Nanotechnology Startup Vimano Raises ₹ 25 Crore Led by Ankur Capital

Nanotechnology and advanced materials startup Vimano has raised INR 25 crore in its seed round, led by Ankur Capital. This marks Ankur Capital’s first investment out of its newly launched third fund. The funding will support Vimano’s mission to power the energy transition, with its membranes serving as key backbones for redox flow batteries, electrolyzers for green hydrogen production, as well as PEM fuel cells.

While the global energy transition is firmly under way powered by ever reducing cost of solar energy, key technological issues remain, some of the most important being the high cost of producing green hydrogen and the lack of cost effective long-duration energy storage (LDES) options. These gaps are major impediments to the decarbonization of heavy manufacturing industries and a move towards a fully renewables-powered grid.

Founded in 2019 by materials scientists Murari Ramkumar (CEO) and Dr. Nagesh Kini (CTO), Vimano was built on the belief that cutting-edge materials can unlock a new era of energy storage. Its tunable ion-conductive membrane platform has led to the development of membranes that significantly lower the cost of electrolyzers, which are used in green hydrogen production and other LDES systems. Over the past five years of research, Vimano has solved the significant problem of increasing the conductivity and performance of membranes while maintaining high efficiency, low crossover and long life.

The investment will enable Vimano to initiate pilot projects with strategic partners in the energy ecosystem, expand its team and establish a scalable manufacturing process for its membranes.

Murari Ramkumar, CEO of Vimano, said, “At Vimano, we believe that membrane electrolytes are the unsung heroes of the energy transition. Over the past five years, we have worked relentlessly to develop a platform that can significantly improve efficiency and reduce costs for long-duration energy storage and green hydrogen production. This investment will enable us to accelerate our commercialization efforts and bring our high-performance membranes to market at scale. We’re thrilled to have Ankur Capital backing us as we take the next big leap.”

Ritu Verma, Managing Partner at Ankur Capital, added, “We are excited to partner with Vimano as they hit a crucial inflection point. Their groundbreaking work in nanotechnology aligns perfectly with our commitment to backing deep science innovations that tackle pressing global issues like the energy transition. We believe Vimano’s membranes can reshape how energy is stored across multiple formats — with green hydrogen alone projected to grow nearly 10X to over $60B by 2030.”

About Vimano

Vimano is a nanotechnology startup focused on transforming energy systems through advanced membrane technology. By enhancing how energy is stored, converted, and deployed, Vimano is committed to accelerating the global shift to sustainable energy. https://www.vimano.biz/

About Ankur Capital

Founded in 2014, Ankur Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm in India, investing in digital and deep science technology companies. Ankur Capital has backed over 30 companies across sectors including category leaders such as Captain Fresh (B2B commerce), Vegrow ( B2B commerce), StringBio ( Synthetic biology), OffGrid Energy (Battery Chemistry), Agrizy (B2B commerce), Superfone (Neo-telco) and Niramai (AI Medtech) among others. The firm has offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. More at www.ankurcapital.com

Ankur Capital Doubles Down On Deep Science, Invests Seed Capital In Two Biotech Startups

Ankur Capital, an India-based leading early-stage venture capital fund focused on transformative technologies in deep science tech and climate tech today announced that they have invested seed capital in two early stage biotech startups - MyoWorks and D-NOME.

While Indian biotech has shown astounding growth, funding for the sector has continued to be a challenge due to regulatory concerns, high risks and long gestation periods. With climate change, the pandemic and various concerns around food security and the growing population, biotech has the potential to offer solutions to some of the most pressing problems being faced by the world today which makes it an attractive focus area for Ankur Capital.

Founded by Nihal Singh and Shubhankar Takle, MyoWorks is building edible fungal mycelium-based 2D and 3D scaffolds which will support the production of cultivated meat products. The last decade has seen cultured meat production costs decrease by multiple folds, but one of the key challenges that remains is to replicate the multicellular complexity in the animal meat architecture. Scaffolds that can mimic real tissue environments will help achieve faster consumer acceptance and reduce manufacturing costs further. The company aims to create an ecosystem of ancillary products that will facilitate any cultivated-meat company’s vision to replace real meat products with in-vitro meat.

Experts believe the cultivated meat market could grow to more than $25 billion by 2030. McKinsey reports that coupled with the innovations and economies of scale (annual production of more than 1.5 million tonnes), cultured meat will attain cost parity by 2030 and should be available for less than $5 per pound of meat. Scaffolds are expected to contribute close to 5% of the meat weight, making it a multibillion-dollar industry itself.

D-NOME is developing a molecular diagnostic platform solution based on loop mediated isothermal amplification technology (D-LAMP) with applications in human infectious diseases, livestock screening, agriculture molecular techniques and next generation genomic sequencing. The demand for early detection of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis B and C, HIV, HPV, UTIs, HAIs as well as oncology and genetic testing is increasing due to their rising prevalence across the world. The market for molecular diagnostics saw a growth of more than 230% YoY in 2019-20 and is valued at more than $ 20 billion. The major bottleneck for diagnostic labs and hospitals in scaling up molecular techniques like RT-PCR or sequencing are the high operational costs and delayed turnaround time. Founded by Divya Sriram and Sujoy Deb, the D-LAMP technology is a low cost alternative to PCR technology and has the potential to be used at the Point of Care (PoC).

"This fundraise will be instrumental for us to achieve our technological milestones which will play a crucial role to help bring cultivated meat from the lab bench to people’s tables.” said Nihal Singh, Co-Founder, MyoWorks on the announcement.

"As D-NOME is working towards building an effective disease diagnostics tool utilizing synthetic biology and genomics, the current fundraise takes us to the next milestone closer to our vision of bringing affordable personalized diagnostics to all.” said Divya Sriram, Co- Founder, D-NOME

"We are excited to expand our portfolio in the deep science space with two very exciting companies in mycelium-based scaffolds for cell-based meat and protein engineering for diagnostics in human and animal health. Both areas are ripe for disruptive technologies, and we are thrilled as Ankur to deepen our commitment to disruptive technologies” said Ritu Verma, Managing Partner, Ankur Capital.

European Agri-Insurtech Startup IBISA Raises Seed Funding from India's Ankur Capital

Agri insurtech startup IBISA announced that Ankur Capital, an India-based leading early-stage venture capital fund focused on transformative technologies in deeptech and climate tech has joined its seed round. Luxembourg-based Insurtech startup IBISA is on a mission to empower the Agri value chain players with innovative weather protection insurance solutions.

Founded in 2019, IBISA started its operations in India with the DHAN Foundation to provide parametric insurance against drought coverage in Tamil Nadu. Fast forward to now, IBISA is scaling its operations in India with operations in Odisha, Karnataka, Telangana for coverage against excess rainfall, excess wind speed and drought. They have also opened a registered office in Feb 2022 in Bengaluru.

70% of the global food supply comes from smallholder farmers and more than 50% of the Indian workforce is into agriculture and allied sectors that contribute to just 20% of India’s GDP. With climate change happening at a rapid scale, most of these smallholder farmers are vulnerable to unforeseen climatic conditions that lead to damage of crops. It is not that there are not any insurance solutions to cater that, but there is a huge gap between the cost of insurance and the willingness to pay premiums and the relevance of the existing insurance products and the need of the farmers.

Speaking on the investment, Ritu Verma, Partner at Ankur Capital mentioned, “The unavailability of data has hampered the growth of the agricultural insurance industry in developing countries for decades. Legacy crop insurance involved long manual processes making them impractical for developing markets where smallholder farming is the norm, and parametric insurance has historically been unviable due to the lack of detailed climate-related datasets. We are excited to partner with IBISA to transform the scale of available parametric insurance options in countries like India with a vast addressable market.”

“Farming is an integral part of both our societal and economic infrastructure. The impact that the war in Ukraine is having on food prices and food security seriously underscores the importance of global agriculture. And yet the support isn’t there. With IBISA, we sought to create technology that would help reduce costs for the active players in the insurance space. Finding a way to responsibly protect farmers in the event of extreme weather, by slashing distribution and operating costs, making it affordable to many groups in the value chain. And it’s no small challenge. But we’re already seeing results. A small evidence of our success is the fact that when the Philippines was hit by Typhoon Odette in Dec’21, our insurance partner, CLIMBS was able to do payouts within 10 days after the typhoon hit Philippines with IBISA’s weather protection coverage in place.” said Maria Mateo Iborra, CEO & Co-founder, IBISA.

