Spyne, which helps creative professionals such as photographers and corporations to leverage their content, has raised an undisclosed amount as part of an angel round led by Smile Group, a platform which helps entrepreneurs build internet businesses.
The Eventila Technologies Pvt. Ltd-operated startup said it will use the funding to build deeper technology solutions that will help streamline and distribute the content generated by photographers.
Spyne co-founder Sanjay Kumar said the company’s vision is to build a single platform for creative professionals that will help them achieve their goals. “There is a huge scope of innovation in the ways how content is stored, edited and distributed to clients and social media platforms presently,” he said.
The software-as-a-service startup says it is working on features for its products including face detection and auto-tagging of photos to make them more search-engine friendly. It is also working on an artificial intelligence-based photo- and video-editing solution to help reduce the time taken to refine a project.
Gurugram-based Spyne was founded in 2018 by Kumar and Deepti Prasad, alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and Delhi School of Business, respectively.
The startup says it has already signed up over 700 photographers and is looking to increase the number of creators on its platform to more than 3,000 by the end of the year. It claims to have enabled its users to share over 10 million images with clients.
iDreamCareer, Grexter
US-based social impact investor Gray Matters Capital has invested an undisclosed amount in Delhi-based career counselling platform iDreamCareer.
Gray Matters, in a statement, said the investment was part of the startup’s pre-Series A round.
The latest round of funds will be utilised by iDreamCareer to strengthen the technology backbone, among other things, the statement added.
Meanwhile, Grexter Living, a co-living platform owned by Bengaluru-based Grexter Housing Solutions, has acquired i2Stay, a budget accommodation service provider. The details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
As part of the deal, i2Stay founder and chief executive Rajasekhar Gowrineni will join Grexter Living as managing partner for South India. Following the acquisition, Grexter’s beds capacity in Bengaluru will increase to 5,000.
i2Stay, also based in Bengaluru, was launched early last year. The company has been developing built-to-suit, customisable accommodation projects. Grexter also aims to expand its presence beyond Bengaluru into cities such as Pune and Hyderabad by 2020.
BalleBaazi
Fantasy gaming platform BalleBaazi, owned by Baazi Games Pvt. Ltd, has raised $4 million (about Rs 28.3 crore at current exchange rate) in a Series A funding round from two investors whose names were not disclosed.
The startup said it will use the funds to expand its business to new markets as well as enhance the user experience of its platform. It will also introduce new games to its portfolio that will target different sport genres, it said in a statement.
Company chief executive officer Saurabh Chopra said BalleBaazi would capitalise on the fast-growing fantasy sports segment in India.
