The Tech Panda takes a look at recent funding events in the ecosystem, seeking to know where the cash is flowing.
Startup: Windo
Sector: Social commerce
Amount: US$ 1.5 million
Led by: Unicorn India Ventures
Bengaluru based social commerce focused technology platform for individual and small-sized sellers, Windo, has raised US$ 1.5 million in the Pre-Series A round led by Unicorn India Ventures. The round also saw participation from prominent angels like CapriGlobal, Aravind Sanka, CEO, Rapido, K Ganesh, Co-founder Portea and a few others. The company plans to use the funds to focus on product development and also expand in a few countries apart from India.
Sparsh Kumar, Senior Investment Associate, Unicorn India Ventures, says, “The global social commerce market is booming. We’ve seen a huge wave of small and midsize D2C brands take to social media platforms to establish their businesses. About 250 million small businesses and solopreneurs across the globe use WhatsApp, Instagram, or phone calls to take orders.
“With the expansion there is a rapidly growing need for platforms that can support social commerce entrepreneurs since even the internet-savvy business owners find it hard to create and manage an online website. At Unicorn India, we believe that Windo’s unique mobile-first approach supports this growth in the social commerce market and has the potential to substantially improve the social commerce experience.”
Silus Reddy, CEO and Co-Founder, Windo, says, “The funding that we have raised is a big step towards realizing our mission to help SMB owners and solopreneurs in taking their business online and growing.”
Startup: Zipteams
Sector: AI
Amount: US$ 700,000
Led by: IndiaQuotient
Zipteams, a leading conversational intelligence platform for inside sales and customer success teams, today announced the successful closure of US$700K seed funding led by IndiaQuotient and a group of angel investors.
The funding will enable Zipteams to invest further in its unique concept of intelligent digital salesrooms that have the capability to harness data and bring real-time customer insights to inside sales and customer success teams in virtual meetings.
The company will look to strengthen the engineering and machine learning teams to enhance product offerings and seeks to achieve significant user growth in India and the US markets within the next 12-15 months. IndiaQuotient’s experience with a vast network of successful product companies will aid Zipteams in taking strategic go-to-market decisions to achieve an exponential product-led growth journey.
Siddhartha Srivastava, Founder, Zipteams, said, “With the seed funding, we will strengthen our product and also expand our geographical footprint across India and US. We are highly enthusiastic about the investment at this juncture of our growth and look forward to elevating and innovating our offerings. IQ’s involvement will help us to fast-forward some of the most critical projects, which otherwise would’ve taken time to manifest. IndiaQuotient believes in the future potential of “Made in India” companies and our mission to build a global AI-first SaaS product from India resonates perfectly with that thought process.”
Anand Lunia, Founding Partner, IndiaQuotient said, “We have only seen the tip of the iceberg for ‘India to rest of the world’ SaaS opportunities and IndiaQuotient will continue to back exceptional founders building in this space. Inside sales is a growing market in itself and real-time contextual intelligence will be a significant enhancement in sales conversions and digitising the sales playbook.”
Startup: Interality
Sector: Virtual world building engine
Amount: Undisclosed
Led by: Leading international angel investors & VCs
Interality, a virtual world building engine startup, has raised funding in its seed round led by leading international angel investors and venture capitalists, including the Maninder Gulati- Global Chief Strategy Officer, OYO, Jaynti Kanani- Co-founder and CEO, Polygon, Alvin Tse – CEO of Xiaomi India, Sam Shergill- Ex-CEO and founder of Sony India, Adept Ventures and others.
In a statement the startup said that it will use the funds to strengthen its product, design and hire global talent. The startup will invest in hiring across engineering, product, technical design and BD. For the next few months, the startup will open its Beta access to creators, communities and brands to build and launch their own Metaverse ecosystems.
“AR/VR is foundational and transformative for building the next generation of content, commerce and culture in the Metaverse and we’re building the go-to platform where these would reside at. The funds will help us to develop cutting edge products to power the next phase of our growth and achieve the product-market fit.” Farheen, founder and CEO, said.
Startup: The Nestery
Sector: e-commerce
Amount: INR 6 crore
Led by: Inflection Point Ventures
Contextual e-commerce platform, The Nestery has raised over Rs. 6 Cr in a Pre-Series A led by Inflection Point Ventures. The funds raised will be utilized towards expanding the team, technology enhancement, and generating original content.
Vinay Bansal, Founder, and CEO, of Inflection Point Ventures, says, “The Nestery is a holistic platform which handholds parents especially the first timers to purchase from a complete range of products which are child friendly and much needed for their development. This guidance at the initial stage on what to purchase, when is the right time to introduce the child to a product and why one should be exposed to a particular product provides an edge to anxious parents who are entering uncharted territory. This can also help parents save a lot of money and reduce the clutter of buying more than required. IPV looks forward to helping the company scale its business.”
