In-Depth

The 70 Startups That Raised Funding Under Startup India Led Fund Of Funds

06 Dec'17 | By
startup india-fund of funds-startups-funding-aifs
SUMMARY

As Of September 2017, Around 5 Startups Have Already Been ShutDown While 3 Got Acquired Post Funding From AIFs

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When PM Narendra Modi announced the $1.5 Bn Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) in January 2016  as part of his ambitious his Startup India Plan, for many it was just another promise on paper. But, the hopes and aspirations of several young entrepreneurs of India got an uplift, when on June 22, 2016, the Union Cabinet actually approved the fund and designated SIDBI for the disbursement of the Fund of Funds’ corpus to eligible startups through AIFs (Alternative Investment Funds) registered with the SEBI.

According to October 2017 status report by DIPP on the Startup India website, about $92 Mn (INR 605.7 Cr) from the fund has already been released to SIDBI, and 75 startups have received funding from 17 AIFs so far. The entire Fund of Funds corpus has been earmarked to get allocated across two finance commission cycles (2015-2020 & 2021-2025).

We have listed down the total funding AIFs have received from SIDBI under Fund of Funds as part of Startup India plan. Apart from fund details, we have also included the number of startups that have been funded by each one of them below.

As one can observe, while Chiratae Trust has been sanctioned the maximum corpus, while, Kae Capital Fund II has made the maximum investments in startups, as of September 2017.

How The Fund Of Funds For Startups Work

Although it’s unlikely, yet for the novice, here is a brief rundown on how exactly the SIDBI-AIFs association work to impart designated corpus to the startups, as part of Startup India plan.

In order to avail funds, an eligible VC fund first makes a detailed presentation before the Venture Capital Investment Committee (VCIC). The VCIC has been created by SIDBI and includes external experts like Mohandas Pai, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Saurabh Srivastava, H.K.Mittal, Prof. Vaidyanathan, Kiran Karnik, and more. Going ahead, the following process needs to be followed by an AIF:

Points To Be Noted By AIFs

  • Generally, commitment period of an Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) should be for a period of four to five to years from the date of its First Closing.
  • The AIF’s shall invest at least twice the amount of contribution received from FFS ineligible and selected startups. The tenure of the AIF supported under FFS will be initially upto 12 years.
  • There is no minimum investment limit prescribed.
  • The investment in any investee company shall not be more than 25% of the size of AIF or as may be prescribed by SIDBI from time to time.
  • The aggregate contribution to the corpus of AIF from Fund of Funds being operated by different Ministries of the Government of India / State Governments shall not exceed 35% of its corpus.

Now that we understand the allocation process, here is a brief overview of startups selected and funded so far under Fund of Funds. It is to be noted that though the Startup India website claims to have 75 startups, however, we found just 70 unique startups. Information about two startups was repetitive and names of three startups were missing from the list mentioned on the Startup India website.

***The information about the startups has been collected majorly from available public sources and has been collated in an alphabetical manner.

A Quick Overview Of The 70 Startups Backed By AIFs Under Fund of Funds

The Inc42 Data Labs team, in its effort to get a bird’s eye view of the investments done under the Fund of Funds (part of Startup India Action Plan), further analysed the funded startups by the AIFs on basis of their launch date, location, and sector. Here is a glimpse of the same.

Sector-Wise Distribution

Like always, ecommerce again emerged as a winner here, grabbing in the majority 18.57% funding from SIDBI led Fund of Funds for startups. Enterprise application and fintech startups closely followed with 15.71% and 12.86% funding respectively.

City-Wise Distribution

Bengaluru-based startups have so far got the maximum funding under Fund of Funds. Owing to the continuous efforts of the state government, the city is rising high on the graph. Catching up fast are Mumbai and Delhi/ NCR region.

Breakdown On The Basis Of Launch Date

This is quite an interesting point to note. The startups under the Fund of Funds portfolio are selected by AIFs, and thus shows an inclination towards an investor’s mindset of investing in low-risk startups which have already attained their product market fit, but still have the potential to scale further and can give high returns for small percentage of equity in near future.

As we can see in the chart below, the maximum startups selected for funding under Fund of Funds are launched in 2015, which from now are just three years old, with ample scope to grow further in the industry.

70 Startups That Raised Funding From AIFs Under Fund Of Funds, Part Of Startup India Action Plan

Atomberg

Atomberg makes smart, affordable energy efficient home appliances, such as ceiling fans. The aim is to make products which have the highest energy efficiency but are also the best in each and every parameter. Its flagship product ‘Gorilla’ is an energy efficient ceiling fan, which consumes only 28 watt whereas traditional fan consumes 75-80 watt. The startup believes that in future its technology and service will provide a competitive advantage.

Azuro

Azuro finds tenants, takes care of maintenance and tenant issues, does periodic inspections, furnishes as required, and even provides house insurance. Azuro has been rapidly building a property portfolio in suburban Mumbai and is growing across geographies swiftly.

Bizongo

Bizongo helps companies cater to their procurement needs linked to products like boxes, bags, containers and disposable food containers, material handling, disposable plastics and plastic raw materials, etc. Companies can also use the platform to put their own logos on the products they procure.

Blowhorn

  • Registered As: Catbus Infolabs Private Ltd
  • Founded In: 2014
  • Founder(s): Mithun Srivatsa, Nikhil Shivaprasad
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: Blowhorn raised $3.75 Mn (INR 25 Cr) in Series A funding from IDG Ventures India, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Draper Associates and Unitus Seed Fund in March 2017
  • Category: Logistics

Blowhorn is an aggregator that aims to streamline the fragmented logistics market in India. The tech-enabled platform connects customers to mini-truck owners, enabling intra-city, sub 2-tonne deliveries through its website and mobile app. Blowhorn also has a comprehensive driver-training programme, wherein all its drivers are trained in customer service.