Apart from India, IBISA has its operations in New Zealand, Guatemala, Senegal, Philippines, and other African countries. With strong insurance and reinsurance partnerships across different geographies and tailor-made products for lack of rain, excess rainfall, extreme temperatures, excess wind speed and cyclones, IBISA is able to address the needs of various Agri value chain players.

So whether there is a risk pertaining to defaults, securing the supply chain, strengthening farmer connection or increasing sustainability practices in agriculture, weather protection insurance solutions act as a tool to mitigate unforeseen climate-risks and empower organizations and ultimately farmers to increase their resilience against climate change.

The company is also in talks with a number of large lenders, food processors, and Agritech clients across different geographies to mitigate their credit risk against default, reduce their supply chain risks and increase their sustainability practices in agriculture and strengthen farmer connection with smallholder farmers in India and abroad.

If you consider climate risk as a threat to your business and value chain and want to expand into parametric climate insurance then get in touch with us at info@ibisa.network to discuss specific use cases.

Ankur Capital Announces Day Zero, A Pre-Seed Funding Platform For Early-Stage Startups

Tech-focused VC Ankur Capital today announced the launch of a pre-seed funding platform called Day Zero for early-stage startups. The Day Zero platform will be sector-agnostic and will primarily focus on sectors like agriculture, health, SMB SaaS, fintech, logistics, mobility, construction, livelihood, and everything in between. Day Zero is built in such a way that it will help startups cover everything i.e., from initiation to scale for the entrepreneurs. All aspects from funding to ecosystem support to mentoring would be taken care of under one roof.

At Day Zero, Ankur Capital is building a platform for collaboration among angels, Micro VCs, and ecosystem enablers. The platform will invest in pre-seed/seed startups with upto $ 1 M, alongwith partners including Ankur Capital. With the platform, startups can benefit from the network and also the knowledge from all the stakeholders involved. The Day Zero platform has been launched with other micro VC partners like Eximius Ventures, Upsparks, Capital-A, and Gemba. With time, the team will add more partners to ensure that the startups are heard from all quarters when it comes to funding. The platform will not only help pre-seed founders to initiate but to scale, and succeed at the highest levels.

Mohammed Amaan Memon, Head, Day Zero, says, “For Day Zero platform, we are working with top angels, Micro VCs, and ecosystem enablers- right from banks to cloud providers. The gamut of founders that Ankur Capital and its partners have backed to date will be of immense help to the founders we back through Day Zero. We also aim to help connect our founders to marquee investors as they raise follow-on capital. With this platform, we want to help the startups to grow and succeed at all levels.”

Earlier this year in January, Ankur Capital organized the second edition of their pitch fest called India PitchFest 2 which was also to help early-stage startups raise funding. The event aimed to assist startups by giving them the opportunity to pitch their ideas to some of the most renowned micro-VCs who could provide funding to help them hit the ground running. The third edition which is being held on 31st August across Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi.

About Ankur Capital: Ankur Capital is well known for being one of the early backers of agritech in the country. They have backed startups like Captain Fresh, Krishify, VeGrow, Rupifi, Cropin, String Bio, Niramai and many others. The VC firm has around 30 companies in its portfolio across two funds.

Sports Tech Company Sportvot Raises Seed Capital from Ankur Capital and Others

Dravstream Technologies Pvt. Ltd. – SportVot, a SportsTech company raised an undisclosed seed round led by Ankur capital. Other investors included Capital A, SucSEED Indovation Fund, and Marwah Sports.

SportVot is a hyperlocal sports platform that aims at creating an online channel to stream sports events and help discover sports talent from the grassroots of India while creating a community of sports enthusiasts. India has over 10 million aspiring/emerging athletes (U-19), and around 100k + semi-professional/ professional tournaments occur annually. But most athletes do not get access to the right set of tools and platforms to showcase their talent and engage with the ecosystem. This results in a lack of transparency in talent discovery which in turn increases the number of dropouts in the Indian Sports Ecosystem.

Most of the sports games, other than the premier tier sports tournaments are not live-streamed or telecast across any platform in India. Sports streaming is expensive and complicated. A traditional broadcasting setup involves dependency on external service providers for expensive hardware, multiple complicated software and apps, and a special arrangement for OB vans. This makes the digitization of local games very difficult and hence no visibility to local talent. There is a need for a cost-effective streaming platform that undertakes the needs of teams, franchises, and fans. SportVot not only enables streaming with the least amount of resources but also has a rich layer of tools overlay to edit, analyze, and share the videos across various channels.

With internet penetration, sports viewership is increasing by the day. Events such as the Pro-Kabbadi league gets 330+ Million views every season and its success has spawned multiple tournaments across the country at all levels. This has drawn thousands of players. It is similarly played out in volleyball (Brahmaputra Volleyball League) to Kho-Kho (Ultimate Kho-kho), and basketball (Pro-basketball) among others. This has seen a cascading impact on local sports events being conducted across the country. SportVot will enable every match being played in the remotest part of the country to be available for scouts sitting in urban India.

Sport is a great leveler and we see sports as a tool to engage youth and provide many career opportunities for players and other related support careers. We have seen the financial opportunities it has opened up for Pro-Kabbadi players in the last couple of years. With most of these sportspersons coming from impoverished backgrounds, it has opened up new career paths from trainers to scouts to physios and sports administrators apart from players. The first step in that process is creating visibility and transparency in the games at different levels. SportVot with its cutting-edge technology is the only tech player in India focused on this area. SportVot has streamed over 18,000 sports matches, amassed 75M views, and featured over 90,000 upcoming athletes so far. Led by second-time entrepreneurs Sidhhant, Shubangi, and Yash, SportVot has the right mix of technologists and sports enthusiasts to create a global SportsTech platform.

Rema Subramanian, Managing Partner Ankur Capital said, “Sportvot enables young sports persons to showcase their talent and be discovered, leading to penetration of sports into the masses and making India a leading sports nation.”

Ankit Kedia, Founder of Capital-A, said, “At Capital A, our endeavor is to build an ecosystem that supports the diversity of tech-driven startups who can contribute to the growth of the national economy. We have backed a number of brands in various verticals and are always keen to support startups that can emerge as differentiators and enablers in their domains. Our investment in Sportvot is a continuation of that strategy. Sports are a part of Indian pop culture, and through its combination of technology and focus on the local sporting talent as well as events, SportVot has rapidly gained a significant standing in its domain. With a unique approach to not just showcasing talent from all over India, but also building an entire ecosystem that benefits all stakeholders, the platform is bound to grow as a major force.”

Speaking on why they have invested Vikrant Varshney Co-Founder & Managing Partner of SucSEED Indovation Fund, said, “According to the Marketwatch, Global Live Streaming Market is expected to reach $24 billion by 2027 to register a CAGR of 28.1% during the projected period. Live video streaming is trending nowadays due to the increasing acceptance of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Hotstar, and many more. SportVot provides a cost-effective and convenient end-to-end solution to sports bodies and tournament organizers for capturing and broadcasting their games, audience/community engagement, brand sponsorships, and monetization.”

Pranav Marwah, CEO of Marwah Sports said, “Having tracked the team’s progress from their original product avatar, it gives us immense pleasure to see them crack product market fit in a highly underserved market in India. Offering live video streaming with native advertising opportunities alongside high-quality production tools, all at an extremely affordable price, they have created a full-suite platform to showcase the next generation of local sporting heroes.”

Sidhhant, Co-Founder, SportVot, quoted, “The latest fundraise will help us scale our product and technology. We look to expand into new geographies across the country and bring access to live video capture to as many sports games as possible. We are extremely delighted to have our new investors on board and I look forward to working together with them as we discover the next generation of sports talent across the country"

SportVot is an Indian Sports platform where you can watch local match live streams, highlights, and emerging athletes of India. This is made possible with SportVot’s unique media technology to make local sports streaming more easy, cheap, and accessible to the sports ecosystem, called the SportVot Broadcasting Suite. This technology enables these tournament organizers and clubs to make their tournaments fully digital right from producing multilingual interactive streams, automated highlights and scoring to fixture management, which in turn assist these unique sports talent, and even tournaments, to get more support and visibility in the country.

