Edtech Startup Winuall Raises INR 14.7 Crore ($2 Million) to Digitise Coaching Institutes

Winuall, an online education platform that helps coaching institutes go digital, announced that it has raised INR 14.7 crore from Prime Venture Partners, BEENEXT, Ramakant Sharma (founder of LivSpace) and other angel investors. WinUall aims to democratise technology infrastructure for offline small and medium institutes and digitise the whole learning experience for students with online study material, assessments and live classes. The startup will use the fresh capital to enhance product capabilities and hire across technology, product, AI and business development teams. Winuall is planning to add more than 20,000 coaching institutes and serve more than three million students across India cities by the end of 2021.


Founded in 2019, Winuall offers a SaaS plug and play platform on a subscription model for tutors and coaching institutes. Private tutors small and medium coaching institutes are mostly run by individuals or a small group of tutors who are generally not tech-savvy. Winuall enables these tutors and coaching institutes to become fully digitized by providing tools like class scheduling, batch management, attendance, live classes, online quizzes, AI-based recommendations, online courses, building online platforms etc. Apart from managing their day-to-day activities, the tutors also get an opportunity to sell their courses across the globe on the platform and get to collaborate with other tutors.


Winuall provides a huge repository of questions and content for tutors that helps them to focus on teaching rather than taking effort on digitising. The company improves learning experience by leveraging AI to understand student learning patterns and accordingly suggests the best possible path for tutors using reinforcement learning. It also provides detailed analysis to tutors and suggests ways to better engage students.


For students, Winuall provides "state-of-the-art" analytics of their performance and solutions to enhance it. Students use the app to learn concepts, take quizzes, work on the recommendations provided by the app, and engage with their peers.


Founded by Ashwini Purohit, Winuall has on boarded more than 3700 coaching institutes across the country. Over 5000 tutors are already using the platform extensively to teach online, conduct quizzes, solve doubts, and sell their courses. Since the lockdown, the company has seen a massive increase in live class hours and over 50 Million minutes of learning has been delivered on Winuall's platform.


Coaching is a $80 billion industry in India and it is growing at 15% per annum. While self-paced education has witnessed a massive transformation in the last couple of years, the tutoring Industry has not evolved over the past few decades. COVID-19 has accelerated the digital transformation of the tutoring industry forcing individual tutors to adopt technology to increase their reach and teach with more advanced methods. According to a report by Technavio, the online tutoring market size in India has the potential to grow by $132.21 billion during 2020-2024 and about 2.5 million local tutors need to be upgraded technically.


Ashwini Purohit, CEO, Winuall, said - "We believe digital tools will become an integral part of the learning experience and evolve our education system in a massive way going forward. With the ongoing pandemic, this investment is a testament to how newer trends of online learning will emerge in the times to come. Our aim is to enable tutors in India to go digital and improve the quality of learning for students. We want to empower the tutors & coaching institutes to remain independent by building and retaining their own brand name through our platform."


Shripati Acharya, Managing Partner, Prime Venture Partners, said, "The tutoring market is at a significant inflection point, and there are a lot of tutors who want to manage their own student interactions and develop an independent identity. Winuall is facilitating this by helping tutors & coaching institutes to go digital, providing them with content and performance improvement recommendations using AI. Winuall is backed by an outstanding team with passionate founders who have a deep understanding of the tutoring and education space."


Teruhide Sato, Founder & Managing Partner, BEENEXT, said in a statement, "This pandemic has pushed start-ups across the globe to innovate. Edu-tech like many other sectors will play a crucial role in shaping and impacting a more digitally connected future. We are excited to back a passionate team like Winuall, who are looking to transform the educational system in the country. There is tremendous opportunity in the online tutoring market and we look forward to being a part of Winuall's journey to digitally-empower educators."

About Winuall

Winuall is an online education platform that helps coaching institutes go digital providing them with content and performance improvement recommendations using AI. The company provides software as a service platform to tutors on a subscription basis. It also enables tutors to sell their content and services to a broader audience and charge a small transaction fee on that.

For more information, please visit: winuall.com 

Security Management App myGate Secures $8.8 Mn from Prime Venture

Bengaluru-based myGate, a mobile app based apartment security management system, has raised ₹65 crore (~ US$8.8 million) in funding led by existing investor Prime Venture Partners.

The startup will use the funds raised to invest in technology to further enhance its solutions, expansion in 10 cities, including Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi NCR and also in expanding its team across all cities.

