We’ve been wondering what former Microsoft vice president Sanjay Parthasarathy has been building ever since we discovered his startup, Indix, 18 months ago.
Parthasarathy, who spent 19 years at Microsoft, including a stint running the company’s Startup Business Accelerator program, still isn’t saying much about Indix.
However, he did just score $4.5 million in fresh funding from Nexus Venture Partners and Avalon Ventures. The company, which is based in Seattle and Chennai, India, had previously raised $1.4 million.
So, what’s it up to?
The company isn’t saying much, though a description indicates that it is working on “big data, analytics, visualizations and applications that help product and services companies manage and get the most out of their product portfolio.” The company said it will remain in “stealth mode” until later this year, though a few more details are available in this blog post. They write about how Indix will change the role of product managers at organizations:
It fascinates us that the product manager lives in a world that is largely manual and ad hoc. Their expertise seems to be to the ability to connect disparate conversations and data into a point of view that creates unique products and services. And then shepherd these products through their life cycles while making a nice profit and building an interesting business.
What would the product manager be capable of if we gave them the data, the tools and the applications that would help them come up with new product ideas, set the right prices, manage promotions and make their offerings available to their customers in the best ways possible? What if we made it easy to collaborate with others in their company and communicate with their peers at other companies? What if we could bring powerful analytics and beautiful visualizations to bear on their problems? What if we could connect their internal data with internet data to make meaningful suggestions? What if we could make a platform for product managers to do whatever they wanted?
That feels like an interesting opportunity to us.
Rich Levandov of Avalon Ventures, added in a release that Indix is developing a new business application that is visually rich and appealing. “I think it’s going to make the life of a product manager a lot easier,” he said.
