Online Footwear Brand Rapawalk raises $300K in Seed Round from Inflection Point Ventures

Funds raised will be used for business growth 
Rapawalk to offer an omnichannel shopping experience to its customers 
IPV emerges as one of the top 3 angel networks in India making 18th investment since March this year

Rapawalk, Bangalore based online footwear brand that offers a personalized service to its customers has raised $3,00,000 in seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures, one of India’s largest angel investment platforms in India.

The funds raised in this round will be focused towards scaling up their business. Rapawalk plans to continue expanding their online business for the coming 12-15 months and also offer an omnichannel shopping experience to its customers.

Vinay Bansal, Founder & CEO, IPV says,'' We believe in the growth story of customized footwear in India, especially with our insight that every customer’s foot is different, and standard shoe sizes are not enough for the discerning customer. Rapawalk being in the D2C segment, offers a great personalized footwear design and shopping experience while managing the entire customer journey. Their light inventory business model and continued growth path on online platforms stands Rapawalk in good stead to reach further heights.”

The digital first footwear brand, founded in 2018 by IIM-Ahmedabad alumni Kashif Mohammad and Aravind Maddireddy, counts marquee investors like Raveen Sastry, co-founder Myntra, Sanjay Ramakrishnan, former Marketing Cgief, Myntra; and Ravi Garikipati, former CTO, Flipkart, among others.

Kashif Mohammad, Co-founder & CEO, Rapawalk says, “Personalization is the future of Fashion. We want to give ultimate power to every customer to create their own footwear, thereby giving them immersive shopping experience. Footwear shopping always had inherent challenge related to fitting, we at Rapawalk are driven by the vision to make footwear for all foot shape and sizes.”

He adds, “Since our launch we have seen much stronger demand for personalized footwear. We are committed to our vision of bringing product and sizing innovation and become the top footwear brand in country. We are delighted to partner with IPV towards building Rapawalk, we believe, we will benefit massively from IPV's strong ecosystem of leaders.”

The bespoke service, Rapawalk was born to change the status quo, their made-to-fit products and inventory light business model ensure a personalized experience for customers. Since its inception in 2018, Company has recorded a 15X growth in sales volume in the last Financial year, with a 40% cumulative monthly growth rate.

Footwear in India is currently a $6 bn+ market growing at a fast 14.5% on a yearly basis. Branded footwear is only 45% of the market and is outpacing the unbranded footwear at a 19% Y-o-Y growth. Online penetration of the footwear sales stands at a small 11%, but experiencing an accelerated growth of 27% Y-o-Y.

About Rapawalk

Rapawalk is a D2C footwear brand, launched in 2018 by Kashif Mohammad & Aravind Maddireddy, came into existence after a deep industry knowledge and experience with working with major Global brands. The fashion space in the western world is undergoing an unprecedented change due to the digital revolution and changing consumer preference. 

During our initial phase of research, Rapawalk Founders got inspired by few of the digitally enabled brands in the US market. Clubbing their deep know-how of product manufacturing with the technology led revolution, they wanted to create a brand which is born in India and has a true global spirit. From the consumer perspective, they realized that footwear shopping experience is often a boring experience where innovation is lacking and customers have to compromise with the existing SKU and fit offered by the available brand. Rapawalk was born to change the status quo.

About Inflection Point Ventures

Inflection Point Ventures is an initiative of accomplished CXOs & Angel Investors who firmly believe that ‘Everyone can Grow with Startups’. Started in 2018, IPV has invested more than Rs. 100 crores across 40+ startups. IPV’s investors’ base, currently at 2700+ is seeing a massive influx of highly accomplished CXOs and HNIs, looking to invest in startups with rational valuation and sustainable business model.

Venture Catalysts Leads An Investment of $500K in Rezolve.ai, An AI-led, Automated Employee Service Desk

The innovative platform harnesses cutting-edge AI technology to provide an end-to-end, automated resolution for L1 employee support

Mumbai, 9th November 2020: Venture Catalysts, India's first and largest integrated incubator, and accelerator, has recently led an investment of USD 500,000 in Rezolve.ai, an AI-led, automated employee service desk. The funding round also saw participation from Venkat Raju - Serial Entrepreneur and Technology Evangelist, Shanmugam Nagappan -Seasoned IT Leader with CIO and Senior VP (IT) experience with multi-billion dollar companies, Dhrumil Shah and Harshit Shah - Seasoned Angel Investor from Ahmedabad and Dr Aloknath De -Veteran Technologist. 

Founded by Saurabh Kumar, Manish Sharma, and Uday Bhaskar Reddy, Rezolve.ai aims to disrupt the IT support market by improving employee servicing experience and satisfaction through its automated query resolution software. The SaaS-based platform uses five types of AI skills to fully automate all the repetitive tasks in the employee service desk. The technology, therefore, improves the overall service management by saving more time and effort for complex issues. 

Speaking on the investment, Saurabh Kumar, CEO – Rezolve.ai, said, "We are excited to work with Venture Catalyst. Most employee service desks are still using traditional models, tools, and KPIs. As a result, employees still waste a substantial amount of time getting simple issues resolved manually. Rezolve.ai is revolutionizing employee support by auto-resolving most employee issues within seconds and providing an industry-leading ROI and resolution rates. Over the last couple of years, our product has succeeded in developing commonly needed knowledge, task, and process automation skills – all available to employees at their channel of choice – MS Teams." 

Manish Sharma, COO – Rezolve.ai, added, "The excitement in the market for our product and vision is not only palpable but also infectious. Many enterprises are looking to improveIT supportand employee engagement and are finding that they can leapfrog to a next level of automation with our innovative product. We have a deep relationship with Microsoft and our positioning as 'MS Teams based AI Service desk' is resonating with customers." 

Udaya Bhaskar Reddy, CTO and Head of Engineering – Rezolve.ai, said, "Rezolve.ai is an innovative and robust product. We will continue to lead the space of employee support, with each new product release representing a handful of gems."                                 

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & President – Venture Catalysts, commented, "IT support cost is undoubtedly a major liability for companies. The team at Resolve.ai is using AI to automate L1 support that will essentially help organizations in cost-cutting by reducing human involvement. The market that the venture is addressing is worth USD 10 billion. The company is well-equipped to capitalize on this market because automation in the IT support domain is largely unexplored to date. This, along with the founding team's dedication, makes us very confident of the investment." 

Besides carrying a first-mover advantage in the market, the company provides an average of 45% auto resolution rate. The central focus of this innovative platform is to create outstanding ROI and satisfied employees. 

About VCats

Venture Catalysts is India's first integrated incubator. It invests $250K – $1.5 Million in early stage startups that have potential to create enduring value for over a long period of time. Venture Catalysts brings a lethal combination of Capital, Mentoring and Business Network to help investee companies to succeed. Their innovation provides value to startups through its extensive angel network, funding, community, services and co-working facility.

Biotechnology Startup Shilps Sciences Raises Funding from AngelList to Advance Cell-based Drug Discovery Platform

Shilps is a deep science company in the Biotechnology space that has developed a microfluidic Single Cell Platform for drug discovery and development.

The platform helps clients identify the best cells for various applications, including cell based therapies for cancer.

Bengaluru, 09 November 2020 : Bengaluru based Biotech startup Shilps Sciences today announced closing a Pre-series A financing round led by AngelList, which also saw participation from some existing investors. The funding will be used to expand client workflows on their platform and expand presence in the US.

