GOQii raises $13.4 mn from NEA, others

Wearable fitness devices maker GOQii on Thursday said it has raised USD 13.4 million from New Enterprise Associates and Cheetah Mobile. The Series A funding also saw participation from Great Wall Club (GWC), DSG Consumer Partners, Ilkka Paananen (CEO & Co-founder of Finnish gaming startup Supercell) and angel investor Pravin Gandhi, GOQii said in a statement. The company will use the funds to focus on expansion in new markets globally and growth, GOQii said in a statement.

"This additional funding is a great vote of confidence in GOQii's focus on accelerating revenue growth... Our bands agnostic approach and virtual delivery model has received tremendous reception globally and we are now planning to replicate this success in key markets of China and US," GOQii founder and CEO Vishal Gondal said. The International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly predicts that wearable device shipments will reach 76.1 million units in 2015, up 163.6 percent from the 28.9 million units shipped in 2014.

By 2019, worldwide shipments is expected to reach 173.4 million units, resulting in a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.9 percent. Signal Hill acted as the Financial Advisor to GOQii and Goodwin Procter provided Legal Advisory Services. The California-headquartered company is backed by angel investors like Amit Singhal (Google), Shriram Nene and his wife and Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit-Nene and had raised USD 2.5 million.

It's other investors include Mahesh Samat (Epic), Mike McNamara (Flextronics), Neeraj Arora (WhatsApp), Marco Argenti (Amazon) and Rajan Anandan (Google), among others. GOQii had launched its fitness band and services in India in October last year. It offers a fitness tracker band, coupled with a personal coach who works with the user's activity and sleep data to provide customised advice on a regular basis.