[Funding alert] Retail AI startup SprintAI raises $500,000 from InMobi co-founder, others

Retail AI startup SprintAI on Friday said it has raised more than $500,000 from a clutch of angel investors with global enterprise SaaS and retail backgrounds.

These include Piyush Shah, Co-founder, InMobi Group; CS Suryanarayanan, ex-MD at Levis; Deepinder Singh, ex-CPO, MuSigma; Sachin Maheswari, Co-founder at EzCred; Amiya Pathak, Founder of Zipdial; Rohit Razdan, Board member, Chumbak, as well as Amit Chand, ex-CFO, TCNS Clothing. 

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According to the startup, it will be using most of the funds to hire new talent and build its data science and data engineering team.

The startup already has a team of 10 members as of now. 

Speaking to YourStory, Ankit Jain, Co-founder, of SprintAI, said,

"SprintAI's team is focused on building IP to solved complex real-world inventory optimisation problems globally to increase the productivity and profitability for lifestyle retailers. We are delighted to have our early investors support us in our vision to automate all human decisions involved in retail merchandising space. Most our current investments are going to go into R&D to make our algorithms robust and the platform ready to manage scale."  

The startup was founded by three batchmates from IIT Kanpur - Ankit Jain, Anurag Bhatt, and Sharad Lahoti who have previously worked with ecommerce majors and corporations including Amazon, Flipkart, PayU, Capillary, and McKinsey.

Commenting on the funding, Piyush Shah, Co-founder, InMobi Group, said,

"The SprintAI team is on a mission to put AI and intelligent automation in the hands of retail merchandising teams across the globe in ways that improve productivity and growth multi-fold. They have incredible early traction in the India market and have an opportunity to build a great global business.”

SprintAI is an AI Platform for retail merchandising (including apparel, footwear, accessories, and beauty), which helps clients maximise their revenues through smarter inventory placement, re-balancing products and intelligent pre-placement and fulfillment decisions for online orders. 

CS Suryanarayanan, ex-MD at Levis, added,

"SprintAI team is enabling retailers and brands become future ready, driving agility and responsiveness in their operations. The thoughtfully applied AI solutions drive significant value and benefits include 20-25 percent reduction in inventory and 4-5 percent revenue growth."

According to the founders, SprintAI’s clients see five percent increase in revenue within three months of going live. 

The startup has also been selected to be part of Target Accelerator 2019 cohort.

(Edited by Megha Reddy)

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