Unicorn India Ventures invests in radio startup Inntot Technologies

Our Correspondent

Kerala-based technology-driven startup Inntot, which aims to provide a cost-effective and high-quality digital media broadcast receiver solutions across the globe, has raised an undisclosed amount from the bridge or the second round of investments from Unicorn India Ventures. Unicorn India had first seeded the company in 2018.

Inntot focuses on providing high quality and cost-effective IP solutions for next generation digital media broadcast receivers, namely, Digital Radio Mondiale (for AM and FM bands), DAB/DAB+, CDR, ISDB-T, and HD-Radio receivers in collaboration with Xperi.

The company plans to use the funds to procure highly sophisticated and precision digital radio test equipment that is required for RF and timing performance testing for all the digital radio broadcast receiver standards, such as DRM, DAB/DAB+, HD-Radio, and CDR.

Inntot was incorporated in 2014 by Prasanth Thankappan, the company’s CTO, and Rajith Nair, Co-founder and CEO. The company’s SDR receiver solutions cover a wide range of digital radio broadcast standards and geographies, such as DRM in India, Russia, South Africa, and Indonesia; DAB/DAB+ in Europe, Australia, and the Middle East; HD-Radio in USA, Canada, and Mexico; and CDR in China.

“Our objective is to enable Inntot to provide high quality and cost-effective Digital Radio Broadcast Receiver solutions across all geographies, and it can be inside cars, houses or smart phones. The continued support from Unicorn India is a testament to the success we have achieved so far and the growth plans that are chalked out for the next two years,” said Mr. Nair.

The current Digital Radio Broadcast receiver solutions in market require dedicated chips that are high in costs and are used to perform complex operations like demodulation in hardware, thus making the end solution very costly. Such high costs prevent swift penetration into emerging and high-volume markets like India, the EU, South Africa, Russia, China and Indonesia where the usage of DRM, DAB and CDR technologies is mandated by governments and broadcasters.

The USP of Inntot is that its SDR implementation, along with patented improvisations, runs on ARM processors, making it high-quality and cost-effective for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and bringing down the receiver cost within the reach of the common man.

Inntot has licensed its digital radio receiver solutions to multiple Tier-1 customers, including Clarion and Telechips.

Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures, said, “We entered Inntot two years back and since then have seen the company’s growth and its ability to create IP which will work in global markets like the US, Europe and China. We have extended this additional funding so that they can develop more IPs and scale up faster. It is the only company in India which can serve multiple bandwidths across different markets.”

Inntot Technologies is a technology-driven company with prime focus on enabling cost- effective and high-quality next generation digital media receivers. The company has SDR IP Solutions for Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM in AM and FM bands) Receivers, DAB/DAB+ Receivers, CDR Receivers, ISDB-Receivers and is all set to play a pivotal role in the Analog Sunset of AM and FM broadcast radio transmission paving way to Digital Radio Transmission in the near future.

Inntot is a winner of several prestigious awards, including ASSOCHAM 4th ICT startup awards 2020, Digital Radio Mondiale Enterprise Award 2019 and CII Industrial Innovation Awards for the Best Service Start-up 2017. It is a member of Digital Radio Mondiale Consortium, WorldDAB and has collaboration with Xperi for HD-Radio receiver solutions.

Unicorn India Ventures (UIV) is a Mumbai-based VC that started in 2015 by Anil Joshi and Bhaskar Majumdar. The Fund has also launched a UK India cross-border fund for funding UK startups looking to enter India and has invested in seven UK startups. From its first Fund, UIV has invested in 18 companies like Inc42, Sequretek, Pharmarack, Genrobotics, NeuroEquilibrium, SmartCoin, Open Bank, and Open app, to name a few. Unicorn India has also announced Fund II, which is a Rs 400-crore fund launched in 2019. It has also marked its first close of Rs 90 cr and has announced six investments.