AppsForBharat, a product studio focused on building apps for spiritual and devotional needs, has raised $4 million in a seed round co-led by Sequoia Capital India and BEENEXT.
The round also saw participation from WEH Ventures.
The fresh funds will be deployed for product development and hire product, data and engineering talents.
Founded by Prashant Sachan in 2020, AppsForBharat develops mobile apps focused on spiritual as well as devotional needs.
The products include spiritual, devotional, wellbeing and meditation-related tools, communities and services.
"Spiritual and devotional practices are an inseparable part of the daily lives of millions of people in India - during good or bad times, it not only offers them hope but also elevates their mental wellness and spirit.
We are putting together a great team that is customer obsessed and building it the right way - focusing on user delight and their retention," Prashant Sachan, founder and CEO of AppsForBharat, said.
Kirana247, a Delhi-based on-demand supply chain startup, has raised $1 million in a pre-Series A round from undisclosed investors.
The fresh capital will be used to scale its fulfillment network and establish 40 micro warehouses that will serve 100,000-plus active Kirana stores across Delhi NCR, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Rajasthan.
“Standalone kirana stores form the backbone of India’s $600 billion FMCG market. Despite their criticality in the retail ecosystem, these stores face tremendous competition from digital and organized retailers.
We at Kirana247 are looking at creating a seamless interface that reduces inefficiencies and helps the store owner maximize the earning potential per square foot, ” Pankhuri Jiwarajka, co-founder and CMO of Kirana247, said.
The firm said it has onboarded over 5,000 active retail partners on its platform. They have also partnered with manufacturers like Hindustan Unilever, Marico, Reckitt Benckiser, Godrej, Dabur and Pepsi, among others.
Y Combinator invested $125,000 in AI startup Synth. The firm was part of Y-Combinator's Summer 21 batch.
The fresh capital will be used towards expanding the team by hiring deep learning engineers and full-stack developers and refining the products.
Founded by Suneel Matham, Urvin Soneta, and Vaibhav Saxena, the firm says it has developed the app that captures all the relevant information you consume - text, audio, video in a single click and makes it easy to search and retrieve the information.
“We are solving a problem which we have been personally frustrated with for the past few years.
The existing apps put all the burden on us to capture and organise information and ultimately making it hard to retrieve the right information and ultimately leading us to shift to a new app," co-founders in a joint statement, said.
Syook
Syook , an enterprise tech startup, has raised $1 million from Inflection point ventures and ONGC in a Series A round.
The capital will be used to hire an engineering team and to pursue growth in the international markets especially in the middle east and southeast Asia.
"The firm has seen over 2X growth in revenues of last FY year’s order book in just the first three months of this financial year, " Arjun Nagarajan, co-founder and CEO, Syook, said in a statement.
“We are supporting startups that have an application in the oil and gas sectors. We are really happy with the safety, productivity, and compliance gains that Syook provides at customer locations. This has a lot of applications both in the upstream and downstream of the energy sector.” said Startup Team at ONGC in a statement.
NOTO
NOTO, an Ice cream brand focused on low calorie offering, has raised 4 crores in a pre-Series A funding round from Titan Capital, Rockstud Capital, WEH Ventures, and actor-producer John Abraham, among others.
The fresh capital will be used to expand geographically, product development, and hiring of staff.
Founded by husband-wife duo Varun and Ashni Sheth, NOTO offers ice creams and popsicles with a focus on low-calorie and zero added sugars.
"There has been an acceleration in consumers' preference towards healthier desserts. NOTO, with its calibrated product offerings, is well placed to cater to this rising demand. It is a brand that aims to revolutionize the way people consume ice creams without compromising on taste." Abhishek Agarwal, managing partner of Rockstud Capital, said in a statement.
Lumiq
Lumiq, a data and analytics firm, has raised $2 million in a seed round led by Info Edge Ventures.
The round also saw participation from Redstart Labs and angel investor Parampreet Bhasin
The funding will be used to enhancing product offering, grow sales, and expanding the global footprint.
“With the team’s expertise around data science and data engineering, they have been able to achieve over 100% y-o-y growth consistently while remaining in bootstrapped and we hope this round of funding helps them accelerate their plans, “Kitty Agarwal, Partner at Info Edge Ventures, said in a statement.
The firm said it has over 30 customers, over the last 6 months.
The firm’s platform emPower has received adoption in overseas markets like the US, and South-East Asia.
NIDHI-SSS (Seed Support System) has funded four startups incubated by Research Innovation Incubation Design Laboratories (Riddl).
Department of Science & Technology’s incubator has invested in Pillpouch Healthtech Pvt Ltd, Doubt Buddy Education Technology Pvt Ltd, Pocketly Infotech Pvt Ltd, and Swipe.
Pillpouch Healthtech Pvt. Ltd which runs MicroDegree, an edtech startup focused on teaching in vernacular languages.
The startup has over 10,000 users on its platform.
Doubt Buddy Education Technology Pvt. Ltd which runs the Doubt Buddy app, a platform to resolve doubts.
They serve the students with a hybrid model, so the students have an option to solve the doubt the way they want.
The firm has over monthly active users of 7,000.
Pocketly Infotech Pvt. Ltd is a micro-lending platform for college students. The firm has over 400,000 downloads, 5000-plus colleges in India.
Around Rs 40 crore-plus loans have been disbursed, and 75% month over month user retention.
Swipe, a billing and accounting app focused on small businesses.
The firm manually consolidates all their sales for the month on a spreadsheet and sends it to their accountant for filing.
Swipe said it has over 1,000 businesses using its product and has seen 100% month-on-month growth since launching in February.
NIDHI-SSS provides seed funding to promising and innovative startups. Its objective is to bridge the financial gap in the initial phases that are faced by technologically driven startups.