Boxx.ai

  • Registered As: AIBOXX Solutions Private Limited
  • Founded In: 2016
  • Founder(s): Ajay Kashyap, Prakhar Raj, Shitiz Bansal.
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: Boxx.ai raised $500K funding led by Unicorn India Ventures in June 2017. Angel investors Venky Krishnakumar (Former COO and CFO, Citibank APAC); Suresh Shankar (Founder and CEO, CrayonData); and Vivek Bhargava (CEO, DAN Performance Group) also participated in this round.
  • Category: AI, Analytics

Boxx.ai builds products that use artificial intelligence to solve critical analytics problems at affordable costs. It is a plug and play omnichannel personalised tool which offers its clients the power to offer personalised experiences to their customers. AIDA is Boxx.ai’s first product. Its proprietary algorithms predict what each customer is likely to buy.

Celes Care

  • Registered As: Patient Focus Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Raghu Bathina, Dr. Rajah Koppala
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: The startup raised about $1.5 Mn Pre Series A funding from Ventureast, Endiya Partners, Eight Roads Ventures, and F-Prime Capital Partners. Dr. Varaprasad Reddy in February 2017. Earlier in September 2016, it raised $1 Mn in a Seed round of funding from Endiya Partners.
  • Category: Healthtech

Celes Care aims to provide telehealth services to women of all ages. The startup addresses women’s health issues like fertility, pregnancy, thyroid, PCOS, weight control, menopause, etc. It allows users to connect with a trained female physician in less than a minute.

Clootrack

  • Registered As: Clootrack Software Labs Private Limited
  • Founded In: 2017
  • Founder(s): Shameel Abdulla, Subbakrishna Rao
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: NA
  • Category: AI, Text Analysis

Clootrack is an adaptive market intelligence platform which helps brands identify what their customers want from conversations online and within enterprises. The team believes that user chatter contains valuable insights including areas where a product can be improved as well as also offers new ideas to further reach the potential consumers in an influential manner. Clootrack helps its clients find these valuable insights and claims to improve their go to market metrics by 10X.

CrediFiable

  • Registered As: OneFiable Technologies Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2017
  • Founder(s): Presha Paragash
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: CrediFiable raised an undisclosed amount of Seed funding from Kae Capital in September 2017.
  • Category: Online Lending

CrediFiable runs on a data-driven proprietary underwriting model, catering to borrowers who already have a credit history as well as those who are new to credit. CrediFiable services the entire supply chain from sourcing the customer, credit scoring to conducting the verification process by leveraging the Indian digital stack.

CureFit

Curefit offers integrated health and fitness solutions. The startup provides these solutions through three verticals – Cult.Fit, Eat.Fit and Mind.Fit via online and offline channels. It has also made five acquisitions so far which includes CULT, Tribe Fitness, Seraniti, Kristys Kitchen, and yoga studio a1000yoga.

EarlySalary

  • Registered As: Social Worth Technologies Pvt. Ltd
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Akshay Mehrotra, Ashish Goyal
  • Location: Pune
  • Funding Details: In September 2017, EarlySalary raised $782K debt financing from IFMR Capital. In May 2017, it raised $4 Mn in Series A funding from IDG Ventures India (IDGVI) and Dewan Housing Finance Corp Ltd (DHFL).
  • Category: Fintech

EarlySalary is a mobile-first lending platform. It provides salary advances and instant cash loans and provides a smart risk scoring system. These loans are similar to salary/cash advances or credit card cash withdrawal. The startup currently has operations in eight cities including Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Jaipur, and Ahmedabad.

Fitternity

  • Registered As: Fitternity Health E- Solutions Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2014
  • Founder(s): Neha Motwani
  • Location: Mumbai
  • Funding Details: The last funding of $1 Mn was raised in July 2015 from Exfinity Venture Partners.
  • Category: Fitness, Discovery

Fitternity, the Zomato for gyms, health clubs, and yoga centres, helps people in discovering the best of health-based destination. It also has exclusive tie-ups with the gyms and health clubs letting them offer discounts to the customers.

Flyrobe

Flyrobe is a fashion rental service that offers users access to premium apparel and accessories at a fraction of the retail price. One can get access to a curated collection from designers such as Ritu Kumar, Masaba Gupta, Quirk Box, Outhouse, etc. It is currently operational in Mumbai and Delhi.

ftcash

ftcash provides seamless solutions for micro-merchants to accept payments through multiple payment instruments including debit cards, credit cards and mobile wallets. It also provides short-term loans to these merchants.

Fynd

  • Registered As: Shopsense retail Technologies Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2012
  • Founder(s): Farooq Adam, Harsh Shah, Sreeraman MG
  • Location: Mumbai
  • Funding Details: In June 2017, Fynd raised $2.4 Mn in a funding round led by IIFL Seed Ventures in June 2017. The round was an extension of the Series A round and also saw participation from Kae Capital, FJ Labs, Singularity Ventures, GrowX, Tracxn Labs and Axis Capital. Prior to this in May 2017, Fynd raised $500K in another follow-on Series A funding round from Rocketship and before that in March 2017, it secured $500K in its Series A round of funding from Venture Catalysts. Anand Chandrasekaran, Rajiv Mehta, and Ramakant Sharma also participated in this round.
  • Category: O2O fashion ecommerce

Fynd functions on an O2O model and directly sources products across various categories – including clothing, footwear, jewellery, and accessories – from prominent brands in the country. The startup optimises delivery time by sourcing products from the outlets nearest to the customer.

