Turbostart Leads $2.5M Round in Lighthouse PropTech with Dabur Family Office & Other FO’s

Turbostart, a global early-stage venture capital firm and accelerator, has announced a $1 million investment in Lighthouse PropTech as part of a $2.5 million funding round. The Dabur Family Office and several other HNI family offices joined the round, Valuing the company at $13.5 million. The investment will fuel Lighthouse PropTech’s expansion as it builds a technology-driven platform for luxury real estate transactions in India.

India’s luxury real estate market is experiencing unprecedented growth, with the segment expected to cross $100 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 21.81%. In the last five years alone, the share of high-end and ultra-luxury housing sales has doubled, driven by rising HNI wealth, digital-first transactions, and institutional investments. As a result, proptech innovation is accelerating, with India’s proptech sector attracting over $1.5 billion in funding and growing at 15-20% annually.

Ganesh Raju, Founder of Turbostart Global

"India’s luxury real estate boom is being shaped by proptech innovation, and the numbers tell the story - high-end housing sales have doubled in top-tier cities, institutional capital is pouring into real estate technology, and AI-driven purchasing is now mainstream. Lighthouse PropTech is positioned at the heart of this transformation. With 40+ years of combined experience, Sumesh and Murtuza are bringing deep market expertise and a cutting-edge technology-driven vision to a sector that is primed for disruption. We are excited to back their journey as they scale to define the future of luxury real estate," said Ganesh Raju, Founder of Turbostart Global.

"Luxury real estate is evolving rapidly, and the demand for seamless, tech-powered portfolio management has never been higher. Partnering with Turbostart gives us more than capital - it brings a high-impact ecosystem of strategic expertise, industry connections, and deep technology enablement. This partnership will accelerate our mission to redefine how HNIs and UHNIs buy, sell, and manage real estate in a market set to double in value over the next five years," said Sumesh Mishra, Founder of Lighthouse PropTech.

Turbostart leads the $2.5 million investment round, joined by the Dabur Family Office and several HNI investors focused on expanding India’s premium real estate technology ecosystem.

About Lighthouse PropTech

Lighthouse PropTech is building a next-generation digital platform to transform luxury real estate transactions for HNIs and UHNIs, providing a seamless, AI-powered investment experience.

About Turbostart:

Founded in 2019, Turbostart is a catalyst for innovation and a powerhouse accelerator, propelling early-stage startups into the future. With a global presence spanning India, the Middle East, the US, and Singapore, Turbostart has launched 5 funds over 5 years, supporting over 50 diverse startups across sectors and stages. Our unparalleled support extends through 5 Centers of Excellence in Tech, Marketing, Sales, UI/UX, and Strategy and Consulting, providing startups with comprehensive resources to build tomorrow's leaders. For more information, visit [https://turbostart.co/].

E-Commerce Platform for Sustainable Products Meolaa Raises $2 Mn in Seed Funding Led by Turbostart

Ishita Sawant, Founder of Meolaa

Meolaa, a digitally-native sustainable consumer products e-commerce platform, has announced the successful conclusion of its seed funding round, securing an impressive $2 million in investment. The funding round was led by Turbostart, an investor who showcased strong confidence in Meolaa's mission to transform the products used into a force for good.

Founded by the young dynamic 23-year-old Ishita Sawant (in picture above), Meolaa has swiftly become a differentiated voice and a unique platform amidst Indian e-commerce since their launch.. Boasting an impressive portfolio of over 1500 brands and an assortment of 125,000+ products spanning six diverse categories, Meolaa stands as the fastest-growing one-stop-shop for high-performance, planet-conscious products, curated for Gen Z.

At the heart of Meolaa's vision lies the insight that Sustainability is the only future, and what we do now matters. Meolaa adopts an experience-driven approach to e-commerce. The platform aims to redefine the way consumers interact with brands, ensuring every shopping experience is not just enjoyable but also deeply engaging.

As the consumer landscape evolves, Meolaa recognizes the shift in preferences towards purpose-driven shopping experiences. The platform is strategically positioned to meet this demand by leveraging cutting-edge technology to deliver a seamless, personalized, and purpose-driven shopping experience to its customers. For brands, Meolaa aims to be the premier listing platform, providing solutions to the scaling and brand positioning challenges they often encounter.

Ganesh Raju, Founder, Turbostart says "We are confident about our recent investment in Meolaa, a purpose-led e-commerce platform, curated for the newer generation. This marks an exciting milestone as one of Turbostart’s initial investments with many more to follow in the e-commerce space. What truly sets Meolaa apart and what makes us believe in the brand is its unwavering commitment to sustainability, aligning perfectly with the growing global demand for eco-conscious businesses. Current trends show that Generation Z prioritizes sustainable buying decisions over brand names, making a compelling case for the platform's potential. Beyond financial support, Turbostart is strategically poised to aid Meolaa's global expansion, with a specific emphasis on regions including the Middle East & Africa, the United States, and Singapore. Ishita, a young and exceptionally talented entrepreneur, has demonstrated remarkable business acumen and we are truly impressed by her vision and passion, giving us another reason to invest in Meolaa. We are excited to join her on this incredible journey."

