Digital health platform Mykare Health, plant-based protein firm Evolved Foods, kids subscription startup Gro Club, electric vehicle sub-components maker Revoh Innovations, gardening-focused hyperlocal marketplace Urvann and Chrome Asia Hospitality’s first boutique hotel KAIA have secured early-stage capital, the companies said on Thursday.
Digital health startup Mykare Health raised seed funding of $2.01 million (around Rs 16 crore) from OnDeck ODX, Avaana Seed, Huddle, Endurance Capital, F Health, VeritasX, Stanford Angels and Phoenix Angels.
The round also saw participation from a clutch of angel investors including Hotstar’s founding chief executive officer Ajit Mohan, Nazara Technologies’ joint managing director Nitish Mittersain, former BigBasket executive Hari TN and others.
Mykare Health will use the fresh funds for scaling up its patient experience and talent acquisition.
Founded in 2021, Mykare claims to be building the largest asset-light, affordable and standardised hospital network focused on delivering quality healthcare experience to India's middle-class segment. The company also plans to expand its footprint across southern pockets by this year.
“Factors such as dearth of administrative and pricing transparency, skyrocketing healthcare cost, poor patient to hospital ratio, and paucity of quality care, are the key reasons causing surgery related fear amongst patients, resulting in treatment delays and poor quality of life. We aim to mitigate these challenges through a patient-first approach,” said Senu Sam, co-founder and chief executive at Mykare Health.
Plant-based protein company Evolved Foods has raised Rs 7.30 crore (around $0.9 million) as part of its seed funding exercise co-led by Rainmatter Health and Kamala Capital.
The round also saw participation from Anvitha Prashanth (Anyaa Ventures) and Aprameya Radhakrishna (founder of Koo), Rachel Goenka and Karan Khetarpal (Goenka Ventures Family Office), among others.
The fresh proceeds will be deployed to ramp up growth and help the company to capitalize on the strong order pipeline from the domestic and export markets.
Evolved Foods addresses India's protein deficiency challenge and the world’s demand for sustainable plant-based meat. Since its launch in Q1 2022, the platform claims to have expanded its presence to six cities and recently made its foray into the heat-and-serve food segment.
“Our flagship product is the result of three years of R&D and countless consumer trials. With the infusion of funds, we will be able to build efficiencies across production and supply chain operations and accelerate towards our next milestones,” said Roma Roy Choudhury, founder of Evolved Foods.
Direct-to-consumer kids subscription startup Gro Club has bagged pre-seed funding of Rs 4.3 crore (around $500,000) led by MS Ramaiah Group’s startup venture, taking the company’s valuation to Rs 25 crore (around $3 million).
The round also saw participation from Deepak Gowda of Ascent Capital and Purushotham R, Chirag Shah of Velvet (Los Angeles), Isaac Reyes of Ravis (Panama), among others.
Founded last year, the Bengaluru-based company offers products on subscription for growing kids which kids can upgrade as they grow.
“GroClub strives to be a sustainable ecosystem, allowing parents to subscribe and access quality products on fractional ownership. Our goal is to offer top-notch products and create community-driven, enriching experiences for parents and children. With the funds raised, we'll expand our range and reach new Indian cities,” said Pruthvi Gowda, co-founder and chief executive at Gro Club.
“Gro Club is on a mission to disrupt the kids space through subscription plans tailor made for access economy, meaning parents never need to buy certain products for their kids again,” said Samartha Raghava, chief strategist, Ramaiah Evolute.
IIT-Madras-incubated EV sub-components manufacturing startup Revoh Innovations has raised $425,000 (around Rs 4 crore) in a seed funding round from Nexzu Technologies and Whiteboard Capital.
Revoh plans to use the capital to expand its team and manufacture products with higher power specifications.
Revoh Innovations focusses on research and development of motor controllers for EV applications. It claims that its motor controllers use a unique and indigenously designed control algorithm, which means all the products are 100% customisable. The company has around 75 clients worldwide, ranging from multinational corporations to startups.
“The funding that we have received goes into the expansion of the company and recruiting special talents that can provide superior skills and extraordinary workmanship. Further, we are also planning to venturing into high-power controllers segment soon,” said Vignesh Durai, chief executive at Revoh Innovations.
Gardening-focused hyperlocal marketplace Urvann has raked in an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A funding round led by Inflection Point Ventures.
The funds will be used to enhance the technology and facilitate expansion into different regions across the country.
Urvann began operations in Delhi-NCR in 2021. It provides the most variety and next-day delivery of fresh plants at the lowest prices, distinguishing itself from traditional players who courier plants from one city to another, resulting in high delivery costs and suboptimal plant quality due to long transit times.
“IPV has been really supportive throughout our journey. With the help of IPV, we scaled Urvann from X to 10X and now with this round, we are looking to scale further from 10X to 100X across the country,” said Sambhav Jain, co-founder of Urvann.
Mitesh Shah, co-Founder, Inflection Point Ventures, said, “Gardening as a business is an untapped market for the Indian market especially in urban areas. Urvann aims to enhance the gardening experience across cities by providing a wholesome experience with their extensive service and their collaboration with local nurseries.”
Mumbai-based Chrome Asia Hospitality has secured an investment for its first boutique hotel KAIA from actor Bhumi Pednekar.
Launched in 2019, Chrome Asia Hospitality, a venture by Nikita Shahri, Dhaval Udeshi & Pawan Shahri, is a full-scale hospitality company focussed on creating experience driven restaurants across the country. The group owns, manages and consults restaurants, bars & boutique hotels across the country.
“This endeavour marks the beginning of an exciting chapter, brimming with opportunities to deliver unparalleled experiences to everyone. With Bhumi’s passion for exceptional experiences and our commitment to deliver novel concepts across formats, we are confident of scaling brand KAIA across destinations,” said Pawan Shahri, co-founder, Chrome Asia Hospitality.