Even as North India seethed under the sweltering sun, the capital-starved Indian startup ecosystem witnessed a pleasant June 2024 as funding levels recovered to some extent on the back of Zepto’s $665 Mn funding round. 

While the shoots of funding revival brought some respite, the road to recovery, in terms of funding numbers, still seems far. 

Notwithstanding the freefall in funding raised by Indian startups in the past one year, the world’s third-largest startup landscape is slowly climbing its way up, as investor confidence is coming back stronger than a ’90s trend.

Leading the charge of this turnaround from the front is the GenAI boom in the country, which has enticed both global and domestic VC and PE firms. Coupled with the emerging arena of cleantech and ever-growing direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands in the country, the Indian startup landscape appears well-poised to fuel the next stage of growth. 

However, profitability and sustainability still seem to be high on the agenda of investors. The 48th batch of ‘30 Startups To Watch’ is suggestive of the trend – nine bootstrapped startups, yet the whole cohort has raised around $30 Mn between them. What’s more, half of this month’s batch has raised more than $1 Mn in funding.

The June 2024 edition of ‘30 Startups To Watch’ is more mainstream than recent cohorts, with over 75% of the startups coming from India’s three major startup hubs: Bengaluru (13), Mumbai (6), and Delhi NCR (5). 

However, Pune and Ahmedabad also left their mark and incubated a clutch of new-age tech companies featured on the list. 

As we close the first half of 2024, we continue to keep an eye on some of the most interesting ventures nestling in India’s startup ecosystem. Without further ado, here is the 48th edition of Inc42’s ‘30 Startups To Watch’.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.

AbleCredit

AI To Write Custom Credit Reports

To address the credit gap in India and similar challenges in emerging economies, Utkarsh Apoorva, Harshad Saykhedkar, Ashwini Prabhu, and Anubhab Bandyopadhyay launched AbleCredit in 2023.

The startup is developing GenAI models to transform the underwriting process by generating detailed and tailored credit reports on a case-by-case basis.

The uniqueness of AbleCredit’s approach lies in its ability to assess creditworthiness within the informal sector. By analysing alternative data and adhering to stringent credit policies and guidelines, AbleCredit expands access to credit assessment for sectors typically overlooked by conventional methods.

By enhancing the speed of underwriting by over 20X and reducing operational costs, the platform enables credit teams to significantly increase their throughput.

A team that previously handled 10 loan cases per day can now manage over 120 cases efficiently. This efficiency accelerates the credit approval process and reduces the high underwriting costs that have historically hindered credit access in emerging markets.

In essence, AbleCredit’s innovative AI-driven approach is poised to bridge the credit gap in emerging nations, particularly in sectors like MSMEs where access to credit is critical for economic growth and job creation.

Asaya

Skincare Regime For Melanin-Rich Skin

The rise of direct-to-consumer (D2C) beauty brands in India has transformed the skincare industry with innovative solutions. One of these new brands is Asaya, a premium skincare line specifically designed for melanin-rich skin.

Launched in September 2023 by Neeraj Biyani, the cofounder of Paper Boat, along with Mandeep Bhatia and Eeti Sharma, Asaya has quickly made a mark in the market.

Asaya’s journey began when cofounder Sharma, at the age of 35, woke up with adult acne. Despite seeking expert advice and trying European products, Sharma found no relief. She realised that her dusky skin’s specific needs were missing from the skincare conversation and product formulations.

This insight led to the creation of Asaya, which focusses on deep hydration for hyperpigmentation, acne, lower moisture retention, oily skin care, and other specific needs of melanin-rich skin.

Asaya has rapidly expanded its sales and customer base, selling through its website and major online platforms like Nykaa, Amazon, Flipkart, and Myntra. The brand offers over 11 products and 23 SKUs, catering to the unique needs of Indian skin, which structurally differs from the lighter skin tones prevalent in Western markets.

ATICA

Streamlining Hotel Ops

Founded in 2020 by hotel industry veterans Akash Goel and Bonish Gandhi, ATICA specialises in last-mile sales and revenue management, offering innovative solutions to streamline and enhance hotel operations.

At the core of ATICA’s offerings is its proprietary lead generation and CRM tool, which modernises traditional manual sales processes.