Ankur Capital (https://www.ankurcapital.com/) is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in digital and deep science technology companies. Established in 2014, Ankur Capital looks to uncover and unlock opportunities in overlooked markets across India. They were the first institutional investors in notable companies including Captain Fresh (supply chain platform for animal proteins); Cropin (SaaS-based suite putting farms on the cloud); Rupifi (B2B BNPL platform powering MSME growth); String Bio (synthetic biology platform converting methane into alternative proteins); and Vegrow (smart matchmaking platform for fruits). From seed to scale, Ankur Capital has 29 companies in its portfolio across two funds.

SucSEED Indovation Fund (SIF) is an AIF Cat-1 Venture Capital Angel Fund with ₹100 crore corpus and has grown out of SucSEED Angel Network (SAN) and IIITH Tech Ventures, an early-stage tech seed initiative with IIIT Hyderabad Foundation. General Partners of the Indovation Fund have 100+ years of cumulative experience within technology, fund management, and start-up ecosystem and have already invested in 60+ startups. SIF attempts to support Indian Innovation for mass needs in the following Six (6) sectors - EdTech, FinTech, Health-tech, Security & RegTech, Enterprise & MSME SaAS, and Digital Economy & Emerging Tech. 

Marwah Sports is the sports arm of the Marwah Group, a 70-year-old enterprise headquartered in Mumbai, India, with business interests across commercial real estate, infrastructure, technology, and sports. A powerful blend of research, innovation, pragmatism, and intuition, Marwah Sports aims to create and add value to the Indian sports ecosystem, running thinQsport (India’s first dedicated sports innovation network), creating world-class sporting infrastructure, operating a full-suite consultancy across brand management and equity opportunities for brands, athletes and sportspersons, and investing in early-stage companies, with a portfolio of 40+ companies. 

Agri-Genomics Startup Piatrika Biosystems Raises $1.2 Million in Seed Funding Led by Ankur Capital

Piatrika Biosystems Raises $1.2 Million in Seed Funding Led by Ankur Capital to Build a Platform for the Discovery of New Sustainable Crop Varieties

India/UK-based Agri-Genomics startup, Piatrika Biosystems has raised $1.2 Million in a seed round led by Ankur Capital. The company is bringing sustainable seeds and agri chemicals to market faster and cheaper. The investment will be used to build a strong Product Development team, also for more profound research, and to accelerate the productionising and commercialization of MVP.

To sustain an estimated 9 billion global population by 2050, global food production needs to increase by ~50% - 70%. This growing global population along with the element of climate change will lead to unprecedented agricultural challenges in the coming decades if it is not addressed now. As the world is currently experiencing unprecedented issues around the global food supply, caused by an imbalance in the supply chain where there is excess production of some crops while there are nutritional deficiencies on the other hand. The issue goes beyond just the need for social and economic sustainability and into biotic/abiotic stress resilience, over/under production of required nutrition, and exploring better alternatives like bioethanol, squalene, etc from local crops. In this reality, the need for sustainable agriculture precisely, coupled with an aggressive growth strategy has necessitated a change in processes management.

Founded in 2019 by Vasudev Kumanduri and Phani Yarlagadda, Piatrika Biosystems is also building a new innovative cloud-based enterprise Platform-As-A-Service (PAAS) for agri-genomic discoveries and plant breeding decision support, program designing, and monitoring. The seed discovery platform is supported by novel technologies in computational biology and data science, integrating this with autonomous phenotypic, temporal, and spatial data capture for more accurate analysis helps enhance the discovery process. The company aims to bridge the gap between scientific research and commercial enterprise solutions.

Vasudev Kumanduri, Co-Founder & CEO, Piatrika Biosystems, said, “ There remains a significant disconnect between state of the art research and its practical implementation. This means that while there has been ground-breaking research in recent years in computational biology / genomics, data science, cloud and instrumentation, this important knowledge has not been applied in a timely practical manner in agriculture. There is an urgent need to translate these research advances into practical benefit for the agriculturist, the consumer and ultimately the planet through modern, sustainable and ethical food production. ”

Phani Yarlagadda, Co-Founder & COO at Piatrika Biosystems, said, “Weather, war, and viruses have disrupted global food systems. This has put immense pressure to produce more food using less resources. Seed companies and Agri-Research institutes are looking for affordable Enterprise grade plug-in solutions that can leverage the recent advancements in technology to optimize the processes involved in taking a Seed from Lab to Farmer”

Ritu Verma, Partner, Ankur Capital said, “We are excited to partner with Piatrika on their journey to enable and create new seeds through computational biology. With the challenges that agriculture faces both from climate and increased food demand, innovation in the seed sector is critical. With advances in computational biology we see this as a critical tool to bring new seeds to market quickly.”

Piatrika Biosystems is incubated out of NIAB(Cambridge, UK) & ICRISAT(Hyderabad, India) and working with Researchers, Seed companies & Research institutes. In June 2022, Piatrika Biosystems was selected as a case study by Food and Agriculture

Organization (FAO) of the United Nations report and featured.

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BioTech Innovator String Bio Raises $20 Mn in 1st Close of Series B from Woodside Energy, Ankur Capital, Others

• String Bio (String) and Woodside Energy are collaborating on potential production of sustainable protein ingredients from greenhouse gases.
• Woodside Energy has invested in String’s Series B round of equity raising, along with new and existing investors, to further develop String’s methane-based technology platform.
• The collaboration is a significant milestone for String’s vision to redefine manufacturing and enable decarbonization.

String Bio, a biotech innovator, announced today that it has signed a strategic development agreement with Woodside Energy Technologies Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of global energy company Woodside Energy Group Ltd (Woodside). In parallel, Woodside has also announced an investment in String’s Series B equity raise, subject to conditions precedent. New and existing investors including Ankur Capital, Dare Ventures, Redstart, Zenfold Ventures and others have joined the first close of US$20 million of the Series B raise.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s AR6 report, methane traps around 27 times the amount of heat in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and is responsible for a third of the global warming. Reducing methane emissions is one of the fastest opportunities we have to slow the rate of global warming. Agriculture and the Oil & Gas industry together account for 70% of methane emissions and adoption of emerging technologies can be critical to enabling net zero by 2050. The investment in this technology is an example of the energy and biotechnology sectors working toward a more sustainable future, advancing a technology that could contribute to a circular carbon economy.

String Bio has been one of the early entrants in this space and has built an innovative technology platform that leverages advances in biology, fermentation technology, chemistry and process engineering to convert the energy in methane into diverse value-added products. Products enabled by String’s platform range from protein ingredients for nutrition, to innovative crop inputs, to products for biodegradable polymers. The differentiated innovation delivers on decarbonization while increasing supply of key inputs for diverse sectors. String had previously set up its first multi-purpose gas fermentation facility in Bangalore that can run on methane from both natural gas and biogas. The current investment and collaboration will enable String to further drive the market growth of its products and strengthen its decarbonization impact.

Woodside Energy CEO Meg O’Neill said the company aimed to thrive through the energy transition with a resilient and diversified portfolio. “Our investment in String Bio builds on our ability to potentially abate greenhouse gases through the conversion of carbon into useful products. “We believe String Bio’s technology could eventually be used to recycle methane at Woodside facilities. It could also be deployed at third-party sites with available biomethane such as landfill facilities and farms,” she said.

Vinod Kumar, Co-Founder & Managing Director, String Bio highlighted that this is a significant milestone for both String and the biotech ecosystem in India. “Our fundamental ethos is to enable supply and establish demand for our diverse product portfolio. The partnership with Woodside will be a defining milestone to enable carbon-friendly products in the global marketplace.”

Speaking on the development, Dr. Ezhil Subbian, Co-Founder & CEO, String Bio said “The vision for String has been to leverage cutting edge advances in biotechnology to enable better living at significantly reduced environmental footprint. With the Woodside collaboration and Series B raise, we are taking a giant step forward to bring such solutions to market - solutions that are better for people and the planet.”

One of the earliest institutional investors in String Bio was Ankur Capital, a Mumbai based impact investment fund. Ritu Verma, Managing Director of Ankur Capital had the following comment on the development. “At Ankur Capital we think biotechnology will play a big role in reimagining manufacturing of existing products and introduce new ones. String sits at the forefront of this and we are excited to deepen our investment with them as they enter the next step of their journey to bring their products to market with like minded partners across the globe and drive the climate impact they envision.”

