Edtech Startup Dhurina Raises $1.2 Mn Led by RVCF, LetsVenture and Others

L To R - Mr Murari Singh (Chief Strategy Officer), Mr Sachin Sardana (Chief Operating Officer) & Mr Ajay Kumar (CEO), Dhurina

INSTARTO acted as an exclusive Financial Advisor to Dhurina in relation to the transaction.

The rapidly expanding E-learning platform, Dhurina, has recently concluded its second round of funding and has raised USD 1.2 million led by RVCF and other investors like LetsVenture, RBD Publication, India Accelerator, Precision Startup Advisory, and Pai Ventures. The company commits that the freshly infused funds will be deployed towards technological enhancements, aggressive business growth, expansion in the company size, and to improve the product’s functionality for students.

Within 2 years of the launch, the company has been able to reach the milestone of 2.5 million downloads and aiming to achieve 10 Mn USD revenue by FY-23 with a user base of 10 Mn+. With a team of 150+ experienced educators of the country, Dhurina offers 350+ courses for 100+ state level competitive exam categories (including some of the central-level exams) along with various skill-development courses. It provides Live Classes, recorded lectures, PDF notes, Test Series, Doubt sessions and short videos for instant revision.

It has previously raised $ 135000 funding from prominent investors like Chandigarh Angels Network and Modulor Capital, and with the current round, the total investment raised stands at $1.3 million.

Commenting on this fund raising, Sachin Sardana, Co-Founder and COO, Dhurina said, "The recently concluded round of funding will allow us to leverage the opportunity to expand to other big states of the country and deliver quality education to students at nominal prices. We intend to cater to the exponentially growing market of E-learners in India, who need a platform to prepare for their dream jobs. With these funds, we will now consolidate our position and spread to other big states of the country. Apart from expanding the company’s market at PAN-India level, we also plan to invest the funds in employee’s growth, scaling platform infrastructure and enhancing the product’s features."

Commenting on the same, Mr. Ravi Mathur, Vice President of RVCF said, "We are fortunate to be part in the journey of Dhurina to bring the changes in the education system for the unprivileged and Tier-III students, which is the need of the hour. Their motive serves out to be the standout operator in the Digital Bharat era. We have witnessed their explosive growth in their startup journey of two years and we are delighted to back Dhurina as they march towards success."

Ayush Dadhich, Co-Founder and CEO, and Shubham Sharma, from Instarto (Exclusive Financial Advisor to Dhurina) said, “Dhurina is changing the way how aspirants used to study for the state level government exams. It is a clear testament to the team and their strong value proposition that Dhurina has scaled to become a market leader in this niche category. Edtech space in the county right now is booming and due to all the valid reasons, given by its mass impact nature.”

Tech-based Supply Chain Startup Elixia Tech Secures $1 Million in Pre-Series A Funding

From Left to right - Mr Mihir Ravani, CEO Elixia ,Mr Sanket Seth Founder, Elixia, and Mr Mrudand Vora CTO, Elixia

Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF) put their weight behind Mumbai based Elixia Tech to scale up ultra-modern supply chain technology solutions

Mumbai, 6th Sept 2021: Mumbai headquartered Supply Chain tech-based startup, Elixia Tech Solutions Ltd, has secured USD 1 million in its Pre-Series A funding led by RVCF and other angel investors. With this investment, Elixia Tech is planning to scale up its presence in both domestic and international markets.

Sanket Sheth founded Elixia Tech with an ambition to better the logistics sector in the country by introducing high-end technological innovations in the field of supply chain. Elixia Tech had introduced its first product in Vehicle Telematics space, followed by a completely digital and efficient suite of supply chain solutions, under the umbrella of Supply Chain Control Tower. It provides interlinked softbots for all segments of logistics, warehouse and inventory that control supply chain planning and execution to reduce costs and bring visibility for goods in-transit and provide actionable business intelligence using Machine Learning.

Announcing the investment, Elixia Tech’s Founder, Mr. Sanket Sheth added, “This is a very important milestone. While supply chains have evolved from on-ground manual operations to something as advanced as digital twins, majority of companies are still stuck somewhere in between. With the world going through the impact of external changes, it has now become even more imperative to bring in real-time visibility, optimization & transparency in the supply chain. Thus, I believe that now is the right time and the right place to get the right products to make waves in the Indian as well as Global Logistics Market.”

The investment round was led by RVCF. Gaurav Chowdhry, VP, RVCF said, “The growth of supply chain is majorly dependent on the growth of supply chain software solutions market. Supply chain solutions give the power and visibility to monitor processes, identify the exact underperforming areas and gain reliable data-driven insights to efficiently run operations. We are truly impressed with Elixia’s management team, their commitment to providing new-age solutions and impressive growth.."

