FUNDING RUNDOWN: AnyMind Group raises $29.4 mn; Eka Care secures $15 mn; Lal10 bags $5.5 mn in its pre-Series A round & Shaka Harry raises $2 mn in seed round

Here’s a lowdown of the top deals from the startup space.

AnyMind Group, an end-to-end commerce enablement company, has raised $29.4 million in its Series D funding round from new investors including JIC Venture Growth Investments, Japan Post Investment Corporation, Nomura SPARX Investment, and PROTO Ventures.

Existing investor Mitsubishi UFJ Capital also participated in the round, taking the firm’s total fundraise till date to approximately $91.7 million. In addition, the company has also secured a $7.2 million credit facility from Mizuho Bank for future use.

As per the company, the funds will be used to strengthen the company’s advancement in the commerce enablement space and fund future acquisitions. In addition, funds from this round will be used to enhance existing platforms and strengthen market share across the company’s operating regions. Earlier in March this year, the company launched AnyChat, a conversational commerce platform, and in April, the company launched e-commerce management platform AnyX.

“We will continue to grow our business at a pace that matches our ambitions, look towards expanding our capabilities through M&A, and strengthen our investment and profit structure for growth, as we continue to become the next-generation infrastructure for commerce in Asia,” Kosuke Sogo, CEO and co-founder of AnyMind Group said.

AnyMind Group said it has acquired seven companies from various parts of the region including Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and India, till now.

Healthtech startup Eka Care has raised $15 million in Series A funding round led by Hummingbird Ventures with participation from 3one4Capital, Mirae Assets, Verlinvest and Aditya Birla Ventures, among others.

Investors like Flipkart's Binny Bansal and Cloudnine Hospitals' Rohit MA also participated in the funding round.

The company plans to use the proceeds for product development, hiring, and educating consumers. This takes the total funding raised by the Bengaluru-based startup to nearly $20 million including a $4.5 million seed round in July 2021.

Lal10, a wholesale cross-border platform, has raised $5.5 million in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Yuj Ventures (Xander Group) and Beyond Capital Ventures.

The round also saw participation from Spiral Ventures, Singularity Ventures, Asymmetry Ventures, Blacksoil, Panthera Peak, and Pegasus FinInvest. Prominent angels such as Nitish Mittersain of Nazara Technologies, Bikky  Khosla  from TradeIndia, Ashok Gudibandla from Notion and Kishore Ganji of Astir Ventures, Suprajit FO, Bob Noyen, Reasoned Ventures, UK based Insaan Group, and Partners at Mckinsey participated in the round.

The fresh capital will be used to expand aggressively in the global markets across the US, Japan and Middle East, a statement said. The firm is also looking to expand its tech-based supply chain solutions to buyers and technology innovations for MSMEs, empowering them with design to digitisation to the global wholesale discovery.

Additionally, Lal10 aims to reach a $100 million run rate in the next 12 months focusing on the home textile category.

Shaka Harry, a plant-based meat brand has raised $2 million in a seed funding round led by Better Bite Ventures, Blue Horizon, and venture debt fund Panthera Peak.

Dexler Holdings, Chef Manu Chandra, and a group of domestic family offices and angel investors, also participated in the funding round.  Shaka Harry has a monthly customer base of 25,000. The monthly growth expected for the next few quarters is around 20 to 30 percent, the firm said.

“By partnering with top flavourists, who are masters in recreating impactful meaty top notes using vegetarian ingredients, we have been able to offer Indian consumers a first-of-its-kind ‘just-like-chicken’ and ‘just-like mutton' experience minus the guilt,” said Sandeep Devgan, Co-founder, Shaka Harry.

xQ, an edtech startup which teaches kids video creation has raised $1.4 million through a Gujarat-based angel syndicate along with a select group of HNI investors which includes senior leadership personnel from Google, Deloitte, Tata 1mg, Axis Capital, and photographer Joseph Radhik.

The firm will use the fresh capital to expand their reach in schools through their flagship offering — the xQ Video Lab, which offers access to video-creation curriculum, state-of-the-art shooting gear and access to an e-learning platform which allows students to continue learning and practising their video-making skills at home.

The team is building a library of over a 1,000 video-based curriculum projects where children can integrate video-making techniques like transitions, green screen shooting and stop motion animation into curricular projects for subjects like maths, science, social sciences and English.

