The Week that Was: Indian Startup News Overview (21st Aug- 25th Aug)
India's startup landscape has undergone a significant transformation in recent years. Initiatives like "Start-up India" and the proliferation of incubators and accelerators have created a favorable environment for entrepreneurs. Key factors include government support, accessible funding, a growing talent pool, and a culture of innovation. Funding challenges have eased, and a diverse range of investors now back Indian startups. The country's abundance of skilled talent, particularly in technology and engineering, is a vital asset. Overall, the collaborative efforts of the government and the business community have laid a strong foundation for India's thriving startup ecosystem.
In 2023, several Indian businesses have already achieved a global presence through their innovative business models. Additionally, there have been notable advancements in the Indian startup ecosystem in the past week. Zepto announced it has raised $200 million in its Series E round; and Sorin Investments, a technology-focused fund co-founded by former KKR India head and private equity veteran Sanjay Nayar and Angad Banga, has secured a corpus of over Rs 1,000 crore. The top 10 startups this week that raised million in funding are listed below.
Sorin Investments
Sorin Investments, a technology-focused fund co-founded by former KKR India head and private equity veteran Sanjay Nayar and Angad Banga, has secured a corpus of over Rs 1,000 crore for the second close of its maiden fund. It secured around $100 million (approximately Rs 800 crore) in its first close last year. The tech-focused investment firm’s fundraising comes at a time when the Indian tech startup ecosystem faces a funding crunch that has seen several investors slash down the valuations of several major Indian tech companies.
Investors in the fund include Henry Kravis, George Roberts, and other partners of the American global investment firm KKR & Co, as well as Hero Enterprise chairperson Sunil Kant Munjal and a few other global and Indian family offices. Nayar and Banga were formerly associated with KKR. Nayar founded Sorin after a four-decade career spanning banking and private equity. Nayar and Banga have also invested a significant amount of their personal capital in the fund as sponsor commitments, they said in an earlier interview without disclosing the sum.
hypergro.ai
A Bangalore- based martech startup hypergro.ai, focused on boosting brand revenues and dramatically reducing customer acquisition costs, announced that it has raised seed funding of INR 7 crore. The round was led by Silverneedle Ventures with participation from Huddle, TDV Partners, HME Ventures, Dholakia Ventures, FiiRE, & prominent angel investors like Arjun Vaidya, Ankit Kedia and Rajesh Sawhney.
In the current digital landscape, rising Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) are eating up large parts of budgets without delivering expected returns. This problem is made worse by poor Return on Ad Spend (ROAS); even with huge investments in various ads. This combination of challenges has brands stuck in a cycle of high spending with low results, making steady growth hard to achieve.
Wootz.work
Engineering equipment procurement solution company Wootz.work announced raising $3.5 million in seed fund round led by the venture capital firms Matrix Partners and Nexus Venture Partners. The round also saw participation of 30 other angel investors including Ramakant Sharma (Livspace), Sanjiv Rangrass (ex-ITC), Vikrampati Singhania (JK Group), and the founders of Zetwerk. Karan Anand, Co-Founder & CEO shared, “We are convinced that the conditions have never been better for India and Southeast Asia to emerge as a global manufacturing hub for light engineering products.”
However, tapping this opportunity for SMEs is not as straightforward given their scale, differing engineering standards, regulatory environments, market distances and the imperative of robust after-sales service, he said. “Our goal at Wootz.work is to address this need and build at scale, to become a trusted, enduring procurement channel for our global customers.”
HyugaLife.com
HyugaLife.com, an e-commerce platform focused on health and wellness, has announced its investment of 4 crores in Inaari, a women’s wellness brand. This strategic move reflects the potential within the women’s health sector and follows the successful $5 million Pre-Series A Round fundraise by HyugaLife.com. Inaari, founded by Certified Hormonal Health Coach Rashmi Putcha, addresses critical gaps in women’s health support. Their thoughtfully curated product range caters to women’s well-being across different life stages, tackling concerns such as period care, PCOS/PCOD, fertility, and menopause support.
The investment by HyugaLife.com in Inaari signifies a synergistic approach to enhancing women’s wellness. This partnership not only strengthens Inaari’s resources and outreach but also allows HyugaLife.com to leverage Inaari’s expertise in women’s health. The funds will be utilized to expand Inaari’s product line and establish a stronger presence in the women’s wellness market. The brand aims to intensify its research and development efforts, creating more impactful wellness solutions tailored to women’s self-care needs.
Yummy Plate
Yummy Plate, a subscription-based meal service provider, announced that it has secured $2 million in funding from the educational services platform K12 Techno Services. The startup plans to utilize the funding to expand its footprint across the country by venturing into new cities. Established in 2022 by Bala Hariharan, Yummy Plate operates as a B2B startup, offering subscription-based meal services tailored for schools. Presently, it serves a student base of over 3,000 across 30+ schools in Bengaluru.
