Tag: others

Disprz raises $13 mn from Dallas Venture Capital, others

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Enterprise skilling start-up Disprz on Thursday said it has raised $13 million (about ₹96.4 crore) in funding, led by Dallas Venture Capital and Mars Growth Capital.

The Series-B round also saw participation from existing investors – Go1, Tara India Fund IV being managed by KOIS, Auctus Capital (Family office of Vikas Phadnis, Co-Founder of Eurokids) and Kae Capital, a statement said.

Disprz will use this investment further to scale up product and engineering teams, establish a sales and marketing division in the US, expand its existing presence in South East Asia and Middle East markets, and invest in building industry-specific product solutions, it added.

Founded in 2015 by Subramanian Viswanathan and Kuljit Chadha, Disprz is an AI-powered learning and skilling suite that empowers companies to right-skill their workforce to win in a digital-first world. The company now serves over 1.2 million users.

“We are excited to welcome Dallas Venture Capital into the mission of Disprz. DVC’s founding teams are former founders who have scaled and exited start-ups and their understanding of the SaaS space, coupled with their strong network in the US, make them a perfect partner for Disprz, as we look to establish ourselves in developed markets, particularly the US,” Disprz CEO Subramanian Viswanathan said.

Customer base

With over 225 employees and over 200 customers, including Wellness Forever, More Retail, Times Internet, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, Godrej Storage Solutions, Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages, KBZ MS General Insurance, Oman Oil, AIA Group and others.

“We are going deep into sectors such as banking, insurance, fin-tech, e-commerce and high-tech, where we have now developed deep expertise on skill recognition, skill measurement and skill impact. We aim to strengthen the efficient backbone of the brands that touch our daily lives.

“We already do this in India and emerging APACs and we expect to replicate this in major global economies,” Disprz co-founder and COO Kuljit Chadha said.

Disprz said it has consistently doubled in revenue year-on-year, and calendar year 2021 has seen them grow by 150 per cent. By 2025, the start-up aims to achieve the vision of reaching a topline of $100 million across the globe.

Unitus Capital acted as the financial advisor to the company for this transaction.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , ,

Lysto raises $3 m funding from BEENEXT, others

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


NFT start-up Lysto on Thursday said it has raised $3 million (about ₹22.3 crore) from various entities, including BEENEXT, Better Capital and Cloud Capital.

The seed round saw participation from angel investors and entrepreneurs, including Binny Bansal (Flipkart co-founder), Sandeep Nailwal and Jaynti Kanani (Polygon co-founders), Pradyumna Agarwal (Temasek Managing Director), Nitish Mittersain (Nazara Games founder) and Kunal Shah (Cred founder).

Besides, Ashish Hemrajani and Parikshit Dhar (BookMyShow co-founders), Anupam Mittal (Shaadi.com), Ashish Gupta (Helion Ventures founder), Kumar Sudarsan (Qwikcilver founder) and others also participated in the funding round, according to a statement. The funding will help with product development and allow Lysto to invest in the expansion of team that will help achieve its mission of furthering and simplifying the adoption of NFTs, it added.

NFTs

An NFT (Non-fungible token) is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger, called a blockchain, that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore, not interchangeable. NFTs can be used to represent items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files.

In an increasingly digital world, businesses and consumers are turning to NFTs as a means of establishing unique ownership of digital assets on the blockchain.

Lysto, which was founded in 2021, has offices in Bengaluru and Singapore. It aims to take NFTs to more than 4 billion internet users through millions of use cases.

“NFTs are becoming an integral part of business and culture. With its applications across industries, it is a multi-billion dollar industry, which is largely restricted to digital art and collectibles currently.”

“As the market expands, we see that every e-commerce player, every production (entertainment, gaming, animation), and every brand would want to launch NFTs to raise funds and monetise their offerings,” Sadiq Ahamed, founder and CEO of Lysto, said.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , ,

Exotel raises $35 million in series C funding

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Customer communication platform Exotel has raised $35 million in Series C funding from IIFL, Sistema Asia Fund, CX Partners, Singularity Growth Opportunities Fund and angels.

Existing investors such as Blume Ventures and A91 capital also participated in this round. Arun Sarin, Ex-CEO of Vodafone, has also joined the round as an angel investor and a mentor. This fresh infusion of funds will be used by the company to primarily boost its growth. Exotel recently announced its merger with Ameyo.

The organisation claims to be growing 70 per cent YoY and is at an ARR of $45 million and aims to hit an ARR of $200 million over the next five years.

“CPaaS is a $6-billion market in India and SEA and one of the fastest growing technology areas in the post-Covid world. Exotel has quietly emerged as the CPaaS platform of choice in India through their market-best reliability and comprehensive product suite. We expect them to become a globally relevant platform in the years to come,” commented Sumit Jain, Senior Partner, Sistema Asia Fund.

