Leo Capital Leads $1.14 Mn Seed Round in WhatsApp Marketing Start-up, QuickReply.AI

Leo Capital has led the round with infusion of $0.75 Million in the Start-up

QuickReply.ai aims to transform the marketing landscape for businesses by facilitating personalised and interactive WhatsApp-based marketing engagement

QuickReply.ai, a breakthrough WhatsApp Marketing and Automation platform, has raised $1.14 Million in a seed round led by Leo Capital. Along with an investment of $0.75 Million from Leo Capital, the round also saw participation from Pentathlon Ventures, GSF and entrepreneurs and angel investors such as Deepak Diwakar (Co-founder, MindTickle), Azhar Iqubal (Co-founder & CEO, Inshorts), and Dinesh Agarwal (Founder & CEO, Indiamart).

(L-R) Hridayesh Gupta (CoFounder & CTO) and Himanshu Gupta (CoFounder & CEO)

Founded in 2021 by Himanshu Gupta and Hridayesh Gupta, QuickReply.ai offers an end-to-end WhatsApp engagement tool for D2C Brands and Online Stores. It aims to revolutionise the marketing landscape by facilitating genuine and interactive communication between businesses and their customers. Driven by technology, the company promotes a personalised and collaborative approach that could foster long-lasting customer relationships and retention.

Speaking on the round, QuickReply.ai’s Co-founder & CEO, Himanshu Gupta said, “Gaining early traction across India, our product has been integrated as a core customer engagement and retention tool, by over 250+ businesses. Following extensive growth over the last 18 months, this seed funding will be significant for us to further strengthen our proposition and drive innovation at a more rapid pace.”

Hridayesh Gupta, Co-founder & CTO, QuickReply.ai also commented as he said, “As a company operating in the communication-tech space, we recognize that WhatsApp is poised to disrupt traditional methods of business communication such as SMS, email, and push notifications. By leveraging the unique capabilities of WhatsApp, we believe that we can empower businesses to build stronger and more personalised relationships with their customers. We are delighted to be at the forefront of this evolution in the messaging industry, and excited about the opportunities it presents.”

QuickReply.ai’s holistic WhatsApp Marketing proposition enables businesses and e-commerce brands to design campaigns for a vast range of use cases. Some of them include Recovery of Abandoned Carts; Conversion of COD Order to Prepaid Orders; Customer Engagement with Timely Alerts; Retargeting to Win Back Lost Customers; and Customer Support, among others.

Commenting on leading QuickReply.ai’s seed funding, Leo Capital’s Partner Dinesh Singh, “Following our core thesis, we are bullish about tech-oriented solutions for businesses across stages and geographies. WhatsApp has already established itself as a major customer engagement and retention tool, entirely superseding emails and other traditional mediums in some sectors. Businesses that are capable of leveraging this tool in an interactive manner are poised to have a competitive edge. QuickReply.ai is a disruptive solution, set to help brands personalise their WhatsApp Marketing through innovative automation. We are excited to partner with Himanshu and Hridayesh in their journey to foster this industry transformation.”

QuickReply.ai plans to deploy the raised capital largely towards talent acquisition, product development, bolstering its tech infrastructure, and research & development. The Start-up is also looking to allocate funds towards marketing and global expansion. After successfully establishing a strong presence in India, it aims to expand its operations to the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Europe, over the next two years.

About QuickReply.ai

QuickReply.ai is a platform for WhatsApp Marketing and Automation that helps businesses turn first-time visitors into loyal customers. By analysing customer behaviour from multiple data sources, it personalises customer interactions, creating long-lasting relationships and driving repeat purchases for higher customer lifetime value.

Medical Device Startup BeatO Raises ₹ 11.75 Cr from Orios Venture Partners, others

BeatO, the Delhi based health-tech start up, today announced the closure of its Pre-Series A round of ₹ 11.75 Crores (~US $1.714 million). Orios Venture Partners led the funding round with participation from existing investors -Blume Ventures, Leo Capital and Vishal Sampat. 

BeatO
focuses on meeting the end to end needs of a person with diabetes. As
is commonly known, a diabetes management program requires regular
exercise, controlled diet, medicines and diagnostics and regular
monitoring of blood sugar. BeatO helps a diabetic self-manage these
activities by providing a full-stack of services and products on a web
and app ecosystem. The consumer starts to use BeatO by purchasing their
smartphone -based glucometer that connects with the mobile app.