Ankur Capital Launches India Pitch Fest, A Phygital Event to Support and Boost Investment for Early Stage Startups

Ankur Capital, an early stage venture capital fund investing in startups with transformative technologies for the next billion Indians has launched the ‘India Pitch Fest’, a phygital networking and pitching event. It aims to empower early stage startups by giving them a chance to access fundraising via multiple partner VCs, networking and other corporate benefits post the selection process.

The event is being supported by other players in the VC ecosystem such as Anicut Capital, Eximius Ventures, Samyakth Capital, Java Capital and Upsparks. The Technology Partner is AWS and the Ecosystem Partner is HeadStart. The event is open for early stage startups from all sectors working on innovative solutions and ideas that aim to disrupt the way consumers, industries and businesses operate.

Registrations close on 26th October and the results would be announced the next day, shortlisted startups will get to pitch physically at Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi on the 28th and virtually on the 29th of October.

To register and participate in the event, click here - http://bit.ly/IndPitchFest

Wasabi Raises $1.8 Mn Seed Funding Led by Ankur Capital To Reimagine ‘Hubspot’ for Small Businesses in India

Founders - Wasabi

The startup will use the funds to build a strong engineering team, develop their product offering and create early customer traction.

India, July 29th 2021: Bengaluru-based tech startup, Wasabi (Truegrit Technologies Private Limited) has raised $1.8 Million in a seed round led by Ankur Capital. The round also saw participation from Binny Bansal backed 021 Capital, Sparrow Capital and notable angels like Ankit Bhati (Ola), Mekin Maheshwari (Udhyam Learning), Lalit Keshre (Groww), Revant Bhate (Mosaic Wellness), Abhishek Goyal (Tracxn) and Ashish Goel (Urban Ladder) among others. The funds raised will be utilized to build a strong engineering team, develop their product offering and create early customer traction.

Founded in January 2021 by Pradeep Dodle and Nikhil Goenka, Wasabi is building an easy-to-use communications and growth platform for small and medium businesses in India to help them manage customer relationships better and grow their business. With their deep domain and product expertise, spanning stints at PhonePe, Flipkart and Ola, the team aims to address the challenges that SMBs face in providing high quality digital experiences to customers.

According to industry estimates, there are more than 60 Mn registered small and medium businesses in India and many millions more home based businesses. While consumers are increasingly going digital, these businesses are lagging behind in embracing new technologies that could help them become more data-driven while also catalysing a more contextual real-time engagement with their customers. The team believes the next 3-5 years will be transformational where millions of these small businesses will go digital to survive and thrive.

Pradeep Dodle, Co-Founder, Wasabi, said, "With an increasing number of customers going digital, and intense competition from large ecommerce platforms, many small businesses are facing an existential threat. We believe that they can thrive only by going digital while continuing to build closer relationships with their customers and providing them with personalised service. We are excited to partner with Ritu and the team at Ankur Capital as we get started on this journey."

Nikhil Goenka, Co-Founder, Wasabi, added, “The biggest moat for small businesses is their relationship and proximity to customers. While they do this exceptionally well offline, they are struggling to extend the same experience digitally. They juggle with multiple apps and find it complex to manage. We want to simplify this, help them build stronger customer relationships and grow their business.”

Ritu Verma, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Ankur Capital, also shared, “We are excited to partner with Pradeep and Nikhil to reimagine the millions of small businesses in India and enhance their capabilities. We see SMBs as the backbone of Indian commerce and the opportunity to expand their offerings and grow their businesses to compete in the new digital age as table stakes. Simple, easy to use products will define winners in tech and we believe the team at Wasabi is already well on its way in building a world class product!”

About Ankur Capital

Ankur Capital (https://www.ankurcapital.com/) is an early stage venture capital fund focused on transformative technologies for the Next Billion Users. Established in 2014, its investment thesis underscores the emerging opportunities created by the growing aspirations and greater digital access of this audience. The following portfolio companies successfully illustrate Ankur Capital’s highly differentiated thesis: CropIn (SaaS solutions for farmers, present in 53 countries); String Bio (alternative protein generation from methane); Niramai (AI-powered thermal imaging for breast cancer diagnosis); and Captain Fresh (aggregators of fresh seafood across select states). Considered a pioneer in India’s agtech investments, Ankur Capital incubated ThinkAg, the country’s first think tank in the agritech space. Its founders are consistently counted amongst India’s top AI influencers. With the second fund, Ankur Capital strengthens and deepens its commitment to and investment expertise in agtech and healthtech, and expands its reach through opportunities across fintech, edtech, localisation, and insurtech.

About Wasabi

Wasabi is on a mission to help small businesses grow their sales via their customer interaction and growth platform. They are reimagining ‘Hubspot’ for small businesses in India, through which they aim to make it easy for merchants to convert conversations to sales on any channel and make use of simple marketing tools to retain loyal customers and attract new users. This is a massive global opportunity and the SMB market is growing exponentially with the mass adoption of UPI and COVID related disruptions. Millions of businesses en-mass have switched to using tech to solve their problems & do it better. This is at an inflection point and they feel that SMB enablement will be one of the biggest opportunity areas of the next decade.

Seafood Supply Chain Platform Captain Fresh Raises $2.3 Mn in Funding from Ankur Capital, Incubate Fund and Others

Freshwater fish and seafood supply chain platform Captain Fresh has raised $2.3 million in pre-series A round of funding led by Ankur Capital with participation from Incubate Fund India and Silicon Valley based angel investors. Captain Fresh leverages technology to consistently deliver reliable, trustworthy and high-quality freshwater fish and seafood to retailers across all key formats. The fundraise will be used to invest in technologies like computer vision, IoT, bots, data analytics to digitize and drive efficiencies across the supply chain. Additionally, it will expand to new cities and add key hires to build a mission driven world-class team.

Captain Fresh is building a trusted seafood supply chain by bringing in intelligence for superior demand-supply matching, enabling e-auctions for sourcing, standardizing supplies and maintaining digital traceability systems. While the majority of Indians prefer to eat fresh meat and seafood, the current supply chain fails to consistently provide the desired basket of products that offer the required quality at reasonable prices. Captain Fresh is building a model to address all these needs of retailers by leveraging technology; the platform also helps in guaranteeing suppliers timely payments, thereby increasing their earnings potential.

Captain Fresh works with leading brands in the modern trade channel as well as the pioneers in the online meat and seafood space. The company received seed investments from Nekkanti Group and Sandhya Aqua, leading exporters of frozen shrimp, who saw potential in the domestic opportunity. It began operations in Bangalore, currently serving more than 120 retail businesses across all formats. Since then, it has expanded its operations to other cities.

Utham Gowda

Captain Fresh was founded in April 2019 by Utham Gowda, an ex-investment banker, who is passionate about the domestic opportunity. Utham has closely worked in the seafood sector since 2015 including a senior leadership stint with a seafood export major. The senior leadership team also comes with deep domain expertise in the online seafood and meat delivery space.

Utham Gowda, Founder, Captain Fresh, said, “We started with a simple vision to build a fresh fish and seafood platform that the ecosystem could completely trust and rely on for their daily needs. We want to nurture our retail partners’ businesses by providing full availability, range and high-quality fresh supplies on a daily basis. For suppliers, we want to provide the comfort of working with a trustworthy partner who consistently delivers on payment promises. Our traction and positive customer feedback in the last 12 months have validated the real need for what we are building. It has boosted our confidence in playing an active and critical role in uplifting the overall ecosystem.”

Krishnan Neelakantan, Partner at Ankur Capital, added, “With a billion aspiring Indians seeking to up the protein in their diet, we see a huge latent demand for fresh fish and seafood, already a $12 billion market, waiting to be unlocked. We believe Captain Fresh's tech-driven model, which seeks to transform the supply chain can do just that. In Utham and his team, we see a great combination of vision, domain insights and passion to champion this change and build a large, valuable company.”

Nao Murakami, Founder and General Partner at Incubate Fund India said, "Fresh fish and seafood is an inefficient and unorganized industry, with space for technology and operation excellence to make a positive impact. As Incubate Fund is a Japanese-origin fund, we can bring best practices in supply chain innovations and support potential collaborations between Captain Fresh and Japanese companies. We are excited to join Captain Fresh's journey."