To double headcount

Commenting on the fund raise, Shivakumar Ganesan (Shivku), CEO and co-founder of Exotel, said, “Our desire to enable enterprises with the best in customer engagement is one step closer to reality. We’re investing heavily in building the market’s first vertically integrated full-stack engagement suite with interoperability of channels and convergence of customer data to enable enterprises to have multimodal conversations with customers. We are going to be expanding our team and doubling our headcount over the next 12 months.”

Started in 2011, Exotel is a customer communication platform. It was started with the vision to help businesses bring order and efficiency to customer communication. Some of the clients of Exotel in South-East Asia include Ola, Flipkart, GoJek, Lazada, Quikr and Redmart. Exotel helps these companies to manage their customer communication over calls and SMS. Exotel currently serves over 6,000 companies across India, the US, SE Asia, Middle East, Australia and Africa.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , ,

MFine raises $48 million Series C from Moore Strategic Ventures, BEENEXT

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Healthtech startup MFine has raised $48 million in a Series C funding round co-led by Moore Strategic Ventures and BEENEXT, with participation from existing investors Stellaris Venture Partners, SBI Group Japan, SBI Ven Capital Singapore, Heritas Capital, Prime Venture Partners, Y’S Investment Pte Ltd and Alteria Capital.

The new round of funding will be used by the company to expand its hospital, diagnostics and e-pharmacy network across the country and to build tech-driven care delivery products for patients with both acute and chronic conditions.

Commenting on the fund raise, Prasad Kompalli, CEO and co-founder, MFine, said, “In the healthcare sector the world has changed to a new normal and we are seeing a steep growth in the adoption of digital health in India too. We will continue to invest in deep tech to transform every smartphone into a health companion for consumers and a decision support assistant to all doctors. We will also be looking to expand our network across India and make our services available widely.”

In an earlier conversation with BusinessLine, MFine’s Chief Business Officer and founding member, Arjun Choudhary noted that the company’s current focus is to expand its network of services to next 20 cities over the next 14-15 months, which would include cities like Jaipur, Chandigarh, Surat, Patna, Ahmedabad, and Lucknow.

The company is also working on adding clinical decision support for doctors using AI and bringing vitals monitoring and health management to consumers’ smartphones. In early 2021, MFine launched an app-based SPO2 (blood oxygen saturation) monitoring tool which enables users to keep track of their oxygen saturation levels without needing an additional device. Since then, 250,000 users have used the tool and thousands of people continue to use it daily. In the coming months, MFine will be extending the tool to measure heart rate and blood pressure too.

Hero Choudhary, Managing Partner, BEENEXT, said, “MFine’s model, coupling AI technology with a strong provider network, is powerful in providing healthcare services on demand and changing the way we think about care delivery for millions across the world. We see a huge demand from consumers looking for an integrated care experience.”

Growing user base

Since its inception, over 3 million users are said to have used MFine services with the platform clocking over 300,000 monthly transactions that include doctor consultations, diagnostic tests, e-pharmacy and in-patient procedures. In October 2018, MFine integrated with laboratory and diagnostic services to provides its users access to more than 700 diagnostic centres across 400 cities in India.

Over 1,00,000 users are said to be using MFine for booking diagnostic tests every month. Further, more than 6,000 doctors from over 700 hospitals across 35 specialities are on MFine and are said to be serving millions in more than 1,000 towns across India.

MFine claims to be growing 15 per cent month on month, amidst growing adoption of telemedicine and digital health in India since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The MFine Corporate subscription product is also said to have seen strong growth in the last year with many corporates offering multiple benefits programmes as part of which employees and their families get access to online doctor consultations, preventive health checks, mental health consultations and chronic condition management. Over 500 corporates have partnered with MFine to enable wide ranging services covering over 500,000 employees. In the coming months, the company will also bring innovative financial solutions for users together with insurance partners.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , ,

Capital Float raises $50 m funding from Lightrock India, others

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Fintech major Capital Float on Tuesday said it has raised $50 million (about ₹370.3 crore) in funding, led by Lightrock India.

Current investors Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, Creation Investments and Dinesh Hinduja family office also participated in the round, in addition to new investors David Vélez (Nubank founder), Kunal Shah (Cred founder) and Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau, a statement said.

The funds raised will be used to strengthen and scale Capital Float’s BNPL (Buy-Now-Pay-Later) platform and expand its partner ecosystem, it added.

The company said it has witnessed rapid growth over the past year, with 2.5 million customers now using its product to finance over ₹2,000 crore of online purchases annually.

Capital Float has partnered with platforms such as Amazon (powering Amazon Paylater), MakeMyTrip, Unacademy, and Boat to help consumers finance purchases across e-commerce, D2C (direct-to-consumer) brands, travel, edtech and healthcare.

It also recently launched a strategic partnership with Razorpay to expand BNPL to over one lakh merchants across the country.

“We are now financing two million purchases every month across 14,000 pin codes, while maintaining NPAs below 1.5 per cent. This positions us as the market leader in BNPL in India today,” Capital Float co-founder Sashank Rishyasringa said.

