[Tech 30] Orvito Technologies harnesses IoT to help companies save on energy

Every large technology corporate today is investing in the Internet of Things (IoT) framework. IoT is nothing but a network of devices that communicate with the external environment or with each other. Gartner Inc. predicts that there will be 6.4 billion devices connected by the end of 2016 and this number is expected to go up 20 billion devices connected in the year 2020 alone. The total size of IoT services currently is $235 billion globally and consist of large industrial applications.

Along with the numbers even the likes of Cisco and IBM began saying that IoT is going to usher in a digital age. This is when startups began to take a major interest in building devices that could serve businesses and consumers. Orvito Technologies was born in 2012 after Mohan Vellanki and Satish Vankayalapti realised that they could build a framework (hardware and software) for enterprises and institutions to save on energy, go high on security and also manage multiple devices with their product. They also offer a cloud platform on which all the data and devices can be managed. The notable thing about this company is that they have built their proprietary hardware in India and are staying true to the Make in India campaign.

“We have worked on this product for four years and have spent considerable time in R&D,” Mohan explains. He worked as an engineer in a corporate while Satish has had two decades of consulting experience.

Their premise was that every year institutions spend crores of rupees on lighting and other facilities management expenses such as monitoring security, which is a very expensive business. If they could save at least five percent of the total cost, of the Rs 100 crore spent on energy and security, on an average, in a large organisation that operates in a 5,00,000sqft facility, then this would straight away go into the bottom line of the company that was using their solution.

Since 2012, the company has self-sustained its business and has implemented solutions in over ten corporate facilities and in over 200 homes. Its business model is to sell the devices and sign up long-term maintenance contracts. Although this startup has generated revenues, after all the time spent R&D, the founders did not wish for the numbers to be disclosed.

Orvito's product allows facilities managers to control the lighting in companies from anywhere and is accessed through tablets and mobile phones. The company's USP is in the hardware (manufactured and designed in India) and the software that is embedded in switches to connect to a central platform that offers a dashboard of asset usage in an app or a web-based service. They have been granted a USPTA approval for their products and are now planning to scale up across India and other markets. The company hopes being part of Tech30 too would help it achieve this goal.

Competition

They have competition from the likes of Altizion and Altiux, which provide IoT frameworks with a hardware and software play. There are companies like Bezirk, MobStac and Mobmerry that focus on the consumer side of the business and build devices. There is Purnatva, which is building its own hardware design and using IoT services to help schools track children's transit from home to school and back.

"All these companies need to figure out their target market and make sure that there is a consistent set of client base that uses their services," says V Ganapathy, CEO of Axilor Ventures.

While Orvito has figured out its services Mohan and Satish are out there to win more customers and want to raise $5 million to scale up their business globally. The company has been chosen in Tech30 because they have already created an ecosystem of business and consumers. Since they have gone to market with a business model, they will be a valuable company in years to come. YourStory chose the company because its products are unique and solve the need of a business (security and energy management) and can be a successful business in the long run.