Mindgrove, Univest, Naxatra, M37Labs get early-stage funding

Mindgrove, Univest, Naxatra, M37Labs get early-stage funding

By Roshan Abraham

  • 23 Dec 2024
M37Labs founders

Chip designer Mindgrove Technologies, wealth-tech startup Univest, electric vehicle motor technology startup Naxatra Labs and AI startup M37Labs have raised early-stage cheques, the companies said Monday. 

Fabless chip design startup Mindgrove Technologies has raised $8 million (Rs 68 crore) in a Series A round of funding that was co-led by Rocketship.vc and Speciale Invest

Early-stage investor Mela Ventures and existing backer Peak XV Partners, Nishchay Goel and Whiteboard Capital along with Anshul Goel also participated in the round, the company said in a statement. 

The latest funding comes nearly two years after Chennai-based Mindgrove raised around $2.3 million seed investment in a round led by then Sequioa Capital India.  

With the fresh funds, the company said it plans to expand its workforce and enhance its in-house engineering capabilities. It is growing its team across all departments - business, engineering, product and applications. 

Mindgrove, a deeptech startup founded in 2021 by Shashwath T R and Sharan Srinivas J and incubated in IIT Madras, designs high-performance System-on-Chip (SoC) with advanced features for the Indian and global markets. 

Univest 

Wealth-tech startup Univest has secured $10 million (about Rs 85 crore) in a Series A round led by Bertelsmann India Investments (BII).  

The Gurugram-based company was founded in 2022 by Pranit Arora, Avneet Dhamija, and Vikash Agrawal. In March 2023, the company raised $1.5 million in a seed round led by US-based Trinity Media Group.   

The startup operates a stock market superapp for retail investors, which aids the discovery of right picks, executing through in-house broker, and timely exit.  

"The funds will enable us to scale our research-first, full-stack brokerage offering, creating India’s first true stock market superapp for retail investors," Arora, co-founder and CEO, said.  

Univest claims to have achieved over 3 million signups to its app and more than 150,000 paid subscribers in under two years. It offers flexible subscription plans across equity, futures, options and commodities.  

Naxatra Labs

Naxatra Labs, an electric vehicle motor technology startup, has raised close to $1 million in a seed round of funding round led by venture capital firm GVFL. 

The Ahmedabad-based startup said the round also saw participation from prominent investors, including Nithin Kamath’s Rainmatter Foundation, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, co-founders of Ixigo, Ather Energy's Narayan, Sunil Kalra and others. 

Naxatra said it intends to expand its team across R&D and production and has begun the process of certifying its offerings to meet international standards. 

The company was founded by Mohit Tandon, co-founder of Delhivery, and Himanshu Aggarwal, founder of Aspiring Minds. It makes motors for electric vehicles. 

Artificial Intelligence solutions startup M37Labs has raised pre-seed funding from Concept Group owner Vivek Suchant, while making an official launch as a startup offering a comprehensive set of AI-based solutions.  

The company was founded by Prashant Shivram Iyer and Zorawar Purohit in Mumbai. It did not disclose the amount raised in the round. 

M37Labs offers AI strategy workshops and works with C-Suite executives to develop tailored AI strategies for their businesses, design AI workflow and develop software.