Emergent Brings VibeCon Hackathon to India, Offering Y Combinator Interview Opportunity

Emergent, the fast-growing AI software creation platform will host VibeCon India on April 16–17 in Bengaluru, bringing its flagship selection-led hackathon from San Francisco to India for the first time. The event presents a major opportunity for Indian builders: the winning team will receive a direct interview with a Y Combinator partner for an upcoming batch.

The Bengaluru edition arrives at a pivotal moment for India’s startup ecosystem. It takes place just ahead of Y Combinator’s first in-person Startup School India, scheduled for April 18, creating a concentrated week that will bring together founders, engineers, and operators from across the country to build, launch, and test new ideas. VibeCon India will be hosted at Polaris School of Technology, Bengaluru, bringing this high-intensity builder experience to one of the city’s emerging hubs for tech talent.

Originally launched in San Francisco, VibeCon was designed as a high-signal hackathon that prioritises exceptional builders and tangible outcomes over open participation. The India edition continues that approach through a rigorous application and selection process intended to identify founders, engineers, operators, and non-technical builders capable of rapidly transforming ideas into working products.

Interest in the inaugural India edition has been significant. More than 20,000 applicants from India and abroad applied to participate, from which a smaller cohort of high-potential builders has been selected to compete in Bengaluru.

VibeCon India is supported by a broad network of ecosystem partners spanning venture capital, AI research, and developer infrastructure. Partners include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Together Fund, OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Stripe, Razorpay, MongoDB, Starknet, Eigencloud and Temporal Technologies, among others. These organisations will provide mentorship, tools, infrastructure, and technical resources to help teams build during the hackathon.

“India is producing an extraordinary number of ambitious builders, many of whom are ready to move faster than traditional pathways allow,” said Mukund Jha, Co-founder and CEO of Emergent. “With VibeCon India, we want to create a focused environment where high-potential teams can test ideas, ship real products, and engage directly with the global startup ecosystem. The opportunity for the winning team to interview directly with Y Combinator reflects our focus on outcomes that can meaningfully accelerate a founder’s journey.”

The two-day hackathon will culminate in a final judging round where participating teams present the products they developed during the event. In addition to the direct interview opportunity with Y Combinator, winning teams will receive cash prizes and access to a partner-backed pool of credits and resources designed to support continued product development beyond the hackathon.

With the launch of VibeCon India, Emergent aims to strengthen connections between India’s fast-growing builder community and the global startup ecosystem, while creating a platform that enables promising ideas to move quickly from concept to company.

About Emergent:

Emergent is the fast-growing platform that lets anyone create full-stack, production-ready applications using autonomous AI agents. Its latest product, Wingman, brings that same vision to personal autonomous agents, giving anyone access to an always-on team that works in the background. Emergent enables ambitious people to move at the speed of their thought — to build faster, go bigger, and be unblocked from technical limitations. Launched in 2025, Emergent is backed by Khosla Ventures, SoftBank, Lightspeed, YC, Prosus, Together, and Google’s AI Futures Fund. Its mission is to democratize who gets to build software and bring new ideas to life.

Cisco Acquires Y Combinator–Backed EzDubs to Power Real-Time AI Translation in Webex

Cisco announced on November 14, 2025, that it will acquire EzDubs, a Y Combinator–backed startup specializing in real-time AI-driven speech translation.

The deal underscores Cisco’s push to integrate advanced voice-preserving translation into its collaboration tools like Webex.

Key details of the acquisition

• Announcement date: November 14, 2025
• Startup: EzDubs, a real-time speech-to-speech translation company
• Backed by: Y Combinator, with $4.2M seed funding led by Venture Highway
• Founders: Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy, Amrutavarsh Kinagi, and Kareem Nassar (who previously worked at Cisco’s Speech AI group)
• Investors: Included Amjad Masad (CEO of Replit), Michele Catasta (President of Replit), Qasar Younis (CEO of Applied Intuition), and Ben Firshman (CEO of Replicate)
• Deal size: Cisco did not disclose the purchase price

Strategic significance

• Voice as the new frontier: Cisco emphasized that voice is becoming the most natural interface for collaboration, and EzDubs’ technology will help break language barriers in real-time.
• Integration into Webex: EzDubs’ translation tech will be embedded into Cisco’s collaboration suite, including video calling, messaging, and hardware.
• Global collaboration: This acquisition aligns with Cisco’s mission to enable seamless communication across languages, making meetings more inclusive and accessible.

Contextual notes

• Founding year: EzDubs was founded in 2023 (not 2022, as some reports may suggest).
• Core technology: Voice-preserving translation that maintains the speaker’s tone and style while translating speech in real time.
• Industry trend: Enterprise platforms are embedding AI-powered translation and speech recognition to compete with Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

Why this matters

Cisco’s acquisition of EzDubs is a strategic bet on AI-driven communication. By integrating real-time translation directly into Webex, Cisco positions itself as a leader in inclusive, global collaboration tools. This could reshape how multinational teams interact, reducing friction in cross-border communication and potentially setting a new standard for enterprise platforms.

AI Code Reviewer CodeAnt AI Secures $2 Mn Led by Y Combinator, Uncorrelated Ventures

CodeAnt AI is an AI code reviewer that helps engineering teams cut manual code review time and bugs by over 50%. AI might be great at helping engineers write code, but it's creating a new problem – all that code still needs to be reviewed by humans. CodeAnt AI is stepping in with a solution that uses AI to tackle the review process itself, raising $2 million in seed funding to help engineering teams move faster without sacrificing code quality or security. The funding round was led by Y Combinator, Uncorrelated Ventures, and VitalStage Ventures, with participation from DeVC, Transpose Platform, Entrepreneur First and a number of marquee angel investors.

The funding, which is CodeAnt AI’s first institutional funding round, values the company at $20 million and will help CodeAnt AI expand its engineering and business development teams.

CodeAnt AI is already helping 50+ companies including Akasa Air, Cyient, Bureau, KukuFM, and many Fortune 1000 enterprises cut code review time and bugs in half. For security-conscious organizations, CodeAnt AI can run entirely within their own infrastructure, ensuring code never leaves their environment.

The company was founded by Amartya Jha and Chinmay Bharti, who both saw the same problem from different angles. Jha worked on scaling infrastructure at Zeta and ShareChat, where he noticed how easily critical bugs slipped through when reviews weren't thorough. Bharti, with a master's specialising in AI from IIT Bombay, faced similar issues while building high-frequency trading software at Blu Analytics – where a single bug could have serious financial consequences. Together, they built CodeAnt AI and were accepted into Y Combinator.

Amartya Jha, Co-founder and CEO of CodeAnt AI, said, "As AI-driven coding becomes widespread, the real bottleneck isn't writing code — it's reviewing it. Today, when a developer submits a change request, it often sits idle for hours or even days waiting for peer review. And even when a reviewer does pick it up, they rarely have full context of the code change. This is a critical risk point: most software bugs and vulnerabilities slip through at the peer review stage, where issues could have been caught early and cheaply. CodeAnt AI is built to do both — helping companies move faster and stay competitive without compromising on security or code quality."

Tom Blomfield, Partner at Y Combinator added: "With more and more code being generated by AI, code review has never been more important. CodeAnt fits into your CI/CD pipeline and ensures that only high-quality code makes it into production. Not AI-generated slop!”