Shilps Sciences was born out of a vision to become a leading technology innovator and enabler at the forefront of the coming wave of biological engineering. It is founded by Dr Ashwin Lal, a PhD from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland with over two decades of experience in instrumentation, nanotechnology and scientific product development. During the course of his work in nanotechnology, Dr Lal saw an opportunity to create nanotechnology-based instruments for the Life Sciences Industry. This led Dr Lal to return back to India and found Shilps Sciences.

Shilps' patented high output 'Nano-bioreactors on a Chip' technology helps clients analyze single cells for various therapeutic applications, including antibody production and T Cell Therapy. Operating at the intersection of biology, electronics, fluid mechanics and data, Shilps enables the rapid deployment of nanoscale single cell workflows for therapeutics and beyond. The platform will be used to identify which of the T-cells are most effective in killing cancer tumor cells. The global market for cell analysis was an estimated $16 billion in 2019 and is forecast to reach $22.7 billion by 2024.

Commenting on Shilps' innovative technology, BioPharma Industry leader & Head of Biologics at Dr. Reddy's , Dr. Cartikeya Reddy said, "Current mainstream methods are unable to provide the type of single cell analysis that is required for novel therapeutic development in a post CRISPR world. Shilps has a promising single cell platform."

"Microorganisms are the workhorses of nature and the best factories ever designed. The biopharma industry is now harnessing nature's four-billion-year-old cell 'machinery' to produce valuable therapeutics. Finding the right master cell for drug discovery is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. Given the strength of our single cell platform, antibodies and CAR-T Cell Therapy are two key focus areas. We are excited that the current round of funding enables us to accelerate biology application development on our platform and expand our presence in the US ecosystem. We are also engaging with key opinion leaders and early access partners in this field." said Ashwin Lal, PhD., CEO of Shilps.

Living cells are the future of manufacturing a whole new class of pharmaceuticals, accelerated by novel gene editing techniques. Cells drive billion-dollar product lines like Avastin and Herceptin for cancer therapy. Powering this growth in cell-based pharma R&D is a new class of enabling technology providers.

Shilps' mission is to drive speedy and affordable discovery in the healthcare industry by bringing pioneering technology innovations.

"Delighted to see a deep science startup from India developing disruptive technology for the world. Synthetic biology is the next frontier that will fundamentally transform a vast range of industries, "says Abhishek Nag, lead Investor, AngelList India syndicate.

Earlier funding includes grant support from the Department of Biotechnology and equity investments from Center for Cellular and Molecular Platforms. "We are excited to have supported and funded Shilps, a deep science startup, to help realize their vision of developing world leading technologies, while being incubated at C-CAMP," said Dr Taslimarif Saiyed, CEO and Director, C-CAMP. The startup was also recognized by Applied Ventures LLC, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials Inc as one of the top 3 deep tech startups in India. As part of Applied Startup Technology & Research Accelerator, they have an MoU for scientific collaboration.

Nektar.ai Raises USD 2.15 Mn in Seed Funding Led by Nexus Venture Partners

Singapore based Nektar.ai raises US$2.15 mn in seed funding to build an "AI-powered GTM collaboration engine for modern revenue teams"

L-R Abhijeet Vijayvergiya, Aravind Ravi Sulekha

Singapore, November 9th, 2020: B2B Sales Productivity startup, Nektar.ai has raised a seed round of funding led by Nexus Venture Partners with participation from Insignia Venture Partners, Arka Venture Labs, Better Capital and Vietnam Investments Group.

A clutch of high profile individual investors like Anand Chandrasekaran (EVP at Five9), Ganesh Lakshminarayanan (CEO, Enterprise Business at Airtel), Vinod Muthukrishnan (Chief Growth Officer, CCBU at Cisco), Venkat Tadanki (Ex-Founder/Board Member at IBM Daksh) and Aneesh Reddy (Co-founder & CEO at Capillary Technologies) also participated in the funding round.

Nektar.ai was founded earlier this year by seasoned SaaS sales leader, ex-President & MD APAC of Capillary Technologies, Abhijeet Vijayvergiya and third-time founder and ex-Zendesk tech leader Aravind Ravi Sulekha.

Abhijeet Vijayvergiya, Co-founder & CEO, said, "In the last decade the investment in sales tools globally has grown by 5 times but the average sales quota attainment has fallen 40%. According to Forbes, 57% of sales reps missed their numbers in 2018. At Nektar.ai we want to change this by reimagining the future of modern sales and building a first of its kind AI-driven sales productivity solution that will help the Go To Market revenue teams to seamlessly collaborate and make more sales reps successful in meeting their Quota."

And with over 40,000 B2B Sales teams globally and over 15 million sales professionals, the opportunity for the B2B Sales Productivity market is around US$8-10 Bn and growing. Nektar.AI is well-positioned to address this opportunity. It does this by connecting the world of unstructured data like emails, calendar, Linkedin, Zoom to the world of CRM and overlays the same with the organization's best practices and sales playbooks. This helps even the average reps to learn and perform alongside the high performers in their sales teams.

"Nektar.ai is filling a key gap that exists in how revenue teams operate: a collaboration platform that captures and leverages the collective experience and intelligence of the Go To Market teams and helps in operationalizing the best practices and winning sales playbooks. We are thrilled to partner with Abhijeet and Aravind toward building Nektar into a remarkable company," said Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners who has been an early investor at companies like Postman, Rancher Labs, Druva.

Yinglan Tan, Founding Managing Partner at Insignia Ventures Partners, added, "We are excited for Abhijeet and his team as they build and grow Nektar.ai to be the leading SaaS company reinventing productivity and intelligence for revenue and Go To Market teams across South East Asia and the world." 

"B2B Sales has not undergone a transformation for more than a decade and as a result, salespeople continue to work for the tools and not the other way round. It's about time that the vision of tools working for sales teams comes to life. I believe Nektar.ai is on a mission to accomplish that and supercharge the productivity of salespeople," said Vinod Muthukrishnan, Chief Growth Officer at Cisco.

Nektar's founding team has been initially working in stealth mode with a select list of early adopters and now plans to use the seed funding to further build out its platform and ramp up the engineering & product teams. It plans to open up its highly anticipated early access program for general availability later next year.

Lending Firm GalaxyCard Secures Seed Funding from prominent Angel Investors

Aims to revolutionize the concept of lending options through instantly approved digital credit cards

New Delhi, Novemeber 2020: GalaxyCard, India's fastest lending solutions offering instantly approved credit cards has recently raised an undisclosed amount of funding from prominent seed investors - Gopinath Latpate, Samyakth Capital, and other angels from Eaglewings Ventures Alliance Network. The acquired funding bolsters the company's ongoing business plans aimed at expanding customer outreach and adding more channels to increase GalaxyCard's accessibility for customers.

Launched in 2018, GalaxyCard has successfully acquired a huge customer base from more than 600 towns across the country. Its instantly approved credit cards are made available in 3 minutes and benefit the customers with zero annual, joining, or interest charges.

"The traditional credit card application process does not fit customers of all income groups. Additionally, the amount of money that goes into paying annual and interest charges for using a credit card is massive that make people rely on the traditional lending process. Through GalaxyCard, we focus on making credit cards available to customers with an income of less than 30k a month and help them become self-reliant when it comes to taking credits", says Amit Kumar, the founder of GalaxyCard.

"GalaxyCard envisions to give every creditworthy customer a way to sail through minor variations in their financial situations with dignity. Banks and financial institutions have ignored these customers for a long time; we're adamant to change that", he added.

GalaxyCard adopts a customer-centric approach in making the tech-enabled lending process convenient to its target audience. Unlike the way traditional credit card application process works, it uses online documentation, eliminates long processing duration, and makes it feasible for customers to pay their utility bills. In such a short span, the company has witnessed a huge growth of 15% week over week.

