the companies to be involved in the development of smart-T, the much talked about smart t-shirt from Singapore. The smart-T, which was tested at the one-north Run 2018, monitors live ECG, live heart rate, heart rate variance, V02 Max and other health parameters.
KaHa is showing significant early customer traction and expects the number of devices powered by its platform to exceed two million by the end of 2019. The company also aims to increase manpower in its Singapore headquarters and offices in China, India and Switzerland within the next two years, as part of the expansion plans.
The global wearables market is projected to grow significantly. According to CCS Insight, sale of smart wearables is predicted to grow at a ~16.5 percent CAGR, from 121 million units in 2018 to 260 million units in 2023, creating a market opportunity worth almost US$30 billion.
