Artificial intelligence-backed digital marketing startup Optiwise on Tuesday said it has secured $1.3 million (around Rs 10.4 crore) in a seed funding round led by venture capital firm StartupXseed Ventures.
The Newark and Noida-based firm will deploy the fresh proceeds to further invest in product, scale up team and expand its footprint from North America to other e-commerce regions across the globe.
Founded by former IITian’s Deepak Goyal and Rahul Shah in March this year, Optiwise is a platform, comprising e-commerce specialists, data scientists, statistical geeks, strategists and programmers, that assists brands and retailers in scaling their e-commerce business across multiple marketplaces.
Since its inception, Optiwise has onboarded hundreds of marketplace sellers and most of them have witnessed a 3.2X rise in traffic, 46% in conversion and a 2X jump in revenues, it said in a statement.
“This investment, along with the success of our customers, further validates our product-market fit strategy and further propels our vision of helping our customers optimize their revenue across marketplaces,” said Goyal.
“We felt intrigued after understanding the kind of potential e-commerce holds, the rate at which it is expected to grow and how the marketing works using technology as an integral part of the business model. The founding team understands the space well, and we feel that the team is capable enough to look at scaling the business at a fast pace,” said Ravi Thakur, Co-founding Partner at StartupXseed Ventures.
Founded in 2015 by BV Naidu, former director, Software Technology Parks of India, Mohandas Pai, Ravi Thakur and Ramakrishna V, StartupXseed invests between seed and pre-Series A rounds. Last month, VCCircle reported that the firm had marked the final close of its second fund at Rs 243 crore with an oversubscription of 20%.
Chennai-based meat retail chain The Meat Chop has raised Rs 7 crore (around $900,000) from a clutch of investors in a seed round.
The fundraise saw participation from Mohan K (Co-founder at IppoPay), Ankur Agarwal (Co-founder at Dunzo), Rahul Mahipal (founder at Capitar Ventures) and others, with global investors.
The Meat Chop plans to use the fresh funds to ramp up its brand, technology and supply chain infrastructure, as well as for expansion.
Founded by Appaas, Kalyan, Navas and Yasar in 2021, The Meat Chop manages procurement, marketing, promotions and merchandising for butcher stores on its platform through tech systems and a standard operating plan, it said in a statement.
“Our goal is to create a platform to fix the information asymmetry in supply and demand that has plagued this market for a very long time. While 99% of the $70 billion meat and seafood retailing is handled by the local butcher stores, the incentives were not actually reaching the butcher stores due to limited product shelf life, poor sourcing and lack of access to technology,” said Appaas.
“The Meat Chop is bringing the benefits enjoyed by organised players to the local butcher shops including quality sourcing, tech stack, data analytics and last mile delivery,” said Dunzo’s Agarwal.
Mocero Health
Healthtech startup Mocero has raised seed funding of Rs 1.3 crore (around $110,000) led by angel investing firm Inflection Point Ventures.
The funds will be utilized by Mocero to develop its product portfolio and boosting sales channel.
Founded by N. Palaniappan in 2017, Mocero Health is a platform that helps healthcare institutions to provide a standard of care, improving the overall patient experience, enabling cost reduction and advancing population health.
“Mocero has been conceived with the idea to create a digitally connected community rather than a circumscribed physical space. It involves creating a platform where the care providers, patients, and patients’ families are on the same platform exchanging health information and services,” said Palaniappan.
“In the last 2 years, the health tech sector has seen an accelerated growth curve..however, the large tier 2 and 3 healthcare facilities still lag from the rest of the world in smart digital adoption…Mocero is positioned rightly as the founding team understands the medical and the tech pieces to offer a relevant solution for an ever-expanding healthcare market in India,” said Madhukar Bhardwaj, VP, Business Development and Investments at Inflection Point Ventures.
Launched by Ankur Mittal, Vinay Bansal and Mitesh Shah, Inflection Point Ventures had invested Rs 215 crore in 51 startups in 2021. BharatPe emerged as a multi-bagger giving over 80folds returns to IPV which it exited to BharatPe’s returning investor Coatue Management who led the $108 million Series D round in the fintech unicorn last year.
IPV first invested in BharatPe in 2018 and has completed a full exit.
