Funding rundown: Zepto raises $200M at a valuation of $900M; Traceable AI raises $60M in Series B round & GenWorks Health secures Rs 135 crore

Zepto will use the fresh capital to expand its 10-minute delivery service to more cities across the country and grow its network of dark stores. The firm is also looking to grown the team to over 1,000 people in a few months and hire across all functions, including engineering, analytics, operations, marketing, finance, and HR.

“We posted 800 percent Q-o-Q revenue growth, while burn has come down 5X on a per-order basis. Our team achieved this while continuing to delight our customers — we maintained a phenomenal 88-Point NPS and 60 percent Month-1 Buyer Retention at scale. This unbelievable execution over the past few months has made it clear to investors that Zepto will be one of the winners in Indian Q-Commerce,” said Aadit Palicha, Co-founder and CEO, Zepto.

Cybersecurity startup Traceable AI has rasied $60 million as a part of its Series B funding led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP).

Tiger Global Management and existing investors Unusual Ventures and BIG Labs, also participated in the funding round. The new round has taken the firm’s valuation to $450 million.

Traceable AI plans to use the fresh funds to accelerate its next phase of growth by further investing in its product development and research efforts, expanding its sales and marketing teams, and expanding global sales.

Healthcare startup GenWorks has secured Rs 135 crore in a fresh funding round from Somerset Indus Capital Partners, Morgan Stanley, through its funding arm Grand Vista, Evolvence and Wipro GE.

The startup aims to double revenues in FY23 and the funding will be leveraged to cover working capital needs, relevant M&A to invest in manufacturing partnerships, and expansion in the area of in-vitro diagnostics.

In addition, the freshly infused funds would be deployed towards building “Human Capital’’ to enable the rapid growth and build ‘’Platform Participation,” the firm added.

“We started with 160 people in 30 locations with GE as the primary technology partner. Today, we have a strategy to solve care cycle needs in every area as a part of our endeavour to support affordable access through 500+ people in over 130 locations. Technology is at the forefront in this healthcare transformation from healthcare delivery, be it ICU care disruption, urgent care or home care all the way to bringing efficiency in supply chain and commercial excellence,” said S Ganesh Prasad, Founder, MD & CEO, GenWorks.

Fintech startup Kaleidofin has raised $15 million as a part of its Series B funding round led by Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.

The round also included the participation of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Seattle-based Strategic Investment Fund, angel investors and existing investors.

With this investment, Kaleidofin’s total fundraise till date stands at $23 million.

“The new funds will be used to further strengthen all our product lines, but will specifically help us launch and scale our KaleidoCredit business aimed at offer customised credit products for individuals and nano and micro SME customers,” said Sucharita Mukherjee, Co-founder and CEO, Kaleidofin.

SaaS startup Toplyne has received $15 million in Series A funding led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India. The round also witnessed participation from existing investors Together Fund, Sequoia India’s Surge and angel investors from Canva, Vercel and Zoominfo.

The fresh capital will be used to aggressively deliver on the product roadmap, and scale the data science, engineering, product, and design teams, the firm said.

“It's an interesting time to be a monetization software. SaaS multiples are at all-time lows. Funding markets are drying up. ARR is back in vogue. PLG SaaS companies need their free users to convert to paid plans. And they need it to happen yesterday. Toplyne fills this gap by enabling businesses to monetize their product-led growth,” said Ruchin Kulkarni, Co-founder, Toplyne.

The company has onboarded marquee customers including Canva, Grafana, Gather.Town, InVideo and BrowserStack and is all set to launch a self-serve freemium product within the next quarter to onboard a long list of waitlisted customers. It has more than doubled from 13 to 30 employees across geographies, since the last round of funding.

Internet services provider Excitel has raised $11.5 million in equity from existing and new investors based out of Europe.

From a current subscriber base of 0.7 million, Excitel aims to increase its customer base to 10 million while also expanding operations to 100 cities by the end of 2022, the firm said in a statement.

With the raised funds, the startup will also be making significant investments to enhance its technology stack as well as its customer experience, along with foraying into newer markets.

