Unicorn India Ventures invests in radio startup Inntot Technologies

A technology-driven startup Inntot, which aims to provide a cost-effective and high-quality digital media broadcast receiver solutions across the globe, has raised an undisclosed amount from the bridge or the second round of investments from Unicorn India Ventures. Unicorn India had first seeded the company in 2018.

Inntot focuses on providing high quality and cost-effective IP solutions for next generation digital media broadcast receivers, namely, Digital Radio Mondiale (for AM and FM bands), DAB/DAB+, CDR, ISDB-T, and HD-Radio receivers in collaboration with Xperi.

The company plans to use the funds to procure highly sophisticated and precision digital radio test equipment that is required for RF and timing performance testing for all the digital radio broadcast receiver standards, such as DRM, DAB/DAB+, HD-Radio, and CDR.

Inntot was incorporated in 2014 by Prasanth Thankappan, the company’s CTO, and Rajith Nair, C0-founder and CEO. The company’s SDR receiver solutions cover a wide range of digital radio broadcast standards and geographies, such as DRM in India, Russia, South Africa, and Indonesia; DAB/DAB+ in Europe, Australia, and the Middle East; HD-Radio in USA, Canada, and Mexico; and CDR in China.

“Our objective is to enable Inntot to provide high quality and cost-effective Digital Radio Broadcast Receiver solutions across all geographies, and it can be inside cars, houses or smart phones. The continued support from Unicorn India is a testament to the success we have achieved so far and the growth plans that are chalked out for the next two years,” said Mr. Nair.

The current Digital Radio Broadcast receiver solutions in market require dedicated chips that are high in costs and are used to perform complex operations like demodulation in hardware, thus making the end solution very costly. Such high costs prevent swift penetration into emerging and high-volume markets like India, the EU, South Africa, Russia, China and Indonesia where the usage of DRM, DAB and CDR technologies is mandated by governments and broadcasters.

The USP of Inntot is that its SDR implementation, along with patented improvisations, runs on ARM processors, making it high-quality and cost-effective for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and bringing down the receiver cost within the reach of the common man.

Inntot has licensed its digital radio receiver solutions to multiple Tier-1 customers, including Clarion and Telechips.