Wealth Tech PMS Elever Raises $1.1 Mn in Pre-Series A Round; Targets ₹1,000 Cr AUM in 2 Yrs

Elever, a SEBI-registered Portfolio Management Services (PMS) firm, has raised USD 1.1 million in a pre-series A funding round to fuel its next phase of growth.

Elever founders (L-R): Anshul Sharan,  Santosh R, Ram Subramaniam,  and  Karan Aggarwal.

 
Elever’s quantitative PMS strategies leverage rule-based and factor investing to deliver superior, risk-adjusted returns. By combining data-driven insights with a systematic investment process, the platform aims to bring institutional-grade portfolio management to a wider base of individual investors and family offices.

The round saw participation from CXOs of global companies, Brand Capital (the strategic investment arm of The Times of India Group), along with existing investors and promoters. This latest round brings Elever’s total funding to USD 4 million to date.

The capital will be deployed to scale Elever’s PMS business, strengthen its brand presence, and deepen investor engagement. The partnership with Brand Capital is expected to play a pivotal role in enhancing Elever’s visibility and building trust among India’s new-age affluent, including HNIs, founders, entrepreneurs and next-generation investors, through its rule-based, tech-driven investment strategies.

“We see Elever as a frontrunner in the evolution of wealth-tech, leveraging automation and factor investing to deliver consistent, risk-adjusted outcomes. Elever’s technology-led, rule-based approach to portfolio management reflects the future of investing in India. Their focus on data, discipline, and disruption aligns well with our belief in backing scalable, transformative fintech companies. We at Brand Capital are delighted to support their next phase of growth through our investment,” said Mr. Srini Vudayagiri – President & Head of Brand Capital.

India’s wealth management market is projected to grow from US$1.1 trillion in FY24 to US$2.3 trillion by FY29, with an unmet demand of US$0.4 trillion, according to Deloitte’s ‘Financial Wealth Management Services in India’ report. In parallel, PMS AUM in India has nearly tripled since FY17, reaching around US$445–450 billion by March 2025, reflecting strong investor traction towards disciplined, factor-based and tech-enabled portfolio management solutions like Elever’s.

Anshul Sharan, Co-Founder and CEO, Elever

Anshul Sharan, Co-founder and CEO of Elever, added:

This funding round comes at a pivotal time as we double down on our PMS offering. Backing from Brand Capital and leading CXOs validates our vision to make institutional-grade, factor-based investing accessible to individuals & family offices — both in India and abroad (NRIs/FPIs). This is not just capital — it’s strategic support to build long-term credibility and scale.

Anshul brings deep expertise in strategy, product, and risk management. Previously, he served as Head of Strategy at CreditAccess Grameen, where he was instrumental in leading the company’s IPO in 2018 and later became its Chief Risk Officer.

In July this year, Elever launched Factorcapro PMS, India’s first PMS strategy designed to provide monthly income and capital protection, primarily targeting retirees & conservative investors. The offering has already seen strong demand from both investors and distributors.

Elever is now targeting to cross ₹1,000 Cr in AUM within the next two years, and plans to raise a Series-A round within the next 12 months to further accelerate product innovation, distribution, and team expansion.

About Elever

Founded in 2020 by industry veterans Anshul Sharan, Karan Aggarwal, Ram Subramaniam, and Santosh R., Elever is a Bengaluru-based SEBI-registered Portfolio Manager. Elever leverages rule-based investing and machine learning to drive significant, and sustainable alpha generation. With an ambitious target of achieving ₹1,000 crore in AUM within the next two years, Elever is committed to empowering investors with tailored investment solutions to meet their sophisticated financial goals.

Online Fashion Jewelry Marketplace JewelMaze Raises $4 Mn from Brand Capital

JewelMaze, an online Fast Fashion Jewelry marketplace has raised USD 4 MN from Brand Capital, the strategic investment arm of Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd. The business has grown for the past 2 years and the fund infusion will propel rapid expansion and widen their product base.

