Location intelligence platform LifeSight gets backing from Indonesian VC firm

Singapore’s LifeSight, a location intelligence platform powered by artificial intelligence has raised $2 million (Rs 13.5 crore) in a pre-Series A round led by the shareholders of Indonesia-based investment firm Provident Capital Partners, a company statement said.

The firm will use the funds to grow its engineering and data science capabilities at its Bengaluru development centre and to expand into other Asian markets over the next two years, the statement added.

Run by LifeSight Pte. Ltd, the firm was founded in September 2017 by Rohit Maheswaran and Tobin Thomas. Prior to setting up LifeSight, Maheswaran was chief product officer at ad-tech firm Ebizu, while Thomas led sales and operations at controversial Malaysia-based e-commerce firm AskMe.

Through its software-as-a-service offering, LifeSight helps brands, retailers and agencies reach offline consumers, optimise media spend and make better business decisions. It also helps marketers use proprietary data sets to target, understand and measure consumers with their geo-behavioral AI platform.

“As long-time players of the APAC marketing and advertising industry, my peers and I often deliberated about the disjointed manner in which digital ads were being served, the outdated attribution models, and the missed opportunity for ethical, opt-in location intelligence to guide business decisions in this region. So we created LifeSight with the core aim of democratizing location intelligence with an easy to use SaaS platform,” Thomas said in the statement.

Since its commercial launch three months ago, the firm claims to have built a strong presence in Singapore, Malaysia, India, and Indonesia.

Through location intelligence, companies can derive business insights and decisions from geospatial data. Key players in the global location intelligence market include Cisco, Oracle, IBM, Pitney Bowes, Teradata Corp, Microsoft, SAP and many more.

Provident Capital’s invests in firms across industries such as telecommunications, infrastructure, mining, real estate, plantation, and biofuels. Its businesses are mostly concentrated in Indonesia. The VC firm’s portfolio comprises companies like Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com, Indonesian telecom giant Tower Bersama Group, and mining company Merdeka Copper Gold, to name a few.

Other startups that offer location-based services include HyperTrack Inc., a US- and India-based startup, which allows users to track their products in real time. The startup had Series A funds from Nexus Venture Partners and Founders Fund in June last year. Founders Fund—known for backing companies such as Elon Musk-led SpaceX, Facebook and Spotify in the past—invested in the startup from its FF Angel Fund.