Google-backed Startup from Bengaluru Slang Labs Unveils CONVA 2.0, the Future of Voice Search

India's E-commerce Game-Changer: Slang Labs Unveils CONVA 2.0, the Future of Voice Search

CONVA 2.0, the multilingual shopping co-pilot, powered by Generative AI introduces the next wave of search for e-commerce apps

Slang Labs, a Google-backed startup leading the In-App Multilingual Voice Assistant tech, today announced the launch of CONVA 2.0, a multilingual AI co-pilot, powered by GPT, for e-commerce shoppers. CONVA 2.0 pioneers the concept of a readily available AI co-pilot, that end-users of e-commerce apps can talk to and in their own language, which will help them right through their purchasing journey in the app.

The new generation of CONVA focuses on an intuitive and grounded conversational voice search that works on top of existing keyword-based search engines enabling a better understanding of a user’s intent. The Co-pilot enables users to find answers to all their relevant questions right on the transacting screen, without having to switch to a different screen or application (eg: google search).

According to studies, 68% of people use voice search in place of customer support or FAQs. CONVA 2.0 offers accurate recommendations for all their queries, combining global-level knowledge and app-level information. India houses more than 19000 e-commerce businesses, and the inclusion of a multilingual Co-pilot will be a huge game changer for the apps.

Kumar Rangarajan, Co-Founder & CEO, Slang Labs, said “We are excited to introduce CONVA2.0 into the Indian market. With voice search being prominent amongst users, we think this would be the right time to come up with innovative technologies and take voice search to the next level. For instance, users can now use voice to search recipes for a particular dish in a grocery shopping app, and it will list out the ingredients for shopping and easily allow buying those items, thus avoiding the user’s time in researching for the recipe outside the app and also enabling higher purchases for the app. Currently, our focus is on the e-commerce domain and we have plans to enter other categories as well in the future.”

CONVA 2.0 supports voice search for all the information available within the application and uses relevant knowledge from outside as well. Thus, empowering users to find a broad range of information and make an informed purchase decision. The app can now gauge the user’s intent and will be able to make the right personalized suggestions for things to buy, rather than going with general trends. It would be able to solve all the customer queries within the context and visual experience of a traditional e-commerce app.

The startup had recently launched CONVA 1.0, a full-stack solution that provides smart and highly accurate multilingual voice search capabilities inside e-commerce apps. It offers a hassle-free experience to the developers to integrate the SDK into their apps, without needing any knowledge of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Natural language processing (NLP), Text-to-Speech (TTS) and other advanced voice tech stack concepts. CONVA 2.0, is a major extension to this existing Assistant, adding next-generational AI capabilities to e-commerce apps.

About Slang Labs

Slang Labs is a Google-backed Multilingual Voice Assistant startup from Bangalore, that makes shopping faster, easier and more accessible by naturally leveraging the power of Voice inside e-commerce apps. Our highly accurate and domain-optimized Voice Assistant, CONVA, is powering the Multilingual Voice Search experience of top e-commerce apps in India like Nykaa, Zepto, redBus, Good Glamm, Fresho from BigBasket, etc.

Slang Labs was co-founded in 2017 by experienced founders who had earlier co-founded Little Eye Labs, the first and only Indian company to be acquired by Meta (Facebook) and had earlier worked in global companies like Apple, Microsoft Research, IBM, HP, BlueCoat, etc.

Bangalore-based Startup Awarded for Developing Technology of Converting CO2 to Chemicals and Fuels

A Bangalore based startup has received the National Award 2021 from Technology Development Board (TDB) for developing a commercial solution for conversion of CO2 to chemicals and fuels.

Breathe Applied Sciences, a startup incubated at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) developed efficient catalysts and methodologies for the conversion of CO2 to methanol and other chemicals.

It has led to improvisation of process engineering to enhance the production of chemicals and fuels from anthropogenic CO2 generated from various sources including coal and natural gas power generation sectors, steel industry, cement industry, and chemical industries and integrating multiple components involved in the CCUS (Carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration) to develop a complete solution for the environmental issues due to global warming.

The research was carried out by Prof. Sebastian C Peter and his group from the New Chemistry Unit at JNCASR. He is also a co-founder and director of Breathe Applied Sciences which was started from the generous funding from DST Nano Mission.

The startup signed an agreement with JNCASR, an autonomous institute of Department of Science and Technology for transfer of technology based on lab-scale research on reducing CO2 to methanol and other useful chemicals and fuels.

The MOU helped in smooth translation of the research in the area of CO2 reduction to useful chemicals and fuels from the laboratory scale to pilot scale economically.

“In the pilot mode, the current capacity of CO2 conversion is 300 kg per day, which can be scaled up to several 100 tons in an industrial scale. It will take some time to reach the level of industrial production. A few industry sectors are in discussion with Breathe for potential use of our developed technology soon" said Prof. Sebastian C Peter.

Intern Hiring Platform, Cuvette Tech Raises USD180K from Titan Capital, Mamaearth, Lumenci, & Marquee Angel Investors

Atul Singhal Co-founder & CEO and Sudhanshu Singh Co-founder & CTO

Bangalore-based startup Cuvette Tech, a platform to connect companies with a verified pool of student software developers on a full-time or a part-time internship basis, has announced raising 180 k USD in a seed round of funding. The investment is led by Titan Capital, Varun Alagh, Co-founder & CEO Mamaearth, Harish Daiya, Co-founder Lumenci, and other marquee angel investors. The startup will use the funds to build its score team and develop their product. Cuvette’s focus will be to become a one-stop platform for startups to hire verified software interns.

Cuvette Tech was founded in July 2020 by recent graduates from IIT Kharagpur - Atul Singhal & Sudhanshu Singh. It aims to solve the problem of the skill gap between students and industry expectations by motivating students to learn software skills and connect them with startups to gain industry exposure. Startups looking for software interns have to suffer a lot to find candidates having relevant skills according to their requirements. Through Cuvette, they get easy access to a verified pool of students, which saves a lot of their time from posting their needs on multiple platforms and filtering out irrelevant resumes. Within 10 months of its inception, Cuvette has managed to engage more than 600 companies from India, Singapore, Dubai, and the USA. It has students from more than 150 engineering colleges pan India.

