myGate secures Rs 65 Cr in fresh funding; to expand operations to 10 cities
Bengaluru-based security management solution for gated premises myGate on Monday announced it has raised Rs 65 crore in Series A funding led by existing investor Prime Venture Partners. The company said other investors in the round included friends and family keen to invest in the startup.
The news comes almost 10 months after myGate announced it had raised Rs 16 crore from early-stage venture fund Prime Venture Partners.
Started in 2016, the startup plans to use a majority of the funds to expand its offerings to more than 10 cities, including Chennai, Mumbai, and Delhi NCR, and scaling to 2.9 million users by the end of 2019.
To support this expansion, the company will increase its team strength taking the total employee count to 200 by end of 2019. At present, myGate caters to 250,000 homes across over 1000 communities in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune.
Vijay Arisetty, co-founder and CEO, myGate says,
“Technology is pervasive and it was only a matter of time for the security at gated communities to be transformed using smart and intelligent solutions. We believe in innovation, quality service and trust and will use the funds to invest in technology to further enhance our state-of-art, cost-effective security solutions."
myGate is a mobile app-based system that offers a comprehensive solution for gated communities to manage operations at entry and exit gates and has automated tasks. The system is interactive, and provides residents transparency and control, acting as a cheaper alternative to RFID cards, fingerprint biometrics, access cards, vehicle stickers, etc.
The founders state that the entire process takes three to four days to set up, which includes training security guards to make them familiar with the app. Requiring only basic skills for operation, more than 25,000 guards have been trained to use myGate security solution.
At present, the company is onboarding close to 50,000 apartments every month, and is looking to add close to 9,000 communities over the next 16 months. According to the founders, myGate charges Rs 6000- Rs 10,000 from every community per month.
Speaking on the investment, Sanjay Swamy, Managing Partner, Prime Venture Partners, said,
“We have been consistently impressed with myGate. Customers love the product and the team is passionate and singularly focused on solving the problems of security in gated communities.”
At present, the company is adding a few features, and the founders said they will be released in the last quarter of 2019. Until then, the company is only looking at expanding its product nationally.
Some of the features that will be added include piloting with voice commands, and creating newer features which remove information asymmetry (like maids and services) in the community.
Features at present include child safety alert, e-intercom for visitor authentication, parcel management, real-time domestic help management, staff attendance management, multi-home management, digital validation of all staff and residents, and multi-tiered access system.