In January, the startup had raised ₹16 crore in its first round of funding led by Prime Venture Partners. Prime Venture Partners, which is an early stage fund led by serial entrepreneurs Sanjay Swamy, Shripati Acharya and Amit Somani, had closed its third fund at $60 million (₹400 crore) in March this year.

myGate was founded in 2016 by Vijay Arisetty, a former air force pilot, Abhishek Kumar , a former VP at Goldman Sachs, Shreyans Daga and Vivaik Bhardwaj. myGate is a mobile app based apartment security management system to enhance safety of gated communities, track visitors, child security and staff management. The technology solution provided by myGate has been adopted by more than 250,000 homes across 1,000 communities in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune. The startup is now targeting 10X growth in 2019.

Requiring only basic skills for operation, more than 25,000 guards are already well-versed with the myGate security solution and are using it. The company takes the complete responsibility of training the guards any time and any number of times as needed through the life of the contract.

myGate is available at zero hardware/infrastructure cost. Few product features of myGate include: child safety alert, e-intercom for visitor authentication, parcel management, real time domestic help management, complete staff attendance management, multi-home management, digital validation of all staff and residents, & multi-tiered access system.

Commenting on this development, Vijay Arisetty, co-founder & CEO, myGate said “We are humbled by the massive adoption of myGate’s solution across top metros. Customers are delighted and we are now excited to take this across India. Technology is pervasive and it was only a matter of time for the security at gated communities to be transformed using smart & intelligent solutions. We believe in innovation, quality service and trust and will use the funds to invest in technology to further enhance our state-of-art, cost-effective security solutions. We will also expand the myGate team across all cities to offer best possible service to our customers."

Source - myGate.in | Via - Times of India

Security Management App myGate Secures $8.8 Mn from Prime Venture

Bengaluru-based myGate, a mobile app based apartment security management system, has raised ₹65 crore (~ US$8.8 million) in funding led by existing investor Prime Venture Partners.

The startup will use the funds raised to invest in technology to further enhance its solutions, expansion in 10 cities, including Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi NCR and also in expanding its team across all cities.

In January, the startup had raised ₹16 crore in its first round of funding led by Prime Venture Partners. Prime Venture Partners, which is an early stage fund led by serial entrepreneurs Sanjay Swamy, Shripati Acharya and Amit Somani, had closed its third fund at $60 million (₹400 crore) in March this year.

myGate was founded in 2016 by Vijay Arisetty, a former air force pilot, Abhishek Kumar , a former VP at Goldman Sachs, Shreyans Daga and Vivaik Bhardwaj. myGate is a mobile app based apartment security management system to enhance safety of gated communities, track visitors, child security and staff management. The technology solution provided by myGate has been adopted by more than 250,000 homes across 1,000 communities in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune. The startup is now targeting 10X growth in 2019.

Requiring only basic skills for operation, more than 25,000 guards are already well-versed with the myGate security solution and are using it. The company takes the complete responsibility of training the guards any time and any number of times as needed through the life of the contract.

myGate is available at zero hardware/infrastructure cost. Few product features of myGate include: child safety alert, e-intercom for visitor authentication, parcel management, real time domestic help management, complete staff attendance management, multi-home management, digital validation of all staff and residents, & multi-tiered access system.

Commenting on this development, Vijay Arisetty, co-founder & CEO, myGate said “We are humbled by the massive adoption of myGate’s solution across top metros. Customers are delighted and we are now excited to take this across India. Technology is pervasive and it was only a matter of time for the security at gated communities to be transformed using smart & intelligent solutions. We believe in innovation, quality service and trust and will use the funds to invest in technology to further enhance our state-of-art, cost-effective security solutions. We will also expand the myGate team across all cities to offer best possible service to our customers."

Source - myGate.in | Via - Times of India

Prime Venture to Increase its Funding Portfolio in Logistics, SaaS-based Startups

Seed-stage focussed venture capital firm, Prime Venture Partners, which recently close its third fund at $60 million in March this year, is planning to increase its focus on start-ups working in the logistics and SaaS (software as a service) segment, beside it usually invest in.