"The vision of GalaxyCard and their approach to tech-enabled lending is a key differentiator. Their focus, grit, and execution provide a huge potential to become the credit card for Bharat", said Gopinath Latpate, one of the key investors in GalaxyCard.

GalaxyCard is also working aggressively on its plans to strengthen its foothold in the market. To increase customer outreach, it is planning to launch premium credit cards for the upper segment customers in the less than 30k per month income bracket. Additionally, it is also exploring credit card options for students to make them manage their education expenses and learn financial management from an early age.

Commenting on the vision and business plans of GalaxyCard, Mr. Aalesh Avlani of Samyakth Capital said, "Samyakth Capital is one of the first backers in FinTechs. Our investment in GalaxyCard comes as a result of deep alignment with Amit's vision of GalaxyCard and on his passion to make credit cards available to everyone". - Samyakth Capital.

Furthermore, the company also seeks to launch a premium version of the card that gives a higher limit to customers with a decent income and a history of paying their bills.

Additionally, to take the leverage of the upcoming festive season, GalaxyCard is planning to introduce digital gold for customers who have been affected by the exacerbating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and looking for a flexible and convenient credit option.

About GalaxyCard

GalaxyCard provides one of the fastest lending solutions in India through its exclusive and instantly approved credit cards. Incepted in 2018, the company has acquired a huge customer base from more than 600 towns across the country. The digital credit card can instantly be made available within 3 minutes and benefits the customers with no annual, joining, or interest charges. It can be used to make all kinds of payments including utility bills, phone recharge, and even paying for roadside stalls.

Udacity Secures $75 Mn to Continue Momentum

New Delhi, 5th November' 2020- Udacity, which prepares employees and students for careers of the future, today announced its Q3 enterprise and government bookings rose by 120% year-over-year, total bookings increased 80% year-over-year, and ARR increased 260% in H1 2020. In addition, the company has reached profitability and, to continue building on this growth, Udacity has signed a $75 million debt facility, with Hercules Capital (NYSE: HTGC) serving as the underwriter.

Udacity's market growth is driven by increasing interest from businesses and governments for talent with the most in-demand and emerging technology skills. Udacity's clients now include five of the world's top seven aerospace companies, three of the Big Four professional services firms, the world's leading pharmaceutical company, Egypt's Information Technology Industry Development Agency, and three of the four branches of the United States Department of Defense.

Udacity has also continued to partner with industry leaders to offer the same high-level skills training to individuals. Most recently, Microsoft and Udacity launched a Machine Learning Engineer for Microsoft Azure Nanodegree program. Udacity also partnered with AT&T to provide 1,000 Nanodegree licenses at a combined value of over $1 million to members of underserved communities.

"Our clients clearly understand that investing in current talent, versus hiring from the outside, has proven to be a far more effective way to accelerate their digital transformation strategy," said Gabriel Dalporto, CEO of Udacity. "This new financing will help us continue to scale and provide global workers with the skills they need to future-proof their careers."

"Given Udacity's growth, focus on sustainable business practices, and expanding reach across multiple industries, we are excited to provide this investment. We look forward to working with the company to help them sustain their impressive global growth, and continued innovation in upskilling and reskilling," said Steve Kuo, Senior Managing Director and Technology Group Head at Hercules Capital.

For more information on Udacity's industry-leading Nanodegrees and programs, please visit: udacity.com.

About Udacity

Udacity is a global, online training platform powering digital transformation and accelerated time-to-market initiatives for Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises. Udacity programs provide industry-created practitioner skills through a series of "Nanodegree" programs consisting of online courses and real-world projects in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, autonomous systems, cloud computing, cybersecurity, programming, digital marketing, and product management, among other disciplines. Udacity collaborates with expert instructors and over 200 global industry partners including AT&T, Google, Facebook, Mercedes-Benz, and NVIDIA to power technical education. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., the private company has operations in the United Kingdom, Egypt, Germany, India, and the United Arab Emirates. Udacity has raised $238 million in funding to date from investors including Bertelsmann, Andreessen Horowitz, Charles River Ventures, Drive Capital and Hercules Capital. For more information, please visit www.udacity.com.

About Hercules Capital, Inc.

Hercules Capital, Inc. (NYSE: HTGC) is the leading and largest specialty finance company focused on providing senior secured venture growth loans to high-growth, innovative venture capital-backed companies in a broad variety of technology, life sciences and sustainable and renewable technology industries. Since inception (December 2003), Hercules has committed more than $10.2 billion to over 500 companies and is the lender of choice for entrepreneurs and venture capital firms seeking growth capital financing.

9Unicorns Funds the Future of Online Video Sharing; Invests in One of the Fastest Growing Apps - Mitron TV

The funding round also saw active participation from lead investors including Nexus Venture Partners and 3one4 Capital.

 

New Delhi, 5th November, 2020: 9Unicorns, India's first idea-phase accelerator VC fund, has invested in Mitron - a short video sharing application. With this investment, 9Unicorns further underscores its commitment to supporting high-potential home-grown startups; in line with the PM's rallying call for Atmanirbhar Bharat. Nexus Venture Partners led the USD 5 Million funding round in August and 3one4 Capitalled the immediately preceding INR 2 Crore pre-seed round in July. 

Founded in April 2020 by Shivank Agarwal and Anish Khandelwal; Mitron TV is a social media application built for sharing and creating minute-long videos, catering especially to the Indian market and focused on adding value to every user. The idea was to provide an innovative and engaging digital platform for the local talent that does not get the exposure it deserves. Hence, the platform enables users to create, consume, and share bite-sized videos across categories and talents.Within3 months since its launch, the app showed a promising traction by crossing 10+ million downloads. It currently boasts 39+ million downloads on the Android Play Store with an average of 11+ billion monthly views. The app recently made its debut on the iOS App Store.

Shivank Agarwal, Co-Founder and CEO, Mitron TV, said, "We are delighted to have the support of 9Unicorns in this journey. Mitron TV has received tremendous growth within 6 months of its inception. With 9Unicorns joining us on this new endeavour, we are sure of providing ground-breaking innovations in the short-video app industry."

Anish Khandelwal, Co-Founder and CTO, Mitron TV, added, "Mitron TV is a user friendly and user's first platform. We are thrilled to have 9Unicorns'tremendous support. At Mitron, we are tirelessly working towards creating unique in-app experiences with best in class features for quality content. This collaboration will further help us in creating a highly-engaged community of users."

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder& Managing Director – 9Unicorns, commented, "The initial six-month progress of Mitron TV is enough to reflect the terrific potential and vision of the idea and the dedication put by the founding team. Their strategies are in line with the need and scope of the emerging digital market, which if executed well, will show more promising customer response. We are therefore delighted to support a dynamic and innovative startup such as theirs." 

On October 31, 2020,Mitron TV also launched Atmanirbhar Apps, a platform built for enabling the discovery of other "Made In India" apps. Atmanirbhar Apps lists the available domestic apps across numerous categories like social media, lifestyle, utility, gaming, e-commerce and government. The idea is to empower and support home-grown technology and talent of Indian developers, thereby disrupting the Indian digital market on the back of the innovative potential within the country. 

Leading Indian startup founders also participated in the funding round in their individual capacity. These include names such as Deep Kalra (Chairman, MakeMyTrip Ltd.), Amrish Rau (CEO, Pine Labs), Jitendra Gupta (Founder, Jupiter), Amarjit Batra (Managing Director, Spotify India), Radhika Ghai (Co-founder, Shopclues), and Vikalp Sahni (Co-founder and ex-CTO at GoIbibo). Other investors who participated in the funding round include TK Kurien (Managing partner, Premji Invest), Manish Vij and Harish Bahl of Smile Group.

