Startup accelerator programme: Bharti Airtel acquires about 8 per cent stake in Bengaluru-based Lemnisk

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel has acquired a strategic stake of around 8 per cent in Lemnisk under its startup accelerator programme for an undisclosed amount, the company said on Tuesday.

Bengaluru-based Lemnisk offers real-time marketing automation and secure Customer Data Platform (CDP) capable of orchestrating one-to-one personalisation and cross-channel customer journeys at scale that increases conversions, retention and growth for enterprises.

"We are delighted to welcome Lemnisk into the Airtel startup accelerator programme and be a part of our digital innovation engine. We see great potential in this alliance and together with Lemnisk we aim to create world's largest CDP platform. Lemnisk's real-time marketing automation engine is a natural fit for us, where over 350 million customers interact with brands daily through multiple touch points," Airtel Digital CEO Adarsh Nair said in a statement.

In a regulatory filing, the company disclosed that it has acquired around 8 per cent stake in the startup in an all-cash deal without disclosing the financial details.

Lemnisk has offices in Singapore, Dubai, Boston and Bengaluru.

The company will build CDP platform across Airtel's digital businesses, including ad-tech (Airtel Ads), digital entertainment (Wynk Music and Airtel Xstream), and digital marketplace (Airtel Thanks app).

In future, Airtel plans to offer this service to its enterprise customers through network integrated cloud platform as a service Airtel IQ. The platform will offer enterprises an opportunity to create a nimble, scalable and omni-channel engagement for its customers.

"My co-founders, Rinku Ghosh and Praveen D S, and I are very excited to strategically partner with Airtel and work together to unlock enormous value from customer data, while keeping privacy and consent frameworks at the core. Airtel's ambition aligns with our vision to offer a single frictionless platform to super large enterprises that both organizes and activates high volume and high velocity data," Lemnisk co-founder & CEO Subra Krishnan said.