On receiving the seed round of funding, Atul & Sudhanshu, founders at Cuvette Tech, said,

We are delighted to have received the investment from the industry leaders who shall guide us to attain the vision we have for Cuvette. We are building a technology that will streamline the process of intern hiring through a skill-based matchmaking algorithm and save more than 80% time for the recruiters. India is becoming the world’s fastest-growing startup ecosystem, and with an increase in the number of startups each day, the requirements for tech interns are increasing as well. We want to leverage this opportunity at the earliest to drive our growth.

Bipin Shah, Partner at Titan Capital, said, 

Cuvette Tech is on an epic mission to address the exact need of the blossoming tech ecosystem of India by connecting them with talented and verified tech interns with coding skills on a full-time/ part-time basis. College students are looking for more live coding projects in parallel to their course curriculum. Thus, the platform is doing amazing work by bridging the skill gap between students and the technology industry and providing them with much-needed exposure. We are delighted to have been associated with them.

Bootstrapped Young Startup InfiVR Providing VR/AR Training, Simulation Tech to Indian Armed Forces and Defense Organizations in the US and Middle East

InfiVR Founders

At moment, employee training, technician training, remote technician support and assistance are very boring and not scalable. It requires expensive simulators, among other hinderance,. and within this scenario problems faced by companies/organizations in their employee training, learning & development functions. Existing simulators used by large organizations be it armed forces or be it big companies are very expensive, bulky, not scalable and only limited trainees can get trained on it.

Bangalore-based InfiVR Technologies is building Virtual Reality (VR) based training solutions which solve this problem making it a lot more immersive, interesting, and affordable with ease of scaling. With the latest Augmented Reality (AR) / VR technology InfiVR is solving this problem and taking it to a new level.

InfiVR helps companies and organizations provide immersive and affordable virtual reality-based training solutions. The deeptech AR/VR startup is working with few of the leading fortune 500 companies in India and globally, and is also working with armed forces and prominent defense equipment manufacturing, aerospace companies in India, North America and Middle East.

It was when InfiVR founders -- Atish Patel and Rohal Chandrakar -- heard their friends in defense and aerospace industries criticizing obsolete technologies in simulation, training, and manufacturing processes. Alternatives available to these industries were either inadequate or prohibitively expensive and that's where InfiVR founder duo saw an opening to an opportunity.

Atish and Rohal thus then co-founded InfiVR in 2018 to provide the aerospace, defense, and manufacturing industries with cutting-edge AR/VR technology that meets or exceeds Western expectations while remaining cost-effective.

InfiVR's Defence AVR Solution

InfiVR provides high tech VR/AR training and simulation technology to Indian armed forces which were not accessible before to Indian armed forces due to very high cost. InfiVR is a unique startup to provide such cutting edge AR/VR mission critical tech to Indian armed forces.

Within a short span of 2.5 years InfiVR claims to have worked with organizations like Air Force, Navy, Army and ISRO and the young startup is now exporting and providing these tech to leading defense organizations in the US, Middle East and other friendly partner nations.

Despite being bootstrapped, InfiVR boasts to have brought down the training and infra cost of client companies by more than 65% and have helped improve overall average KPIs of training for employee by more than 76% besides increasing the trainee engagement and retention by more than 116%.

As an advice to young and future entrepreneurs, the InfiVR founders say --

Don’t aim to build a unicorn business, an entrepreneur is one who utilizes resources available to create some value and wealth. Start with aim to create value and business around it, rest things will automatically follow. There are many companies which are small which build life saving technologies and products but are not as big as e-commerce giants or home delivery businesses. What they are building is useful and critical in their own way. So aim should be to create value & wealth through some good product or service rest things will automatically follow.

Though just a 3-year old start-up, InfiVR team is into the AR/VR business for more than a decade as before establishing InfiVR, Atish and Rohal had earlier co-founded a profitable VR startup 'OoBI.in' [Out of Box Interactions], which was acquired by Newscorp-backed India’s top real estate portal. Atish claims that OoBI.in helped crack more than 300 top real estate developers across India.

InfiVR's AVR/Simulation Training Solution for Oil & Gas Industry

The global virtual reality market size was valued at USD 15.81 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.0% from 2021 to 2028. Moreover, post COVID-19 outbreak, VR technology has experienced a surge in demand due to the necessity of companies to continue their business operations remotely/virtually during this pandemic.

Bootstrapped but backed by partners/mentors with more than 30 years of experience InfiVR counts industry veterans as the startup's mentors including -- Mr. Pratyush Prasanna, a former Vice President at Paytm and founder of Plustxt, a privacy enabled text messaging system in 7 Indian languages, acquired by One97/Paytm; Mr. Puneet, an industry veteran with nearly 20 years of experience in global technology and digital consulting services and CTO for GlobalLogic.

In scale-up mode, InfiVR is now seeing 5X growth as post COVID-19 the startup has seen around 12X increase in traction received for AR/VR based training, simulations, and remote assistance solutions. Post COVID scenario has drastically changed, many organizations who were considering Virtual reality & Augmented reality technologies for R&D purposes only have now realized its power. They now want to include these technologies as their part of their mainstream processes.

In a Tips for Entrepreneurs, InfiVR founders suggest --

Don't do a startup with an aim of raising funds and then growing, funding is rare and doesn't ensure success. Try to think beyond funding, there are several other ways of running and scaling your business. Funding is something which your business would naturally ask for and that would be the most suitable time to get funded. When you are starting, always have plan B apart from funding.

Amazon Acquires Bengaluru-based Retail Tech Startup Perpule for ₹108 Cr

Perpule co-founders

Amazon Technologies, the research and development subsidiary of e-commerce major Amazon.com Inc, has acquired Bengaluru-based retail tech start-up Perpule for about Rs 107.6 crore.

Founded in 2016, Perpule provide offline commerce solutions by offering customers self-checkouts and self-ordering solutions for offline stores, outlets, malls & cafeterias. This improves the shopping experience of customers and solves the problem of queues at checkout counters.

The Perpule acquisition will allow Amazon to offer Perpule's 'UltraPoS' Point-of-Sale device and other new technology products to its kirana partners.

The acquisition will allow early investors in Perpule to exit with 4-5 times returns, Mint, which accessed the regulatory filings filed by the start-up with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), said.

In November 2018, Perpule had raised $4.7 million in Series A funding from Prime Venture Partners, Kalaari Capital and Venture Highway.

Amazon is also likely to pay additional remuneration to Perpule's employees, which will take the deal value to about Rs 150 crore, the publication cited two sources as saying.

Most of Perpule's employees, including co-founders Abhinav Pathak, Saketh BSV and Yogesh Ghaturle, are likely to join Amazon, it said.

Confirming the news of acquisition, an Amazon India spokesperson said Perpule's cloud POS will help offline stores manage their operations better. "Perpule has built an innovative cloud-based POS offering that enables offline stores in India to better manage their inventory, checkout process, and overall customer experience. We are excited to have the Perpule team join us to focus on providing growth opportunities for businesses of all sizes in India while raising the bar of the shopping experience for Indian customers," the spokesperson was quoted as saying.

B'luru Startup Immersion India Among 25 Winners of UNWTO SDGs Global Startup Competition

Immersion India is one among the 25 winners chosen from across 138 countries

Immersion India Team

Bangalore, February 20, 2021: Immersion India, a Bengaluru based startup that curates study-centric, experiential learning programs in urban and rural India, was chosen as one among the 25 winners of UNWTO SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) Global Startup Competition. The competition was launched to identify innovators whose ideas can advance tourism’s contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is the United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism.

Immersion India was chosen as the winner under the category of SDG4 of ensuring quality education and promoting lifelong opportunities for all. Immersion India is the only Indian startup among the 25 winners.

Founded by Anand Joseph and Vineeth Thomas, Immersion India was born out of the need to encourage and promote India as an extensive learning lab. Since its inception in June of 2017, the startup has enabled academicians, students and corporate executives to experience Rural and Urban India in its true sense. Facilitating these experiences in a safe, trustworthy and conducive learning environment is what drives Immersion India. International travel may have come to a standstill for now, but learning has continued. To adapt to the new normal, Immersion India has curated a number of virtual learning programs designed to introduce students to the many resources and learning opportunities that India has to offer. Immersion India’s virtual programs offer an array of India-specific themes and case studies, designed to simulate a real-time learning experience.

The UNWTO SDGs Global Startup Competition, which was supported by the United Nations Innovation Network, attracted 10,000 initial proposals. From these, the jury chose 25 winners highlighting the array of tourism talent in every global region and its widespread ability to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Shortlisted finalists were judged according to criteria which included the potential of the startups to contribute to a specific Goal, their ability to be scaled-up and the maturity of both the product and the team behind it. The 25 winning startups, selected by a jury made up of leaders from across the tourism sector, offer distinct solutions for advancing the SDGs.

Commenting on the recognition, Anand Joseph, Founder and Partner, Immersion India, said “We are excited to be recognised for promoting sustainable immersive learning experiences in India for the global learning community. We started Immersion India to create experiential learning and unique travel experiences that go beyond textbooks and classroom sessions. Our aim was to give students and professionals an opportunity to have a first hand understanding of what one can learn in a culturally-diverse developing nation like India. This win strengthens our commitment towards creating high impact experiences that combine learning and travel"

The winning startups will be given expert support and backing to develop further, including guided mentorship programmes from Amadeus, Google, IE University and FarCo, and tailored mentorship sessions from Mastercard and ClarkeModet.

For more details visit: https://www.unwto.org/news/transforming-tourism-unwto-global-startup-competition-winners-announced

https://www.unwto.org/news/global-talent-on-display-as-sdgs-tourism-startup-competition-finalists-announced


About Immersion India

Immersion India guides students, corporate executives, faculty & professionals on study-centric, experiential learning programs in urban and rural India.Immersion India’s strength is in its ability to be a niche provider with a focus on learning objectives and add the element of travel and cultural immersion to blend with the learning.

Website: https://immersionindia.com/

CrowdPouch, a Bengaluru-based startup clocked transactions worth 1 Crore during the Pandemic

Team CrowdPouch with Founder and CEO, Vittal Ramakrishna

BENGALURU, India , Nov. 19, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CrowdPouch, a fintech startup founded by Vittal Ramakrishna , provides a preselling and a fundraising platform for all in the country. During the last few months, the startup has run many fundraising campaigns and hosted hundreds of preselling stores to support independent creators.

While the entertainment industry took a big hit during the pandemic, CrowdPouch supported performing arts by promoting fundraising campaigns for Live Streaming events. This was a win-win situation for the artists and the fans as the artists received the support they needed and the fans got to watch their favourite artists perform. Another unique feature of the platform is that any independent creator can sell their handmade and homemade products online. There is minimal documentation required and it's open for all residing in India . This serves as an encouragement for aspiring entrepreneurs to showcase their talent and get a shot at earning revenue through their

handmade products. No other platform currently offers this facility for independent creators.

Launched in 2019 by Vittal Ramakrishna who aspires to organize the currently unorganized preselling market, CrowdPouch also allows artists to take customization requests from the buyers. This essentially enables all users to preorder products purely on 'Made to Order' basis. In addition, all products are made in India .

CrowdPouch has raised its Angel Round from Elina Investments earlier this August. Going forward, CrowdPouch aims to get under its wing as many artists and individual creators as possible, spanning the length and breadth of India .

About CrowdPouch:

CrowdPouch is a Bengaluru-based fintech startup that is India's first-ever preselling and fundraising platform. It's made of a cohesive unit of dreamers and doers who're passionately committed to embracing, showcasing and nurturing ideas, innovations and artforms of all those who dare to dream.

CrowdPouch  encourages artists and entrepreneurs to presell their products and thought-leaders to raise funds through their platform.

What started as a tiny spark of concern for the Founder and CEO, Vittal Ramakrishna - that of where do ordinary people with extraordinary dreams go to raise funds - transitioned into what CrowdPouch is today.

Bangaluru Startup To Get $1.2 Billion in Compensation from ISRO's Commercial Arm

Devas Multimedia, a Bengaluru-based startup, will get US$1.2 billion in compensation as a federal court in the United States has asked Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of ISRO, to pay Devas Multimedia the compensation of this amount for canceling a January 2005 deal to build and launch two satellites to provide multimedia services via the space band spectrum.

Incorporated in 2004, by a few former ISRO officials and US businessmen, Devas Multimedia is involved in motion picture, radio, television and other entertainment activities, according to Registrar of Companies (RoC), Bangalore.

In an agreement dated in January 2005, Antrix agreed to build, launch and operate two satellites and to make available 70 MHz of S-band spectrum to Devas, which the latter planned to use to offer hybrid satellite and terrestrial communication services throughout India.

Later in February 2011 the agreement was terminated by Antrix. Devas then approached various legal avenues in India over several years after Antrix cancelled the deal. This included the Supreme Court, which directed for a tribunal. In his order dated October 27, Judge Thomas S Zilly, US District Judge, Western District of Washington, Seattle, ruled that Antrix Corporation pay a compensation of USD 562.5 million to Devas Multimedia Corporation and the related interest rate amounting to a total of USD 1.2 billion.

The US federal court for the Western District of Washington on Tuesday confirmed an arbitration award made by the International Court of Commerce on September 14, 2015, in favor of Devas Multimedia -- on account of the government cancelling the 2005 satellite deal in February 2011 by citing the need for usage of the S-band spectrum for security communications.

The agreement was terminated by Antrix in February 2011. Over the next several years, Devas approached various legal avenues in India. This included the Supreme Court, which directed for a tribunal. In his order dated October 27, Judge Thomas S Zilly, US District Judge, Western District of Washington, Seattle, ruled that Antrix Corporation pay a compensation of USD 562.5 million to Devas Multimedia Corporation and the related interest rate amounting to a total of USD 1.2 billion.

According to the RoC, Bengaluru, Devas Multimedia has seven directors of Devas Multimedia Private Limited are Ramachandran Viswanathan, Arun Kumar Gupta, Lawrence Thomas Babbio Junior, Rajendra Singh, Chandrasekhar Gangarudraiah Muthugadahal, Brijendra Kumar Syngal, Gary Michael Parsons.

DaveAI Raises Pre-series Funding led by Mumbai Angels to Humanize Digital Conversations with Virtual Avatars

Bengaluru based Artificial Intelligence sales augmentation platform, DaveAI said it has raised an undisclosed amount in their pre-series round of funding from Mumbai Angels Network, GHV Accelerator, IIIT Technology Venture partners and Mr. Mohan Kumar, CEO of Crestere Technologies.

From replacing chat bots with virtual avatars to creating contactless experiences in physical spaces, the startup's patent pending Empathetic AI technology is creating a new dimension for product discovery moving away from the traditional websites and four walls of stores & banks. DaveAI's avatars can be deployed on web, Kiosks, VR and AR. DaveAI is a Nasscom Deeptech club member and part of Intel's Maker Lab.

"We are pleased to be backed by investors who understand technology & believe that world class deep technology products can be built in India. DaveAI is an enterprise grade AI platform for creating next generation of Sales Experiences. This investment will help us enter new markets & sustain this growth at a global scale", said Sriram, Co-founder & CEO – DaveAI.

Founded by Dr.Ananthakrishnan Gopal, Ashok Balasundaram & Sriram P H, this is the founding team’s second venture. Ananth has a PhD in Speech technology & ex Samsung R&D, Sriram was a client partner at HCL & Ashok was a retail entrepreneur.

Virtual Sales Solutions have seen a surge in interest in the Post Covid world. With enterprises like Maruti Suzuki, Pidilite Industries, Landmark Group and some leading banks as customers, the startup recorded 230% revenue growth last quarter amidst a global slowdown.

Talking about their engagement with DaveAI, Mr.Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director (Marketing & Sales), Maruti Suzuki said, “We at Maruti Suzuki are constantly working towards bringing Innovative solutions to provide superior experience to our customers.

Our corporate accelerator, MAIL (Mobility and Automobile Innovation Lab) provides an excellent platform to startups to collaborate and work with Maruti Suzuki to co-create solutions which will be quickly implemented in our business and ecosystem. We are collaborating with DaveAI winner of our MAIL program (cohort 2) to implement multiple AI based solutions to enrich the customer experience on our digital platforms. We are confident that with this partnership, we can set new benchmarks to enhance business performance and improve customer interface.”

Talking about the investment, Vikram Upadhyay, Chief Mentor of GHV Accelerator said, 'DaveAI faired extremely well to showcase the impact of their technology with Maruti Suzuki MAIL, powered by GHV Accelerator, a signature industry co-creation program. This not only gave DaveAI a strong Industry validation, but also a confidence to GHV about their potential. DaveAI forms a part of GHV’s AI vision, where we would be deploying along with other co-investors INR 100 crore from our network, out of which 25% is already executed.’

This round was led by Mumbai Angels Network. Nandini Mansinkha, Co-promoter and CEO Mumbai Angels Network commented, “Innovation of using Digital human avatars for having digital conversations is the best way to merge the physical and digital world altogether. We believe this innovation is going to progress in future by transforming enterprises. AR/VR technology has a vast market that offers a potential new way of interaction between customers and the world around us.”

Bangalore-based CrowdPouch Raises Angel Round from Elina Investments

CrowdPouch, a reward-based fundraising and preselling platform, has raised an angel round funding from Elina Investments Pvt. Ltd. The Bengaluru based technology startup will utilize the funds for product development, branding and team expansion.

The funding from Elina Investments comes at a time when the company has already supported over 100 fundraising and pre-selling campaigns on its platform within a year of its inception. Going forward, CrowdPouch aims at hosting thousands of campaigns that encourage filmmakers, artists, innovators and dreamers to come forward and work towards fulfilling their dreams.

Floated by Syed Safawi, corporate leader and technology investor, Elina Investments has funded several successful startups at an early stage, including GoMechanic, PadUp, Tarnea Technology, Senpiper Technology and Zefmo Media to name a few.

"CrowdPouch is more than business for me. It has been my life's goal to encourage artists, innovators, and visionaries across sectors to pursue their passion," said Vittal Ramakrishna, CEO and Founder of CrowdPouch. "India has an untapped market for fundraising and most are unaware of the merits of preselling. Through CrowdPouch, our vision is to create a niche fundraising ecosystem where all essential factors culminate seamlessly to build a nation of dreamers and achievers. Elina has stepped in at the right moment to help us scale our efforts."

"We at Elina firmly believe in the power of technology platforms and Crowdpouch is catalysing the democratisation of such opportunities in a vast country like India. It is an opportune time to focus on preselling, as the nation answers the clarion call of Aatmanirbhar Bharat and going Vocal for Local," said Divyendu Kumar, Director, Elina Investments. "CrowdPouch is a wonderful platform and Vittal with his team bring in the right blend of passion, maturity and understanding to be able to leverage the massive opportunity that it presents - both in scale and quality."