Growth opportunities

Capital Float Co-founder Gaurav Hinduja added that the company sees an exponential growth opportunity ahead from this point on.

“By solving for affordability as well as convenience, in a fully-regulated format, we believe that our BNPL approach can responsibly expand access to credit to over 100 million customers who are starting to transact online. We are privileged to have the support of our investors in pursuing this vision, and are excited to work in partnership to build out a world-class digital financial institution for India,” he stated.

Founded in 2013, Capital Float is the trade name for CapFloat Financial Services, a non-banking finance csompany registered with the Reserve Bank of India.

It has raised funding from marquee investors such as Aspada, Elevation Capital (formerly SAIF), Sequoia India, Creation Investments Capital Management LLC, Ribbit Capital, and Amazon.

In addition to offering BNPL at checkout across its merchant partners, the company also operates Walnut — a personal finance app with over 12 million lifetime downloads.

Walnut offers a range of personal finance features such as expense tracking, budgeting, and bill reminders, provides instant small-ticket loans to salaried and self-employed individuals 24/7, and recently launched insurance options on the app as well.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , ,

88academics India raises $3 m funding from Aarin Capital Partners, others

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Edtech firm 88academics, on Monday, said it has raised equity financing of about $3 million (about ₹22.1 crore) in funding, led by Aarin Capital Partners.

The pre-series A round also saw participation from Piyush Gupta (DBS Group CEO), Vinod Gupta (VG Learning Destination MD), PS Jayakumar (ex-MD and CEO of Bank of Baroda), Ramesh Swaminathan (Lupin Group CFO), Ajay Abrol (ex-Head Proprietary Trading of Nomura Singapore), Prem Rajani (Rajani Associates Managing Partner), Akshay Gupta and N Jayakumar (Prime Securities management team), a statement said.

88academics (India) — an 88tuition (Singapore) group company — will use the funds to develop India specific content for the K-12 segment, it added.

“Our objective is to democratise education and make the highest quality product available to everyone at an affordable price. We are committed to building a top-quality enterprise and creating value for all stakeholders. We are grateful to all EdTech companies who have pioneered the transformation in India,” 88tuition founder and CEO Anil Ahuja said.

Prime Securities was the exclusive investment banker to this transaction.

Capturing Singapore market

Superior pedagogy, outstanding teachers and attractive pricing have helped 88tuition capture over 6 per cent and 2 per cent (registered users and paid customers, respectively) of the highly competitive Singapore market, the statement said.

The edtech space has seen strong growth globally with the Covid-19 pandemic serving as an inflection point. Many offline classes went online to ensure continuity of education while adhering to social distancing norms.

TV Mohandas Pai, Partner at Aarin Capital Partners, said the organisation seeks to partner technology-intensive businesses in life-sciences and healthcare, education and other potentially large India-centric or India-first companies. “88academics provides us with an opportunity to invest in a sector we know well and back a highly experienced management team with a differentiated product and a disruptive business model,” he added.

Ganesh Agarwal, Managing Director of Prime Securities, said the Indian edtech industry is valued at over $30 billion and the incumbents have significantly transformed the way education is being imparted to students.

“The market is ripe for a revolutionary and disruptive product that is affordable, customer centric, scalable and profitable. We are proud to have brought 88tuition, Aarin Capital Partners and our growing list of HNI investors together,” he added.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , ,

Hexahealth raises ₹33 crore from Omidyar, others

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Healthcare startup Hexahealth on Tuesday said it has raised ₹33 crore in funding led by impact investor Omidyar Network and Chiratae Ventures.

The seed funding round, which aims to transform surgery experience for patients, also saw participation from 3one4 Capital, while healthcare professionals like Viren Shetty, Rohit MA and Rehan Khan of Merck India have come in as angel investors, as per a statement.

“Once a patient has been recommended surgery, they struggle with the next steps. Surgery is a stressful time for the patient when they need maximum support,” its Co-founder Ankur Gigras said, adding the company aspires to be the one-stop platform to cater to a patient’s hospitalisation.

The statement said about 2 crore surgeries are performed in India annually, and multiple surveys show that people’s trust in our healthcare system is decreasing, primarily driven by the lack of information, which illustrates the market opportunity.

“We are inspired by Hexahealth’s vision to become the most trusted platform to digitise surgery-related decision making and make quality and affordable hospitalisation care available to millions of Indians,” Omidyar’s principal Aditya Misra said.

Market opportunity

Misra pegged the market opportunity at $80 billion, which is 60 per cent of the overall healthcare spends.

“Technology allows for a patient to be at the centre of healthcare delivery is a thesis that we strongly believe in. Hexa’s vision of wanting to transform the patient experience for hospitalisation and surgeries combined with the strong execution history of the founding team makes this an exciting investment for us,” Ranjith Menon, executive director of Chiratae Ventures, said.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , ,