myGate, a mobile-based security management solution for gated premises, has raised Rs 16 crore ($2.5 million) in its first round of external funding led by Prime Venture Partners.
myGate, which is run by Bengaluru-based Vivish Technologies Pvt. Ltd, will use the funds to invest in technology that will help it scale up to two million homes across top seven cities in two years, the company said in a statement.
myGate was founded in mid-2016 by Vijay Arisetty, former Indian Air Force pilot who also worked with Goldman Sachs; Abhishek Kumar, former vice president at Goldman Sachs; Vivaik Bhardwaj, who is also a former Indian Air Force pilot; and Shreyans Daga. Since its launch, myGate has monitored 24 million visits through its mobile app across 100,000 homes in around 700 gated communities. Around 5,000 guards are already using myGate in Bengaluru, it said.
“Security for gated premises is a multi-billion market that is underserved by legacy providers and solutions. We help people living in gated communities keep track of visitors and relevant developments in the community with the help of an app," said Arisetty. The company is launching in Hyderabad this month and will enter Pune soon. It will launch in Mumbai and Delhi-NCR later this year.
Before founding the company, Arisetty and Kumar worked as security guards at gated communities for over three months to understand the problem that the guards often face and how and where the potential lapses occur. The app allows homeowners to interact with the guards in SMS/app alerts. "Today everybody understands OTP and number based passcodes," said Arisetty.
Working as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs in Bengaluru, Arisetty found that even within highly protected gated communities, regular breaches were resulting in crime and theft. "There was no system to monitor whether the maids, delivery boys or drivers are overstaying at the gated communities beyond their duty hours. In communities with more than 100 houses, there could be more than 10 deliveries by e-commerce firms. When you digitise, you can track when delivery boys should be coming in and going out," said Arisetty.
myGate is a mobile-app-based system comprising an Android app for security guards and an Android or iOS app for residents, with a voice call option for non-smartphone users. With this system, all visitor entries and exits are logged digitally.
Prime Venture Partners, which mostly invests in fin-tech startups, stumbled upon myGate after its partners happened to visit some of the gated communities where myGate was installed.
"We are keen to invest in startups that are working on the theme of digitisation. myGate is addressing a huge market opportunity and is a leader in this space,†said Sanjay Swamy, managing partner, Prime Venture Partners.
myGate also offers automatic visitor authentication, kids safety alerts, staff attendance, infrastructure-free vehicle management, touchless resident identification, clubhouse access management, management reporting and visitor overstay alerts. myGate has a two-day onboarding process with a pay-as-you-go (SaaS) model and works with builders like Sobha, Prestige, Puravankara, Lodha and Salarpuria.
Prime Venture recently invested in fin-tech payroll and benefits startup NiYO along with others such as Social Capital and JS Capital. Its other portfolio firms include MoneyTap, HackerEarth, AffordPlan, Maya, KredX and Ezetap among others.
