Flickstree Raises $5 Mn in its Pre-Series B funding round, led by Venture Catalysts and 9 Unicorns

Flickstree, a content and marketing technology startup secured investment led by Venture Catalysts Group, India’s first incubator and largest accelerator for startups and 9 Unicorns, in its pre-series B round of funding. Flickstree creates AI-based editorial video content for video commerce.

Flickstree is a content led video commerce platform that enables transactions for their brand partners, leveraging in house video content, created using patented AI. The platform uses AI voiceover, AI script, and auto-generates branded video content. These videos are distributed through its own apps and websites such as PlusYou Club, and a network of more than 150 publisher partners. Flickstree currently has an active client base in India, Middle East, South-East Asia, UK, Australia and USA.

Reflecting on leading the funding round for Flickstree, Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-Founder, Venture Catalysts & 9Unicorns said, “Flickstree uses the power of Artificial Intelligence to create the most compelling branded video content at scale, at no-cost for brands. Moreover, they use their data engine to promote these videos that keeps churning transactions on an auto-pilot mode. In sum, Brands get videos at no cost and consumers love watching these videos and buy their products and services. This makes it a win-win platform for all brands globally.”

"Content driven ecommerce is the fastest growing segment of online sales across Asia," said William Bao Bean Managing Director Orbit Startups and General Partner SOSV "Flickstree is the leader in India and now positioned to expand across the region helping brands to leverage video to drive sales."

Flickstree is a global product with an extremely asset lite plug-and-play model. Its inception took place in 2016. The company was started by Saurabh Singh, Rahul Jain and Nagendra Sandra, who hold a combined domain experience of over 30 years. With a team that specializes in the fields of branding, sales & distribution, digital marketing, machine learning and artificial intelligence technology, the company caters to over 200 brands worldwide, driving transactions over $50 million annually and boasts an active user base of 25 million on its platform.

On securing funds in the pre-series B round, Saurabh Singh, CEO of Flickstree said, “Consumers love watching video content before making transactions. That’s why content-led commerce is the future of e-commerce. Flickstree’s AI creates great content that consumers love to watch and transact, making this a cutting-edge platform to partner with, for all e-commerce brands worldwide.”

In its pre-series B round of funding, Flickstree secured US $5 million, which it plans to utilize for global expansion, along with strengthening its product and technology. It is also backed by Samsung Ventures, Orbit Startups (SOSV), LionRock Capital, FULD & Co., Lets Venture, AB Claymore, Angelbay, amongst others.

About Flickstree

Flickstree, a video commerce company, was founded by Saurabh Singh, Rahul Jain, and Nagender Sangra in 2016. Flickstree creates editorial video content using AI. It then

promotes these videos to drive sales using world class in-house data engine. With over 25 million monthly active users driving over 150 thousand transactions per month, Flickstree works with over 200 brands worldwide driving transactions over $50 million annually.

About Venture Catalysts

enture Catalysts is India’s 1st integrated incubator for startups. It combines capital, mentoring and network for startups and has a presence in 47 cities across India with international presence in UAE, HK, UK, USA, Canada and Singapore. Venture Catalysts invests in the range of INR 2 - 15 crores per startup through a network of HNIs, Family Offices, CXOs, etc.

YES BANK Announces Investments in Venture Catalysts Group Funds

Venture Catalysts has also sponsored two platforms – Beams Fintech Fund & 9 Unicorns Accelerator Fund

YES BANK announced today that it has invested with Venture Catalysts Group Funds (Venture Catalysts), which is an integrated incubator that offers funding, mentorship, and network to startup founders from the idea inception stage to the growth stages of the startup journey. The fund has also sponsored two platforms, Beams Fintech Fund that invests in growth Stage companies operating at the intersection of Financial Services and Technology, and 9 Unicorns Accelerator Fund that is an early stage sector agnostic investor.

With these investments, YES BANK aims to further its mission of catering to the ‘Future Tech Businesses of India’, bolster innovation in the technology space including financial sector, and potentially partnering with leading tech startups that Venture Catalysts has invested in — Beams Fintech Fund and 9 Unicorns Accelerator Fund.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Ajay Rajan, Country Head - Transaction Banking , YES BANK said, “We are pleased to partner with Venture Catalysts and the allied platforms – Beams Fintech Fund and 9 Unicorns Accelerator Fund. We believe that this partnership is a step in the direction to becoming the go-to-bank for technology startups. India is at the cusp of a massive growth and the collaboration between banks and tech companies – especially with fintechs - will play a critical role in this journey.”

This partnership aligns with YES BANKs’ long-term growth strategy of strengthening its foothold in India’s growing tech markets by investing in the founders of tomorrow. Collaborating with and supporting tech companies to ideate and experiment on various use cases such as agriculture, healthcare, commerce, education, logistics, open banking, supply chain finance, payments, digital banking, among others has been a key driver of YES BANK’s innovation strategy. YES BANK has been a pioneer in the tech space and was the first Bank in India to open up its APIs to various tech companies in 2015.

Mr. Naveen Surya, Co-founding member, Beams Fintech Fund , said “This partnership is a great beginning for the tech ecosystem. YES BANK has always been a visionary bank and a harbinger of innovation related to anything tech. We hope this will encourage other banks and fintechs in the market to partner with groups like Beams Fintech Fund and 9 Unicorns Accelerator Fund. We are aiming to create a large ecosystem consisting of banks, NBFCs and fintech companies to support the tech ecosystem. We are looking forward to working with YES BANK and bringing positive outcomes for all our portfolio companies and founders.”

Beams Fintech Fund (Beams), a CAT II AIF, was launched at the start of 2022 with a mission to build India’s largest fintech ecosystem. It will be actively investing in innovative technology companies at growth stages in the fintech space in India including in the Embedded Finance, SAAS for Banks & FIs, SAAS for Businesses, Global Enterprise SAAS, Personal Finance Management and Neo Banking space. Beams brings a strong value add approach towards investing as it has been building an ecosystem of fintech players, banks, and NBFCs. Due to its clear vision and ambition, Beams continues to add key strategic investors and leading financial institutions from India and internationally to its roster of investors. Beams is targeting to deploy US$ 180 mn across 10 to 12 investments over the next three years in Series B and C rounds of companies.

9 Unicorns Accelerator Fund (9 Unicorns), a CAT I AIF, launched by the founding members of Venture Catalysts is a sector agnostic VC that aims to disrupt idea stage investing in India. 9 Unicorns has already raised $100 mn and is actively deploying from its maiden fund. It invests seed capital of $300K - $500K in the first round, with larger follow-on capital in fast growing deserving portfolio companies. Along with idea stage investing, the fund participates in a select few growth stage opportunities, generally Series C and beyond.

About YES BANK

YES BANK is a 'Full Service Commercial 'Bank' providing a complete range of products, services and technology driven digital offerings, catering to Retail, MSME as well as corporate clients. YES BANK operates its Investment banking, Merchant banking & Brokerage businesses through YES SECURITIES, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bank. Headquartered in Mumbai, it has a pan-India presence including an IBU at GIFT City, and a Representative Office in Abu Dhabi.

Medical Tourism Startup Hospals Raises $3.5 Mn from Inflection Point Ventures, 9unicorns, Wavemaker & Kunal Shah

Hospals Team

• Hospals connects thousands of patients from all over the world to the best hospitals, clinics & hotels in India, Turkey, UAE & Thailand, to avail the most suitable medical treatments and accommodation in their budget.
• Hospals offers international health coverage to subscribers across Africa & Asia, enabling them to get cashless treatments in India & other countries.
• The company has grown 6x in last 6 months as more international patients move to their high quality, tech driven experience, post covid
• IPV has so far invested Rs. 326Cr across 107 deals.

Hospals, a cross border health benefits & travel platform that enables international patients to access healthcare across India, UAE, Turkey & Thailand, announced part raise of its Pre-Series A investment from Inflection Point Ventures, 9Unicorns, Singapore based Wavemaker and prominent angels like Kunal Shah, Sanjeev Mishra and Razorpay founders. 

Existing investor Venture Catalysts has also participated in the current round.

The funds raised will be used for expanding geographically to reach $900 mn in GMV, serving 1.5 million subscribers & patients to get quality medical & cosmetic treatments across the world.