The steadily rising appetite for seafood has reflected in price escalation of 15% per year for the last several years. Supply chain inefficiencies between source to plate lead to an estimated value erosion of 30-50% annually in the fresh fish and seafood industry. Using technology, supply chain inefficiencies can be smoothened, creating opportunities for suppliers and retailers and unlocking latent demand in the domestic market.

Ankur Capital is an early stage fund investing in startups that are building transformative technology led solutions for the next billion Indians. The firm has been funding transformative opportunities across sectors since 2014 and is credited with pioneering agritech investing in India. Ankur backed companies were the first to digitize farming (CropIn), develop patented ML tech for early non-invasive and inexpensive detection of breast cancer (Niramai), build a human centric assistive platform to bring the next billion online (Jiny), and employ biotech to create sustainable multi-purpose alternative proteins (StringBio). Ankur has a capital plus approach and rolls up its sleeves to support its investees through active engagement with experts on its platform. Built by a seasoned team with marquee experience, Ankur is investing out of its second fund.

Early Stage Fund Ankur Capital announces First Close of its 2nd Fund at Rs 240 Crore

Ankur Capital, the early-stage venture capital fund focused on technology disruptions for the next billion, has announced the first close of its second fund Ankur Capital Fund II (ACF II) at Rs 240 crore. The fund expects to reach its target close of Rs 350 crore later this year. ACF-II saw participation from CDC Group Plc, the UK’s first impact investor and Development Finance Institution and other highly reputed international and domestic institutional investors as well as participation from existing LPs, The Dutch Good Growth Fund and SIDBI which is investing out of its Fund of Funds Startup program.

Founded in 2014 by Penn/INSEAD alum Ritu Verma and ex-COO of Zee e-learning Rema Subramanian, Ankur Capital’s first fund invested across 14 companies covering sectors across agritech, food, healthcare and vernacular technologies. Some of the companies include Cropin, Niramai, Healthsutra, ERC, and StringBio.

CDC has been responsibly investing in Indian funds for over 30 years. Alongside its capital, CDC partners with Funds and businesses that work to create significant development impact across multiple sectors. Working closely with Ankur Capital, CDC will play a key role in advancing the Fund’s approach to environmental and social practices, both at the fund and portfolio level. CDC will also help strengthen the network of portfolio advisers and build further capacity in portfolio companies.

[caption id="attachment_140855" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] (L-R) Rema Subramanian, Krishnan Neelkantan, Ritu Verma[/caption]

Sara Taylor, Director and Head of Catalyst Funds, Funds and Capital Partnerships, said, “Supporting the first close of ACF-II goes to the heart of how we use our capital at CDC. The companies that Ankur’s Fund will support are at the forefront of addressing development impact challenges using new technologies in India. This Fund will address United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, 1,2,3 and 4 , demonstrating our commitment to investing to support the SDG’s."

Clemens Gerteiser, Head of Investment for the Dutch Good Growth Fund, said: “Ankur embodies DGGF’s role of spearheading new initiatives for the missing middle. The team has shown great tenacity and dedication in a challenging market and we have been fortunate to be able to support Ankur’s journey so far: Initially with seed capital and business development and now with a cornerstone investment into their new fund."

Ritu Verma, Co-founder & Managing Partner, Ankur Capital, said, “At Ankur, our investing philosophy has always been to support entrepreneurs who are building technology led solutions for the mass markets. We are thankful to our backers to help us make a difference at the ground level”. Rema Subramanian, Co-founder & Managing Partner, Ankur Capital added, “Ankur is looking to go deeper with its investments and will support companies from INR 3cr to 35 crores."

The second fund was launched in early 2019 and has also onboarded Krishnan Neelakantan, ex-head of CLSA India Research as a partner. The fund will continue its focus on frontier technologies that unlock markets for the next billion. It will continue to leverage its expertise and knowledge in the agritech, food, vernacular and health space but will also expand into sectors such as fintech and edtech. The fund expects to make 15-18 investments and will look to deploy in 6-8 companies in this coming year.

About CDC

CDC Group is the UK’s first impact investor with over 70 years of experience of successfully supporting the sustainable, long-term growth of businesses in South Asia and Africa. The Fund is a leading player in the fight against climate change and a UK champion of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals – the global blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for us all.

CDC is funded by the UK government and all proceeds from its investments are reinvested to improve the lives of millions of people in Africa and South Asia. CDC’s expertise makes it the perfect partner for private investors looking to devote capital to making a measurable environmental and social impact in countries most in need of investment.

About the Dutch Good Growth Fund

DGGF is funded by the Dutch Government and is a program that aims to improve access to finance for ‘missing middle’ SMEs in 68 selected countries. This is achieved by investing in funds and other financial intermediaries that have the relevant capacity and local presence to directly reach out to companies in the DGGF’s target markets. The fund is managed by Triple Jump BV, a Netherlands based Impact Investment Manager.

Food Startup ToBeHealthy Raises Funding from Ankur Capital

Snack foods are a large part of India’s culture as is apparent from Frost and Sullivan’s INR 29,500 Crore estimate for the organized snacking segment in 2020. In addition to the market’s size, an equally important trend is the emerging demand for healthy snacking options which has been increasing at a rapid rate with the growth of increasing “out of home” lifestyles. An offering that provides, health, convenience and taste at the right price has a large opportunity to capture.

Launched in October 2017, “ToBeHealthy” is uniquely positioned where it offers to transform vegetables like Okra, Sweet Potato, Beetroot, Tomato and others into snacks using a unique technology, wherein it preserves 90% of the natural nutrients and fibres. This technology combined with the natural seasonings added to the products, not only makes the snacks healthy but also super tasty.

[caption id="attachment_131592" align="aligncenter" width="700"] (Mayank Gupta, Ritika Agrawal, Anuj Ghanghoria - Founders of ToBeHealthy - From Left to Right)
[/caption]

Started by IIT and IIM graduates, Mayank Gupta, Ritika Agrawal and Anuj Ghanghoria, “ToBeHealthy” provides its customers a range of healthy snack options which go beyond the typical low calorie model by delivering tasty products that also retain the nutritious content of the vegetables and fruits.

Based out of Delhi, within 1 year of launch, “ToBeHealthy” has increased its retail presence across 4 cities and is selling through their own web portal and various other e-commerce portals such as Amazon and others. The success of the product can be judged from that the brand has become a bestseller in the snacks category across various sales channels.

Mayank, a graduate from IIM Lucknow, has about three years of experience in the food and beverages domain, before diving into ToBeHealthy. He is joined by Ritika Agrawal, an MBA with about a decade of experience in brand and marketing and Anuj, an IIT Dhanbad graduate with about three years of experience as a co-founder of Chaatbox, an F&B startup in Bangalore.

ToBeHealthy has recently raised capital from Ankur Capital. They are an early stage fund that invests in transformative solutions for the next billion. They invest in non-conventional opportunities in these markets and have pioneered agritech investing in India. Commenting on the fundraise, Shiva Shanker, VP at Ankur Capital says “We are very excited about our investment in ToBeHealthy – the company’s innovative use of technologies fits well with our thesis around food processing and we were impressed with the scale they have reached in less than a year of the launch. We hope our experience and network will enable the company to strengthen the brand and become a leader in the industry.”

Mayank commented that “The funding will be primarily used to set up manufacturing, expanding retail presence and automating processes across verticals. With in-house manufacturing and economies of scale, we hope to expand deeper into the market and develop a wider range of innovative snacks.”

Health Tech Startup Niramai Raises $7 Mn from Pi Ventures, Axilor, Binny Bansal & Others

Bangalore-based NIRAMAI Health Analytix, a deep tech powered health technology startup, has raised about US$6-7 million (~ ₹50 crore) in a fresh round of funding from its existing investors Pi Ventures, Axilor, Ankur Capital and Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, reported Economic Times.

The startup, which was part of AXilors summer'17 accelerator batch, had last raised $50,000 in November of last year when it was selected by Google for its Launchpad accelerator programme, a Google's flagship 6-month programme that includes an intensive two-week boot camp in San Francisco. Prior to this, the startup had raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Pi Ventures, Binny Bansal, Axilor Ventures, Ankur Capital, and 500 Startups, in in April 2017.

The startup has raised a total of $6.1M in funding over 3 rounds including this one. NIRAMAI has reportedly saw revenues of Rs 43 lakh in FY17-18.

