Fintech Platform for Solopreneurs and Creators MoneyyApp Raises Funding from AngelList’s Early-stage Quant Fund

MoneyyApp, a Fintech platform empowering small businesses, digital native solopreneurs and creators in India, has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-seed round from AngelList Early Stage Quant Fund.

MoneyApp would use the funds to expand its operations, increase product development and create awareness around the app to get more creators and solopreneurs into its network.

The startup has raised an angel round in June with the support of GSF Founder Rajesh Sawhney, IndiaMart founder Dinesh Agarwal, Nazara Technologies' founder Nitesh Mittersain, BharatMatrimony founder Murugavel, along with Roshan Abbas and Guarav Kapur,Arvinder Singh Gujral ex Twitter APAC Head also participated.

“With AngelList’s Early Stage Quant Fund on our captable, we look forward use their expertise and track record in identifying gaps in the market that can be served by innovation. We will come up with innovative products and services and tools for digital natives and solopreneurs that can help them manage and grow their businesses,” said Fayyaz Hussain, Cofounder and CEO of MoneyApp.

Founded in early 2022 by serial entrepreneurs Fayyaz, Mohit Goyal and Aaditya Goyal, MoneyyApp, provides creators in India with financial and business growth tools and alternative finance help them scale faster and efficiently.

As per industry reports, there are over 100 million creators and yet another 63.4 million MSMEs in India at present. However, over 80% do not have any technical knowhow or financial tools to scale their products and services.

The Bengaluru and Singapore-based start-up, helps creators by providing tools to improve how they run their businesses. They also help remove the income disparity often present among creators who work on similar genres, categories, and verticals.

MoneyyApp’s target audience is the approximately 100 million digital native solopreneurs/creators who currently make content for various social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram and white dollar digital-gig platforms like Upwork. MoneyyApp has onboarded around 1,6000 creators to date and targets 10x growth.

“We are enthusiastic investors in MoneyyApp. We believe that great people build great companies and we know from our proprietary data that MoneyyApp is one of the most attractive start-ups in the world for talented job seekers,” says Abraham Othman, PhD of AngelList’s Early Stage Quant Fund. 

ABOUT MONEYYAPP

MoneyyApp is empowering emerging MSMEs/Digital Native Solopreneurs/Creators by creating fintech infrastructure by offering financial management tools, alternate finance and growth tools to enhance and expand their business in India, Southeast Asia and MENA region. MoneyyApp is run by serial entrepreneurs who have worked for Paytm, Naspers, Yahoo!, Times Internet and other marquee organisations at the intersection of finance and content.

ABOUT ANGELLIST EARLY -STAGE QUANTITATIVE FUND

AngelList Early Stage Quant Fund is an early-stage venture capital fund managed by AngelList. The fund is located in San Francisco, California. The fund invests in artificial intelligence, big data, and information technology and finance sectors.

Nutrition-Tech Startup Habbit Health Raises Pre-Seed Funding from 3one4 Capital, AngelList India

Habbit Health and Nutrition Pvt Ltd, announced today that it has raised an undisclosed amount as a pre-seed investment from top global investors. VC firm 3one4 Capital and Utsav Somani of AngelList India led the round. Singapore based RB Investments, early stage investors Better Capital and First Cheque and multiple other well-known angel investors from around the world participated via AngelList. With rising per capita incomes, preventive healthcare market in India is expected to be over US$100 billion in 2022. The spend on nutrition, healthy foods, functional foods and supplements is expected to quadruple to over US$ 50 billion in the next decade, growing at 17% CAGR. Rapidly rising awareness about the importance of good nutrition is accelerating this trend in the top 10% of the population which accounts for over 40% of Indian consumption. 

Explaining his rationale behind the investment, Utsav Somani, Partner at AngelList India, said, “Health and wellness is the growth sector of the future. The Covid Pandemic has made everyone realize that good nutrition is a must have and not just for those who work-out. We are seeing lots of products and brands create clutter, without any differentiation. However, the products, brand positioning and customer love demonstrated by the Habbit team are a standout. We are happy to back them early in their mission to create a global leader in health and nutrition.” 

On their decision to invest, Anurag Ramdasan, Principal at 3one4 Capital, said, “The combination of deep product IP, unique brand experience in a large growing market and the extensive use of technology throughout the value chain, makes Habbit different from a regular niche D2C brand. The team with their stellar credentials is a prime contender to scale rapidly, raise the bar and deliver audacious results. Something that we at 3one4 capital live by.” 