With the newly acquired funds, Yummy Plate aims to extend its services to cities including Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Delhi. The startup has ambitious plans to increase its coverage to more than 100 schools by the following year, serving over 20,000 students. Moreover, it envisions achieving a pan-India presence within three years. Founder Bala Hariharan expressed confidence in the funding’s potential to facilitate the expansion of their services to diverse cities and to meet the nutritional needs of growing students effectively.
Zaggle
IPO-bound B2B fintech solutions provider Zaggle has raised INR 98 Cr in two tranches as part of its pre-initial public offering (IPO) round. In the first tranche, Zaggle raised INR 73 Cr from a clutch of investors, including Vikasa India EIF I Fund and Acintyo Investment Fund PCC – Cell 1, Zaggle said. In the second tranche, the company allotted 15.24 Lakh equity shares amounting to INR 25 Cr to Value Quest SCALE Fund.
The pre-IPO round was undertaken pursuant to the approval of the board and shareholders in their meeting held on August 2023, respectively, the fintech startup said. Zaggle filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for its IPO last year. According to the DRHP, the IPO would comprise of a fresh issue of equity shares worth INR 490 Cr and an offer for sale component aggregating up to 1.05 Cr equity shares.
Portkey.ai
In response to the escalating demand for AI apps, driven in part by the viral success of ChatGPT, businesses are grappling with time and budget constraints while striving to roll out these applications. Addressing this challenge, Portkey.ai has unveiled a $3 million seed funding round, empowering engineering teams to expedite the building and launching of generative AI apps. Rohit Agarwal, Co-founder of Portkey.ai, stated, “Tech chiefs are facing a rush of demand from teams for AI apps that will save money without too much delay. Our vision for Portkey has been to enable teams and companies to deploy Gen AI apps and features with confidence.”
The funding round was led by Lightspeed, with participation from angel investors, including notable figures from AWS, OpenAI, Cloudflare, Postman, and Asana. Founded in January 2023 by Rohit Agarwal and Ayush Garg, Portkey.ai offers tools that enable businesses to monitor their language model operations (LLMOps) efficiently, establish connections to multiple large language models (LLMs), experiment, enhance, and effectively manage prompts.
SuperBottoms
Mother and baby care D2C brand SuperBottoms has raised $5 Mn in its Series A1 funding round led by Lok Capital and Sharrp Ventures. The round also saw participation from existing investors, DSG Consumer Partners and Saama Capital. With the fresh capital, the D2C brand will focus on category expansion and offline growth. It is looking at building a diverse portfolio that appeals to a wider audience.
Founded in 2016 by Pallavi Utagi, SuperBottoms’s range of products includes Cotton Langots, Potty Training Pants, Kid’s Clothing, and more. The D2C brand also introduced the MaxAbsorb Period Underwear to provide a safe and conscious alternative to conventional plastic-based period care products. Besides selling products on its website, it also sells products via ecommerce marketplaces like Amazon.
GradRight
Mumbai-based startup GradRight has raised INR 50 Cr in Series A funding from IvyCap Ventures. As part of the deal, Tej Kapoor, IvyCap Ventures’ managing partner, will join the GradRight’s board. The startup plans to deploy the incoming funding for expanding its business, it said in a statement. Founded in 2019 by Aman Singh and Sasidhar Sista, GradRight brings together prospective students, universities and lenders on a single platform.
The startup has developed an AI-based ecosystem of universities and banks, enabling students to make informed decisions on programmes, universities to identify suitable students and banks to finance them. GradRight claims to have processed loan requests of more than $1.75 Bn (INR 14,300 Cr) and assisted more than 55,000 students via its platform.
Zepto
Ending the unicorn drought in India amid the ongoing funding winter, online grocery company Zepto announced it has raised $200 million in its Series E round, valuing the company at $1.4 billion. The fundraiser brought in new investors, with the StepStone Group leading the round. US-based Goodwater Capital joined the round as a new investor. Existing investors like Nexus Venture Partners, Glade Brook Capital, Lachy Groom, and more doubled down in Zepto with meaningful follow-on investments.
Founded in July 2021, Zepto said it plans to go public in the next 2-3 years. “This business is about execution, and we are succeeding because our execution is strong. We are in this to build a generational company, and it truly feels like this is just the beginning,” said Aadit Palicha, Co-founder and CEO of Zepto. This fundraiser, in the middle of the deepest downturn in capital markets in over a decade, validates Zepto’s operating discipline. Zepto’s burn has reduced significantly, and with this, the company will be fully EBITDA positive in 12 to 15 months. The company has grown its sales by 300 percent (year-on-year) and will likely achieve $1 billion in annualized sales within the next few quarters.
