The Week that Was: Indian Startup News Overview (14th Aug- 18th Aug)
India has gradually expanded its startup ecosystem through a collaborative effort between the government and the business community. This joint endeavor has created a favorable environment that promotes entrepreneurship. The pillars of government backing, accessible funding, a growing pool of talent, and a culture that embraces innovation have laid the essential groundwork for the Indian startup landscape. Previously, securing funding posed significant challenges for Indian entrepreneurs; however, there has been a positive shift in recent times.
This week, we noticed Kids’ footwear startup Aretto has raised $550K from a number of investors; and Kerala-based charge MOD, a provider of electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions, has secured 2.5 crore in a Pre-Seed Round of funding from Phoenix Angels. The top 10 startups this week that raised million in funding are listed below.
Aretto
Kids’ footwear startup Aretto has raised $550K from a number of investors, including cricketer Hardik Pandya. The funding round also saw the participation of Brewhouse’s cofounder Abhineet Singh, Aan Group’s Shyam Raichura, Bombay Shaving Company’s Raunak Munot, Videoverse’s Vinayak Shrivastav and Kunal Sumaya of Julius Bear.
The startup plans to use these funds to expand its market presence, strengthen its workforce and ramp up R&D for new products. Founded in 2019 by Krutika Lal and Satyajit Mittal, Aretto claims to make sustainable shoes for children that grow in size as their feet grow. Commenting on the latest funding round, cofounder Mittal said, “This seed funding is not only a testament to our investors’ confidence in our innovative kids’ technology but also reiterates our commitment to revolutionise the industry.”
ProjectDiscovery
ProjectDiscovery, the open source-powered security company that specializes in the detection of new, exploitable vulnerabilities, announced that it has raised $25 million in a Series A financing round led by CRV, with participation from Point72, SignalFire, Rain Capital, Mango Capital, Accel, Lightspeed, Guillermo Rauch, Caleb Sima, and Talha Tariq, among others. At the same time, the company announced.
The launch of its ProjectDiscovery Cloud Platform, a fully-managed SaaS platform built on top of ProjectDiscovery's most popular open-source tools to enable enterprises to discover and remediate vulnerabilities at scale. Rishiraj Sharma, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ProjectDiscovery, said, The announcement of our $25 million Series A from visionary venture firm CRV and our existing investors, along with the launch of our ProjectDiscovery Cloud Platform, makes us better positioned than ever to advance our mission of democratizing cybersecurity by leveraging.
Contiinex
Contiinex, a speech AI startup, has raised $2 million in a pre-Series A round from two tech focused venture fund houses, YourNest and Refex Capital. The firm plans to use the funds to strengthen its technology team and expand its presence in the US market, Contiinex said.
Founded by Prateek Mehta and Vijay Krishna BS in December 2020, Contiinex is looking to target English speaking global speech market and claims to have already made an impact with its proprietary speech-to-text engine and LLM driven Contiinex Open Framework for Insights (COFI), in the healthcare and insurance sectors.
Nazara Technologies
Listed gaming and media firm, Nazara Technologies stated it would invest $500,000 (Rs 4.15 crore) in Israel-based game developer Snax Games Ltd. The investment could be made via its Singapore-based subsidiary Nazara PTE Ltd, the firm stated. Nazara also entered an agreement to secure exclusive publishing rights for games made by Snax Games in the Indian subcontinent and the Middle-East region for five years on a revenue-sharing basis.
The investment is being done via a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE), the company said in a stock exchange filing. Following the deal, Nazara Singapore will have the right to acquire equity shares in Snax Games at a future date. Based out of Herzliya City in Israel, Snax Games was founded in 2020 and develops casual games and puzzles. The firm says it will build games in a new genre called “casual multi-game” and is working on its first such product.
BHIVE
BHIVE plans to launch a Rs 400 crore coworking-focused CAT-2 alternative investment fund (AIF) to fuel its growth. The proposed new provide will acquire fully completed commercial real estate properties at prime locations with clear titles, occupancy certificates, and a capex of a set. Over the past year, BHIVE has solidified its position as the largest co-working operator in Bengaluru, closing transactions upwards of Rs 200 crore.