The startup has already served over 22000 patients from 38 countries get medical advice, teleconsults and surgical treatments across over a hundred hospitals in its network. Its health benefits membership, called Hospals Assured, enables subscribers from Africa/Asia to get unlimited doctor teleconsults and free surgical treatments upto $15,000 across Indian hospitals.

Vinay Bansal, Founder & CEO, Inflection Point Ventures says, “Healthcare expenses which include treatment costs and travelling expenditure can be daunting for a family. Having a guided advisory from companies like Hospals can ease of the stress as their model is connect you with the best doctors and surgeons in their respective disciplines. They also provide translation & residential assistance close to the hospitals. Hospals sits at the crossroads where it is helping patients and medical professionals. Healthcare as a market opportunity is booming and with growth in insuretech, we are very bullish on Hospals and healthcare in general.”

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-Founder of 9Unicorns and Venture Catalysts, said, “India is one of the largest and fastest growing market for medical tourism on the back of affordability and accessibility of high-quality healthcare treatments. Hospals has been at the centre of expanding this market. We at Venture Catalysts are happy to have been its early backer and are now reinvesting in its growth story along with our commitments from 9Unicorns. Hospals has reinvented itself to cater to the rising demand from this sector by facilitating end to end services including providing medical loans to the patients. We are optimistic that Hospals would emerge as the most significant player in the crossborder healthcare segment."

Hospals was founded by Danish Ahmed. Obaidullah and Suneel Kapur. Suneel had earlier worked as the Group Sales head for Fortis Hospitals and Chief Marketing Officer at Radiant Group, recently acquired by Max Healthcare. Through his career he was instrumental in serving over a million patients from 120 countries for cancer, transplants, cardiac and other diseases.

Hospals uses its proprietary recommendation engine to find the best surgeons & cosmetic clinics for patients depending on their location, treatment & budget. Its network of over 400 Hospals Health Consultants across 30 countries provides local counselling and support to ensure a seamless experience for the patient.

“Hospals started with a single vision to provide Universal Health Coverage. Through Hospals Assured, International Telehealth and our concierge travel services, Hospals is enabling people across Asia & Africa to access world class healthcare. We’re rapidly expanding our network of hospitals and collecting data points across the spectrum to help patients find the best surgeons and clinics across Asia. We’re solving problems in accommodation, remittances and medicine delivery across the border. We’ll soon launch fintech services like medical loans & crowdfunding to help patients finance their treatments beyond insurance coverage, so that each human has access to the best healthcare globally” says Danish Ahmed, who Co-Founded Hospals after quitting his role as Vice President at Paytm.

Danish had earlier founded Yebhi.com (sold to Flipkart) and Shopsity (acquired by Paytm) before launching Hospals. The company had raised 10 crores in earlier investments from Venture Catalysts, Spiral Ventures and Innoven.

Medical tourism is a $78 billion industry globally and was growing at 25% CAGR before covid brought international travel to a halt. With millions of patients waiting for surgeries since the past 2 years and thousands of medical travel companies shutting operations during Covid, Hospals is rapidly scaling its operations to service this backlog.

Hospals was founded by Danish Ahmed. Obaidullah and Suneel Kapur. Suneel had earlier worked as the Group Sales head for Fortis Hospitals and Chief Marketing Officer at Radiant Group, recently acquired by Max Healthcare. The startup aims to address the deep gaps in medical tourism, health education and universal health coverage, by creating a tech driven brand, centered on the needs of patients across Asia and Africa.

Instoried Raises $8 Mn from Pritt Investment Partners and 9unicorns

Sharmin Ali, CEO & Founder, Instoried

AI-powered content enhancement platform that predicts content performance and adapts copy to ensure audience engagement

Instoried revenues have increased 50x in 12 months as they help customers increase incoming leads 3-fold who have doubled ROI in just 6 months

Instoried is targeting a $400B content tech market as it expands the team and global operations

Instoried, the only AI-powered pre-publication sentiment analysis tool that enhances content performance in real-time, has raised $8M in funding from Pritt Investment Partners and 9Unicorns with participation from Mumbai Angels, Venture Catalysts Angel Fund, SOSV and a few HNIs. The funds will be used to further strengthen tech stack, enter newer geographies and expand the team and operations.

Instoried turns traditional content performance tracking software on its head, delivering real-time sentiment analysis at the point of content creation to ensure performance ahead of publication. Instoried uses OpenAI’s GPT-3 technology along with in-house built proprietary AI to enable enterprises to reach their optimal content goals. The product offering includes both content evaluation and creation, some of the features being short form content generation, emotional quotient analysis, grammar check, plagiarism check, headline analysis, tonality check and panel testing. Instoried’s tool suggests smart recommendations that create content to resonate and strike a chord with customers. This leads to boosting engagement and increasing content productivity, all in real-time using AI. Instoried has built web apps and APIs to help integrate the tool onto any platform and it sells licenses of the tool. The company has over 120K users in just 2 months. Instoried has seen customers increase lead generation 3-fold and double content ROI within 6 months of using the tool.

Using Bandler’s neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) approach as a foundation, Instoried has tagged millions of lines of text with emotion and tone across all types of genres including business, health, politics and social media. The startup’s team of in-house linguists then annotate the text for context and semantics, providing the essential human understanding of tone from which their proprietary AI can learn. In simple terms, the tool can analyse content of any type or length to determine whether it is ‘any good’ insofar as it will achieve the goals of the content writer. Where content needs improvement to achieve these goals, Instoried provides real-time instructions for enhancing the copy to achieve optimal results.

Instoried was founded in 2019 by Sharmin Ali. Sutanshu Raj joined as CTO and was later co-opted as a co-founder. Sharmin is both a published author and seasoned content creator having founded other companies in the media industry during her career. This insider insight inspired her mission to help businesses who have adopted content as a key driver in their marketing plan to stop “flying blind” when it comes to predicting content success. The Instoried team comes with rich experience in tech, product and marketing expertise.

Sharmin Ali, Founder & CEO, Instoried, said, “With all brands selling online and the world going virtual, we were able to identify a huge opportunity in this adversity (pandemic time) and have grown 50X in the last one year. We are now looking at scaling operations in the US. This fundraise will help us go to market, build a strong team in the US and add more product offerings to our existing portfolio. We are thrilled to have Pritt Investment Partners on board this content tech journey.”

Scott Tripp, Director of People, Standards, and Results at Pritt Investment Partners commented, “Pritt Investment Partners has been focused intently on investing in companies that have a strong product, management team, market in which to grow, and a solid plan for growth and favorable returns in the future. We believe we have found this in Instoried and Sharmin Ali. Instoried has successfully developed a SaaS based deep-tech platform that helps enterprises and individuals create emotionally engaging content, thereby improving return on investment (ROI) for marketing efforts and campaigns. As the digital marketing industry continues to grow we believe Instoried is well positioned with their product to take advantage of this opportunity and quickly penetrate the market. We are excited and proud to be a lead investor in the company and look forward to seeing the continued rapid growth of the company. This is only the beginning. Well done Sharmin and team!"

“Instoried with its deep-tech tools have ensured that it analyses content so that companies can reach out to their target audience effectively and on time. We are quite optimistic about Instoried’s growth in the global content tech market that is likely to touch $400 billion in the next two years. Sharmin and her team are well equipped to emerge as leaders in this segment and we are excited to be a part of their growth story” added Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & Director, 9Unicorns.

Instoried has previously raised $2M from investors including SOSV, Artesian Investments, Mumbai Angels, 9Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, Rockstud Capital. Instoried has received constant support from Censie Capital investment banking partners in their fundraising journey.

About Instoried (app.instoried.com):

Instoried helps enterprises and individuals create emotionally engaging content thereby improving ROI. Instoried uses a data-driven approach using their proprietary AI driven technology to make real time analysis and suggestions to enhance content to increase engagement and interest for the reader. Instoried uses the principles of neuromarketing to offer smart recommendations to increase or decrease a particular emotion in the content. Their platform helps content writers, in the SME category, e-commerce, FMCG, and other verticals to optimize emotions in their marketing content. Instoried has won several awards including Best Product and Innovation (The Economic Times), Best AI Startup (IIT Kanpur) and Best Woman Driven Startup (JSS).