Gingercrush

  • Registered As: Swadesh Essfil Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Saumya Nidhi, Rajvi Makol
  • Location: Gujarat
  • Funding Details: It raised about $1 Mn in Pre Series A round led by Saha Fund. Mohandas Pai’s family office, Zia Mody (AZB Partners), Mumbai Angels, Ananda Kallugadde of NeoAngels, Rakesh Desai and Rakesh Malhotra also participated in this round of funding.
  • Category: Online Merchandising And Product Customisation

Gingercrush is an on-demand retail platform where consumers can shop and customise products. The products include mugs, T-shirts, coasters, mobile covers, canvas prints, bathroom sets, shot glasses, etc.

GoCoop

  • Registered As: GoCoop Solutions & Services Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2011
  • Founder(s): Siva Devireddy
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: It raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding round from Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, Saha Fund, Unitus Seed Fund and Indian Angel Network in July 2016.
  • Category: Ecommerce Enabler

GoCoop is an ecommerce enabler for rural producers and co-operatives. It provides a technology-led platform that offers an online global marketplace for co-operatives and community-based weavers and artisans.

GoMechanic

  • Registered As: Targetone Innovations Pvt. Ltd.
  • Founded In: 2016
  • Founder(s): Amit Bhasin, Kushal Karwa, Nitin Rana, Rishabh Karwa
  • Location: Gurugram
  • Funding Details: GoMechanic raised $250K from Venture Catalysts in December 2016. Recently in August 2017, it raised seed funding from Orios Venture Partners and angel investor Dhianu Das.
  • Category: Automative services platform for cars

GoMechanic aims to leverage technology to assist Indian car owners to find automobile repair & maintenance service providers in their vicinity and provides spare parts for all the services booked at its partner service centres. The startup also ensures availability of spare parts in a timely fashion through personalised procurement. In addition to that, it also offers a guarantee on all spare parts provided up to three years.

GrabOnRent

  • Registered As: GrabOnRent Internet Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Manish S. Sugandhi, Shubham Jain, Aditya Sharma
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: In June 2017, the startup raised an an undisclosed amount of funding in a bridge round. As per reports, the startup is currently in talks to close its Series A round of around $4-5 Mn from an overseas angel investor as well as existing investors IvyCap Ventures and Unicorn India Ventures. Prior to that in June 2016, it raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Series A round from IvyCap Ventures and Unicorn India Ventures under IvyCap Ventures Trust Fund II.
  • Category: On Demand Rental Platform

GrabOnRent was ideated with the vision to provide accessibility of the products to everybody irrespective of their capacity to buy it. It helps users in renting products online in categories such as furniture, cool gadgets, appliances and more. The major focus of the company is to generate awareness towards the viability of renting products.

Hansel.io

Available for both Android and iOS, Hansel.io allows app developers to manage major production issues at runtime, with a five-minute integration process without any changes in code. It provides a toolkit that automatically reproduces issues, allows them to fix crashes at runtime and dynamically communicate with users at an issue level. It further helps developers to make the app bug free, secure & UI-fresh; reduce drop-off points as end users need not go through an update for fixes.

Hypernova

Hypernova was started with a simple idea: Where is the DotA/League of Legends of mobile? These are Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games that gained huge popularity globally in last few years. It has launched two games, so far – War Tanks and Space Titans.

InnerChef

InnerChef is an online fresh food ordering platform. InnerChef offers ready-to-eat meals, gourmets do-it-yourself recipe kits (InnerChef DIY gourmet), detox cleanses and healthy eats (InnerChef+) as well as decadent desserts (Indulge by InnerChef). ‘Indulge’ by InnerChef is a first-of-its-kind hyperlocal desserts marketplace where talented home bakers and neighbourhood bakeries can offer their products to millions of customers across the country. InnerChef is currently delighting foodies in Delhi-NCR, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.

Innovcare Lifesciences

Innovcare Lifesciences is involved in marketing and sales of branded nutraceuticals, cosmeceuticals and functional foods with an aim to protect and augment human health against various lifestyle-oriented diseases.

JoulesToWatts

  • Registered As: JoulesToWatts Business Solutions Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Priti Sawant
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: It raised an undisclosed amount of funding in its Pre-Series A round from Saha Fund and Manipal Global Education Services Ltd.
  • Category: Staffing Solutions

JoulesToWatts, is a business solution and consulting company that delivers client-focused and multi-disciplinary solutions. The startup provides GIC consulting & solutions, IT solutions, talent collaboration solution and sales & process outsourcing, among other services.

Kaaryah

Kaaryah provides the trendy western outfit for professional women based on Indian body type. The startup claims to be a technology-enabled and data analytics-driven apparel brand that caters to women’s western wear category in India. It differentiates itself from others by its modus operandi. The startup spends the subsequent amount on its research team that uses process re-engineering backed by home-coded technology to help the company stand out.

Lavelle Networks

  • Registered As: Lavelle Networks India Ltd
  • Founded In: 2014
  • Founder(s): Shyamal Kumar, Karthik Madhava
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: In March 2017, Ideaspring Capital invested $600K in Lavelle Networks
  • Category: Software Defined Networking

Lavelle Networks offers an SDN platform that connects multiple locations over the Internet in a secure manner. It also offers a user interface which can manage a 10-10000 node network with less than four operational steps. The startup has offices in Bengaluru, Singapore, Dubai and California. Its flagship service “Xpedition” provides ‘Private.Internet.Network-as-a-Service’ that connects users to applications anywhere, anytime.

