India has emerged as the 3rd largest ecosystem for startups globally with over 99,000 DPIIT-recognized startups across 670 districts of the country. The government's unwavering commitment to fostering innovation and growth through initiatives like Start-up India has created a competitive environment for aspiring entrepreneurs, offering them a myriad of benefits and tax incentives. The emergence of incubators and accelerators has fueled the ecosystem by providing invaluable support to young ventures. The innovation in India is not just limited to certain sectors. We have recognized startups solving problems in 56 diverse industrial sectors with 13% from IT services, 9% healthcare and life sciences, 7% education, 5% agriculture and 5% food & beverages.

This week, we saw Zippee a Gurgaon-based platform specializing in same-day delivery services, announced it’s successfully fund raise of $1.6 million in new funding. The funding round saw participation from Haldiram Products, with renowned angel investors and others. ; and Metaverse gaming platform AvatarLife has received $1.5 million in seed funding from Info Edge Ventures. These are just two examples of the top ten startups that raised million-dollar funds this week.

Zippee

Zippee, a Gurgaon-based platform specializing in same-day delivery services, announced that it has successfully raised $1.6 million in new funding. The funding round saw participation from Haldiram Products, along with renowned angel investors including Ashneer Grover from BharatPe, Kunal Shah from CRED, Piyush Bansal from Lenskart, Prashant Pitti from EaseMyTrip, and Aakash Anand from Bella Vita Organic. Notable venture capital firms such as FounderBank Capital, PiperSerica, and Misfits Fund also joined the round.

The startup had previously raised $1.7 million from investors including Riso Capital, South Asia Tech Partners, and a group of startup founders. Zippee, founded in 2021 by Madhav Kasturia, enables direct-to-consumer brands to offer same-day deliveries through their own websites. The company has established partnerships with renowned brands such as The Face Shop, Epigamia, Clinikally, Power Gummies, Anveshan, SEPOY&CO, and Haagen Daaz. By integrating their online stores with Zippee’s e-commerce fulfillment platform, brands can facilitate same-day deliveries using Zippee’s extensive network of 170 dark stores located in major Indian cities.

YugaLife.com

YugaLife.com, a prominent health and wellness ecommerce platform, has successfully concluded its latest funding round, securing $5 million in pre-Series A funding. Backed by renowned personalities Katrina Kaif and KL Rahul, the funding round witnessed participation from existing investors such as Peak XV’s Surge and Early Spring, as well as notable angels including Arihant Patni and Aman Tekriwal, along with other high net worth individuals.

The newly raised funds will be instrumental in realizing YugaLife’s vision of creating a world-class health and wellness platform. With the continued support and faith shown by its investors, YugaLife aims to accelerate its growth and make a substantial impact in the health and wellness industry.

RTP Global

RTP Global, an early-stage venture capital firm that has backed fintech unicorn Cred, launched a new fund with a corpus of $1 billion. The fund will invest in Indian and Southeast Asian startups, as well as other geographies in the West. Through its new fund, RTP Fund IV, the VC firm will invest in technology startups with a focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning, enterprise software, fintech, e-commerce across North America, Europe, India, and Southeast Asia, the company said in a statement.

Of the $1 billion, RTP Global has earmarked $660 million for early-stage startups, while it will use the balance $340 million to invest in its existing portfolio companies, the VC said. RTP Global will focus on Seed and Series A investments, it added. RTP Global said that the new fund has derived capital almost entirely from the reinvestment of proceeds from the VC's previous investments. The VC has backed more than 110 startups to date globally and claims that about a tenth of its portfolio companies have become multi-billion dollar businesses.

Qlan

Qlan, the exclusive social networking app designed for gamers and esports enthusiasts, has successfully secured $200,000 in pre-seed funding to fuel its expansion plans and enhance its capabilities in gamer networking, discovery, and content creation. The funding round was led by notable investors Marwah Sports, CIIE.CO, and Faad Network, all of whom recognized Qlan’s potential to make a positive impact on the gaming industry.

Having undergone a six-month beta testing period, Qlan officially launched its full version in January 2023. With over 100,000 combined downloads and a user base of more than 50,000 gamers, the platform has quickly established itself as a thriving hub for gamers and esports enthusiasts across various regions, including the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, North & South America, South Africa, and the MENA regions.