Launched in 2011 by serial entrepreneurs Amit Somani, Bala Parthasarathy, Sanjay Swamy and Shripati Acharya, Prime Venture, which was earlier known as AngelPrime, is known for investing in edtech, fintech and healthcare-based startups targeting global markets. In its total portfolio of 20 startups, Prime Venture has 9 fintech startups it has invested in that shows that the firm has been bullish on financial technology and now it want to focus on Logistics and SaaS-based startups which are based out of India but targeting overseas markets.

Sanjay Swamy, co-founder and managing partner at Prime Venture Partners, said in a statement, "Our theme is usually if the sector is getting digitised and whether the firm has a compelling use case. In this regard, besides financial services, you will see a lot from us in the health care, logistics and education spaces."

"We are quite bullish on startups in the SaaS segment, which are based out of India and are selling overseas. Probably, we will do some deals in this segment next year," he said.

Synup, a provider of SaaS-based solutions that enables local businesses to manage their online presence, counts Prime Venture as its major investor. Last September, Synup raised $6 million in a financing round led by Vertex Ventures, in which Prime Venture also participated being an existing investor.

Swamy however also confirms that the firm would continue to invest in fintech space as well.

Last week, Prime Ventures participated in $3 Mn funding round of Bangalore-based Quizizz, which is an e-learning app. Prior to this -- in May this year -- it led $4.2 Mn funding of Bangalore-based mfine, an app-based on-demand healthcare service provider.

Notably, Prime Venture was also an investor in ZipDial — a mobile marketing firm — which was acquired by Twitter in 2015.

In January this year, Prime Venture Partners also participated in Bengaluru-based fintech startup NiYO Solutions raised $13.2 million in its Series A funding.

Via - Business Standard

Prime Venture to Increase its Funding Portfolio in Logistics, SaaS-based Startups

Seed-stage focussed venture capital firm, Prime Venture Partners, which recently close its third fund at $60 million in March this year, is planning to increase its focus on start-ups working in the logistics and SaaS (software as a service) segment, beside it usually invest in.

Launched in 2011 by serial entrepreneurs Amit Somani, Bala Parthasarathy, Sanjay Swamy and Shripati Acharya, Prime Venture, which was earlier known as AngelPrime, is known for investing in edtech, fintech and healthcare-based startups targeting global markets. In its total portfolio of 20 startups, Prime Venture has 9 fintech startups it has invested in that shows that the firm has been bullish on financial technology and now it want to focus on Logistics and SaaS-based startups which are based out of India but targeting overseas markets.

Sanjay Swamy, co-founder and managing partner at Prime Venture Partners, said in a statement, "Our theme is usually if the sector is getting digitised and whether the firm has a compelling use case. In this regard, besides financial services, you will see a lot from us in the health care, logistics and education spaces."

"We are quite bullish on startups in the SaaS segment, which are based out of India and are selling overseas. Probably, we will do some deals in this segment next year," he said.

Synup, a provider of SaaS-based solutions that enables local businesses to manage their online presence, counts Prime Venture as its major investor. Last September, Synup raised $6 million in a financing round led by Vertex Ventures, in which Prime Venture also participated being an existing investor.

Swamy however also confirms that the firm would continue to invest in fintech space as well.

Last week, Prime Ventures participated in $3 Mn funding round of Bangalore-based Quizizz, which is an e-learning app. Prior to this -- in May this year -- it led $4.2 Mn funding of Bangalore-based mfine, an app-based on-demand healthcare service provider.

Notably, Prime Venture was also an investor in ZipDial — a mobile marketing firm — which was acquired by Twitter in 2015.

In January this year, Prime Venture Partners also participated in Bengaluru-based fintech startup NiYO Solutions raised $13.2 million in its Series A funding.

Via - Business Standard

On-Demand Healthcare Startup mfine Raises $4.2 Mn from Prime Venture Partners, Others

Bangalore-based mfine, an app-based on-demand healthcare service provider, has raised $4.2 million in Series A funding led by Prime Venture Partners along with participation of existing investors Stellaris Venture Partners and Mayur Abhaya (CEO and MD of LifeCell).

The startup will use freshly raised funds to build larger hospital network, and further strengthen the technology team of the startup, which presently counts 50 employees in Bengaluru.

Founded in 2017 by Ashutosh Lawania and Prasad Kompalli, mfine brings in instant and continuous connectivity with top doctors of the best hospitals. The startup had earlier raised $1.5 million from Stellaris Venture Partners, in September 2017. The startup has raised over USD 6 million in total, to date.

