Blitz (formerly Grow Simplee) Raises $3 Mn in Seed Funding

Same-day delivery startup for omnichannel sellers, Blitz (earlier Grow Simplee), has raised $3 million in a seed round from India Quotient, Better Capital, First Cheque, and Titan Capital.

Other investors who also participated in this round include prominent Angels — Farid Ahsan, Abhinav Jain, Rahul Dash, Kunal Shah, Prabhkirandeep Singh, and Ishendra Agarwal, among others.

The Bengaluru-based startup intends to use the freshly raised capital to enhance technology infrastructure and expand its network of dark stores.

Launched in 2021 by Gaurav Piyush, Yash Sharma and Mayank Varshney, Blitz is rebranded name of erstwhile 'Grow Simplee'. The name 'Blitz' resonates the startup's passion for speed and efficiency.

The startup provides automated solution for end to end logistics, warehouse, and immediate shipping services for ecommerce brands, enabling e-commerce brands and marketplaces to deliver their products faster to their customers.

First Cheque Closes its Second Fund at Rs 38 Cr ($5 Mn); Plans to Invest in 50 Companies Over the Next 18 Mths

Invest in companies at the pre-seed stage including paper-plan ideas

Focus on first-time founders

An initial investment of USD 100K in all portfolio companies

First Cheque, an early-stage VC, launches its second fund to invest in 50 startups in the next 8 months. The fund, which used to operate as an AngelList syndicate and had invested in 100+ startups in the past three years, has raised ₹38 Crore from global investors for its second fund. The firm will focus on first-time founders and will invest $100K in each of its portfolio companies, which is essential for founders to get their business started from scratch.

First Cheque aims to be the earliest institutional capital available for founders and seeks to achieve this by investing at the pre-seed stage. The firm has a sector agnostic approach and is open to backing founding teams at the paper-plan stage. The closure of its Second fund takes the firm’s total AUM to Rs 90 Crore.

First Cheque has streamlined its deployment process to less than 30 days - from initial discussion to capital deployment. It is also launching an in-house program, featuring leading founders, sector experts and Venture Capitalists who will share their experiences around building a company, GTM strategy, hiring & retention, monetisation and fundraising.

Additionally, the VC firm will be organising bi-annual demo days with leading VCs, simplifying the fundraising process for their portfolio companies. The team will also actively work with its portfolio companies to improve their pitch and help them identify the right product metrics.

First Cheque works closely with 50+ Venture Partners (VPs) who help in curating a portfolio that is inclusive and diverse in nature. This list consists of founders, product managers, community managers, sector experts and growth managers. It also plans to onboard undergraduate venture fellows, who will connect the fund with high-potential student startups from their respective colleges. First Cheque worked with 20+ venture partners during its first fund, and added ~100 startups to its portfolio, through the same. Some of its renowned portfolio ventures include Fashinza, Giva, Rocketlane, Fleetx, Wint Wealth, Plaza/Rigi, Global Fair, Drink Prime and Bellatrix Aerospace.

Speaking of the vision, Prateek Agarwal, Investment Lead, First Cheque said, “We are looking to back aspirational founders with lesser emphasis on conventional prerequisites such as the educational pedigree, previous founding experience and conviction from other VCs. In our investment decision, ‘Founder Market Fit’ will take precedence over these factors. We believe that India needs more seed stage institutional capital and mentorship, which we aim to provide via our founder community, dedicated program, and a network of seasoned investors and venture partners. Our commitment is to foster a support system that can help our founders throughout their journey. It is a small step aligned with PM Narendra Modi’s “Startup India” initiative.”

One additional differentiation for First Cheque is its active community of 200+ founders. This community offers real-time mentorship and solutions for the day-to-day problems that founders face. The team at First Cheque also actively helps portfolio companies by securing lucrative deals with large enterprises like AWS, Cloudflare, and MongoDb, among others. It has secured deals with 50+ such enterprises, so far.

Anand Lunia, Founding Partner, India Quotient, further adds, “We all have seen the massive success that YC has had globally. After the US and China, India has the largest startup ecosystem and First Cheque is uniquely positioned to capture the pre-seed opportunity here. The comprehensive program, the engaged founder community and the demo day will act as catalysts for first-time founders. The firm’s underlying founder-first ethos also separates it from the rest.”

About First Cheque VC

First Cheque is a Bengaluru-based pre-seed stage VC Firm. It has investing expertise in early-stage technology startups and has invested in over 100 ventures, so far. The Firm started with the genesis of building easy-to-access capital support for aspirational founders and teams while keeping old-school evaluation metrics at bay. First Cheque’s limited partners largely comprise global Family Offices across India and Singapore. It is welcoming startups from mature sectors such as SaaS, EdTech, HRTech and FinTech, as well as the emerging ones, including SpaceTech, Gaming, Web3 and CleanTech.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About 9Unicorns

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

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

Health Tech Startup ConnectedH Raises Seed Funding from First Cheque, Rohit MA, PointOne Capital and Other Investors

The funding will be used to expand the brand’s presence pan India and widening their offerings 

ConnectedH, a health-tech company committed to unlocking the full potential of diagnostics, has raised an undisclosed seed amount in funding from venture capital First Cheque, Rohit MA (Founder, Cloudnine Hospitals), PointOne Capital, and other investors.