About 9Unicorns

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage start-ups. 9Unicorns provides funding of up to $100K per start-up 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 start-ups across various themes & sectors. 9Unicorns' strength & focus is to provide a hands-on support ecosystem for start-ups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doorsto the start-upsfor 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 acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

 

CHARGE+ZONE, an EV Charging Company, Secures a $3 Mn pre-Series A Investment led by Venture Catalysts

The funding round saw active participation from other lead investors like Mumbai Angels, Keiretsu Forum, and Ramakrishnan Family Office.

 

New Delhi, 4^th November, 2020: Venture Catalysts, India's first and largest integrated incubator and accelerator, has recently led a $3 million investment in CHARGE+ZONE an innovative EV Charging Network company.  Several prominent names including Mumbai Angels, Keiretsu Forum, and Ramakrishnan Family Office also served as lead investors in the pre-Series A funding round.

 

Founded in 2018, CHARGE+ZONE aims to expand the Indian electro-mobility market by enhancing the availability and accessibility of a network of charging points for electric vehicles (EVs). Its Internet of Things (IOT)-powered technology uses over-the-airflow of data and cloud solutions to create remotely operational charging points for EV drivers with 24x7 availability. The start-up envisions paving a way for EV Charging usage on the back of a dedicated leadership team made up of experienced renewable energy and technology professionals. These include Mr. Kartikey Hariyani (CEO and Founder), Mr. Pavan Bakeri (Co-founder and Director), Mr. Ravindra Mohan (Director-EVMarket), Mr. Rupesh Shah (EVSE-IT Architect)and Mr. Rajesh Bhat (Advisor).

 

Speaking on the investment, Mr. Kartikey Hariyani, Founder & CEO,CHARGE+ZONE said, "At CHARGE+ZONE, we have been passionately building technology and charging points for the EV ecosystem in India.  With over 120+ Fast DC charging points (CCS2/GBT) across seven (07) cities in India, CHARGE+ZONE caters to more than 500+ EV vehicles on daily basis.   With vertically integrated platform of CPO (Charge Point Operations) and Smartphone App, we cater to various clientele including Ashok Leyland, BluSmart, EEE-Taxi, Shuttl, SmartE, Bajaj Auto among others.  An easily accessible and readily available network of charging points is the key to unlocking the success of e-mobility in the country. The investment by Venture Catalysts and Mumbai Angels, as well as other family offices, represents the biggest vote of confidence at this growth-stage of our journey. We shall leverage the capital infusion to scale our operations towards early 2021 deployment plans and to keep us motivated as we work towards building ONE (01) million unmanned charging points in the next ten years in India."

 

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & President – Venture Catalysts added, "CHARGE+ZONE is employing cutting edge technology to solve the most pressing issue in our transition towards electric vehicles-availability of charging points. With an extensive target market in each B2B (housing complex and corporate houses), B2B2C (two-, three-, and four-wheeler vehicles, as well as cab aggregators), and B2C (public charging stations) sectors, CHARGE+ZONE's potential and opportunity for growth is massive. The startup's innovative IP as well as the founding team's dedication makes us confident in our investment. We firmly believe that with this growth-stage investment we are contributing to further our country's advance towards a sustainable and pollution-free future."

 

CHARGE+ZONE's mobile application provides EV drivers a one-stop solution to issues like availability of charging points, pre-booking of charging slots, payment through QR code, downloading invoices, knowledge of the charging connector, and easy navigation to the charging point. Apart from these, a Battery Swapping Station Management System (BSSMS) login access is made available for clients who find the need to keep track of their battery and its Swapping Stations.

 

About Venture Catalysts 

Venture Catalysts is India's first integrated incubator. It invests $250K – $1.5 Million in early-stage startups that have the potential to create enduring value for a long time. Venture Catalysts brings a lethal combination of Capital, Mentoring, and Business Network to help investee companies to succeed. Their innovation provides value to startups through its extensive angel network, funding, community, services, and co-working facility. 

 

AgriTech Startup MoooFarm Raises €500K from Rockstart and Navus Ventures

Gurugram-based Agritech startup, MoooFarm, has raised €500k (about INR 43.56 Lakhs) in pre-seed funding led by Navus Ventures, a Dutch investment fund, with participation from Amsterdam-based global accelerator-VC Rockstart. MoooFarm is part of the Rockstart AgriFood 2020 batch and has managed to raise this investment only four months into the program. The startup plans to use the funding to strengthen their product-market fit and hire key technology talent to launch new services to farmers. 

Mooofarm, which received a $15,000 grant from Microsoft in May last year, had earlier raised $100K in convertible note from Rockstart. The startup also won 1st prize in Govt of India's Startup India initiated Animal Husbandry Grand Challenge.

Founded in 2018, by Aashna Singh and Param Singh,  Mooofarm bridges the technology gap to help marginalized dairy farmers. The startup is working in India to build sustainable, inclusive, efficient, and nutritious food systems for 75 million dairy farmers and over 1 billion consumers. MoooFarm is disrupting the $120Bn Indian dairy industry through its mobile application. 

We are thrilled to have both Rockstart and Navus Ventures join MoooFarm in its pre-seed round. This funding will assist us in further strengthening our product-market fit and hire key technology talent to launch new services to our farmers. Both Navus Ventures with its close ties with Lely (farming innovator) and Rockstart will help us draw from their large pool of knowledge, networks and experience in the agriculture and dairy sector. Together we are on our mission to make farmers prosperous," said Param Singh, Founder, MoooFarm.

Using an Uber-like model, Moofarm's mobile application allows farmers to connect virtually and schedule physical visits with veterinarians and artificial insemination technicians. The app provides agricultural extension, farm management tools, access to qualified veterinarians, and an online community to support with increasing milk yields and reducing costs. In its one and a half years of operation, MoooFarm has helped 23,000 dairy farmers increase their daily milk yield and make on average an extra €34 ($40) per month.

In a statement, Eduard Meijer, Managing Director, Navus Ventures, said "MoooFarm, with its developed platform, that can link all elements needed for optimized production of milk and dairy products, can make a huge contribution to improving the availability of high quality and affordable dairy products to sustain the growing worldwide demand. By proving support to MoooFarm, Navus Ventures is excited to be able to contribute to a sustainable and profitable future for Indian dairy farmers."

Mark Durno, Managing Partner, Rockstart AgriFood, said, It’s our purpose at Rockstart to empower founders who are driving positive change. Therefore, we are delighted to co-invest with a trusted partner, Navus Ventures, and we are excited to continue to work alongside the MoooFarm team, who will help enable Indian dairy farmers to have better animal health and economic opportunities."

Bengaluru-based startup Bizlog Value chain raises INR 12 crores pre-series-A led by IAN Fund

Offers sector ergonomic end-to-end reverse logistics solutions to diverse business houses 

Deliveryontime Logistics Pvt Ltd popularly known as 'Bizlog', a reverse logistics solutions startup, announced a fund raise INR 12 crores in a pre-series-A round led by IANFund. Paras Jain Founder of Adishwar, one of the large chains of Electronics retail in Karnataka, also participated in the fund raise along with the IAN Angels. With this raise, the company will further develop the technology, create a roadmap to onboard new verticals and expand the business pan India over the next few years.

