Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
The Tech Panda takes a look at recent funding events in the ecosystem, seeking to know where the cash is flowing.
Indian eSports gaming platform Gamerji has raised US$ 1.1 million in a Pre-Series A round led by Unicorn India Ventures. The round also saw participation from Stadia Ventures, Urmin Group family office and existing investors. Gamerji plans to use the fresh funds to enhance tournament organization technology, build social features for the gamers and and expand to MENA and south east Asia.
Bhaskar Majumdar, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures, says, “The gaming industry in India is finally coming of age as the government is setting up the AVGC hub in Bangalore and against the backdrop of metaverse and Web 3.0. eSports is growing the fastest within the overall gaming market. Gamerji has demonstrated this thesis well given their growth numbers. We continue to share the vision of the company and back them as they look to expand to other international geographies.”
Soham Thacker, Founder & CEO, Gamerji, says, “Gamerji intends to be a platform of choice where gamers can showcase their skills, build their stats and grow the community. We are glad to receive constant support from Unicorn India Ventures along with our other investors”
Agtech startup, Otipy (operated by Crofarm Agriproducts), also India’s first community group buying platform for fresh produce, raised INR235 crores (US$32 million) in its Series B round led by Westbridge Capital. Existing investors SIG and Omidyar Network India also participated in the round. These fresh funds have come in six months for Otipy, after its series A funding of INR76 crores (US$10.2 million).
Varun Khurana Founder and CEO Otipy said “Leveraging our fast supply chain and community leader network we aim to provide fresh, quality produce to consumers at the lowest price. We will continue to build on our proposition for value conscious consumers. The series B round of funding will support us as we expand to new pin codes, strengthen our supply chain, invest in cutting edge tech, add product categories and accelerate our mission of making fresh, nutritious food accessible to all.”
Sandeep Singhal, MD at Westbridge Capital adds, “We are excited to partner with Otipy as they disrupt the daily essentials market via the community group buying model. Otipy is creating value for farmers, community leaders and consumers. We see very strong fundamentals in their business model and are excited to be partners in their growth journey.”
B2B logistics tech platform Oorjaa has raised around INR 9 crores in a Pre-Series A round led by Inflection Point Ventures. The round also saw participation from a clutch of HNIs who have invested in personal capacity and through Vinners angel investing platform. The funds will be used to focus on the product and tech development, expanding into new geographies and on working capital requirements.
Mitesh Shah, Co-founder, Inflection Point Ventures, says, “Timely movement of goods without any damage to the product has always been the companies’ primary need. As many companies move high value products or look for tracking of shipment, tech solutions are the go-to solutions. Understanding this gap, Oorjaa successfully designed a technology enabled logistics solution which provides end to end automation for varied delivery requirements.”
He further added, “The company has already witnessed a fast growth since 2019 and has some of the well-established brands as a part of its clientele like Flipkart Wholesale, Jio Mart, Udaan, Zomato Hyperpure, Big Basket amongst others. We look forward to extending our expertise in their growth journey.”
Sandeep Patil, CEO and Co-Founder, Oorjaa says, “Our experience of interacting with IPV has been very fulfilling with complete handholding during the entire process. Their quality of diligence and in-depth understanding of the space we are operating in tilted us to onboard them as lead investor in Oorjaa. In last 2 years, we have achieved product market fit with bootstrapped capital. With this fund raise, we target to grow multi-fold across geographies and offer digitalized and intelligent logistics solutions to our clients with a sole focus to optimize their intra-city logistics requirements.”
Live video infrastructure startup, 100ms, closed their Series A funding round of US$20M led by Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI). AWI is backed by DisruptAD, ADQ’s venture platform, and managed by Alpha Wave Global. The round is joined by Matrix Partners India and LocalGlobe, along with participation from existing investors Accel and Strive.vc.
“Video-based solutions will be a key driver in the development of B2B and B2C products in a multitude of verticals. By abstracting the complexities of video streaming, 100ms has created a sophisticated, yet easy-to-use product for companies to be able to add high-end, live engagement tools in a cost-effective manner. The market for this is global and through its differentiated GTM, 100ms is poised to be the market leader in this space” Anirudh Singh, Managing Director at Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave Incubation, commented on leading the round.
