The Week that Was: Indian Startup News Overview (13th April - 19th April)

By Team Startupcity  |  Friday, 19 April 2024, 17:48 IST

The Week that Was: Indian Startup News Overview (13th April - 19th April)
The Indian startup ecosystem has set a new record by bagging another round of funding in a few sectors like SaaS, Artificial Intelligence, Health insurance, B2B, & QSR marking another win for the startupreneurs by raising funds and updating the growth probability and standardizing the products and services. The week went by successfully witnessing funds in every stage of funding from Pre-Seed to Seed to Series A to Series B to Series D.
Sector: Software-as-a-service - SaaS
Funding Round: Pre-Seed
Startup: Zepic 
Established Year: 2023
Funding News: SaaS based Startup Zepic winds up their pre seed funding round with $2.1 million
Chennai based Startup Zepic which also has their corporate office in US is constructing a marketing automation platform to hyper-personalize customer engagement. The company has recently closed a $2.1 million pre-seed investment round.
Investors: VC firm Neon Fund & Angel investors working in senior positions at Apple, Chargebee, Freshworks, Microsoft & Zoho
Zepic is a Software-as-a-service(SaaS) based startup which possesses ability to ingest business data of any form and from disparate sources. It is no code platform to fetch a self-service approach. The marketers create tailor made campaigns to individual customer preferences and behaviors. 
Zepic was co-founded by Naveen Venkatesan, Bharathi Kannan Ravikumar, Sunil Kumar and Sreelesh Pillai, who have worked in SaaS majors Zoho and Freshworks in the past and come with over 20 years of B2B SaaS experience. It has a 20-member team in Chennai and counts HockeyAustralia and TourismFijias its pilot customers.
Naveen Venkatesan, the co-founder and product head exclaimed that with the current funding round, their aim is to expand their team of data scientists in Chennai. This expansion will enable them to incorporate additional components of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the recommendation engine of their product.
Sector: Artificial Intelligence
Funding Round: Seed Funding
Startup: PineGap.ai
Established Year: 2023
Funding News: IIT-BHU Student Duo led PineGap.ai Bags $2.5 million in its Seed Round Funding
An AI SaaS based startup PineGap.ai declared that, it has secured $2.5 million funding in their seed funding round which was led by US-based investors SVQuad and Inventus Capital. 
Investors: SVQuad and Inventus Capital, DeVC and Silicon Valley serial entrepreneurs like Mohit Aron (Founder, Cohesity/Nutanix), Vetri Vellore (Founder, Ally.io), and Mohan Kumar (Managing Partner, Avataar Ventures), alongside Wall Street executives
The startup uses extremely high tech methods and devices which are based on Artificial intelligence and they hope that with the help of the latest advances in Generative AI and LLMs, the startup generates insights for all US-listed companies to create “turbocharged analysts”.
The Co-Founder and CEO, Deepak Sharma said, “This investment will accelerate our product development efforts and allow us to build an engineering team both in Bengaluru and the US. We are looking forward to hiring the best and brightest minds in engineering as part of our core team.” 
Sector: Health Insurance
Funding Round: Series A
Startup: ClaimBuddy
Established Year: 2020
Funding News: Gurgaon based ClaimBuddy secures $3 million in series A Funding Round
A health insurance startup ClaimBuddy, has secured an investment of 24.8 crore ($3 million) in series A Funding round led by Bharat Innovation Fund. 
Investors: Bharat Innovation Fund, Japanese fund CAC Capital, Chiratae Ventures and Rebright Partners.
ClaimBuddy simplifies the health insurance claim procedure for patients and hospitals through the use of technology and effective operations to ensure seamless and stress-free claims.
As per the information provided on its official website, the organization has successfully handled over 500 crore claims, collaborated with more than 250 hospitals, assisted over 35,000 patients, and presently operates in 6 cities. 
ClaimBuddy has received support from notable investors such as Chiratae Ventures, Redbright Partners, Lets Ventures, as well as individuals like Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bhal. The company has raised approximately Rs 50 crore in funding so far, which includes a $3 million round in February 2022.
Sector: B2B  
Funding Round: Series B
Startup: ProcMart 
Established Year: 2015
Funding News: ProcMart nets $30 million Fund for Strategic Acquisitions & Global Operations 
A B2B marketplace specifying in supply chain solutions, publicized that it has secured $ 30 million in Series B funding round 
Investors: Nandan Nilekani & Sanjeev Aggarwal’s VC fund, Fundamentum Partnership, Edelweiss Discovery Fund, South Korea-headquartered Paramark Ventures.
The injection of Funds will be utilized for the expansion efforts of ProcMart with keeping eye on planned acquirements, boosting its delivery network within the country & ramp up its global operations in Southeast Asia. 
Moreover, ProcMart fosters to expand its business elsewhere in MRO- Maintenance, Repair, & Operations consumables & focus on key sectors such as Biofuel & packaging.
Speaking to this, Founder & CEO of Procmart, Anish Popli said, "With the rise of centralized procurement and a shift towards optimizing non-core expenditures, the Indian MRO industry is on the brink of a significant transformation. Owing to our established credibility and robust infrastructure, we are well-positioned to capitalize on this market opportunity”
Previously, in the month of November 2023, the company had elevated $10 million in a Series A round from the Sixth Sense Ventures.
Sector: QSR
Funded Round: Series D 
Startup: WoW Momo
Established Year: 2008
Funding News: QSR Brand WoW Momo secures 70 crore in extended Series D round 
Renowned Quick service restaurant chain Wow! Momo has lifted 70 crore (approximately $9 million) in an extended Series D round. Totaling the funds, the company has successfully raised 480 crore ($51 million) in Series D which includes 270 crore primary and 210 crore secondary.
Investors: Z3 Partners, Indian Angel Network and Lighthouse Funds
The company was established by Sagar Daryani & Binod Homagai. 16 years have passed, that they have started their entrepreneual journey and now they introduced two more brands called Wow China and Wow Chicken. The firm claims to have 630 outlets across 38 cities and directly employs 6,000 people. The company will introduce 500 more outlets in this ongoing financial year.
Wow!Momo is targeting to reach 650-700 crore within this fiscal year (FY24) from 435 crore in FY23.
The QSR startup brand grabbed 350 crore or approximately $42 million in the first tranche of Series D round led by Khazanah Nasional Berhad in January this year.

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