Tech Solutions for Traffic Woes: Mohandas Pai Proposes Digital Twin to Decongest Cities Former Infosys CFO and Chairman Mohandas Pai at Aarin Capital called for taking advantage of technology and creating a digital twin for Bengaluru to assess and study the city's traffic woes at the Move In Sync Mobility Symposium 2024.
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Former Infosys CFO and Chairman Mohandas Pai at Aarin Capital called for taking advantage of technology and creating a digital twin for Bengaluru to assess and study the city's traffic woes at the Move In Sync Mobility Symposium 2024.
Pai also insisted that the city is also in dire need of a 'three-month' clean-up program that might help the city function more efficiently.
Speaking on the sidelines, Pai told Entrepreneur India that the country needs to set up a minimum INR of 20,000 crore in environmental, social, and governance funds (ESG).
"With this fund, we need to invest in young ideas that solve for change. Technology is the key driver and we need to leverage technology to propel the country to meet the country's goals for COP27 or COP29 . We need more funds being put into technology."
According to the Impact Investors Council (IIC), funding in India has seen substantial growth, with investments crossing US$5.8 billion in 2022, a significant leap from US$1.1 billion in 2015.
RK Misra, Co-founder of Yulu Bikes and Founder of Centre for Smart Cities spoke about decongesting Indian cities at the event and told Entrepreneur India, his thoughts on the state of fund flow for smart mobility startups.
Misra said, "Most of the money coming into India is venture funds from abroad. Traditional family offices that hold funds within the country show little interest in making their funds flow. Venture Debt is always an option but there isn't enough in India and it is a very risky proposition."
Misra added that the foreign ESG funds always show tremendous interest in ideas like Yulu and global funds are looking to find ideas that are not only doing good in terms of impact but also perform financially.
Yulu has raised over US$124 million in equity funding and has deployed over 10,000 EVs across major cities, primarily addressing last-mile connectivity and sustainability concerns.
"The biggest problem when we went to raise funds was there was no corresponding business model that we could refer to. But we had a big problem statement that we could address," said Akash Maheshwari, Co-Founder and CTO of MoveInSync.
As a leading provider of employee transportation solutions. MoveInSync created a new sector that addressed very unique and India-specific problems. MoveInSync has raised over US$32.7 million in equity funding, with key investments from firms like Nexus Venture Partners, Athera Venture Partners, and SAIF Partners, and serves major enterprises like Google and Microsoft.
Deepesh Agarwal, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer said that with country-specific problems, funding trends usually follow the events that occur in the developed Markets.
"However, now we see a rise in interest to solve India-specific problems. Earlier a lot of funds would invest in ideas that had the potential of becoming a billion-dollar company from the get-go. But now in India, we have a lot of funds sized between US$100-200 million which is a sweet spot and the country offers a lot in terms of the companies you can create and the problems you can solve," added Agarwal.