Ishita Sawant, Founder of Meolaa, expressed her enthusiasm about this significant milestone, saying, "Meolaa’s Seed funding is a stepping stone in our journey towards a world where all choices are sustainable choices. We aim to enable customers to shop with confidence knowing everything you buy from us is good for you, your family, and the planet. We are excited to partner with Turbostart to accelerate our journey towards empowering a sustainable revolution through our marketplace of 1500+ vetted brands. We plan to deploy these funds towards building our team for our next stage of growth, establishing Meolaa as the trusted platform for sustainable consumer products, and enabling thousands of happy customers to build a healthier life.”

Earlier, the ecommerce startup bagged pre-seed funding from Dr. Ranjan Pai of Manipal Education and Medical Group, Dale Vaz, Ex- CTO of Swiggy, Sixth Sense Ventures Founder and CEO Nikhil Vora, Lighthouse Funds founder Sachin Bhartiya and StrongHer Ventures.

Meolaa's journey is just beginning, and this seed funding marks the initial step toward realizing their vision of redefining how the newer generation shops and engages with brands in India. The platform's commitment to conscious consumption, innovation, and seamless customer experiences is poised to set new standards in e-commerce.

About Meolaa

Founded by Ishita Sawant, Meolaa is a digitally native sustainable consumer products e-commerce platform, with the mission to transform the products you use into a force for good. Meolaa hosts over 1500 brands and 125,000+ products across 6 categories, offering a one-stop-shop to bridge the gap between sustainability and lifestyle. Meolaa's platform is driven by an innovative, experience-driven approach, ensuring that customers have an engaging shopping experience while enabling conscious consumption.

The company is currently in the seed stage. Their pre-seed funding round was also $165K and occurred in March 2022. This round of funding helped to kickstart Meolaa's growth and support its mission to create a community of conscious consumers and purpose-driven brands. In March 2023, Meolaa announced that Dr. Ranjan Pai’s Family Office (Manipal Group) is leading their seed round! As of March 2023, Meolaa has a 20-member team and has amassed over 3 lakh users. Since their launch in January 2023, they have seen 100% MoM growth in orders, users, and GMV, indicating that their purpose-led, curate, experience-driven platform resonates with the need of customers.

About Turbostart

Turbostart, founded in 2019, is redefining the startup ecosystem. With its unique model and hands-on approach, Turbostart operates as both a fund and accelerator, with a presence across the globe. Adopting a cohort-based model, Turbostart identifies and selects high-potential startups each year, across all regions. While many traditional accelerators and funds offer short-term engagements and one-size-fits-all mentorship, Turbostart takes a distinct approach. This collaborative approach propels startups to rapidly validate their ideas, scale their operations, and receive strategic interventions, fueling their relentless pursuit of sustainable growth.

In just four years, Turbostart has successfully closed two funds, with three more in 2023, amassing a total fund size of USD 40 million. Notably, Fund I has already seen an appreciation of over 4X in the first cohort within three years. From an initial pool of over 6,000 applications received from 30+ countries across 15+ diverse sectors, we have meticulously curated an impressive portfolio of approximately 40 startups.

 

Turbostart Opens Applications for Cohort-II; 25 Start-ups have a Chance to Win Up to ₹2 Cr Funding Each

Post the success of the very first cohort of the Founders’ Fellowship Edition that was launched in October 2019, Turbostart opens registrations for its second edition from August 15, 2020 to September 30, 2020 

Turbostart, a leading sector-agnostic pan-India business acceleration platform that enables start-ups across the country to turn their budding ideas into functioning enterprises, has announced the launch of their second edition of the Founders’ Fellowship programme set to go live on 15th August 2020. The top 25 most promising start-ups stand a chance to win up to INR 2 crore each in funding and Turbostart will also aid them in business model validation, product strategy and positioning, market support, Product-Market fit, technology, architecture, scalability, access to customers and more. 

The programme that is conducted bi-yearly invites early-age start-ups who are looking for funding to kick-start their businesses coupled with all-encompassing mentorship. 

Winners will also receive mentorship by industry stalwarts who are a part of the Advisory, Investment and Governance boards of Turbostart like: 

1. Alok Sinha, MD, Frauscher Sensor Technology; 2. Aniruddha Ganguly, Management consultant and Leadership coach, ex-Executive 

Director, GMR Group; 3. Dr. Vivek Mansingh, General Partner, YourNest VC Fund; 4. G S Krishnan, Ex-Regional President/ MD, Novozymes; 5. K Ullas Kamath, Joint MD, Jyothy Laboratories; 6. Kalyani Devaraj, Co-Founder, CarexTech Inc; 7. Mohan Manthena, MD, SRK Infra Projects; 8. Muralidhara Chandrasekharamurthy, Partner, Murali & Co; 9. Narayanrao Ramaswami, Ex-MD Siemens; 10. Nirankar Saxena, Hon Deputy Secretary-General, FICCI; 11. R Natarajan, Co-Founder, Foundation Partners; 12. Shivkumar Janardhanan, Ex-CEO, Essilor Group (India and South Asia); 13. Sri. K. Jairaj, Retd, Additional Chief Secretary, GoK; 14. Sunil Bhumralkar, Ex-Partner, Ernst & Young; 15. Sunil Rao, Country Head - Corporate Business Development, Amazon; 16. Venkat Raju, Angel and Silicon Valley Entrepreneur; 17. Vish Sathappan, Director, Times of India Group - Brand Capital, India. 