Epiq Capital

Mumbai-based Epiq Capital, which has backed unicorns like Lenskart and Dailyhunt, has raised $225 million in its second fund to double down on its India investments, adding to the stack of venture capital dry powder in the country. The growth and late-stage investing company said Alternate India Investment (AIF) Category-II was oversubscribed. Domestic and global investors, including leading tech entrepreneurs, industrialists, sports and entertainment leaders, family offices, sovereign wealth funds, were its limited partners (LPs) for the fund. It plans to invest in about eight to 12 companies with an average cheque size of around $20-25 million.

Epiq Capital manages assets worth $300 million and the cumulative valuation of its nine companies is around $15 billion. Founder and managing partner Rishi Navani said that the VC raised the fund in FY23, the hardest time to raise fresh capital in India in the past eight years. "But LPs believe in the India story, they believe in the India tech story. They looked at our track record of not just returns but also how our portfolio companies are performing,” Navani said at a press conference.

Lendingkart

Indian fintech startup Lendingkart has secured INR 200 crore in long-term debt funding from financing platform EvolutionX Debt Capital. Lendingkart operates through its NBFC arm, Lendingkart Finance Limited, which offers loans, and its subsidiary Lendingkart Technologies, which provides a co-lending Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform.

According to a statement released by the company, the fresh funding will be utilized to launch new products targeting the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) segment. Lendingkart plans to introduce credit cards for MSMEs, personal loans for self-employed individuals, and gold loans. The company aims to further broaden its offerings and cater to the evolving financial needs of the MSME sector.

Tegro

Tegro, an NFT-20 Exchange co-founded by Siddharth Menon, former co-founder of crypto exchange WazirX, and Ashish Rawat, founder of fitness startup OGA Fit, has successfully raised seed funding at a valuation of $100 million. The funding round was led by Polygon Ventures, along with participation from other private investors.

Tegro’s exchange facilitates bulk trading of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) across Ethereum, Polygon, and other EVM-compatible chains. Users can engage in buying, selling, and trading NFTs on the platform for as low as $0.02. The exchange operates on the decentralised NFT-20 protocol, enabling users to establish and manage decentralised markets for NFTs. These markets provide liquidity services, pricing, and order matching, empowering users to monitor the value of their NFT portfolios.

Dallas Venture Capital

Dallas Venture Capital (DVC), a cross-border startup financing fund, has received Rs 60 crore in from the Self Reliant India Fund (SRI), NewcrestImage and its investors. It received Rs 40 crore in investment from the Self Reliant India (SRI) Fund and Rs 20 crore in finance from Newcrest and its partners.

According to a statement, the firm would utilise these funds to help accelerate the growth of micro, small, and medium-sized firms (MSMEs), so helping to expand and strengthen the broader economy and maximise job possibilities.

Mainstreet

Mainstreet  Marketplace, a platform for reselling sneakers, recently closed a $2 million seed funding round from a number of investors, including Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal's First Lap LLP, Zerodha co-founders Nikhil Kamath and Abhijeet Pai's venture fund Gruhas Proptech, Udaan co-founder Sujeet Kumar, Spotify India MD Amarjit Singh Batra, as well as other angel investors and social media influencers.

Vedant Lamba, 24, founded Mainstreet Marketplace as a YouTube channel in 2017. That same year, the company obtained pre-seed capital from angel investors, including Cred founder Kunal Shah, totaling around $1,25,000 (about Rs 1 lakh). According to Lamba, who spoke exclusively with us, "We're deploying the funds towards hiring an experienced senior management team, expanding our brick-and-mortar presence in more cities, and improving the quality of our customer experience."

AvatarLife

AvatarLife, a platform for metaverse gaming, has received $1.5 million in seed funding from Info Edge Ventures, the investment arm of Naukri.com parent company Info Edge India Ltd. After the augmented reality-based toy manufacturer Mirana and the fantasy e-sports platform Fanclash, this is Info Edge Ventures' third investment in the gaming industry.

The business claimed that it intended to use the funding for product development, community building, and the growth of its international staff. AvatarLife, a virtual environment with single-player, multiplayer, and play-to-earn skill-based games, was founded by Sushant Chandrasekar and Gaurav Gupta last year. It also permits game development and operation on its platform by other authors.

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