With customers like WhiteHat Jr, Circle, Paytm Insider, Frontrow, and Kutumb, 100ms announced that it has witnessed over 20X growth in usage metrics over the last quarter. With this round of funding, the company aims to help developers build and deploy enterprise-class video applications in hours.
Indian incentivised health and wellness platform Growfitter has raised US$1 million in a Pre Series A round led by Inflection Point Ventures. The round also saw participation from First Port Capital, Mumbai Angels, Startup Angel Network, DevX Accelerator Fund, Blockchain Founders Fund (Singapore), JPIN. Well known angels Mohit Burman (Vice Chairman, Dabur India) and Aman Gupta, Co-founder CMO boAt also joined the round. Aman Gupta invested in the company through Shark Tank India, where Growfitter appeared after signing the lead investor of this round.
The funds will be utilised for building technology infrastructure and expanding business operations, hiring and branding of the platform.
Vinay Bansal, Founder and CEO, Inflection Point Ventures says, “We see potential in businesses which are taking high-touch manual business processes and bringing digital transformation to the doorstep.”
Sanmati Pande, Co-Founder & CEO of Growfitter says, “IPV is one of the best investment platforms run by industry veterans & professionals. Vinay Bansal has been a great support by providing not just growth capital but also strategic partnerships to scale the business. Their turnaround time to close the round was phenomenal.”
“The funding will be used to grow our technology stack, offer more immersive experiences to our users and members, and to develop a wider embrace of our target segments,” said Harshit Sethy, Co-Founder and CTO, Growfitter.
TOONSUTRA, the India-focused mobile webtoon startup which has been incubating in stealth mode, closed an oversubscribed pre-seed round for US$1.1 million. The new startup was incubated at leading character entertainment company, Graphic India and was founded by media entrepreneur, Sharad Devarajan.
The funds came from an acclaimed group of global investors and entrepreneurs including, Patrick Lee, Co-Founder, Rotten Tomatoes; Kevin Lin, Co-Founder, Twitch; Kun Gao, Co-Founder, Crunchyroll; Jeremy Liew, Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners; Holly Lui, Co-Founder, Kabam; Ray Chan, Co-Founder, 9GAG; Rishad Tobaccowala, Fmr. Chief Growth Officer, Publicis Group; Michael Maher, Founder, Start Media; Vishal Anand, Fmr. Chief Product Officer, Dailyhunt; Benjamin Grubbs, Co-Founder, CreatorPlus; George Nolfi, filmmaker; Sandeep Kumar Sood, Co-Founder, Junglee Games; and others.
“TOONSUTRA will become India’s new storytelling home for disruptive creators across the country to experiment, innovate and create powerful new webtoon comic stories and web3 collectibles and experiences,” Toonsutra, Founder, Sharad Devarajan commented.
“Webtoon platforms have become an explosive phenomenon across Asia with top webtoon apps cumulatively reaching over 70 million monthly users and over a 100 billion views a year. For the first time we want to make a webtoon app dedicated for Indians to spark a mobile comic and Web3 collectible revolution.”
GPS Renewables, a Bengaluru based bioenergy technology firm, has closed its Series B funding from Neev Fund II, managed by SBICap Ventures. The latest round of funding will be used towards R&D and to support GPS Renewables’ next phase of growth and expansion.
With the current round, GPS has cumulatively raised close to US$20 million in the form of equity. The earlier round was led by Netherlands based Hivos-Triodos Fund and Hyderabad-based Caspian Impact Investments in September 2020.
Manav Bansal, CIO, Neev Funds, said, “This investment into GPS resonates with our mission to decarbonise and to support the next generation of climate entrepreneurs. We will continue to open the gates of capital to climate-focused purpose driven businesses”
Akshay Panth, Principal, Neev Funds, said, “We look forward to our partnership with GPS. It has been a great story of entrepreneurship, and we are impressed with the strong product the team has built from scratch. Neev is proud to partner with GPS in their journey to help the world transition to a more sustainable way of living.”
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