Funds to be utilized in market expansion & new product development by the company
The fast-growing marine robotics start-up based in Kochi, EyeROV, recently announced that it has secured Pre-Series A funding. Led by the founder of V-Guard and Wonderla Group of Companies, Kochouseph Chittilappilly, the funding round also saw NIDHI Seed Support Scheme (Venture Centre, Pune) of the DST, GoI and a few other angel investors as participants. On its fifth anniversary, KSUM CEO Anoop Ambika also launched EyeROV’s new products — EyeROV TURT and EyeROV iBOAT ALPHA — at the Kerala Technology Innovation Zone.
The 2016-born startup specified that the fresh funds will be utilized to usher in the resources needed for expanding the existing market reach, developing new products, and adding new industry verticals. It said: EyeROV will be developing new unmanned water robotics systems for the Marine, Oil & Gas and Defense sectors. EyeROV is building an advanced version of ROV, Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV).
Interestingly, EyeROV has developed India’s first commercial underwater drone. The startup founded by Johns T Mathai and Kannappa Palaniappan— both alumni of premier Indian institutes— was initially incubated in Kerala Startup Mission and Maker Village. It was later seed-funded by BPCL and GAIL.
EyeROV is emerging robotics and AI startup, building unmanned underwater vehicles/robots. The website states that they have built a highly portable and customizable Underwater Inspection Class Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) / Underwater Drone which can perform underwater inspections of infrastructures in a safer and efficient manner. EyeROV sells indigenously developed underwater drones/ROV to Defense, Research, and Disaster Management Organizations and also provides underwater inspection services.