CodeAnt AI's platform plugs right into GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps, giving developers instant feedback on their code across more than 30 programming languages. More impressively, it doesn't just find code quality & security vulnerabilities – it suggests fixes that developers can apply with a single click, turning reviews that used to take hours into proactive quick, five-minute sessions. For companies racing to get products out the door, this means fewer delays and higher quality code. It also means cost savings – fixing problems during code reviews costs 10x less compared to fixing them later during CI/CD or after production deployments.

What makes CodeAnt AI different is the technology under the hood. The company built a proprietary language-agnostic AST engine that actually understands how different parts of a codebase connect, letting it spot issues that isolated code reviews would miss. The platform also pulls in data from major security databases and lets companies set up their own rules based on their specific needs.

Meanwhile, early investor at Hubspot Brian Shin, Managing Partner for VitalStage Ventures, commented: "CodeAnt AI is redefining one of the most critical — and often overlooked — parts of modern software development: the code review. In a world where AI is rapidly democratizing code generation, the bottleneck has shifted to validation. CodeAnt's platform slashes review time by over 50%, ensuring not just speed, but quality, security, and reliability at scale. This leap forward empowers engineering teams to ship faster while catching issues earlier — a foundational advantage in today’s software-driven economy."

As AI continues to transform how code gets written, CodeAnt AI is positioning itself as the bridge to a future where code can be both rapidly created and confidently deployed. The founders envision a world where AI doesn't just help developers write code faster, but also ensures that every line shipped to production is secure, efficient, and ready for the real world – giving engineering teams the confidence to move at the speed their businesses demand.

Y Combinator-backed Yenmo Raises ₹9.2 Cr to Build India’s 1st Good Loan Company

Yenmo ‘The Good Loan Company’, a Y Combinator-backed company providing instant loan against mutual funds, has announced the successful raising of ₹9.2 crore in funding. The round was led by Y Combinator, along with participation from Pioneer Fund, Zaka VC, and angel investors from across the globe. This milestone marks a significant step in Yenmo’s journey to make the lending landscape more ethical and place themselves as India’s first good loan company.

Yenmo plans to leverage the funding to:

• Expand Product Offerings: Introduce new secured lending products, including loans against stocks and other products. A key innovation in the pipeline is a savings account feature that combines higher interest earnings with liquidity access.This will also help solidify Yenmo’s position as India’s first ‘Good Loan Company’ by offering products designed to enhance the financial well-being of customers.
• Enhance Technology: Build and refine its digital platform to offer a seamless 10-minute loan application process, ensuring security and efficiency.
• Drive Market Growth: Tapping into more customers and making Yenmo the go-to platform for ethical and customer-centric credit solutions.
• Strengthen operational scale and team: Scale operations by expanding infrastructure and building a robust and skilled team.

Addressing a Growing Need for Ethical Lending "Many individuals taking loans often face serious concerns, from harassment to the misuse of personal data. At Yenmo, we are building India's first 'Good Loan Company,' where ethical practices and customer-centricity lead the way" said Ashutosh Purohit, CEO & Co-founder, Yenmo. "This funding allows us to expand our product portfolio as well as build a complete lending stack in-house, from underwriting to disbursal. Our goal is to empower millions of Indians with loans that prioritize their financial well-being, using only the necessary data and eliminating predatory practices."

Yenmo is addressing the gaps in the lending industry by:

• Offering loans against mutual funds with interest rates as low as 10.5%, significantly lower than the 30%+ charged on personal loans.
• Designing solutions based on customer feedback to eliminate pain points, supported by real human assistance rather than automated bots.
• Yenmo aims to make loans a tool for empowerment rather than a trap. As the company adds new products, the commitment to ethical practices will remain at the forefront of their design and delivery.

About Yenmo

Yenmo, a Y Combinator-backed company, is dedicated to providing the best credit products in India. Starting with loans against mutual funds, Yenmo is expanding into secured credit products over stocks, insurance, and digital assets. Customers can access loans digitally through the Yenmo app, available on Android and iOS (https://yenmo.in/download).

Website - https://yenmo.in/

AI Infrastructure Startup Pipeshift Raises $2.5 Mn in Seed Round Led by Y Combinator, SenseAI Ventures

• As companies rush to deploy open-source AI models, Pipeshift unveils a modular platform that makes deployment 30x more efficient.

Over 80% of enterprises are turning to open-source AI models. However, the challenge isn't accessing powerful models, rather it's deploying them efficiently and securely. Today, companies must stitch together more than 10 different components just to begin deployment, with each optimization requiring thousands of engineering hours. AI infrastructure startup Pipeshift announced their $2.5M seed round to solve this challenge, launching a new-age Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that enables engineering teams to orchestrate AI workloads across any infrastructure - cloud or on-premises - with unprecedented speed and control.

 L to R,  Pranav Reddy, Arko Chattopadhyay, Enrique Ferrao

This round was led by Y Combinator and SenseAI Ventures, with additional participation from Arka Venture Labs, Good News Ventures, Nivesha Ventures, Astir VC, GradCapital, and MyAsiaVC. Seasoned Silicon Valley angels like Kulveer Taggar (CEO of Zuess), Umur Cubukcu (CEO of Ubicloud and former Head of PostgreSQL at Azure), and Krishna Mehra (former Head of Engineering at Meta and co-founder of Capillary Technologies) also joined the round.

Unlike existing players who are GPU-brokers offering one-size-fits-all solutions, Pipeshift understands the enterprise need for control and flexibility of infrastructure and offers an end-to-end MLOps stack for enterprises to train, deploy, and scale open-source GenAI models — LLMs, vision models, audio models, and image models — across any cloud or on-prem GPUs. As a result, enterprises can deploy their AI workloads in production faster and more reliably. Additionally, as we see more model and hardware architectures coming into the market, Pipeshift future-proofs infrastructure investments by offering flexibility through their modular MLOps stack that allows enterprises to bring down their GPU infrastructure costs without any additional engineering effort.

“2025 marks the year when GenAI transitions into production, and engineering teams are witnessing the benefits of using open-source models in-house. This offers high levels of privacy and control alongside enhanced performance and lower costs. However, this is a complex and expensive process involving multiple components being stitched together.” said Arko Chattopadhyay, Co-Founder and CEO of Pipeshift. He added “Pipeshift's enterprise-grade orchestration platform eradicates the need for such extensive engineering investments by not only simplifying deployment but also maximizing the production throughput."

“Enterprises prefer open-source GenAI for the benefits of privacy, model ownership, and lower costs. However, transitioning GenAI to production remains a complex and expensive process requiring multiple components to be stitched,” said Rahul Agarwalla, Managing Partner of SenseAI Ventures. He added, “Pipeshift's enterprise-grade orchestration platform eliminates the need for such extensive engineering investments by not only simplifying deployment but also maximizing the production throughput.”

The timing for Pipeshift is significant. As AI reshapes markets and redefines competition, companies know the rewards for seizing the moment are immense. However, security and data privacy risks loom large, demanding protection for proprietary IP. These challenges compound in a rapidly evolving technology landscape where missteps lead to expensive delays and lost opportunities. Adding to this complexity is the uniqueness of every business problem. No two AI strategies are the same, and every deployment must align with the distinct needs of the organization. Pipeshift solves this by bringing in the flexibility and precision of open-source AI models and the scalability of their enterprise MLOps platform. Businesses overcome these challenges while managing resource demands and ensuring compliance — all without losing sight of their broader goals.