Elixia Tech is a company founded in 2011 with a mission to incubate high-end technological innovations in the field of supply chain. Elixia Tech is associated with hundreds of customers across FMCG, Pharmaceutical, Chemical, 3PL and many more sectors.

For more details visit: https://elixia.tech or https://www.linkedin.com/company/elixiatech/

RVCF is a VC fund based out of Jaipur, and has invested in more than 37 companies, straddling across various sectors and stages.

Shell Foundation-backed Noida Startup Inficold Raises $900K from RVCF and Other Investors

Inficold, a Noida - based startup supported by Shell Foundation, an independent UK registered charity, that provides cold storage solutions has raised $900,000 (Rs. 6.5 crore approximately) in a funding round from RVCF and other undisclosed high net worth individuals as a part of their Pre Series A fund closure. The funds raised will be utilized to expand the overall manufacturing, sales and servicing capabilities by the company.

Instant Milk Cooler installed at a Milk Collection Center in Tamil Nadu

Founded in 2015, Inficold has developed a retrofittable thermal energy storage technology for storing cooling in a low-cost medium such as water to ice. The technology is designed to use solar electric energy to make ice, and later use it for cooling purposes. Inficold's products enable the application of thermal storage for virtually any cooling needs, be it milk, cold storage, air conditioning and vaccine refrigeration, without making any major modifications to existing cooling hardware. The current product portfolio consists of modular cold storage, instant milk coolers and bulk milk coolers. It provides round the clock cooling with just 7 hours of grid/solar power. The modular cold storage units store 5-100 MT of farm produce in 4-16 C temperature range, whereas milk coolers cool 200-10,000 L of milk on a daily basis.

The company's future vision is to permeate in dairy, horticulture, poultry, meat, cold logistics and air conditioning segments across India. The primary challenges addressed by Inficold are grid dependency, diesel and unreliable electric batteries which make cold chain cost prohibitive for developing countries. Shell Foundation has supported the company for last 4 years in various product development activities.

The company has installations in more than 17 states of India with a strong presence in North Eastern states including Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura. Inficold is aggressively ramping up its production capacity by over 10 times. The increased capacity will allow the company to cater to the demand with minimized lead time for the customer. Inficold's in house R&D centre is also developing other sustainable cooling solutions in air conditioning space. The company is partnering with multiple channel partners to strengthen the local presence in sales, marketing, and installation. The company has also started leveraging international market and has few installations in African subcontinent. The company expects sales of over 1000 units in the next 2 years with a focus towards providing sustainable cooling solutions for farm level cooling in agriculture segment.

Sharing his thoughts on the latest funding raised by Inficold from RVCF and other investors, Dr. Nitin Goel, Co-founder and CEO, Inficold said, We are delighted to receive funding from RVCF and other investors. We had started Inficold with the mission to utilise the immense potential of cold chain solutions to increase the output of Indian agriculture. Over the last year, the accelerated growth that we have seen is clear evidence of the viability of our business model. RVCF also believes in the potential of cold chain solutions to transform Indian agriculture. We are thankful for their support.

On supporting Inficold, Gaurav Chowdhry, Vice President at RVCF, said, "Inficold is focusing on energy-efficient cold chain solutions across India and other markets and has developed innovative products catering to persistent problem of food wastage and distressed sales. We are excited to collaborate with Nitin and Himanshu in their journey."

About Inficold

Founded in 2015 by Himanshu Pokharna and Nitin Goel, Inficold is a technology leader in sustainable and efficient cooling solutions through their thermal energy storage and off-grid solar integration for cooling. Inficold has developed a retrofittable thermal energy storage technology for storing cooling in a low-cost medium such as water to ice. 

The technology is designed to use solar electric energy to make ice, and later use it for cooling purposes. Inficold's products enable the application of thermal storage for virtually any cooling needs, be it milk, cold storage, air conditioning and vaccine refrigeration, without making any major modifications to existing cooling hardware. 

The current product portfolio consists of modular cold storage, instant milk coolers and bulk milk coolers. It provides round the clock cooling with just 7 hours of grid/solar power. The modular cold storage units store 5-100 MT of farm produce in 4-16C temperature range, whereas milk coolers cool 200-10,000 L of milk on a daily basis. The company has installations in more than 17 states of India with a strong presence in North Eastern states of India, including Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura. The company was a recipient of National Technology Award in Startup Category, 2019.