Vaishnavi Rangarajan, Founder & CEO of The Nestery says, “We are so excited to bring IPV on board to lead this round. We are looking forward to collaborating with IPV and scaling this business along with all stakeholders.”
Startup: PriceLabs
Sector: Hospitality
Amount: US$ 30 million
Led by: Summit Partners
PriceLabs, a leading provider of dynamic pricing and revenue management solutions for the short-term rental industry, announced a US$30 million minority growth investment from Summit Partners. This funding represents the first financing for the profitable business and will support PriceLabs’ continued commitment to building leading revenue management solutions and fuel global team growth.
Colin Mistele, Managing Director at Summit Partners, who has joined the PriceLabs Board of Directors, mentioned, “Consumer preference has continued to shift in favor of alternative accommodations across every demographic, which has led to rapid growth in the short-term rental industry and over 8 million unique listings on Airbnb and Vrbo alone.
“We see PriceLabs as ideally positioned to serve this growing market with an intuitive, easily customizable and comprehensive solution designed to deliver ROI to owners and managers almost immediately. We believe this deeply experienced team has a significant opportunity to capitalize on a substantial unpenetrated market as they continue to develop and launch innovative products.”
Anurag Verma, co-founder of PriceLabs, said, “With the support and growth-oriented resources that Summit offers, we are excited to continue our mission of delivering innovation to the short-term rental market and accelerate our global hiring.”
Startup: EVIFY
Sector: EV
Amount: US$ 100,000
Led by: We Founder Circle
EVIFY, an EV logistics startup located in Surat, raised $100k in a seed round led by We Founder Circle. The round also witnessed participation from an array of esteemed angel investors like Gaurav Singhvi, Gaurav Juneja, Saurabh Agarwal, Rajeev Goel to name a few. This investment round’s proceeds will primarily be used for the expansion of the company’s operations, and team building. A part of the freshly raised investment will also be directed towards technological development.
“As the country is moving towards greener solutions, the brands like EVIFY will play a vital role. It is amazing how the very enthusiastic co-founders’ team has innovated and is delivering a genuine solution in the logistics space. As the awareness around the concept spreads, the brand will witness exponential growth. It is not just an investment but a responsibility to support brands like EVIFY,” said CA Gaurav VK Singhvi, Co-founder, We Founder Circle.
Startup: Omnivio
Sector: Logistics
Amount: US$ 400,000
Led by: Supermorpheus, Dexter Angels, & 91 Ventures
Omnivio, a Noida-based ecommerce and omni-logistics platform for enterprises that offers control towers enabled logistics marketplace, has announced raising $ 400 K in an angel funding round.
Supermorpheus, Dexter Angels, and 91 Ventures are among the angel leads and networks that have invested in Omnivio. The round also witnessed participation from an array of esteemed founders and angel investors from India & Middle East, including – Deepak Jain (Partner, Bain), Pranay Gupta ( 91 Springboard, 91 Ventures), Nikhil Bhandarkar (Founding Partner, Panthera Peak Ventures), Kushal Nahata & Gautam Kumar (Co-founders, FarEye), Mihin Shah (ex-Chief Supply Chain Officer, Landmark Group), Gaurang Jhunjhunwala (Partner, Mckinsey Dubai), Ashish Chitravanshi (Supply Chain Leader, ex-Myntra, Flipkart, Snapdeal) among others.
“We are thrilled to have Supermorpheus, Dexter Angels, and 91 Ventures as strategic investors in Omnivio. This investment will enable us to boost our Control Tower effectiveness and build deeper product features; to solve our client’s most pressing challenges with respect to supply chain visibility and logistics control. With the right mentorship and advice of seasoned angels, we intend to scale up quickly and grow our client base by 5x by the end of this financial year,” said Sidhartha Kumar Bhimania, Co-founder of Omnivio.
“We believe that apart from larger marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart, there will be various mid-size marketplaces as well, and D2C businesses will continue to build and scale in India. Using Omnivio’s technology, they can continue to focus on brand building and customer acquisition letting Omnivio do the heavy lifting. We like the team’s energy and experience to build and scale such a business,” said Sameer Guglani, Co-founder of Supermorpheus.
Omnivio plans to use the investment to build a best-in-class Control Tower product and enhance its technology infrastructure which would lead to a smoother and faster onboarding experience for the clients. A part of the raised funds will also be used towards partnerships and building an experienced & agile team.
