Kalaari Capital, an early stage investment firm, has invested Rs 30 crore in an Indian tablet maker Swipe Telecom. The Pune based company plans to utilize the funds raised in expanding sales in the Indian market and invest in research and development.
Swipe lists a total of 23 devices, a combination of tablets and phablets, all based on Google’s Android operating system. According to a report by the Economic Times, it also plans to introduce tablets on Microsoft’s Windows Platform, which is quite ambitious.
Swipe’s tablets are priced between Rs 3,999 to Rs 14,999. Essentially, these are low end tablets, which translates to little margin for the company. Low end tablets are already infamous in the country. When companies like Micromax introduced low end tablets, a lot of people bought them. It turned out to be an horrendous experience because of the cheap components used in them. The next wave of tablet buyers, are either going to upgrade their tablets or won’t be buying it at all. In any case, low end tablets does not seem to be an appealing market to address.
This is one of the reason why Micromax has introduced its Turbo series. It’s trying to move away from low end market where it dominated, to provide a better experience to its users and to gain more margin.
Either Swipe Telecom is soon going to pull a rabbit out of hat or it has already done so by managing raise the fund.
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