Dista, a deeptech incubator headquartered in Pune and Delaware (US), has garnered $1.2 million in funding. Pentathlon Ventures led the seed fundraising round, which included Core 91 and several individual investors.

Managing Partner, Pentathlon Ventures, Shashank Deshpande remarked, “at Pentathlon Ventures, we believe Dista is uniquely positioned to leverage its location intelligence platform to optimize field operations. This aligns with our fund's core philosophy of backing passionate entrepreneurs who have built disruptive digital solutions for the global market from India”.

Dista was co-founded by Nishant Kumar (Co-founder & Chief Product Officer), Shishir Gokhale (Co-founder & CEO), and Deepak Garg (Co-founder & CTO), which was incubated in 2017 and registered as an independent corporation on October 17, 2020.

Dista is an artificial intelligence-powered location intelligence platform that aspires to democratise company location knowledge. Customers may expect customised SaaS experiences from solutions built with Dista's no-code/low-code customisations.

Dista has assisted multinational firms in reducing time to market, increasing conversion and engagement rates, and improving customer experience. Dista claims to have amassed a solid base of over 50 business clients in less than a year with a youthful and vibrant workforce of 40, all under the age of 30. It now plans to grow into additional areas and enhance the number of clients and experiences provided by 3X.

Shishir Gokhale said, “we will use the funds to achieve scale-market expansion, brand building, and strengthen our product lines by focusing on R&D and advanced user experience to further amplify the value delivered to our customers and end-users.”

Dista is a platform that provides enterprises with cloud-based field service management, mobile workforce management, shared mobility (ride-hailing), and first and last-mile delivery management.

It utilises a variety of APIs such as locators, grid design & administration, cockpit & dashboards, scheduling algorithms, route optimizer, asset monitoring, and others to enhance operational efficiency of enterprises. It is powered by Google Maps and Google Cloud.

In the case of mobile kitchens, for example, the food is produced on the spot and is ready when it arrives at the customer's location. Dista assists by establishing a system that automatically distributes orders to the appropriate mobile kitchen. It uses artificial intelligence to determine if an order for a specific time slot can be accepted, after which it automatically assigns incoming orders in real time based on crucial parameters such as location, availability, and priority.

He elaborated, “we also offer real-time tracking of orders in transit and notifications with a live ETA to customers. In addition, the solution is equipped with a route optimisation feature that provides the quickest and shortest route for optimum deliveries. We customised our delivery management software to offer specific solutions crucial to cater to a company’s unique business model”.

The firm does not charge a service commission. Rather, it charges the corporation based on the delivery agents they are in control of. Shishir noted that, in terms of data security, they must take care of data security and data storage concerns, but not necessarily in terms of consumer data.

He further said, “so, if you were to ask me if we are CCDA-compliant, it depends on the nature of the assignment that we do for a client. But yes, there are a host of security protocols in place, and apart from Google, we have many of our own internal security protocols in place. So, all of the data that is with Dista is entirely protected and confidential”.