[Tech30] With Zorro, Aryabhatta Robotics offers computer vision, edge computing by leveraging AI

The Zorro platform enables retailers to leverage competitive insights through in-store data. It also helps schools to run classroom behaviour studies, and restaurants to engage their customers better.

Three years ago when Alok Mishra and Sankara Srinivasan sold their real estate startup Realty Compass in an all-stock and part cash deal to Quikr, they realised that starting up made better sense than to continue working for a larger enterprise.

After a small stint in Quikr, in 2016, both went on their own way to discover what was happening in the industry.

Sankara, a Chartered Accountant went on to become a finance expert. Alok, on the other hand, consulted with technology startups and technically, was also scouting for an opportunity to start up.

The next big idea

In January 2017, Sankara received a call from Alok who said he had found their next big idea. It revolved around computer vision and edge computing, and thus Aryabhatta Robotics was born in July 2017.

Twenty months later, Aryabhatta Robotics was selected by Your Story as one of the 30 hottest startups in the country, and is part of the company's Tech30. Aryabhatta's face analysis and recognition solutions make it a prominent AI business in India. Its Zorro platform enables retailers to leverage competitive insights through its in-store data. The platform helps schools in running classroom behaviour studies and can even help restaurants to engage their customers better.

Recognition for security

Imagine walking into your office and having your attendance marked by a computer that is analysing every employee’s face. It can also recognise visitors and inform the security or the concierge about important guests and raise tickets for security threats.

“Our algorithm is able to triangulate an individual. We train it to recognise an individual's movements, with facial recognition being our strength. We don't stop here, we help retailers and other institutions understand how they can win a loyal customer, what should be done to train an employee, the attention spans of a student. The applications are endless,” says Sankara, co-founder of Aryabhatta Robotics.

Think about the algorithm as the all-encompassing eye. Some of you may think it is a big brother kind of tech from a science fiction movie, but, it replaces the need for finger-based biometrics or also an Iris sensor.

Technology for accuracy

Built on Google’s Tensorflow - a Math library for software programming - its core technology was trained using painstaking manually labelled Indian faces to achieve the best accuracy in the market. It has profiled more than a thousand faces for the machine to learn about identifying individuals.

So essentially, it works this way. Once your photograph is uploaded onto the company's system by human resources, the platform takes over and always recognises your presence in the office or retail space.

The other co-founder of the company, Soumya Mohapatra joined in early 2017 to build the tech with Alok and test the algorithm. Soumya stress tested the company's algorithm to a scale and handle multiple scenarios.

The startup has about five pilots running in the retail and identification industry. They have three steady customers. Since the company has just started generating revenues, the founders do not want to disclose their revenues until the end of the year. The founders have invested Rs 40 lakh in the business and are looking at raising Rs 3 crore soon.

“We want to test the pilots here and scale up globally as insights are something every industry pay for. Today, algorithms can change the way we perceive work, it makes us efficient in service and increases revenues at the same time,” says Sankara.

Gartner says the Global Artificial Intelligence Business will reach $1.2 trillion in 2018. Global business value derived from artificial intelligence (AI) is projected to total $1.2 trillion in 2018, an increase of 70 percent from 2017.

“The business of value is what startups have to think about, it's not always about the prowess of technology,” says V Ganapathy CEO of Axilor Ventures.

Aryabhatta, just like the ancient astronomer, could jump time to become a valuable startup.