“This year we are fixated on establishing ourselves in newer geographies, extending futuristic tech solutions while at the same time working towards hiring our next rung of leaders to create an ecosystem that sales rapidly. The fresh round of liquidity that we have raised from existing and new investors will go a long way in helping the brand’s journey to becoming the leading internet service provider in the country,” said Vivek Raina, CEO & Co-Founder, Excitel.

Excitel has expanded its operations to Mumbai and the Western region in Q1 FY23 to provide world-class FTTH services at competitive prices. It will also be investing towards onboarding talent to strengthen its operational and technical capabilities, the firm added.

AI-backed talent retention platform HuddleUp has secured $550,000 in its seed funding round led by Anicut Capital, an alternate asset management fund. Blume Founders' Fund, First Cheque, Huddle and Upsparks, also invested in the round.

The Bengaluru-based startup has also roped in a clutch of marquee founders and angel investors like Ritesh Malik (Founder of Innov8), Rajesh Sawhney (Founder and CEO of GSF Accelerator), Gireesh S (Founder and CEO of Freshworks) and Mandeep Manocha (Co-Founder and CEO of Cashify).

The company will use the capital to build a larger team and for expansion in India and global markets. “With the funding, we are looking at full-funnel growth, strengthening our core and expanding our footprint. The last few months have witnessed tremendous growth and we aim to continue the success trajectory,” said Kshitij Mohan, co-founder and CEO, HuddleUp.

The startup has clients like MPL, ZestMoney, Instamojo and StepSetGo among other prominent enterprises in its portfolio.

Lifechart, a digital alternative healthcare platform has raised $200,000 in pre-seed funding round led by Expert Dojo and Nitish Mittersain, founder of Nazara Technologies.

The fresh capital will be used to expand the business internationally, as well as a few new categories of alternative healthcare products. Lifechart also plans to go international in the next 3-4 months owing to a high demand for alternative healthcare solutions in the US and Japanese markets, alongside India, it said in a statement.

The company will also double up on their counselors, yoga and meditation experts leading to high revenue monthly growth which can reach a $1million ARR. It is on the verge of raising another $2 million in funding from Indian and overseas investors by the next quarter, the firm added.

Thermal management solutions provider Tan90 has raised Rs 5 crore in its pre-Series A round led by Blue Ashva Capital.

The round also saw participation from 3i Partners, and angel investors Shalini Chhabra and Venkat Nekkanti.

With this latest round of funding, Tan90 aims to expand its reach in India and South East Asia, optimize supply chains for present clients pan-India, increase product offerings and invest in R&D of products aimed at sustainable and green approaches for thermal management across industries.

To focus on reducing carbon footprint of the cold chain system, Tan90 will be working on industrial cooling and space cooling as well in the next few months, it said in a statement.

Bliv.Club, a web3 fintech startup has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Alpha Wave Ventures and other prominent Investors.

Angel investors who participated include Sumit Ghosh (Co-Founder Chingari), Ajeet Khurana (Founder Reflexical), Rahul Pagidipati (CEO Zebpay), Prashant Pitti (Co-Founder, EaseMyTrip.com), Shabir Momin (MD & CTO One Digital Entertainment), Ritesh Malik (Founder Innov8, Founder & Trustee Plaksha University), Ankush Nijhawan (Co-Founder Travel Boutique Online), Anshul Dhir (Co-Founder, EasyFi Network), Mohit Madaan (Co-Founder OroPocket & Unifarm), Ankit Mehrotra (CEO & Co-Founder Dineout), Tanmay Maheshwari (Director, Amar Ujala Publications), Harshit Agrawal (Angel Investor, Shanti Group), Akshay Chhugani (Kisho Capital), Maharshi Ganatra (Maharshi Ganatra & Associates) and others.

With the current angel round, Bliv.Club will work towards building a seamless, high-tech platform and easy to use and thus aid a common person in entering the retail space in Web3, it said in a statement.

Blockchain platform The Fair Trust (TFT) has announced the presale of its TFT tokens through a private seed round which will be open for private investors and early TFT community members till the end of May 2022.

The company aims to raise $2 million from this round.

As per the company, the fresh funds will be used for building a treasury backed community to fund blockchain projects spanning across various sectors including banking, artist launchpad, real estate, digital marketplace, gaming, among others.

These projects will be used to provide returns to stakeholders in the form of rewards for funding TFT and The Fair Loan.