Zoho Corp invests $5 million in medical devices startup Voxelgrids
Summary
Indian software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm Zoho Corporation has invested $5 million (about ₹35 crore) in a Bengaluru-based medical devices company Voxelgrids, which makes magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners.The investment will be made in two tranches over the next two years and Zoho would own around 25% stake in Voxelgrids.Voxelgrids was founded in March 2017 by Arjun Arunachalam, who has nearly two decades of experience in the field. Its founding tem includes engineers Shankar Murthy Udupa and Sairamesh Raghuraman.Voxelgrids claims to manufacture MRI scanners that are lightweight, mobile, easy to install, operate and maintain even in remote locations such as small villages. "One of the pressing concerns for the Indian economy today is the lack of indigenous industrial know-how and manufacturing capabilities. A healthy DeepTech ecosystem is vital to solving this issue and driving structural economic change. Voxelgrids is one of the few companies that is working to solve this problem with MRI machines entirely built in India,”, chief executive (CEO) and cofounder ofsaid.He further added that more such companies are needed in India that can own and command this type of engineering in different sectors.The investment from Zoho would allow Voxelgrids to build strategic relationships for rapid market penetration, design and intellectual property (IP) licensing opportunities and partner with original equipment manufacturers (OEM).“DeepTech products, like ours, require a significant amount of time from completing the R&D [research and development] to taking the product to market, and most often, this is the time where we face insufficient funding.