Pune: Kochouseph Chittilappilly Trust, Venture Center Invest Rs 3 Crore In Marine Robotics Startup EyeROV

Pune, 10th October 2022: EyeROV, incubated at Venture Center, NCL Innovation park, has received Rs three crore of seed funding from Kochouseph Chittilappilly, founder of V-Guard and Wonderla Group of Companies, DST’s NIDHI Seed Support Scheme, and others.

EyeROV is a fast-growing robotics and AI startup building unmanned underwater vehicles/robots. EyeROV has built underwater drone/Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) for safer and more efficient remote inspection of onshore and offshore assets and has a large portfolio of products with wide-ranging applications in industries like shipping, oil and gas, infrastructure and construction, defence and ocean research organisations. They plan to utilize the fresh funds for new product development, market expansion and adding new Industry verticals. New product developments include an advanced version of ROV, Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV). They are also exploring market expansion to the Middle East.

EyeROV sells indigenously developed underwater drones/Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROVs) to Defense, Research, and Disaster Management Organizations and also provides underwater inspection services using Underwater Robots/ROVs to Dams, Bridges, Oil and Gas, Ports and Shipping sectors. EyeROV TUNA, their flagship ROV, is being used by DRDO labs-NSTL, NPOL, Indian Coast Guard, and CSIR-SERC. EyeROV has completed 50 + underwater inspection projects across the country, including BPCL, Tata, Indian Railways, Adani, NHDC, KNNL, and others. They have won several awards, including the National Startup award 2021 by Technology Development Board and IIGP 2.0. EyeROV also provides an AI-powered Data Analytics, Visualization and Reporting platform to visualize the data collected by the ROV.

EyeROV was founded in 2016 by Johns T Mathai and Kannappa Palaniappan, alumni of IIT Delhi, IIT Madras and CET Trivandrum. The company was initially incubated in Kerala Startup Mission and Maker Village and later seed-funded by BPCL and GAIL. The company head office is located at Kerala Technology Innovation zone Kalamassery, Kochi, Kerala.

NIDHI-SSS (National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations-Seed Support System) is an umbrella program of the Department of Science and technology that provides financial assistance up to Rs one crore to potential startups with promising ideas, innovations and technologies. On why Venture Center was convinced about investing in the company, Dr Premnath, Director, Venture Center, said, “The Venture Center is excited as EyeROV joins our portfolio. EyeROV is a leader in underwater robotics in India and the go-to company for the most challenging underwater surveillance and inspection tasks. That is a testament to the mastery of the field that they have achieved in the last few years. With their depth of expertise and capabilities, we are confident that EyeROV can be a leading product, solutions and data provider with a global footprint for underwater and surface water applications.”

Venture Center first began engaging with EyeROV during the AIM PRIME program. EyeROV was part of the first AIM PRIME cohort at Venture Center and was supported with extensive mentoring and handholding sessions as part of the program. Shruti Devasthali, Head – Funding and Investment, Venture Center, is extremely excited about the enormous potential that EyeROV has in the field of underwater inspection! She said, “We are very happy to have EyeROV in our portfolio of IP-rich start-ups. We see great potential in the EyeROV team, which is providing unique solutions for underwater inspections and surveillance with applications in various areas like water management infrastructure, the Oil & Gas sector, the Defence sector etc. We expect these solutions to reach global markets soon.”