About CrowdPouch :

CrowdPouch is a Bengaluru-based fintech startup that is India's first-ever preselling and fundraising platform. It's made of a cohesive unit of dreamers and doers who're passionately committed to embracing, showcasing and nurturing ideas, innovations and artforms of all those who dare to dream.

CrowdPouch encourages artists and entrepreneurs to presell their products and thought-leaders to raise funds through their platform.

What started as a tiny spark of concern for the Founder and CEO, Vittal Ramakrishna - that of where do ordinary people with extraordinary dreams go to raise funds - transitioned into what CrowdPouch is today.

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Bengaluru startup IDSign announces formal launch of its brand & unveils its novel app

Launch announcement made at India’s largest- ever virtual event ‘Global Fintech Fest, hosted by IAMAI’

Bengaluru-based startup, IDSign, a new-age Verifiable Digital ID and Signing platform, today announced the formal launch of its brand and its novel & India's first-ever mobile- based application. Incepted in 2018 and backed by the team with strong experience and expertise, IDSign aims at revolutionizing the way identity management, digital verification and digital signing are done in India. It is the first company in India accredited as ‘Certifying Authority’ by the Government of India, with mobile first approach. The company is led by the serial entrepreneur Mr. Naveen Chava. 

The platform is simple, efficient and offers built-in highest-grade security, adhered to Global PKI and would be upgraded to FIDO standards in future. Biggest USP of the platform is enabling users to on board themselves completely digitally without any contact. IDSign will be first such company with app based approach where users can onboard themselves, sign documents and verify their ID in a single application in a seamless fashion. 

Currently, IDSign’s app is available for windows, Android for beta users along with iOS planned for release within a month. It enables mobile users to- sign any document digitally or use mobile as a primary ID that can be verifiable by the platform and ability to sign all business related documents, agreements and filings with Tax & Government authorities at their fingertips. Uniquely, IDSign’s mobile-first approach elevates the process and experience of digital signing from desktops to a mobile platform. 

Speaking about the launch, Mr. Naveen Chava, CEO, IDSign said, “Since our inception, we have invested a quality time in understanding  industry gaps, developing suitable techniques, product testing, as well as securing necessary approvals from regulatory bodies for our novel app. Today, we are happy to go live. If you see, the global identity and digital signing market is poised to reach USD 100 bn by 2021. The India market is still at a nascent stage but holds a lot of promises with developments happening around digital Bharat and Make-in-India. The current pandemic has taught us to adapt to the ‘new normal’ life. The need for maintaining human distance and reducing touch based systems will invoke a myriad of changes in the identity verification and digital signing, steadily evading medium that requires physical and human touch points. Also, IDSign facilitates business and contractual obligations within the legal framework. In present situation like a pandemic where users look ahead to complete their legal obligations remotely, the platform of IDSign allows individuals and businesses to verify identity, authenticate business transactions, seamlessly. By bringing, digital signing to mobile and on-boarding completely paperless, IDSign is set to take lead into the sector covering areas like regulatory filings, business agreements, HR agreements, healthcare and so on.”

Mr. Chava added, “We have already chalked out a business plan to seize the opportunity  in the digital signing market. We are in talks with individual directors and corporate signatories to move into device/HW/OS agnostic platform of IDSign and we see a lot of interests coming from them.  In addition, we will also be targeting banks, credit card and NBFCs where we see a huge business growth. As we progress, we also aim to tap into healthcare, logistics, eCommerce, retail etc., which needs the same solution to help them take the user experience to the next level. With these actions, we aim to achieve a revenue target of  USD 20mn in the next 2-3 years.” 

The launch announcement was made at the Global Fintech Fest, India’s largest two-day digital event for fintech fraternity, organised under the aegis of IAMAI, starting today. IDSign is one of the main participants at the event and Mr. Chava is part of the panel discussing ‘Digitising Financial Services for Inclusion’. 

About IDSign:

IDSign is a new age Verifiable Digital ID and Signing platform with a vision to offer platform-agnostic ecosystem comprising of identity management, digital verification, digital signing to simplify digital verification and consent-based data sharing. Headquartered in Bengaluru, IDSign commenced operations in 2018 by a team of experienced serial techpreneurs led by Naveen Chava and Ganesh Karri. The company is accredited as ‘Certifying Authority’ by the Government of India. IDSign currently works with some of the top-notch companies across relevant industries including technology, BFSI, healthcare, retail and telecom, and is on the fore in building a strong clientele within India and aboard.

InsurTech Startup Plum Raises ₹ 7 Crores in Seed Funding

Plum, a Bengaluru based group health insurance startup, providing modern health benefits to corporates, has raised INR 7 Crores in seed funding. The round was led by Incubate Fund with participation from Gemba Capital and Tracxn Labs along with angel investors including Abhijit Gupta and Ram Sahasranam of Praxify Health, Sudheendra Chilappagari of Belong.co, Nitin Jayakrishnan of Pando and Alvin Tse of Xiaomi.

Plum is on a mission to enable employee health insurance for over 1.1 million companies in India by reinventing how health insurance works. The company plans to use the funding to scale business & engineering teams so as to solve some of the hardest engineering challenges in Insurtech and build innovative distribution channels. Within just 4 months of launch, Plum has managed to get over 100 companies as customers.

Plum, through its online platform, www.plumhq.com, provides employers & employees with customizable plans, transparent pricing, and high-quality healthcare experience. The platform understands the needs of a corporate and guides them on setting up their group health insurance in less than 60 mins. Plum combines modern technologies with robust processes to deliver unprecedented simplicity & efficiency.

Plum additionally helps employees with improved health benefits including doctor consultations, health check-ups, fitness & yoga, mental wellness, nutrition and dental care. The platform enables ease of experience for employees with guided claims support. Plum has an insurance intermediary license from IRDA. Taking the current situation into account, Plum also offers COVID-19 cover as an offering to its customers, however big or small they are.  Plum’s clients include Twilio, Instawork, Posist, RevvSales, The Label Life, Growfit, StayAbode, Fampay, myHQ, and Jiny. 

