Smartron India, a Hyderabad based company which boasts of cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar as one of its investors, has announced that it has made an acquisition in the home automation space for $10 million (Rs 6.4 crore). The startup, MiQasa Inc, will now be renamed “Tronx Things”, in line with the Tronx brand that Smarton is trying to develop across many of its product portfolios.
The stake picked up at this cost is 60% of MiQasa and Smartron has revealed that it will invest another $10 million to spruce up the areas of logistics, brand promotion, sales and distribution and customer care of the company. Mahesh Lingareddy, the Chairman of Smartron has clarified that this investment is not to be treated as a VC investment or an angel investment. Their aim is to see that MiQasa or now Tronx Things can notch up a turnover of $100 million in the shortest possible time. The main business of the startup is manufacturing smart switchboards.
Tronx, a connected platform, is proposed to be launched by Smartron in India by March 2018 and its capabilities include allowing access to AI to any connected device, whether a smartphone or other devices. Some of the other products being offered through this Tronx brand include smart switches, switchboards, security cameras, smart weighing scales and smart door locks. These are premium products in their respective categories and would be priced from Rs 50,000 onwards. Clearly these are meant for the upwardly mobile individuals.
Meanwhile, the company more popularly known in India for its Tphones, will also be launching, come January, its new version of the tphone, “Tbook”, a notebook computer as well as a smart wearable. Smartron had tied up with Flipkart to sell its Tphones; however, it is not certain if it will work with the same ecommerce partner for the forthcoming releases.
Besides all these, Samartron is also into developing an electric bike, through its acquisition of Volta Motos, a Chennai based firm and renaming it Tronx Motors. Apart from Sachin Tendulkar, Sanjay Jha, the CEO of GlobalFoundries is another investor in the company.
Research into the smart homes market has indicated that the market is expected to grow exponentially from around $503 million in 2017 to around $5.6 billion by 2022 and India is far behind in terms of the market penetration for smart home products. If Smartron is able to tap this niche market, it may fully justify the Rs 300 crore that it has already raised, in the form of funding.