"We see a huge opportunity to bring the much needed, tech-driven transformation in the USD 50 billion primary healthcare delivery. With our deeply tech driven approach and working with reputed providers, we are effectively creating a 'cloud clinic' where quality healthcare can be accessed on demand from anywhere. We believe we can scale this across the country and beyond and help people gain much more control over their health," said mfine co-founder and CEO, Prasad Kompalli.

The mfine platform ensures that patients can reach the doctors on the network within 60 seconds and start the consultation. Users get access to the same doctors and other integrated experiences as visiting a hospital, virtually and when they need. mfine is also planning to launch additional services such as monitoring of vitals, collection of sample for lab tests and medicine delivery at home.

Additionally, the startup has built an AI-powered technology system that improves doctors' efficiency and effectiveness dramatically. The system is built on the foundation of standard medical ontologies and protocols and is able to learn and replicate high quality diagnosis and treatment methods. The system takes care of structured data collection, reminders for follow up based on signs/symptoms and execution of care protocols for chronic conditions, thereby building a platform that's unique and globally competitive.

Recent Health Tech Startups' Fundings

Last month, Mumbai-based Doxper, a health tech startup which has created a digital pen and coded paper system for doctors to record patient information, has raised $1.1 million in a pre-series A round led by Vidal Healthcare, a health insurance company.

In the same month, Bangaluru-based startup PregBuddy, a health-tech startup for women pregnancy, has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round of funding from Indian Angel Network (IAN).

Last month Karma Healthcare, an Udaipur, Rajasthan-based startup in the technology-led healthcare space, has raised INR 3 crore in equity funding from early stage investment firm 1Crowd.

In January, Sridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho, has announced that he has invested about $10 million in vTitan, a medical device startup based out of Chennai.

Via - Business Standard

On-Demand Healthcare Startup mfine Raises $4.2 Mn from Prime Venture Partners, Others

Bangalore-based mfine, an app-based on-demand healthcare service provider, has raised $4.2 million in Series A funding led by Prime Venture Partners along with participation of existing investors Stellaris Venture Partners and Mayur Abhaya (CEO and MD of LifeCell).

The startup will use freshly raised funds to build larger hospital network, and further strengthen the technology team of the startup, which presently counts 50 employees in Bengaluru.

Founded in 2017 by Ashutosh Lawania and Prasad Kompalli, mfine brings in instant and continuous connectivity with top doctors of the best hospitals. The startup had earlier raised $1.5 million from Stellaris Venture Partners, in September 2017. The startup has raised over USD 6 million in total, to date.

"We see a huge opportunity to bring the much needed, tech-driven transformation in the USD 50 billion primary healthcare delivery. With our deeply tech driven approach and working with reputed providers, we are effectively creating a 'cloud clinic' where quality healthcare can be accessed on demand from anywhere. We believe we can scale this across the country and beyond and help people gain much more control over their health," said mfine co-founder and CEO, Prasad Kompalli.

The mfine platform ensures that patients can reach the doctors on the network within 60 seconds and start the consultation. Users get access to the same doctors and other integrated experiences as visiting a hospital, virtually and when they need. mfine is also planning to launch additional services such as monitoring of vitals, collection of sample for lab tests and medicine delivery at home.

Additionally, the startup has built an AI-powered technology system that improves doctors' efficiency and effectiveness dramatically. The system is built on the foundation of standard medical ontologies and protocols and is able to learn and replicate high quality diagnosis and treatment methods. The system takes care of structured data collection, reminders for follow up based on signs/symptoms and execution of care protocols for chronic conditions, thereby building a platform that's unique and globally competitive.

Recent Health Tech Startups' Fundings

Last month, Mumbai-based Doxper, a health tech startup which has created a digital pen and coded paper system for doctors to record patient information, has raised $1.1 million in a pre-series A round led by Vidal Healthcare, a health insurance company.

In the same month, Bangaluru-based startup PregBuddy, a health-tech startup for women pregnancy, has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round of funding from Indian Angel Network (IAN).

Last month Karma Healthcare, an Udaipur, Rajasthan-based startup in the technology-led healthcare space, has raised INR 3 crore in equity funding from early stage investment firm 1Crowd.

In January, Sridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho, has announced that he has invested about $10 million in vTitan, a medical device startup based out of Chennai.