The company works in hands-on revenue management and reactive sales, including RFP management, ensuring hotels maximise their revenue from both brand and third-party websites.

ATICA has attracted substantial investment from Titan Capital and DLF. This is the third entrepreneurial venture of its founders, who bring a wealth of industry knowledge and insight to the company.

ATICA’s diverse client portfolio includes hotel owners associated with major brands like Marriott, Hilton, IHG, Hyatt, Choice, Wyndham, Best Western, and more.

Through expert sales management, strategic digital marketing initiatives, and advanced revenue management technology, ATICA delivers measurable results to help clients thrive in a competitive hospitality landscape.

Ayna

Fashion Photography Reimagined

Founded in 2023 by Yash Bansal and Aastha Rajpal, Ayna serves direct-to-consumer fashion and ecommerce brands by offering virtual photoshoots that save time, effort, and cost.

The platform lets brands create custom-built virtual models for their apparel and merchandise using inputs like mannequins, human models wearing the clothing, or designed backdrops. Brands can customise the age, ethnicity, size, and expressions of the virtual models, select suitable backgrounds, adjust lighting and mood, and establish brand profiles.

Ayna is developing a proprietary Compound Foundational Model specifically for the ecommerce industry. They charge based on usage and currently operate in India. Recently, Ayna raised $1.5 Mn in a funding round led by Inflexor.

In the short term, Ayna plans to expand into the US and grow its customer base to over 1,000 by 2024. By 2026, they aim to help global ecommerce players adopt AI, starting with virtual photoshoots, to drive exponential growth.

Benny

Shop With Screenshots

Founded by IIT Roorkee alumni Sanjil Jain and Nikhil Kumar, Benny is an AI-driven shopping platform that allows users to upload any image and instantly find matching apparel from over 160 leading online stores.

This AI-powered platform enables shoppers to compare prices, view delivery and return information, and access ratings and reviews for a wide range of products and brands. By simplifying the search process, Benny ensures users can find the perfect outfit without the hassle of typing descriptions.

Whether users come across an outfit on Instagram, Pinterest, or Netflix, Benny can display matching apparel from a vast array of online stores, including Amazon, Myntra, Ajio, Urbanic, and Newme. The platform’s search capabilities encompass over 11K fashion brands and millions of products.

The core of Benny’s model is its image-based search functionality. Users upload an image of the desired outfit and Benny’s AI technology scans its extensive database to find matching items from various online stores.

This allows users to compare different options and make informed purchasing decisions based on price, delivery options, return policies, and customer reviews.

Benny has already achieved significant milestones, crossing $20,000 in gross merchandise value (GMV) and earning a place in the prestigious Google for AI Startups programme.

By the end of 2024, Benny aims to reach 200K users and achieve $400K in total GMV. By 2026, the platform has ambitious goals of expanding to 2 Mn users, generating $20 Mn in total GMV and achieving $1 Mn in total revenue.

Blip

Blinkit For Fashion

Blip finds its genesis from Ansh Agarwal and Sarvesh Kedia’s fascination of creating a quick-commerce platform for fashion, similar to Zepto or Blinkit.

Founded in 2024, Blip is a hyperlocal quick-commerce platform that delivers clothes in 30 minutes. It partners with various brands specific to localities and operates a series of strategically placed dark stores to ensure quick deliveries.

In the near future, it plans to open retail stores that feature mid-level D2C brands, helping them enter the retail market more easily.

Blip also aims to strengthen its foundation and expand its reach by onboarding more retail brands. In the short term, it plans to cover all pin codes in Mumbai for rapid delivery and expand to other major cities like Bengaluru and Delhi.

By 2026, Blip has ambitious plans to diversify and grow. It intends to open offline showrooms for mid to large-scale apparel D2C brands, positioning itself as the “Shopify for offline retail”.

Blip also aims to become a logistics provider for D2C brands, enabling same-day delivery and streamlining the supply chain. Additionally, Blip plans to expand its marketplace and integrate with ONDC as a buyer app, enhancing the shopping experience and solidifying its market position.

CirclePe

Smart Rental Solutions

CirclePe, founded by Navan Jaiswal and Ankur Yadav, addresses the longstanding challenges tenants face with security deposits when renting properties.

Traditionally, tenants have struggled with hefty security deposits, arbitrary deductions, and delayed refunds upon moving out. CirclePe disrupts this norm with its innovative fintech solution, Smart Renting.

Through CirclePe, creditworthy tenants can move into rental properties without paying any security deposit. Unlike existing models like bonds and insurance, which face significant friction in cash-centric markets like India, CirclePe offers a seamless experience by providing landlords with advance rent for the entire lease term along with damage insurance coverage.

At the heart of CirclePe’s solution is its proprietary in-house credit assessment framework. This technology enables smooth checkouts, allowing tenants to move in without upfront deposits and pay their monthly rent using a no-cost EMI model.

In the next 12 months, CirclePe aims to assist over 10,000 tenants in securing rental accommodations without traditional security deposits.

Clientell

Your RevOps & CRM Dream Team

In 2021, Neil Sarkar and Saahil Dhaka noticed the fast growth of Revenue Operations (RevOps) in the US. They saw that sales and marketing systems were often separate and not integrated. While AI was making software more accessible, the user experience with Salesforce remained unchanged, making SaaS sales harder. This observation led them to create Clientell.

Clientell creates AI tools for RevOps that work with existing Salesforce systems. These tools simplify administration, improve go-to-market (GTM) efficiency, and reduce the workload of RevOps teams. Available on Clientell’s SaaS platform and in Teams/Slack, these tools are offered through a fixed monthly subscription with annual licences.

Clientell’s main products include AI-powered data capture,
on-demand analytics and Salesforce administration. Its revenue model is based on a monthly subscription fee. The startup has already launched its AI agent and Chrome plugin for beta users.

By 2026, it aims to launch a fully autonomous AI Salesforce developer to handle all manual RevOps tasks, potentially reducing RevOps teams to one person and replacing multiple SaaS solutions.

Distil

Your Partner For Speciality Chemicals

Founded by Atanuu Agarrwal, Karan Hirani and Viraj Shah, Distil aims to solve key challenges in the speciality chemicals industry.

With backgrounds in private equity, trade financing, and operational expertise, the founders share a vision to innovate and improve product quality and accessibility in the market.

Distil is an R&D-led platform, which offers custom formulations and manufacturing solutions to meet specific performance and regulatory needs for global manufacturers.

The startup uses advanced technology to streamline purchasing, ensuring consistent quality, varied quantity requirements, and reduced lead times and minimum order quantities (MOQs) through a robust network of stock points in India and international markets.

Its flagship offerings focus on consistent quality, tech-enabled purchasing convenience, on-time delivery, and strong after-sales support. Though its products are not patented, Distil operates on an inventory-based revenue model, primarily focussing on direct sales of speciality chemicals.

In 2024, Distil plans to expand its sales and R&D teams, develop proprietary products and establish a strong presence in the life sciences segment, including flavours, fragrances, food ingredients, pharmaceuticals, and personal care. By 2026, Distil aims to become a global leader in speciality chemicals.

Fourie

Democratising Engaging Content Creation

Fourie Studio, created by SyncSense, is a generative AI platform designed to change how content is localised globally. Named after mathematician Joseph Fourier, it helps businesses dub, subtitle, and narrate content in multiple languages, expanding their reach and impact.

Founded by Vibhor Saran in 2022, Fourie Studio excels in keeping the original emotion, tone, and context of the source material, ensuring that localised content connects well with diverse audiences. The platform supports over 30 global languages and offers more than 500 voices, making it useful for industries like education, media, entertainment, sports, and commerce.

The idea for Fourie Studio was inspired by the need to democratise content access. During the Olympic livestream events, the lack of localised content highlighted a significant gap in connecting digital content with regional audiences. This realisation led to the creation of Fourie Studio.

Using advanced AI technologies, Fourie Studio makes content transformation fast and cost-effective, delivering results in one-tenth of the time and at one-fifth of the cost compared to traditional methods.