Says Ritesh Barbhaya, CEO - JewelMaze, "The funding is the result of the brand’s focus on delivering quality products and building an online community with a robust ecosystem committed to delight the customer. We are very pleased to have Brand Capital as an investor which in turn provides us access to the BCCL platform enabling us to reach a wider audience."

Adds, Sam Subramaniam, CEO, Brand Capital, "Brand Capital continues to encourage ambitious entrepreneurs and we believe that this partnership will create a destination for young India to continuously upgrade to the latest fashion jewelry trends.”

The brand has successfully executed more than 2 lakh orders and continues to build a vibrant community of customers. JewelMaze houses an array of quality products with latest designs at affordable prices and is transforming into India’s fashion jewelry shopping destination. One of the key focus areas for JewelMaze is to provide a platform for jewelry designers to showcase their creations and connect with manufacturers, re-sellers, whole sellers and exporters in an otherwise fractured and unorganized industry.

JewelMaze plans to leverage 4 decades of rich and successful experience in the fashion jewelry arena. This along with the technology platform gives it an opportunity and an un-paralleled advantage to bring together the best brands and manufacturers on one platform to offer the latest and upcoming fashion jewelry trends at the most affordable price for the end customer without any compromise on the product quality. The partnership with Brand Capital has set the ball rolling in that direction. The brand has launched an app that is available on Google Play Store.
About JewelMaze Pvt. Ltd.

JewelMaze is a fashion jewelry brand which runs a vertical marketplace. JewelMaze has an exclusive flagship store in Mumbai. The brand is currently listed on all major horizontal marketplaces mainly Amazon, Flipkart, Shopclues, Snapdeal and many more.

Edtech Startup Doubtbox Raises Funding from Times Group Owned Brand Capital

The strategic investment arm of the Times Group Media House, Brand Capital, has done an Investment of undisclosed amount in a Kerala based Educational Technology startup company, Doubtbox. Doubtbox is a learning platform that will make the child learn effortlessly and easily.

Doubtbox is founded by the promoters of eTutor, a path-breaking digital content repository, which is used by more than half a million school students for the last one decade. 

According to Ranjith Balan, the Founder and CEO of Doubtbox, the freshly raised funds will be used for branding in order to compete with other players especially Byju’s and Toppr Learning. Post this funding, the valuation of Doubtbox is expected to be between INR 50 Crores and 60 Crores. The online education sector in India is estimated to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 52% to $1.96 billion by 2021, according to a joint study by Google and KPMG.

According to Reni Alphonse, Chief Operating Officer of Doubtbox, this innovative idea has brought technology and the well-acclaimed “Multiple Intelligence learning model” together to offer a different learning experience for the students of Class 1-12. Eminent academicians from IITs and IIMs has formulated the unique learning methodology adopted by Doubtbox. The Doubtbox way of teaching does not aim to alienate students from their school education. In fact, Doubtbox life starts where the daily school life ends. Students can revise the lessons which they learn at school using Doubtbox interactive digital multimedia content. Doubtbox has around 8000 animated topics for the Class 1^st -12^th which covers entire CBSE and ICSE syllabus. Assessment module of Doubtbox covers around 1.25 Lakhs syllabus oriented question bank, which is mapped to subtopic level for better analysis. Through the LIVE teacher feature of Doubtbox, students can Interact LIVE with an expert teacher after the school hours to get their doubts addressed and questions answered. Students/Parents can choose from the pool of certified Teachers according to their Location/Teaching Experience/qualification and the rating. Doubtbox products are available in different mediums like, Pen Drives, Tablets, SD cards and Online. Internet connection is mandatory only for the LIVE Teacher Module of Doubtbox.

Doubtbox products are really affordable when compared to its competitors. The price for its Educational Pen drive starts from INR 2750 per year and the educational Tablets are priced at just INR 13,750. As the LIVE Teacher feature is based on a pay-as-you-use model, it will be affordable and flexible for the parents as well.

