Gaia Smart Cities, a venture of former Reliance Jio president and Chief Information Officer Sumit Chowdhury, plans to raise $15-20 million from global institutions for expanding operations and funding product development targeted at Smart City initiatives.

“We earlier received undisclosed funding from angel investors from Silicon Valley and Bengaluru. Now, we are preparing for the next round of funding from global institutions,” Chowdhury, founder CEO of Gaia Cities, told Economic Times.

“We are already in talks   to raise $15-20 million in coming five months.” The funding will be used for trailing Smart City solutions in multiple cities, besides helping   startups to develop smart devices.

The company is developing an aggregated platform of solutions, services and products for Smart Cities. The platform will also host solutions from software vendors and integrate with IT vendors, telecom operators and device vendors.

Gaia is developing its own smart products, software platforms and solutions, along with billing systems. It already has identified at least 10 startups for the aggregated platform to offer end-to-end solutions.