9Unicorns Raises 100 Crore Amidst Pandemic from Investors Globally

9Unicorns, the accelerator fund of Venture Catalysts, has announced the second close of its fund at Rs 200 crore during the pandemic on the back of growing interest among domestic and global investors to invest in early-stage Indian startups. 9Unicorns has successfully managed its second close within six months of the first close at Rs 100 crore in August last year, signalling a positive sentiment in India's rapidly evolving startup ecosystem.

The second close witnessed massive participation from some leading global and Indian industrialists and businesses, including the country's oldest and leading sweets and snacks manufacturer Haldiram's that has overtaken several multinational companies including Hindustan Unilever and Nestle in the packaged food segment.

Talking about Haldiram’s investment in 9Unicorns, its Executive Director Kamal Agrawal stated, “Our investment in 9Unicorns weaves well with our ideology of active contribution to the coming of age startup universe in India. With this collaboration we look forward to partnering actively with the 9Unicorns team bring to bear our experiences and mentoring the innovative digitally run 9unicorns investees."

Touted as India's Y Combinator, the Mumbai-based accelerator has also raised its total corpus to Rs 500 crore by exercising a green-shoe option amidst a challenging economic environment. A green-shoe option allows any venture capital or private equity fund to raise money over its initial target corpus following massive interest received from the LPs (limited partners)/ investors.

9Unicorns is looking to raise the entire amount of Rs 500 crore over the next few months from multiple sources, including corporations, family offices, and institutions globally. The fund plans to write the first external cheque in over 100 early-stage startups in DeepTech, B2B SaaS, Media, FMCG, FinTech, InsureTech, HealthTech, EduTech, Travel, and logistics, among other sectors.

On the second close, Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma said, "Last year was indeed a great year for the startup ecosystem that witnessed the creation of 11 Unicorns. As a fund, we aim to back early-stage companies that have the potential to become billion-dollar companies in the future. I anticipate the number of unicorns in India will grow 4x, from 44 today in the next few years that provides several investors with an opportunity to be a supporting agent and ensure multiple X returns from this emerging asset class."

He further added, "We made our second close of another Rs 100 crore just within six months of the first close, a feat difficult to achieve, that too during the pandemic. We will be closing the rest of the fund soon to boost further the entrepreneur network in India, especially those in the non-metros."

It is also important to mention here that 9Unicorns emerged as the fastest-growing and most aggressive player in India with 32 deals within the first year of its launch, as per data provided by leading startup research firms --Tracxn and CrunchBase. Last year, it invested in over 32 startups, including Toch, Janani and Qin1 which have already advanced to raise bigger rounds.

Besides, the Mumbai-based accelerator fund has also launched a programme to disrupt the traditional VC (venture capital) structure. Termed “Catalysts Program”, the initiative is designed to build an open community of founders, CXOs and the ecosystem drivers to recognise, fund and mentor early stage start-ups. The program will function along with the 9Unicorns Fund and aims to build a network of over 1000 catalysts across the globe.

As an accelerator fund, 9Unicorns invests around USD 100K for 5%-7% equity per startup at the idea stage. As of December 2020, it has syndicated over Rs 240 crore with co-investors such as Sequoia Surge, Titan Capital, SOSV, Lightspeed, Matrix Partners, and Nexus Ventures, amongst others. The syndication also includes some of the country's leading "super angels," namely --Ritesh Agarwal (OYO), Pankaj Chaddah (Zomato), Anand Chadrashekharan (Facebook), Ramakant Sharma (LivSpace), Amrish Rau (Citrus Pay), Harsh Shah (Fynd), Manindar Gulati (OYO), Vikalp Sahni (Goibibo) and Sanjib Bajaj (Bajaj Capital) amongst hundred others.

However, what differentiates it is that 9Unicorns allows the startups to tap into its vast Indian business communities across Tier 1, 2, 3, and 4 cities in India, immediately enabling the startup to go pan-India. It directly allows getting early customers, distribution partnerships, cross-portfolio synergies for startups leveraging the pre-existing network of over 4000+ investors, founders, and executives in the VCats ecosystem.

9Unicorns is backed by several well-known global VCs, LPs from across ten countries, family offices of large organizations such as The OPG Group, The MBG Group, Parakh Foods, Qualcon International, UB Cotton, along-with top executives from SAP, Linkedin, Quest Global, AB InDev, Fujitsu besides several Unicorn & Decacorn founders.

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage startups. 9Unicorns provides funding up to $100K per startup in the first round and plans to invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From the idea stage to the angel stage, it supports startups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is on a hands-on support ecosystem for startups beyond the capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the startups for access to a vast network of successful founders, category-leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives acceleration support for three months & post-investment support for 18 months.

NCOME Secures Rs.3.6 Crore Funding led by Venture Catalysts, 9Unicorns, PointOne Capital and LetsVenture

NCOME Team

Aiming to further disrupt the high-potential fintech landscape, the pre-seed investment round also saw participation from 9Unicorns, LetsVenture and PointOne Capital

Mumbai, December 29th, 2020: Venture Catalysts, India's 1st, largest, and pioneering integrated incubator and accelerator and PointOne Capital have led a pre-seed investment in NCOME, the country's first Escrow-as-a-Service platform. The idea-phase accelerator fund, 9Unicorns, also participated in the Rs.3.6 Crore funding round, along with angel investment firm LetsVenture and other investors.

Powered by one of India's largest private banks and a leading trusteeship company, NCOME provides enterprise and individual customers with fast, secure, and low-cost digital escrow service. It leverages cutting-edge technology to streamline conventional processes through online KYCs and digital escrow account openings. With an easy-to-use account management suite, it also enables its customers to manage their digital escrow accounts in a hassle-free manner.

Speaking on the investment, Vineet K. Singh, Co-Founder–NCOME, said, "We are over-whelmed by the response that we've got from Investors during these times. Escrow-as-a-Service is a huge, under-served opportunity and we feel privileged to be the amongst the First Movers in this space. Our initial traction is outstanding and more importantly industry-agnostic and it vindicates our belief that we are solving a large problem and a large, profitable business can be built in doing so."

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & President – Venture Catalysts & 9Unicorns, said, "Fintech is one of the most promising and exciting sectors in India and played a major role in keeping the economy ticking during the COVID-19 outbreak. NCOME represents the next phase of the industry's exponential growth trajectory and is addressing a massive market white space with its unique service offering. We are confident that, with an experienced founding team at its helm, it will drive greater fintech disruption by democratising digital escrow transactions for all."

ArchanaPriyadarshini, General Partner-PointOne Capital said, "We believe NCOME will be democratizing the escrow service which is very much needed for gig economy and rise of marketplaces. It will usher in a new era of secure transactions for both buyers and sellers".

The founding team at NCOME comes with extensive industry experience and a proven track record of growing successful businesses. Over the last two decades, its Co-founder & CEO, Vineet Singh, has built several multi-crore businesses across domains as diverse as payments, real estate, e-commerce, jobs, matrimony, and travel. Some of these include MobiKwik, Buildzar, 99acres.com, Naukri.com, NaukriGulf, Naukri Fast Forward, and Jeevansathi.com.

On the other hand, Ritesh Tiwari (Co-founder & CPO – NCOME) has more than 10 years of experience in building innovative digital payments, prepaid card, neobanking, and investment banking products. Having worked with leading global organisations such as Omnio, Ensygnia, Barclays, and JP Morgan Chase, he was also selected by the UK government under the Exceptional Talent Visa scheme in the fintech vertical and was part of its fintech delegation to India in 2019.

Venture Catalysts is India's first integrated incubator. It invests $250K – $1.5 Million in early stage startups that have potential to create enduring value for over a long period of time. Venture Catalysts brings a lethal combination of Capital, Mentoring and Business Network to help investee companies to succeed. Their innovation provides value to startups through its extensive angel network, funding, community, services and co-working facility.

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC providing acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage start-ups. The funding can be provided up to $100K per start-up in the first round, and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From the idea stage to the angel stage, it supports start-ups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is to provide a hands-on support ecosystem for start-ups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the startupsfor access to a wide network of successful founders, category-leadrs, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

Gaurav Singhvi, Super Angel from Surat, Joins 9Unicorns As Venture Partner

As a super angel, Gaurav's portfolio includes startups such as Fynd, SuprDaily, BharatPe, Beardo etc. Aims to create a robust investor ecosystem in smaller towns.