Doubtbox has been selected as one of India’s fast-growing Education Technology startup (Ed Start Member) of the year 2018 by Amazon Web Services. Doubtbox Educational Pen Drives and Tablets are marketed in Kerala exclusively by the leading media house Malayala Manorama.

Published unedited via BusinessWire India

Brand Capital Invests in Blockchain-powered Matchmaking App 'Ponder' To Launch In Indian Market

Brand Capital, the strategic investment arm of India’s largest media conglomerate the Times Group (BCCL), has acquired a stake in Ponder, a blockchain-based recommendations platform.

Ponder aims to simplify and make it enjoyable to make and find referrals. Where a referral leads to success, the person making the referral is financially rewarded. It is currently working on an app intended for recruitment purposes which would provide employers a way to source more high-quality referred candidates.

The platform uses blockchain technology to create secure matchmaking communities and ensure data and identity are protected.

According to official release by the startup, "Brand Capital’s investment in Ponder will help the startup launch into the Indian market and leverage the group’s media assets in order to build a robust community of users, increasing engagement on the Ponder platform for different verticals of referrals: recruitment, new customers & romance."

Founded in 2017 by Manshu Agarwal and Chris Imani, Ponder is a game-like mobile app to play matchmaker where users win money for making successful matches. With a drag and drop photos of friends or other singles that one think would be a good match, users play a matchmakers for singles and if singles like each other the user win $10, if they marry there's $1000 winning amount. For singles its a way to receive a curated stream of prospects suggested by friends and a community of matchmakers. For everyone, single or in a relationship, it's a fun, rewarding, and meaningful game.

By using blockchain technology, Ponder decentralizes matchmaking, allowing anybody to play matchmaker for their friends and a community of singles.

The app has been downloaded over 120,000 times and the startup is now aims to build an another referral app for recruitment purposes, providing employers a way to source more high-quality referred candidates.

Earlier this month, Brand Capital, along with other investors, had led investment of $35 million in Toppr, an edtech startup.

In September, Brand Capital had invested Rs. 26 Crore in Avenue11, a Bangalore-based O2O grocery firm.

Prior to this in June this year, HomeLane.com, India’s leading online home interiors brand had raised Rs 24 Crores from Brand Capital.

[Top Image - Kambletrupti [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons]

Via - Tokenpost

Edtech Startup Toppr Raises $35 Mn from Kaizen PE, Alteria and Brand Capital

After e-commerce boom its Edtech startups in India that are having a good times when it comes to raising the massive capital, as after couple of whopping fund raises by Byju's and recently becoming the biggest edtech firm in the world, an another startup firm in edtech space, Toppr, has raised an impressive $35 million in Series D round of funding led by education-focused investor Kaizen Private Equity, venture debt firm Alteria Capital and Brand Capital, the investment arm of Times Group media house.

Toppr's existing VC investors Eight Roads Ventures, Helion Ventures and SAIF Partners also participated in this round.

So far, Toppr has raised a total of $58 million in funding over nine rounds including this one. Additionally, Toppr is talking to investors to raise about $80-$100 million more.

The freshly raised funds will primarily be used for branding in order to compete with other players especially Byju's. The funds will also be used for product development, increasing engagement and investing in technology Post this funding, the valuation of Toppr is expected to be between $150 million and $200 million.

Founded in 2013 by Zishaan Hayath and Hemanth Goteti, Toppr.com is an online preparation platform for entrance exams in India. It claims to have changed how students prepare for competitive exams in India.

Despite the rigorous brand marketing by Byju’s, Toppr have been able to get 6 million downloads and one million monthly active users, says Zishaan Hayath, CEO & co-founder of Toppr. The Mumbai-based startup now aims to increase its marketshare, especially among students in lower grades.

One of Toppr's key offerings is an Artificial Intelligence-backed chat application for students that uses natural language processing for immediate responses. Toppr also has a team of 29,000 online tutors.

