EXCLUSIVE: This Indian startup has made a profit solving 1,100 police cases with just one round of funding

• In an exclusive interview with Business Insider, Staqu founder Atul Rai has confirmed that the startup is profitable.
• The AI and facial recognition startup shot to fame for its work with the Indian police force, where it has helped solve 1,100 cases.
• The startup now wants to raise $5 million in the next round of funding.

Indian Artificial intelligence and facial recognition startup Staqu is known for partnering with Indian police forces to nab criminals.

The four year old startup seemed to have made moolah in the process too. Staqu’s founder Atul Rai said that they turned profitable two quarters back, in an exclusive interview with Business Insider.

The startup also did it with minimum resources. It has raised only one round of funding –$650,000 from Indian Angel Network. Having achieved profitability which does not come easy to young startups, it now wants to scale up its business.

It is looking to raise $5 million, and not surprisingly already got a thumbs up from a few investors.

Staqu came into being when Rai was reading a news report from National Crime Report Bureau which said that 70% of criminals in India were repeat offenders. “This thought triggered me to build something for homeland security,” he said.

The startup landed its first deal with the Rajasthan police force after the Alwar lynching. After a flurry of successes, police officials started recommending Staqu to others in the force.

Staqu uses facial recognition to identify criminals. Its AI-powered app allows police forces to carry the data in the back of their pockets and use the information as needed. Every time a criminal is nabbed, the police official can take a picture and fingerprint and upload it on the app.

Till date, the startup helped the police forces of Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Telangana solve over 1,100 cases. Indian Army is also one of its clients, where it helps conduct aerial imaging analysis.

Rai divides technology in security into four divisions – passive monitoring, active monitoring, proactive monitoring and predictive analysis.

In homeland security, government just holds 30% of the market while private sectors hold the rest.

Rai now plans to bring many more new trends in security – from voice analysis to catch frauds over calls (for example phishing cases with banks).

The voice analysis could be language independent and Staqu is also looking at developing a proactive predictive analysis technology where they can study the criminal history of an area to give real time alerts to the police.

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