Surat, 9th December, 2020: The Indian venture capital ecosystem is witnessing a major paradigm shift. Over the last few years, several small town investors coming forward to help create and build a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem that is not limited to just the top ten metros. In the last few months, many top-notch strategic entrepreneurs-turned-investors from B and C towns such as Surat, Bilaspur, Cuttack and Vizag have joined 9Unicorns, India's first Accelerator VC fund, as venture partners to be able to be a part of the country's vibrant and burgeoning start-up community.

Gaurav V Singhvi, a Surat-based Chartered Accountant by qualification and an Investment Banker by profession, has recently joined Mumbai-based 9Unicorns as a venture partner. Mr. Singhvi, a first generation serial entrepreneur and founder of The Financial Supermarket Group, has over six years of investing experience and have backed about 57 promising start-ups as an angel investor through his family office Gaurav Singhvi Ventures. He is also a Certified Franchise Executives (CFE) from the Institute of Certified Franchise Executives (ICFE, USA).

As a venture partner at 9Unicorns, which is a part of Venture Catalysts, Mr. Singhvi will help in carrying out due-diligence and strategizing investing opportunities at 9Unicorns. He also would be instrumental in inspiring and bringing in more investors from smaller towns to join 9Unicorn's network.

Welcoming Mr. Singhvi onboard, Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder and MD, 9Unicorns, said, "We are excited to have Gaurav Singhvi as a Venture Partner at 9Unicorns. His commitment towards our fund shows how successful business persons from tier II and tier III cities are interested in exploring their role as angel investors. As India's largest integrated incubator and accelerator VC, it is our constant thrive to create a widespread network of investors beyond metros."

As an active investor, Mr. Singhvi's ideology is built on 3Ps –Promoter, Product and Potential market. He has invested in some interesting and innovative startups such as Fynd, SuprDaily, Beardo and BharatPe and has got successful exits from about 17 start-ups, which has further encouraged other high net-worth individuals and new generation businessmen to recognise start-ups as an alternate investment asset class. "For the next 10 years, investment in start-ups would be the most exciting opportunity with stellar returns," Mr. Singhvi feels. 

Talking about his association at 9Unicorns, Mr. Singhvi said, "I am extremely delighted to expand my collaboration with 9Unicorns. I am also part of the Venture Catalysts that has really honed my investing skills to spot high growth start-ups. Coming from a small town, for over four years no one took my investment strategies seriously. I want to break the myth that small town investors do not understand the start-up ecosystem. We see tremendous potential in mobilising start-up and investment activity across tier II and tier III Indian cities, and I am thrilled to play a part in this journey with 9Unicorns."

Initiatives such as 9Unicorns are needed to augment the growth of the Indian start-up ecosystem. Engaging with this accelerator, start-ups will be able to access global VCs and family offices for series A/B, as well as, follow on committed investments by Venture Catalysts for deserving start-ups.

9Unicorns is an initiative by Venture Catalysts (VCats) founders — Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anuj Golecha, Anil Jain, Gaurav Jain. The Rs 300 crore-9Unicorns Fund is one of the largest and fastest growing accelerator in the country at present.

About 9Unicorns

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early- stage startups. 9Unicorns provides funding upto $100K per startup in the first round, and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports startups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns strength & focus is on a hands-on support ecosystem for startups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the startups for access to a wide network of successful founders, category-leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives an acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

AI-based Live-Streaming Video Shopping Platform KIKO TV Raises Funding led by 9Unicorns

9Unicorns leads an undisclosed seed investment in KIKO TV, an AI-based live-streaming video shopping platform
 

The made-in-India video-commerce app was launched following the Indian government's ban on Chinese apps

Shivam Varshney, Founder - KIKO TV

Mumbai, 7th December, 2020: 9Unicorns, India's first idea-phase accelerator VC fund, has recently led an undisclosed seed investment in KIKO TV, India's first live streaming e-commerce platform committed to delivering an assisted shopping experience powered by AI. The funding round also saw participation from investors like Vinayak Srivastava and Saket Dandotia (Co-founders– Toch), Sunil Kumar Singhvi (Managing Partner at Singhvi Heritage LLP), and Srinivas Kotta (Senior Technical role at Adobe).

Founded in 2020 by IIT Bombay Alumni Shivam Varshney and Alok Chawla, KIKO TV aims to bring a native feel to the digital shopping experience of internet consumers through its live, interactive,and entertaining platform. Its AI-led technology is set to disrupt the social commerce market by leveraging social media's immense reach for enabling e-commerce. The entertainment app enables online retailers and influencers to create content for marketing, branding and sales while enabling a one-on-one live selling session with the potential buyers, creating a more authentic experience of the transaction. Apart from viewing, liking and sharing the videos, any user can become an influencer and sell their own product or brand instantly on the platform.

Alok Chawla, Co-Founder KIKO TV

Speaking on the investment, Shivam Varshney, Founder – KIKO TV, said, "We believe 9Unicorns and Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma are ideal investors and mentors for the long journey ahead for KIKO TV. We are very excited and enthusiastic about this partnership. KIKO will be using the funds for building and improving our technology and expanding our customer base."

The idea behind launching the app was to integrate both entertainment and live shopping experience for the users and hence redefine the overall seller-buyer relationship on social media platforms. Through automated content tagging, users can also instantly find related products from any video that is being played.

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & Managing Director – 9Unicorns, said, "Social platforms today have turned into quick and convenient distribution channels for businesses. This new-age trend of social commerce is transforming the retail and e-commerce sector by influencing customers' purchase decision and habits. KIKO TV has great opportunity in this emerging market and the potential to reshape India's e-commerce landscape for the better. We hope that the funding fuels their vision of unlocking a more efficient and advanced future of sales and marketing for countless online businesses in India and beyond."

The home-grown app offers videos on travel, food, fashion, comedy, workout, lifestyle and product reviews and is available for download on both Android and iOS.

About 9Unicorns

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage startups. 9Unicorns provides funding upto $100K per startup in the first round, and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports startups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is on a hands-on support ecosystem for startups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the startups for access to a wide network of successful founders, category-leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives an acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

For more information, please reach out to info@9unicorns.in or find more information at www.9unicorns.in 

9Unicorns Invests in Swipez, a B2B Fintech SaaS, in a Round Led by Anicut Angel Fund

Shu and Viv

Mumbai, 4th December, 2020: Swipez, a B2B SAAS platform which helps digitizing the SMB sector by providing them a platform which enables them to go digital, has secured an undisclosed amount of equity funding from 9Unicorns Accelerator Fund. The round was led by Anicut Angel Fund through Venkatesh Ramarathinam, CEO of Vuram Technology Solutions and it also saw participation from angel investors like Sanjiv Bajaj, Ashvin Chadha and Harsh Khanna.

Swipez provides SMB's the necessary convenience when it comes to setting up the iron line transactions, managing receivables and payables, generating invoices and bills, consolidating expenses and revenue at one place, following up for receivables, linking their bank accounts for easy digital transactions among other solutions. The platform has GST integration, which helps to generate GST compliant invoices as well as helps SMB's to file their GST returns through the platform itself.

Vivek Iyer and Shuhaid Lambe, Co-founders, Swipez said "Improving operational efficiency gives businesses improved cash flows and margins. We are seeing clients using Swipez improve their collection efficiencies by over 35%. Automation provides them visibility and efficiency. We are excited about raising this round. It will help us increase our merchant base significantly."

Speaking on the investment, Dr. ApoorvaRanjan Sharma, Co-founder & Managing Director – 9Unicorns, said, "Lately, enterprises have had to migrate to the digital ecosphere to ensure business continuity. While large organizations in India were already well-prepared for their digital transformation journeys, SMEs have struggled with the shift. Swipez's B2B SaaS platform comes as a much-needed intervention. We are delighted to support this innovative idea and are confident that its reach and impact will register impressive growth in the coming months."