Plum was founded in late 2019 by Abhishek Poddar and Saurabh Arora who comes with rich experience in financial technologies and insurance distribution. Abhishek, a Stanford University alumnus has worked with Google and McKinsey and built technology companies. Saurabh led product & engineering teams at Freshworks (he had previously built Airwoot, an AI-based CRM company which got acquired by Freshworks). Abhishek and Saurabh were joined by Debankur Biswas, an FMS alumnus with 17 years of experience in building insurance distribution and has led operations for Insurtech player BIMA in Srilanka & Bangladesh.

L-R Saurabh Arora CTO & Abhishek Poddar CEO

Abhishek Poddar, Co-founder & CEO, Plum said, “When we look at other countries like the US, we see that a high percentage of the population is covered under employer-provided health insurance. We believe that India too will move in that direction, where a significant portion of India's population will rely on employer-sponsored health insurance. With Plum, we want to enable every last company in India to provide a high-quality health cover to their employees, no matter how small or big they are. We want to be the de-facto platform for employee health insurance, initially in India, and later in other developing markets like SE Asia and Latam.”

Saurabh Arora, Co-founder and CTO of Plum, added,  “At Plum, we are imagining group health insurance products from ground-up. We have built underwriting and fraud detection rails with insurance companies that never ever existed. This has enabled us to offer pricing that may be up to 80% cheaper than existing market pricing, to companies as small as 7 employees. At Plum, we are building a truly online insurance platform that covers frontend (distribution) and backend (pricing, carrier and compliances).”

Nao Murakami, Founder and General Partner at Incubate Fund India said, 

“Health insurance is now becoming a “must-have” product in India, especially in the post-COVID world. It is an essential component for companies to attract talent. However, group health insurance is a very complicated product in nature and the entire customer process from buying to claiming is still very manual in India. So, there is a huge gap between insurance companies, employers, and employees. Plum is filling this gap by bringing transparency and efficiency through beautiful technology and product. Abhishek and Saurabh have a very clear vision which aligns with what we see as a future of health insurance in India”. 

The group health insurance market in India, which is almost 50% of the total health insurance market, is expected to grow to INR 100,000 crores by 2025. It has seen an annual growth of about 25% in the last few years and is doubling every three years.

EdTech Startup Varthana Gets $15 Mn Loan from US Govt's Finance Agency USIDFC

An American financial organisation has agreed to sanction USD 15 million loan to an Indian education start-up to expand the access to quality education by providing critical financing to schools that serve low-income students in India.

The financing will help Bengaluru-based Varthana to reach more schools by meeting its need for long-term capital that is unavailable in the Indian market, US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) said in a statement.

The DFC, America's Development Bank, said that the financing will be especially critical as schools work to adapt to and recover from disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

In addition to providing timely loans, Varthana has been helping schools implement digital learning tools and teaching methods so that students can continue their education remotely through the pandemic, it said.

Set up by Brajesh Mishra and Steve Hardgrave in 2013, Varthana supports more than 3,500 schools with 84,000 teachers and 2.5 million students, in particularly among low-income populations across the country.

The company utilises a unique cash-flow underwriting model that enables it to flexibly and sustainably provide loans to low-fee schools. The typical Varthana borrower operates a school that charges USD 5 to USD 25 per month in fees.

India's economy has grown rapidly over the last several decades, but more investment in education will be required to keep pace with this growth and extend its benefits across a broader segment of the Indian society, the DFC said.

Low-fee private schools have stepped in to provide low- and middle-income families access to quality, affordable education.

However, these schools need better access to financing in order to grow and improve, it said.

DFC CEO Adam Boehler said this will help low-income students in India access quality education so they can learn, thrive and give back to their communities.

Varthana is a testament to the impact that early-stage ventures can deliver when given the opportunity to scale their innovative approaches, he said.

"As a specialised lender to affordable private schools, Varthana is well positioned to provide both capital and remote education solutions to help schools navigate the current challenges.

"DFC's willingness to provide funding in the midst of this crisis truly demonstrates their commitment to support the education sector when it needs the most, and for that we are very grateful,” said Varthana CEO Hardgrave. PTI LKJ

Bangalore-based Biopharma Startup Bugworks Raises $7.5 Mn from Japan-based VCs and Acquipharma Holdings

Bugworks Research Inc, a global biopharma start-up designing novel broad-spectrum antibiotics, announced the completion of a $7.5M financing, led by University of Tokyo Edge Capital (UTEC) Japan and Global Brain Corporation (Global Brain) Japan, along with Acquipharma Holdings, South-Africa. The company has raised $19M till date and has 3one4 Capital as an existing investor.

This investment enables Bugworks to complete Phase 1 studies for its GYROX series Intravenous drug candidate and advance an Oral lead towards clinical development. Bugworks' drug candidate, a dual-target gyrase-topoisomerase inhibitor, supported by CARB-X since 2017, is a novel broad-spectrum agent targeting critical bacterial infections implicated in serious hospital, community and biothreat indications.

"UTEC led the Bugworks Series A in 2018, as we identified Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as one of the global issues of mankind, and facilitated Bugworks' collaboration with Japanese ecosystem. Bugworks has thoroughly impressed us with their scientific rigour, pre-clinical data, business development progress and commitment to saving lives. We are now proud to double-down our investment in Bugworks," said Tomotaka Goji, Managing Partner & President, UTEC.

"As witnessed with COVID-19, infectious diseases are threatening human existence. AMR is a serious issue and Global Brain regards this as a big unmet medical need. We are proud to partner with Bugworks to bring highly differentiated solutions in AMR to the market. We consider India to be an important region, both from innovation and market perspective and are hence accelerating our investment activity in India," said Yasuhiko Yurimoto, Founder-CEO & General Partner Global Brain.

"This new financing is an endorsement of our team and differentiated AMR assets, as we bring reputed global investors to aid our mission of pandemic preparedness by defeating superbug infections," said Dr. Anand Anandkumar, CEO of Bugworks.

Investors Profile

UTEC is a Tokyo-based early-stage VC with over $500M AUM with 11 successful IPOs and 11 M&As. UTEC invests in seed/early-stage startups that solve global issues of humankind using profound science and technology.

Global Brain is a VC firm based in Tokyo with offices in San Francisco, London, Seoul, Singapore and Jakarta. With over $1.5B assets under management, Global Brain has invested in 200+ startups selectively from seed/early to pre-IPO startups and achieved 17 IPOs and 48 M&As.

