In 1998, Tinku Acharya was among those who helped Intel Technologies develop the web-cam application. A decade later, he came back to his hometown Kolkata to set up Videonetics Technology Pvt Ltd, a video-surveillance technology-maker.

Now, backed by GenNext Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Reliance Industries, Acharya is looking to expand operations of his six-year old firm, both within India and overseas.

“We have increased our tie-ups with system integrators and have appointed a distributor. Revenues are expected to go up substantially following the expansion,” Acharya, MD of Videonetics, told BusinessLine .

Videonetics does not share turnover details or the amount it raised from GenNext, but maintains that GenNext has an equity stake. It witnessed a near 300 per cent growth in 2013-14 and is expected to do “even better” this fiscal. The company, Acharya says, is already cash flow positive.

City Surveillance

According to Acharya, the video management software is used for video surveillance, automated number plate recognition, red-light violation detection and facial recognition. Thiruvananthapuram was the first city to implement it (in 2011).

“In Thiruvananthapuram, the use of surveillance brought down traffic violations to 200-300 incidents a day from around 1,000,” he added.

Earlier this year, Kochi and Kozhikode started using his offerings for automatic red light (traffic) violation analytics, said Acharya. The same technology will be adopted by Bhubaneshwar and Patna later this year, and in Indore by January next year.

Expansion plans

Videonetics’ surveillance is also at work across 59 airports operated by the Airports Authority of India, and in the posh Alipore area of Kolkata, where most of the city’s business tycoons reside.

The company will explore retail and banking verticals too. Talks are on with an Indian retail chain to implement the same at their stores for customer mapping — understanding the behavioural pattern of customers. According to Acharya, it is also planning to tap individual users with home surveillance offerings. This will obviously be through tie-ups with existing companies, especially those into hardware.

Globally, its software is being used for surveillance at Mushriff Mall & Capital Plaza Mall in Abu Dhabi and in Kuwait’s financial hub.

Interestingly, it is also targeting an entry into the US with use of its offerings at a convention centre and in retail.

It is also targeting the cloud gateway monitoring services.

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