Having already worked with over 30 companies including NetApp, Pipeshift aims to become the trusted partner for organizations looking to unlock AI's potential while maintaining control of their infrastructure and data.

Anu Mangaly, Director of Software Engineering at NetApp said, “Pipeshift’s ability to orchestrate existing GPUs to deliver >500 tokens/second for models like Llama 3.1 8B without any compression or quantization of the LLM is extremely impressive, allowing businesses to reduce their compute footprint and costs in production, while delivering enhanced user experiences that are also private and secure.” She also shared, “At NetApp, we understood the enterprise need for a single data fabric across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid setup. Pipeshift's orchestration allows for enterprises to unlock the same potential from the new generation of AI models all within their infrastructure.”

Pipeshift offers an end-to-end MLOps stack for enterprises to train, deploy, and scale open-source GenAI models - LLMs, vision models, audio models, and image models - across any cloud or on-prem GPUs. Enterprises get to deploy their AI workloads in production faster and more reliably. Additionally, as we see more model and hardware architectures coming into the market, Pipeshift future-proofs the infrastructure investments by offering flexibility through their modular MLOps stack that allows enterprises to bring down their GPU infrastructure costs without any additional engineering efforts on their end.

YC-Backed EdTech Startup Oneistox Rebrands As 'Novatr'; Projects 12X Revenue Growth in FY'24

• The platform offers a range of courses and upskilling programs tailor-made for Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) professionals to help them build industry-relevant new-age skills. 
• The strategic move is in line with their vision to accelerate the adoption of tech in the AEC industry by building tech-first skills.
• The hyper-growing ed-tech platform founded in 2021 by Harkunwar Singh along with his co-founders Vipanchi Handa, Mehul Kumar, and Chaithanya Murali has been clocking a tremendous 30% m-o-m growth over the past 12 months and has turned profitable starting FY2023.

Oneistox, a homegrown ed-tech startup transforming the AEC (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction) industry, has rebranded itself as Novatr. The strategic move is in line with their vision to fill the innovation gap in AEC by honing the power of human potential and building tech-first skills. The hyper-growing ed-tech platform founded in 2021 by Harkunwar Singh along with his co-founders Vipanchi Handa, Mehul Kumar, and Chaithanya Murali has been clocking a tremendous 30% m-o-m growth over the past 12 months and has turned profitable starting FY2023.

With the ultimate aim of accelerating the adoption of technology in the AEC industry at large, Novatr aims to be the bridge between the dreams of AEC’s future and the skills imperative for its realization. In 2021, Oneistox was founded to propel the AEC industry further towards tech-first skills and ensure better opportunities.

“Oneistox” or “1:x”, signified exponential growth, but as the brand grew bigger, the macro vision evolved into something much bigger than what it was. Now, the brand has evolved to realize its true ethos as “Innovators” and thus renamed itself to Novatr”. The platform's main objective is to design tech-first curriculums and cultivate a community of ambitious individuals who are ready to tap into a whole new world of possibilities.

“We are at the helm of witnessing a transformative phase of the AEC industry, and with our pivot to Novatr, we aim to change this landscape. As we navigate through this transformation, it has become clear that simply revamping the education and training of AEC professionals is not enough. The real challenge lies in transforming the industry itself from the inside out. This rebranding is a stepping stone in our mission to fill the innovation gap in the AEC industry and realise ourselves as what we truly are, Innovators” said Harkunwar Singh, Co-founder, Novatr. 

In their journey of empowering learners to become future-ready professionals, Oneistox clocked a net revenue growth of 30% MoM in FY2023. The key focuses for the startup during this period have been to improve its platform infrastructure, develop more new-age courses for learners, and expand its team. Currently, Novatr is clocking an ARR of $6 mn. Keeping up with their previous trajectory, the company is projecting a 12X revenue growth in FY2024. The platform offers a range of courses and programs, including Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Computational Design, to help learners build critical skills and stay ahead of the curve. The brand recently announced that they’ve raised $1.2 million in seed funding from Y Combinator, Powerhouse Ventures, Soma Capital, and notable angels like Amit Ranjan, Co-Founder, Slideshare. 

About Novatr

Started in 2021, Novatr is an ed-tech startup focused on transforming the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. The startup was founded by Harkunwar Singh, Vipanchi Handa, Mehul Kumar, and Chaithanya Murali, architects and engineers from reputed institutions like SPA Delhi, and IIT Madras. Novatr aims to bridge the gap between traditional AEC education and the fast-evolving technological landscape, empowering learners to become future-ready professionals. The platform offers a range of courses and programs, including Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Computational Design, to help learners build critical skills and stay ahead of the curve. They raised $1.2 million in seed funding from Y Combinator, Powerhouse Ventures, Soma Capital, and notable angels like Amit Ranjan, Co-Founder, Slideshare.

Y-Combinator-backed Writesonic Launches ChatSonic, a Super-Powerful ChatGPT

Battle for AI-powered content generator’s throne begins

• Writesonic is a startup powered by world’s best Startup accelerator Y- Combinator US- S21, headquartered at Delaware, US
• Samanyou Garg is the sole founder
• Raised 2.6M $in Sept 2021 in seed round led by Soma Capital, US and 20 other investors. Planning Series A/B funding to be raised in first quarter of 2023

How ChatSonic Addresses ChatGPT’s Limitations

• ChatSonic is not restricted to 2021 data;
• It offers information on the latest topics with Google-search integration;
• It provides AI image generation through DallE and Stable Diffusion integrations within chat;
• It responds to voice commands like Siri or Alexa do;
• It offers personalised avatars such as math teacher, fitness trainer, etc.;
• ChatSonic’s Chrome extension enables the user to use it’s AI capabilities on any website;
• ChatSonic provides custom templates for various features such as blogs, ads, emails, tweets, etc.; and,
• ChatSonic’s API allows businesses to easily integrate it with their own platforms

The India born, sole founder and creator of Chatsonic Samanyou Garg has recently been creating ripples worldwide with his innovation and creation. Chatsonic is an AI-powered content creation platform that enables people to create content ten times faster than other AI-powered content creation engines. Backed by Y-Combinator, Writesonic is revolutionizing the way organizations use AI to personalize the customer experience and drive engagement. Following in the footsteps of OpenAI's ChatGPT, which has caused a stir in the last two months, ChatSonic is a powerful tool for anyone looking to create engaging content quickly and effortlessly.

ChatGPT is an amazing tool, however users are frequently facing three issues. Firstly, it is unable to generate results on any topic after September 2021. Secondly, it is often down and thirdly it does not provide an API. Writesonic has solved all of these problems by introducing ChatSonic, which is integrated with Google search results and boasts near-zero downtime. Besides this, ChatSonic’s API allows businesses to easily integrate it with their own platform. As a result, many users are now switching from unreliable ChatGPT over to ChatSonic for real-time information on any topic. In addition, users are loving the voice command feature, personalized chat, and Chrome extension that come with ChatSonic.

ChatSonic’s revolutionary Chrome extension is proving to be very helpful for the users as it displays ChatGPT-like responses alongside Google Search results. Additionally, generate any kind of content, be it blog posts, emails, tweets, posts, product descriptions, ads etc., on any website like Gmail, Twitter, LinkedIn and literally every website on the internet.

