Locale.ai Revenue, Valuation & Funding (2024)

[00:00] Hey folks, my guest today is Aditi Sinha. She is building locale dot ai, the control tower for operations team. She's one of the co founders. The company was started in 2019 when she and her co founder, Rishab, spotted a problem while working on data projects in their previous company. Locale is now 20 people strong and has clients in multiple geos. She has a graduate from BITS Pilani in India with a master's degree in economics and finance. [00:22] Aditi, are you ready to take us to the top? [00:24] >> Yes, definitely. Great to be here. [00:26] You bet. Okay. So, who's paying for locale dot ai and how are they using you? [00:31] >> Definitely. So, our overall target market is any company that has moving assets, it's what we call. So, that moving asset could be a vehicle, delivery people, salespeople, trucks. So, the companies that we are going after are delivery, mobility, logistics and so on. So, right now, we have global customers from across all geographies. For example, one of the companies that we work with in Europe is called Felix and they are an electric bike sharing system and they [01:01] >> use the product to understand things like where are users booking their apps and whether the users booking their bikes. And if they are booking the bikes in those areas, do they have bikes available or not? Right? [01:12] Interesting. [01:12] >> So, these kind of problems. [01:14] And how is a company like Felix paying you? Is it per API call or a flat SaaS fee or how do you model it? [01:20] >> Sure. So, our pricing is actually based on the amount of data that we ingest from them. So, we have a base platform cost and every additional data point that they send is divided into different packs. So, it ensures that, you know, as the company is growing, we also grow along with them. [01:37] Data measured by what? Like, again, of API hits or like measured by what? [01:42] >> Yeah, number of API hits could be a good proxy. You can say that. [01:45] Okay. Okay. And then, so what's the average customer? I'm sure you have a range, but what's the average customer paying you per month or per year to use the tech? [01:52] >> Sure. It's about $5,000 per month. I would say I would quote that as an average number. And of course, it depends on like how large the company is, what are the number of teams that we're working with and what are the use cases. [02:06] Yep, very interesting. Some of your work solutions you put on your website are things like hyper local delivery, ride sharing apps, app based workforce logistics and supply chain companies. Which one of these four industries is your biggest cohort, your biggest customer base? [02:23] >> Sure. So, biggest customers right now belong to the overall hyper local market, right? Which would include not only mobility companies but also like your on demand delivery, right? So, you tap something on the button and it comes to you. The problem statements in both those companies are quite similar, right? Which is what I was explaining to you earlier as well. [02:43] Interesting. Okay, give me the backstory. When did you launch? [02:47] >> So, we started the company in March 2019. We launched the product last year in August. So, it's going to be about three years since we started the company. [02:57] That's amazing. And how many customers today? [03:00] >> So, we have about 10 customers. These customers are divided into, I would say, very different sizes. So, we have customers who work in one or two cities and we have a customer that works in, let's say, 90 cities all over the world. [03:14] And then Aditi, can I take 10 customers times 5,000 a month on average? You're doing about 50,000 a month in revenue right now? [03:22] >> Approximately, yes. A little less, but approximately, yes. [03:26] So, maybe more like 40,000, something like that? [03:28] >> Something like that, yeah. [03:29] And if that's where you are today, where were you exactly a year ago so we can calculate growth rate? [03:34] >> Actually, at this time of the year, we had just launched the product. So, this time of the year was when we started doing sales. So, all the sales effort over the last year or to come to this point has accumulated in this last one year. [03:50] So, maybe like a thousand bucks a month or something very small a year ago. [03:54] >> Yes. [03:55] Very cool. Alright, we love that. Now, have you bootstrapped this and kept your equity or did you decide to raise? [04:01] >> No, we have actually raised. We raised a seed round this year from one of the top tier institutional VCs here in India. They are called Chiratae Ventures. And in addition to that, we had people who participated from our last round including Better Capital from India and [04:20] And what was the size of the seed round? [04:22] >> Sure. So, size of the seed round was $1,300,000 [04:26] And how big was the pre seed round? [04:28] >> The pre seed round was quite small. We have not actually disclosed the amount publicly anywhere as of now. But yeah, at that moment, we were just about five to six months old. So, it was quite small for us to just, you know, build the product. [04:43] Yeah, you're talking like 40 or $50,000 in the pre seed round, something small. [04:48] >> A little bit more than that. Yeah. But as I said, we have not announced that publicly yet. [04:53] Why would you not announce that publicly, but you would announce the 1,300,000 seed round? Why would it matter? [05:01] >> Because at that moment, it was just a call that we took because the round was a little small and we're still figuring out a lot of our stuff including, you know, what is it that we do, what is our positioning, a lot of those type of things. [05:14] And how have you and your co founder thought about this? When you guys launched the business, did you just say, you know what, Aditi, we're equal partners, we'll just split it fifty fifty or did you do something different? [05:24] >> No, we did not do anything different. [05:26] You just said fiftyfifty, let's move on. [05:29] >> Right. [05:30] >> Yes. [05:30] That's funny. Okay, but then there's two of you, Two co founders? [05:34] >> Yes. [05:34] Okay. So when you went out obviously to do the seed round, you're raising 1,300,000. Most people today, they're doing a seed round are selling 10 to 20% of the business. Were you guys sort of in that same range? [05:44] >> Yes. [05:45] Okay. Interesting. So call it like a 10 to 15,000,000 valuation, something like that. Okay. Interesting. And are you raising more capital now or are you still using your seed around money? [05:55] >> So the idea is for us to raise a series a in the next six months or so is what we have planned out. So we have some revenue goals in mind that we want to hit. And you know as we sort of start preaching there, start building those relationships, start those conversations. Yeah and by the way, also going to travel to The US very soon. [06:19] >> Yeah, so the idea would be to sort of start those conversations with some investors. We have some angel investors already from US. So, the chief global officer, ex CPO at Uber is one of our investors. So, a lot of these people I really want to meet face to face because we've just been meeting with them on video. [06:37] That's amazing. Which city are you coming to in The US? [06:40] >> So, I have some family in SF, so I'm going to start from there. And yeah, then I need to plan my entire trip. Also, depending on, you know, where do we land a lot of these calls with our customers. [06:51] Yeah, Neyar, $40,000 a month today in revenue. What's your revenue? What do you think you need to hit before you can go raise a good Series A? [06:57] >> Sure. So, a lot of like offers you started getting now, to be very honest. But we wanted to actually, you know, sort of hold off a little longer and try to get to like seven fifty ks approaching to a mill sort of a thing. So that, you know, when we go, come from a position of, you know, strength. [07:18] Yep. No, that makes a lot of sense. And Aditi, how did you get these first 10 customers? [07:24] >> So, it's a lot of things. But overall, so most of our customers, we try to reach out to them. So, it's a purely outbound effort. We try to reach out to them on LinkedIn, email and so on. But we also get some percentage of customers that are purely inbound that we get through our content. So, essentially, we want to double down on that as we go forward and sort of build a repeatable engine to get more [07:50] >> and more inbound customers, right? Because when people are reaching out to you inbound, they already have a need, are looking for a product and it's much easier to sell to them with a smaller sales cycle. [07:59] Yep, that's fair. Talk to me about your team today. How many folks? [08:02] >> So, are 20 people. [08:04] 20 people. How many engineers? [08:07] >> About 10? 11 engineers and I am so sorry about that. [08:12] That's okay. [08:13] >> 11 engineers and nine people in the business team. [08:18] Very interesting. And talk to me a little bit more about what you're building next. Like, actually, what's the most unique use case somebody is using you for right now? [08:27] >> Sure. So, we people use our product to understand anything that they want about their areas or any like behavior of their drivers, users, anything on their operations. Right? So, example, think of yourself to be InstaMart or InstaCart, sorry, or Postmates and understand okay what are the areas where you are not getting demand, are getting demand where you are doing delays, cancellations, all of that. So it's a lot of those kind of someone is at the door, [08:55] >> Nathan. There's no one in the house. I'm so sorry. [08:57] >> Can I please [08:58] >> Go go grab it? [08:59] I'm gonna yeah. Go grab it. I'm gonna describe I'm gonna describe a use case while you do that. So, one of the very interesting use cases on the website that Aditi has is are effectively ride sharing companies that use the platform. And the ride sharing companies can track where users drop off or where they leave their scooter, right? So where they drop the scooter. And that will inform Bird or Lime or whatever [09:21] the scooter company is that, Hey, users are dropping off here. We should open up a hub there and deploy more scooters. They can track, you know, things like completion rates on the ride, conversion ratios, things like that. So that's a really good use case. [09:32] >> Yep, exactly. [09:34] All right, Aditi. Very cool. Okay, good stuff. Talk to me about where you're investing the capital right now that you raised. Is it in engineering, sales, somewhere else? [09:43] >> Most of it is in the engineering segment. As you know, it's so, so, so hard to find good engineers. So, I'm going to put a shameless plug here saying that we are hiring. But having said that, yeah, most of it is in engineering, some of it is on the business side as well. And sort of, you know, hire more sales folks and sort of get people penetrate more in our existing geographies. [10:06] Are you fully remote? Can people apply to work for you wherever they are in the world? [10:10] >> So, we are actually setting up our office in Bangalore, but we are not just restricted to that. So, we are following sort of a hybrid model. If people are remote, they can definitely apply to us. We will figure out some vocations or times and places where we could meet with them as well. [10:30] Very cool. Alright, let's wrap up with The Famous Five, Aditi. Number one, favorite book? [10:36] >> Creativity Inc. By Ed Catmull. He's the CEO of Pixar. [10:40] Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [10:44] >> Brian Chesky from Airbnb. [10:46] Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your business? [10:51] >> I love Notion. But there are so many tools we cannot live without, including GitHub that we use extensively at locale. [10:58] Number four. How many hours of sleep do you get every night? [11:01] >> How many hours of sleep? [11:05] >> I try to not compromise on my sleep, so I try to get seven to eight hours of sleep every day. [11:11] That's good. And what's your situation? Married, single, kids? [11:15] >> Single, of course. [11:16] Okay, not married, no kids. [11:17] How old? [11:18] Do you mind me asking how old you are? [11:20] >> I'm 26. [11:21] 26. [11:22] Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20. [11:25] >> When I was 20 years old. [11:27] Yeah. [11:30] >> Enjoy life as much as possible. Enjoy college. Figure out what you really, really want to do and just go with the flow. So not what I would like to change. [11:38] Locale.ai, they help delivery companies, ride sharing companies understand what's happening in a hyper local fashion with their API. They had a thousand bucks a month in revenue a year ago, now $40,000 a month in revenue as they look to keep scaling. Just closed a $1,300,000 seed round this year. I'd call it like a 7 to $15,000,000 valuation. Looking to raise a series a as they get closer to a million dollar run rate with their team of [11:58] 20. 11 engineers based in Bangalore are growing quickly. [12:00] Aditi, thank you for taking us to the top. [12:03] >> Thank you so much, Nathan. And I'm so sorry there were so many background noises that you were making. [12:08] No problem. You did great. Thanks for coming on. [12:11] >> Thank you so much again. [12:14] One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM Central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on three hungry buyers. They try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday 1PM [12:39] Central. Additionally, remember these recorded founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM Central. Make sure you don't miss any of that, make sure you click the subscribe button below here on YouTube, the big red button and then click the little bell notification to make sure you get notifications when we do go live. 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