Acquipharma Holdings is a South-Africa based life-science boutique investment fund, who've invested in Bugworks since 2016.

www.bugworksresearch.com

Vehicle Maintenance Startup Hoopy Raises Funds from Lead Angels, Venture Farmer

Bangalore based vehicle maintenance startup Hoopy has raised an undisclosed amount in its recent round of funding from Lead Angels Network and Venturefarmer, a private family office making Pre-Series A to Series B investments. Hoopy is a technologically connected ecosystem for the vehicle after-sales service industry.

Founded in 2016 by Abhinav Shrivastava, Vedic Choubey both IIT Kharagpur alumni & Shashank Dubey BIIB Pune alumni, Hoopy is currently focusing on two wheelers and has completed more than 1 Lac jobs. Hoopy is operationally profitable and claims to have the least CAC in the consumer market and is the dominant market leader in Institutional business of two-wheeler fleet maintenance with clients like Bounce, Vogo, Drivezy etc.

India's premium angel network Lead Angels which provides 360° support across all stages for startups and Bangalore based family office Venture Farmer have invested in this round. Hoopy was advised by CreedCap Asia Advisors for Venture Farmer investment.

“Tech-enabled operations will be the game changer of this technology starved industry. Hoopy will use this fund in its product development, expanding the team and refinement to further improve customer service and operational efficiencies said Abhinav, CEO of Hoopy.

"Several of our investing members who are also CEOs and CIOs were impressed by the ease and speed with which the company's workflows can be deployed in their organizations and we see a tremendous opportunity ahead as the company scales up its reach worldwide” adds Sushanto Mitra, CEO, Lead Angels.

Varadarajan Seshamani, Director at ISA Impex Pvt Ltd and President of IITKGP AA adds "Hoopy is one of the rare Startups that employs the power of engineering and good management to provide for the growing demand for actual physical work to take out a major pain point for their customers, rather than just look to the power of e-commerce to generate business ideas. The result of good business research and application of mind".

The automobile service industry is huge and highly unorganized where 70% of the market share is captured by the local garages. Two-wheeler service industry in India alone stands at $6Bn today. The recent surge in the last mile connectivity of bike rentals, bike taxis, food/medicine/groceries home delivery and adaption of doorstep convenience by customers promises an exciting time ahead for Hoopy.

Lead Angels Network has a process driven investment approach and provides 360° support across all stages for investee companies. Lead Angels is a full stack services company for startups. It provides consulting and execution services for business planning, incorporation and regulatory related filings required for starting up through LA Management & Professional Services. Lead Angels Network provides early stage funding to companies which have achieved traction and looking to prove their disruptive growth hypothesis. Lead Advisory assists companies looking to raise growth capital for scaling their business.

About Venturefarmer, it invests across Agriculture & Food, Artificial Intelligence, Clean-tech, Domestic Brands, Healthcare, Media, Travel & Transportation. Venturefarmer invests in the range of $100k-$700k.

Data Utility Platform Crediwatch Raises $3.2 Mn in Funding led by ARTIS Labs

• Led by ARTIS Labs, Funding will accelerate R&D and Commercialization of Crediwatch’s AI based Platform.


• Has partnered with some of the most respected Financial institutions to support their credit risk and business teams

Crediwatch, a Bangalore based FinTech company building AI/ML tools to help the financial services industry reduce credit risk has secured $3.2 Million in Series A funding.

Led by ARTIS Labs, the funding will accelerate R&D and commercialization of Crediwatch’s platform. Additional new investors in the round include Abstract Ventures. Prior to this round, Crediwatch has raised $1.6 million from Modern India Limited, Family Offices of Mr Vijay Kumar Jatia, Contrarian Vriddhi Fund, Vaibhav Domkundwar’s  Better Capital, Mekin Maheshwari (Flipkart) and Pithambar Gona (former MD of Blackstone Pvt Equity Asia) bringing the total funding till date to $5 million.

Crediwatch is a ‘Data Insights-as-a-service’ company that provides lenders, businesses with actionable credit intelligence on private entities they need to improve trust and increase their lending and trading activity. Crediwatch does this with no human intervention by deploying the latest practical AI and technology tools that provide the most reliable comprehensive real time inputs.

Less than 15 percent of the 50+ million Indian Small businesses (companies, partnerships and proprietorships) have access to formal credit. The debt financing gap of the SME is over $1 Trillion. Lenders have written off more than $100 Billion due to bad debts in the last three years. The current friction cost of lending to the SMEs is 6~7%. Corporates have large vendor/supplier relationships that get exposed to similar financial risks that increase the trust deficit.

Having provided insights on 50,000+ businesses and $7 billion loan portfolio, Crediwatch aims to fill this void by offering a dynamic “Trust Score” derived from millions of data points that are extracted and analysed across thousands of formal and alternative sources to help lenders assess borrowers and monitor them close to real time.

[caption id="attachment_136754" align="alignleft" width="261"] Meghna Suryakumar, Founder and CEO Crediwatch[/caption]

“The ecosystem needs a dynamic business information exchange to create transparency and a continuous monitoring of borrowers to weed out bad cases early” said Meghna Suryakumar, founder and CEO. “Our vision is to reimagine SME credit by measuring trust through verifiable data, insights and good behaviour”

Sharing his insights, Stuart Peterson, General Partner with Artis, commented, “The increasing digitization of business data against the backdrop of a failure of conventional credit rating and underwriting methods provides a unique opportunity to create a scalable business using AI/ML to provide unprecedented insights. These are massive trends that are just now beginning to play out within India and Crediwatch finds itself ideally positioned to lead this digital revolution."

"We have already seen various algorithm-based lending models trying to address the issues pertaining to digital lending, but the lack of a data utility platform for the industry has created a gap. Crediwatch is one of the few businesses that is committed to addressing this gap and we are delighted to offer our support” Abstract Ventures Partner Ramtin Naimi said in a statement.

Leading financial institutions like SBI, KVB and RBL Bank and NBFCs like ABFL and Capital Float subscribe to the Crediwatch’s Insights platform and Early Warning Signals to help manage their credit on a more dynamic basis.