"With the Government's digital initiatives and India being a hub for SMB's, a tech product that makes this segment effective will certainly be sought after. India is slowly moving towards adopting tech better, digital payments will further bolster adoption of tech. SMB's are coming to terms with tech driving higher revenues and lowering the cost for them. Swipez seems well grounded in basics, impressive profitable growth. Currently, this segment is prime with a few players and there is large enough space for newer bolder entrants". Mr. Venkatesh Ramarathinam, Founder- Vuram Technology Solutions and lead investor in Swipez .

About 9Unicorns

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage startups. 9Unicorns provides funding upto $100K per startup in the first round, and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports startups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is on a hands-on support ecosystem for startups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the startups for access to a wide network of successful founders, category-leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives an acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

For more information, please reach out to info@9unicorns.in or find more information at www.9unicorns.in

IIT Bombay Alumni Founded AI-based Health Tech Platform NeoDocs Raised Funding led by 9Unicorns

9Unicorns leads an undisclosed pre-seed investment in NeoDocs, an AI based health tech platform founded by IIT Bombay alumni

The platform aims to simplify medical report interpretation and promote preventive care among the general public by providing actionable insights on their health parameters

Mumbai, 1st December, 2020: 9Unicorns, India's first idea-phase accelerator VC fund, has recently led an undisclosed pre-seed investment in NeoDocs, an AI based health-tech platform. The funding round also saw participation from investors such as Dr. Rohit Srivastava, [Head of Department, Dept. of Biosciences & Biomedical Engg., IIT Bombay] and Hemanshu Jain, [CEO Khyaal, Ex Co-Founder Diabeto.

Founded in 2020 by IIT Bombay alumni - NikunjMalpani, AnuragMeena and Pratik Lodha, NeoDocs aims to disrupt the healthcare industry by enabling self-diagnosis through its AI-led technology. The platform interprets and simplifies medical reports to provide personalized health recommendations. Users can get simplified interpretation and analysis in a few seconds by forwarding their medical reports on NeoDocs' WhatsApp number without the need of any application installation. The platform's proprietary AI engine processes the report, looks for inter-biomarker relations and generates a smart report in English and Hindi via NeoDocs' lab-agnostic system. The startup will soon launch the same in other vernacular languages of India.

Speaking on the investment, NikunjMalpani, CEO – NeoDocs, said, "Seeing my parents develop co-morbidities, in spite of doing annual health check-ups and leading a seemingly 'healthy' lifestyle, has been my main motivator. There are more than 550 million Indians who are either pre-chronic or chronic. By building a vernacular product, we help people understand future health risks and avoid them with evidence-backed personalised recommendations, backed by a team of top medical experts."

"We will use the funding to build a strong cross-functional team, further strengthen the product and do validation studies," he added.

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & Managing Director – 9Unicorns, commented, "The pandemic has propelled the adoption of AI in healthcare across multiple applications. The major factor being the increased volume of data that is demanding pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to look for improvised healthcare services. NeoDocs is at the centre of this disruption and is well-suited to catapult to success in this thriving industry. Their innovative idea of utilizing AI for Medical data interpretationwill not only benefit millions but also create the needed awareness for preventable diseases."

Anurag Meena, COO – NeoDocs, commented, "Healthcare in India has traditionally been reactive, wherein we wrongly equate being symptom-free to being healthy. As a result, one in every three deaths is said to be preventable. It's essential to act early and act right in order to improve health outcomes. The trigger to act is highest right after seeing one's blood report, and this is where Neodocs enters."

Pratik Lodha, CTO – NeoDocs, said, "Preventive healthcare in Indian is at an exciting juncture, with a huge growth in wellness diagnostics – currently comprising 10% of the diagnostics market and growing at double the rate. COVID-19 has led to a big spurt in self-care. In addition to medicines, people also want to lead healthier lifestyles and are adopting alternatives."

Hemanshu Jain, (CEO - Khyaal) Ex Co-founder Diabeto – "NeoDocs got my attention when they demonstrated their product to me. However, what convinced me were the founders and their passion to make something useful for people. With healthcare becoming the prime focus these days, it is important that you are able to help people understand their health vitals in a very simple and easy way. NeoDoc's lab report analysis tool will not only help people understand their reports but also help them make the necessary lifestyle changes required."

NeoDocs' services also include providing tips on exercise, diet, lifestyle and supplements, helping users maintain their health records and predicting future diseases – all this to make healthy living easier and more convenient for the public.

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage startups. 9Unicorns provides funding upto $100K per startup in the first round, and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports startups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is on a hands-on support ecosystem for startups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the startups for access to a wide network of successful founders, category-leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives an acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

For more information, please reach out to info@9unicorns.in or find more information at www.9unicorns.in 

Venture Catalysts and 9Unicorns Lead $1 Mn Pre-Series Funding Round in Fusion-Beverages Startup, Raskik

Raskik is founded by industry veterans with combined industry experience of over 50 years in the leading beverage giant Coca-Cola.

Mumbai, 30th November 2020: India's largest integrated accelerator and incubator Venture Catalysts has led a $1 million pre-series A funding round in fusion beverages start-up, Raskik. Felix Advisory LLP acted as financial advisor on the deal.

Accelerator fund 9Unicorns, also participated in the round along with the backing of some key angels and corporate investors such as, Syed Safawi (Ex-CEO Reliance Communications), Snapdeal's founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Santosh Desai (MD & CEO Future Brands), ANAA International LLC, Amit Jain (CEO L'Oreal India) Promoters of Sapient Wealth, Neeraj Mutha (Director, Mutha Industries Pvt Ltd) and EvolvX Advisory LLP. 

The start-up founded by Vikas Chawla, Abhay Parnerkar, and Satyajit Ram is a millennial centric brand, delivering a portfolio of unique natural fusion beverages at mainstream prices.

Currently, the start-up is present in select areas of Delhi NCR with 3 variants of coconut water & fruit juice fusions across a cross-section of channels i.e. general trade, local MT chains, and e- grocers like MilkBasket and BigBasket. With fresh funds in the kitty, Raskik plans to expand its geographical presence in India and seeks to develop best in class consumer intimacy with millennials who are looking for natural and good-for-you options, to create a highly loved brand.

On closing the first round, Raskik's founder Vikas Chawla said in a statement that, "At Raskik, we are creating a vibrant brand and are driven by our purpose of helping people live better by providing a portfolio of natural, great tasting fusion beverages. It is our belief that with our deep experience in this industry and a highly capable ecosystem of partners, we will delight our consumers with great quality, innovative beverages"

With over 50+ years collective experience in global beverage brand Coca Cola, where they held key leadership positions globally, the founders of Raskik have created a partner ecosystem of industry-leading suppliers & contract manufacturer. These relations have enabled the team to achieve high quality product and packaging while delivering a 'value for money' proposition to consumers.

The Raskik team has had diverse, multi-continent experiences of launching and building new beverage brands / categories and scaling those brands / businesses to achieve multi-million dollar revenues. This start-up has a solid mix of cross-functional leadership experiences, passion for learning, humility to listen to consumers & trade, and a deep hunger to succeed. The founders also deeply and passionately believe in 'giving back' by creating an enterprise that, over time, will make a significant and meaningful impact in the communities they operate in.

"The growing $2 billion fruit juice category has huge opportunities and the domain experienced founders at Raskik have found a sweet spot that could be developed into a category on its own. We at 9Unicorns are elated to back Raskik's product journey," said Abhijeet Pai, Partner at 9Unicorns.

Anuj Golecha, Co-Founder at Venture Catalysts said, "We are elated to lead the funding round for fusion beverage brand Raskik. While we believe in the growth of the natural fruit juice category in India, we also have immense faith on the ability of the founders who have a deep understanding about the category given their vast experience in Coca-Cola. We wish the founders all the best."

About Venture Catalysts

Venture Catalysts is India's first integrated incubator. It invests $250K – $1.5 Million in early stage start-ups that have potential to create enduring value for over a long period of time. Venture Catalysts brings a lethal combination of Capital, Mentoring and Business Network to help investee companies to succeed. Their innovation provides value to start-ups through its extensive angel network, funding, community, services and co-working facility.