Via - Business Standard

Prime Venture Partners Raises ₹400 crore in Fund-III

Prime Venture Partners, an early stage fund, today announced the close of its third fund at INR 400 crore (~$60M). Prime will continue to focus on making concentrated investments with high conviction and support, maintaining its deep involvement model. The key investment sectors which the fund focuses on are Digital India, Fintech/Financial Services, Healthcare, Education, Logistics and Global SaaS solutions.

Founded in 2011, Prime Venture Partners is a Bangalore-based seed fund and incubator led by serial entrepreneurs Sanjay Swamy, Shripati Acharya and Amit Somani along with partner emeritus, Raj Mashruwala. It claims to has had a rich track record of investing in early stage technology startups in India and it has always focussed on companies that have an innovative approach to solving fundamental problems through technology.

Previously, Prime was earlier known as AngelPrime and had raised its first fund of $8M in 2012. Later in 2015, it rebranded itself as Prime and also raised Fund-II of a $46M. It was the first investor in ZipDial, a missed-call based startup that was acquired by Twitter in 2015, and Ezetap, a mobile payments company that has since raised about $50M in follow-on capital and is a leading provider of enterprise-grade payment acceptance solutions in India.

Prime is typically the first institutional investor in a startup. The firm follows a distinctive model of being highly selective and invests in only 3-5 companies per year, only after building deep conviction in entrepreneurs and their startups through a rapid yet thorough diligence process. A common theme among Prime portfolio companies is strong product and tech teams with unique insights and an ability to rapidly iterate. Portfolio companies work closely with all partners during the formative phase of the business, helping fine-tune all aspects of the company. The firm actively supports entrepreneurs with business and product strategy, refining operating metrics, hiring, partnerships, marketing, finance, all the way through raising subsequent capital.

While most of Prime’s portfolio companies are focussed on the booming Digital India opportunity, Prime also has several companies that target the US, Middle-East and other International markets, or that initially start in India and expand from India to other geographies. Most of these companies have gone on to raise strong follow-on rounds of investment from other leading Venture Capital firms in India, Silicon Valley and Asia.

Prime has three key areas of focus for investment:

• Fintech & Financial Services: Ezetap (2010 - enterprise payments), SmartOwner (2012 - Real-Estate Financial Services), Happay (2014 - Business Expense Management), KredX (2015 - Invoice Discounting/Working Capital for SME’s), Moneytap (2015 - App based consumer credit line), NiYO (2015 - Payroll and Benefits) and AffordPlan (2016 - HealthCare Financial Services).


• SaaS & Enterprise Solutions: HackerEarth (2014 - innovation management platform), Synup (2015 - digital marketing solutions), Nimble Wireless (2016 - IOT/Food, Medicine & Pet Safety), Vidgyor (2016 - Video Advertising Solutions), Tracxn (2016 - Business Research Information for Private Markets), myGate (2017 - Gated Community Security).


• HealthCare & Education: AffordPlan (2016- at intersection of Fintech and Healthcare), Maya (Women’s reproductive health), Quizizz (2015 - multiplayer quizzing platform).

Amit Somani, managing partner, Prime Venture Partners, said, "The quality of technology entrepreneurship in India is growing non-linearly. It is driven by the fact that several employees of the first wave of tech startups have the maturity and exposure to solving problems at scale and are now turning entrepreneurs themselves. Combining this with our first-hand experience and our unique model of investing in a few companies with high conviction and active support, we believe makes for a perfect storm and we’re excited to be in the midst of this."

Rajesh Mashruwala, Partner Emeritus, Prime Venture Partners, said, "There has never been better time for Indian innovators. When most of the world is plagued by political and economic uncertainties, India offers stable policy, level playing field and commitment to build digital economy."

Earlier this year, Prime led the investment of ₹16 crore in Bengaluru-based myGate, a mobile-app based security management solution providing startup for gated premises.

Prior to this, Prime had also participated in financing round of an another Bangalore based startup NiYO.

Prime Venture Partners Raises ₹400 crore in Fund-III

Prime Venture Partners, an early stage fund, today announced the close of its third fund at INR 400 crore (~$60M). Prime will continue to focus on making concentrated investments with high conviction and support, maintaining its deep involvement model. The key investment sectors which the fund focuses on are Digital India, Fintech/Financial Services, Healthcare, Education, Logistics and Global SaaS solutions.

