[Funding alert] AI startup CellStrat raises Rs 1.05 Cr in angel round

US-headquartered Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup CellStrat on Thursday announced that it raised close to $1,40,000 (Rs 1.05 crore) in a recently concluded angel round from a clutch of investors based in India, Japan and USA.

Co-founded by brothers Vivek and Vishal Singhal, CellStrat has built an AI research and development platform on the Cloud— CellStrat Hub—to provide global developers with cutting-edge AI developer tools and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). 

It also serves as an edtech platform for beginners and professionals by offering them various “AI project packs”. These packs contain ready-made AI projects preloaded in an online coding environment aimed at helping learners get hands-on experience and practice. Learners can get started with Python, Machine Learning (ML) algorithms in Python, Deep Learning (DL), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Reinforcement Learning (RL), Generative Modelling (GANs), Graph Neural Networks, and so on, and then operationalise these “projects” as Artificial Intelligence-as-a-Service (AIaaS) on the cloud. 

It has over 120 bundled AI projects on its platform and many more in the pipeline. 

For the enterprises, it provides the “deployment capability” by offering ready-made APIs for easy AI inference on mobile or web apps. This helps companies launch AI in a simpler and a low cost mechanism. 

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The platform has managed to onboard 10,000+ AI developers and learners within seven months of its launch in 2021, and the number is growing at 50-100 percent rate month-on-month, said co-founder Vivek. It has created a global AI lab of 400 AI experts as well as an extended AI community of 15,000 members in about four years since its inception in 2018.   

According to CellStrat, its annual revenue ranges between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 1 crore and is valued at $7 million with an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $0.06 million.

CellStrat was recently recognised by YourStory as one of the top 50 emerging startups of India – Tech50 2021. 

The funds raised will be used for product development and cloud licenses, Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy and global market penetration. The startup aims to onboard 1,00,000 global AI developers within the next six to eight months, and one million in about two to three years. 

“The kind of faith our investors have shown in us will only help us in sticking to our commitment of making CellStrat a major global technological disruptor in AI and emerging technology segments,” said Vivek. 

“We will continue to raise subsequent rounds of funding and will work with leading angels and strategic investors in this journey of global AI disruption,” he added.