The
BeatO Glucometer connects to the user’s smartphone and works with the
feature rich BeatO app. The product and its concept is superior to
normal glucometers in the market. The glucometer along with the app
helps you keep a record of all your readings in an organized manner and
connects you to doctors and diabetes educators instantly to get guidance
real time in case readings go out of the desired range. Based on the
sugar readings, it provides instant alerts to family and caregivers too,
and, also predicts HbA1c that is used globally to monitor blood sugar
effectively. Once signed up, the user can order home delivery of
medicines and diagnostics and BeatO’s range of specialty diabetes
friendly food and drinks such as snacks, breakfast cereals, teas, juices
and vinegars. Not just these, one can also buy diabetic footwear and a
range of recently launched Ayurveda products. The app also has a section
of rich video and written content in English and Hindi, comprising
doctor tips, recipes and yoga workshops that simplify diabetes
management.

The company will utilize the funds to increase its user base and revenue, which have grown 10 X over the last 12 months and expand the product line for its flagship glucometer and FMCG/retail categories. The team will also be investing in R&D, platform upgradation for auto-suggestions basis blood sugar readings and product development in order to come up with new and innovative products and services for its ecosystem, which will enable consumers to manage diabetes in a better way. 

Speaking about the recent fund raise, Gautam Chopra, Co-founder, BeatO stated, “We
are thrilled to have Orios Venture Partners onboard our journey. As a
company we are on a mission to scale up a credible full stack
tech-enabled ecosystem for those with diabetes and, help them meet all
of their specific needs to lead a healthy life. With increase in the
disposable income in the Indian middle-class, we foresee an increase in
the discretionary spends. For a diabetic, we expect this to be
channelled into personal management solutions and more consumption of
customized food and retail products.” 

Commenting on the fundraise, Anup Jain, Managing Partner at Orios Venture Partners said, “Orios
believes in investing behind strong founders that create disruption in
large markets. Diabetic population in the country has touched 80 Million
and is growing at +6% CAGR. A diabetic consumer spends more than $1000
across different aspects of their medical care and lifestyle in a year.
This is currently a broken experience with
multiple suppliers that don’t talk to each other or to the user on a
common platform. BeatO provides the one place where diabetes can be
monitored and managed with the greatest convenience by the user and his
caregivers, that is necessary in today’s fast paced life. In Gautam and
Yash, we found mission-driven entrepreneurs who were looking to solve
this massive problem. Being close to the problem, their understanding of
the pain points and motivation for solving this ailment is very deep.
As a business model, it is obvious the audience is sticky and the
lifetime value / one time acquisition cost is extremely attractive.” 

Arpit Agarwal, Principal, Blume Ventures said, “Lifestyle
diseases are fast becoming an epidemic in India. Managing diabetes
alone is now big enough a market for large businesses to be built.
Hence, we continue to feel excited about the path BeatO is taking.
Through this journey working closely with the founders for more than a
year, we have found them forward looking, imaginative and highly
focused. They have managed to create a very sticky user base with very
limited capital. With Orios' experience in helping build some of India's
top consumer brands, we look forward to accelerating BeatO's quest
towards pre-eminence in Healthcare in India.”  

Founded
in end of 2015 by Gautam Chopra and Yash Sehgal, BeatO currently serves
50,000 diabetic customers in more than 1,500 cities and is currently
fulfilling over 15,000 transactions a month. It had previously raised a
seed fund from Blume Ventures and Leo Capital in 2017. 

BeatO
is a full stack platform where all needs of a person with diabetes are
met under one roof. BeatO was started by Gautam Chopra and Yash Sehgal
in Sep 2015 with the vision to help diabetics make the right choices and
manage their lifestyles with convenience and confidence.  At the heart
of their business is the Smartphone Glucometer that plugs the consumer
into BeatO's app ecosystem. It not only helps measure and monitor blood
glucose over time, it also opens up to a world of made-for-diabetics
FMCG products for breakfast, snacks, specialty food, and a whole
marketplace of doctors, educators, diagnostics, medicines refills and
insurance products. 

Blume Ventures is a seed and pre-series A venture fund that backs technology startups with both funding as well as active mentoring and support. Blume has been the most active venture fund in India since 2011, investing in sectors such as deep tech, financial services, healthcare, and education among others. Its current portfolio includes companies such as Grey Orange Robotics, Unacademy, Servify, Tricog Health, Locus and many more.

