Q. What is the name of your product? What is its usage?
A. Yantra IoT Platform and apps. Yantra is further offered in three flavours which are Yantra Connect (for connection to hardware assets through sensors and gateways), Yantra Manage (the capabilities of Data ingestion, management, Rule Engine, Workflow and Event Management etc) and Yantra Predict (for Business Intelligence on the asset data).
Q. What is the problem that prompted you to design such a solution?
A. We realized long back that there is an acute need for connecting assets and machines and collecting real-time data in a manner that they can be optimized for real-time and off line analytical tool based optimization. This led to the development of a IoT stack which addresses all the requirements of an IoT solution for customers.
Q. Are there other products of this nature in today’s market?
A. There are a few players in the developed geographies who offer similar products. But there is none, to our knowledge, who offer a complete IoT solution stack and capability anywhere outside North America and Western Europe.
Q. How does your offering work? Could you describe the technology used in detail?
A. the core platform is a Java based platform and has been built on Big Data technologies. We also offer Hardware Gateways from us and our partners to connect to the assets and collect data. The Yantra Platform does a very intelligent Device Management (Authentication, Authorisation, Handling Multiple Protocols etc) and has a very powerful configurable Business Rule Engine.
This is critical to setting real-time control based on operational thresholds and comparative operational parameter data collected in real time. Yantra supports through APIs, application development and customers can either use the standard apps that we offer for a few vertical applications or develop bespoke applications themselves or using our services.
Yantra can be hosted in either public clouds such as AWS or can also be deployed On-Premise at the customers, thus offering customers the flexibility of their deployment choice.
Q. How do you intend to monetise this offering?
A. We already monetise these offeringS by charging customers a SaaS fee for every asset connected or a one-time licence fee in case of On-Premise deployment. The hardware gateways are typically paid as one time capex amounts by the customers..
Q. What challenges did you face while developing this product?
A. The challenges were many. This was built on the back of a few large customer projects and time was a stiff challenge. Also the availability of quality human capital in software, hardware and firmware is a big challenge.
Q. Is it a finished product? Are you planning on adding more features to it?
A. The product is a finished product and we are already monetizing that. Today over 50 customers across 20+ applications use the product in some form. We continue to upgrade the product every quarter and that would be a constant investment from our side.
Q. How long did you take to get this idea from inception to fruition?
A. 8 months.
Q. Does it hold any patents? Please mention elaborately what has been patented?
A. One of our designs is Patent Pending.
