California-based Appnomic Systems, a software provider for fixing IT systems-related problems, is looking to rope in strategic investors who can infuse a fresh round of funds to scale up operations.

Recently appointed CEO Nitin Kumar said that with the funds, Appnomic will focus on growth and expand globally as it intends to scale up to achieve a unicorn valuation.

The software-as-a-service (SaaS) developer firm is eyeing investments from large investors and partners who make co-investments in MDF (market development funds), he said.

In December last year, Appnomic raised $22 million from VC firm Avataar Ventures.

Existing investors

He did not disclose the stake that the company would dilute to investors. According to industry sources, in December 2019, Palo Alto-headquartered Norwest Venture Partners was the company’s lead investor till its exit in 2019, after which Avataar Ventures entered. Former CEO and founder, D. Padmanabhan, continues to be in an operating role as chairman. Additionally, Cuneyt Buyukbezci as CMO and Girish Muckai as CRO have been brought in to drive growth.

The firm has clients in the US, UK and Eastern Europe and will continue to focus on these markets, Kumar said, adding it will also look to focus on the Middle East and South East Asia markets from its India office. It has 50 active clients, including large banks and e-commerce firms, among others, said Kumar.

The proceeds will go towards expanding its global presence, noted Kumar.

One of the reasons for seeking this fund infusion has to do with a blowout in demand from companies in the developed markets. “As a result of Covid-19, many enterprises have realised that going digital is essential for their survival and many are re-organising their business processes. It has accelerated the shift away from traditional monitoring and reporting models to analysing the data through AI and ML algorithms to make IT systems self-healing,” said Kumar.

IT service providers have started advocating that the next step in AI is to design a system from human-assisted automation to fully autonomous ones.

Appnomic uses unsupervised AI to learn how an enterprise system works under normal circumstances and helps in detecting and recognizing “signals” of a future incident that can cause business disruption and prevent them. Also, it has multiple patents in the self-healing technology domain.

The additional funding will also give Appnomic the legroom to look at acquisitions. “We would look at AI companies with a client base of IoT and retail players,” said Kumar, adding that the company is open to acqui-hire companies too.

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