Founded in 2016 by Geetha Manjunath and Nidhi Mathur, NIRAMAI has developed a novel breast cancer screening solution that uses a new cancer screening software powered by machine intelligence called 'Thermalytix' over traditional thermography images, which can detect cancer at a much earlier stage than traditional diagnostic methods and can therefore improve survival rates.

NIRAMAI's portable technology, which is low cost and affordable for mass screening of rural population, has screened more than 3,000 women and had earlier shared plans of looking to expand across the country through healthcare partners, as well as in a couple of Asian markets by 2019. The company at present has deployments in diagnostic centres/hospitals across three states -- Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

In India, NIRAMAI competes with Healthi, Qure.AI, and Predible Health, which too have envisaged AI for their solution. Globally, the company competes with Volpara Solutions, Enlitic, Inc., and SemanticMD.

pi Ventures, India’s first applied AI and IoT focused early stage venture fund, has recently got US$6 million from CDC Group plc, a UK Government's development finance institution. It was founded by Manish Singhal (Co-founder & Ex-CEO, LetsVenture and prominent angel investor) and Umakant Soni (Ex Director India, Science Inc & Co-founder AI BOT company).

CleanTech-led Logistics Startup Tessol Raises Follow-on Funding from 1Crowd, Infuse Ventures and Ankur Capital

Tessol, a Mumbai-based startup in the CleanTech-led cold chain logistics space, has recently raised an undisclosed amount in follow-on equity funding from early stage venture capital firm 1Crowd, and existing investors Infuse Ventures and Ankur Capital.

Founded in 2013 by IIT Delhi – Harvard alumnus Rajat Gupta, Tessol (Thermal Energy Service Solutions Private Limited) aims to revolutionize the cold chain distribution in India using its proprietary "Energy Storage" technology based solutions. These products and solutions, while being environmentally sustainable, reduce the lifetime cost of cooling by more than 50% therefore making cold chain on low value products viable. Over the last few years, TESSOL has developed solutions ranging from farm level collection to home delivery and works with the largest FMCG, food processing and e-commerce players in India. Funds raised in this round would be utilized by TESSOL for strengthening the current product suite and bringing some disruptive products that were under development to pilot and commercialization.

It may be recalled that, last year in May, the startup was among the 6 winners of the Startup Energy Transition Awards organised by the Deutsche Energie–Agentur, the German Energy Agency (dena) for recognizing innovative business ideas in clean tech and energy transition area from across the world.

“There are huge gaps in the Indian food supply chain and while there are several cold chain products available in the market, there is a dearth of viable solutions. At TESSOL, we believe in partnering with our customers and working out system level solutions that can drastically impact costs while improving the performance,” said Rajat Gupta, CEO of Tessol, who has several years of past industry experience.

“We see Tessol occupy a sweet spot at the intersection of India’s underserved cold chain architecture and a vacuum in environmentally-friendly clean energy solutions. Tessol’s farm-to-fork product range serves myriad use cases, application segments and customer profiles, and the breadth and depth of their client roster bears ample testimony to the efficacy of their innovation-driven offerings,” said Anil Gudibande, co-founder of 1Crowd.

“Tessol is one of the very few innovation-driven cold chain product companies. With their superior energy-efficient technology, already adopted by many marquee clients across industries, the company is well-positioned to service the growing demand for cold chain infrastructure,” said Amber Maheshwari, Vice PresidentatInfuse Ventures.

“We are excited about the rapid growth in TESSOL’s range of cost efficient, high performance cold-chain solutions, which is bringing in new, quality-conscious customers across end-user segments. We believe TESSOL’s technology can, over the longer-term, aid significant reduction in losses in the agri/food chain from the current high levels,” said Krishnan Neelakantan, Senior Directorat Ankur Capital.

In April, 1Crowd led $650K investment of an another logistics segment startup, Mojro, a Bengaluru-based smart urban logistics platform, which offers a machine learning driven intra-city logistic planning and optimization.

Earlier this month, 1Crowd, along with government’s BIRAC, has invested undisclosed amount in Pune-based healthcare startup SynThera Biomedical Private Limited, which focuses on R&D, manufacture and commercialization of affordable biomaterials-based medical devices.

[Top Image Via - dena.de]

CleanTech-led Logistics Startup Tessol Raises Follow-on Funding from 1Crowd, Infuse Ventures and Ankur Capital

Tessol, a Mumbai-based startup in the CleanTech-led cold chain logistics space, has recently raised an undisclosed amount in follow-on equity funding from early stage venture capital firm 1Crowd, and existing investors Infuse Ventures and Ankur Capital.

Founded in 2013 by IIT Delhi – Harvard alumnus Rajat Gupta, Tessol (Thermal Energy Service Solutions Private Limited) aims to revolutionize the cold chain distribution in India using its proprietary "Energy Storage" technology based solutions. These products and solutions, while being environmentally sustainable, reduce the lifetime cost of cooling by more than 50% therefore making cold chain on low value products viable. 

Over the last few years, TESSOL has developed solutions ranging from farm level collection to home delivery and works with the largest FMCG, food processing and e-commerce players in India. Funds raised in this round would be utilized by TESSOL for strengthening the current product suite and bringing some disruptive products that were under development to pilot and commercialization.

It may be recalled that, last year in May, the startup was among the 6 winners of the Startup Energy Transition Awards organised by the Deutsche Energie–Agentur, the German Energy Agency (dena) for recognizing innovative business ideas in clean tech and energy transition area from across the world.

"There are huge gaps in the Indian food supply chain and while there are several cold chain products available in the market, there is a dearth of viable solutions. At TESSOL, we believe in partnering with our customers and working out system level solutions that can drastically impact costs while improving the performance,” said Rajat Gupta, CEO of Tessol, who has several years of past industry experience.

“We see Tessol occupy a sweet spot at the intersection of India’s underserved cold chain architecture and a vacuum in environmentally-friendly clean energy solutions. Tessol’s farm-to-fork product range serves myriad use cases, application segments and customer profiles, and the breadth and depth of their client roster bears ample testimony to the efficacy of their innovation-driven offerings,” said Anil Gudibande, co-founder of 1Crowd.

“Tessol is one of the very few innovation-driven cold chain product companies. With their superior energy-efficient technology, already adopted by many marquee clients across industries, the company is well-positioned to service the growing demand for cold chain infrastructure,” said Amber Maheshwari, Vice PresidentatInfuse Ventures.

“We are excited about the rapid growth in TESSOL’s range of cost efficient, high performance cold-chain solutions, which is bringing in new, quality-conscious customers across end-user segments. We believe TESSOL’s technology can, over the longer-term, aid significant reduction in losses in the agri/food chain from the current high levels,” said Krishnan Neelakantan, Senior Directorat Ankur Capital.

In April, 1Crowd led $650K investment of an another logistics segment startup, Mojro, a Bengaluru-based smart urban logistics platform, which offers a machine learning driven intra-city logistic planning and optimization.

Earlier this month, 1Crowd, along with government’s BIRAC, has invested undisclosed amount in Pune-based healthcare startup SynThera Biomedical Private Limited, which focuses on R&D, manufacture and commercialization of affordable biomaterials-based medical devices.

[Top Image Via - dena.de]

Agriculture Startup Carmel Organics Raises Funding from Ankur Capital

Madhya Pradesh based agriculture startup Carmel Organics, a supplier of world class medicinal herbs, has raised an undisclosed amount from Ankur Capital, an India focused VC fund with a significant Agritech portfolio. The funds shall be utilized by the company to scale-up its business, with special focus of targeted global markets.

Carmel, a Forbes 30 under 30 awardee in 2018, was founded in 2012 by Shailendra Dhakad and Rajesh Sagitla with the aim of helping small farmers in India increase their incomes by organic herbs and spices production. Based in Madhya Pradesh, Carmel has developed a world class integrated supply chain to deliver traceable, organic, functional herbs to the world.

The company works directly with more than 1,500 farmers, educating and training them on practices that will yield produce that meet the quality requirements for certified organic produce across major global markets. In turn, farmers realize significant income gains from this association.

It may be recalled that in last September Caramel was among six startups shortlisted by Jaipur's Startup Oasis for receiving Rs.1.7 crore funds.

