Micromax invests in ‘inOne’ to give its 100 mn consumers access to smarter apps

Micromax Informatics, which has emerged the world’s 10th largest handset maker, has invested an undisclosed amount in consumer technology and AI-based start-up, One Labs. 

The move highlights Micromax's focus on strategic collaborations to provide customised offerings to its users.

In the past, Micromax has tied up with technology start-ups like Ixigo, Healthifyme, IndusOS, Gaana.com and others, to develop relevant deployments of software that leverage its consumer footprint.

The flagship product of One Labs, ‘inOne’ is a platform to access apps across multiple genres from food, shopping, travel, deals, cabs, news, recharge and games among others from a single app. In addition, One Labs has created an AI-enabled voice, chatbot solution One Assistant which packages services provided on ‘inOne’ in a virtual assistant format.

‘inOne’ will be pre-embedded in Micromax devices and will further augment the features available to users on its Around platform.

“A large chunk of our efforts are now concentrated on coming up with products and services which act as solutions to the needs of the fast-evolving consumers, empowering them with the latest technological innovations and eventually becoming an extension of their lifestyle. Given the fact that, artificial intelligence is the future of device ecosystem, we look forward to seeing how the partnership with One Labs will enable us to enhance user experience even further,” Vikas Jain, Co-Founder, Micromax Informatics said.

The inOne platform currently hosts over 50 apps and can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. Some of the apps accessible on the inOne platform are Zomato, Ola, Uber, Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, Housejoy, Nearbuy, Urban Clap, ixigo and BookMyShow.

“While phone hardware is getting smarter and more efficient, we wanted to make apps smarter. Like mobiles replaced pagers, we foresee that in a few years all in one apps like inOne will replace the need to download separate apps for different use cases,” Rahul Gupta, the CEO and Co-founder, One Labs said.