The Tech Panda takes a look at recent funding events in the ecosystem, seeking to know where the cash is flowing.
Startup: Mojocare
Sector: Wellness
Amount: US$ 20.6 million
Led by: B Capital
Mojocare, Indian full-stack health and wellness clinic, has raised US $20.6 million (INR 160 Cr) in a Series A fundraising round led by B Capital and existing investors Chiratae Ventures, Sequoia India’s Surge, and Better Capital. The Bengaluru-based company will use the funds to expand its product, content, and care delivery teams, strengthen and diversify its product portfolio, and scale across omnichannel GTMs with a distribution-first approach.
The funding round also saw participation from some of India’s top angel investors and leading industry giants like Vineet Jain (MD, Times Group), Kunal Shah (Founder, CRED), Ankit Nagori (Founder, Curefoods), Adrian Auon (Founder and CEO, Forward), Sajid Rahman (Founder and CEO, Telenor Health), Ravi Bhushan (Founder and CEO, Brightchamps), and Vivekananda HR (CEO and Founder, Bounce).
“We are excited to partner with Ashwin and Rajat, founders of Mojocare. We believe they are solving one of the largest problems in consumer health and wellness and can radically transform the way people think about specialty wellness. They are attracting the best talent in the country and their patient experience and care layer is inspiring. We are thrilled to back what is emerging as a neo healthcare delivery system across emerging markets for conditions where the care value chain is fundamentally broken by leveraging technology and data across a full stack offering,” said Karan Mohla, Partner at B Capital.
Startup: Scalenut
Sector: SEO & content marketing
Amount: US $3.1 million
Led by: Saama Capital & Amit Singhal
AI-powered SEO and content marketing platform Scalenut announced a US$3.1 million seed plus funding round led by Saama Capital & Amit Singhal (Former Senior VP of Google and Head of Google Search).
The company had previously raised $400,000 in seed funding led by Titan Capital, First Principles VC, AngelList, Abhishek Goyal, and other leading angel investors. In early 2022, they launched their SaaS platform for public use, and in the past six months, they have seen 10X revenue growth.
Mayank Jain commented, “This funding is to continue building the platform, hiring talent, and expanding to new geographies. We have set our sights on solving a massive problem that marketers across the world face today. The opportunity in the market and our progress so far excites us to work harder and make a dent in this domain”.
Ash Lilani, managing partner at Saama Capital said, “There is no easy way to scale content and Scalenut is solving precisely that with its robust AI platform. This is a big value add. Since launching its SaaS platform in Jan 2022, Scalenut has seen good traction with over 100,000 registered users. We were quite impressed seeing the product team has built and the market response they have got.”
Startup: Metalbook
Sector: Supply chain
Amount: US$ 5 million
Led by: Axilor Ventures
Metalbook, a digital supply chain platform for the metals industry has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Axilor Ventures. The round also saw participation from Foundamental, RTP Global, Stride Ventures and a few Angel Investors.
Nandan Venkatachalam, Principal at Axilor Ventures, who led the investment commented, “Verticalized full-stack platforms are the need of the hour for global supply chains. Metalbook’s platform is helping the iron and steel industry decentralize global supply and demand. With India as the 2nd largest producer of Steel, this is a great supply base for the company to start with as it begins global operations. The opportunity combined with the Metalbook team’s strong domain know-how on the segment were deciding factors in our investment.”
Shubhankar Bhattacharya, General Partner at Foundamental, said, “Steel supply chains represent a large market that forms the backbone of manufacturing and infrastructure, especially at a time when commodity access has been upended across the world. We are thrilled to be backing Raghavendra, Pulkit and Aman as they scale Metalbook to become India’s largest marketplace for steel.”
Startup: Bored Beverages
Sector: F&B
Amount: INR 2.5 crore
Led by: Inflection Point Ventures
Beverage brand Bored Beverages has raised over Rs 2.5 Cr in a Seed Round led by Inflection Point Ventures, along with private investors Bhawana Bhatnagar, Founder – WeFounder Circle, Soumya Kant, Founder – Clovia, and from the Dot In Network. Prabhtej Singh Bhatia, Founder of Simba Beer will be joining in the journey of building Bored Beverages as a strategic investor and mentor. The funds raised will be utilized towards the expansion of the team and scaling of sales and marketing operations and will also be used towards establishing a well-set distribution channel and building the brand in the market.
Mitesh Shah, Co-founder, Inflection Point Ventures, says, “India as an alcohol consumption market has been steadily on a rise. The young population — Gen-Z, and Millennials – want to explore and expect unique combinations to be served. We believe Bored Beverages has understood this need of the market and is ready to roll out a range of beverages, which suits the palates and makes the experience pleasant and worthy. Going forward, we expect alternate alcoholic beverages to be a fast-growing segment and Bored Beverage has the right concoction to serve unique drinks to its target customers.”
