GVFL, India's pioneer Venture Capital Company announced its decision to invest an initial Rs 8 million in RapidRadio Solutions Pvt. Ltd., a technology start-up spun off from the NirmaLabs incubator program. RapidRadio marks GVFL's first investment in a start-up from an academic incubator program. RapidRadio Solutions began its operations in 2005 in the area of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology. GVFL will make the seed stage investment from its Rs. 270 million Gujarat IT Fund.
“The RapidRadio investment is a new milestone in our endeavor to provide critical seed stage and early stage funding to innovative start-ups that are poised to take knowledge based test-marketed ideas into commercial production. We are now stepping forward into campus incubation programmes to identify and nurture promising ideas and entrepreneurs,” says Mr. Vishnu Varshney, CEO of GVFL Ltd.
“Being an enabling technology and not just a product, the opportunity for RFID application is incredibly diverse and large. Various sectors like manufacturing, retail, healthcare, vehicle tracking, inventory management with a compelling need of asset tracking are aggressively working towards the deployment of RFID, ” Mr. Varshney adds.
“RFID is a next generation tool of AIDC technology that facilitates business processes automation. RapidRadio with its expertise in RFID technology is focusing on designing, developing, innovating and deploying RFID hardware solutions. The funding will support our rapid growth plans. We will be deploying the funds for expanding our product range to include Ultra-High Frequency (UHF – 900 MHz) products and also developing Active RFID based products,” says Mr. Dhaval Kotecha, CEO of RapidRadio.
“GVFL is the ideal venture capital firm to help us as we step out of the incubation phase. It has funded and successfully guided many start-ups and we hope to benefit from its expertise,” adds Mr. Kotecha.
RapidRadio is the 6th investment from the Rs. 270 million Gujarat IT Fund. GVFL has previously invested in Net4Nuts, Ecube, Icenet, Anupam Globalsoft and Convergelabs from the fund.
About GVFL LTD.:
GVFL Ltd. (formerly known as Gujarat Venture Finance Limited) is widely regarded as the pioneer of venture capital in India. Started by Gujarat Industrial and Investment Corporation (GIIC) at the initiative of the World Bank in July 1990, GVFL Ltd. is an independent board-managed, autonomous venture finance company based at Ahmedabad.
Over the past 16 years, GVFL has raised five Venture Capital funds (VCFs) – GVCF 1990, GVCF 1995, GVCF 1997, Gujarat IT Fund and Gujarat Biotechnology Venture Fund with a combined capital of over Rs. 1400 million. Some of GVFL Ltd.'s significant success stories include Deccanet, eInfochips, Scicom, Parsec Technologies, Neilsoft and several others. Web: www.gvfl.com
About RapidRadio:
RapidRadio commenced operations in 2005 as an incubate with the NirmaLabs program. The Company has developed various products in the High Frequency (HF – 13.56 MHz Range) like Proximity RFID Reader, Midrange RFID Reader, Long range RFID Reader, RFID Gate Antenna, RFID Evaluation Kit, RFID Transponders (Inlays, Labels & Contactless Cards) and Pad & Customs Antennas that are customizable to customer requirements. Web: www.rapidradio.co.in
Source : morerfid