AsknBid Innovation Factory India Pvt. Ltd, which operates investment-focussed financial technology firm AsknBid, has raised capital from the Mumbai Angels Network and other investors.
The round has been led by Ravikanth Reddy, who is a partner at Regentway Ventures, AsknBid said in a statement. Regentway is a Hyderabad-based family office that backs deep-technology companies.
The Bengaluru-based company will use the funds for scaling up its research platform and enhancing its existing technological infrastructure. It didn’t disclose the amount it raised.
AsknBid was set up in 2018 by Suresh Bavisetti and Paarth Dhar. The firm says it develops algorithmic investing-based technology products, with a focus on making high-tech trading accessible and affordable.
The company is also part of the Nvidia Inception Program for machine learning and deep-learning-based startups.
“Algo-investing is still in its infancy in Indian markets and we believe that India will see multiple players and products emerging in this space over the next few years,” the founders said.
Separately, Reddy said he was confident of his investment in AsknBid because of the potential of the high-frequency trading market in India and the company’s deep-tech base.
Mumbai Angels Network co-promoter and chief executive officer Nandini Mansinghka added that the investment platform was also seeing a greater interest in the artificial intelligence-based algorithmic-trading space.
Mumbai Angels
The angel investment group was established in 2006 and says it has over 400 members across chapters in cities including Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata. The group says it has over 135 companies in its portfolio and claims more than 30 exits with a cumulative investment of over Rs 150 crore.
According to VCCEdge, the data research arm of Mosaic Digital, some of the companies in its portfolio include CarterPorter Pvt. Ltd, Dhruva Space Pvt. Ltd and Leadstart Publishing Pvt. Ltd.
Earlier this month, Mumbai Angels invested in electric-vehicle based travel tourism company BLive as part of its pre-Series A round. At the end of January, it took part in a $3 million (around Rs 21.40 crore) pre-Series A funding round in advertising-technology startup Adonmo Pvt. Ltd. The round was led by the Ant Financial-backed BAce Capital.
Deals in the fintech segment
Earlier this month, VCCircle exclusively reported that mobile wallet firm ZipCash had raised its Series A funding round from a mix of domestic and foreign backers. Also this month, Juspay Technologies Pvt. Ltd, a payments technology firm, raised $21.6 million in its Series B funding round led by a Swedish investor.
Infrastructure platforms have been gaining traction as well. This month, payments-focussed application programming interface startup YAP raised $4.5 million (around Rs 34.62 crore), barely two months after its angel funding round.
In January, EpiFi Technologies Pvt. Ltd raised $13.2 million (around Rs 93.5 crore) in seed funding at a valuation of around $50 million from marquee investors such as Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital and Hillhouse Capital.