About ARTIS Labs

ARTIS Labs is a platform for early stage opportunities within ARTIS Ventures. ARTIS Ventures partners with entrepreneurs who are driven to impact the world by reshaping and reinventing industries. The ARTIS team supports its portfolio companies through their entire life-cycle, from initial venture investment to public offering and beyond. Notable companies the firm has backed include YouTube, Palantir, Eko, Modern Meadow, Nimble Storage, StemCentrx, IDbyDNA, Versa Networks, Cohesity, and more.

About Abstract Ventures

Abstract Ventures is a broad partnership of investors, industry experts, and exceptional entrepreneurs that backs founders at the earliest stages of business formation.

Notable companies the firm has backed include Ripple, Drip Capital, Trusted, Locus Biosciences and many more.

 

AI & WhatsApp based Hiring Platform Vahan Raises Funding from Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund and Pioneer Fund

Bangalore headquartered Vahan.ai, which uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and WhatsApp to help companies hire blue collared employees, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund and Pioneer Fund, reported Economic Times citing a top executive from the company.

The funds raised will be used by Vahan for scaling and expansion.

Founded in 2016, by Madhav Krishna, Vahan is backed by Y Combinator and leverage Machine Learning algorithms to match job seekers with employers inside messaging apps (currently WhatsApp). The startup counts Zomato, Swiggy, Dunzo and Domino's among its clientele.

Madhav, who is an alumnus of Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology of Delhi, has been part of Y Combinator 2019 batch to built an AI-driven virtual assistant integrated with WhatsApp to help businesses automate various aspects of workforce engagement. We specialize in high volume recruitment of on-demand workers.

In a statement to ET, Madhav said Vahan has 1.4 million users, and claimed it had helped 25,000 of them find blue-collared jobs. “We connect blue-collared job seekers to employers who need access to labour,” he said.

Vahan is backed by number prolific of angel investors such as Gokul Rajaram, Godfather of AdSense; Mekin Maheshwari, Former Head of Engineering at Flipkart; and Vir Kashyap, Co-founder of Babajob.

How Vahan.ai Works

Unskilled to semi-skilled job seekers gets on WhatsApp, adds Vahan.ai to his contact list and messages the account for job listings. the candidate simply needs to send a "hi" message to Vahan’s phone number on WhatsApp following which its bot qualifies them, answers their questions and even schedules an interview. The messaging bot of Vahan asks them to give the location. The bot then looks for jobs in the vicinity of the applicant and throws back results. Job seker then answer a few questions, take a short quiz, schedule a job interview.

As many job applicants also write Hindi in English (Hinglish), Vahan's technology can understand that as well and the messaging bot can translate Hindi to English. The bot asks the applicants to upload their driver’s licence, verifies it against government databases, and requests them to upload their CV via WhatsApp. The CV is then sent to

Bengaluru-based Digital KYC Startup Veri5 Digital Raises $2 Mn from Khosla Ventures

Vinod Khosla-led Khosla Ventures has invested USD 2 million in the Bengaluru-based digital solutions maker Veri5 Digital.

"Veri5Digital has built innovative AI solutions around KYC and authentication which address the online, digital identity needs of companies globally," Khosla said.

Vei5Digital will utilise the capital to rapidly scale its identity solutions for the India market as well as build new Identity and Digital India related products and services, the firm said.

Formerly known as AadhaarBridge, Veri5 is a software services provider from Khosla Labs, a Khosla Ventures backed company that offers Digital India services (Govt. and Regulated systems) for the private sector. The solution offered by the startup ranges from Identification, Verification, Payments, Signatures, India Stack Products and deploy them on cloud and on premise basis customer requirements.

Veri5 prpovides Aadhaar based API platform (Authentication, eKYC, eSign, eNACH, DigiLocker, BBPS, GST) that allows organisations to easily integrate Aadhaar into their existing applications without the need of a separate UIDAI license.

According to the company website, Veri5 solution have enabled authentication for over 10 million transactions for 250+ businesses across banking, insurance, lending, internet and service based companies, and mutual fund houses.

About Khosla Labs, it is a startup incubator and innovation lab focused on solving large scale problems driven by technology and entrepreneurial zeal.

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.

B2B E-Marketplace Zetwerk Raises $9 Mn from Accel, Sequoia Capital

Bangalore-based Zetwerk, an online marketplace for corporate buyers and suppliers, has raised $9 million (~₹64 crore) in a Series A round of funding from Accel Partners, reported LiveMint. Its existing investors Sequoia Capital and Kae Capital also contributed to the round.

Founded in 2017, by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras alumni Amrit Acharya and Srinath Ramakkrushnan, Zetwerk is a B2B marketplace focused on make-to-order custom manufacturing.

Interestingly, prior to co-founding Zetwerk, Srinath was heading the Supply Business for Blackbuck, which is also backed by Accel and working in logistics segment.

Zetwerk claims to be India's first on-demand manufacturing platform that serves OEM / EPC companies with outsourcing requirements and SME Suppliers with capacity. Zetwerk is a nation wide manufacturing network with massive capacity, wide manufacturing capability & project engineering expertise.

The startup had earlier raised a $1.2 million seed funding round from Kae Capital and Sequoia in August last year.

Zetwerk works primarily with clients in the oil and gas, power, renewable energy and infrastructure businesses. Its clients include Embassy Office Parks, Thyssenkrupp, Jindal, BGR energy, Embassy Group and Fidelity Contracts.

In last one year or so, B2B (business-to-business) startups have managed to attract investors resulting a record $3.09 billion fund-raise across 415 rounds in 2018. This was 28% more than the $2.41 billion allocated in 2017, across 534 rounds, according to data tracker Tracxn.

Earlier this month, Noida-based Moglix, a B2B industrial goods marketplace, had raised an undisclosed amount from Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy, which marked his first solo personal investment.

In December, Bangalore-based Ninjacart, a B2B agri-marketing platform that connects farmers with retailers, had raised US$35 million in series B round of funding from Accel Partners (US), Switzerland-based Syngenta Ventures and Neoplux, a South Korean private equity firm.

In October, US-based software firm, Ebix, Inc., an international supplier of On-Demand software and E-commerce services to the insurance, financial, healthcare and e-learning industries, today announced that one of its India-based EbixCash subsidiaries has acquired a 67% stake in Routier, a Delhi-based B2B Marketplace for Trucking Logistics.