About 9Unicorns

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early- stage start-ups. 9Unicorns provides funding up to $100K per start-up in the first round and, may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports start-upsacross various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is on a hands-on support ecosystem for start-ups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the start-ups for access to a wide network of successful founders, category-leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives an acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

 

9Unicorns, Mumbai Angels and Others Invest $1 Mn in AI driven Content Optimisation Startup 'Instoried' to Ramp up the EQ for Customers

Mumbai, 17th November, 2020 - India's leading accelerator fund 9Unicorns has invested in the USD 1 Million pre-Series A round of AI-driven content start-up Instoried. The round was led by Mumbai Angels and also saw participation from London-based JPIN, Jain Angel Network, SOSV, Artesian, FAAD Angel Network, Lead Angels and a US-based VC.

The Bangalore-based start-up had earlier raised USD 500K as part of a seed round last year from SOSV, Venture Catalysts, Jain Angel Network, Artesian and JPIN from London.

Founded by former Mu Sigma employee Sharmin Ali in 2018, Instoried is a deep technology content start-up that understands consumer's emotional engagement with content and helps create intelligent marketing campaigns influencing consumer behaviour and optimizing marketing spend. The start-up helps gather quality emotion data, which is critical, as it predicts key success metrics such as brand recall, sales lift, purchase intent and likelihood to share. Instoried's AI tool helps large companies build personal connections with their audiences by using technology to measure the effectiveness of content and rewrite their communication. The company's approach is data-driven, scalable and measurable with long-lasting, visible results.

Commenting on the fund-raise, Sharmin Ali,founder of Instoried stated, "We have grown over 3X in the last 10 months. We found a huge opportunity in this adversity and have scaled at a rate of 60 per cent month-on-month. Brands globally now understand and acknowledge the importance of having a strong online engagement as an absolute mandate with the new normal. This is the best time for marketing tech companies. Since writing is a creative endeavour, it has always been exempt from the rigors of data-backed technical scrutiny and this is what Instoried wishes to change." Sutanshu Raj, who has a masters in AI and is a former Microsoft employee, joined Instoried as the CTO in 2018.

Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, MD & Co-founder, 9Unicorns, quoted: "AI-based content marketing is a fast growing segment globally with a $70 billion market size. Companies across the globe have been now leveraging AI-based content to engage with their customers for better sales. We are extremely delighted to have found and invested in a start-up that has been able to crack this growing segment. We believe that as businesses are moving online, the need for such services are likely to grow exponentially."

Sharmin Ali also said, "By quantifying the emotional element of the written word, and recommending changes using its AI model, the platform ensures that content production for any business adheres to the quality standards that other areas have already achieved,"

In the last one year, Instoried has switched gears and levelled up its marketing to scale the business to meet the growth goals. Being a B2B platform for marketers that is not limited to either the boundaries of the sector, today, the two-years-young company boasts of a solid number of clients across industries and geographies.

The company plans to utilise the fresh funds in its expansion activities, hire a larger team, initiate marketing activities and increase its product offerings globally. Instoried was focused on text based content so far but is now moving into the video space.


About 9Unicorns



9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage startups. 9Unicorns provides funding upto $100K per startup in the first round, and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports startups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is on a hands-on support ecosystem for startups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the startups for access to a wide network of successful founders, category-leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives an acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

9Unicorns Invests in Fitness Tech Startup Oga Fit's on-going Pre-Series A round

The fitness tech startup had secured investment from US-based venture fund Joyance Partners last month and the 9Unicorns investment is part of the same funding

Ashish Rawat, Founder -Oga Fit

Mumbai, 12^th November, 2020: 9Unicorns, India’s first idea-phase accelerator VC fund, has recently invested an undisclosed amount in the ongoing pre-Series A investment in Oga Fit, a fitness tech startup. The previous funding rounds saw participation from other early-stage investors including David Giampaolo (CEO of Pi Capital), Sarva Yoga and Inflection Point Ventures.

Founded in 2017 by Ashish Rawat,Oga Fit aims to disrupt India’s digital fitness industry by making workout a completely live, on-demand, and engaging experience. Their interactive platform backed by cutting-edge technology promises its users the quality of an in-studio workout withinthe comfort of their homes. The platform’s proprietary motion comparison technology compares the movements of the user and trainer to provide a similarity score and real-time feedback to the user.

“We are very excited to partner with 9Unicorns on this endeavour,” Ashish Rawat, Founder –Oga Fit, said, “Their reputation is well established in India and their faith in our enterprisegives us the motivation we need to take our company to global prominence and achieve our vision of revolutionizing the fitness industry.”

Speaking about the investment, Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & Managing Director – 9Unicorns, added, “There has been a growing awareness about the benefits of regular exercising among the general public of India. The current times have pushed people to think more seriously about their health and lifestyle. Oga Fit’s vision of a digital fitness platform is fresh, innovative and smart which will make quality fitness classes easily accessible to anyone, anywhere. With highly qualified minds carrying the enterprise forward, we are confident that their innovative IP will capture the imagination of a larger public in no time. We wish them continued success.” 

Oga Fit will leverage the capital infusion to drive product development, content creation, and to improve its marketing strategies. Moving ahead, the startup envisions establishing itself in the United States and, slowly and steadily, expanding its geographical footprint across the globe 

About 9Unicorns

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage start-ups. 9Unicorns provides funding of up to $100K per start-up in the first round, and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports start-ups across various themes & sectors. 9Unicorns' strength & focus is to provide a hands-on support ecosystem for start-ups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doorsto the start-upsfor access to a wide network of successful founders, category leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

Celebrity-Fan Engagement Start-up Gonuts Raises Seed Round from 9Unicorns, Sweta Rau, Archana Priyadarshini, others

Gonuts aspires to connect fans with top celebrities through personalised video messaging

Gonuts, Asia's largest and most influential celebrity commerce platform has raised INR 3.5 Crores in seed funding led by marquee investors Sweta Rau and ArchanaPriyadarshini. 9Unicorns, AngelList, Lets Venture, Pankaj Chaddah (Co-Founder, Mindhouse & Zomato), Ramakant Sharma, (Co-Founder, LivSpace), IIM Indore Alumni Fund, Harshal Morde, (Morde Foods Pvt. Ltd.) and other marquee angels and founders also participated in this round.

Founded by serial entrepreneurs Vinamra Pandiya and Mayank Gupta along with Media & Entertainment veteran Joji George in March 2020, GoNuts aims to bridge the gap between celebrities and their millions of fans, and democratise talent to the Indian and expatriate Indian diaspora. Gonuts has a long term vision of creating India's largest celebrity experience e-commerce platform.

GoNuts has a portfolio of over 700 of the leading celebrities, most of them exclusive on Gonuts, across categories like films, television, sports and music, amongst others, available on its platform. This gives users a diverse range of celebrities to choose from, to convey personalized messages to their loved ones. The platform has leading celebrities exclusive on the platform which includes Shankar Mahadevan, Hans Raj Hans, Shaan, Kailash Kher, Sukhbir, Talat Aziz, Shibani Kashyap, Hariharan, Sivamani, Shivin Narang, Jonty Rhodes, Sumeet Verma, Ranveer Brar, Ashish Vidyarthi and Vicky Ratnani.

Vinamra Pandiya, Founder, Gonuts said that: "Our plan is to strengthen our market leadership and follow through on our vision to be Asia's largest and most influential celebrity commerce platform. We feel that investments in the right team, technology and other levers of growth is very important and will be our immediate priority. We aim to on-board 5000+ of the most influential and inspirational celebrities by the next financial year and be the unicorn out of India in this category for the rest of the world."

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, MD & Co-founder – 9Unicorns, said, "Indians are quite passionate about the celebrities that they follow. And yet, the influence that they hold over the masses has largely been untapped by brands. The team at GoNuts is creating a disruption in this field by delivering curated celebrity experiences. We are confident in its potential to achieve rapid scale. As brands look to bounce back from the pandemic by using newer ways of engaging with their audiences, we are confident that GoNut's array of offerings will achieve greater traction in the market."

Sweta Rau, Angel and Venture Investor, White Ventures said that "Experiences are so much more valuable than anything else. Gonuts is creating category in by building marketplace that help create experiences of joy, excitement and fun. It is making it easy for fans and influencers/celebrities connect in a deeper way through personalised videos to begin with."

The uniqueness of the platform is its ability to connect the Indian and global Indian diaspora to talent across genres that are multi- lingual and also at multi segmented price points.