Talking about the programme, Ganesh Raju, Founder and CEO, Turbostart said “The overwhelming success of our first Founders’ Fellowship Edition hosted last year has given the Turbostart Team an incredible impetus to bring back the programme, despite the pandemic being in play. We received over 1000 applicants from over 30 countries globally and 300 cities, including start-ups from different sectors like EdTech, HealthTech, IoT, and others during last year’s programme. Taking into account the current dynamic situation of the start-up 

ecosystem, funding has become even more challenging. Through the Turbostart Cohort programme, we aim to provide a recognized platform for budding start-ups and provide them with not only funding, but also encompassed guidance from industry stalwarts and advisors, which will help them kick-start their operations efficiently. We invite startups across the globe to showcase their concepts and business models so they can be future-ready and scale up their visions with Turbostart.” 

During the course of the application process, candidates will go through a multi-stage evaluation process by Turbostart’s experienced analytical team, followed by further evaluation from relevant sector specialists within their network. Turbostart will finally identify the most promising start-ups with the help of its Investment Committee, reward them and create an assured path for success. 

Turbostart aims to create synergies and put the country’s best entrepreneurs under the spotlight by acting as a transformative force for budding entrepreneurs. 

Sign up at www.turbostart.co to be a part of one of the largest business acceleration programmes and work with some of the sharpest minds guiding start-ups today. 

About Turbostart: 

Turbostart is a sector agnostic, pan-India business acceleration platform that will unearth the 25 most promising start-ups, twice a year. Run in a competition format, it enables pre-Series- A start-up founders to rapidly validate, scale and amplify their businesses. The vision of the programme is to build a strong start-up ecosystem by creating a clear path of success for entrepreneurs and eliminating the tedious task of dealing with market hurdles and non-core activities. Applications to the second edition of the Founders’ Fellowship open from August 15, 2020 until September 30, 2020. 

Over 1000 Applications Received for the 1t Cohort of Turbostart by InnovationQore

• Startups from over 25 countries applied


• Women entrepreneurs accounted for over 150 applicants

Bengaluru-based InnovationQore has received an overwhelming response from startups for its Turbostart programme. A total number of 1016 startups applied for funding from Tier I, Tier II and Tier III Indian cities. The majority of applications came from Karnataka followed by Mumbai and New Delhi. Startups from 29 countries across the globe were also part of the those who applied to the programme.

“We are upbeat with the kind of response that we have received from startups both within the country and from abroad. An eminent panel will begin the shortlisting process by mid-December and the winners will be announced by the end of January 2020. The final ten start-ups will be funded up to Rupees Two Crores each. We will also provide these start-ups with assistance in product positioning, entity structuring, brand and digital strategy along with services spanning tax, legal, marketing and sales,” said Ganesh Raju, Founder and CEO, Turbostart.

Startups from healthcare, education, finance, food, agriculture, HR, logistics, travel and hospitality, automotive, beauty cosmetics and wellness, energy, fashion, retail, gaming, sports, construction, telecom and legal applied for the Turbostart programme. Women entrepreneurs accounted for over 150 applicants. A large number of startups pitched ideas in emerging technologies including Electric Vehicles, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Blockchain, Cybersecurity and Drones.

 

InnovationQore Invites Start-ups to Register for Season 1 of Turbostart

Bengaluru based InnovationQore is all set to hold the first season of its program - Turbostart. Applications are currently being accepted and are scheduled to close on 30th November 2019. The program is open to all Indian start-ups and is run in a competition format.

In order to be considered eligible for the Turbostart program, a start-up should have been incorporated for a period of less than 10 years with a minimum viable product or proof of concept. The start-up should be working towards innovation and development or improvement of products or processes or services with a scalable business model. I

“We currently have 250 start-ups who have applied under the Turbostart program across sectors and around 200 start-ups are in the process of completing their applications. Start-ups will then be shortlisted by mid-December.

An eminent panel made up of the investment committee and advisory board will judge the shortlisted start-ups and the final list of winners will be announced at the end of January 2020. The final ten start-ups will be funded up to Rupees Two Crores each.

We will also provide these start-ups with assistance in product positioning, entity structuring, brand and digital strategy along with services spanning tax, legal, marketing and sales.” said Ganesh Raju, Founder, and CEO, InnovationQore.

The selection panel will include a combination of the investment committee, management team and advisory board of InnovationQore, such as Vinod Keni, Natarajan R, Ganesh Raju, Jogin Desai, Arun Bellary, Sunder Raju, Ullas Kamath and others.