US unmanned aircraft have Bangalore-based Serial Innovations to thank for helping them send live video feeds smoothly. This technology start-up has developed products that helps stabilise video feeds coming from UAS.
Serial Innovations founder and CEO Arvind Lakshmikumar said they developed these systems for Europe’s biggest defence company, which in turn sold them to the US Army. However, for 35-year-old Lakshmikumar, the main mission is to build visual sensing systems which sense, analyse and control complex environments for Indian defence.
“Our imaging systems are 40-50% cheaper compared to the products imported from Israel, US and Europe,” said Lakshmikumar, a PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University of USA. Their products include night vision goggles and smart thermal cameras. With annual revenues of around $2.2M (Rs 10 core), 20 employees and 15 pending patents, the firm’s clients include the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Mahindra Satyam as well as the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US.
Mumbai Angels , a group of early-stage investors, injected $0.5M (Rs 2.2 crore) into Serial Innovations this year. “They are doing lot of innovations and have a clear business strategy. Unlike being a copy cat firm, they have already built intellectual property,” said Sasha Mirchandani, managing partner at Kae Capital and co-founder of Mumbai Angels. The Indian video surveillance and security for infrastructures security market is growing at 20-30% annually.
As per an Assocham report, the security industry should reach $11BN this year. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Lakshmikumar used to work at companies such as Intelligent Automation and Honeywell in the US. There, he built various imaging technologies for major defence contractors such as Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. These technologies were then used by the US defence and space agency NASA.
“It was a lucrative job, but I was not satisfied, I wanted to come back,” said Lakshmikumar, who relocated to India in 2003 to head the India operations of the US-based Sarnoff Corporation. However, soon Lakshmi kumar’s home-coming dreams became a hard struggle for survival. Sarnoff had to wind up its India operations due to technology transfer is sues, as it was a direct source of imaging systems and cameras to the US defence. Lakshmikumar bought out 95% of the subsidiary along with his friend and partner Tim Mitchell.
Source: The Economic Times