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Tag: Celesta Capital

  • Anand Chandrasekaran joins Celesta Capital as managing partner

    Anand Chandrasekaran joins Celesta Capital as managing partner

    MUMBAI: Anand Chandrasekaran’s  is quite a familiar face to those  in the media and entertainment tech industry. A geek to the core, he has also been recognised as a shrewd observer and investor in the evolution of tech. Recently, it was announced that he joined Celesta Capital in the Silicon Valley  as a managing partner. 
    Celesta was founded and is led by Nicholas Brathwaite, Sriram Viswanathan, and Michael Marks,  and primarily invests in early-stage deep tech, companies with high potential hardware and software technologies that have a clearly identified market application. 

    Anand knows how to pick winners. At one stage, he led Yahooi in its mobile and search division as senior director, a position he held for three years. He led product development at Airtel and created the Wynk music app for Airtel. 

    Soon thereafter,  he joined Snapdeal as chief product officer, a position he let go of within a year. He then went on to work with Facebook (now Meta) as director of platforms partnerships at messenger which he followed up with a sojourn at Five9. 

    He then went on to  go on board General Catlayst as an investor and partner. Along the way he seed invested in several start ups and has been recognised as one of India’s top seed investors for three years consecutively. 
    Most recently, he co-founded Celesta Capital portfolio company Crescendo, helping to incubate and grow the company to over $50M in revenue and a $500M valuation in less than a year.

    “We are fortunate to expand the firm’s team with such an accomplished investor, technologist, and operator. In getting to know Anand through the process of investing in his latest entrepreneurial venture Crescendo, it became clear that he shares Celesta’s passion for advancing important technologies, company creation, and the huge growth potential within the US  – India tech corridor,” said Viswanathan in a note welcoming him to the company on Linkedin.

  • Pyxis One raises $17 million in series B funding

    Pyxis One raises $17 million in series B funding

    Mumbai: Pyxis One, a California-based tech startup that aims to revolutionise marketing and consumer intelligence by providing an all-in-one, codeless AI platform, has closed $17 million in series B funding. With total funding of $24 million, the company plans to use this round of capital for investments in product development and to expand to new markets.

    Celesta Capital and Premji Invest have co-led the round with participation from previous investors Chiratae Ventures, pi Ventures, and Exfinity Venture Partners. “Every enterprise is either already rearchitecting themselves to adopt AI, or are dependent on one or more AI-driven platforms,” said Premji Invest partner Atul Gupta. “Pyxis One stands out by helping consumer-first enterprises adopt AI for their marketing and business growth without having to disrupt the business at all.”

    Pyxis One enables enterprises to scale accurate data-driven marketing. The startup’s codeless AI ecosystem comprises dozens of AI models deployed across different aspects such as targeting, optimisation, creative recommendation, and consumer research, enabling a complete ecosystem that can help teams collaborate, and leverage capabilities enabled by the adoption of AI.

    “Modern businesses are looking to use advanced elements of artificial intelligence and machine learning to deliver targeted and effective marketing,” said Celesta Capital founding managing partner Sriram Viswanathan. “These capabilities are important for enterprises looking to benefit from next-generation marketing technologies. Pyxis One’s platform delivers on this promise, and we are delighted to back this team to realise this potential.”

    The company is looking to add over 200 AI models to the AI infrastructure over the next two years. These AI models are trained with billions of cross-industry data points that brands from every industry can utilise. The platform also future-proofs AI structure and deployment to inherit new models and customise them without any rework.

    “Marketing can become 10 times more efficient if every team that plays a role in appealing to consumers can collaborate and work together using precise AI-driven insights,” said Pyxis One global CEO Shubham A Mishra. “With AI’s agility and scalability, we bridge the gap between marketers and data scientists and enable them to make better decisions in the backdrop of accurate and dynamic consumer insights. The new funds will enable us to speed up product development, hire more AI experts and data scientists, and expand our sales and marketing to additional markets.”

    The AI SaaS startup has witnessed a 550 per cent growth since its inception in 2018 and has a customer base across different industries including retail, automotive, healthcare, finance, and food tech. These customers are witnessing at least a 30 pert cent increase in their marketing efficiency and consumer intelligence, on average, said the statement.

    “The real clincher is that our ecosystem of products is completely codeless thereby easing the adoption of AI for our customers,” said APAC CEO Neel Pandya. “Our series B funding will allow us to aggressively pursue the development of more AI models to strengthen the infrastructure and expand into newer markets.”