Cybersecurity startup PingSafe, artificial intelligence (AI)-based platform Gushworks.ai, hyperlocal delivery services startup Dusminute, apparel maker Louis Stitch, AI startup Vodex, direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand SuperBottoms and virtual reality-based learning platform Metabook XR have secured early-stage funding, the companies said on Thursday.
PingSafe
PingSafe has raised $3.3 million (Rs 27 crore) in a seed funding round led by Peak XV Partners’ Surge.
The round also saw participation from Tanglin Ventures and angel investors Rahul Chari (PhonePe), Neeraj Arora (ex-WhatsApp), Saurya Prakash (Recko), Vivek Ramachandran (SquareX) and Gaurav Agarwal (Tata 1mg).
PingSafe will deploy the fresh capital to expand its presence across the US as well as India.
Founded by Anand Prakash and Nishant Mittal, PingSafe helps businesses address their cyber vulnerabilities at scale. It helps secure cloud environments for organisations across various hyper scalers like amazon web services (AWS), google cloud platform (GCP), Azure and various deployments like Kubernetes and serverless.
“Having discovered critical vulnerabilities in leading companies, we understand the mindset of hackers. At PingSafe, we incorporate this perspective into our cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) platform by adding capabilities like the offensive security engine that identify the most critical vulnerabilities and provide proof of exploitability, reducing the overhead of security teams,” said Prakash.
The San Francisco and Bengaluru-based startup counts Flipkart, Razorpay, Near Intelligence Inc., Ujjivan Bank, Skyflow, SBI General Insurance, Recko (a Stripe Company), and others as part of its client portfolio.
Gushwork.ai
Gushwork.ai has raised $2.1 million (Rs 17.2 crore) in a pre-seed funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The round also saw participation from B Capital, Sparrow Capital, Seaborne Capital and Beenext.
The funding will be used for product development and improving technological stack, while scaling business in the US, Europe and India.
Founded by Nayrhit Bhattacharya and Adithya Venkatesh, Gushwork.ai provides a curated marketplace of an AI-trained human task force that can execute complex business processes. This allows businesses to focus on strategic tasks while entrusting routine operations to Gushwork.
At present, Gushwork.ai is primarily focusing on sales and marketing operations workflows, encompassing tasks such as lead prospecting, email marketing, ad management, lead engagement on social media platforms, webinar moderation & marketing, social media analytics data scraping, and ad campaign management, among others. The company plans to expand into more specialized roles in the future.
"Getting in-house employees to work on recurring, manual tasks or spending months trying to imperfectly automate these processes is suboptimal. The complexity of these tasks is such that companies do not trust AI to execute them without human oversight. We want to embed AI in the business operations by bringing in human touch on top of AI to solve the lack of trust,” said Bhattacharya.
Dusminute has raised $1.4 million (Rs 11.5 crore) in a bridge funding round led by Inflection Point Ventures.
The round also saw participation from banker Bandana Kankani as well as some of Dusminute’s existing investors.
The funds will be used to improve Dusminute’s growth in Bangalore. It also aims to expand its operations to the top 7-8 cities in India.
Founded by Apoorva Mishra, Ankita Asai and Nikhil Gupta, Dusminute provides grocery ordering services in gated communities by partnering with developers and resident welfare associations (RWAs). They provide a superstore within the community and a dedicated super app for home deliveries and other value-added services.
“This investment will help us to scale up in Bangalore and turn operationally profitable within the coming months. We want to capture a key market like Bangalore, build a profitable business and then enter newer markets in India,” said Mishra.
Men’s apparel brand Louis Stitch has raised $609,415 (around Rs 5 crore) in an ongoing pre-Series A funding round from Space World Group.
The brand had raised Rs 5 crore from the family office of Ajay Bijli in April 2023, thus securing Rs 10 crore in the pre-Series A round.
Louis Stitch will use the fresh proceeds to expand its existing product portfolio and scale up its offline reach through exclusive brand outlets.
Founded in 2019 by Amol Goel, Louis Stitch is a luxury men's fashion brand which deals in shoes and leather accessories. Its products are currently available across various e-commerce platforms like Myntra, Amazon, Flipkart, and Nykaa.
Vodex
AI-based sales and tele-calling solutions startup Vodex has secured $320,000 (Rs 2.6 crore) in a pre-seed funding round led by 100X.VC. The round also saw participation from angel investors Yash Kotak, Ram Kumar and Devansh Alijar.
The startup plans to use the funding for product development and business expansion.
Founded by Anshul Shrivastava and Kumar Saurav, Vodex is a sales and outbound calling solution based on generative AI. It uses generative AI to help businesses with pre-sales and tele-calling operations, optimizing sales, marketing, scheduling, lead generation, and feedback-calling services. It claims to serve 30 customers from 5 countries.
SuperBottoms
Navashya Consumer Products Pvt Ltd, which runs the reusable diaper brand SuperBottoms, has raised an undisclosed amount in funding from actor Alia Bhatt.
The firm also announced Bhatt as their new brand ambassador.
Founded by Pallavi Utagi, SuperBottoms makes reusable diapers. They also cater to other diapering needs with products like dry feel langot, diaper pants and potty training pants.
In 2022, the startup raised $3 million from Saama Capital, DSG Consumer Partners and Venture Catalysts.
VR-based learning platform Metabook XR has secured an undisclosed amount in a seed funding round from EvolveX accelerator, along with WeFounderCircle and angel investors Bhawna Bhatnagar (EvolveX), among others.
The Noida-based startup will infuse the funds into product development, sales expansion and marketing initiatives
Founded by Ashish and Sanjeev Singh, Metabook XR claims to have built the largest library of VR-based content in maths, science, social sciences and virtual tours for K-12 children.