Vinayak Malhotra, Co-founder of Bored Beverages says, “The seed funding is going to play a pivotal role in achieving the vision for Bored Beverages which is to break the monotony of traditional alcohol in the Indian market. With No Label Mead as our first product towards building a cross-category portfolio company, we plan to bring to the market new alcohol and new flavours for consumers to experience. IPV recognized our play in the Alco-Bev sector and we’re glad that they have partnered with us”
Startup: Reveel
Sector: FinTech
Amount: US $1.3 million
Led by: Binance Labs & Moment Ventures
Reveel, a web3 revenue share protocol, announced it has raised $1.3M in pre-seed funding. The pre-seed was led by Binance Labs and Moment Ventures. Reveel participated in the Season 4 Incubation Program by Binance Labs, the investment arm of Binance. Reveel will use the capital for staff expansion and product development of their web3 collaboration financial infrastructure and on-chain revenue management tools suite.
Ken Li, Executive Director of Binance Labs says, “Binance Labs has been investing deeply across the creator economy in Web3. We are impressed with the Reveel team and believe the Revenue Share Protocol has potential to drive collaboration amongst creators and their communities.”
Startup: Daalchini
Sector: Retail Tech
Amount: US$4 million
Led by: Unicorn India Ventures
Retail Tech startup Daalchini has raised $4 million in a Series A round led by Unicorn India Ventures. The round also saw participation from prominent and existing investors like Artha Venture Fund, Ajay Kaul – former CEO of Dominos India, and VSS Investco – the investment vertical of Vijay Shekhar Sharma – CEO of Paytm. So far, this is the largest round raised by a company in the smart vending segment.
A large part of this funding will be deployed to expand their industry footprint and further their tech capabilities. The Company wants to make its solutions asset-efficient and accessible to 10 million retail points in India and 450+ F&B D2C brands.
Ruchi Pincha, Investment Associate, Unicorn India Ventures, says, “The RetailTech segment in India is going through a massive transition from its traditional physical store form to a digital one, the speed of which has been intensified by the pandemic. In this phase, Daalchini represents the best of both worlds with a ubiquitous physical presence backed by a strong technological framework that prioritizes its customers’ needs and convenience. At Unicorn India Ventures, we are always looking to support such companies that retain the unique essence of their sector and work on enhancing the overall customer experience with technological innovation.”
Startup: VsnapU
Sector: Photography
Amount: INR 2 crore
Led by: Inflection Point Ventures
A leading platform for photography services, VsnapU has raised over INR 2 crore in a Seed Round led by Inflection Point Ventures. The funds received will be used for technological advancement, business innovation and expansion, and procuring more contracts and team expansion.
Mitesh Shah, Co-founder of Inflection Point Ventures, says, “Finding the right photographer has become a challenge due to multiple reasons such as unavailability, affordability, and no way to check track record etc. VsnapU has understood the pulse of the customers and have created a platform which not only empowers emerging and professional photographers but also gives the best possible option to the seekers at any given point of time along with live update and progress on their much-awaited photographs/videos. IPV aims to further elevate their business and help them to expand their horizons in India and international market”.
Startup: Online Live Learning (OLL)
Sector: EdTech
Amount: US$ 115,000
Led by: We Founder Circle
We Founder Circle (WFC), an early-stage startup investment platform led by a global community of successful founders and strategic angels, has participated in the SEED round raised by Online Live Learning (OLL), an Ed-Tech start-up by 17 Year old student Shreyaan Daga from Mumbai. The USD 115K (INR 90lacs) worth of round was facilitated through EvolveX, Global accelerator programme by We Founder Circle. WFC has joined hands with many strategic angels to propel the startup to new heights and simultaneously help it gain a competitive edge in the Ed-tech industry.
The Ed-tech start-up has secured an amount of INR 90 lakhs in the current seed round, bringing its total funding to INR 1.1 crores since inception. The seed round was backed strongly by successful angel investors and leaders including Gaurav VK Singhvi, Neeraj Tyagi, Bhawna Bhatnagar, Sandeep Balaji, Mili Shrivastava, Deepesh Hinduja, Monica Gupta, Rahul Hingmire, Milan Modi, Harsh Metha, Manan S Patel, and more.
“We Founder Circle is always dedicated to providing new routes of mentorship and assistance to early-stage businesses. We invested in OLL since they displayed the ambition required to establish a high growth company. The educational system may be altered in a significant way, providing considerable benefits to society if OLL succeeds. Therefore, we will be assisting them in all phases of development including business strategy, community building and connecting with skilled and right set of business mentors,” said, Bhawna Bhatnagar, Co-Founder, We Founder Circle.
Startup: Anveshan
Sector: F&B
Amount: US$ 2 million
Led by: DSG Consumer Partners
Anveshan, a D2C healthy foods brand, has raised pre-series A funding of US$ 2 million led by DSG Consumer Partners, Force Ventures and We Founder Circle. This funding round also had participation from angels, including Amit Jain and Amit Hooja from Netgraph, Vardhman Group, Rahul Sharma from Zetwerk and many more.
The company will use the fresh capital to hire talent, standardise operational processes and R&D of existing and new product categories. It also plans to expand its reach in the premium retail stores of Mumbai, Delhi NCR, and Bengaluru.
Hariharan Premkumar, Investment Director and Head of India, DSG Consumer Partners, said, “We are excited to deepen our partnership with the Anveshan team on their journey to build the leading ‘minimally processed’ food brand in India. The team is committed to empowering and facilitating fair-trade with the farmers by setting up micro-processing units near the farms. The brand has grown rapidly in a capital efficient manner and is well poised to be a leading food brand trusted by customers for quality, traceability and transparency.”