Learntron (Now Disperz)

Learntron is a B2B edtech startup which offers different kinds of enterprise courses ranging from k-12 institutions to corporates to brick and mortar training or tutorial ventures. Enterprises like Mahindra Group, Britannia, Scope International, and Delhivery are customers of Learntron. In education space, they serve companies like TalentEdge, DPS Doha, Birla Schools Kolkata and GD Goenka Schools.

ListUP

ListUP aims to disrupt age-old classifieds in India. ListUp is focused on the P2P exchange of second-hand goods, which aims to bridge buyers & sellers using the location-based discovery of products and social approach to classifieds.

Little Black Book

  • Registered As: Iluminar Media Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2012
  • Founder(s): Suchita Salwan, Dhruv Mathur
  • Location: New Delhi
  • Funding Details: The startup raised close to $1 Mn (INR 6.5 Cr) from Blume Ventures, and existing investors – IDG Ventures and IAN in October 2017. In 2016, LBB had raised $1.2 Mn round of funding, led by venture capital firm, IDG Ventures India, and Indian Angel Network (IAN). In 2015, they had raised a seed investment of $165,000 from a group of angel investors which included names like Rajan Anandan, Sachin Bhatia, and others.
  • Category: Media And Entertainment

Once a Tumblr blog, Little Black Book has grown to an independent recommendation platform for users share and discover local businesses across the categories of food, shopping, events, and activities. It is currently operational in eight cities which include Delhi/ NCR region, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mumbai. Goa, Pune, Gurugram, and Chennai.

Loantap

  • Registered As: Loantap Financial Technologies Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2016
  • Founder(s): Satyam Kumar, Vikas Kumar
  • Location: Mumbai
  • Funding Details: In June 2017, LoanTap raised $4 Mn Series B funding led by Kae Capital, India Quotient, IFMR, and MAS Financial Services Ltd. Prior to that it had raised $3 Mn in Series A funding from Dr. Abhishek Pandey and Jaysukh Sapra in September 2016.
  • Category: Fintech

Loantap is an online personal loan company. It follows an agency-based collection model and allows users to make flexible single and bulk payments of loans.

Loanzen

Loanzen provides a platform for lenders, by using technology and data, to score credit applications in real-time by accessing a variety of data sources, like banking, accounting, public data, social data, etc. The lenders lend to companies based on this credit scoring model, thereby saving on costs and effort of finding borrowers, evaluating and credit scoring them.

m.Paani

  • Registered As: mPaani Solutions Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2014
  • Founder(s): Akanksha Hazari
  • Location: Mumbai
  • Funding Details: m.Paani secured $1.35 Mn (about INR 9 Cr) in its Pre-Series A round of funding led by IDG Ventures, Blume Ventures and Saha Fund in March 2017.
  • Category: Rewards and loyalty program

m.Paani is a marketing and data analytics startup that enables local retailers to attract customers with a mobile-based loyalty programme. It develops impact-focussed loyalty programmes that leverage mobile technology as a platform to provide key products and services to the local retailers and businesses, by connecting their spends with important loyalty points.

Nestaway

  • Registered As: Nestaway Technologies Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Amarendra Sahu, Smruti Parida, Deepak Dhar, Jitendra Jagadev
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: Post the establishment of SIDBI Fund of Funds, NestAway has not raised any funding. Prior to that, it has raised over $30 Mn Tiger Global, Apoletto Asia, IDG Ventures and Sujeet Kumar. Before that it had raised $12 Mn in a funding round led by Flipkart and Tiger Global in July 2015 and prior to that, it had raised over $1 Mn (INR 8 Cr.) in March 2015 from InMobi founder Naveen Tewari and IDG Ventures. The startup also counts Ratan Tata as one of its investors. As per reports, the company is currently in talks to raise a fresh capital of $50 Mn
  • Category: Home Rentals

Nestaway is an online marketplace for home rentals that turns unfurnished houses into fully-furnished and managed apartments and provides them at affordable prices to pre-verified tenants. Additionally, the company also provides rental solutions for singles in the cities. It is operational across cities such as Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Pune and Hyderabad.

NeuroEquilibrium Diagnostic

NeuroEquilibrium Diagnostic is a super-speciality healthcare chain of vertigo and balance disorders clinics. It aims to cater to the gap that exists between the huge number of vertigo, dizziness and balance disorder patients and the lack of targeted treatment in India.

NIRAMAI

  • Registered As: NIRAMAI Health Analytix (P) Ltd
  • Founded In: 2016
  • Founder(s): Dr. Geetha Manjunath, Nidhi Mathur
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: It raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a Seed round led by pi Ventures, Ankur Capital, Axilor Ventures, 500 Startups and Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal
  • Category: AI, Healthtech

NIRAMAI stands for Non-Invasive Risk Assessment with Machine Learning. It is working on a non-invasive, radiation-free, painless and low-cost, cancer-screening solution. NIRAMAI is on a mission to create a universal cancer screening method that can save lives by detecting breast cancer at an early stage. NIRAMAI also got selected to be a part of Axilor’s accelerator programme for the Summer 2017 batch.

