LimeChat, an AI-based chatbot startup helping brands boost online sales, has raised $750,000 (about Rs 5.6 crore) in its seed round led by pi Ventures and Stellaris Venture Partners.
Angel investors including Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Sujeet Kumar, Ramakant Sharma, and Dilip Khandelwal also participated in this round.
The startup had raised a pre-seed round from Titan Capital early last year. Founded in 2020, LimeChat enables direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands to drive up online sales conversations across WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and others.
Its platform aims to deliver a store-like buying experience to the brand's customers.
BlackSoil invests in 3 startups
Mumbai-based alternative credit platform BlackSoil Capital has announced an investment of over Rs 12 crore in three startups: Freightwalla, UpMoney and Rapidbox.
Founded in 2016 by Sanjay Bhatia, Punit Java, and Bharat Thanvi, Freightwalla operates a tech-enabled freight forwarding and logistics portal that offers planning, booking, tracking, and automated documentation services for international freight shipments.
Freightwalla has achieved 4x growth in revenue since its Series A funding despite the pandemic last year, it said.
Up Money is a non-banking financial company (NBFC) that provides two-wheeler financing and small business loans (both secured and unsecured) through a branch model.
The company was founded by the father-son duo Ajit Singh Chawla and Sumel Singh Chawla in 2015.
It has 54 branches in Tier II and III cities across Punjab, Chandigarh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.
Up Money has disbursed over Rs 700 crore and has over 92,000 active customers. The company raised over Rs 125 crore in debt from both repeat and new lenders in 2020-21.
Rapidbox is an online D2C affordable fashion brand that operates in categories like footwear, apparel, and accessories.
The company was started in 2017 by former Flipkart executive Arun Paliwal and ex-Dailyhunt executive Manoj Baranwal.
Rapidbox is currently delivering over 40,000 orders a month. It has increased its presence to nine cities with over 3x growth in business in the last 12 months.
BlackSoil has successfully concluded over 50 debt transactions with venture-backed growth companies/startups by deploying more than Rs 500 crore in the past four and a half years.
It recently raised Rs 125 crore in the first close for its maiden secured BlackSoil India Credit Fund. Blacksoil’s portfolio includes OYO, Spinny, Purplle, Zetwerks, Vogo, LetsTransport, EarlySalary and iNurture.
Singapore-based venture capital firm Spanache has led a Rs 1.2 crore seed round in Bengaluru-based startup Dybo, which specialises in product visualisation tech.
The investment also saw participation from Manoj Nigam, CEO of MicroD Inc.
Co-founded in 2019 by BITS Pilani alumni Dhawal Jain and Aman Kumar, Dybo partners online furniture stores to provide customers with an immersive virtual experience as part of which they can play around with a product's colours and materials.
The company aims to use a significant portion of the funding to refine Dybo360 and DyboAR, its flagship products.
The remaining shall be used to expand team and work on upcoming concepts.