Toppr co-founder Zishaan Hayath is an angel investor himself, and has invested in quite a few tech startups such as Ola, Zo Rooms, Squadrun, Edu4Share, Pickingo and DoorMint.

Besides Byju’s massive $540 million fund raise, Reliance Industries had also announced that it will invest $180 million in Embibe.

Just Yesterday, Bengaluru Based Edtech startup DataTrained raised second round of funding of Rs. 12 Crore (~ US $1.68 million) from a pool of 3 HNIs. Last week, Gurugram-based EdTech startup PlanetSpark had raised ₹1.6 crore funding from FIITJEE, India’s leading education company.

Prior to that, in last month, AI-led Edtech startup Genius Corner raised angel funding of Rs 2 Crore from Ranbir Singh, Mahesh Mohta and Lakshmikantan Sundereswaran, This was followed by funding of Perspectico, a Delhi-based career-tech platform, raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from SSCBS Innovation & Incubation Foundation of government of Delhi.

Bengaluru based O2O Grocery Startup Avenue11 Raises Rs.26 Cr from Brand Capital

Avenue11, Bengaluru based O2O grocery company has raised INR 26 Cr from Brand Capital, the strategic investment arm of the Times Group. This investment by Brand Capital will be deployed for geographical expansion of the business and to increase its brand presence.

Founded by Korean expat Nakkyun Chong, Avenue11 currently serves south and east Bengaluru, with a customer base of 35,000 people, and a monthly GMV of Rs. 90 lakhs. With the current financial projections and the BCCL partnership, Avenue11 is poised to achieve a GMV of 17 crores in 2018.

So far, Mr. Chong has been largely successful in making customer experience unique while providing best in grocery and allied needs. In less than a year, he has driven a 54% increase in B2C Gross Merchandise Volume (month-over-month in 2018) and an impressive45% growth in revenue. An architect by education, Mr. Chong indeed has a grand vision to take the Indian F&G industry to the next level.

In the words of Mr. Chong, “I started this company with a vision to redefine the way Indians do their grocery shopping. The partnership with the Times Group is a step forward in that direction. Investment from such a noteworthy institution is a sign of trust and belief in our business format.”

With a lot of big players entering the grocery market, this strategic partnership with Brand Capital can be a game changer for Avenue11. This investment will have a positive impact on the strong positioning of Avenue11.

Planet11 eCommerce Solutions, the parent company of Avenue11 was founded by Nakkyun Chong in 2016 with a vision to redefine the online grocery market in India. Mr. Chong, a South Korean national has over 28 years of international experience in the eCommerce and telecommunication industry. He has worked with SK Planet and set up companies like “11 Street” in Korea which is a leading open market player along with “N11”, which is the No.1 open market platform in Turkey. He started Planet11 with a small team of people, spending hours doing market research to understand the Indian consumer behavior. Today, the team consists of 200 passionate people, all with a vision to make grocery shopping more exciting.

Avenue11’s strategy is to soon establish a unique O2O (Online-to-offline) model –where online orders are serviced by offline partner stores, thereby halving the cost of logistics.

Currently, Avenue11 sells high-quality fresh produce and grocery to online customers, while the B2B arm of the company supplies fruits and vegetables to merchants and institutions.

The e-grocery platform has raised a total funding of $8 million till date from various investors across South-East Asia.

On Demand Personal Assistant Service DoneThing.com Gets $300K from Brand Capital

DoneThing, an on-demand personal assistant service, has announced that it has received $300,000 of funding from Brand Capital which will be used for geographical growth and service expansion. Brand Capital is the investment arm of media conglomerate Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd. and has helped build over 850+ indigenous brands into iconic brands through a sustained brand building effort, providing critical leverage for enterprise growth and value creation. They provide a platform for entrepreneurs to invest in, contribute to ‘Intellectual Capital’ thus supporting the creation of a brand strategy and planning media-spread to optimize value.