The funding will be used to expand the brand’s geographical presence and integrate it deeper into the diagnostics ecosystem. It will also be used to widen their value offerings for diagnostic centers thereby making them a one-stop solution for all their marketing and operations needs.

Unorganized medical data is one of the major issues in healthcare delivery and also responsible for the wrong diagnosis in many cases. Since its inception in 2018, ConnectedH has been on a mission to simplify healthcare by organizing healthcare data. The brand is working towards creating a connected healthcare ecosystem where patients have complete control and 24x7 anywhere access to their organized medical information across various stakeholders including diagnostic centers, doctors, hospitals, etc. This is also in alignment with the recent announcement of the government’s National Digital Health Mission.

The other investors in the funding round include Ajeet Singh Kushwaha (Founder, Seekify); Ankur Pahwa (Partner, E&Y); Anurag Mehrotra (President & MD, Ford India); Bharanidharan Viswanathan & Nitin Mathur (Founders of 91mobiles); Harsh Pokharna and Gaurav Kumar (Co-Founders, Okcredit); Kishore Ganji; Kunal Khatter (Managing Director, AdvantEdge in personal capacity); Sprout Investments; Umang Kumar (Founder, Gaadi.com); and Vivek Shah (MD, Investment Banking, Haitong).

Speaking about this, Shubham Gupta, Co-Founder, ConnectedH, said, “ConnectedH was the outcome of a personal experience. I was hospitalized due to a UTI and had to visit doctors every week for almost two years after, waiting for hours at the reception for just 5 minutes of facetime. It was an endless cycle of repeating my medical history with no one having the time to go through it either. While I could solve the issue by collating my data with excel, I realized how others would be undergoing the same issue”.


Adding to this, Suresh Singh, Co-Founder, ConnectedH said, “Shubham’s experience exposed us to the horrors of unorganized healthcare data and brought back similar memories in my family. While the solution was very apparent, the starting point wasn’t so. We had to figure out the right value proposition for various stakeholders. After shadowing multiple doctors, diagnostic center owners, and hospital owners for more than 6 months to identify their pain points and possible solutions, we finally zeroed down on the diagnostics space. Our digital ecosystem offerings enable the creation of an organized diagnostic history of patients, while helping diagnostic centers exceed customer expectations, and increase their business, improve operations, and deliver better margins."

Adding further, Kushal Bhagia, First Cheque, said, "At a time when India's healthcare system is already overburdened, ConnectedH has come up with a solution that can become a gamechanger in the area of digitizing health records. Single-point access to all healthcare data will not only enable diagnostic centers to become more organized but also improve health outcomes. We hope to see ConnectedH expanding the scope of their coverage with this funding."

Rohit M A, Co-founder and Managing Director of Cloudnine Group of Hospitals invested through his investment arm Capier Investments, said, “Suresh, Shubham, and Rahul have set out to solve a very pertinent issue in our country's healthcare wherein unorganized primary medical data has been a major issue for years. They have identified an approach which can be easily scaled to touch the lives of millions of consumers across the value chain and in a short time, have already demonstrated the ability to organize diagnostic records of over 10% of Delhi population while creating genuine value and engagement for their diagnostic partners."

The diagnostic sector in India is poised for good growth in the years ahead with estimates pegging the market size at $15 billion in 2020. Despite the 90% hit on the diagnostic volumes in the immediate aftermath of the nationwide lockdown, ConnectedH’s business crossed pre-lock down levels by July 2020. 

Adding further, Archana Priyadarshini Point One Capital, said, “We are very happy to support a health-tech startup like ConnectedH, which aims to solve a pertinent problem facing the healthcare sector today. Incorrect and unorganized information is a major cause of misdiagnosis in a majority of health cases. By offering a tech-based solution for collating all this healthcare data at one point, ConnectedH will enable improve health outcomes for patients while also increasing ROI for diagnostic centers."

Before this funding, ConnectedH raised its first smaller seed round from the top management of CarDekho including Avinash Kumar (Founder, Credenc).


About ConnectedH

Seeking medical help, in most cases, is not the best time in someone's life. ConnectedH strives to make such interactions as simple or as hassle-free as possible. The company’s vision is simple - Connected Healthcare. The founders of ConnectedH come with extensive prior startup experience. Shubham Gupta, an IIT-K graduate, was designing steam turbines in nuclear power plants in Japan when he found his calling for startups. Before ConnectedH, Shubham was a part of the CEO's team at CarDekho. Suresh Singh is an IIM-B graduate & OPJEMS scholar who joined CEO’s team at CarDekho with aspirations of founding his own startup. He built CarDekho’s B2B offerings for Car & Bike OEMs across India, South East Asia. Rahul Kumar, is an IIT-K graduate and a two-time entrepreneur. His previous startup attempts were in sports entertainment called 'Kickoff Nation’, which he followed up with an dea to productize bitcoin mining. With this background, ConnectedH is bringing together different sectors of the healthcare system, giving the patients complete control over their information.