Onato, a B2B platform focused on fresh produce, on Tuesday announced $2.2 million in a seed financing round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India with participation from Omnivore.
The startup said it plans to use this funding for talent acquisition and scaling up its operations. Onato said it is building a technology platform for the fruits and vegetables (F&V) industry.
Founded by Vedant Katiyar and Ashish Jindal, Onato’s platform connects various stakeholders directly and uses data from the demand and supply side to bring transparency in volume and pricing, ensure timely payments, and help customers access new business opportunities.
Earlier Vedant was the co-founder of agritech startup Gobasco. He then went on to explore various agritech business models before launching Onato. Ashish, after graduating from IIT Delhi spent over nine years building technology at Amazon, Swiggy, and Astrotalk and co-founded CodeYeti.
“More than 60% population of India is dependent on agriculture and yet tech penetration in the agri-supply chain is quite low. Decision-making is mostly intuition driven which leads to a lot of volatility in prices & wastage. I believe bringing in transparency in price discovery and fulfillment through technology will play a crucial role in streamlining the supply chains & decision making,” Vedant Katiyar said.
Mestastop Solutions
Bengaluru-based Biotechnology startup Mestastop Solutions said on Tuesday it has raised Rs 1.3 crore (around $173,000) in a seed funding round led by CIIE.CO
The round also saw participation from IKP Knowledge Park and other angel investors.
Mestastop said it will use the funding to scale its AI-based platform METSCAN, which characterizes cancer cells using patient data samples and their assay panels to understand the cell behavior. It will further be used for running PoC animal model studies to validate proof of concept for Cancer drug discovery and repurposing.
Founded in 2018 by Dr Arnab Roy Chowdhury and his wife Dr Debabani Roy Chowdhury. Mestastop has developed three proprietary platforms - METAssay, METSCAN, and METVivo - to unravel metastasis drug discovery and predictive diagnostics. Currently, the company is working on validating its platforms on a larger sample of patient tumours that will empower its IP creation.
“An evolutionary disease like cancer cannot be holistically targeted without targeting metastasis, a process that is complex and is yet to be fully understood. We have successfully created tools and platforms to decipher this biology, translated it with patient data, and then into animal models completing our first phase,” Dr. Arnab Roy Chowdhury, founder and CEO of Mestastop, said.
Previously, the company also received an investment from Vistari Ventures and Mumbai Angels.
RENEE Cosmetics
Beauty brand RENEE Cosmetics said it has raised $1.5 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Equanimity Ventures and 9Unicorns with participation from Titan Capital.
Renee will use the funds raised to expand its distribution reach with plans on having 1,000 beauty outlets over the next few quarters. It will add multiple touchpoints like airports and modern trade stores to its retail presence.
The beauty brand said it is currently clocking around Rs 40 crore in annual recurring revenue and is set to reach Rs 100 crore in ARR by the end of this fiscal year.
The beauty and cosmetics markets in India have seen a spate of entrants, most riding on providing digital-first brands as well as products that are priced lower than incumbent players. The popularity of beauty portals like Nykaa has helped drive demand and experimentation among younger shoppers.
The Indian cosmetics market was valued at $13 billion in FY2020, with many players in the market. In a world of repetitive and saturated beauty products, RENEE’s mission is to liberate and celebrate the spirit of women.
Automovill, a full-stack mobility start-up, said it has raised an undisclosed amount in a financing round from Angel Bay.
The round also saw participation from Santosh Chandra, CEO of Essar Oil & Gas Exploration and Production, and executives from Google and PwC.
This round is the top up to the bridge round which the company raised in mid-July.
Automovill said it will use the funds to widen its wings in 20+ cities, and in ramping up infrastructure.
The company provides tech-enabled solutions and B2B car service management. While the brand already has served 1,00,000+ orders across 12 cities, it plans to expand its footprint in other geographies, and deploy tech solutions. It plans to reach the 25,000-order mark, and have presence across 20 cities by the end of the current fiscal.
“Automovill has been expanding at a great pace, clocking impressive numbers. With technology disrupting the auto service sector there is a huge scope that still needs to be leveraged. Investing in one of the fastest-growing mobility startups reinstates the wider horizons that are yet to be explored,” said Sorabh Agarwal, co-founder of AngelBay.
Ayekart Fintech, an integrated supply chain and finance platform startup, announced it has raised $750,000 in a seed funding round from a consortium of angel investors.
The company plans to use the fresh capital infusion towards business expansion, bringing in more expertise in verticals and technology enhancement for augmenting the services offered through its tech-powered integrated supply chain and finance platform.
Ayekart said it has partnered for a supply chain finance line of $4 million.
“The platform we created is quite dynamic in nature and continuously evolving as a ‘PHYGITAL’ solution that enables small manufacturers, producers, distributors, wholesalers, small merchants and retailers to access physical as well as a digital marketplace for buying and selling of Input, produce Output and VAS, and provide traceability and visibility with easy payment options through Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C) and local physical distribution channels.”, said Debarshi Dutta, co-founder and CEO of Ayekart, said.
Founded as a bootstrapped startup in December 2020, Ayekart has created an integrated supply chain and finance platform. It aims to address the challenges of MSME and retail business that have struggled and which are further aggravated by the spread of the pandemic.
Ayekart is operational in 3 states in the wholesale business and had a gross merchandise value of $1.5 million in the last quarter.