Sharechat co-founders raise $3 million from India Quotient, Elevation Capital for robotics startup

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Sharechat co-founders Farid Ahsan and Bhanu Singh have raised $3 million in seed funding from venture capital firms India Quotient, Elevation Capital and a few high-profile angel investors for their robotics startup General Autonomy, almost a year after they stepped down from their executive roles in the social media unicorn.

"Our mission is to revolutionize the future of factories! Factories are complex puzzles, and automation is the key to seeing the full picture, leading to safer, efficient, and standardized production... With a vision to make mass manufacturing agile and distributed like software development, we're in Bengaluru but working globally," Fareed Ahsan posted on X platform, formerly Twitter.

“Join us on this thrilling journey as we build AI driven machines to automate the toughest parts of labour workflows in factories. P.S. If you're as passionate about robotics as we are, reach out, connect, and let's build something extraordinary together.”

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The round comes at a time when internet startups are struggling to raise funds for high cash-burn business models as higher interest rates hurt businesses.

As reported by Moneycontrol, India's startup ecosystem is continuing to face pressure to raise funds as deal momentum came down nearly 40 percent year on year in October, with the total equity raised amounting to $625 million, data sourced from analytics firm Venture Intelligence showed.

Artificial intelligence and advanced semiconductor chips have piqued the interest of investors and governments in deeptech startups.

In a national framework for robotics, the government has recognised manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture and national security as the four priority sectors with “maximum potential of creating large-scale socio-economic impact through robotics adoption.”