Noticeboard

  • Registered As: 930 Technologies Private Limited
  • Founded In: 2016
  • Founder(s): Vishal Gahlaut, Vishesh Dahinwal, Sarath Chandran
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: The startup recently raised an undisclosed amount of funding from former Myntra CTO Shamik Sharma and TaxiForSure founder Aprameya Radhakrishna in September 2017. Earlier, in July 2017, Noticeboard raised $1.2 Mn funding round led by Stellaris Venture Partners and other angel investors. BlackBuck founder Rajesh Yabaji and Jayant Kadambi, co-founder of digital advertising company YuMe also participated in the round.
  • Category: Saas, HR Communications

Noticeboard is a communications platform aimed at facilitating information flow between the employees of a company. With a focus on frontline staff, it enables organisational communication through digital platforms for frontline staff like delivery boys in logistics, retail storefront employees, warehouse staff and drivers, etc. The platform looks to facilitate efficient transmission of information, pertaining to updates, feedback and other items of notice, within an enterprise.

Numberz

  • Registered As: Paradime Technologies Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Aditya Tulsian, Rajeev Chari, Baskar Ganapathy
  • Location: Gurugram
  • Funding Details: The startup raised a seed funding of $650K in November 2016 from Kae Capital and Khosla Impact. Later in July 2017, news also surfaced around Numberz raising $3 Mn from Sequoia but a final announcement is yet to be made.
  • Category: Fintech

Numberz is simplifying running the business (cash-flow) by integrating business workflows with banking services. According to its official website, the startup offers business owners a common-sense approach to cash flow management.

Pharmarack

  • Registered As: Pharmarack Technologies Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Pradyumn Singh, Anupam Sarwagi, Bhavik Parmar, Kushal Bhandari
  • Location: Pune
  • Funding Details: The startup raised $745K in its Pre-Series A round of funding from the Patni Group’s Currae Healthtech Fund, and existing investor Unicorn India Ventures in September 2016. Prior to this, the company had earlier raised seed funding of $280K from Unicorn India Ventures and a Mumbai-based family office.
  • Category: SaaS, Healthtech

Pharmarack is a SaaS-based application that creates impact across the value chain of the pharmaceutical Industry. The highly versatile application is working on integration with billing software, CRM, marketing software or any other business support application.

PopiCorn

  • Registered As: Timla Foods Pvt. Ltd.
  • Founded In: 2016
  • Founder(s): Prashanth Gowriraju, Arun Sahlam, N V Prasad, Naveen Alzapur
  • Location: Mumbai
  • Funding Details: In December 2016, the startup raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Kae Capital
  • Category: Ready to eat food brand

PopiCorn is ready-to-eat, 100% natural, GMO-free, whole grain popcorn that contains no preservatives, trans fat or artificial colors. The product is manufactured completely in India in small batches and is seasoned by hand. It is available online on its website and other online platforms like BigBasket.

Roadpiper

  • Registered As: Roadpiper Technologies P Ltd.
  • Founded In: 2015,
  • Founder(s): Puneet Bagla, Saurabh Singh
  • Location: Mumbai
  • Funding Details: As per crunchbase, the startup raised an undisclosed amount of funding from India Quotient in January 2016.
  • Category: Logistics

Roadpiper is a mobile application that helps fleet managers assign their vehicles to projects and trips. It aspires to be a tech-enabled network in the inter-city logistics space and source vehicles for transporters from reliable truck-owners at competitive prices.

S-Cube Futuretech

  • Registered As: S-Cube Futuretech Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2013
  • Founder(s): Sajit V Nair, Viswas Date
  • Location: Mumbai
  • Funding Details: It raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Parampara Capital
  • Category: Engineering Automation

S-Cube Futuretech offers software solutions to the structural and civil engineering industry. It has developed products for automating structural planning and design. S-Cube clients include Tata Consulting Engineers, Sterling Engineers, Engineers India and Toyo Engineering.

SecurAX

SecurAX is a B2B SaaS-based biometric attendance and biometric access solutions, provider. The startup aims to eliminate fixed costs and reduce operational overheads with a pay-as-you-go pricing model, and its cloud-based solutions.

Sequretek

Sequretek focuses on two major areas in security services – building IPs in the security space and offering security-linked services in the market space. The startup offers a suite of security solutions for enterprises, namely, Avatar, Kawach and integrated managed cybersecurity solutions as well. The solutions claim to provide an all-round protection against threats and vulnerabilities.

Shoptimize

  • Registered As: NA
  • Founded In: 2012
  • Founder(s): Mangesh Panditrao, Vivek Pathak
  • Location: Pune
  • Funding Details: The last disclosed funding was in July 2013 from  Tandem Capital Habit Fund III.
  • Category: Ecommerce SaaS

Shoptimize helps merchants set up, operate, manage and grow their sales. A ‘mobile first’ company, Shoptimize claims to bring together the benefits of social commerce, search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), quick payment technologies and aesthetics.

SigTuple

  • Registered As: SigTuple Technologies Private Ltd
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Tathagato Rai Dastidar, Rohit Kumar Pandey, Apurv Anand
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: SigTuple raised $5.8 Mn in Series A funding led by Accel Partners in February 2017. The round also saw participation from IDG Ventures, Endiya Partners, pi Ventures, VH Capital, Axilor Partners, and other investors including Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal, Amit Singhal, among others.
  • Category: Healthtech

SigTuple aims to create a data-driven, machine learned, cloud-based solution for detection of abnormalities and trends in medical data, for disease diagnosis. The startup looks to revolutionise the global medical diagnostic space through data-driven intelligence. SigTuple’s solutions allow labs and hospitals to scale by implementing a hub and spoke model where the medical experts can operate from hub and devices can be installed in spokes.