Mr. Dhruv Bhushan, CEO, Habbit Health

Sharing the organizational vision, Dhruv Bhushan, Co-Founder & CEO, said, “Lifestyle diseases with their origin in poor nutrition are today’s biggest health concern. Still, there has been little innovation in the consumption category, making it irrelevant for an increasingly health aware audience. Habbit uses modern science and technologies to disrupt these with healthier alternatives, without needing to change user behaviour and still maintaining the same taste. Our IP and technology make us best suited to scale rapidly and capture a slice of this over US$100 billion opportunity. We are proud to have forward-thinking investors around the world supporting our long-term vision and ambitions, even before our launch.” 

 Added, Dev Kabir Malik, Co-Founder & Chief Brand Officer, “Most conversations around health are exercise and goal oriented. Brands are currently very product centric and positioned to target those who are highly involved in fitness. They are thus never able to create large scale impact. We believe that health is a lifestyle and that nutrition is the first step in the health journey, for everyone. Consistency is key, as the benefits of small steps compound over time. Health really is a Habbit” 

About Habbit: 

Founded by serial entrepreneur/angel investor Dhruv Bhushan and leading brand consultant Dev Kabir Malik, Habbit is a global nutrition-tech company that applies modern science to help consumers be healthier through a range of proprietary foods & digital ecosystem.

Based on path breaking global research, Habbit products are formulated using only modern natural ingredients, and make everyday nutrition simple, enjoyable and rewarding. Through alternate natural sources of proteins, fats and sugars, Habbit is making every consumable item as healthy as possible, without compromising on the taste. It will be launching in a phased manner, a wide portfolio of personalised products - from natural proteins for everyday use, to indulgent snacks, refreshing beverages and delightful ice creams. These products have already been tried and endorsed by thousands of top lifestyle, nutrition, health and fitness experts.

A tech-led gamified health journey aims to make the digital Habbit experience the easiest for consumers to be healthy. By promoting health as a lifestyle and not a goal-oriented activity, it allows a vast majority of the population to be healthy, and does not cater only to the fitness enthusiasts. In doing so, Habbit aims to build an innovative global FMCG company for the future which leverages technology to deliver the pinnacle of customer experience.  

Gurgaon-based Photo Sharing Platform Spyne Raises Pre-series Funding

Spyne, an AI-driven Indian tech company that helps Online businesses with all kinds of photoshoots and photographers to leverage their visual content for business growth, has successfully raised an undisclosed amount as growth capital in their Pre-series funding.

The investment was led by Angellist, Smile Group, Manish Amin (COO, Yatra), Anil Goel (CTO, OYO), Anubhav Sonthalia (CEO, Sokrati), Deepak Mittal (CEO, TO THE NEW), among other entrepreneurs from leading companies in India. The company raised its seed funding last year, which was led by the Smile Group and other angel investors. 

The Gurgaon-based startup will use the current funding to build and reinforce the AI-based image editing suite that will help businesses in getting images edited 4x faster with the highest precision. The technology will also ensure the marketplace image specifications and customizations are followed during the bulk processing, helping businesses save up to 90% of the costs. 

Commenting on the development, Sanjay Kumar, Co-founder & CEO, Spyne, said, "Every business - big or small - needs HQ images and videos to sell their products and services online. We are in the business of providing the best visual content and photoshoot services to them anywhere, anytime at ~30% quicker with 99.99% accuracy. With the network of 2500+ highly curated photographers across 35+ cities and industry-first Image processing and distribution technology, we are uniquely placed to cater to the large incoming demand coming from businesses in the post Covid-19 era.” 

“With the current round, we are looking to invest deeper in building the next set of computer vision and Deep tech applications solving complex use cases such as auto editing of images in a click, automated curation and quality check, On the fly Image and Design generation, etc. This will enable us to open new markets in the coming months not only in India but thousands of businesses outside India.", he further added.

Currently, an editor can manually edit at max 150 images per day. The company’s high tech editing suite will help accomplish hundreds of edited images in minutes, guaranteeing up to 90% margins, 99.9% accuracy, and 100% on-time delivery.

"I'm excited about how Sanjay and his team at Spyne are working to solve the Image processing problems, faced by most Online Businesses globally, including us at Oyo. Producing personalized high-quality content at an industrial scale is something which very few companies have been able to achieve anywhere, and I am fully behind the team to achieve it eventually," said Anil Goel, CTO, OYO.

The company is also reinforcing its business operations for SpyneStudios and freelance photography networks across the country. Last month, the company opened its first studio in Delhi NCR and added over 150 freelance photographers to its existing network of over 2500+ freelancers. Spyne plans to spread across tier 2 and tier 3 cities and then to South-Asia and the Middle East to help businesses order any kind of shoot at scale at any time and anywhere. 

