Aether Biomedical Sp. z o.o, which operates a medical robotics company that develops rehabilitation-focused devices, has raised funding as part of its seed round from investors including Chiratae Ventures.

Other participants in the funding round in Poland-based Aether include Joyance Partners and Sunfish Partners, Chiratae said in a statement.

The firm has invested in the startup through its DeepTech Innovators Program.

This programme is focused on solving real-world problems through deep-technology.

More than 250 companies participated in its latest cohort, including ones operating in sectors such as mobility, robotics, energy, aerospace and biotechnology.

Chiratae did not disclose the amount invested in Aether, which operates in India through Aether Biomedical Pvt. Ltd.

The company was set up in 2017 by Dhruv Agrawal and Faith Jiwakhan. Its devices are based on biosignal processing and the firm says it aims to make bionics accessible to the masses.

Its first product is Zeus, a low-cost bionic limb that has been developed using a combination of processing, machine learning and additive manufacturing.

According to VCCEdge, the data research arm of Mosaic Digital, Aether previously raised funding from a clutch of angel investors in 2018.

The company will use the funding from this seed round to enhance its research and development efforts for building its next generation of bionic products and accessories such as prosthetic wrists and elbows.

“As a company, we’re deeply committed to pushing the boundaries to create solutions that enable fulfilling lives for millions of people across the globe,” Agrawal said.

Chiratae founder and chairman Sudhir Sethi said the investment was part of the firm’s strategy of investing in companies using deep-tech to shape scalable solutions across verticals.

Chiratae Ventures

Formerly known as IDG Ventures India, Chiratae invests in companies across their seed, early- and expansion stages.

Funds operated by it currently have over $700 million under management, with investments in more than 80 companies in sectors such as health-technology, fin-tech, and consumer media.

Some of its portfolio companies include Bounce, Curefit, FirstCry, Forus, Lenskart, Manthan, Myntra and Flipkart.

Last month, Chiratae was among those investors that committed a little over Rs 6 crore (around $803,146) to CreditMantri Finserve Pvt Ltd, an online credit management startup.

Also last month, it took part in a Rs 24.5 crore (around $3.23 million) funding exercise in online rental marketplace Rentomojo. The startup’s valuation has touched nearly $100 million following the investment.

In April, VCCircle reported that Chiratae had invested in a travel-technology startup. Other companies that the firm has bet on in the space include Yatra and Tripoto.

Largest Polish company dealing in the wholesale FMCG distribution Eurocash acquired Frisco for PLN 132.5 million. The purchase transaction was financed from a loan granted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in the amount of €50 million.

Frisco.pl is the leader of the Warsaw e-grocery market, it is one of the largest and longest operating online supermarkets.
“Thanks to the acquisition of Frisco, our Group will gain knowledge and extensive experience in online sales, which will allow us to further develop this area for our customers, owners of independent retail stores,” Jacek Owczarek, member of the management board of Eurocash Group said. 

The Eurocash Group has been a strategic shareholder of Frisco since 2014, with shares at 44 percent of share capital. In December 2019, the Company decided to increase its involvement in Frisco and take over the remaining 56 percent of shares from MCI funds.

The Warsaw Google Cloud region will be set up in the capital as a technical and programming infrastructure hub for Central and Eastern Europe.
Google is set to invest up to $2 billion in a data centre to support cloud services in Poland, according to a report by daily Puls Biznesu.

Google Cloud recently announced that it is forming a strategic partnership with Poland’s Domestic Cloud Provider (DCP) to help Polish businesses to take advantage of cloud.

News of the investment follows the announcement Microsoft made in May when it revealed its plan to invest $1 billion to accelerate innovation and digital transformation in the “Polish Digital Valley”.

Foundational to this plan is the opening of a new Microsoft data centre region in Poland as part of its global-scale cloud to provide the country’s ecosystem of enterprises.

Poland’s deputy prime minister Jadwiga Emilewicz told the paper she estimated Google could invest $1.5 billion to $2 billion in the project.

Head of Google Cloud business development for Poland and CEE Magdalena Dziewguc told Puls Biznesu, “The Google Cloud region in Warsaw is the largest investment of this type on the infrastructure market in Poland.

This will reportedly be Google’s largest ever investment in Poland.
The company’s region in Poland will have three zones to protect against service disruptions, and will launch with the company’s portfolio of key products, including Compute Engine, App Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Bigtable, Cloud Spanner, and BigQuery.

Last year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai visited Warsaw where he announced Google’s commitment of $20m for digital skills programs across the CEE region.

On top of the recently announced region in Warsaw, the Alphabet cloud arm has announced it will be launching additional cloud regions in Delhi (India), Doha (Qatar), Melbourne (Australia) and Toronto (Canada).