About 9Unicorns:


9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage start-ups. 9Unicorns provides funding of up to $100K per start-up in the first round, and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports start-ups across various themes & sectors. 9Unicorns' strength & focus is to provide a hands-on support ecosystem for start-ups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the start-ups for access to a wide network of successful founders, category leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

For more information, please reach out to info@9unicorns.in or find more information at www.9unicorns.in 

9Unicorns Funds the Future of Online Video Sharing; Invests in One of the Fastest Growing Apps - Mitron TV

The funding round also saw active participation from lead investors including Nexus Venture Partners and 3one4 Capital.

 

New Delhi, 5th November, 2020: 9Unicorns, India's first idea-phase accelerator VC fund, has invested in Mitron - a short video sharing application. With this investment, 9Unicorns further underscores its commitment to supporting high-potential home-grown startups; in line with the PM's rallying call for Atmanirbhar Bharat. Nexus Venture Partners led the USD 5 Million funding round in August and 3one4 Capitalled the immediately preceding INR 2 Crore pre-seed round in July. 

Founded in April 2020 by Shivank Agarwal and Anish Khandelwal; Mitron TV is a social media application built for sharing and creating minute-long videos, catering especially to the Indian market and focused on adding value to every user. The idea was to provide an innovative and engaging digital platform for the local talent that does not get the exposure it deserves. Hence, the platform enables users to create, consume, and share bite-sized videos across categories and talents.Within3 months since its launch, the app showed a promising traction by crossing 10+ million downloads. It currently boasts 39+ million downloads on the Android Play Store with an average of 11+ billion monthly views. The app recently made its debut on the iOS App Store.

Shivank Agarwal, Co-Founder and CEO, Mitron TV, said, "We are delighted to have the support of 9Unicorns in this journey. Mitron TV has received tremendous growth within 6 months of its inception. With 9Unicorns joining us on this new endeavour, we are sure of providing ground-breaking innovations in the short-video app industry."

Anish Khandelwal, Co-Founder and CTO, Mitron TV, added, "Mitron TV is a user friendly and user's first platform. We are thrilled to have 9Unicorns'tremendous support. At Mitron, we are tirelessly working towards creating unique in-app experiences with best in class features for quality content. This collaboration will further help us in creating a highly-engaged community of users."

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder& Managing Director – 9Unicorns, commented, "The initial six-month progress of Mitron TV is enough to reflect the terrific potential and vision of the idea and the dedication put by the founding team. Their strategies are in line with the need and scope of the emerging digital market, which if executed well, will show more promising customer response. We are therefore delighted to support a dynamic and innovative startup such as theirs." 

On October 31, 2020,Mitron TV also launched Atmanirbhar Apps, a platform built for enabling the discovery of other "Made In India" apps. Atmanirbhar Apps lists the available domestic apps across numerous categories like social media, lifestyle, utility, gaming, e-commerce and government. The idea is to empower and support home-grown technology and talent of Indian developers, thereby disrupting the Indian digital market on the back of the innovative potential within the country. 

Leading Indian startup founders also participated in the funding round in their individual capacity. These include names such as Deep Kalra (Chairman, MakeMyTrip Ltd.), Amrish Rau (CEO, Pine Labs), Jitendra Gupta (Founder, Jupiter), Amarjit Batra (Managing Director, Spotify India), Radhika Ghai (Co-founder, Shopclues), and Vikalp Sahni (Co-founder and ex-CTO at GoIbibo). Other investors who participated in the funding round include TK Kurien (Managing partner, Premji Invest), Manish Vij and Harish Bahl of Smile Group.

About 9Unicorns

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage start-ups. 9Unicorns provides funding of up to $100K per start-up in the first round, and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports start-ups across various themes & sectors. 9Unicorns' strength & focus is to provide a hands-on support ecosystem for start-ups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doorsto the start-upsfor access to a wide network of successful founders, category leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

 

Influencer-led Live Real Money Gaming Platform Tamasha Raises Funding from 9Unicorns, Titan Capital and First Cheque

The seed-stage funding will support the disruption of real money gaming by bringing together the experience of both reality TV and live video gaming on a single platform

Underscoring its commitment to supporting entrepreneurial innovation, 9Unicorns - India's first accelerator VC, has recently made a seed investment in Tamasha.live, an influencer-led, live social gaming platform. 9Unicorns took an early bet in the company alongside Kunal Bahl (Co-founder and CEO - Snapdeal) & Rohit Bansal of Titan Capital and First Cheque. The INR 2.5 Crores funding round also saw participation from several other eminent investors such as PointOne Capital, Maninder Gulati (Global Chief Strategy Officer - OYO Rooms), Ramakant Sharma (Co-Founder - LivSpace), Ankit Khandelwal (Co-Founder - Gromo), and Abhishek Hota (VP - OYO). Other investors who participated in the funding round include Rishabh Kumar (Head UK & Europe - OYO), and Aakash Kumar (AVP - Hotstar).

Founded in 2020 by Saurabh Gupta and Siddharth Swarnkar, Tamasha aims to create an engaging and fun-filled platform where the experience of reality TV and online gaming is fused to give the participants the best of both worlds. New-age influencers and content creators will host the games that will have real cash prizes for winners at the cost of a small entry fee. The availability of their favourite stars and multiple gaming contests ensure that there is no scope of boredom or lack of choices for the players. At the same time, creators get the opportunity to engage with their audience in a unique manner while monetizing their content instantly.

Speaking on the investment, Saurabh, Co-founder and CEO – Tamasha, said, "As India's first influencer-led live real money gaming platform, Tamasha aims to disrupt the booming social gaming industry. We aim to give, the new generation of content creators, the power to entertain their fans through live games and also monetize it effectively in new and unique ways; and the backing of leading investors such as 9Unicorns will help us realise that vision."

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & Managing Director – 9Unicorns, commented on the investment, "Besides its solid offering, the vision and dedication of Tamasha's founding team clinched the deal for us. Their strategies are aligned with the needs and requirements of this emerging market and the space that they are addressing is ripe for disruption. We are pleased to support a dynamic startup such as theirs and will offer support to their continued growth and success."

"We at Titan quite liked the approach of the Tamasha team to leverage creators' showmanship to help them monetize through Real Money Gaming. This is really more engaging form of gaming and entertainment" said Mr. Bipin Shah, Partner - Titan Capital

Siddharth, Co-founder and CPO – Tamasha, added, "With the latest funding round, we plan to build a rockstar team with cross-functional expertise. We will invest in building a strong product and grow our initial user base."

Kushal Bhagia, CEO – FirstCheque.vc quoted, "Tamasha is playing on two booming trends on the Indian internet - Real Money gaming and Influencers! Saurabh and Siddharth's unique insight on designing engaging gaming and entertaining experiences for the Indian user make Tamasha a very exciting company to back!"Tamasha envisions revolutionizing the online gaming industry by leveraging its one-of-a-kind platform focused wholly on enhancing the live user experience and engagement. Addressing a Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) of $5.6 Billion in 2021 in India, the brand's innovative offering is well-equipped to disrupt this high-value space.

About 9Unicorns

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage startups. 9Unicorns provides funding upto $100K per startup in the first round, and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports startups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is on a hands-on support ecosystem for startups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the startups for access to a wide network of successful founders, category-leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives an acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

9Unicorns Leads INR 1.5 Crore Funding of Janani, An Innovative Fertility Tech Start-up

The venture aims to develop and deliver a full-service fertility care platform that provides personalised, high-quality, effective, and affordable solutions to challenges in infertility.

 

9Unicorns, India's first idea-phase accelerator VC fund, has recently led an INR 1.5 crore pre-seed investment in Janani, a fertility care provider. The funding round saw participation from other investors too, Archana Priyadarshini and Sweta Rau led the round in AngelList. Other angels like the famous IVF expert Dr Nandita Palshetkar, Astir VC partner Kishore Ganji also participated in the round.

Established in June 2020, Janani aims to make the process of infertility treatment and assisted fertilisation easier and more affordable for the masses. The start-up operates at the intersection of modern technology and excellent medical care to maximize the chances of conceiving successfully. It will leverage a superior quality lab environment, consultation from expert gynaecologists, a skilled and experienced staff, and high-quality medicines to deliver superior out comes to patients. Furthermore, in keeping with its vision of providing the best and most personalised care to all, Janani aims to make these facilities available at extremely affordable price points with flexible payment options.

