Bootstrapping Using Services: Krishna Kumar, CEO of AppOrchid (Part 3)

Sramana: What kind of traction were you able to get with your Bootstrapping with Services strategy?

Krishna Kumar: We were able to get some good Fortune 500 customers using that bootstrapping methodology. We used that as the means to get our first round of funding, which came through Open Ventures.

Sramana: Where is the company based?

Krishna Kumar: We are based in Freemont.

Sramana: So you did all of this work out of Silicon Valley?

Krishna Kumar: Yes. We got our first round of funding of $8 million in 2008. That was a difficult time to raise money, so I feel that raising that round was a sizeable achievement. Around this juncture, we found it necessary to have our own footing instead of piggy backing on SAP or other platforms. We started promoting our own situational awareness platform.

Our initial focus was on energy, which turned out to be the right move. The Green Energy market was really picking up momentum during that timeframe. We had some excellent customers such as California Grid and several international customers as well. The company grew from Phase 1 to Phase 2 and we had several rounds of financing. In January of 2013, I decided to move on to my next gig leveraging artificial intelligence in Big Data. That is what I am doing now with AppOrchid.

Sramana: Does the other company still exist?

Krishna Kumar: Absolutely. Space-Time Insight has over 200 employees now and has a fully staffed enterprise sales engine. I don’t know the latest revenue but they are doing very well.

Sramana: You left Space-Time Insight to start AppOrchid. What was the concept you had in mind?

Krishna Kumar: As far as Space-Time Insight was concerned, I hung around for a while in an advisory capacity. However, what I saw that intrigued me from the Big Data perspective was the need for intelligent emulation of machines. The construction work of Big Data, the Internet of Things, was all well laid out. The time was right for the next breed of intelligence solutions to sit on top of it.

My platform does three things. First and foremost it is the Internet of Everything. The way I define it is a combination of the Internet of Things plus People plus Process. Things are sensors such as digital devices. They leave a footprint in black and white. The Internet of People is what is tracked in people’s heads. It is the social footprint and things that are not necessarily expressed in bits and bytes. That is also quite applicable to the Internet of Process, which tends to exist in shades of gray.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Bootstrapping Using Services: Krishna Kumar, CEO of AppOrchid
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