Founded in 2011, Prime Venture Partners is a Bangalore-based seed fund and incubator led by serial entrepreneurs Sanjay Swamy, Shripati Acharya and Amit Somani along with partner emeritus, Raj Mashruwala. It claims to has had a rich track record of investing in early stage technology startups in India and it has always focussed on companies that have an innovative approach to solving fundamental problems through technology.

Previously, Prime was earlier known as AngelPrime and had raised its first fund of $8M in 2012. Later in 2015, it rebranded itself as Prime and also raised Fund-II of a $46M. It was the first investor in ZipDial, a missed-call based startup that was acquired by Twitter in 2015, and Ezetap, a mobile payments company that has since raised about $50M in follow-on capital and is a leading provider of enterprise-grade payment acceptance solutions in India.

Prime is typically the first institutional investor in a startup. The firm follows a distinctive model of being highly selective and invests in only 3-5 companies per year, only after building deep conviction in entrepreneurs and their startups through a rapid yet thorough diligence process. A common theme among Prime portfolio companies is strong product and tech teams with unique insights and an ability to rapidly iterate. Portfolio companies work closely with all partners during the formative phase of the business, helping fine-tune all aspects of the company. The firm actively supports entrepreneurs with business and product strategy, refining operating metrics, hiring, partnerships, marketing, finance, all the way through raising subsequent capital.

While most of Prime’s portfolio companies are focussed on the booming Digital India opportunity, Prime also has several companies that target the US, Middle-East and other International markets, or that initially start in India and expand from India to other geographies. Most of these companies have gone on to raise strong follow-on rounds of investment from other leading Venture Capital firms in India, Silicon Valley and Asia.

Prime has three key areas of focus for investment:

• Fintech & Financial Services: Ezetap (2010 - enterprise payments), SmartOwner (2012 - Real-Estate Financial Services), Happay (2014 - Business Expense Management), KredX (2015 - Invoice Discounting/Working Capital for SME’s), Moneytap (2015 - App based consumer credit line), NiYO (2015 - Payroll and Benefits) and AffordPlan (2016 - HealthCare Financial Services).


• SaaS & Enterprise Solutions: HackerEarth (2014 - innovation management platform), Synup (2015 - digital marketing solutions), Nimble Wireless (2016 - IOT/Food, Medicine & Pet Safety), Vidgyor (2016 - Video Advertising Solutions), Tracxn (2016 - Business Research Information for Private Markets), myGate (2017 - Gated Community Security).


• HealthCare & Education: AffordPlan (2016- at intersection of Fintech and Healthcare), Maya (Women’s reproductive health), Quizizz (2015 - multiplayer quizzing platform).

Amit Somani, managing partner, Prime Venture Partners, said, "The quality of technology entrepreneurship in India is growing non-linearly. It is driven by the fact that several employees of the first wave of tech startups have the maturity and exposure to solving problems at scale and are now turning entrepreneurs themselves. Combining this with our first-hand experience and our unique model of investing in a few companies with high conviction and active support, we believe makes for a perfect storm and we’re excited to be in the midst of this."

Rajesh Mashruwala, Partner Emeritus, Prime Venture Partners, said, "There has never been better time for Indian innovators. When most of the world is plagued by political and economic uncertainties, India offers stable policy, level playing field and commitment to build digital economy."

Earlier this year, Prime led the investment of ₹16 crore in Bengaluru-based myGate, a mobile-app based security management solution providing startup for gated premises.

Prior to this, Prime had also participated in financing round of an another Bangalore based startup NiYO.

Security Management App myGate Raises ₹16 Crore in First Round of Funding Led by Prime Venture Partners

Bengaluru-based myGate, a mobile-app based security management solution providing startup for gated premises, on Thursday, said that it had raised ₹16 crore in its first round of funding, led by Prime Venture Partners.

The startup plans to use the freshly raised funds to invest in technology and scale to 2 million homes across the top seven cities within the next two years.

Launched in 2016, myGate Apartment Security Management system is a mobile app based intelligent security software application to enhance safety of gated communities. myGate is free of hardware installation and is used by 100s of apartments in Bangalore.

Founded by ISB/IIM/IIT alumni -- Vijay Arisetty, Abhisek Kumar and Shreyans Daga, myGate had earlier raised funding from institutional investors.

myGate is digitising security for gated communities by empowering the owner of the apartment to control access of visitors into the society premises at the main gate itself. Explaining the product myGate chief executive Vijay Arisetty said that the app allows various control modes starting from delivery boys to domestic helps and even for guests.