Samanyou Garg, founder of Writesonic says, "ChatSonic has emerged as the best alternative to ChatGPT, surpassing all of its limitations. In the last 3-4 weeks, ChatSonic’s user base has grown by 10X with hundreds of thousands of users using the platform every week. So far, ChatSonic has generated more than 3 Million pieces of content that is equivalent to more than 1 Billion words."

He further added, “In today's busy world, it can be hard to break the writer's block. That's why we created a platform with a user-friendly interface that works for customers, businesses, organizations, and content creators alike. It allows them to easily create content with minimal human intervention.” Additionally, he announced that the ChatSonic mobile app will be launching on Android and iOS platforms this week.

About Writesonic:

Writesonic is a Y-Combinator backed AI writing and image generation platform that empowers everyone in the world to create any form of content 10X faster. Think of it as Canva for writing, with tools that simplify the process of creating, editing, and publishing SEO-optimized articles, blog posts, ads, landing pages, eCommerce product descriptions, social media posts, and many other forms of content. Founded in 2021 by Samanyou Garg and based in California, Writesonic has received over 10,000+ 5-star reviews on G2, TrustPilot, and Capterra. Additionally, the company is backed by renowned investors like HOF Capital (investors in Uber, Stripe, Alibaba, UiPath, Klarna), Rebel Fund (team includes founders of Instacart, Reddit, and Cruise), Soma Capital (investors in Deel, Rippling, Razorpay, Lattice, coda, Rappi), Broom Ventures, Amino Capital (investors in Zoom, Webflow, Rippling), and some of the best angels from different industries.

Y Combinator, Better Capital -backed Investment App Gullak Raises $3 Mn in Seed Round

Y combinator backed, saving and investment app Gullak, on Wednesday announced its $3 million funding as part of its seed round from new investors - YC and Rebel partners and existing investor - Better capital. The other investors who participated in the round include Good water capital, GMO fintech fund, TRTL ventures and angel investors - Kunal Shah(Cred), Akshay Mehrotra and Ashish Goyal (Early salary), Kevin Moore amongst a few others.

The startup will utilise the funds to increase average revenue per unit (ARPU) by offering unique financial products, strengthening the current product and also to expand its user base. It also plans to make some investment in building a strong community and spreading financial awareness.

Founded by former JusPay executives Manthan Shah and Dilip Jain, and Naimisha Rao, Gullak is a platform that helps automate savings. Through this app the users can save small amounts on a regular basis, and automatically invest that in digital gold. It also allows users to lease their Gold to get extra 5% returns every year on top of the annual Gold returns through its latest offering Gullak Gold+. With this launch, Gullak becomes the first B2C app in India to give users an extra 5% returns.

“A classic representation of a founding team that we love at Better - product, engineering and growth co-founders who are obsessively focussed on rapid iteration to unlock PMF. We are excited to be founding stage investors in Gullak as they make wealth creation easy for 200M Indians and have been thrilled to see the quality of traction already”, said Vaibhav Domkundwar of Better Capital, an early backer of breakout fintechs like Slice, Open, M2P and others.

Launched 7 months ago, the app has grown from 2 Lakh daily GTV to 22 Lakh daily GTV. This is projected to grow to 1 Cr daily GTV by Aug '2023. 40% of their user acquisitions are from organic and referral channels which they aim to take to 60% while growing the GTV in order to build a sustainable business.

“We are driven by our vision to democratise wealth creation while working on all the 3 pillars of a sustainable business - Acquisition, retention and monetization - at the same time. All our initiatives have this as the underlying core. For instance, our recent offering Gullak Gold+ has allowed us to move to a 4 digit ARPU which has been a struggle for most companies in this space. We have also doubled our GTV after the launch of Gold+ with 0 marketing dollars and are hoping to see great retention numbers as well through this offering. We have just begun and the journey ahead seems exciting” says Manthan Shah, Co-founder, Gullak.

With a strong product oriented team that focuses on constant innovation and a team that prioritises meaningful growth focusing on low CAC’s and high ARPU, Gullak is set to disrupt the wealth creation space for the next 200 Mn Indians .Prior to this, Gullak raised $1.3 Million as part of its pre seed round led by Better capital and a couple of angel investors, including Vimal Kumar and Sheetal Lalwani (Co-founders at JusPay), Ramanathan RV (Co-founder at Hyperface), Nitin Gupta (Founder and CEO at UniCards) and Prasanna Sankar (Co-founder at Rippling) among others.

FinTech Startup BharatX Raises $4.5 Mn From YC and Others in Seed Round to Enable Embedded Credit

(L-R) Eeshan Sharma- COO & Co-founder, Mehul Nath Jindal- CEO & Co-founder, Shyam Murugan- CTO & Co-founder

• Round saw participation from Y Combinator, 8i Ventures, and other marquee VCs and angel investors along with existing investors, Java Capital.
• BharatX is a fintech startup that enables consumer-facing apps to offer Credit-as-a-Feature in a white-labeled manner.
• Funds raised will be used for team expansion, product development and market expansion
• Founders of Razorpay, Dropbox, Dunzo, and other angels also took part in the round.

BharatX, a Y-Combinator backed company, has raised $4.5 million in a seed round from Y Combinator, 8i Ventures, Multiply Ventures, Soma Capital and other investors to enable embedded credit in the Indian market. Existing investor Java Capital also participated in the round. The round also saw participation from many marquee Angels including -

• Arash Ferdowsi, Co-founder, Dropbox
• Harshil Mathur, CEO & Co-Founder, Razorpay
• Shashank Kumar, Founder, Razorpay
• Varun Alagh, Co-founder & CEO, Mamaearth
• Kunal Shah, Founder and CEO, CRED
• Ankur Aggarwal, Co-founder, Dunzo
• Vikas Choudhury, President, Reliance Jio

BharatX, a consumer credit venture, provides embedded credit by partnering with brands and websites to provide a credit feature in their apps to serve customers. It operates White-labeled Buy Now Pay Later and other Credit products on more than 50 consumer-facing platforms via it’s APIs and SDK. It aims to deliver seamless embedded credit experiences on several consumer-facing platforms across India, with zero credit risk and zero operational hurdles for the Brands it partners with.

Mehul Jindal, Co-founder & CEO, BharatX, says, “Consumers of India deserve a better class of Credit products out there. Today, if you look at the landscape, most players have low Credit Eligibility approval rates, long documentation sign-up processes and unethical collection practices. We want to give the Middle Class of India easy access to credit products that they deserve yet are not able to access today, while setting the bar for world-class UX and customer service while doing so. ”

“Our B2B2C business model enables us to not only win trust of users via the Brand power of players we work with, but also enable us to reach to Millions of users at Scale with almost Zero Cost.. And with this new round of support from our investors, we’re looking to scale up faster & more aggressively in the near future,” he adds.

The funds raised will be used to build & expand the team, enhance & develop the product further and for market expansion. Powered with a “credit approval rate” of 45 – 55%, which is 3-4X the market standard, BharatX aims to increase the credit stack on offer by launching new product verticals such as UPI Credit, Pay in 3 and 15/30 day cycle products like Credit Cards.

Vikram Chachra, Founding Partner, 8i Ventures, says “We committed to invest in the seed round of BharatX within our first meeting with the founders. It's rare to find this combination of clarity of vision and flawless execution at such an early stage of a venture. Mehul and his co-founders are carving out a whole new white label BNPL category for India's brands. We are delighted to partner with them as they pursue their audacious vision of building India's largest BNPL platform.”

