Exploride Smashes All Crowdfunding Records For Indian Startups; Successfully Raises Rs 3.4 Cr on Indiegogo
When the time arrives for an idea to get big, then no boundaries, no obstacles and no force can stop it.
Exploride, which was incubated at Startup Village in Kerala, has become India’s biggest crowd funding success story. They have successfully raised Rs 3.4 crore or $526,301 from tech enthusiasts at Indiegogo, which is right now world’s largest platform for attracting crowdsourcing.
Originally founded at Kochi, Exploride is now registered at District of Columbia in the USA and their futuristic product is being manufactured in Taiwan. As per their claims, the first batch of delivery will roll out in January, 2016.
Priced at $299 for each unit, Exploride has received 1800 pre-orders, from 50 countries.
What Is Exploride?
Exploride is an Augmented Reality integrated Head Up Display, which can convert any car into a smart car.
In non-jargon terms, Exploride is a transparent glass device, which can sit on the dashboard of a car, and allow the driver do perform an array of tasks, without looking away from the road. Using Exploride, you can navigate the road, checkout the maps, choose your music, listen to radio, talk on phone, text, chat, change volume and more; without being distracted.
It uses voice and gestures to perform these actions. Powered by a quad-core processor, 2 GB RAM, USB adaptor, IR Camera, Dash Camera, 4G LTE and Bluetooth, Exploride can also convert into WiFi hotspot.
In short, it’s a miracle device for those who love driving, and love to stay connected with tech without compromising on safety issues.
Check out this video that gives you a complete overview of Exploride!
What Inspired Exploride?
As per Sunil Vallath, founder and CEO of Exploride, the idea was inspired after his girl friend met with an accident while talking on phone and driving her car. Although no major injuries happened, but the incident shook him to the core.
It is estimated that more than 4,00,000 accidents in USA happen, every year, due to the usage of mobile phones while driving.
Exploride aims to provide a gadget, which can help drivers to concentrate solely on driving.
Sunil said, “This is a biggest achievement for Exploride. Probably, we are the highest fund raiser through crowd-funding in Asia. Discussions are under way for the mass production of the product to be delivered in January. The company is planning retail launch of the product after the pre-order campaign at `499. While we will be tapping into the potential of e-commerce in a big way, dealers from across the world, including from Africa, have approached us evincing interest. Our plan is to shift base to Bengaluru from Kochi,”
Kerala: Hub of Crowdsourcing Success
Away from the hustle of Bangalore and noise of Delhi, Kerala has surprisingly emerged as one of the hubs of crowd sourced success stories.
Last year, three startups from Kerala successfully raised their projected funding from various crowdfunded campaigns. In March, 2014, RHL Vision’s FIN raised Rs 1.33 crore; In December, 2014, SectorQube’s MAID raised Rs 81.3 lakh and in October, 2014, MindHelix’s product Rico raised Rs 78.1 lakh.
In the last 19 months, total of Rs 6.29 crore has been raised by Kerala based startups, using only crowdsourcing as the medium. In fact, such was the wildfire acceptance of Exploride, that they overachieved their target by 521%, within 40 days!