"An average 2000 apartment gated society gets around 3000 to 4000 visitors per day and our assumptions say that there are around 15 million villas and flats in the country with around 35 million residents," said Arisetty. "We are targeting that space with our smartphone based product and with this new funding hope to reach 20 lakh households over the next two years."

For revenue generation the startup has a subscription model which the society management pays on a monthly basis and the charges depend on the size of the society and the number of gates that needs to be managed.

"The charges for the society vary between Rs 8000 and 30,000 per month," said Arisetty.

The security services market in India is a $6-billion industry according to Grant Thornton report, of which the gated-premises security market, comprising manual guards and security equipment, is estimated at $2 billion. In the top seven cities in India, myGate estimates show that there are more than 100,000 gated communities with 35 million residents.

In this month, besides leading the funding round of myGate, Prime Venture had also participated in financing round of an another Bangalore based startup NiYO. The VC firm was earlier known as AngelPrime, it re-branded itself to Prime Venture Partners in July 2015.

Security Management App myGate Raises ₹16 Crore in First Round of Funding Led by Prime Venture Partners

Bengaluru-based myGate, a mobile-app based security management solution providing startup for gated premises, on Thursday, said that it had raised ₹16 crore in its first round of funding, led by Prime Venture Partners.

The startup plans to use the freshly raised funds to invest in technology and scale to 2 million homes across the top seven cities within the next two years.

Launched in 2016, myGate Apartment Security Management system is a mobile app based intelligent security software application to enhance safety of gated communities. myGate is free of hardware installation and is used by 100s of apartments in Bangalore.

Founded by ISB/IIM/IIT alumni -- Vijay Arisetty, Abhisek Kumar and Shreyans Daga, myGate had earlier raised funding from institutional investors.

myGate is digitising security for gated communities by empowering the owner of the apartment to control access of visitors into the society premises at the main gate itself. Explaining the product myGate chief executive Vijay Arisetty said that the app allows various control modes starting from delivery boys to domestic helps and even for guests.

"An average 2000 apartment gated society gets around 3000 to 4000 visitors per day and our assumptions say that there are around 15 million villas and flats in the country with around 35 million residents," said Arisetty. "We are targeting that space with our smartphone based product and with this new funding hope to reach 20 lakh households over the next two years."

For revenue generation the startup has a subscription model which the society management pays on a monthly basis and the charges depend on the size of the society and the number of gates that needs to be managed.

"The charges for the society vary between Rs 8000 and 30,000 per month," said Arisetty.

The security services market in India is a $6-billion industry according to Grant Thornton report, of which the gated-premises security market, comprising manual guards and security equipment, is estimated at $2 billion. In the top seven cities in India, myGate estimates show that there are more than 100,000 gated communities with 35 million residents.

In this month, besides leading the funding round of myGate, Prime Venture had also participated in financing round of an another Bangalore based startup NiYO. The VC firm was earlier known as AngelPrime, it re-branded itself to Prime Venture Partners in July 2015.

Bengaluru-based Fintech Startup NiYO Raises $13.2 Million

Bengaluru-based fintech startup NiYO Solutions, raised $13.2 million (85 crore) in its Series A funding from investors including Social Capital, JS Capital LLC (the family office of Jonathan Soros), and Horizons Ventures and existing investor Prime Venture Partners.

The fund raised will be used by the startup to strengthen and expand its product suite, hire new talent and expand into tier 2 and tier 3 towns.

With this, the total fund raised by the startup in venture capital so far will reach $14 million. Earlier in July 2016, the startup had raised seed funding of undisclosed amount from Prime Ventures.

Founded in 2015 by Vinay Bagri (ex-Kotak Mahindra) and Virender Bisht (ex-Mobikwik), NiYO provides expense cards with all HR functions integrated into it - including salary and benefits.

According to NiYO CEO Bagri, the addressable market for the company's products is close to 75 million salaried employees in India. The product can also increase the take-home salaries and simplify financial planning and other banking needs for employees, he claims.

NiYO currently has around 500 corporate clients and 100,000 salaried employees. It aims to serve 5,000 organizations and over 1 million salaried employees by the end of 2018.

NiYO has also partnered with YES Bank recently to integrate their solution with the bank and roll out a multi-pocket card, an app and a digital account comprising multiple wallets.