Arash Ferdowsi, Co-founder, Dropbox, adds, “I’ve been very impressed by Mehul and the BharatX team. They have a clear vision for the future of e-commerce in India and the talent to make it a reality. In a short time, they’ve made the “buy now, pay later” experience seamless and instantaneous for both brands and consumers. I can’t wait to see what they build next.”

The most popular embedded credit journey by BharatX is the “Pay in 3” plan for High Ticket transactions on E-Commerce players,, which allows the customer to split their purchases into three interest-free installments with one of the highest approval rates in the market.

Founded in 2019, BharatX has been working with 50+ brands in India including the largest D2C brands in India, growing more than 10X in the last 4 months in volume. The founders include Mehul Nath Jindal, Eeshan Sharma, and Shyam Murugan who are also final year students of National Institute of Technology (NIT) Trichy.

Currently, nearly 480 million Indians don’t get access to credit due to lack of documentation, high-interest rates, and inadequate supply of credit in the informal sector. There is a $1Tn credit gap in the Indian middle class wherein less than 3% of India has credit cards for making purchases using Credit.

BharatX is a FinTech startup led by Mehul Nath Jindal, Eeshan Sharma, and Shyam Murugan, who are also currently students of National Institute of Technology (NIT) Trichy in their Final Year of Education. They were also a part of the latest Forbes 30 under 30 list. It enables Embedded Credit on Consumer Facing platforms such as White-labeled BNPL with zero risks to the platforms and easy integration within a few hours. Further, it does not require a lot of documentation from target users, and has a high approval rate for people applying for credit.

SalaryBox Raises $4Mn in Seed Round from Y-Combinator, AME Cloud Ventures, Gokul Rajaram, Others

SalaryBox Team

The fintech startup aims to utilize the funds to expand their user base, build new products and on-board top talent

Fintech start-up SalaryBox announced today that it has raised $4 million in a new seed round from new and existing investors including Y-Combinator, Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, Soma Capital and 2AM Ventures. Other key investors in the latest funding round include US-based angel and seed investors Gokul Rajaram, Doordash Executive; Sriram Krishnan, former Tinder and Spotify Executive; and Anand Chandrasekaran, former Facebook Executive.

SalaryBox is a mobile app-based employee management solution that simplifies the staff attendance and payroll processes for small businesses. The startup said that it will utilize the funds to grow its team, invest in building new products and features, and further expand its userbase. SalaryBox had earlier raised a pre-seed funding in May 2021, from GSF Accelerator and marquee individual investors like Alok Mittal, CEO, Indifi; Amit Ranjan, ex-Co-Founder, SlideShare; Sumit Jain, Co-Founder, CommonFloor; Gaurav Kapur, Founder of Oaktree Sports; and Surjendu Kuila, Co-Founder, Zopper.

Founded in May 2020 by IIT Roorkee Alumni Nikhil Goel and Peeyush Goyal, SalaryBox has grown to manage payroll for over 1 million employees on its app. The startup further aims to scale up its user base to more than 10 million employees by the end of next year (2022).

Nikhil Goel, co-founder and CEO of SalaryBox said, “We are excited to see such a strong validation from both our clients and our investors alike, towards our mission to enable financial inclusion for India’s 300 million-plus blue-collar workforce. Salarybox will help these workers open their first salary account, while simultaneously making it much easier for small businesses to pay their staff accurately and on time.”

“We are now embarking on an exciting next phase of our growth and will utilize these funds to further strengthen our tech, marketing and operational teams, build new products and scale our user base over the next year,” Nikhil added.

Gokul Rajaram said, “The SalaryBox team impressed me with their outstanding product-market fit, which is evident from the tremendous growth in their user base in such a little time. With more Indian businesses growing comfortable with using apps to manage their business, I believe SalaryBox has a market-winning product on hand and I’m truly excited to support their mission. I am keenly looking forward to seeing them unlock their full potential.”

Jerry Yang, Founding Partner at AME Cloud Ventures said, “We are truly excited to support Salarybox’s vision of building the first salary bank account for India’s 300 million-plus blue-collar employees. Nikhil and team have the right mix of operating expertise and the passion to turn this vision into reality.”

Using the SalaryBox app, business owners can manage their payroll end-to-end, from attendance records and salary payouts, to filing of mandatory compliances. The SalaryBox app will use this data to create a digital professional identity for the 300 million blue-collar workers who typically earn their salaries or wages in cash.

Together with these digital identities, the shift from cash wages to bank transfers will bring these workers all the benefits of financial inclusion; allowing these workers to avail credit or loans at more favourable terms and lower interest rates. SalaryBox will soon be launching the "Earned wage access" feature to solve this need of the market.

YC-backed Edtech Platform Codingal Raises $1.2 Mn in Seed Round, Aims to Sign Up 500k Students Within a Year

The startup will use funds to further develop its proprietary platform to provide students an improved and more personalised learning experience

Bengaluru, September 1: Edtech startup and a leading coding platform for K-12 students Codingal today announced that it has raised $1.2 million in its latest seed funding round, led by Y Combinator, Summer Capital, Day One Syndicate, and Rebright Partners. Prominent angel investors Nate Lipscomb (Senior Product Counsel, Youtube), Ganesh Rengaswamy (Managing Partner, Quona Capital), and Peter Weck (Co-founder, Simply Hired and StoryJumper) also participated in the round.

Other key angel investors in the latest funding round include Ashish Toshniwal (Founder, Y Media Labs), Viral Bajaria (Co-founder, 6Sense), Shashank Kumar (Co-Founder, Razorpay), Karthik Ramakrishnan (Senior Leader, Alexa), and Hiro Mizhushima (Angel investor and Japanese actor).

The edtech will utilise the latest fundraise to grow, nurture and empower the company’s rapidly growing community of K-12 students and coding teachers. The funds will also be used to further develop their proprietary platform for an improved and personalized learning experience. The startup aims to add 500,000 new students on its platform in a year’s time.

Nate Lipscomb, Senior Product Counsel, Youtube says, “Education technology is not only bringing much-needed digitalization to the education sector but it is also facilitating remote learning for thousands of children in nooks and corners of the country. I believe it is the future. Codingal has made an impressive impact in the less than one year since its inception and it is already showing its strong potential to create transformational opportunities for students and teachers across India. I'm excited to support mission-driven startups like them and I look forward to working with them as they grow along their journey.”

Vivek Prakash, co-founder & CEO of Codingal says, “Our mission is to inspire school kids to fall in love with coding, and we are building Codingal to deliver high-quality computer science education combined with world-class coding competitions. Codingal plans to build a robust passion economy marketplace for coding education that brings together the best-in-class educators and students who are eager to learn to code. We believe that we are just getting started and this fundraiser will help us realise our true ambitions. We are thankful to our investors for supporting us in our journey.”

Codingal has grown 30% month-on-month since its launch and currently generates over 20% revenue from international customers.

Satyam Baranwal, co-founder & COO of Codingal adds, “In less than a year of its launch, Codingal has offered over 100,000 students from over 5,000 schools a platform to learn coding via community-led coding competitions and live 1-on-1 classes with its highly trained Computer Science teachers. We have also hosted over 100 coding competitions so far and received over 100,000 project and code submissions by students on the Codingal platform. It is heartening to witness the inception and growth of a thriving community of students, parents, and highly trained teachers interested in coding."

