Solethreads, CredFlow, Vidyakul, others raise funding

By Debjyoti Roy

  • 14 Apr 2021
Credit: 123RF.com

Gurugram-based Solethreads, a youth-centric footwear brand, has raised Rs 13 crore in its Series A round of funding led by DSG Consumer Partners and Saama Capital. 

Mumbai-based investment bank Moxie Capital acted as the exclusive advisor to Solethreads on the transaction. 

The footwear company was launched in November 2019 by Sumant Kakaria and Gaurav Chopra, who have experience in the footwear and retail industry. 

Solethreads sells through its own website and ecommerce platforms including Amazon, Myntra, Flipkart and Ajio. It is also in the process of bolstering offline presence and has recently partnered premium footwear retailer Metro Shoes.  

CredFlow, a startup that offers cash flow management solutions for Indian SMEs, has raised $2.1 million (Rs 15.2 crore) in its seed round funding led by Stellaris Venture Partners, Omidyar Network India and Flourish Ventures.  

The SaaS (software as a service) platform, launched in May last year, helps SMEs manage their finances by providing a dashboard of pending amounts by customer, sending timely payment reminders, validating invoices and negotiating discounts for early payment. 

It claims to reduce working capital cycles of smaller enterprises by 25-30%. 

Since its launch, over 5,000 businesses have used CredFlow to process and sync invoices worth more than Rs 70,000 crore. 

Nova Benefits, a corporate health insurance platform, has raised $1 million in its seed round of funding led by Multiply Ventures, Better Capital and Titan Capital.  

Nova Benefits has built an employee benefits platform centered around corporate health insurance. Users can access their insurance e-cards, find cashless hospitals and make claims on Nova Benefits’ platform. 

In just seven months, Nova Benefits claims to have on-boarded more than 70 clients with 25,000 members on its platform. Its clients include Snapdeal, Yulu Bikes, Chumbak, Fisdom and DealShare. 

Upscale, a new-age B2B sales engagement startup, has secured Rs 1.8 crore ($250,000) in its pre-seed round of funding led by Powerhouse Ventures, Java Capital, and GSF Accelerator.  

The funding will enable Upscale to expand its market reach and introduce differentiated automation to the B2B inside sales industry through a sales acceleration platform. Upscale also plans to expand its customer base in the US over the next few months.  

Its AI-powered sales engagement platform, launched in January this year, empowers B2B inside sales teams to book more meetings faster and maximise revenue growth. 

The platform allows sales representatives to streamline their prospecting process through a multi-channel outreach that includes emails, phone calls, LinkedIn actions and text messages.

Vidyakul, which claims to be India’s first vernacular e-learning platform, has raised $500,000 in its seed round of funding led by Jain International Trade Organisation (JITO) Angel Network.

SOSV and We Founder Circle participated in this round. Vidyakul aims to use the money to create content for Hindi and Gujarat state board students.  

The platform, launched in 2018, offers live lectures and pre-recorded courses (from class 9-12) in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, and Hinglish for state board students.

Within a short span of time, the edtech startup claims to have reached one million students across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.