Cricket Icon Yuvraj Singh Invests In Co-working Startup Creator's Gurukul

Delhi-based co-working startup Gurukul has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Indian international cricketer Yuvraj Singh. Singh, through his investment fund, YouWeCan Ventures, has been actively investing in various projects.

Commenting on the development, Abhinav Tandon, co-founder, Gurukul said, "Yuvraj Singh has been involved from the beginning. The paper work formalities, however, have just finished. He is a partner in the company and holds equity. The financial structuring details can't be disclosed due to NDA (non-disclosure agreement).”

According to Tandon Singh will also be the brand ambassador, helping create awareness and will be the face of the company for next four years.

"It feels great to be a part of the Creator s Gurukul team... I am confident that the unique business model of Creator's Gurukul will disrupt the sector in a big way," said Yuvraj Singh.

The company's first co-working centre - with over 500 seats - is located in Gurugram. It plans to set up two more centres in Mangaluru and Delhi by the end of the year.

Earlier Singh has invested in JetSetGo, Moovo and EduKart to name few. This is not the first time when a cricketer has shown his interest in startup. Earlier in July 2017, popular West Indian cricketer, Chris Gayle had invested an undisclosed amount in IONA Entertainment, a Bangaluru-based gaming startup. Prior to this star cricket celebrity Sourav Ganguly had invested in an entertainment startup Flickstree.

Vyomo Raises $15M From Naturals in Series A Round, Rebrands As Naturals@Home

YouWeCan Ventures-backed Delhi-based Vyomo, a mobile app based beauty and wellness platform, has raised around $15 million in Series A round of funding led by salon chain Naturals which has taken the controlling stake in the company. Post funding, Vyomo rebranded as Naturals @Home and Abhinav Khare (Vyomo's Founder) will remain the CEO. Naturals founders –  Veena. K and CK Kumarvel will join the board of the company.

Founded in 2014 by Poonam Marwah and Abhinav Khare, Vyomo provide “Head-to-toe” doorstep beauty services at home to women of all ages in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida. Its app is available for Android and iOS users.

Banaglore-based Naturals is an offline salon chain spread across 80 cities in India with over 550 salons. With this investment, the company will tap the online on-demand service market while Vyomo will get access to the wide no. of stylists and locations where Naturals is present.

As per KPMG report, beauty and wellness industry in India will be $13 billion by 2017. Naturals @Home plans to launch in 80 cities over the course of next six months. The first phase launch will be carried out in Chennai in May, followed by Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. Naturals @Home is focused on building the next 5 million customer base, through this new vertical.

In June 2015, Vyomo raised seed funding from TaxiForSure's Co-founder, Aprameya Radhakrishna and in April 2015, YouWeCan Ventures invested an undisclosed amount in seed funding in Vyomo.

Other startups in this space include Vanity Cube, Purplle, ManageMySpa (rebranded as Zenoti), Belita, Mazkara, Stayglad and Nykaa among others.

Vyomo Raises $15M From Naturals in Series A Round, Rebrands As Naturals@Home

YouWeCan Ventures-backed Delhi-based Vyomo, a mobile app based beauty and wellness platform, has raised around $15 million in Series A round of funding led by salon chain Naturals which has taken the controlling stake in the company. Post funding, Vyomo rebranded as Naturals @Home and Abhinav Khare (Vyomo's Founder) will remain the CEO. Naturals founders –  Veena. K and CK Kumarvel will join the board of the company.

Founded in 2014 by Poonam Marwah and Abhinav Khare, Vyomo provide “Head-to-toe” doorstep beauty services at home to women of all ages in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida. Its app is available for Android and iOS users.

Banaglore-based Naturals is an offline salon chain spread across 80 cities in India with over 550 salons. With this investment, the company will tap the online on-demand service market while Vyomo will get access to the wide no. of stylists and locations where Naturals is present.

As per KPMG report, beauty and wellness industry in India will be $13 billion by 2017. Naturals @Home plans to launch in 80 cities over the course of next six months. The first phase launch will be carried out in Chennai in May, followed by Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. Naturals @Home is focused on building the next 5 million customer base, through this new vertical.

In June 2015, Vyomo raised seed funding from TaxiForSure's Co-founder, Aprameya Radhakrishna and in April 2015, YouWeCan Ventures invested an undisclosed amount in seed funding in Vyomo.

Other startups in this space include Vanity Cube, Purplle, ManageMySpa (rebranded as Zenoti), Belita, Mazkara, Stayglad and Nykaa among others.

YouWeCan And AdLift Present Their Latest Venture ‘Yral'

AdLift, a global digital marketing agency and YouWeCan Ventures, a Yuvraj Singh initiative, has launched a new platform – Yral (pronounced ‘viral’) – that connects advertisers with celebrities by leveraging their social media network. Yral delivers the right audience and scalable reach to its advertisers by leveraging modern social media platforms.

Yral provides registered advertisers with the right set of information that enables them to identify and interact with brand advocates, helping advertisers reach customers throughout all stages of the purchase funnel.