The startup has partnered with reputed educational institutions and technology companies to host coding competitions and promote coding culture among school students. The partners include the likes of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IIT Roorkee, IIT Guwahati, BITS Pilani, DPS, BGS National Public School, and many more.

Codingal was launched in September 2020 and raised an angel round of $560K soon after in November 2020. Early in 2021, Codingal was accepted into Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 batch.

About Codingal

Codingal is the #1 coding platform for K-12, with a mission to inspire school students to fall in love with coding at a young age. Launched in September 2020, Codingal has already empowered 100,000+ students by motivating them to start learning coding via competitions and high-quality coding education. All classes are taught live 1:1 by vetted and trained teachers who are experts at programming and only from a Computer Science background. The coding curriculum is based on a standardized K-12 Computer Science Framework, which students find very fun & engaging.

Today, schools and traditional education systems are not equipped to provide the proper coding education to children. Codingal is here to change that and empower every student with the tools, content, competitions, and live coding classes to start learning to code and build anything they imagine. Codingal is also backed by top industry advisors and investors, including Rebright Partners and Y Combinator.

Y Combinator and Citadel Alums Launch DeFi Lending Protocol Algofi on the Algorand Blockchain

BOSTON, Aug. 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Algofi today announces the upcoming launch of its fast, low-cost, decentralized lending market on the Algorand blockchain. The protocol is currently live on Algorand's TestNet, with plans to launch on MainNet by Q4 of this year. The simple-to-use platform allows everyone from crypto-native traders to less tech-savvy retail users to earn high-interest yield on their cryptocurrency. Algofi will also feature seamless on-ramps for fiat currency into crypto on Algorand, allowing users to begin earning yield on Algofi almost instantly.

 

Founders John Clarke and Owen Colegrove bring traditional finance backgrounds to Algofi, having worked on Citadel's fixed income team before leaving to ideate a new decentralized finance solution, which took shape within Y Combinator's summer 2021 accelerator and launched as Algofi in August 2021.

Algofi selected Algorand as its underlying technology partner due to the ready availability of robust developer tools which enabled the simple creation of smart contracts that power Algofi; the active and engaged community around Algorand; and the technology's proven success in real-world financial use cases. In order to create a platform that is user-friendly on a mass scale, points of friction like high transaction fees and confusing bridging processes are untenable:

"Building on Algorand enables < $0.01 transactions compared to ~$15 or more on other incumbent networks," said Algofi cofounder John Clarke. "High costs and slow transactions make decentralized lending markets inaccessible to the majority of potential users, so going with a Layer-1 proof of stake protocol like Algorand just made sense. We're also excited to be a part of Algorand's burgeoning DeFi ecosystem alongside the likes of Yieldly, Tinyman and Algodex, where we already see a lot of synergies."

"Innovative thinkers like Algofi are building thoughtful and accessible DeFi solutions on Algorand," said David Markley, Director of Business Solutions at Algorand. "Algorand's secure, decentralized technology makes it easy and efficient for the development of disruptive financial products, and we are thrilled to see Algofi joining the expanding ecosystem of DeFi offerings that are based on Algorand's open source technology."

Algofi aims to be the first crypto-native bank to truly bridge the gap between traditional and decentralized finance. The initial lending protocol will launch for users everywhere in Q4 of 2021, with additional fiat on- and off-ramp solutions, and more, forthcoming.

"Using Algorand will allow us to do things that you can't even dream of doing on, say, Ethereum," Algofi cofounder Owen Colegrove told KryptoNurd's Monty Allen. "You can start imagining high-speed transactions where you're making real world payments against your balances, or drawing a line of credit very seamlessly against your holdings in the [Algofi] platform....just facilitating real world interactions very cleanly."

About Algofi

Algofi is building a fast, low-cost crypto lending market on the Algorand blockchain. Building on Algorand enables sub-cent transactions compared to ~$15 on the incumbent Ethereum network. High costs and slow transactions made previous decentralized lending markets inaccessible to the majority of potential users. Traders can use Algofi to go short or to trade with leverage. In addition, users can use the simple fiat on-ramp to begin earning interest on their cryptos. Algofi is planning to offer traditional banking services like savings accounts and credit cards that will be powered by Algorand's growing DeFi ecosystem.

About Algorand, Inc.

Algorand is building the technology to power the Future of Finance (FutureFi), the convergence of traditional and decentralized models into a unified system that is inclusive, frictionless, and secure. Founded by Turing Award-winning cryptographer Silvio Micali, Algorand developed a blockchain infrastructure that offers the interoperability and capacity to handle the volume of transactions needed for defi, financial institutions and governments to smoothly transition into FutureFi. The technology of choice for more than 700 global organizations, Algorand is enabling the simple creation of next generation financial products, protocols and exchange of value. For more information, visit www.algorand.com.

Intercity Bus Startup, Zingbus Raises Funding from Y Combinator

• Funds will be utilized in building a technology stack
• To increase its operational footprint across the country
• To provide safe & reliable travel services to the customers

10th March 2021, New Delhi: zingbus, one of India's leading travel startups, has announced that the company has raised an undisclosed amount of funding as a part of Y Combinator's winter 2021 batch of startups. The Silicon Valley-based startup incubator Y Combinator selects a group of early-stage startups twice a year, mentors them over a period of three months and invests $125K in them. Airbnb and Doordash, two of YC’s portfolio companies, went for IPO recently. Among other Indian startups that the fund has backed in the past, the most popular are Cleartax, Razorpay, Meesho, Khatabook, Groww, Cashfree and OkCredit.

(L-R)mratunjay-beniwal, ravi-kumar-verma-and-prashant-kumar-co-founders-zingbus

The funds will be used to strengthen zingbus's presence in existing cities and expand to new geographies. A significant part of the funds will also be utilized in building a technology stack that will allow the platform to deliver a better experience to travellers.

Speaking about travel in the post-pandemic world, Prashant Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO, zingbus, said, "Safety inside the coach has been a huge concern for travellers post-pandemic. We have deployed multiple tool kits for the bus crew to ensure that every trip was sanitized and all safety norms were followed every time. This has not only reassured the faith of travellers in zingbus, but also helped in dissipating the taboo associated with travel."

Vaibhav Domkundwar, CEO Better Capital, quoted, “Bus travel is large and growing but incredibly broken in terms of the experience for travellers, crew as well as the owners. The missing piece is the technology that removes friction and enhances the experience for all parties. That is exactly what Zingbus is doing and scaling its reach across India and Bharat delivering great impact.”

Anupam Mittal, CEO People Group, said, “With large parts of travel and commute getting organized and having already moved online, it is only a matter of time before inter-city bus travel gets disrupted. This market segment has witnessed massive value creation internationally, and I am confident zingbus will do the same in India. Prashant and his team at zingbus are revolutionizing bus travel by offering experiences - standardization, service and safety - that users have come to expect in other segments, and I think this will be the next exciting story in travel.”

Barely a few weeks back, zingbus raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Arora Ventures, Titan Capital, Better Capital, Venture Catalysts, Anupam Mittal and other marquee investors. zingbus currently enables more than 2,000 daily journeys across Delhi/NCR, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jammu, Haryana, and Punjab.

