World’s first regional operating system – Indus OS has struck a deal with Samsung where the global smartphone major has invested $5.75 million (Rs 42 crore) through its venture capital arm – Samsung Venture Investment Corporation (SVIC).
Following the transaction, SVIC has picked up 20% stake along with a board seat in the Mumbai-based venture. Indus OS is estimated to be valued under Rs 200 crore in the financing round.
The deal has allowed Samsung to integrate Indus OS’s app store -App Bazaar with Galaxy App Store. App Bazaar has over 400,000 apps available for downloads across 12 regional languages. It claims to have more than 100 million downloads from its app marketplace.
Launched in 2015, Indus OS climbed to the number-2 position in India within a year, ahead of global giants such as Apple’s iOS & Microsoft’s Windows. Currently, it commands a user base of 18 million, across its smartphone brand partners such as Micromax, Intex, Karbonn, Celkon, and Swipe.
With this round, the company expects to power 100 million smartphones with its operating system over the next two years. Indus OS is built on Android and designed for first time Internet users hailing from regional languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, and Marathi.
So far, it raised about $19 million across three rounds of institutional investments including a $4 million pre-series B round from Omidyar Network, Ventureast, and JSW Ventures. Hari Padmanabhan, Mayank Singhal, Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal, Amit Gupta, and Naveen Tiwari and Pranay Chulet are individual investors in Indus OS.
