Frinks AI, a Bengaluru-based deep-tech startup specializing in machine vision for manufacturing, has raised $5.4 million in a Pre-Series A funding round. Prime Venture Partners led the funding round, which also included Chiratae Ventures, Navam Capital, and Zen Technologies founder Ashok Atluri. This increases the company's total funding to $6.25 million.

Key Highlights

• The Bengaluru-based startup aims to innovate Vision AI applications and enhance scalability with this significant funding.
• Frinks AI plans to leverage its funding to address evolving needs across healthcare, retail, and manufacturing sectors.

Frinks AI was founded by Aditya Agrawal, Dharmgya Sharma, and Subhra S Bhattacherjee, all of whom are IIT Hyderabad alumni. The company creates Vision AI systems for industrial applications like visual inspection and quality control. According to the company, its technology is used on more than 1,000 production lines in industries such as automotive, consumer goods, medical devices, and construction.

"With ongoing supply chain disruptions and rising global trade tensions, we're seeing a strong push toward localised manufacturing as countries prioritise internal consumption," Agrawal warned.

Versatile, no-code platform

Frinks AI is developing general-purpose vision models that can be applied to a variety of manufacturing environments. These models are intended to work with minimal training data while addressing issues such as accuracy and deployment complexity.

The startup also provides a no-code platform that allows users to integrate vision AI tools into their existing production systems and tailor inspection workflows. Customers have reported improved defect detection and production efficiency, but no independent performance metrics have been disclosed, according to the company.

Advisors and Investor Confidence

Frinks AI is advised by industry veterans and academics, such as S. Ramadorai (former CEO of TCS), Gopichand Katragadda (former CTO of Tata Sons), and Tarun Ramadorai (Imperial College London).

Brij Bhushan, a partner at Prime Venture Partners, explained that Frinks AI's technology addresses long-standing limitations in traditional machine vision. "Visual inspection in manufacturing has been around for 50 years but, due to rule-based approaches, its applicability has been limited to less than 15 per cent of scenarios on a typical assembly line," says Bhushan. "Frinks has used advances in image processing and AI computing to create manufacturing-specific models. Frinks can guarantee 99.99% accuracy to its customers by combining foundational models with in-house fine-tuning on a small set of images."

Frinks AI: Future Plans

With the new funding, Frinks AI intends to expand its presence in the United States, invest more in R&D, and explore partnerships with OEMs and automation companies to accelerate adoption. The company's goal is to establish its technology as a core infrastructure layer for intelligent manufacturing worldwide.