Currently, Spyne has 2000+ photographers actively using its high-tech content sharing platform, SpyneShare, which helps photographers generate reviews and more business. So far, 6M+ photos and videos have been shared through SpyneShare product. The company plans to extend this product to businesses as well with add-on AI tech-features to instantly track all their products from pickup for a shoot to final image delivery. This perhaps is a much-needed feature that doesn't exist in the market so far.

“Internet marketplaces all across the globe are growing exponentially. Millions of high-quality images and videos of products/services are published every day on marketplace platforms to improve their traffic and conversions. Still, high-quality content delivery and management remain a daunting task. We see the founder-market fit in Sanjay, given his past experience. Spyne has the potential of becoming a global company,” says the Angellist India team.

The company currently provides a wide array of photoshoot services such as HQ images, videos, social media content, 360-degree shoots, 3D rendering, etc to cater to industries including e-commerce, real estate, fashion, Jewellery, and food. 

Spyne has worked with top national and international brands such as Amazon, Snapdeal, Oyo, Big Basket, WedMeGood, Yatra, PP Jewellers among many others. 

Anubhav Sonthalia, CEO, Sokrati says, “Large companies & small sellers alike do not have easy access to high-quality, timely, and professional talent to get converting content on demand across the entire span of India. Spyne, with its core Shoot and AI-driven Image Processing technology, has built a platform that will make the production of Images and Videos at scale available to every seller, and it is as easy as ordering food.”

Spyne was launched in 2018 by an IIT-Kharagpur alumni Sanjay Kumar who has worked with brands like Amazon, Yatra, OYO, etc and Deepti Prasad from Delhi School of Economics with 8+ years of consulting and marketing experience. The AI-driven company provides photographers a new content management experience and an opportunity to work for top national and international brands. With an aim to fill the high-quality content requirement gap in the industry at high volume and scale, the company aims to be the go-to place for all kinds of shoots, visual content management, and image processing requirements across India and beyond. 

Founding Team:

Sanjay Kumar (Co-founder, CEO): IIT KGP, 2005. Ex Amazon, Oyo, Yatra 12+ years in Deep Tech, Product Built multiple successful Online products for some of the top startups and Consumer companies, used by millions of customers globally. 

Deepti Prasad (Co-founder, Marketing): Delhi School of Economics, 2007 8+ years in Consulting & Marketing Genpact Consulting for 5 years+, Media/Economic Analyst to renowned Economist Omkar Goswami for Question Time Show on NDTV.

Bangalore-based 'Clean Air-as-a-Service' IoT Startup Clairco Raises Funds from AngelList

Clairco - Clean air-as-a-service company which offers air quality monitoring & purification services, raised its first round of funding from AngelList. The funding round was led by Prakhar Agarwal – head of investments, AngelList India.

Part of 3rd cohort of real estate accelerator - Brigade Reap, Clairco is an IoT based air quality monitoring and purification company that uses low drag air filters which can be retrofitted to any type of air conditioning and turn them into air purifiers. This helps save a lot of money by not spending on expensive hardware. Clairco has developed this patent-pending air purification system to help address the issue of indoor pollution.

With Clairco closing its first round of funding, the company plans to use the freshly raised capital to expand Clairco's footprint to key cities across the country and strengthen its core-technology team. Incubated in early 2018, Clairco's air monitoring and purification services are currently being implemented in the premises of India’s biggest health/fitness and home rental brands. The company is also executing paid pilots for schools, office spaces, tech parks, and hotels both luxury and budget.

Speaking on leading the funding for Clairco, Prakhar Agarwal – head of investments, AngelList India said “The magnitude of the pollution problem in majority of the Indian cities and the total inaction in dealing with it has been bothersome. For the past couple of months, I was actively scouting for start-ups that are innovating in this space and have a scalable solution beyond just pollution monitoring and analytics. Clairco’s patent pending technology provides a full stack solution to tackle this issue. Given the marquee clients they are working and conducting pilots with, reaffirms my belief of backing the right company”.

Aayush Jha, founder Clairco quoted “The backing of AngelList adds immense value to Clairco that goes just beyond capital. We will also be banking on their rich experience and network to expand to new cities and work at strengthening our core-technology team”.

With 14 out of 20 most polluted cities in the world in India, and the cost of asthma medication reaching a record 55,000 crores per year, the indoor air quality monitoring market is estimated to reach 33,000 crores ($4.63 billion) by 2022.

Working on the concept of predictive intelligence on the connected devices, Clairco analyses air quality data of a particular premise on a real-time basis and installs ultra-low resistance air filter in existing air conditioning units and converts them into smart air purification system.