Skedool.it

  • Registered As: NA
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Deepti Yenireddy, Naveen Varma Alluri
  • Location: NA
  • Funding Details: It raised an undisclosed amount of Seed funding in March 2016 from Kludein LLC and an investor group including Phanindra Sama (redBus founder), Narayan Ramachandran (former country head of Morgan Stanley, India) and Pranav Pai,
  • Category: AI, Smart Assistant

Skedool.it is a B2B smart assistant startup powered by Artificial Intelligence, aimed to automate repetitive everyday tasks for business executives, sales, and recruiting professionals. The AI assistant is named as Alex, which uses natural language processing and machine learning supervised by humans to enable customers to communicate with the service via e­mail just as they would with a human executive assistant sitting outside their office. It is currently available for Gmail and Outlook365 and integrates with CRM, marketing and recruiting tools.

SmartCoin

SmartCoin is a data-driven, microlending startup. It is a mobile app-based lending platform that claims to assess the risk profile of a prospective borrower in real-time, by using data science and machine learning algorithms.

Stelae Technologies

  • Registered As: Khemeia Technologies Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2012
  • Founder(s): Aruna Schwarz, Maria Shiao, Pierre Fraisse, Sandeep Raizda
  • Location: Chennai, Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: The last funding was raised in December 2015. The startup raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Series A round of funding led by Earlsfield Capital. The round also saw participation from Saha Fund, former Infosys veteran TV Mohandas Pai, and Cross-Border Angels.
  • Category: Content Management

Stelae Technologies is a content management and segregation software product company. Stelae Technologies is known for its patent-pending software KhemeiaTM that detects content elements in documents like the human eye, using artificial intelligence based pattern recognition and content analysis algorithms. The software transforms unstructured content into structured, categorised, searchable and analysable information by Content Mining, Cognitive Learning and Content Management solutions like IBM Watson, IBM Cognos, SAP Business Objects, PTC Arbortex.

Tagbox

Tagbox enables organisations to create reliable and sustainable cold chains usingIoT, Advanced Analytics, and Automation. It helps organisations improve their cold chains by giving real-time visibility and predictive insights for an end to end cold chain health at any level of granularity. Ex. Box, pallet, cold room, refrigerated vehicle or retail store/pharmacy.

ten3T

  • Registered As: Ten3T Healthcare private ltd
  • Founded In: 2014
  • Founder(s): Sudhir Borgonha, Rahul Shingrani, Prasad Bhat
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: In December 2016, ten3T raised an angel round of funding from pi Ventures. The round also saw participation by a group of angels, including V. Krishna Prasad, co-Founder of Qikwel, Bhupen Shah and other angels from Silicon Valley and Bengaluru.
  • Category: Wearable Healthtech

ten3T builds wearable medical devices that collect and integrates medical-grade data in real time. It has developed its first wearable medical device ‘Cicer’, which will make cardiac health easily accessible to everyone. Besides manufacturing the devices, ten3T also deploys, manages and analyses the data with predictive functioning.

Thirdwatch

  • Registered As: Thirdwatch Data Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2016
  • Founder(s): Adarsh Jain, Shashank Agarwal
  • Location: Gurugram
  • Funding Details: The startup raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round in October 2017. The round was led by Rahul Agarwalla, Keshav Sanghi and financial advisory firm Batlivala & Karani Securities also invested.
  • Category: Anti-fraud Solutions

Thirdwatch offers the product ‘Mitra’ which evaluates and flags every transaction in real-time as fraudulent or genuine on the basis of a trust score. Ecommerce players and merchants can integrate the application with Mitra API which automatically blocks fraudsters at large scale, without having to hire additional staff for fraud review.

Touchkin (Wysa)

Touchkin (Wysa) is an AI-based predictive healthcare service provider for elders that uses mobile-based social sensing to offer proactive personalised care. Touchkin’s proprietary prediction engine relies on machine learning to discern patterns in behaviour that may mean mental or physical ill-health. The platform also connects users with direct support to ensure early identification of symptoms in case of mental illness or age-related disorders. The brainchild of Touchkin founders, Wysa is envisioned as a virtual therapist facilitating emotional wellness via anonymous conversations.

TranZact

TranZact is a cloud-based peer-to-peer business network facilitating all kinds of transactions between businesses including discovery, the end to end procurement and supply chain financing.

For small suppliers, TranZact offers free e-Invoicing, faster payments and visibility on account receivables. For big buyers, it enables them to have more control and visibility over their entire procurement work so that they can work more efficiently and economically. TranZact essentially aims to change how businesses do transactions with each other.

Truebil

Truebil helps consumers buy and sell used cars in the simplest way possible. It works with sellers to ensure that the buyers get all the data points required to make an informed decision. Added to that its partners play a pivotal role in providing end to end auxiliary services.

Trupay

  • Registered As: Protinus Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Rahul Gochhwal, Vivek Lohcheb, Narender Kumar
  • Location: Gurugram
  • Funding Details: Trupay raised $700K in a seed funding round in two tranches led by M&S Partners Pte Ltd, Kae Capital, Alex Mashinsky
  • Category: Fintech

Trupay facilitates transactions between users and various businesses. It recently launched a mobile payment app, based on Unified Payment Interface (UPI), which enables the users to send and receive money from their bank accounts with only a phone number.