Diabetes Management Tech Startup BeatO Raises $1.3 Mn from Leo Capital, Blume Ventures

Delhi-based BeatO (short for beating the ring ‘O’ of Diabetes), a diabetes management startup using technology, has raised an institutional round of $1.3 million led by Leo Capital and co-led by Blume ventures.

“We are extremely excited to associate with partners like Leo and Blume. India is expected to have 100M diabetics by 2030. This puts tremendous pressure on all stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem both from a cost and well-being perspective to specially cater to this large demographic. This funding is a re-enforcement to the fact that we are solving a problem of massive scale", said Gautam Chopra, Co-Founder, and CEO, BeatO.

“With this funding, we plan to continue adding greater value to our customers through even better technology and distribution. We will also supplement our existing range of product categories including diabetic snacks and specialty foods. Our goal is to be an indispensable ally to a person living with diabetes”, added Yash Sehgal & Abhishek Kumar, Co-founders, BeatO.

Launched in September 2015 by Gautam Chopra, Yash Sehgal and Abhishek Kumar, BeatO is a full stack platform for people living with diabetes. It provides comprehensive platform dedicated to improving the lives of those living with diabetes with a unique mobile based monitoring solution, combined with diabetes-specific products such as diabetic snacks, specialty food, footwear etc. BeatO focuses on addressing all needs of their customers under one roof and supports them in making the right choices.

BeatO makes blood glucose monitoring easy with its smartphone-based glucometer combined with support from experts. This is augmented by their wide range of diabetes-specific food and retail products, thereby catering to all the needs of a person with diabetes. Started just over 2 years ago, BeatO currently serves 25,000 active customers in more than 1,500 cities, some even as far as Baramullah in Kashmir. This depicts the powerful impact that a virtual and holistic solution can have in providing healthcare to everyone. BeatO is currently fulfilling over 5,000 transactions a month.

[caption id="attachment_123833" align="aligncenter" width="971"] BeatO smartphone-based Glucometer[/caption]

Speaking about the funding, Rajul Garg, Founder of Leo Capital, said, “India is the diabetes capital of the world. We have looked deeply at chronic disease solutions and BeatO has been able to demonstrate an approach that diabetics find useful month over month. BeatO’s focus on a solution very unique to India is what attracted us”.

Arpit Agarwal, Principal, Blume Ventures, said, “BeatO is different from other players in the segment given their approach allows patients to manage diabetes effortlessly by having a wide array of healthy lifestyle choices available to them on a single platform. The founding team is perhaps one of the best in the industry and we feel confident that they will capture the opportunity in this space successfully.”

The startup had previously raised an angel round from a few individual investors including Rajeev Chitrabhanu, an early investor in Nazara Technologies, Rentomojoetc and Vishal Sampat, who besides being an angel investor was also the Founder of Convonix, India’s largest digital agency acquired by Publicis.

BeatO has grown 10X in revenue within the last one year. It boasts of having facilitated more than 250,000 glucose readings and has over 80% repeat order rate of acquired customers. The company plans to continue adding products across categories which are useful for diabetics and leveraging technology to make them accessible in the near future.

Leo Capital was founded in 2018 by Rajul Garg and Shwetank Verma. Rajul has been a prolific entrepreneur and angel investor in the Indian ecosystem. BeatO is among Leo Capital’s early investments as a fund. Leo Capital is focused on investing in high growth, early-stage technology startups in India.

Other startups in India working in diabetes related management and services are -- Dr. Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre, which raised $10.23 million in Series A funding led by Lok Capital advised Growth Fund, Bangalore based Achira Labs, which has devised a way to hand weave diabetes test strips from silk. An another startup called Cooey technologies is also a promising startup that made news when, in 2016, it launched India’s first IOT glucometer that wirelessly syncs data with a smartphone.

About Blume Ventures, it is an early stage venture fund launched in 2010, that backs startups with both fundings as well as active mentoring and support. It invested $1 million in Gurgaon-based online retailer Spinny, in June 2017, thereafter it invested in online grocery startup MilkBasket, in August last year, followed by $1 million investment in car service startup Pitstop, in September 2017.

Blume Ventures' portfolio consists of more than 70 active companies including Grey Orange Robotics, Unacademy, Tricog Health, Locus, Healthifyme, Mettl, Exotel, Belong, Instamojo, and many more. Recently, tech research firm CB Insights ranked Blume Ventures as the leading India tech investor based on the number of investments made since the fund’s inception.