DoneThing, an affordable task management solution, is one of the most efficient productivity tool in the market to enhance user lifestyle. The start-up aim to revolutionise the way people delegate daily chores by making personal assistance easily available to the urban middle class. DoneThing has a strong operational wing, which helps them execute even the most cumbersome of tasks with ease. The company is focusing on unit economics and has been running operationally profitable since last 02 quarter. With a strong road-map of product enhancement and additions in features, DoneThing is sure to bring much value addition to their brand.

Commenting on the announcement, Mr. Karan Saharan, Co-Founder, DoneThing said “We are constantly on the look-out for innovative ways to enhance the user-experience and widen our offerings. Our vision is to change the way people spend their time, giving them the power to do more via delegation. We intend to give them access to a support system, available at their disposal to carry out the mundane tasks, thus freeing up their time to focus on the bigger things in life. With this fresh round of funding we are aiming at a two-pronged approach: a) tapping newer geographies (like Bangalore & Mumbai) and b) making our presence in the Delhi NCR market more robust. This deal is a precursor to the bigger funding round to follow.”

This investment is a significant step in propelling the brand to newer heights with core focus on brand building and leveraging the media publications for advertising under the Times Group. The company intends to go aggressive in print, radio & digital thereby increasing their customer base, building brand awareness and encourage service trials. The company projects 700% growth in revenues for the FY 2017-18.

Brand Capital’s spokesperson said “DoneThing addresses a very interesting problem and has a huge market to cater to. The team is a unique mix of professionals from different backgrounds. They have done a stupendous job in building the product and got a good traction in the business. We are convinced that this team will go a long way in profitably scaling up DoneThing.”

Founded in 2015 by Karan Saharan, Chetan Agarwal, Sonal Saraogi, and Rohit Pansari, the start-up raised $230,000 from Hong Kong based Swastika Co Limited in March 2016. DoneThing was launched with an aim to introduce an on-demand task management solution fulfilling customer's daily needs. Moreover, this creative platform aids customers to get anything picked/dropped within the city, source items from market, outsource their daily tasks, find neighbourhood service professionals and home services all under one roof.

Salebhai.com Secures Rs 10 Cr Funding from Brand Capital

Salebhai.com, an e-commerce platform for regional goods from across India that is representative of a culture, has received a major boost from Brand Capital of Times Group. The media conglomerate has come on board with a deal size of Rs 10 crore for a minority stake in the company.

The online portal, which operates on a back-to-roots philosophy, currently meets requirements of 17 diaspora communities by sourcing authentic and unique products from their native places. It offers sweets, namkeen, chocolates, bakery, spices, dry fruits, beverages, pickles, handicrafts, paintings, puja items, and herbal products from over 100 cities and 250 sellers.

Brand Capital has decided to back this portal considering the huge opportunity in solving a longstanding problem through an integrated platform and its range of curated products.

Commenting on the funding, Vishwa Vijay Singh, Co-founder, Salebhai.com said, “We are extremely delighted to have secured such significant funding from Brand Capital. I’m confident that our partnership with this esteemed establishment will help us expand our footprint and acquire more customers in India and abroad.”

Apart from Vishwa Vijay Singh – who looks after the company’s marketing and overall functioning, the company is also led by other enterprising co-founders, viz. Purba Kalita – who takes care of content and communications, and Pramod Rao– I.T. expert. Other key people within this company include – Anand Varani – who handles finances, and Gopal Shukla for channel management.

The start-up, which was in the news earlier this year for receiving investment from 12 high-Networth customers, is now reportedly ready to welcome its second batch of customers-turned-investors.

Faircent Gets $1.5M Funding from BCCL’s Brand Capital

Faircent.com, Indian peer to peer lending platform catering to retail and business loans has raised USD 1.5 million funding from Brand Capital, the ad-for-equity investment arm of conglomerate, Bennett Coleman and Co (BCCL).