The co-founders' HS Srinivasan, Krishnan Rajan, and E.V. Shunmugam, with their deep experience in the supply chain and logistics industry, realized that the reverse logistics activity is a large unmet demand in the logistics space providing a fast growing circular economy business opportunity to provide end to end reverse logistics. Bizlog offers services including buyback / exchange, rentals, waste management, E-commerce, Re-commerce, etc. of mobiles at the doorstep of its customers

Speaking on the announcement, HS Srinivasan, CEO, Bizlog said, "In the business value chain, reverse logistics is an untapped space that accounts for $13 billion market size, which is largely unaddressed. With disruptive, innovative, tech supported offerings Bizlog is able to benefit its customers to reduce losses, bring in efficiency, provide superior consumer experience and add huge value into the complete supply chain eco system Bizlog also offers comprehensive as well as custom made reverse logistics solutions.

Commenting on the investment thesis, Padmaja Ruparel, Founding Partner, IAN Fund said, "With the growing need on electronic devices, reverse logistics is a growing need for the reuse of these products delivered at the customers' doorstep. Companies like Bizlog present sustainable solutions to the ewaste problem and are the need of the hour.. IAN is excited with the potential that the team of Srinivasan, Krishnan and Shunmugam can create!"

Paras Jain founder of Adishwar who has co-invested in Bizlog believes that "the real profits and authentication to the entire sales cycle will come from strengthening reverse logistics".

About IAN Fund

The IAN Fund, an INR 375 crore fund, is a uniquely differentiated seed/early stage Fund which aims to transform India's entrepreneurial landscape. The fund invests in innovative companies in sectors including healthcare, biotech and medical devices, VR, AI, software as a service, marketplaces, fin-tech, big data, artificial intelligence, agritech and hardware. The Fund leverages and builds upon the strengths and success of IAN, the world's largest angel investor group, to breed and grow innovative companies.

The fund has Institutional investors like SIDBI's Fund of Funds for Startups, IIFL, Wadhwani Foundation, Max Group, Hyundai along with marquee individuals like Kris Gopalakrishnan, Sunil Munjal, Rajan Anandan, Kanwal Rekhi, Vikram Gandhi, Jerry Rao amongst many others. This is the first in a series of Funds so that over the next 10 years, the IAN Platform would invest Rs 5000 Cr in ~500 companies, making it the single largest platform for early stage investing, enabling companies to raise from Rs 25 lakhs to Rs. 50 crores from a single platform, along with co investors, providing startups funding through the most challenging stages of their growth. The IAN fund plays a critical role, not just in plugging the gap in funding, but also in using its vast network to provide strategic mentorship and market access

About Bizlog

Bizlog, a focused reverse logistics service provider is currently present in 30+cities and poised to grow multifold in the near future. It is run by professionals with over 100+ years of experience in the domain of supply chain. It is providing service to many large corporates to start ups in solving their returns management and reverse logistics issues. It also provides Work from home logistics solutions to many big corporates during the pandemic situation.







11/03/20, 12:03:54 PM

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.

Unicorn India Ventures invests in AI Driven InsureTech Startup Fedo

• Insuretech player Fedo raises $1 million in Pre-Series A funding from Fund II
• Round led by Unicorn India Ventures. 
• SEA Fund along with Ashish Mehrotra (Former Md CEO, Max Bupa) also participated 
• Funds raised to be primarily used to enhance the computer vision capabilities for enhanced non-invasive identification of health risks usable in various use cases requiring health assessment and to co-create personalised insurance products. 
• Fedo to focus on global expansion starting with South East Asia and Australia this year. 
• Unicorn launched Rs 400 crore Fund II last year. 
• 1st close of Fund II announced in March at $12 million 

Mumbai-based early stage VC Fund house Unicorn India Ventures has announced its 5th investment from Rs 400 crore Fund II in Fedo, a Bangalore – based cutting edge Insuretech player for the new generation which has built an AI/ML platform that leverages the power of deep tech and medical research to automate underwriting in the health and life insurance sector. The Company has raised $1 million in a Pre Series A from UIV. The round saw participation from SEA fund along with Ashish Mehrotra (Former MD CEO, Max Bupa).

Fedo, founded in 2017 by Prasanth Madavana and Arun Mallavarapu, is spearheading the next generation of Artificial Intelligence powered health insurance insights with partners around the globe bringing together a unique understanding of health risks and the required coverage combined with industry knowledge across three continents.

It uses a cutting edge computer vision and AI algorithms to help insurers enhance sales, reduce costs and enrich the quality of their portfolio.

"Fedo Score" their proprietary AI based health score has been developed by medical professionals and data scientists using 250 plus medical studies, 1.5M claims and analysing over 50 million global health records.

Prasanth Madavana, Co-founder, Fedo says, - "Our vision is to offer AI backed solutions to insurance providers, which enables early identification of potential health risks by using non invasive methods thereby reducing out of pocket expenditures of individuals and making insurance accessible, affordable and personalised."



Apart from helping health and life insurance companies with data driven smart portfolio management, Fedo also supports population risk predictions, partnering with health departments of local governments in India and abroad.

Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures says – "India is one of the most under-insured countries in the World. A big reason for this is that many people may want to take insurance but they don't know which product works for them or covers ailments. Fedo has the capability to deploy AI and assess your health related risks. With COVID situation entering into the community stage in India and coming back in the 2nd wave in other large countries, the awareness about getting a health cover is on the rise. Insurtech players like Fedo are positioned right to leverage this trend."

Fedo works with many marquee insurance players in India and globally. The Company recently on boarded Sachin Bansal backed CoCo General Insurance. Fedo achieved break even last year and continues to be cash positive and a profitable startup.

Ashish Mehrotra, who turned an angel investor with Fedo, says, "Fedo's AI enables the insurers to seamlessly on-board, track and manage product portfolios with customer level insights and predictive models. This will significantly simplify and enhance profitability and lifetime value for the insurers."

FEDO's technology has been globally recognised and has been the winner of various national and international accolades including the 10 companies selected globally by Tokyo Metropolitan Government to be introduced in Japan, and is the only Indian company to be selected in Accenture Fintech Innovation Lab APAC.

The Company takes data privacy and security seriously. The insurance providers only share the customer's demographic data basis which the AI engine makes its recommendations. Name, age and other personally identifiable information is not shared with Fedo.

Manoj Kumar Agarwal, Managing Partner, SEA Fund says, "SEA Fund has a focus on Insurtech as we believe that digital technologies hold the promise of not only increasing customer convenience, but also enterprises' reach over time by bringing down costs. Insurance penetration in India has some way to go and the sector is ready to embrace new age tech driven products. Fedo brings all these threads together and it's unique risk scoring algorithm allows insurers to advise, upsell and cross sell products suited to the customer's individual risk profile leading to personalised insurance products, which is the future of insurance"

With the funds raised, Fedo is working on launching the world's first ever image based underwriting platform this year which would enable insurance on boarding in less than 60 seconds. It is also working with a global player to dynamically price retail and group premiums and also plans to launch its operations in South East Asia and Australia this year.

About Fedo :

Bengaluru-based Fedo is a smart insurance for the new generation which has built an AI/ML platform that leverages the power of deep tech and medical research to automate underwriting in the health & life insurance sector. The AI/ML underwriting uses a combination of health risk and claim propensity scores to predict the risk of an individual for various diseases. Fedo helps individuals to keep score of their health, based on a number of questions answered and shows them variations in the health risk due to those changes, depicted through "Fedo Score" (credit score for health)

About Unicorn India Ventures :

Unicorn India Ventures is a Mumbai-based VC that started in 2015 by Anil Joshi and Bhaskar Majumdar. The Fund has also launched a UK India cross border fund for funding UK startups looking to enter India and have invested in 7 UK startups. From its first Fund, UIV has invested in 18 companies like Inc42, Sequretek, Pharmarack, Genrobotics, NeuroEquilibrium, SmartCoin,Open Bank, Open app to name a few. Unicorn India has also announced Fund II, which is a Rs 400 crore fund launched in 2019. It has also marked its first close of Rs 90 cr and has announced 5 investments.

