Pune based startup, InnovizeTech software, which makes productivity measurement software, has just announced that it has closed a Series-A investment of Rs. 4.5 crores from Seed Enterprise. Seed Enterprise is a newly established fund focusing on software products in emerging markets. It has been started by Mitesh Bohra, Avinash Sethi, and Siddharth Sethi (previously co-founders of InfoBeans). Innovize had previously received $350k in angel funding from Indian Angel Network.
Innovize Tech has built a software product, called Sapience, that helps companies measure the exact amount of time spent by employees in various work related activities. When Sapience is installed on employee PCs, it automatically figures out what work was done, by whom, for how long, and for what purpose. It produces reports that highlight gaps and deviations from pre-determined goals. The basic idea is to provide managers with data that can be used to drive efficiencies, detect underutilization, and compare with industry metrics. Sapience protects privacy of individual employees by only providing aggregate data and trends for teams > 10 employees in most cases.
Here’s their pitch from the press release:
Sapience’s key USP is that it delivers automated visibility into Enterprise Effort. It is cloud based, though an on-premise option is available for large enterprises. Their client portfolio is expanding rapidly, and currently includes large and medium IT Services firms like Zensar, product ISVs (IDeaS, Bio-Analytical Technologies), KPOs (SG Analytics), and Engineering Services companies such as EnVenture and Excelize.
Innovize has been founded by Shirish Deodhar, Madhukar Bhatia, Swati Deodhar, Hemant Joshi – Each has 25+ years of technology and leadership experience in US and India. They are Serial Entrepreneurs with 2 previous successes (Veritas Software India, and In-Reality (sold to Symphony)) in outsourced product development. Shirish, Madhukar, and Hemant were first together in Veritas Software
Innovize is also one of the companies to get multiple honours in the PuneConnect 2011 event recently held in Pune, (which PuneTech helped organize).