“We were attracted by Carmel Organics' positioning as a quality supplier of medicinal herbs and its traction in markets like Europe and Australia.” - said Krishnan Neelakantan, Senior Investment Director at Ankur Capital. Speaking of Carmel founders, Shailendra Dhakad and Rajesh Sagitla, Krishnan said, “In the founders, we saw a great combination of strong on-ground connect with farmers as well as drive to build a global scale company”

“We have been associated with Ankur Capital for several years as the partners have served as valuable advisors while Carmel has grown to its current scale. Their support and strong understanding of agricultural value chains made them our first choice when we developed our growth plans.” says Shailendra.

Ankur Capital is an early stage venture capital fund that invests in opportunities created by rising aspirations and digital access for the next billion Indians. Ankur Capital invests in technologies and product innovations in agriculture, healthcare, education and other areas with potential to create large scale impact.

Earlier this year, Ankur Capital had invested in agritech startup, Agricx Lab which has developed an AI-overlayed imaging technology for agri-produce quality assessment.

With this investment, Ankur Capital’s AgriTech portfolio increases to eight. From agri-SaaS (Cropin Technologies), online agri-input distribution (BigHaat); sustainable bio-inputs (Suma Agro), cleantech cold chain (TESSOL) and super foods (Health Sutra), Ankur Capital’s portfolio companies are at the frontier of the new face of agriculture.

To recall, last September government had announced its plan to work with agritech startups in the country that can help them in efficiently implementing some of its flagship programmes like soil health card, irrigation and crop insurance, among various others. Prior to this, the govt. had also launched AGRI-UDAAN programme to boost food and agriculture startups in the country.

In January, Cambridge and Pune-based agri-tech startup KisanHub had raised $2.43 million in pre-Series A funding led by UK-based B2B tech venture capital firms Notion Capital and IQ Capital.

In November 2017, Bengaluru based agri-tech startup KrishiHub raised undisclosed seed funding from IIT-Kanpur INVENT accelerator and Villgro Innovation Fund.

In the same month, an another agri-tech startup Farmlink had raised seed funding from Pioneering Ventures, a Swiss-based incubator and investment firm, and Syngenta, a Swiss agribusiness firm. The startup is based out of Mumbai. Additionally, in the same month, Jindal Stainless launched accelerator program for agri-tech startups India, in association with Japan’s ANEW Holdings

In last August, Gurgaon-based agritech startup Crofarm had raised Rs 5 crore in a pre-Series A round from Rajan Anandan, Google India MD, and Jitendra Gupta, and PayU India MD, among others.

Top Image (L-R) - Shailendra & Rajesh

Agriculture Startup Carmel Organics Raises Funding from Ankur Capital

Madhya Pradesh based agriculture startup Carmel Organics, a supplier of world class medicinal herbs, has raised an undisclosed amount from Ankur Capital, an India focused VC fund with a significant Agritech portfolio. The funds shall be utilized by the company to scale-up its business, with special focus of targeted global markets.

Carmel, a Forbes 30 under 30 awardee in 2018, was founded in 2012 by Shailendra Dhakad and Rajesh Sagitla with the aim of helping small farmers in India increase their incomes by organic herbs and spices production. Based in Madhya Pradesh, Carmel has developed a world class integrated supply chain to deliver traceable, organic, functional herbs to the world.

The company works directly with more than 1,500 farmers, educating and training them on practices that will yield produce that meet the quality requirements for certified organic produce across major global markets. In turn, farmers realize significant income gains from this association.

It may be recalled that in last September Caramel was among six startups shortlisted by Jaipur's Startup Oasis for receiving Rs.1.7 crore funds.

“We were attracted by Carmel Organics' positioning as a quality supplier of medicinal herbs and its traction in markets like Europe and Australia.” - said Krishnan Neelakantan, Senior Investment Director at Ankur Capital. Speaking of Carmel founders, Shailendra Dhakad and Rajesh Sagitla, Krishnan said, “In the founders, we saw a great combination of strong on-ground connect with farmers as well as drive to build a global scale company”

“We have been associated with Ankur Capital for several years as the partners have served as valuable advisors while Carmel has grown to its current scale. Their support and strong understanding of agricultural value chains made them our first choice when we developed our growth plans.” says Shailendra.

Ankur Capital is an early stage venture capital fund that invests in opportunities created by rising aspirations and digital access for the next billion Indians. Ankur Capital invests in technologies and product innovations in agriculture, healthcare, education and other areas with potential to create large scale impact.

Earlier this year, Ankur Capital had invested in agritech startup, Agricx Lab which has developed an AI-overlayed imaging technology for agri-produce quality assessment.

With this investment, Ankur Capital’s AgriTech portfolio increases to eight. From agri-SaaS (Cropin Technologies), online agri-input distribution (BigHaat); sustainable bio-inputs (Suma Agro), cleantech cold chain (TESSOL) and super foods (Health Sutra), Ankur Capital’s portfolio companies are at the frontier of the new face of agriculture.

To recall, last September government had announced its plan to work with agritech startups in the country that can help them in efficiently implementing some of its flagship programmes like soil health card, irrigation and crop insurance, among various others. Prior to this, the govt. had also launched AGRI-UDAAN programme to boost food and agriculture startups in the country.

In January, Cambridge and Pune-based agri-tech startup KisanHub had raised $2.43 million in pre-Series A funding led by UK-based B2B tech venture capital firms Notion Capital and IQ Capital.

In November 2017, Bengaluru based agri-tech startup KrishiHub raised undisclosed seed funding from IIT-Kanpur INVENT accelerator and Villgro Innovation Fund.

In the same month, an another agri-tech startup Farmlink had raised seed funding from Pioneering Ventures, a Swiss-based incubator and investment firm, and Syngenta, a Swiss agribusiness firm. The startup is based out of Mumbai. Additionally, in the same month, Jindal Stainless launched accelerator program for agri-tech startups India, in association with Japan’s ANEW Holdings

In last August, Gurgaon-based agritech startup Crofarm had raised Rs 5 crore in a pre-Series A round from Rajan Anandan, Google India MD, and Jitendra Gupta, and PayU India MD, among others.

Top Image (L-R) - Shailendra & Rajesh

Rajasthan-Based Karma Healthcare Raises $500K from 1Crowd and Ankur Capital

Karma Healthcare, an Udaipur, Rajasthan-based startup in the technology-led healthcare space, has recently raised INR 3 crore (~ USD 500,000) in equity funding from early stage investment firm 1Crowd, existing investors Ankur Capital, Ennovent Capital and Beyond Capital, and angel investors including Mr Anil Chatta (an experienced healthcare professional based in the Middle East).

Founded by ISB Hyderabad alumnus Jagdeep Gambhir, Karma Healthcare aims to provide high quality, affordable, equitable and reliable healthcare to India’s under-served population via a differentiated business model.The company has combined the human touch of a nurse with the scalability of shared doctor services via real-time online video consultations, and delivers healthcare to consumer via its e-Doctor clinics. Karma Healthcare’s overarching vision is to disrupt the healthcare landscape, by establishing a pan India network of healthcare clinics.The company thus seeks to make definitive large scale impact and in-turn take significant steps towards 'healthcare for all'.

Karma has completed over 50,000 consultations, and currently operates 10 e-Doctor clinics in the states of Rajasthan and Haryana which deliver a comprehensive ecosystem of clinical treatment, quality medicines and diagnostics at competitive rates. With the new funding, more than 10 lakh patients in the underserved communities of India will be able to access quality healthcare services through Karma’s network of e-Doctor clinics. The company has developed an in-house technology suite that helps it deliver standardized care, including a bespoke Clinical Decision Support System, and is extending its capabilities to deep learning driven diagnosis, treatment and monitoring. Karma is supported by marquee organizations such as the Tata Trusts, UBS Optimus Foundation and WISH Foundation.

“We are grateful to all our investors for reposing faith and commitment in our work. This new funding will help us scale our operations as well as enhance our technology offering to improve quality of care and provide great patient experience,” said Jagdeep Gambhir, CEO of Karma Healthcare, who has several years of experience in rural healthcare and previously worked with Goldman Sachs in India and the US.

“Karma has vividly demonstrated that a viable business model, with enormous socio-economic impact can indeed be targeted at the lower half of the pyramid. The simplicity with which they combine knowledge and technology, makes for a unique venture. We look forward to working with them as they enter a very exciting phase of growth,” said Anil Gudibande, co-founder of 1Crowd.