Dr Nandita quoted, "Janani is creating an AI and computer vision tool to help remove the subjectivity of embryologists while choosing the right embryo. This will increase the success rate of IVF and eventually help lower the costs."

Dr S S Vasan, a key member of the founding team is also the Chairman of Ankur Fertility Group. He mentioned, "Technological innovation in fertility management will ensure that patients' distress is minimised and that success is consistent and highly optimised. I am happy to be part of team Janani to bring in a revolution in access, simplification, technology, success and structured costs in the field of fertility management."

Speaking on the investment, Nilay Mehrotra – Founder of Janani, said, "I am grateful to Dr. Apoorva and the 9Unicorns team for showing faith in this idea at such an early stage. Dr. Apoorva, being the visionary that he is, understood what we wanted to achieve and the scope of disruption that we planned. The entire process was swift and seamless, as we closed the round with 9Unicorns." 

Nilay Mehrotra - Founder of Janani

Ms Archana, a key investor in the company, said that "The availability of high-quality infertility treatment in India is limited to a few major cities, the process being inconvenient and traumatic. Many patients also lack the means to afford these quality medical solutions. Janani aims to disrupt this space by providing best-in-class medical care at an affordable price point to the couples."

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & Managing Director – 9Unicorns, added, "We believe that there is extensive scope in the fertility tech space and are confident in the team's ability to capitalise on it with its unique, tech-led proposition."

Janani has set its eyes on the global fertility tech management market, currently estimated to be worth $36 Billion. It aims to use the funding to create better infertility treatment solutions and make the journey-to-conception more rewarding and hopeful for people around the world.

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC providing acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage start-ups. The funding can be provided up to $100K per start-up in the first round and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From the idea stage to the angel stage, it supports start-ups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is to provide a hands-on support ecosystem for start-ups that goes beyond just capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the startups for access to a wide network of successful founders, category leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives an acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.  

9Unicorns leads seed round in TagZ Foods – An urban, GenZ Snack Brand with Over 1 Lakh Consumers

The funding will support further disruption of the Indian snack food industry with fitter snacking experiences crafted for the urban GenZ consumer 

9Unicorns -India’s first accelerator VC fund, has recently led a seed investment in TagZ Foods, an urban GenZ snack brand. The round also saw participation from Umang Bedi (Co-founder, DailyHunt), Malhar Anaokar (Head – Cloud Business, NetApp), AL Jagannath (Sr Director –VMWare), Shesh Kondi (Sr Director – Salesforce) among others. Shailesh Ghorpade (Managing Partner – Exfinity Ventures) has been on the Board of the company.

Founded in 2019 by Anish Basu Roy and Sagar Bhalotia, TagZ Foods aims to craft lip-smacking, innovative and fitter snacking experiences for the urban GenZ consumers. TagZ is on mission to help its GenZ consumers eat fitter and lead a more active lifestyle. It is the first brand in India to manufacture popped potato chips- that are never fried, never baked - and have50% less fat. TagZ Foods uses cutting-edge food technology, to make these potato chips which have no cholesterol, no transfat, no artificial colors or preservatives.

Speaking on the investment, Sagar Bhalotia – TagZ Foods, said, “Our mission is to bring global innovation in food-tech for the Indian GenZ consumers, with our lips-smacking and better-for-you snacking experiences. At the same time, we want to help this future generation beat obesity and truly enjoy active passions such as travel, outdoors & sports. After all, life is much more than mobile games and binge-watching! Also, we are a 100% made-in-India product and have already helped over 1 lakh consumers shift to fitter potato chips and quit the fatty fried ones.”

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & Managing Director – 9Unicorns, added, “There is, currently, a major tech-led transformation afoot in the Indian snack food industry. TagZ Foods is at the forefront of this disruption with its innovative manufacturing processes and specialised foodtech. We have full faith in the founding team’s vision to craft an Indian GenZ brand and fulfill the growing demand for fitter snacking experiences.”

TagZ Foods is available on all online platforms such as Amazon, Big Basket, Supr Daily, and over 1,000 premium retail stores in Bangalore and other cities. Since its launch, the brand has served more than 1 lakh consumers. With the funding, TagZ Foods will now improve its distribution and capacity in other major cities across the country.

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage startups. 9Unicorns provides funding of upto $100K per startup in the first round, and may further invest $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports startups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is on a hands-on support ecosystem for startups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, offers access to a wide network of successful founders, category-leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives an acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

Pravesh Mehta, early investor in Unicorn Droom, joins 9Unicorns as Venture Partner

The recent development comes in the wake of a series of virtual campaigns conducted by Venture Catalysts across tier II and tier III cities.

Ahmedabad, October 12th, 2020: In a bid to build a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem in cities beyond the metros, 9Unicorns, India’s first Accelerator VC fund, is roping in angel investors as venture partners. One such venture partner is Mr Parvesh Mehta, real estate developer and an industrial engineering professional-turned- angel investor from Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Mr. Mehta brings his tremendous company-building expertise and investor network to boost startup activity in the emerging cities and towns in India.

With keen eye for early investment opportunities, Mr Mehta was drawn towards the startup ecosystem by pumping in seed money in Droom, an online marketplace for used vehicles. The success of Droom becoming a Unicorn, led Mr Mehta to invest in 25 more startups since then. He also got associated with Venture Catalysts in 2018. 9Unicorns is the accelerator fund of Venture Catalysts.

Mr Mehta, as a Venture Partner at 9Unicorns, has committed around Rs 50 crore into the fund where he will along-with other investors, intend to help the entrepreneurs in smaller Indian cities and towns. He has already invested Rs 30 crore of his total commitment.

Welcoming Mr Mehta onboard, Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder and MD, 9Unicorns, said, “We are excited to have Pravesh as a partner at 9Unicorns. His commitment towards our fund shows how successful business persons from tier II and tier III cities are interested in exploring their role as angel investors. As India’s largest integrated incubator and accelerator VC, it is our constant thrive to create a widespread network of investors beyond metros.”

In a career spanning over three decades, Mr. Mehta’s initiatives continue to make significant contributions to the city of Ahmedabad - from developing green residential projects on the expanding rural boundaries to leading heritage revitalisation in the heart of the old city. Partnering with 9 Unicorns, he envisions making Ahmedabad one of the leading hubs for Indian startups.

Mr. Mehta’s recent efforts have helped the accelerator achieve its first close of INR 100 crore. His current approach involves building local investor communities that bridge the enthusiasm of younger generations with the grounded understanding of seasoned professionals. These communities provide avenues for investor education and collaborative due diligence - nurturing a sustained interest and sense of comfort among new angel investors.

Pravesh Mehta, Venture Partner at 9Unicorns, commented, “I am extremely delighted to expand my collaboration with 9Unicorns. An accelerator-VC approach enables me to actively mentor startups throughout their growth journeys, and at the same time, keep it real for my investor communities. We see tremendous potential in mobilising startup and investment activity across tier II and tier III Indian cities, and I am thrilled to play a part in this journey”.

Mr Mehta is also, meanwhile, educating the business class residing in non-metros to look at startups as an alternate asset class and invest in promising idea stage companies for better returns.

“By investing in early stage startups, the business community can not only get a chance to multiply their wealth bar better than what they could earn through traditional means but also get an opportunity to be a part of the country’s startup ecosystem. This is a win-win situation for everyone” Mehta said.

Initiatives such as 9Unicorns are needed to augment the growth of the Indian startup ecosystem. Engaging with this accelerator, startups will be able to access global VCs and family offices for series A/B, as well as, follow on committed investments of INR 3-15 crore by Venture Catalysts for deserving startups.

9Unicorns is an initiative by Venture Catalysts (VCats) founders -- Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anuj Golecha, Anil Jain and Gaurav Jain.

About 9Unicorns

9Unicorns in India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage startups. 9Unicorns provides funding upto $100K per startup in the first round, and $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports startups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is on a hand -on support ecosystem for startups, beyond capital. Startups take money from 9Unicorns for access to a wide network of successful category leading founders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.