Venture Capital News: KeepTrax Raises $1M in Seed Funding
2015-03-31
DALLAS, TX, Mobile technology company raises $1M in Seed funding led by Naya Ventures.
KeepTrax Inc., an 'Internet of Me' mobile technology company formed by a group of accomplished travel, retail, and mobile security executives, has launched a revolutionary patent-pending technology to help people easily remember the details of the places they visit. The platform leverages GPS and other mobile device sensors to convert people's physical location visits into highly curated 'event pins' that digitally capture and organize details such as location name, address, dates, times, durations, photos, calendar, and other context. The company initially focused on and built a strong solution for travel oriented use cases, but due to strong traction in adjacent areas it has now started to also apply its technology platform to broader applications such as field sales optimization, rich location-based user profile generation, and life-logging.
The company is headed by Kedar Benegal, who has spent the past 15 years in senior strategy, marketing and operations roles in the travel and retail industries, most recently with the mobile division of Sabre Holdings, and Ismail Thanickel, a veteran software architect with nearly 20 years of experience in architecting and developing complex and secure mobile communication platforms for top-tier firms including Good Technology, a secure mobile communication platform provider, Motorola and JP Mobile.
The KeepTrax Board includes leaders in the mobile and travel industries, including Dayakar Puskoor, Managing Partner of Naya Ventures, a $50 million fund that invests in early-stage cloud, mobile and big data companies, whose career is showcased by a record of achievements in building high value mobile, wireless and telecommunications businesses, including JP Mobile (later acquired by Motorola). Advisory Board members include Steve Clampett, an airline and travel technology veteran whose background includes President, Airline Products and Solutions for Sabre Holdings; Som Das, entrepreneur and venture capitalist who was an early investor in companies such as WebEx and MindTree; and G. Venkat, a serial entrepreneur, mentor, and thought leader in the fields of Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning.
'Whether navigating busy routines near home, or discovering new places far away, people have a practical and emotional connection with the places they visit,' said Kedar Benegal, Founder and CEO of KeepTrax. 'With KeepTrax we have developed a powerful way to help people privately and automatically capture the details of their places without the need for manual check-ins.'
In addition to the platform, KeepTrax has released 'showcase' apps for iPhone and Android to demonstrate the capabilities of the technology. While the company's focus is on business-to-business distribution, the showcase apps (built on the KeepTrax platform) have seen very strong organic traction in the market, garnering a large and engaged following among consumers.
'We have been hugely impressed by the KeepTrax team, technology platform, and the speed with which they have secured both consumer and enterprise market traction,' said Dayakar Puskoor, General Partner of Naya Ventures. 'KeepTrax has developed a technology that eliminates the friction of converting physical visits into actionable digital data and it will be a game-changer in the emerging Internet of Me space.'
Among solutions being deployed from the platform:
KeepTrax SDK: Advanced APIs and iOS, Android and Web SDKs available to developers that want to integrate KeepTrax features and functions into their own Apps and Sites. In addition to pin capture and curation (name, dates, times, locations, photos, calendar, etc.), the platform offers advanced reporting and analytics tools and capabilities for a range of use cases.
KeepTrax for Travel: A travel-optimized version of KeepTrax that allows Travel companies (travel agencies, suppliers, etc.) to deliver branded location journaling solutions to their customers. The offering includes base KeepTrax features and more advanced sharing and travelogue capabilities.
KeepTrax for Field Management: A solution optimized for field force / sales force management, this version allows integration with client and sales prospect databases to develop rich field visit histories, and also real-time tracking and monitoring features. Captured data can be easily shared with peers and managers, and integrates seamlessly with standard CRM solutions.
About KeepTrax
Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, KeepTrax is a venture capital funded 'Internet of Me' company that leverages GPS and mobile device sensors to convert physical location visits into context-rich digital pins that could be used for a range of use cases, from travel journaling and user profile generation to field sales optimization and location-based macro-level insight development.
Learn more about KeepTrax at www.keeptraxinc.com.
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