Telegu Actor Deverakonda Invests in EV Startup Watts and Volts

Telegu actor Vijay Deverakonda has invested in a Hyderabad-based electric vehicle startup, Watts and Volts, which will commence its operations from 2021. The announcement was made by Deverakonda during the Electric Vehicle (EV) Policy launch in Telangana on Friday.

According to a release, the actor Vijay Deverakonda who has already stepped into the entrepreneurial world with his clothing line 'Rowdy', has now taken a step towards eco commute and shared mobility by joining hands with Watts and Volts with his investment into eco-friendly and sustainable electric bikes startup Watts and Volts Mobility Private Limited.

During the EV Policy launch event, Watts and Volts revealed its operation plans and said that it will start active operations from January 2021.The startup will be adopting a pay-per-use business model that will allow a user to just pay for using the EV only for the distance travelled. 

The Telangana government, as part of its new EV policy to promote electric vehicles, offers 100% exemption of road tax and registration fee for the first two lakh electric two-wheelers purchased and registered within the state, according to the State Electric Vehicle and Energy Storage Policy.

"I strongly believe in sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives that facilitate a greener future. With Watts and Volts, we are working on electric cycles, bikes and scooties that will eliminate pollution, for short travel as opposed to the conventional fuel based transportation system," he said in the release.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/vijay-deverakonda-invests-in-e-vehicle-startup-watts-and-volts/articleshow/78969677.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/vijay-deverakonda-invests-in-e-vehicle-startup-watts-and-volts/articleshow/78969677.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Clarity AI Raises $15m to Fuel Expansion of Platform That Empowers Investors to Manage the Societal Impact of Their Portfolios

• DEUTSCHE BÖRSE LEADS FUNDING ROUND - CONDUCTED 100% REMOTELY DUE TO COVID-19
• COMPANY REPORTS RISING DEMAND DURING PERIOD OF SOCIAL UNREST AND VOLATILITY 

Clarity AI announced today that it has closed a USD $15 million funding round led by Deutsche Börse AG and co-investor Mundi Ventures. Clarity AI empowers investors to manage the impact of their portfolios through a proprietary technology platform that leverages big data and machine learning to assess sustainability for all societal stakeholders.

“Our purpose is simple: to measure the impact of companies on our society and planet,” said Rebeca Minguela, Founder and CEO of Clarity AI. “Investors attempting to evaluate impact have faced fragmented and unreliable data, inconsistent subjective definitions, and a lack of standards and tools for comprehensive analysis. Historically it has been too hard and resource-intensive to get accurate and transparent insights. Clarity AI provides a solution for that.” 

Since its founding in 2017, Clarity AI has attracted a client network representing in excess of $3 trillion of assets and funding from investors, including Kibo Ventures, Founders Fund, Seaya Ventures and Matthew Freud. The company has built the most reliable tech platform on social and environmental impact, featuring more than 30,000 companies, 198 countries, 187 local governments and over 200,000 funds. The company uses proprietary technology and algorithms to produce transparent assessments for investors that are the most consistent and comprehensive available. 

The “Sustainable Investment” market has grown 34% in the last two years and now represents one third of total global assets under management (AUM) – $30.7 trillion (of a total of $79.2 trillion).¹ This rapid growth comes as research shows that 81% of investors want to better understand and improve the impact performance of their investments, with millennials (in particular) demanding greater social impact transparency in their portfolios.² 

In the last six months, Clarity AI has seen a significant increase in demand for its services, including signing clients with eight times the assets under management as in the preceding period. 

Minguela added: “2020 has seen extraordinary volatility and uncertainty – from COVID-19 to social justice protests. It has never been more important for investors to have accurate insights on the true impact of the companies in which they place their trust and their money. That is why we are scaling up our business to enable investors to identify and support those companies helping to solve society’s biggest challenges.” 

The $15 million investment will drive Clarity AI’s sustainable expansion plans, including scaling-up investment in proprietary technology and AI, as well as integrating with the world’s largest financial services platforms. This approach will make it even quicker and easier for investors and corporations to analyze and report sustainability and impact. 

Deutsche Börse AG led the funding round, underscoring the strong alignment of the Clarity AI product offering with Deutsche Börse’s expanding presence in the sustainability space and the importance of accelerating the growth of a European-focused Impact and ESG technology platform. Clarity AI and Deutsche Börse are also exploring potential collaboration opportunities in various Deutsche Börse business areas, including Qontigo, a leading provider of indices and analytics. 

Sebastian Ceria, CEO of Qontigo, said: “This partnership reflects our mutual commitment to the ongoing enhancement of sustainable investing and the application of the latest technology in pursuit of this goal. We were very impressed by Rebeca and her team’s vision for Clarity AI and the advanced technology platform they have created. We are excited to be in a partnership that puts impact at the heart of investment.” 

Clarity AI has received widespread recognition for its positive impact and innovative approach, including being selected as a 2020 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and receiving awards from the Harvard Innovation Lab and funding from Horizon 2020, the European Union’s Research and Innovation program. 

Clarity AI is a global fintech company that empowers investors to manage the impact of their portfolios through a proprietary technology platform that leverages big data and machine learning to assess sustainability for all societal stakeholders. Founded in 2017 by Rebeca Minguela, Clarity AI has offices in the US, UK and Spain and a client network with over $3T assets under management (AUM). The company has a team of over 100 technology, sustainability and research experts with collective experience from leading organizations, businesses and research institutions including NASA, the World Bank, Google, Netflix, McKinsey & Company, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Harvard, M.I.T and more.

 

Rebeca Minguela is the Founder and CEO of Clarity AI. Previously, she led the Global Digital Transformation Program at Santander Bank after founding and leading Blink Booking, a last-minute hotel booking app acquired by Groupon in 2013, a company she moved to as Senior Director of Product and Technology thereafter. Rebeca has also worked at Bain Capital Private Equity, Boston Consulting Group, German Aerospace Agency, Siemens and IBM. She holds an MBA degree with distinction from Harvard Business School and has won several awards, including Top 25 Women Leaders in Financial Technology in 2019 and 2020, Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2017 and European Young Leader in 2018.

¹ Global Asset Management 2018: The Digital Metamorphosis, https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/global-asset-management-2018-digital-metamorphosis; Global Sustainable Investment Alliance: 2018 Global Sustainable Investment Review, http://www.gsi-alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/GSIR_Review2018.3.28.pdf
²Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance: Institutional Investor Survey 2020, https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/03/25/institutional-investor-survey-2020/

 

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201029005306/en/

9Unicorns Leads INR 1.5 Crore Funding of Janani, An Innovative Fertility Tech Start-up

The venture aims to develop and deliver a full-service fertility care platform that provides personalised, high-quality, effective, and affordable solutions to challenges in infertility.

 

9Unicorns, India's first idea-phase accelerator VC fund, has recently led an INR 1.5 crore pre-seed investment in Janani, a fertility care provider. The funding round saw participation from other investors too, Archana Priyadarshini and Sweta Rau led the round in AngelList. Other angels like the famous IVF expert Dr Nandita Palshetkar, Astir VC partner Kishore Ganji also participated in the round.