Clairco charges its customers a monthly subscription fee for businesses of all sizes and scale. This helps businesses ensure a better experience without investing considerable capital expenditure. Our technology enables us to be the only company in India that can guarantee clean air for indoor spaces."

Clairco founder Aayush Jha (CEO) is a second-time entrepreneur and has held key positions in early-stage startups before. He was the Country CEO for Brightbox a connected car's platform that was acquired last year by a Europe based insurance company and also the head of business development at Saif partners funded Bumper.com.

Silicon Valley-headquartered AngelList is the largest platform in the world for startups to raise capital, hire talent and launch their product. Over $1.1B has been invested across nearly 3,400 global startups through AngelList which launched Syndicates in India in early 2018. AngelList Syndicates have invested in over 60 companies since their India launch.

Clairco, owned by Aliferous Technologies stands for the Clean Air Company. With a mission to help businesses offer clean, breathable indoor environments to their customers, Clairco marries intelligent connected devices, cutting-edge machine learning algorithms, and a simple upgrade to existing infrastructure, to help achieve a differentiated air quality experience. Clairco is also a part of real-estate giant, Brigade group's startup accelerator, Brigade Reap.

AngelList Launches India-dedicated Fund 'The Collective' to Invest ₹1 Cr Each in 60-80 Startups

AngelList, a US-based platform that helps connect companies with investors, has announced the launch of its own venture fund in India called 'The Collective' and the India-dedicated fund has got the backing of some stellar names including Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal.

Notably, India will be the first market outside of the US to get such a fund.

The fund will deploy $150,000 (about ₹1.03 crore ) each across 60-80 companies annually and will give access to quick capital to its Syndicate leads. Since the launch of AngelList India Syndicates a year ago, the platform has had 15 syndicate leads and invested over $5 million across 50 Indian startups like BharatPe HalaPlay, Yulu Bikes, Open Bank.

The Collective brings additional capital and advice from experienced investors like Salil Deshpande (Bain Capital Ventures), Avnish, Tarun, Vikram (Matrix Partners India), Binny Bansal (Flipkart), Navroz Udwadia (Falcon Edge Capital), Rahul Mehta (DST Global) and prominent funds like Kalaari Capital, FJ Labs, Beenext and others.

Syndicate leads can access up to $150,000 in additional capital per deal from The Collective. The instant access to capital enables leads to focus on what they do best — using their judgement and access for allocations in the best Indian startups.

In January of last year, AngelList introduced Syndicates to the Indian market. Syndicates lets investors team up with like minded people and pool funds for investments in startups.

US-based AngelList Introduces A New Way For Indian Startups To Raise Funds Via Indian HNIs

US-based AngelList, an online platform which supports early-stage funding and startup recruitment, has introduced a new way, for investors, High Net-worth Individuals (HNIs) in India, to invest in startups in India. With launch of its ‘Syndicates’ product in India AngelList will now lets investors team up with like minded people and pool funds for investments in startups in the country.

You might not know but startups including Uber, in its early days, have raised more than $700 million through this AngelList's Syndicates only, besides 1,800 other startups which have raised over $6 billion through the platform in follow up funding.

With this launch of Syndicates for India, investors in India can now invest alongside experienced angels and VC funds that invest in India’s vibrant tech ecosystem.

AngelList, in an official blog post, said, "As part of this launch, we’ve gathered the support of experienced entrepreneurs and investors in India like Kunal Shah, Ash Lilani and others. Approved backers will get access to syndicates from great investors like Sandeep Tandon, Shalini Prakash, K-Start and others".

For Startup Founders in India

The launch of Syndicates for India broadens the range of investors from which startup founders can raise funds.

For example, suppose an angel wants to invest $250K into a company. They personally invest $50K and ask 10 other investors to invest alongside them. They pool the investors into a fund which invests another $200K.

Startup founders can discuss how much the syndicate will invest, on what terms, who should be able to invest, what information will be shared, and when you'd like to close.

Once documents are signed, AngelList collects funds and wires them to startup founders. AngelList can close deals in as quickly as 72 hours.

For Investors in India

Syndicates are a private single-deal investment vehicles that let you invest in startup allocations shared by syndicate leads, enabling more angels to participate by getting access to top deals. Similar to a VC fund, syndicates provide experienced investors the opportunity to earn carried interest on their allocation, and the ability to write bigger checks by pooling capital from dozens of backers in the ecosystem. Learn more about the benefits for leads.

In the past, AngelList has supported investments into Indian startups like ClearTax, DocTal, and Squad.