hyderabad master blaster sachin tendulkar backed city startup smartron india pvt ltd a technology oem original equipment manufacturer and iot player on friday announced an ambitious rs 1500 crore investment over the next three years towards setting up rd engineering manufacturing and data centre facilities it also plans to increase its headcount to around 500 from the existing 200 this yearthe biggest chunk almost half of rs 1500 crore will be spent towards development and engineering of products around onefourth will be for manufacturing and the remaining onefourth will be towards backend solutions and data centre smartron founder and chairman mahesh lingareddy said on the sidelines of the launch of the startups new office in the city the startup which has shifted to a bigger office with a seating capacity of 500 in the gachibowli area is counting on investors and revenues to fund its ambitious expansion plansthe company that was set up in 2014 has invested close to rs 125 crore till date in the last quarter it raised rs 250 crore and plans to raise another rs 600 crore this year for which discussions are underway lingareddy said the company has launched three smart devices for consumer and enterprise markets in product categories such as phones and laptoptablet hybrid till date all its products are designed and developed in india while the manufacturing part is outsourced to china taiwan korea and some part of it is also done in india by its partners this year the company plans to roll out eight products in multiple categories such as electric bikes routers wearables and laptops among othersin 201617 smartron logged revenues of rs 50 crore and a major chunk of its sales came the foreign markets this year with an aggressive launch pipeline smartron will be gunning for rs 1000 crore revenues he addedon headcount he said the company has 200 people working across its offices in hyderabad chennai bengaluru and new delhi in hyderabad which is the companys headquarters it has 150 people and plans to add another 250 by the end of this year taking the total hyderabad office headcount to 400 overall the companys headcount is expected to grow to 500 in 2017 he added the company snapped up chennaibased automotive player volta motors that develops electric vehicles earlier this year and is eyeing a couple of more acquisitions in 2017 we are closely working with four players and we might go for acquisitions or partnerships these acquisitions will be in the area of healthcare smart homes energy and infrastructure he addedsmartron is betting big on iot and is innovating in the areas of sensor robotics artificial intelligence cloud and big data technologies to bring next generation smart devices and services for consumers enterprises industrial and infrastructure segment among othersmeanwhile state minister for it ec maud industries commerce mines geology public enterprises and nri affairs k t rama rao who inaugurated the office said that along with handset manufacturing hyderabad is also emerging as