Established in June 2020, Janani aims to make the process of infertility treatment and assisted fertilisation easier and more affordable for the masses. The start-up operates at the intersection of modern technology and excellent medical care to maximize the chances of conceiving successfully. It will leverage a superior quality lab environment, consultation from expert gynaecologists, a skilled and experienced staff, and high-quality medicines to deliver superior out comes to patients. Furthermore, in keeping with its vision of providing the best and most personalised care to all, Janani aims to make these facilities available at extremely affordable price points with flexible payment options.

Dr Nandita quoted, "Janani is creating an AI and computer vision tool to help remove the subjectivity of embryologists while choosing the right embryo. This will increase the success rate of IVF and eventually help lower the costs."

Dr S S Vasan, a key member of the founding team is also the Chairman of Ankur Fertility Group. He mentioned, "Technological innovation in fertility management will ensure that patients' distress is minimised and that success is consistent and highly optimised. I am happy to be part of team Janani to bring in a revolution in access, simplification, technology, success and structured costs in the field of fertility management."

Speaking on the investment, Nilay Mehrotra – Founder of Janani, said, "I am grateful to Dr. Apoorva and the 9Unicorns team for showing faith in this idea at such an early stage. Dr. Apoorva, being the visionary that he is, understood what we wanted to achieve and the scope of disruption that we planned. The entire process was swift and seamless, as we closed the round with 9Unicorns." 

Nilay Mehrotra - Founder of Janani

Ms Archana, a key investor in the company, said that "The availability of high-quality infertility treatment in India is limited to a few major cities, the process being inconvenient and traumatic. Many patients also lack the means to afford these quality medical solutions. Janani aims to disrupt this space by providing best-in-class medical care at an affordable price point to the couples."

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & Managing Director – 9Unicorns, added, "We believe that there is extensive scope in the fertility tech space and are confident in the team's ability to capitalise on it with its unique, tech-led proposition."

Janani has set its eyes on the global fertility tech management market, currently estimated to be worth $36 Billion. It aims to use the funding to create better infertility treatment solutions and make the journey-to-conception more rewarding and hopeful for people around the world.

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC providing acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage start-ups. The funding can be provided up to $100K per start-up in the first round and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From the idea stage to the angel stage, it supports start-ups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is to provide a hands-on support ecosystem for start-ups that goes beyond just 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.  

Moneyboxx Finance Raises Debt of INR 10 Crore from Eclear; Targets to Raise INR 100 Crore during Current Fiscal

BSE Listed NBFC to secure about INR 30 crore debt capital by November end

Moneyboxx Finance Ltd.(MBFL), a BSE-listed Non-Banking Finance Company that provides small-ticket loans to micro and small enterprises in tier-2 and tier-3 towns today announced that it has raised INR 10 crore from Eclear leasing &Finance Pvt. Ltd. to support its disbursement target of INR 80-85 crore in the current fiscal. 

Eclear Leasing, which especially supports NBFCs & MFIs in the financial inclusion space has been the first lender of MBFL and has continuously reposed faith in it by sanctioning INR 18 crore till date.

Moreover, Moneyboxx is targeting to raise INR 100 crore from various lenders. It is also in the final stages of securing another INR 30 crores by end of November for onward lending from six leading investors including a global impact fund and a small finance bank.

Commenting on the debt raised by the company, Mr. Deepak Aggarwal, Co-CEO, Moneyboxx Finance Ltd said, "Right since our inception Eclear Leasing & Finance has been extremely supportive and we are indeed thankful to them and also its top management including Mr. Manoj Bansal for their continued support and trust that they have reposed in us. This will go a long way in helping us achieve our target of disbursing INR 80-85 crore during FY21, which will close to 2.5 times of the disbursement made during FY20 that stood at INR 34 crore."

"Our collection efficiency of 95 percent during moratorium and over 99 percent in September is helping us build confidence among private lenders. We want to further cement our relationship with about fifteen lenders in current fiscal which will not just validate our model but will also support our target of 4 fold jump in AUM in FY22 over FY21," Deepak added.

On its part, Eclear Leasing & Finance Pvt. Ltd. is committed to extend support to Moneyboxx Finance in its endevour. "It is our pleasure to be associated with Moneyboxx and support them in their growth journey. During the lockdown, while many borrowers sought moratorium, Moneyboxx continued to pay regular installments, reflecting their strict discipline in managing books, strong underwriting and focus on collections and sustainability, said Mr. Manoj Bansal, Managing Director, Eclear Leasing & Finance Pvt. Ltd.

About Moneyboxx Finance Limited

Moneyboxx, which started operations in February 2019, currently has 11 branches spread across four states - Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and will open 11 new branches in next 2 months in these states. The medium-term aim is to build an INR 1,000 crore asset under management (AUM) within the next three years. MBFL focuses on disbursing small ticket unsecured business loans to individual borrowers (Dairy, Kirana, Traders, Micro-manufacturers in tier-2 and tier-3 cities) with loans range from INR 50,000 to 3,00,000, mostly for 24 months tenure.

Agritech Start-up 'Freshokartz' Raises Pre-Series a Round of USD 1.4 Million to Fund Rapid Growth

Freshokartz Agri Products Pvt. Limited, a premier Agri-tech startup has received INR 10 Crore ($1.4 Million) pre-series A funding from Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF) and AWE (Achieving Women Equity) Funds to finance its rapid technology rollout while scaling its operations as a provider of premier technology-enabled omnichannel supply chain optimizing solutions along with agronomy advisory and output linkages.

Speaking on the success of Freshokartz latest round of funding, Rajendra Lora, Founder noted, "Our company has witnessed significant growth even during COVID-19 crisis, which is driven by our team's differentiated understanding of India's agricultural supply chain, its markets and its participants given our personal farming backgrounds. This helps us execute effectively as an effective and integrated agriculture supply chain company. Getting RVCF and AWE Funds' investment support will help expand and consolidate our footprint not only in Rajasthan but also in neighboring states." 

Chandrakanta, Co-founder remarked, "We are especially delighted with the powerful combination of our two investors who bring significant synergistic value to our company in helping us develop our organization with more than just capital. The vast experiences of the two teams, their associated networks and their focus on not only commercial returns but also a genuine interest in improvement in lives of farmers, especially women farmers, has made this a very valuable partnership."

Freshokartz is operating 40 physical centers in Rajasthan and working with more than 90,000 farmers. Freshokartz has target to reach 1 Million farmers in next 12-15 months. Freshokartz is working with more than 100 Agri Inputs companies including UPL, Chambal Fertilizers to provide best Agri inputs to farmer's doorsteps. Freshokartz has developed mobile app for farmers where farmers can place order from nearby centers. The business model has been built bottom-up where most of the team comes from farming background and are providing solutions to the farm level pain points of the farmers.

Freshokartz provides soil-based crop and fertilisers recommendation to farmers through Agronomist and through call center. Freshokartz has opened network or digitalized physical agri kiosks at the village level and deliver Agri advisory, inputs and collect farmer output through centers or their doorsteps. Freshokartz also facilitates farmers in getting financial/insurance through partners. Freshokartz is building a complete hybrid model for farmers where farmers get Pre and Postharvest agriculture-related services.

Freshokartz will be using these funds for expansion within Rajasthan and other nearby states like Haryana, M.P, U.P and other northern states of India. The Funds will be used in capacity building, Tech development and geographic expansion.

Gaurav Chowdhry, VP at RVCF said, "It is pertinent for us to look at startups which can sustain in these challenging times by differentiation and innovation. By focusing on farmer's multitude of farming needs, Freshokartz is providing full stack solutions for better farm outcomes. The team has strong execution capabilities and expect to see significant growth in the coming years. We are happy to partner with Freshokartz in the journey."


