Startups are renowned for their dynamism and entrepreneurism, and they frequently work in sectors that are just emerging or undergoing disruption, such as technology, biotech, and finance. Startups are dynamic, creative organizations with the mission to ultimately disrupt or establish new markets. Despite the many obstacles they confront, they have great potential to influence whole sectors of the economy.

This week, we saw The agri-fintech start-up KiVi (Kisan Vikas) said that it has raised Rs 15 crore in a seed round headed by Caspian Leap for Agriculture Fund, Piper Serica Angel Fund, YAN Angel Fund; and Insurtech startup Onsurity said it has raised $24 million in its Series B funding led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC).  Here is the compilation of top 10 startups that raised million dollar funds this week.

KiVi

The agri-fintech start-up KiVi (Kisan Vikas) said that it has raised Rs 15 crore in a seed round headed by Caspian Leap for Agriculture Fund, Piper Serica Angel Fund, YAN Angel Fund, Impact Innovators, and Entrepreneurs Foundation, among others. "The investment will help KiVi to build a robust technology platform for scale-up, increase the last-mile presence across many districts, strengthen the product and risk capabilities, and obtain an NBFC licence", said Joby CO, Founder and CEO of KiVi.

The Chennai-based company, which is run by Agrosperity Tech Solutions and was incubated at IIT Madras Research Park, is now active in four districts in Tamil Nadu and Bihar and plans to grow in the southern states over the next five years. Over 1,500 farmers have been helped by the company to get credit so far. It has also provided MSME loan programmes to agribusiness owners and enabled trade and commerce finance for commodities including wheat, paddy, and maize.

Emoha

Age Care Labs, a platform for eldercare that combines the technology company Emoha and a network of care facilities for elderly people with dementia called Epoch, has secured $11 million in a pre-Series B round that was Co-founded by Rainmatter Capital and Gruhas. Alok Oberoi, the executive chairman of Everstone Capital, and Ajay Srinivasan, the Former CEO of Aditya Birla Capital, are among the other investors in the round.

The round also included returning investor Lumis Partners, which served as Age Labs anchor in 2019. In India, very few individuals are developing for the elder care market, and this directly supports Gruhas's proptech theory. Nikhil Kamath, Co-Founder of Gruhas and Zerodha, We are fairly optimistic about this potential.

Jiraaf

Jiraaf, a start-up offering fixed-income investments, has raised $8.7 million in a series B round of funding from investors. Current investors Accel and Harmony Partners took the lead in the funding round. Other participants included a number of angel investors as well as the domestic early-stage seed firm Capital A.

Approximately $16 million has been raised by Jiraaf since its launch in September 2021."We will use this money primarily to build our team, improve customer service across categories of business, and also to originate more customers", Co-Founder Saurav Ghosh said. The business chose to cap its series B financing at less than $9 million in light of the difficult funding environment.

Curelo

Curelo, a diagnostics platform started in 2022 by Dr. Arpit Jayswal, has reported a successful financing round, collecting $100,000 in funding from IIMA's CIIE.CO. The platform specialises in enabling patients to easily schedule at-home blood sample collections and quickly receive their blood tests from a lab of their choosing. Curelo provides sample collection within 60 minutes after booking and guarantees delivery to the chosen lab thanks to a team of phlebotomists. Based on test availability, cost, and response time, patients can also find labs on the site.

In its first 10 months of operation, Curelo has forged alliances with more than 1,350 labs, handled more than 125,000 orders, and now sustains a monthly run rate of INR 55 lakhs with a 30% growth rate month over month. In the near future, Curelo plans to diversify into the radiology and blood bank aggregator industries.

SuperOps.ai

SuperOps.ai, a business that creates software for IT management services, has raised $12.4 million in funding led by March Capital and Lee Fixel's Addition, two prior investors. Early supporter Matrix Partners India took part in the round as well. This brings the software startup's total capital raised to date to $29.4 million. In January of last year, it had secured $14 million in finance, led by Addition and Tanglin Venture Partners. It has previously received $3 million in funding from Elevation Capital and Matrix Partners.

Fixel, a former head of private equity at Tiger Global, is renowned for having backed domestic e-commerce company Flipkart early on and making investments in the new Indian economy at a time when most of his contemporaries passed up the chance. He also wagers on Ola and Delhivery. Launched by Fixel, Addition has provided domestic funding for companies like news information portal Inshorts and logistics platform Delhivery. It is now in discussions to secure an additional $1.5 billion for its fifth fund.

InsuranceDekho

Gurugram-based insurtech platform InsuranceDekho said it has raised $60 million in its ongoing Series B funding round, taking its total fundraise to over $200 million this year. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), BNP Paribas Cardif through its Insurtech fund managed by Eurazeo and Beams Fintech Fund joined the cap table while existing investors TVS Capital, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Avataar Ventures also participated in the fresh round, a mix of equity and debt.

“This funding will allow us to accelerate our efforts, reach more customers, and innovate further in the Insurtech space. The insurance sector in India is at the cusp of a tech-backed revolution”, said Ankit Agrawal, CEO and Founder of InsuranceDekho. The startup plans to utilise the proceeds from this funding round to boost its marketing activities, further expand its distribution presence in the Indian hinterland, scale up its tech platform and explore inorganic growth opportunities.

AuditCue

Software as a service (SaaS) startup AuditCue from Chennai has announced that it has raised $1.5 million in a seed funding round headed by Kalaari Capital. Java Capital and angel investors from San Francisco were among the additional participants in the round.

According to the business, the money would be used for product development, a faster go-to-market plan, and a larger engineering team. By accelerating audit cycles and enhancing process resilience, Gaurav Kulkarni and Naren Janakiraman founded AuditCue in 2022.

eské

A pre-series financing headed by Mistry Ventures received $1.5 million for the Mumbai-based direct-to-consumer (D2C) lifestyle brand eské. Fluid Ventures provided additional support for this round. According to a news release from eske, the money will be used to diversify its product offering, build experience centres, improve its technology platform, and penetrate new markets.

Since its launch five years ago, eské has provided high-end handbags, briefcases, and accessories for the modern customer across the globe in the Rs 3,000–Rs 10,000 price range. In addition to having offline locations in a few cities across India, the brand has a significant online presence thanks to its own website and a number of other e-commerce platforms.

Pep

Pep secured $2.5 million in a seed funding round led by India Quotient and featuring prominent angel investors such as Cred’s Founder Kunal Shah, Farukh Adam of Fynd, Parag Bhidé, Sambhav Mehrotra, Shridhar Subramaniam, Ravindra Yadav, and Sargun Gulta. Pep, Co-Founded by Nav Agrawal and Swapnil Upadhyay, aims to redefine content creation in the digital space with its GenAI platform.

Nav Agrawal, Co-Founder and CEO of Pep stated, “We live in a world where everyone is producing and consuming content around the clock. As we emerge leaders of GenAI, it is revolutionizing content creation. We are creating a new-age content market that changes the way we consume and create content. With our mobile-first approach, we empower everyone to sell content in just a few clicks, directly monetizing their knowledge and reducing dependent on traditional advertising”.

Onsurity

Insurtech startup Onsurity said it has raised $24 million in its Series B funding led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Additionally, existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Quona Capital also participated in the round.

The startup said it will utilise the funds to work with its insurance partners to facilitate a smooth claims experience for its members by co-creating a technology solution to drive a seamless and transparent journey. Bengaluru-based Onsurity aims to serve 50,000 businesses and 5 million lives by 2026. A portion of the new funding will also be allocated towards the company's efforts to charting its path to profitability.