WhoDat

  • Registered As: WhoDat Tech Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2013
  • Founder(s): Sriram Ganesh, Kaushik Das
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: Whodat secured $600K (about INR 3.86 Cr) from Ideaspring Capital in April 2017.
  • Category: Augmented Reality

WhoDat is into building products that harness the power of technologies to help people visualise products to consumers so that they can make informed decisions. The company caters to both B2B and B2C customers and is building a proprietary hybrid SLAM (Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping) system that will allow it to create visualisations for indoor environments.

Wholesalebox

The startup helps shops to promote their business by broadcasting Wholesalebox designs to their customers with their marked up retail pricing and taking customer opinions even before buying, thereby reducing deadstock. It also helps the merchants to develop products according to customer demands and brand their online showroom the similar way.

We Organise The Unorganised (WOTU)

  • Registered As: Wotu Technologies Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Dhruv Sawhney, Mihir Mehta
  • Location: Mumbai
  • Funding Details: Wotu raised funding in October 2016 from Kae Capital
  • Category: B2B Marketplace

Wotu is a platform that directly connects farmers, processors and manufacturers with last-mile F&B outlets starting from standalone restaurants and pubs to large-scale hotels and food chains. The platform enables deep supply chain integration with farmers and processors, a strong technology platform, an extensive product range, a warehousing facility and platform-integrated logistic capabilities.

Wydr

  • Registered As: Techwider Network (P) Ltd
  • Founded In: 2016
  • Founder(s): Devesh Rai G, Hitha Uchil, Varun Guru
  • Location: Gurugram
  • Funding Details: It raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Stellaris Venture Partners, Jungle Venture Partners and Axis Capital in January 2017. Earlier in October 2015, ShopClues co-founder Sandeep Aggarwal invested an undisclosed amount in the startup.
  • Category: Mobile B2B Marketplace

Wydr is an app-based marketplace, which connects manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, across categories like fashion, home, automotive and electronics.

Zenatix

Zenatix provides an energy management product. It uses advanced machine learning-based models and delivers up to 30% energy efficiency to large commercial consumers of electricity. Last year in September, Zenatix launched its new product WattMan, with an aim to help retail and BFSI businesses save up to 20% of their energy bills.

Zipgo

  • Registered As: Zipgo Technologies Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Jitender Sharma, Pritesh Gupta,
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: The startup raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding in April 2017 from a pool of existing and new investors. It is also backed by Orios Venture Partners.
  • Category: Bus Pooling App

ZipGo offers on-demand AC bus service and shuttle bus services to the local commuters. All the vehicles are GPS-enabled providing real time tracking, route search and easy to book options.

Zo Rooms

Zostel Hospitality Private Limited, Zo Room’s parent company, was founded with an initial corpus of $30K (INR 20 Lakh). The startup has two brands i.e. ZO Rooms and Zostel. It was in December 2014, when Zostel entered the budget hotel space with Zo Rooms, a chain of premium budget hotels which grew to 750+ properties across 51 cities in India within 10 months of its launch. Amidst lack of funds and OYO indecisiveness towards the acquisition, the startup pulled down its website in February 2016. OYO recently announced that it’s no more in the acquisition talks with Zo Rooms. The status of Zo Rooms post the failure of the acquisition remains a question.

However, going through their LinkedIn profiles, we found that Dharamveer Chouhan’s profile says he is still a CEO at Zo Rooms; similarly, Akhil Malik, Abhishek Bhutra, Chetan Singh Chauhan, and Tarun Tiwari are still Co-founders at Zo. However, Paavan Nanda is currently listed as a co-founder at WinZo Games since November 2016 and Siddharth Janghu is listed as Head of Growth at Coins.ph.

*Inc42 is also one of the startups that received funding under Fund of Funds, Part of Startup India Action Plan.

The Other Startups Funded Under Fund Of Funds

Of the 70 startups funded so far under Fund of Funds, many startups have now been acquired or have shut down their operation. Let’s take a look at the startups benefitted via Startup India

AIFS Funded Startups Under Fund Of Funds Which Got Acquired

Sendd

  • Registered As: Crazymind Technologies Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Founder(s): Nav Agrawal, Sumeet Wadhwa, Sargun Singh
  • Location: Mumbai
  • Funding Details: The startup had raised $500K in funding from Kae Capital in two rounds i.e. seed and bridge before getting acquired.
  • Category: On Demand Shipping

Sendd is an on-demand shipping services startup, allowing users to send parcels. The company had launched its B2C product in April and had later pivoted to B2B in August 2015.  The startup got acquired by Craftsvilla, an ecommerce marketplace for handicraft products, for about $4.5 Mn in February 2016. Post acquisition, Sendd will help Craftsvilla strengthen and streamline its logistics capabilities. According to the terms of the deal, the startup will continue to operate independently and will also be able to sell its products to other ecommerce firms and marketplaces.

Handyhome

Handyhome allowed users to book brand-authorised repairs and other services for electronic appliances online. It has over 40 brands of home appliances on its platform. The startup got acquired by hyperlocal services provider UrbanClap in January 2016.

Vanity Cube

  • Registered As: Vanity Cube Mobile Spa & Salon Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2014
  • Founder(s): Renu Bisht, Pragya Upadhyay
  • Location: New Delhi
  • Funding Details: VanityCube raised $250K in an angel round of funding led by Unicorn India Ventures in March 2016. Prior to that, in August 2015, the startup also secured $250K in an angel funding round.
  • Category: Hyperlocal Service, Beauty & Wellness

Vanity Cube operated as a B2B & B2C platform. VanityCube counts Jabong, Knowlarity, Hindustan Times, Big FM among its regular corporate clients. Company’s B2C model deploys freelance beauticians and charges a 30% commission on the freelancer’s earning. Whereas B2B model involves permanent employees of the company and thus, revenue is generated directly from services. It got acquired by VLCC in April 2017.