Seema Chaturvedi, Founder & Managing Partner of AWE Funds observed, "At AWE Funds, given our team's deep agri expertise, we believe that the agri-tech industry is poised for rapid growth. Furthermore, we found FAPL's focus on appropriate and adaptable farmer-centric technology especially on the downstream input side of the supply chain to be a very compelling investment thesis. Added to the fact that the main beneficiaries are marginal farmers of whom 70% are women, this investment is very aligned with our gender lens focused investment mandate in Achieving Women Equity."

About Freshokartz Agri Products Private Limited (FAPL)

Founded in 2016, by Rajendra Lora and Chandrakanta, the agtech startup provides technology-enabled full stack of services to small and marginal farmers including agricultural inputs, crop advisory, output linkages, crop insurance and financing to optimize a currently inefficient agri supply chain while enhancing price realization by farmers.

About RVCF

Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF) is operational since 2002 and is currently investing out of its third fund. The fund invests in Early and Growth stage transformative companies in Agri/Food, IT/ITES, Healthcare, Education space.

About AWE Funds

AWE Funds is an early growth equity fund investing in innovative enterprises to promote gender equity. We use AWE Funds' proprietary gender lens to invest pre-series A, Series A rounds in women owned, led or influenced businesses in AgriTech, HealthTech, EdTech, Finatech & Sustainability (Cleantech & Water) business in India.

Retail Tech Platform, Arzooo Raises $ 7.5 mn in Series A led by US-based WRVI Capital

Retail Tech Platform, Arzooo Raises $ 7.5 mn in Series A led by US-based WRVI Capital 

The B2B Retail-tech firm will leverage funds for technology and market expansion 

Arzooo, India's fastest growing retail-tech startup today announced that it has raised $7.5 mn in Series A funding led by WRVI Capital. Arzooo's existing investors 3Lines Venture Capital, another US-based investor and Jabbar internet of UAE also participated in the current round. The startup will leverage funds for tech-upgradation and market expansion.

Arzooo, which currently operates in Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad will be scaling operations in Eastern and Western regions of the country. The startup will also channelize funds to ramp its 'Tech platform, "Go Store. Arzooo's "Go Store" is the unique technology platform by Arzooo that solves the big problem of selection, price and complex supply chain & sourcing for offline retailers. The company aims to serve 50,000 retailers in the next year.

Commenting on the fundraise, Khushnud Khan, cofounder of Arzooo.com says, "Our strong growth over the past year is a testimony to the positive impact Arzooo has had on the business of physical retailers. The current fundraise will help us boost our Technology, Quality of service and reach to fulfil our goal of equipping each retail store with technology to grow and perform profitable business."

Sudhir Rao, Managing Partner WRVI Capital India Says, Arzooo has in less than two years, through it's initial focus on $50 Billion consumer durable segment , demonstrated a highly scalable product market fit, especially in a country where local medium & small retailers dominate the market. Arzooo's technology and localised demand-Supply integration offers great scalability to retail stores for both product expansion and profitability, which is a win-win for all.

Arzooo recently announced the launch of its new digital credit lending product, 'Arzooo Credit', for offline retailers, that will offer working capital cushion to Arzooo's partner stores, especially during the time when the retail is just on its way to recovery from covid impact. With Arzooo Credit, retailers can avail from Rs 1,00,000 to 10,00,000 credit on Arzooo platform. At present, the service is open to over 5000 retailers across 10 cities.

About Arzooo.com:

Arzooo.com is a retail technology venture empowering physical retailers to compete and grow against e-commerce platforms like amazon and Flipkart, with its technology platform.

Arzooo's unique technology platform is India's fastest growing integrated retail network with over 5000 partner stores. Spread across 10+ cities, Arzooo enables a partner store to overcome broader limitations of physical retail and offer its customers the largest inventory selection, best price and fastest delivery, without them having to stock everything. This is backed by attractive payments and financing solutions to drive up sales and conversion in- store.

Arzooo is founded by ex-Flipkart colleagues and IIT-Kharagpur alumn, Khushnud Khan and Rishi Raj Rathore, in the year 2018 in Bangalore. Since its inception, Arzooo has seen tremendous growth and has enabled over 5000 partner stores to grow sales and compete with bigger sellers and online marketplaces.

Biddano, a B2B healthcare product distribution platform, secures 5 crore pre-Series A investment led by Venture Catalysts

Biddano, a B2B healthcare product distribution platform, secures 5 crore pre-Series A investment led by Venture Catalysts 

The innovative platform leverages cutting-edge AI technology to provide a more efficient and seamless solution to existing supply chain issues in offline pharmaceutical distribution

Venture Catalysts, India's first and largest integrated incubator and accelerator, has recently led a 5 crore investment in Biddano, a tech-enabled B2B healthcare product distribution platform. The pre-Series A funding round also saw participation from other leading early-stage investors such as LetsVenture. 

Established in 2016 by Talha Shaikh & Ashok Yadav, Biddano aims to revolutionise offline pharma distribution networks by bridging supply-chain gaps between distributors and chemists through technology. It uses a 'plug & expand' model to help distributors seamlessly manage their demand and supply while expanding their geographical reach. The platform further simplifies order management for chemists and hospitals by enabling orders from multiple distributors to be easily consolidated into pharmacy-specific deliveries. Through its state-of-the-art fulfilment infrastructure, Biddano also ensures that pharmacies, chemists, and hospitals, etc. can procure medicines in less than 3 hours of placing an order.

Speaking on the investment, Talha Shaikh, Co-founder– Biddano, said, "Our mission is to solve the problem of availability of medicine by organizing the healthcare supply chain. We are empowering pharmacies & distributors to create a stronger, robust, and efficient ecosystem for healthcare consumers. The pre-Series A funding from leading early-stage investors such as Venture Catalysts and LetsVenture serves to reaffirm our faith in our business model and motivates us to continue building on this tech-led disruption that we have created in the Indian pharmaceutical space."

Ashok Yadav, Co-founder– Biddano, Being able to play a role in such a critical industry and at the same time have impact on so many lives, gives me lot of satisfaction. Our mission is to support our partners by adopting the best technology and processes.

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & President – Venture Catalysts, said, "Biddano's model is unique. Many tech-led pharma start-ups are solving for the online purchase and doorstep delivery of medicines for the end-consumer, whereas Biddano aims to revolutionise the conventional supply chain by addressing the gaps in offline pharma networks. We firmly believe that, with this approach, it is well-poised to capitalise on a massive market opportunity not only in the healthcare space but also other product categories that involve channel sales."

Karan Singh, Managing Director, ACG said "We support Biddano's effort to bring structure and technology retail distribution of pharma-healthcare segment. Riding on a strong leadership team, which understands on-ground challenges very well. Biddano is geared to efficiency serve remote and weather stricken locations, prevent counterfeiting and forecast demand, through integration of logistics and technology. They are also chartering the new waters of reverse logistics which is an exciting space to manage waste and build circular economy.

With its AI-led approach increasing the reach and speed of healthcare delivery for various stakeholders at a very reasonable cost, Biddano aims to become a one-stop solution for all the procurement and fulfilment needs for chemists and hospitals. The platform currently has its eyes set on the Indian pharmaceutical market, worth over $24 billion at present and comprising over 1 million chemists & 65,000 distributors.


About VCats

Venture Catalysts is India's first integrated incubator. It invests $250K – $1.5 Million in early stage startups that have potential to create enduring value for over a long period of time. Venture Catalysts brings a lethal combination of Capital, Mentoring and Business Network to help investee companies to succeed. Their innovation provides value to startups through its extensive angel network, funding, community, services.