[Funding alert] Nextbillion.ai raises $7M in Series A from Lightspeed Venture, Falcon Edge

Nextbillion.ai, the Singapore-headquartered AI startup founded in January this year, has received a $7 million Series A investment co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Falcon Edge Capital.

Nextbillion.ai aims to deliver a wide range of AI-powered hyperlocal solutions starting with the area of mapping.

The startup is founded by Ajay Bulusu, Gaurav Bubna, and Shaolin Zeng, who were previously part of the technology leadership team at Grab, a leading ride hailing app in Southeast Asia.

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Following this funding round, Hemant Mohapatra, Partner at Lightspeed and Navroz Udwadia, Co-Founder and Partner at Falcon Edge Capital will be inducted in the Board of Directors at Nextbillion.ai.

Nextbillio.ai has presence in Singapore, China, and India, and aims target AI to work for what it calls 'solving the divergent needs of the next billion markets.' The startup has already partnered with leading global brands across verticals such as social media, ride-hailing, food delivery, freight, and logistics across the US, India, Southeast Asia, and China.

On the new investment, Nextbillion.ai Co-founder Ajay Bulusu said, “Emerging markets across the world are far more complex, with different languages, cultures, hyperlocal nuances and densely populated cities, than the developed markets. We see opportunity in these complexities.”

The startup has already come out with its first product – Nextbillion Maps, which is an AI-first SaaS map that provides enterprises with a range of APIs like routing, navigation, direction, and distance matrix.

On the investment into Nexbillion.ai, Hemant Mohapatra, Partner, Lightspeed Ventures, said, “The opportunity in solving hyperlocal challenges is huge, and mapping is just one of them. We at Lightspeed are excited by the prospect of partnering with this team as they build a range of turnkey enterprise solutions around maps, facial AI and NLP to address the needs of the next billion consumers both in developing and developed markets.

Gaurav Bubna, Co-founder, Nextbillion.ai, said, “We see opportunity in building an inclusive world offering equal access to technology solutions in the most intelligent, secured and affordable manner.”