Frammer AI

Helping Companies With Highly Discoverable, Monetisable Content

Arijit Chatterjee, Suparna Singh and Kawaljit Singh, former management team members at NDTV, have deep expertise in the news and publishing industry. Seeing the need for publishers to create high-quality short-form content to boost engagement and revenue on digital platforms, they launched Frammer.

The platform is changing the digital content game with its cutting-edge AI technology, designed to generate high-quality short-form content quickly and cost-effectively.

Frammer transforms any video into a format ready for various social media platforms, including YouTube and vertical video formats for Reels and YouTube Shorts. It works with both live stream and edited videos, ensuring high accuracy and editorial integrity in the produced short-form content.

Currently active in India, the US, and the UK, Frammer caters to the specific needs of publishers and media companies. So far, the company has secured three clients in India and is running advanced pilot programmes with major US media conglomerates.

In the upcoming year, Frammer aims to expand its client base by reaching out to more publishers and media companies. Looking ahead to 2026, Frammer has ambitious plans to serve all media content sectors.

Gravity

Hyper-Personalisation Banking Platform

Unlike consumer internet companies that provide personalised experiences, banks often fail to meet modern consumer expectations for tailored services. GRAVITY aims to help banks usher in an era of hyper-personalisation, enabling contextual curation of products and services at scale and speed.

Founded in Mumbai in 2023 by Satish Krishnaswamy and Rohit Maroo, former colleagues at HDFC Bank, GRAVITY addresses banks’ challenges in leveraging their vast amounts of data for personalised services.

The platform identifies the most relevant parameters for differentiating customer services and enables bank teams to build unique criteria tailored to each customer, enhancing personalisation and relevance.

Operating under a Platform as a Service (PaaS) revenue model, GRAVITY completed proof of concept (POC) projects with two reputed commercial banks in India.

It aims to implement its version 1.0 at 4-5 commercial banks in India this year, targeting a minimum revenue of $2 Mn in annual recurring revenue (ARR).

By 2026, the platform aims to introduce version 2.0, fully enabled with advanced AI and DeepTech capabilities, at 10-12 commercial banks in India and 4-5 overseas banks, and achieve a revenue of $10 Mn in ARR.

GreyLabs AI

AI-Powered Speech Analytics Platform

Founded in 2023 by Aman Goel and Harshita Srivastava, GreyLabs AI addresses the inefficiency and inconsistent performance of call centre agents in banks and financial institutions.

It provides a Generative AI-powered speech analytics platform that analyses every interaction between an agent and a customer.

This detailed analysis provides insights and identifies areas for improvement, boosting sales conversions, ensuring compliance in EMI collection calls, and enhancing customer service by ensuring agents follow call scripts and resolve issues effectively.

GreyLabs AI’s business model charges on a per-minute basis for processed recordings, with additional packages available on a per-agent, per-month basis.

GreyLabs AI operates in India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Recent milestones include signing two of India’s top ten largest banks and one of the largest broking firms as clients. They also secured $1.6 Mn in seed funding from Matrix Partners.

In the short term, GreyLabs AI aims to achieve $1 Mn in revenue. Their long-term vision is to reach an annual revenue run rate of $12 Mn by 2026 while maintaining profitability.

InstaAstro

E-Marketplace For Astrologers

Founded by Nitin Verma in 2021, InstaAstro offers a range of services, including horoscopes, tarot readings, and numerology. The platform caters to a broad audience with content available in English, Hindi, and various regional languages.

In just three years, InstaAstro boasts over 2 Lakh monthly app downloads and facilitates more than 50,000 minutes of consultations daily. Its annual recurring revenue (ARR) stands at $5 Mn, as claimed by the startup.

With a user base exceeding 5 Mn and over 20 Mn minutes of consultations in the past year, InstaAstro works with a network of 1,500 astrologers.

Looking ahead, InstaAstro plans to expand into spiritual ecommerce, daily Pooja services, and Reiki healing. With these offerings, the startup aims to enhance user engagement and strengthen the platform’s position as a comprehensive destination for spiritual and astrological guidance.

KarbonWise

Keeping Tab Of Enterprise Emissions

KarbonWise, founded by Arjun Vijayaragavan in 2023, tackles the critical challenge faced by enterprises striving for a ‘Net Zero’ future.

