Two-wheeler financing startup Oto, content commerce platform Wishlink, senior citizen care platform Khyaal, ride-sharing application Advance Mobility and adtech startup Adster secured early-stage funding, the companies said on Tuesday.
Oto, an e-commerce platform and two-wheeler vehicle financier has raised $10 million (Rs 83 crore) in a funding round led by GMO Venture Partners.
The round also saw participation from Turbostart, Indian cricketer KL Rahul and undisclosed family offices. Existing investors Prime Venture Partners, Matrix Partners and 9Unicorns funds also participated in the round.
OTO, operated by 1T9 Technology Pvt. Ltd, was co-founded by IIT Bombay alumni Sumit Chhazed and Harsh Saruparia in October 2018.
The startup provides financing options for two-wheeler buyers that require customers to pay an upfront amount like any other loan but get up to 30% lower EMIs with an option to retain, return, or upgrade the vehicle at end of the tenure.
In 2022, the startup raised Rs 6 crore in a debt funding round from venture debt firm Stride Ventures.
Wishlink has raised $7 million (Rs 58.1 crore) in a Series A funding round led by Fundamentum Partnership, along with participation from existing investor Elevation Capital.
The startup will use the funding to scale its fashion category by onboarding more content creators and brands. It will also use the funding to improve the user experience and expand to new segments such as beauty and personal care, home decor, health and fitness and travel, among others.
Founded in 2022 by Shaurya Gupta, Chandan Yadav, Divyansh Ameta, Wishlink is a content commerce platform. It works with 2,000 creators across social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Telegram and drives sales for 250 brands and e-commerce platforms like Myntra, Ajio, Meesho, H&M, Urbanic, Only, Vero Moda by equipping every creator with a multi-brand digital storefront of their own.
Wishlink’s infrastructure allows tracking across user journeys, enabling brands to see creators as a performance channel with full visibility on RoI.
In October 2022, Wishlink had also raised a debt round from Trifecta Capital.
Khyaal has raised $4.2 million (Rs 35 crore) in a seed funding round co-led by 62Ventures, SVQuad and Inventus Capital. Existing investors Everywhere Ventures, Supermorpheus and Unpopular Ventures along with angel investors Glen Tullman, Kanwal Rekhi, Raju Reddy and Raj-Ann Gill participated in this round.
The freshly raised funds will be used to expand the platform’s reach across India.
With the closure of its seed round, Khyaal has so far raised a total of $5.4 million in funding.
Founded in 2020 by Hemanshu Jain and Pritish Nelleri, Khyaal is an application designed for senior citizens and their family members. It offers digital literacy training, allowing seniors to navigate the digital world. It offers entertainment content and games and financial services tailored specifically for seniors, including a smart payment card for seniors, the Khyaal Card, equipped with cybersecurity protection.
Another feature of the app is its on-demand assistance service, enabling seniors to request services such as booking cabs, travel arrangements, medical services, and bill payments.
Advance Mobility Pvt. Ltd has raised $2 million (Rs 16.6 crore) in a funding round led by Finvolve. The round also saw participation from India Accelerator.
With this funding round, the startup aims to expand its current footprint to other cities in India, according to a statement.
Founded by Mohit Jalan, Advance Mobility is a ridesharing mobility startup in scalable business of fleet operations at the platform of Uber. It aims to solve issues within the value chain i.e. from market players and customers to drivers.
It claims to operate with a fleet of 425 CNG cars running in Mumbai and Pune.
“With changing dynamics, mobility as a solution is emerging as an opportunity and Advance Mobility is committed to continue expanding in this direction,” said Jalan, founder, Advance Mobility.
Adster has raised $1 million (Rs 8.3 crore) in its seed funding round from WaterBridge Ventures.
The company focusses on helping mobile applications and web publishers monetise their ad inventory better by hyperscaling their revenue from ads.
Founded by Rajiv Kumaar, Ketan Chandak, Girish Vishwanath C and Ranganathan Srinivasan, Adster has a suite of plug-and-play products, that allows publishers to show retargetted ads, track all relevant metrics related to ad display and even display offline ads.
The product suite allows publishers to generate optimum revenue from programmatic ads to begin with and through direct ads as they scale.
Meanwhile, homegrown venture capital firm WaterBridge Ventures was founded in 2016 by former Actis private equity executives Manish Kheterpal and Ashish Jain. The duo was later joined by Anjali Sosale as a partner in the firm, as WaterBridge’s second fund was being launched.