Globally, advertiser-paid social media spend is slated to increase 26% in 2016 and will reach $29.91 billion, representing 15% of all digital ad spending. In Asia-Pacific, year-over-year growth is stronger – 30.6% with $9.6 billion in social media ad spending. As more brands and businesses adopt paid social media advertising, yral provides the tools to advertisers to help them scale their social media initiatives and enhance their reach.

“We want to transform the way celebrities engage with brands – making it a whole lot easier and faster for advertisers to efficiently connect with the right celebrities.” said Yuvraj Singh. “Yral is our first foray in to the digital space – we’re excited to partner with AdLift in making this happen.”

“The total reach of the top 50 celebrities is close to 100M which is 33% of India’s Internet population. Digital marketing spends are estimated to reach $2B by 2019 and if only 5% is led by celebrities we estimate the market size to be $100M,”said Nishant Singhal, Founder & Chief Investment Officer of YouWeCan Ventures.

Yuvraj Singh recently launched YouWeNow in association with Yral, which is an entertainment platform featuring popular and trending videos within the Sports and Lifestyle vertical.  The content is closely curated by Yuvraj Singh and his team.

YouWeCan And AdLift Present Their Latest Venture ‘Yral'

AdLift, a global digital marketing agency and YouWeCan Ventures, a Yuvraj Singh initiative, has launched a new platform – Yral (pronounced ‘viral’) – that connects advertisers with celebrities by leveraging their social media network. Yral delivers the right audience and scalable reach to its advertisers by leveraging modern social media platforms.

Yral provides registered advertisers with the right set of information that enables them to identify and interact with brand advocates, helping advertisers reach customers throughout all stages of the purchase funnel.

Globally, advertiser-paid social media spend is slated to increase 26% in 2016 and will reach $29.91 billion, representing 15% of all digital ad spending. In Asia-Pacific, year-over-year growth is stronger – 30.6% with $9.6 billion in social media ad spending. As more brands and businesses adopt paid social media advertising, yral provides the tools to advertisers to help them scale their social media initiatives and enhance their reach.

“We want to transform the way celebrities engage with brands – making it a whole lot easier and faster for advertisers to efficiently connect with the right celebrities.” said Yuvraj Singh. “Yral is our first foray in to the digital space – we’re excited to partner with AdLift in making this happen.”

“The total reach of the top 50 celebrities is close to 100M which is 33% of India’s Internet population. Digital marketing spends are estimated to reach $2B by 2019 and if only 5% is led by celebrities we estimate the market size to be $100M,”said Nishant Singhal, Founder & Chief Investment Officer of YouWeCan Ventures.

Yuvraj Singh recently launched YouWeNow in association with Yral, which is an entertainment platform featuring popular and trending videos within the Sports and Lifestyle vertical.  The content is closely curated by Yuvraj Singh and his team.

Yuvraj Singh To Launch Startup Incubator In Gurgaon, Bengaluru

Yuvraj Singh-run seed fund company - YouWeCanVentures plans to start an incubator soon. The company said the first two arms of this company would be set up in Gurgaon and Bengaluru.

"We want to be a 360 degree fund. Usually, you see funds taking a step up and trying to invest larger ticket sizes. We want to take a step back and get in on the ground floor," said Nishant Singhal, co-founder & chief investment officer of Youwecan ventures.

The company plans to invest in 30 companies in the next three months and wants a portfolio of 70 companies by the end of FY17. Once the company "graduates" from the incubator, Youwecan will put in seed investment to "help the entrepreneurs continue their growth". Exits will come once the company reaches Series C, D round of capital investment.

Singhal, however, dismissed questions that the fund may be looking to get on the ground floor to avoid inflated valuations.

"Only the top 10 companies in the country have inflated valuations, the others can explain why they price their equity at a certain price," he said.

He said the reason for starting the incubator is to tap into a nascent community of entrepreneurs who do not get access to angel investors. "There are just 4,000 angels in the country. There is a need for more incubators. Someone to help entrepreneurs prepare a product," he said. At the seed stage where Youwecan ventures typically operates, the fund deals with companies with an established product. Now, Singhal said, the company wants to help make product that will be country-independent and can scale faster. But with incubators comes the risk of failures. "We know there is a much bigger risk than doing seed investment, but with risk comes bigger rewards," said Singhal.

The fund will start with providing office space, high speed internet connections and mentors, just like other incubators. Along with that the incubator will also be giving fledgling companies access to top-end law firms. The company is leveraging Yuvraj's brand to create a mentor network which will include Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm and Rahul Yadav founder and ex-CEO of Housing.com. "We will add more mentors from our seed fund's portfolio companies as time passes," he explained. Also unlike other incubators, Youwecan will not be partnering with any educational institutions. "What the likes of IIT and IIM do is increase your deal flow but we have Yuvi. He is one of the biggest brands in the country," he explained.

Singhal argued that the linkages between infamy and incubators were misplaced. "In the US, it may be a problem especially as angels close deals in a matter of days. Here it takes months for small cheques to be written. Some of the fast rising stars are results of incubators," he said.