Diabetes Management Tech Startup BeatO Raises $1.3 Mn from Leo Capital, Blume Ventures

Delhi-based BeatO (short for beating the ring ‘O’ of Diabetes), a diabetes management startup using technology, has raised an institutional round of $1.3 million led by Leo Capital and co-led by Blume ventures.

“We are extremely excited to associate with partners like Leo and Blume. India is expected to have 100M diabetics by 2030. This puts tremendous pressure on all stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem both from a cost and well-being perspective to specially cater to this large demographic. This funding is a re-enforcement to the fact that we are solving a problem of massive scale", said Gautam Chopra, Co-Founder, and CEO, BeatO.

“With this funding, we plan to continue adding greater value to our customers through even better technology and distribution. We will also supplement our existing range of product categories including diabetic snacks and specialty foods. Our goal is to be an indispensable ally to a person living with diabetes”, added Yash Sehgal & Abhishek Kumar, Co-founders, BeatO.

Launched in September 2015 by Gautam Chopra, Yash Sehgal and Abhishek Kumar, BeatO is a full stack platform for people living with diabetes. It provides comprehensive platform dedicated to improving the lives of those living with diabetes with a unique mobile based monitoring solution, combined with diabetes-specific products such as diabetic snacks, specialty food, footwear etc. BeatO focuses on addressing all needs of their customers under one roof and supports them in making the right choices.

BeatO makes blood glucose monitoring easy with its smartphone-based glucometer combined with support from experts. This is augmented by their wide range of diabetes-specific food and retail products, thereby catering to all the needs of a person with diabetes. Started just over 2 years ago, BeatO currently serves 25,000 active customers in more than 1,500 cities, some even as far as Baramullah in Kashmir. This depicts the powerful impact that a virtual and holistic solution can have in providing healthcare to everyone. BeatO is currently fulfilling over 5,000 transactions a month.

[caption id="attachment_123833" align="aligncenter" width="971"] BeatO smartphone-based Glucometer[/caption]

Speaking about the funding, Rajul Garg, Founder of Leo Capital, said, “India is the diabetes capital of the world. We have looked deeply at chronic disease solutions and BeatO has been able to demonstrate an approach that diabetics find useful month over month. BeatO’s focus on a solution very unique to India is what attracted us”.

Arpit Agarwal, Principal, Blume Ventures, said, “BeatO is different from other players in the segment given their approach allows patients to manage diabetes effortlessly by having a wide array of healthy lifestyle choices available to them on a single platform. The founding team is perhaps one of the best in the industry and we feel confident that they will capture the opportunity in this space successfully.”

The startup had previously raised an angel round from a few individual investors including Rajeev Chitrabhanu, an early investor in Nazara Technologies, Rentomojoetc and Vishal Sampat, who besides being an angel investor was also the Founder of Convonix, India’s largest digital agency acquired by Publicis.

BeatO has grown 10X in revenue within the last one year. It boasts of having facilitated more than 250,000 glucose readings and has over 80% repeat order rate of acquired customers. The company plans to continue adding products across categories which are useful for diabetics and leveraging technology to make them accessible in the near future.

Leo Capital was founded in 2018 by Rajul Garg and Shwetank Verma. Rajul has been a prolific entrepreneur and angel investor in the Indian ecosystem. BeatO is among Leo Capital’s early investments as a fund. Leo Capital is focused on investing in high growth, early-stage technology startups in India.

Other startups in India working in diabetes related management and services are -- Dr. Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre, which raised $10.23 million in Series A funding led by Lok Capital advised Growth Fund, Bangalore based Achira Labs, which has devised a way to hand weave diabetes test strips from silk. An another startup called Cooey technologies is also a promising startup that made news when, in 2016, it launched India’s first IOT glucometer that wirelessly syncs data with a smartphone.

About Blume Ventures, it is an early stage venture fund launched in 2010, that backs startups with both fundings as well as active mentoring and support. It invested $1 million in Gurgaon-based online retailer Spinny, in June 2017, thereafter it invested in online grocery startup MilkBasket, in August last year, followed by $1 million investment in car service startup Pitstop, in September 2017.

Blume Ventures' portfolio consists of more than 70 active companies including Grey Orange Robotics, Unacademy, Tricog Health, Locus, Healthifyme, Mettl, Exotel, Belong, Instamojo, and many more. Recently, tech research firm CB Insights ranked Blume Ventures as the leading India tech investor based on the number of investments made since the fund’s inception.