About zingbus:

Founded by Prashant Kumar, Mratunjay and Ravi Kumar Verma in 2019, zingbus aims to Change the Way India Travels. The company is already the highest-rated branded bus line in the country across digital platforms and social media. zingbus aggregates fleets of buses to deliver end-to-end standardized intercity travel experience at affordable prices. The emerging brand in the intercity bus services believes that the Right to affordable and dignified travel is fundamental to human existence and development and aspires to provide access to safe, reliable and affordable travel to everyone.

Able Jobs, Hiring Platform for Entry-Level Talents, Raises $1.8 Mn in Funding from SAIF Partners, Y Combinator, Others

Neeraj Arora, Titan Capital and Firstcheque participated in the seed round

Able Jobs, a hiring platform for entry-level talent based out of Bangalore has raised a seed amount of $ 1.8 Mn from Saif Partners, Y Combinator, Neeraj Arora, Titan Capital and Firstcheque. Helping companies like WhiteHatJr, Bigbasket, Sharechat, hire entry level talent in the fields of sales, support and marketing, Able Jobs also offers skill development and online training courses for these young candidates.

The fresh raise will be used by the brand for acceleration of its product growth and expansion of its team. The company also plans to build state-of-the-art training products for companies to hire talent reliably and expand into adjacent sectors like FMCG, BFSI, etc.

Launched in May 2019, Able Jobs provides end to end hiring support to companies from finding the right candidate to getting talent deployed. Their app has rigorous online training programs where they pre-train candidates for job roles specific to companies. Post-training, companies interview candidates and then roll out offers as they deem fit. Able Jobs also helps companies acquire talent through social channels and gives them access to people beyond job portals.

Commenting on the fund raise, Able Jobs CEO Ravish Agrawal , said ,” Over the past decades companies have invested a lot of capital in hiring and training of entry level talent. We, at Able jobs, are focused on solving this by  partnering with companies and helping them hire trained professionals with a single click and no upfront  investment.”

“We are glad to have the SAIF team on our side,their deep networks in the ecosystem and years of expertise with startups will help us massively scale up our business.”

Announcing the investment, Deepak Gaur, MD, SAIF Partners India said, " We are extremely thrilled to partner with Ravish and his team who are catering to the flourishing bracket of job-seekers in the country. With the rising needs of such platforms in a post-Covid job market, we are confident that Ablejobs can catalyze the growth and development of the entry-level hiring ecosystem in our country while scaling up efficiently at the same time. Looking forward to partner with them in their next phase of growth."

With organisations prioritising skills more than college degrees, their talent requirements have become very dynamic. Using the Able Jobs platform, companies have seen 11X faster hiring and 4X deployable talent over the past few months.

About Able jobs

Started in May 2019, Able jobs has been started by Ravish Agrawal , Svatantra Kumar, Siddharth Srivastav, all of them having experience in the edtech space. Ravish is a graduate of IIT Kanpur and all the founders have done an edtech startup before starting Able Jobs. With an office in Bangalore and a team size of 10+ employees, their business objective is to help companies hire trained entry level talent.

Y Combinator Reduces Investment Size and Pro Rata Rights in Follow-up Fundings

US-based seed-stage accelerator, Y Combinator (YC), is reducing the standard deal of its investment from $150,000 to $125,000. Altough it has reduced the investment amount, the equity percentage would remain the same i.e 7%, on a post-money safe

In a blog post this Friday, Y Combinator’s president Geoff Ralston said that the starting with Winter2021 batch, YC would make two changes to its terms for startups --

1. Reducing Investment size from $150K to $125K ;
2. Reducing the amount YC's pro rata right to 4% of subsequent rounds. Pro-rata investment rights give an investor in a company the right to participate in a subsequent round of funding to maintain their level of percentage ownership in the company.

Originally, YC gave about $20,000 for 6% equity in a company. In 2011, Yuri Milner and SV Angel began offering an additional $150,000 to every startup in YC. We continued this program with new investors and reduced the deal to about $100k for 7%. The amount put into each company was changed to $80,000 when Start Fund was renewed. In 2014, YC increased that amount to $120k and in 2018 to $150k when it raised its last fund.

In April , Michael Seibel, CEO and a partner at Y Combinator, announced that the summer 2020 ("S20") will be fully remote, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes interviews for the batch, office hours, evening talks, and meetups throughout the batch.

Applications for the Winter 2021 batch are now open at https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/ .

Fitness App Startup SQUATS Selected for Y Combinator’s Batch of 2020

Fittr App (backed by SQUATS, India’s fastest growing Pune-based online fitness company) has been selected for Y Combinator 2020, a US-based start-up accelerator which selects the most promising start-ups to fund from across the globe. Fittr joins the ranks of RazorPay, Meesho, and Clear tax, some of the top companies from India that have joined the Y Combinator network so far.

Y Combinator is an American seed accelerator launched in March 2005 and was used to launch over 2,000 companies including Stripe, Airbnb, Cruise Automation, DoorDash, Coin-base, Instacart, and Dropbox. The combined valuation of the top YC companies was over $155 billion. Y Combinator provides seed funding for start-ups. Founders of each start-up are invited to move to the Bay Area for the duration of their cycle. During this period, YC works intensively with them to help them realise their vision.

[caption id="attachment_138112" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Mr. Jitendra Chouksey, Founder, SQUATS[/caption]

In the 2020 winter session, Fittr’s Founder Jitendra Chouksey will have an opportunity to share his entrepreneurial journey with leading start-up investors and successful startup founders from across the globe. The online fitness community is the only company from Pune making it to the US-based startup accelerator’s top companies list.

Speaking on being a part of the Y Combinator’s accelerator programme, Jitendra Chouksey, Founder of Fittr said, “It’s a privilege to be a part of this Y Combinator list. Accelerators like them dare to support some of the unconventional ideas and it is quite an enriching experience to simply be in the company of such individuals. I am confident that this will bring a lot of value to our platform in the form of opportunities and learning and will inspire more companies from India to apply for this programme.”

SQUATS – the parent company of Fittr, was started in 2015 by Jitendra Chouksey as a WhatsApp group to offer fitness-related coaching. The platform ultimately envisions transforming the lives of 50 million people as they journey towards better health through diet and workouts.

About Fittr & SQUATS



Fittr has recorded over 100,000 fitness transformations and continues to do so for its highly-engaged community of 5, 20,000 members who support each other’s goals and inspire those around them. The FITTR app has received more than 4, 00,000 downloads since September 2018, thus furthering its vision of impacting lives by providing people with the professional knowledge they need to achieve their fitness and health goals. The platform, with its focus on preventive health, implements a distinctive approach in helping its members adopt a healthy lifestyle. Fittr provides them with everything from the right knowledge to community support, mentorship and guidance by its team of 190+ consultants at each and every step.

Headquartered in Pune, SQUATS was launched in January 2016 as a community on Facebook to address the challenges in the fitness industry where misinformation, distrust, unsatisfactory results, quick-fix solutions, and fad diets are ruining the industry’s reputation. SQUATS has been profitable since its inception. Suniel Shetty, one of India’s top fitness icons, has recently become a part of the company. The company, with its focus on preventive health, implements a distinctive approach in helping its members adopt a healthy lifestyle.

Vernacular News Platform Lokal Raises $3 Mn from 3one4, Y Combinator, others

Local language news aggregator and knowledge platform Lokal has raised $3 million (~ Rs 21.2 crore) in a funding from a clutch of investors, including the Bengaluru-based 3one4 Capital and Y Combinator, reported VCCircle.

