Rupifi, Bombay Shaving Company, others raise funding

By Narinder Kapur

  • 25 Mar 2021
Credit: 123RF.com

Rupifi, which operates a buy-now-pay-flexibly platform for micro, small and medium enterprises, has raised $4.1 million (around Rs 30 crore) in a pre-Series A round. 

The round in New Delhi-based Rupifi has been led by fintech and inclusion-focused Quona Capital. Other participants include Ankur Capital and Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal. 

The pre-Series A round comes a year after the startup raised an undisclosed sum as part of a pre-seed round. Investors in that exercise included BharatPe’s Ashneer Grover, Cred’s Kunal Shah, Livspace’s Ramakant Sharma, Better Capital, and AngelList Syndicate Cloud Capital. 

Rupifi was set up last year by Anubhav Jain, Ankit Singh, and Jawaid Iqbal. The company will use the capital it has raised to expand its product offerings, as well as increase partnerships and scale up team. 

Grooming brand Bombay Shaving Company has raised Rs 15 crore (around $2.06 million) from existing investor Sixth Sense Ventures as part of a follow-on round, it said on Thursday. 

Delhi-based Bombay Shaving Company said the investment by Sixth Sense will comprise a primary infusion as well as a secondary purchase from senior employees. 

Nikhil Vora-founded Sixth Sense Ventures now holds about 24% stake in Bombay Shaving Company. 

The development comes after the startup in January raised Rs 45 crore ($6.2 million) in a round led by consumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser. The round also saw participation from individuals including Avaana Capital founder Anjali Bansal and CleanMax Energy managing director Kuldeep Jain.  

Operated by Visage Lines Personal Care Pvt Ltd, Bombay Shaving Company was set up in 2016 by Shantanu Deshpande. The company now has more than 100 products for men and women across shaving, bath and body, skin, and beard care categories. 

“Our primary goal now is to build a leadership team to take us from a startup to an established FMCG [fast-moving consumer goods] organisation,” Deshpande said. 

ReshaMandi, an agricultural-technology startup focused on the silk segment, has raised $1.7 million (around Rs 12 crore) in a seed funding exercise. 

The round in Bengaluru-based ReshaMandi has been led by Omnivore and Strive Ventures. Other participants include Axilor Ventures and Supply Chain Labs (Lumis). 

ReshaMandi, operated by Shapos Services Pvt Ltd, began around a year ago. It was set up by Mayank Tiwari, Saurabh Agarwal, and Utkarsh Apoorva.  

The company says its platform is focused on digitising India’s silk supply chain. 

It will use the capital raised in this round to strengthen its digital platform, while expanding its presence beyond Karnataka to other silk hubs including Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. 

Janani, looking to develop a full-service platform providing personalised solutions for the fertility care industry, has raised Rs 8 crore (around $1.1 million) in a fresh funding exercise. 

The round in Bengaluru-based Janani has been led by startup incubator and accelerator Venture Catalysts. Other investors in the startup include Apollo Hospitals, Inflection Point Ventures, LetsVenture, and 9Unicorns. 

The development comes after Janani in October last year raised Rs 1.5 crore (around $201,000) in a pre-seed round that was led by 9Unicorns. Other participants included Archana Priyadarshini and Sweta Rau via AngelList. 

Janani, operated by Mothersense Technologies Pvt Ltd, was set up by Nilay Mehrotra last year. The company says it operates a consumer vertical, Janani.Life, and a business-to-business arm, Janani.ai. Both focus on addressing and providing phased solutions to infertility and assisted fertility procedures. 

The company will use the capital it has raised to enhance its technological infrastructure and initiate full operations in three metro cities in the country. 

Anar 

Anar, a business community platform focused on helping small and medium enterprises share information and grow their network, has raised an undisclosed sum in a round led by Titan Capital. 

Titan Capital is the venture firm set up by Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. It has made several investments in recent months, including bets on cross-border commerce firm Nexprt, inter-city bus aggregator Zingbus, and physiotherapy platform YourPhysio. 

Anar was set up in February last year by Nishank Jain and Sanjay Bhat, both graduates of IIM-Lucknow. The company says it is helping SMEs enhance their communities by providing access to new products, current market trends and knowledge for expansion to broader markets. 

It will use the capital raised to strengthen its core product offering as well as enhancing its technological infrastructure and delivering a better user experience for customers. 

Sepal, a startup that aims to provide bike owners with accessories and features, has raised an undisclosed sum from the Mumbai Angels Network, it said on Thursday. 

The company was set up in 2018 by IIT-Bombay alumni Vidhey Addepally and Kashyap Addepally. 

Sepal will use the capital raised from Mumbai Angels Network to set up its production infrastructure and launch this offering across the country. It will also expand its technology team and product suite within the next few months.  

Further, it is also looking to secure another round of funding in 12-18 months to focus on pan-India and international expansion. 

Homingo

Homingos, an augmented reality (AR)-based social networking platform, has raised an undisclosed sum, it said on Thursday.

Investors in this round included BITS Spark Angel members Raju Reddy, Sundi Natarajan, Jayan Ramankutty, Shivakumar Ganesan, and Rahul Seth. Srinivas Anumolu of Growth Story also participated, Bengaluru-based Homingos said.

Homingos, operated by Flying Homingos Pvt Ltd, was set up by Shourya Agarwal, Malhar Patil and Rajat Gupta, all graduates of BITS-Pilani. 

The company says it is developing an AR-powered platform and camera interface to let users share and connect.

It will use the capital it has raised for user acquisition, strengthening team, and developing its platform.