Bharti Airtel has announced that it has picked up a ‘strategic stake’ in Thiruvananthapuram-based Waybeo Technology Solutions under the Airtel Start-up Accelerator Programme. This will enable the cloud analytics start-up fast-track its growth by leveraging Airtel’s global-scale cloud stack.

An Airtel spokesman said in Mumbai said that Waybeo is the fifth startup to join its Startup Accelerator Programme.

Waybeo, which has been groomed under the Kerala Start-up Mission, said that telecom giant Bharti Airtel has up a 10 per cent stake in it. This will give the 2011-founded start-up greater distribution reach.

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Waybeo is located in the Scale-up Space of the Kerala Startup Mission, the nodal agency for entrepreneurial development and incubation activities in the State. Waybeo CEO Krishnan RV said that that the tie-up would allow Airtel use its telephone-based Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based services.

Call intelligence tools

“We envisage a technology that analyses the feedback of Airtel customers, besides improved automation for the telecom company to perform better,” he revealed. “As a B2B collaboration and focused on enterprise adoption for its call intelligence tools, this will enable our firm to fetch more such opportunities in the future,” Krishnan said.

Most enterprises drive hundreds of thousands of calls a month. There is no analytics, no automation, and no means to optimise the customer experience. “We look at Airtel’s investment as an opportunity to scale our technology and enterprise reach,” he added.

“We are capable of providing prospects in commerce that go beyond mobile-phone and internet services,” the Waybeo CEO added.

Access to distribution network

The programme allows start-ups to leverage Airtel’s ecosystem, including its core strengths in data, distribution, networks and payments. This includes access to a vast online and offline distribution network that touches 300 million+ customers, deep market understanding and platform of global strategic partners.

They also get access to advisory services from Airtel’s executive team.

Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, Bharti Airtel, said that cloud technologies are transforming the way businesses serve and delight their customers. “We are thrilled to onboard Waybeo and provide them a platform to scale up their technologies.”

Public cloud services market

Public cloud services market in India is likely to reach $7.1 billion by 2024. Within this, the cloud telephony market is seeing rapid growth as businesses move processes to cloud-based platforms, Adarsh Nair said. Waybeo Technology Solutions has built analytics tools for the enterprise cloud telephony segment.

He said that Airtel serves over 2,500 large enterprises and more than a million emerging businesses with an integrated product portfolio, including Airtel Cloud.

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