Singapore-based boutique venture fund RB Investments, SOMA Capital also contributed to the round, along with existing investor India Quotient, which had previously invested an undisclosed amount in the startup, in August last year.

Lokal will use the funds to enhance its product, team expansion, foray into new markets.

Founded in 2018, by Jani Pasha and Vipul Chaudhary, Lokal is serving a largely under-served market in India which got access to the internet recently because of Jio and cheaper smartphones. Lokal gets its news from qualified freelancer ground journalists. The company claims to delivers local news quicker than any other news platform.

Besides local online platforms, global online giants are also witnessing is a rise in the number of content viewers in vernacular languages including Hindi, Tamil and Bengali in smaller cities and towns. In September, Google-owned video platform YouTube announced that there is a significant amount of content is being created in vernacular languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and Malayalam.

Last month, Matrubharti, also a vernacular content platform, has raised about Rs. 3.24 crores in angel round of funding from US-based Gujarati NRI angel investors.

In July last year, vernacular knowledge platform Vokal had raised $5 million in a Series A round of funding lead by China’s Shunwei Capital, and 500 startups. Vokal also acqui-hired StupidChat Technologies, a quizzing app startup, in an all-stock deal, in May this year.

Fintech Startup Khatabook to Raise $20 Mn in Funding from DST Partners, Ribbit Capital and Sequoia

Mumbai-based Kyte Technologies, which owns and operates digital accounts ledger app KhataBook, is set to raise $20-$25 million (Rs 138-Rs 172 crore) in series-A financing round, which will lead by DST Partners, a personal investing vehicle for the partners at Israeli-Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's DST Global.

Ribbit Capital, Sequoia Capital and a couple of Chinese funds will also contribute to the round, reported Times of India.

Besides, more than 20 angel investors including prominent investor Gokul Rajaram, Jitendra Gupta, the founder of Citrus Pay, and Kunal Shah, CEO of Cred, are also likely to participate in the round, said the report.

Expected to be finalised in the coming weeks, the Khatabook funding would be one of the largest series-A funding rounds for a homegrown startup this year.

Founded in 2018, by IIT-Bombay alumni Ravish Naresh, Jaideep Poonia, Dhanesh Kumar and Ashish Sonone, Khatabook replaces traditional udhaar bahi-khata (accounts book/ledger) by its digital app, which shop owners can use to record credit and debit transactions for their trusted customers and can maintain their customers'​ accounts securely. The app is claimed to be free and comes with features such as SMS updates to customers on every transaction, Automatic Backup, WhtasApp payment reminder to customers and download of customers' PDF Report among others.

While Ravish was one of the Co-founders and COO at Housing.com, a property listing websites. Jaideep Poonia, Dhanesh Kumar and Ashish Sonone, were co-founders of Knit Messenger, a messaging application that made it easy for teachers to connect with parents and students.

Part of Y Combinator and Sequoia Capital's Surge, Khatabook has so far raised just over $3 million from Y Combinator, Sequoia and InfoEdge, the parent of naukri.com and 99acres.com. The startup also counts Citrus Pay founders - Amrish Rau and Jitendra Gupta, and Square's Gokul Rajaram as its angel investors.

Khatabook services SMBs that operate in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan cities and is available in a wide variety of Indian languages, including the popular Hinglish dialect. The app recently crossed 120,000+ weekly active merchants and is growing at 40% MoM.

LetsVenture, Pioneer Fund launches 'Future of India' Fund to Invest in Y-Combinator backed Indian Startups

LetsVenture, a platform for startup investments, has tied up with Silicon Valley-based Pioneer Fund to invest in Indian enterprises nurtured by top startup accelerator Y Combinator.

LetsVenture will invest in 5-7 Indian startups from the summer batch of Y Combinator in the June-August period. For same, LetsVenture and Pioneer Fund is setting up a startup fund called 'Future of India' with a corpus of $1- $1.5 million.

LetsVenture’s investor base will get an opportunity to put money in Future of India fund.

The development comes at a time when Y Combinator has recently selected a record number of 15 India-based startups for its summer batch of 2019.

For California-based Pioneer Fund, this will be the first time it will invest in India, through the upcoming Fund.startup selected by YC.

Pioneer is itself created by Y Combinator alumni -- Jared Heyman and Jason Gray, along with support of 170 fellow Y Combinator alumni founders.

Pioneer Fund pools capital and expertise from 170+ Y Combinator alumni to invest in the top 10% of YC startups. The fund is building a diversified portfolio of top YC startups across several verticals, by leveraging the unique access, knowledge, and connections of its YC alumni investors and advisors. Pioneer Fund is backed by billion-dollar family offices, high net worth individuals, and small institutional investors.

In a statement to Economic Times, LetsVenture Founder & CEO, Shanti Mohan said, "They (Pioneer Fund) typically invest in five to seven companies globally. The new partnership will allow them to back a similar number of Indian firms. These investments would be of $1,50,000-$2,00,000 for each of the Indian firms."

Pioneer Fund’s managing partner, Jason Gray, said, "This (partnership) will allow LetsVenture and Pioneer Fund to provide local investors with access to top Indian startups and provide these firms with access to the support and mentorship of YC alumni."

Source - Economic Times

Y Combinator-backed FinTech Startup OKCredit Raises $15.5 Mn in Funding led by Tiger Global

In one of the largest series A funding rounds by an Indian startup, Bangalore-based fintech startup OKCredit, has raised $15.5 million in funding round led by Tiger Global along with participation from Morningside Venture Capital, Lightspeed India Partners, Venture Highway and the startup's existing backer Y Combinator also contributed to the round.

Tiger Global has reportedly invested $10 million of total $15 million funding of OKCredit.

Part of Y Combinator's summer 2018 batch, OKCredit offers mobile based solution for small business and shop owners and their customers to enable recording of credit/payment transactions digitally.

Founded in 2017, by IIT Kanpur graduates - Harsh Pokharna, Gaurav Kumar and Aditya Prasad, OKCredit has raised more than $17 million in total so far.

OkCredit provides merchants with a simple and reliable means of keeping credit and payments records for their business carried out on credit basis. It digitizes their transactions and records payment reducing the burden of maintaining and accounting paper account books. Accoding to the startup's website, "The ability to provide an on-demand visibility of the merchant’s record to the customers is possible for the first time."

It has a mobile app which helps automate all transactions of retailers with their customers and wholesalers. Merchants can use OkCredit’s app to track buyers’ purchases and when payments are due. They can also use the app to send payment reminders.

The startup, which faces competition from players like PhonePe and BharatPe, is planning to expand its merchant base and create teams across verticals such as product, technology and digital banking. OkCredit aims to replicate this solution to digitise all book-keeping between the wholesaler and the retailer, which will help automate all credit, stock taking, and amount due

The startup is currently catering to 13 lakh merchants, of which around 9 lakh use the app once a month, while 4 lakh merchants use it once a week.

According to co-founder/ CEO of OkCredit, Harsh Pokharna,"Without any feet on the street, we have spread across more than 1,000 locations across India, relying on word-of-mouth and some digital marketing."

"As many as 97% of the 60 million micro businesses in the country have no digital tools. “Our mobile-first solutions, simplicity of language will help create a loyal merchant base," he added in a statement to The Economic Times.

Scott Shleifer, Partner, Tiger Global said “The market for cloud enabled software for India’s merchants is young and growing rapidly. We believe OkCredit is a strong market leader."

Source - ET Tech