B2B SaaS startup ElevateHQ has raised $1.1 Million in a Pre-Seed funding round led by Leo Capital. The round also included participation from Veda.VC, PointOne Capital and 100X Entrepreneurs.

The startup intends to use the fresh funding for acquisition of talent, strengthening the product further, and making further inroads in North America.

“Today, you can automate any commission rule under the Sun using our no-code commission builder,” said Apoorv Singh, Co-founder and CEO, ElevateHQ, Over the next year, the firm plans to capitalize on this strength and increase its customer base 10X.

Agritech Startup Veg Route has raised $1.1 million in seed funding round led by US-based VGROW Ventures.

Angel investors including Ravi Shankar Kathirvelu, Chief Business Officer, Venture Partner, and Investor also with Founders of Chennai-based Fintech Startup Ippopay - Mohan K and Jai Kumar, Hari TN Co-Founder Artha School of Entrepreneurship and Abhishek Raj Pandey Head of Commercial Operations, Mama Earth with other angel investors of India UAE and US, also participated.

The fresh funds will be used to enhance tech and data-driven solutions for strengthening and revolutionising the fresh produce supply chain, along with the plans to establish Cold stored warehouses and invest in E-vehicles for Last Mile Delivery Operations. The firm is also looking at extended support to farmers by establishing collection centers in Smaller Towns and Villages of South India.

100X.VC-backed BugBase, a marketplace for ethical hackers, has raised $500,000 in a funding round led by 2am VC. The round also saw participation from Finsight Ventures, Dholakia Ventures and SAT Industries.

Marquee angel investors which participated in the round include Neeraj Roy (founder, Hungama Entertainment), Nilesh Sangoi (founding CTO and ex-CEO Meru Cabs), Puneet Deora (MD, Deoras Group), Kushal Khandwala (director, KIFS Group), Anoop Mathur (AM Capital and founder, CORE Media), among others.

“Bugbase intends to give a large community of ethical hackers access to an optimised platform that has already begun to revolutionise India's cybersecurity market. We aim to spread awareness about cybersecurity among organisations and businesses likewise and hope to facilitate fruitful interactions between ethical hackers and companies,” said Dhruva Goyal, Founder and CEO, BugBase.

Shri Chyawan Ayurved, a firm providing herbal products, has bagged $200,000 in its seed round led by Dhaval Shah and Vibhor Kanodia, Raipur-based Chartered Accountants and Angel Investors.

According to the brand, the fresh funds will be used for research and development of Shri Chyawan Ayurved Product, expansion and marketing activities of EHO Healthcare App.

Chyawan Ayurved offers herbal products to help with problems related to Hair Care, Skin Care, Weight Loss, Menopause, Diabetes, Heart, Varicose Veins, Stress, and other health issues. The firm has also launched the EHO Healthcare App, which provides users a one-click solution for various healthcare services such as ambulance, hospitals, and labs.

EndureAir Systems, an IIT Kanpur-incubated unmanned aviation technology startup, has raised Rs 13.5 crore in a seed funding round led by Jalaj Dani, co-promoter of Asian Paints. The round also saw participation from the founders of robotics and automation company Addverb Technologies.

“The investment would be used to expand our product line-up to meet the demand for heavier payload capacity UAVs,” said Dr. Abhishek, Founder and Director, EndureAir.

The firm provides solutions in border surveillance, logistics and medicine delivery, aerial mapping, crowd monitoring, providing situational awareness and so on. The drones produced by EndureAir can be further customized based on the end user requirement.

"This funding round will give an impetus to EndureAir’s momentum by scaling up its operations and innovating further by pushing the capabilities of the current designs,” added Rama Krishna, co-founder and CEO, EndureAir.

Edutainment startup Seekho has secured Rs 3.75 crore in seed funding round led by We Founder Circle, SucSEED Innovation Fund, along with Toppr’s Co-founder Hemanth Goteti and other top executives.

The firm intends to use the investment to expand into new languages and expand their already diverse premium content library.

“At Seekho, we are thrilled to have WFC and SucSEED as strategic investment partners, specially at this time when we are seeing really promising early results from the launch of Seekho PLUS subscriptions. With such strategic angels on board, we intend to scale up quickly and reach 1 lakh paying subscribers in the next six months,” said Rohit Choudhary, Founder and CEO, Seekho.