Saas Startup Synup Raises $6M in Series A; Aims to Achieve 10x Growth in the Next 3 Years

Synup, a provider of SaaS-based solutions that enables local businesses to manage their online presence, today announced it has completed a $6 million (approx INR 40 crores) Series A round of financing. The fresh round of investment is led by Vertex Ventures along with Synup’s existing investor, Prime Venture Partners, who also participated in the round. The investment will help the company to rapidly expand its sales and marketing efforts as well as broaden and accelerate product development.

Ben Mathias, Managing Partner, Vertex Ventures said, “Synup has been able to solve a difficult problem in a market that is largely underpenetrated. Their strong early customer traction is a testament to the efficacy of their approach to address this massive market opportunity. We have been impressed with the experience of their team and the thoughtful design of their product, and look forward to helping scale this company.”

Shripati Acharya, Managing Partner, Prime Venture Partners said, “Prime is thrilled to continue our partnership with Synup. Synup is amongst the first wave of global SaaS companies to come out of India and we are looking forward to being a part of this journey along with Vertex. When we initially invested, Synup was just starting their journey. However, the clarity of vision from Ashwin in understanding both the opportunity and the execution of it left little doubt in our minds that we wanted to back Synup. In two years Synup has achieved rapid customer traction and revenue growth and is well positioned to scale to the next level.”

The Series A financing builds on an exceptional year for Synup which saw a rapidly growing roster of clients, and market momentum. Just after its launch in 2015, Synup achieved $1 million in ARR in the first 9 months, and since then over 50,000 locations in the U.S & Canada have used its solutions. The company has already started to generate a positive cash flow and aims to grow 10x in the next 3 years.

Currently, local businesses are getting discovered in hundreds of fragmented consumer platforms on the web & mobile. Most of these listings have to be manually updated across all the platforms and it takes approximately 8 hours a week for a store manager to just update location data. The listings also do not provide the business with any analytics or insight into user reviews.

Synup offers a complete local marketing solution that makes it easy for businesses to manage their location data, presence, reputation and analytics. Synup tracks hundreds of thousands of business profiles & monitors millions of interactions to provide businesses with automated marketing as well as insights that they would otherwise not get. It also manages and boosts local SEO efforts for agencies, enterprises and small businesses with multiple locations. Synup works with both digital agencies and businesses directly to manage their listings on over 50 of the most important local search destinations. Additionally, it tracks customer reviews and analyses rankings on different search engines.

In the next six months, the company wants to go beyond location data management and offer a wider breadth of products to its customers. The company is bullish on its growth as out of the total 28 million local businesses in the US, only about a million (3.57%), use automated location-marketing services like Synup.

Synup’s founder Ashwin Ramesh is a serial entrepreneur having started his first business when he was still in high school. Currently, the company has over 40 employees and is looking to hire across all sections of the business. Synup plans to expand into Europe and United Kingdom by mid - 2018.

Ashwin Ramesh, Founder & CEO, Synup said, “These are exciting times at Synup. There is an undisputed need for an automated marketing solution for millions of local businesses across the globe. We are fortunate to have partnered with two top tier investors such as Vertex and Prime, who bring both a deep understanding of our business as well as operational expertise. We have built a unique and cost effective solution and have seen some excellent growth so far and aim to take this to other geographies soon with a wider product offering.”

With cumulative committed capital in excess of $2.5 billion, Vertex invests in early-stage IT and healthcare opportunities in China, Silicon Valley, India, Israel, and South East Asia. Since 1988, Vertex is honoured to have partnered with the founders of global leaders such as Waze, 91, Grab, IGG, CyberArk, Reebonz, SolarEdge, Force10, FirstCry, Yatra and Changba. Vertex Ventures SEA is one of the pillars of the Vertex Group's network of Funds focusing on early stage opportunities in the Information Technology sector in SEA and India.

Prime Venture Partners is a Bangalore-based seed fund led by serial entrepreneurs Shripati Acharya, Sanjay Swamy, and Amit Somani. The fund is focused on building disruptive product companies out of India, and addresses a much needed gap in the Indian startup ecosystem - by bringing a combination of first-hand entrepreneurial experience, operating expertise and meaningful capital. Prime Venture Partners’ portfolio includes exciting startups such as KredX, Maya, AffordPlan, MoneyTap, NiYO, Ezetap, SmartOwner, Synup, HackerEarth, happay, Nimble Wireless, Vidgyor and ZipDial (acquired by Twitter).

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