Smartron, a homegrown mobile products and Internet of Things (IoT) firm, has has taken a majority stake in the IoT startup MiQasa as it readies the tronX platform by March 2018. Post stake sale, MiQasa will be called tronX Things. The firm, which raised Rs 200 crore so far, will go for another round to raise Rs 300 crore during January-March quarter of 2018.

“We have invested $1 million in the start-up to on-board their smart product range that includes electric switches. Besides, there’s non-monetary aspect to it. They can use our infrastructure, retail and marketing strenghts,” Mahesh Lingareddy, Founder and Chairman of Smartron, told BusinessLine .

“We will typically take majority stake but leave enough for them to grow on their own and work with other vendors,” he said. With 25 employees, the two-and-half-year-old firm has been selling products for the last nine months.

Smart bike

“We have lined up four products for launch in January. This includes a new laptop tbook2, a wearable band, a smart bicycle and a phone in the sub-Rs 10,000 category,” he said.

The smartphone comes with a battery with palm-sized battery that can power the bike for 60 kilometres once fully charged. “With speeds of 25-30 km an hour, the bike can be turned to peddle mode,” he said. Likely to be priced at about Rs 40,000, the 18-kg bike will be connected to the tronX platform. The firm is planning to hit the market with 1,000 units.

The bike was built by Smartron’s arm tronX Motors (formerly Volta Motors), a Chennai-based firm that it acquired early this year. The firm focused on development of e-bikes.

Acquisition plans

The firm is also planning to acquire a fintech (financial technology) company, with a view to integrating it to its tronX platform. “There’s a huge scope for financial services offerings both within in the tronX ecosystem and outside of it. We are looking at buying a fintech firm,” he said.

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