Commenting on the development, Mr. Rajat Gandhi, Founder and CEO said, “The investment proves and strengthens our brand conviction towards disrupting credit in India. Our association with Brand Capital would help us to accelerate our brand building efforts in order to reach more borrowers and lenders. More people need to be made aware of the alternate investment opportunity that we provide and this will help us take a step closer to provide easier and cheaper access to the credit market in India.”

Faircent is the only P2P lending marketplace to feature in Interbrands global list of Breakthrough Brands 2016. Gaining prominence as an alternative investment option, the P2P lending marketplace has gained traction from borrowers and lenders across India. Mohandas Pai’s Aarin Capital and JM Financial Products Ltd., a subsidiary of JM Financial Ltd have invested in the P2P lending marketplace earlier.

Commenced in 2014, Faircent is a pioneer in the Indian peer to peer lending market with over 6,000 and 26,000 registered lenders and borrowers respectively and has disbursed a total loan of Rs. 6.5 Cr. in just two years of its operations. Creditworthy borrowers and lenders are aggregated on the P2P lending marketplace. Faircent empowers the borrower by having a transparent rate discovery model and enables them to reduce interest rate through a unique reverse auction model.

The other players which are operating in this space include Lendenclub, Loancircle, Loanzen and i2iFunding. In May 2016, online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform i2ifunding had raised Rs 2 crore (around $300,000) from a group of angel investors.

Faircent Gets $1.5M Funding from BCCL’s Brand Capital

Faircent.com, Indian peer to peer lending platform catering to retail and business loans has raised USD 1.5 million funding from Brand Capital, the ad-for-equity investment arm of conglomerate, Bennett Coleman and Co (BCCL).

Commenting on the development, Mr. Rajat Gandhi, Founder and CEO said, “The investment proves and strengthens our brand conviction towards disrupting credit in India. Our association with Brand Capital would help us to accelerate our brand building efforts in order to reach more borrowers and lenders. More people need to be made aware of the alternate investment opportunity that we provide and this will help us take a step closer to provide easier and cheaper access to the credit market in India.”

Faircent is the only P2P lending marketplace to feature in Interbrands global list of Breakthrough Brands 2016. Gaining prominence as an alternative investment option, the P2P lending marketplace has gained traction from borrowers and lenders across India. Mohandas Pai’s Aarin Capital and JM Financial Products Ltd., a subsidiary of JM Financial Ltd have invested in the P2P lending marketplace earlier.

Commenced in 2014, Faircent is a pioneer in the Indian peer to peer lending market with over 6,000 and 26,000 registered lenders and borrowers respectively and has disbursed a total loan of Rs. 6.5 Cr. in just two years of its operations. Creditworthy borrowers and lenders are aggregated on the P2P lending marketplace. Faircent empowers the borrower by having a transparent rate discovery model and enables them to reduce interest rate through a unique reverse auction model.

The other players which are operating in this space include Lendenclub, Loancircle, Loanzen and i2iFunding. In May 2016, online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform i2ifunding had raised Rs 2 crore (around $300,000) from a group of angel investors.

Meru Cabs Raises $25M from Brand Capital

Brand Capital, the investment arm of Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd (BCCL), has invested $25 million in taxi operator Meru Cab Co. Pvt. Ltd.

The company plans to raise an additional $75 million as part of its $100 million fund-raising plan. In the last round, in March 2015, it raised $50 million from existing investor India Value Fund.

Sixty-seventy per cent of the money will be used for advertising and providing user incentives which would include discounts, loyalty schemes and providing quality service, as per LiveMint report. Also, the firm is looking to have 15-17% of the total market share that will make it a $1 billion company by 2022.

Meru Cabs which was launched in 2007 as an air-conditioned radio cab service, now competes with newer rivals such as Uber and Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd) that are backed by deep-pocketed investors. Ola plans to raise $300-400 million and Uber raised a massive $5 billion, with its Indian arm expected to receive a significant part of the money. Uber had pledged to pump $1 billion into India in July last year.