AIFs Funded Startups Under Fund Of Funds Which Got Shutdown

Ample Wholesale

Ample Wholesale aims to build the next generation ecommerce business with technology at its core. The startup got shutdown last year in November 2016 as per Inc42 sources. Among the founders, Tanmay Patil is now the co-founder of healthtech startup Zayla Health while Varun joined Deliveroo, a London-based food delivery company in February 2017. However, as per his LinkedIn profile, he is no more associated with it.

Roder (Earlier InstaCab)

Roder offered inter-city on-demand cabs. The startup was aimed towards revolutionising the travel between cities by offering cabs at almost half the fare than market rates for one-way journeys. As per reports, Roder finally closed its operations in September 2017 due to rising acquisition costs and low repeat rate for outstation travel.

Post-shutdown of Roder, Abhishek is now leading an end to end agritech startup KrishiGo (since July 2017), Ashish is leading an AI-driven sales platform Flinkhub as CEO and Cofounder (since March 2017), while Siddhant is now VP Strategy & Sales at Pharmarack Technologies Pvt Ltd.(since July 2017).

Frankly.me

  • Registered As: Pochi Mobile Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2014
  • Founder(s): Abhishek Gupta, Nikunj Jain
  • Location: Noida
  • Funding Details: The startup raised a Pre-Series A round of $2.6 Mn funding from Matrix Partners and others in January 2016.
  • Category: Social Network

Frankly.me was launched as India’s first video only social network. From Arvind Kejriwal to Javed Akhtar a large number of celebrities used frankly.me to express and interact with their fans through video blogs (more popularly known as velfies or vlogs). However, despite gaining the popularity, the startup was unable to achieve sustainable product market fit. As a result, the founders shutdown Frankly.me in February 2016.

While Abhishek is now leading NavGurukul and Zohem as Cofounder and CEO. Nikunj has also made investments in several startups such as Drivezy, Jobspire, Tripoto, and more. Nikunj is also the co-founder of Nash Ventures.

KleverKid

  • Registered As: Perspectful Advisory Services Pvt Ltd
  • Founded In: 2013
  • Founder(s): Shabnam Aggarwal
  • Location: New Delhi
  • Funding Details: The last funding was raised in May 2015 from Aarin Capital
  • Category: Edtech

KleverKid served as a marketplace for parents to find after-school tutors, workshops and programmes for their children. It closed its operations in December 2016. The founder Shabnam is now working as an independent consultant and advisor. Also, she is the book author of Failure & Entrepreneurship at HarperCollins, which is set to release in June 2018.

Qyk

  • Registered As: Qyksell Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
  • Founded In: 2014
  • Founder(s): Deepak Singhal, Sangharsh Boudhh, Shobhit Singhal, Anubhav Sahoo
  • Location: Bengaluru
  • Funding Details: The last funding of $1 Mn in a Pre-series A round was raised in August 2015, led by GrowX Ventures. Existing seed investors—Tracxn Labs, Powai Lake Ventures and Sahil Barua (co-founder, Delhivery)—also participated in the round.
  • Category: Professional Services Marketplace

Qyk collaborates local data and competitive quotes from the most relevant service providers, which will allow the customer to compare and hire quality service providers saving time and money. The app uses algorithms to intelligently match demand and supply based on parameters like specific requirements, location, availability, budget, etc.

The website is currently out of service and seems to have shutdown somewhere around 2016 only. As per founder’s LinkedIn profiles, they dropped out of the startup after a year of launch and are currently leading a real estate startup PaperToStone.

Editor’s Note

Earlier this year, India jumped 30 places and garnered 100th position in world index of ease of doing business in the country. A country which a few years before, was facing the problem of brain drain owing to the multitude of scams, controversies and lethargic government policies, now ranks third in global startup ecosystem with more than 4,200 new-age startups. Startup India Action plan seems to have played an important role here.

So what brought the change? Is it the growing population of young millennials in the country or the increasing penetration of digital drivers such as Internet and smartphone or the hype created via Startup India?

While these all are making the entry barriers low for the upcoming innovations/startups in different segments, the policies and initiatives launched by the Indian government over the years, particularly in last three years, have made this advancement possible at a rapid pace and thereby giving a boost to startups. And of course, Modi’s Startup India Action Plan?

Not only Startup India, Stand Up India or Make In India schemes, but there are over 50+ government schemes working at the grassroot level to encourage the budding entrepreneurs and startups at all stages.

Fund Of Funds for startups is one such initiative, part of Startup India Action plan. Although, with the stringent regulations and multiple stages of fund approval, so far not many startups have been able to take an advantage of the fund. But, considering it a new initiative for both the central and state governments themselves, the time required to formulate strategies and regulations for startups at such vast level could not be ignored and thus, would require amplifying the efforts to make Startup India mission a success.

Going ahead, the bigger challenge for AIFs will be to use their expertise in selecting the startups with a sustainable business model, thereby avoiding the risk of failure at early stages. In the upcoming year, we believe that more startups will get funded under Fund of Funds for startups through AIFs and SIDBI and new benefits under Startup India plan, thereby further boosting the trust of the Indian startup ecosystem on the current strategies and policies of the Indian government stakeholders for the startups.
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