“There has been exponential growth in the number of AIFs in India. Unlike a decade ago, when offshore investors were funding India’s AIFs, the expanding pool of domestic investors is helping them grow. We see a tremendous opportunity in this segment and will go aggressive with our plans as we embark on the next growth phase of the organization,” said Sheshagiri Rao Paplikar, Founder & CEO of the BHIVE. The company has also said that it will wind up its current AIF fund, which Sandeep Gupta was managing.
Vegapay
Vegapay, a fintech-based platform, has raised $1.1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Eximius Ventures.
The round also saw participation from DSP HMK, Capri Global, Upsparks Capital, MGA Ventures, Climber Capital, Arun Venkatachalam (Murugappa Group), Pratekk Agarwaal, general partner, GrowthCap Ventures, and other angel investors.
FirstCry
Ranjan Pai, the Chairman of Manipal Group, is reportedly in advanced discussions to invest INR 250 crore in the mom and babycare brand, FirstCry. This investment is part of a secondary share sale that values FirstCry at $3 billion. The secondary share sale is expected to surpass INR 500 crore, and additional institutional investors are also considering acquiring a secondary stake in the Pune-based company from existing shareholders.
In a secondary share sale, current shareholders sell a portion or the entirety of their stakes to new investors. FirstCry, which had previously postponed its initial public offering (IPO) plans due to market volatility and challenges faced by IPOs, is now on track to go public next year. Earlier in April, reports indicated that FirstCry was engaged in discussions with sovereign funds to facilitate a stake sale by some of its shareholders at an approximate valuation of $3 billion.
Dr. Agarwal's Health Care
Dr. Agarwal's Health Care stated it raised $80 million from existing investors Singapore's Temasek and U.S.-based TPG as the Indian eye hospital operator plans to double its hospital count. The top shareholder of publicly traded Dr. Agarwal's Eye Hospitals plans to operate 300 hospitals by the end of 2025. It currently has over 150 hospitals, including in African countries like Nigeria and Kenya.
Shares of Dr. Agarwal's Eye Hospitals rose as much as 10.3% after the announcement before paring some gains to last trade up 4.2%. Dr. Agarwal will invest over 12 billion rupees ($144.45 million) to set up new hospitals in India and 10 centers in the African countries of Kenya, Zambia, and Tanzania, it said in a press release. The fundraising also comes over a year after Dr. Agarwal's - founded in 1957 in the southern Indian city of Chennai - closed a funding round of 10.50 billion rupees from Temasek and TPG Growth, the middle market-focused arm of TPG.
TIEA Connectors Private Ltd
Bangalore-based TIEA Connectors Private Ltd will be receiving 3.81 crores from the Technology Development Board (TDB) under the initiative “Commercialization of Indigenous Technologies Through Tech Start-ups”. The startup, a graduate of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore incubator, the Society for Innovation and Development (SID-IISc), will use the funding for the commercialization of micro-electronic harsh environment connectors and terminals.
TDB launched the initiative with the goal of supporting the development of indigenous technologies and promoting entrepreneurship and innovation. Through funding such start-ups, TDB aims to empower them to expand their ground breaking solutions, which will not only drive economic growth but also enhance our nation’s leadership in technological advancements.
Charge MOD
Kerala-based charge MOD, a provider of electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions, has secured 2.5 crore in a Pre-Seed Round of funding from Phoenix Angels, a Thrissur-based angel network, as announced by the startup. This new funding infusion will enable chargeMOD to expedite the growth of its product offerings, which encompass a 3.3 kW AC charging device for home use and a 60 kW charging station catering to commercial applications.
Founded in 2019 by M. Ramanunni, V. Anoop, Advaith C, and Chris Thomas, chargeMOD operates as a subsidiary of BPM Power Private Limited. It emerged from incubation under the Kerala Start-up Mission (KSUM), a government agency in Kerala dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship and incubation activities.