“Karma’s deep engagement and understanding of healthcare deliveryhas allowed it to develop an impressive healthcare analytics and decision supportsystem. We look forward to working with Karma in rolling this out to a much wider set of consumers in the next phase of their growth,” said RituVerma, co-founder and managing partner at Ankur Capital.

Speaking about funds for early-ventures working in healthcare, recently India's largest hospital chain Apollo Hospitals has launched seed fund for healthcare startups in India. According to a report published by Nasscom in last November, funding in healthcare tech segment has witnessed 129% increase in funding from $70 million in FY17 to $160 million in FY18. Attributing to the increased traction in these segments to innovation.

To recall, in last December, health-tech startup KiViHealth raised $400K funding from Claris Capital and Chandigarh Angels followed by $350,000 seed funding of Kolkata-based EasyBuyHealth.

Speaking about 1Crowd -- Launched in 2015, 1Crowd has recently announced its first close of debut venture capital fund at INR 23 crore (USD 3.5 million). 1Crowd’s portfolio companies include Creditas Solutions (FinTech), Idea Bubbles (healthcare), Nanosniff Technologies (nanotechnology), Nuvepro (enterprise technology) and Zipgrid (tech-led managed services).

Additionally, Bangalore-based community building platform Fourth Ambit, which recently tied-up with AICTE, also raised $600,000 from 1Crowd in May 2017. Prior to this, Genext Students — India’s first hybrid ed-tech tutoring platform — raised equity financing of $ 200,000 from 1Crowd, in August 2016.

Top Image - Techinasia.com

Rajasthan-Based Karma Healthcare Raises $500K from 1Crowd and Ankur Capital

Karma Healthcare, an Udaipur, Rajasthan-based startup in the technology-led healthcare space, has recently raised INR 3 crore (~ USD 500,000) in equity funding from early stage investment firm 1Crowd, existing investors Ankur Capital, Ennovent Capital and Beyond Capital, and angel investors including Mr Anil Chatta (an experienced healthcare professional based in the Middle East).

Founded by ISB Hyderabad alumnus Jagdeep Gambhir, Karma Healthcare aims to provide high quality, affordable, equitable and reliable healthcare to India’s under-served population via a differentiated business model.The company has combined the human touch of a nurse with the scalability of shared doctor services via real-time online video consultations, and delivers healthcare to consumer via its e-Doctor clinics. Karma Healthcare’s overarching vision is to disrupt the healthcare landscape, by establishing a pan India network of healthcare clinics.The company thus seeks to make definitive large scale impact and in-turn take significant steps towards 'healthcare for all'.

Karma has completed over 50,000 consultations, and currently operates 10 e-Doctor clinics in the states of Rajasthan and Haryana which deliver a comprehensive ecosystem of clinical treatment, quality medicines and diagnostics at competitive rates. With the new funding, more than 10 lakh patients in the underserved communities of India will be able to access quality healthcare services through Karma’s network of e-Doctor clinics. The company has developed an in-house technology suite that helps it deliver standardized care, including a bespoke Clinical Decision Support System, and is extending its capabilities to deep learning driven diagnosis, treatment and monitoring. Karma is supported by marquee organizations such as the Tata Trusts, UBS Optimus Foundation and WISH Foundation.

“We are grateful to all our investors for reposing faith and commitment in our work. This new funding will help us scale our operations as well as enhance our technology offering to improve quality of care and provide great patient experience,” said Jagdeep Gambhir, CEO of Karma Healthcare, who has several years of experience in rural healthcare and previously worked with Goldman Sachs in India and the US.

“Karma has vividly demonstrated that a viable business model, with enormous socio-economic impact can indeed be targeted at the lower half of the pyramid. The simplicity with which they combine knowledge and technology, makes for a unique venture. We look forward to working with them as they enter a very exciting phase of growth,” said Anil Gudibande, co-founder of 1Crowd.

“Karma’s deep engagement and understanding of healthcare deliveryhas allowed it to develop an impressive healthcare analytics and decision supportsystem. We look forward to working with Karma in rolling this out to a much wider set of consumers in the next phase of their growth,” said RituVerma, co-founder and managing partner at Ankur Capital.

Speaking about funds for early-ventures working in healthcare, recently India's largest hospital chain Apollo Hospitals has launched seed fund for healthcare startups in India. According to a report published by Nasscom in last November, funding in healthcare tech segment has witnessed 129% increase in funding from $70 million in FY17 to $160 million in FY18. Attributing to the increased traction in these segments to innovation.

To recall, in last December, health-tech startup KiViHealth raised $400K funding from Claris Capital and Chandigarh Angels followed by $350,000 seed funding of Kolkata-based EasyBuyHealth.

Speaking about 1Crowd -- Launched in 2015, 1Crowd has recently announced its first close of debut venture capital fund at INR 23 crore (USD 3.5 million). 1Crowd’s portfolio companies include Creditas Solutions (FinTech), Idea Bubbles (healthcare), Nanosniff Technologies (nanotechnology), Nuvepro (enterprise technology) and Zipgrid (tech-led managed services).

Additionally, Bangalore-based community building platform Fourth Ambit, which recently tied-up with AICTE, also raised $600,000 from 1Crowd in May 2017. Prior to this, Genext Students — India’s first hybrid ed-tech tutoring platform — raised equity financing of $ 200,000 from 1Crowd, in August 2016.

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AgriTech Startup Agricx Lab Raises $0.5 Mn Funding Led By Ankur Capital

Agricx Lab, an India based Agri-tech startup that uses smartphone imaging to assess quality of agri-produce has raised a seed round to support product development and expansion. This $0.5 Million round was led by Ankur Capital, an India focused VC fund with a significant AgriTech portfolio.

Agricx has developed a user-friendly mobile application that uses computer vision and artificial intelligence on images to yield objective, accurate and faster quality assessment of agri-produce.Their technology is being used across warehouses and paid pilots have been initiated with large buyers. The company is looking to expand its crop range and quality parameters to deliver an easily accessible, quantifiable and affordable solution for food produce quantification.

Agricx was founded in Oct 2016, with an aim to create a quick, accurate, portable & easy to use quality assessment tool that takes the subjectivity out of quality assessment and makes every transaction smoother & loss-less. Agricx currently offers a solution to warehouses and enterprise clients with a plan to expand across food produce supply chain.

“Globally there is a need to understand the quality of food that we eat. Much of global produce comes from geographies with low penetration of organized players, use of many different seed varieties and farming practices, and a multi-point value chain. Objectively determining quality at all points becomes all the more important. Technology that is easy to use, can be deployed along all points of the chain provides a critical transparency in food chains that today is hard to determine. Agricx has the potential to disrupt this market ”, said Dr. Ritu Verma, managing partner at Ankur Capital.

Speaking of Agricx founders, Ritesh Dhoot and Saurabh Kumar, Dr. Verma said, “They are seasoned professionals and passionate entrepreneurs, backed by a history of consistent delivery on business objectives in their previous roles. What the founders along with the team have demonstrated over such a short span is hugely impressive, and we're excited to be working together to create a truly world-class enterprise."

CIIE also participated in this investment with Ankur Capital.

Ankur Capital is a seed stage Investor. With this investment, Ankur Capital’s AgriFood Tech portfolio increases to seven. From Farm management software (Cropin Technologies), online agri-input distribution (BigHaat); sustainable bio-inputs (Suma Agro), cleantech cold chain (TESSOL) and super foods (Health Sutra), Ankur Capital’s portfolio companies span the gamut of the new wave of technologies originating in India.

To recall, last month Cambridge and Pune-based agri-tech startup KisanHub had raised $2.43 million in pre-Series A funding led by UK-based B2B tech venture capital firms Notion Capital and IQ Capital.

In November 2017, Bengaluru based agri-tech startup KrishiHub raised undisclosed seed funding from IIT-Kanpur INVENT accelerator and Villgro Innovation Fund.

In the same month, an another agri-tech startup Farmlink had raised seed funding from Pioneering Ventures, a Swiss-based incubator and investment firm, and Syngenta, a Swiss agribusiness firm. The startup is based out of Mumbai. Additionally, in the same month, Jindal Stainless launched accelerator program for agri-tech startups India, in association with Japan’s ANEW Holdings

Earlier, in August, Gurgaon-based agritech startup Crofarm had raised Rs 5 crore in a pre-Series A round from Rajan Anandan, Google India MD, and Jitendra Gupta, and PayU India MD, among others.