Clensta International Pvt. Ltd, a New Delhi-based waterless personal hygiene startup, has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Indian Angel Network (IAN) and its eponymous venture capital fund.
According to a statement, IAN co-founder Pradeep Gupta and three members of the angel network — Rishabh Mehta, Anirudh Agarwal and Sajiv Dhawan — were the lead investors.
“The funding will be used for research and global expansion,” said Puneet Gupta, founder and chief executive of Clensta.
The investment will help Clensta to launch its products in the business-to-consumer (B2C) space and develop newer products in the personal hygiene category, the statement added.
Clensta currently operates in the business-to-business (B2B) space. It had launched waterless personal hygiene products including shampoo. Its products can be directly applied to hair and body, massaged and then can be dried off using a towel.
The startup is currently incubated at Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi.
It was founded in 2016 by Puneet Gupta in association with IIT Delhi and Anurag Rathore, a chemical engineering professor at the institution.
The startup previously raised seed funding led by angel investor Sanjeev Jain in January.
“The company has been able to successfully induct itself across the B2B space including government agencies like defence forces, police etc,” said Rishabh Mehta, who will now be a director on Clensta’s board.
IAN is one of the most active angel networks in India. The sector-agnostic group has funded startups across 17 sectors in India and six other countries.
IAN's portfolio includes startups such as WebEngage, Druva, Box8, Sapience Analytics, Wow Momos and Consure.
Last year, it made the first close of its maiden IAN Fund at Rs 175 crore (around $27 million)
The Rs 450-crore fund is registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). It invests in sectors such as healthcare and medical devices, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, software as a service (SaaS), online marketplaces, fintech, Big Data and hardware.
IAN Fund's recent investments include farm-to-fork marketplace FarmersFZ, fintech startup Propelld and non-alcoholic beer maker Coolberg.
