Laundry services startup LaundryMate, agritech marketplace Balwaan Krishi, SaaS platform ShipEase and agritech firm Kisankonnect have secured early-stage funding, the companies said on Tuesday.
LaundryMate
New Age Consumer Services Pvt Ltd, which owns online laundry services brand LaundryMate, has raised $6.25 million (Rs 50 crore) in a pre-Series A funding round from Blume Founders Fund, along with a host of angel investors including Ankit Bhati (Ola), Charudatta Deshpande (Cilix Capital), Jignesh Bhate (Molecular Connections), Karan Singh (Trilegal), Sandeep Gupta (Broad Peak Investment Advisors, Singapore), Sankalp Saxena (Nutanix India) and Vikas Choudhury (Pivot Ventures).
The Bengaluru-based startup will use the funding to expand across India and aims to launch its services across 30 cities in the next 10 years.
Founded in 2022 by Abhinay Choudhari, Raghavendra Joshi, Tripat Preet Singh, Uday Vijayan, Asad Zaidi and Pushpendra Yadav, LaundryMate is an online laundry services brand that offers services like dry cleaning, washing and ironing, steam iron on its platform. It has built-in Bengaluru, India’s largest laundry facility that can process 65,000 garments per day.
Balwaan Krishi
Agritech startup Balwaan Krishi has raised $2 million (around Rs 16.5 crore) as a part of its pre-Series A funding round led by Caspian Equity’s agriculture-focused fund Caspian Leap for Agriculture Fund.
The round also saw participation from a clutch of angel investors including Deepak Agarwal (Bikaji group), Rishab Jain (Bikaji) and Pulkit Bachhawat (Right Pillar Advisors), among others.
The Jaipur-based startup will deploy the fresh proceeds to develop new products and establish a pan-India distribution network for their existing products. Additionally, it also plans to offer consumer finance options to farmers, to simplify their purchases through EMI plans along with establishing an Indian language after-sale service center.
Founded in 2016 by Rohit Bajaj and Shubham Bajaj, Balwaan Krishi offers affordable farm machines, including sprayers, seeders, brush cutters, power weeders, and more to small and marginalized farmers. The company aims to reach Rs 500 crore in revenue by FY26. It counts BigHaat, Moglix, IndustryBuying, Freshokarts, and Tractor Junction as partners.
Right Pillar Advisors acted as the financial advisors and Skwerup Capital as legal advisors to the transaction.
ShipEase
SaaS startup ShipEase has secured $550,000 (around Rs 4.5 crore) in a funding from revenue-based financier Recur Club.
The Gurugram-based startup will use the capital to develop its technology stack and to further build its brand in the direct-to-consumer (D2C) segment. It also plans to expand internationally expansion and enter the warehousing industry in the next financial year.
Founded in 2020, ShipEase is a SaaS-based supply chain solution for D2C and small and medium enterprise (SME) customers. They offer a suite of services, including warehousing, fulfillment, and shipping.
“Recur Club’s non-dilutive financing has allowed us to access the capital we need without giving up any equity. We have also benefited from the Recur Club community, which has given us access to a network of experts and investors,” said Pawan Kumar, co-founder and chief executive officer, ShipEase.
Kisankonnect
Kisankonnect Safe Food Private Limited, which operates agritech startup Kisankonnect, has secured an undisclosed amount in a funding round from actress Shilpa Shetty Kundra.
Founded in 2020 by Vivek Nirmal and Nidhi Nirmal, Kisankonnect is an agritech platform that provides farm fresh vegetables, fruits, village staples, millets and homemade food to its customers via its online platform.
“We took three years to build our model to build a supply-chain first company. Working at the farm level, reducing waste, and improving customer experience have always been our priorities. We are at Rs. 120 crore ARR (Annualised Revenue Runrate) as of now and we service over one lakh consumers in Pune and Mumbai,” said Vivek Nirmal, founder of Kisankonnect.
The company claims to have 2.5 lakh customers and 5,000 farmers working as its members.