AI firm Mad Street Den raises $30 million led by Avatar Growth Capital

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Mad Street Den, an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based software firm, has raised $30 million in its Series-C round led by  Avatar Growth Capital, with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital and Alpha Wave Global (formerly known as Falcon Edge Capital).

The firm plans to utilise the funding to expand its artificial intelligence offerings across industries and product development.

“Now, it's all about scaling and there are a few areas where the funds will be deployed. We will be focussing on winning top ten or fortune 500s and other enterprise clients in different sectors,” said co-founder and CEO Ashwini Asokan in an interaction with Moneycontrol.

The company is hiring for specific roles, however, not at scale.

“We have always maintained caution even when money was freely available we did not hire aggressively and even now we will hire for specific roles but it has nothing to do with the fundraise,” Asokan said.

Founded in 2016 by Asokan and Anand Chandrasekaran, Mad Street Den has created AI-based solutions, through its Vue.ai business unit, that help retailers grow their business by reducing operational costs through automation and increasing revenue with personalised customer experiences.

The firm also has its offering under Blox.ai which offers solutions like data management, Intelligent Document Processing, lead generation and more.

“Mad Street Den has seen strong demand for its AI platform over the past 24 months. New growth has been powered by both the retail segment (Vue.ai) as well as its foray into new verticals like finance, insurance, healthcare, pharma, and logistics (getblox.ai),” Asokan said.

SaaS companies have slowed down hiring and are taking up cost rationalisation due to the fear of recession globally.

“I don’t think anyone has seen this kind of a downturn in the SaaS environment, however, there is a considerable amount of movement in AI-first SaaS companies…and the work that we do, sectors we are in is doing much better and we don’t see demand slowing down here at all,” Asokan said.

In 2019, MSD raised $17 million in a Series B round led by Falcon Edge Capital, with participation from investors Sequoia Capital India and Global Brain. The company had raised a total of $27.5 million till 2019.

“Blox’s ability to solve business problems across industries, use cases while maintaining efficacy at scale and low cost is highly differentiated. Further, its 30-60-90 days framework ensures customers do not need to wait for months to see results. We are very excited to partner with Ashwini, Anand, Costa and the entire MSD team,” said Abhay Havaldar, Founder and Managing Partner of Avatar Growth Capital.

Mad Street Den recently acquired INTURN, a New York-based enterprise solution that helps retailers monetize slow-moving and excess inventory, faster.