Meru currently operates in 23 cities and has an operational fleet of 20,000 taxis, 5,000 of which are company-owned. And the firm is looking to increase the fleet by 15-20% over the next one year and will own 25% of the inventory. It wants to be present in 45 cities by end of 2018.

India’s organized taxi-hailing market, presently at $1.2 billion, is estimated to reach $15 billion by 2022, presenting an enormous opportunity for growth, According to company estimates. Meru is doing everything to tap into the potential of this large market.

It has launched the carpool and ride-share services last year, along with a cheaper taxi service, Meru Genie.

Meru has about 4.5 million users and are looking to clock Rs.850 crore in revenue in the current financial year. The company also launched a specialized service for differently abled and elderly commuters called Meru Enable, a booking system with Facebook’s Messenger Bot, and a taxi service only for women in Delhi.

Image Source: ShutterStock

iDreamCareer.com Gets Pre-Series A Funding from Times Group’s Brand Capital

[caption id="attachment_105629" align="alignnone" width="701"] iDreamCareer.com's Team[/caption]

Delhi based career planning ed-tech startup, iDreamCareer.com has raised an undisclosed sum as pre-series A funding from The Times of India publisher BCCL’s (Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd's) strategic investment arm, Brand Capital.

Founded in late 2013 by Ayush Bansal & Pravesh Dudani, iDreamCareer.com has grown to become India’s leading EdTech brand in the space of career & higher education planning. It provides scientific and unbiased career guidance to high school & college students. Due to the dynamic changes, that India has seen in the past couple of years, the students of today are now being exposed to numerous career options, right from the time they graduate high school. Given this scenario, a product like iDreemCareer proves to be a perfect match for the educational and career counselling needs of today. The personalized program offered, handholds students over a period of 2-3 years and helps them take a successful transition from high school to college. Its program cover the entire transition which start from career exploration, identifying student’s potential, finding the right career fit ,stream selection to ultimately completing it with the college admission & selection process.

Since its inception in 2013, iDreamCareer has been on an upward trajectory and has consistently shown growth par excellence. Prior to raising the current Pre-series A round of funding, the company had raised its seed round in mid-2014 from Mr G.K Sinha and subsequently raised its angel round in mid-2015 from ah! Ventures with investors Mohit Satyanand, Vivek Joshi, Indian Design Group & others participating in the deal.

Post its last round of funding in August, 2015, iDreamCareer has changed its targeting proposition and has made a complete transition to a B2C model. As part of its next growth phase iDreamCareer is planning to raise around $5 million as part its Series A round by the end of this year. The new funds shall be utilized to expand its presence in 15 cities in India & Middle East and to develop complementing products in the form of assessment and mentoring tools.

Gurgaon-based Hyperlocal Startup FindYahan Raises Funding From Times Group

Gurgaon-based FindYahan, a marketplace for services connecting service providers to service seekers, has raised undisclosed amount of funding from Times Group's investment arm Brand Capital.

The freshly raised funds will be used by the startup in expanding operations, marketing activities and boosting its growth engine.

Founded in 2013 by Rachit Mathur and Snehil Khanor, FindYahan.Com connects consumers to curated service providers and businesses by leveraging location and mobile (Airbnb for Services ). It supports consumers in hiring service providers in their areas.

The startup, which is currently operating in Delhi-NCR, Jaipur and Hyderabad, essentially helps in finding and hiring service providers in local area such as music, dance & fitness instructors, chefs, tutors, maids etc.

FindYahan's angel investors include Microsoft India MD Karan Bajwa, Sona Koyo Steering MD Sanjay Kapur and The Phoenix Fund, among others.

The company has roped in AirBnB's Country Manager India Amanpreet Bajaj and GoDaddy's SVP of Product Rajatish Mukherjee as advisors.

The company claims to have more than two lakh app downloads with four lakh users across platforms. It also said that in the last six months, service providers on its platform have more than trebled to over 10,000.