Indus OS is a four-year-old Android fork that has built a suite of India-localized applications aimed at serving the masses. The company integrates its features into handsets from several smartphone vendors, including Micromax, Gioness, Intex and Karbonn, and has a partnership with Samsung to revamp the Galaxy App Store. Indus OS monetizes primarily through advertising. CEO Rakesh Deshmukh said the startup will use new capital to develop additional local solutions and to build a software development kit so developers can add India-specific features. The company plans to expand partnerships with more smartphone vendors as it pushes for broader reach. Indus OS previously raised about $10 million across three tranches of Series A funding three years earlier and says it will seek more capital in the future. Indus OS develops a customized Android operating system and user interface to make smartphones usable for first-time and feature-phone users in India, emphasizing simplicity and cultural fit. Its core products include a localized OS, an on-device app store called App Bazaar (15,000 apps, with 45 of the top 100), real-time translation, and planned text-to-speech support via a Department of Electronic and Information Technology (DeitY) tie-in. The company licenses its software to OEMs rather than selling hardware and is installed on 20 Micromax devices that have totaled over two million sales in the past six months. Indus OS has about 70 employees and plans to grow to roughly 200, and is developing an Android ROM to expand beyond entry-level handsets. It has already expanded into Bangladesh and intends to add another overseas market before the end of 2016, with broader Africa and Southeast Asia expansion contingent on further fundraising. The company raised $5M in Series A funding to support product development, OEM partnerships, language and accessibility features, and its device- and user-growth targets (20 million devices in market this year and a longer-term goal of reaching 300 million Indian consumers online over five years).

Total raised

$11M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Jul 2019