Indus OS Raises Funds for Product Development, Hiring New Talent

Indus OS, a startup which has created a regional operating system, on Wednesday said it has raised an undisclosed amount from new investors JSW Ventures and VenturEast in recently-concluded financing round. Omidyar Network, an existing investor, has also participated in the latest round.

"The amount which has been raised will be used for product development and hiring new talent," Indus OS CEO & co-founder Rakesh Deshmukh told PTI.

Deshmukh added, "The faith shown by the prestigious funds such as JSW Ventures, VenturEast, and continuous support of Omidyar Network, will help us achieve our vision of empowering the next 1 billion Indian users with a smartphone ecosystem of their choice. Funds from Series A2 will be invested to hire top industry talent and further product development and innovation. We are already in talks with international and Chinese smartphone brands for the launch of our next version - Indus OS 3.0, which we believe will revolutionise the Indian smartphone industry."

The company would also invest in language technology to cover all Indian languages. Indus OS supports 12 Indian languages at present.

Earlier, Indus OS had raised $5 million funding led by Omidyar Network and angel funded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal from Snapdeal, Amit Gupta and Naveen Tiwari from Inmobi and Pranay Chulet from Quikr, according to the company.

Currently, Indus OS has seven million users across its smartphone brand partners including Micromax, Intex, Karbonn, Celkon, and Swipe.

Indus OS will soon be opening an office in China to further its efforts to partner with international smartphone brands.