The platform combines advanced technology, climate science, and industry-specific expertise to help businesses achieve substantial carbon reductions and sustainable growth.

At its core, KarbonWise acts as a ‘sustainability co-pilot’, providing enterprises with a comprehensive view of their carbon and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) data.

This enables informed decision-making, strategic action planning, and streamlined compliance processes. By resolving data challenges and accelerating insights generation, KarbonWise guides businesses towards impactful sustainability outcomes.

Vijayaragavan’s vision is to help businesses overcome hurdles such as competing priorities, metric comprehension, and internal capability maturity in environmental action.

The startup aims to create ‘Net Zero champions’ whose sustainability efforts align closely with the overall business strategy.

With a track record of collaborating closely with over 70 enterprises, KarbonWise understands the complexities and constraints of the sustainability journey. By leveraging technology and providing personalised support, KarbonWise not only helps businesses survive but thrive in their pursuit of sustainable practices and environmental stewardship.

Krishigati

Electrifying The Future Of Indian Agriculture

Founded in 2021 by Sonali Weljali and Tukaaram Sonawane, Krishigati is an agritech startup that offers innovative solutions for modern precision farming. The company is dedicated to improving the lives of marginal farmers by providing sustainable and value-added products and services, aiming to reduce farming expenditures by 20-60%.

Krishigati’s flagship product, the self-propelled electric agricultural toolbars, is designed for versatile agricultural tasks in food-grain crops and specific vegetables. These toolbars can operate in fields with crop heights up to 2.5 feet and support various inter-cultivation activities such as precision seed sowing, weeding, pesticide spraying, and soil hilling.

The toolbars’ multi-utility architecture makes them suitable for a wide range of crops, including fruit farms, sugarcane, selective vegetables, and food grains, making them essential in key agricultural regions. By integrating cutting-edge technology and innovative design, Krishigati empowers small-scale farmers to achieve greater efficiency and productivity.

Maino.AI

Now, Accelerate Your ROI With AI-Led Marketing

Founded in 2022 by Abhijeet Kunwar, Rishabh Kumar and Vikas Kersi, Maino.ai addresses key challenges in digital marketing, such as the heavy reliance on manual processes and poor coordination among various marketing channels. These issues often result in inefficient ROI and missed opportunities for optimising campaigns.

To solve these problems, Maino.ai uses AI and ML to provide an automated, smart, and ROI-driven marketing technology platform.

This platform simplifies campaign management across multiple advertising platforms and continuously generates new creatives, ensuring efficiency and scalability for clients.

Maino.ai’s technology has been widely adopted by brands in various sectors, including media tech, direct-to-consumer brands, hospitality, and edtech. By offering a comprehensive solution for all marketing needs, Maino.ai aims to democratise marketing and help businesses of all sizes succeed in the digital age.

Mem0

Sharpening AI Interactions

Founded by Taranjeet Singh and Deshraj Yadav, Mem0 aims to revolutionise AI interactions by creating a sophisticated long-term memory system for Language Model (LLM) applications.

Taranjeet Singh, the CEO, brings extensive experience in software engineering and product management. He has played key roles at Khatabook and Paytm, witnessing the rapid growth of digital payment systems in India. His entrepreneurial journey includes co-founding EvalAI, an open-source platform for machine learning competitions.

Deshraj Yadav, the CTO, has extensive expertise in AI and ML. He has also led the AI Platform at Tesla Autopilot, developing scalable solutions for autonomous driving technology.

Mem0’s core innovation is its smart memory technology, which enhances LLMs with personalised user interactions. This memory system allows LLMs to remember past interactions across different applications and platforms, ensuring a seamless and personalised experience for users.

By offering APIs that enable developers to integrate this memory service into their products, Mem0 empowers AI applications to learn and adapt based on individual user preferences.

As AI evolves, Mem0 positions itself at the forefront of enabling advanced personalisation capabilities, making AI interactions more intuitive and effective across various domains and applications.

Metis

Intelligent Decision-Making For Financial Institutions

Founded in 2021, Metis Intellisystems specialises in intelligent decision-making using AI and ML for the BFSI sector.

Founded by Khushru F. Doctor and Amit Saraswat, the startup’s expertise in AI and ML enables it to create a comprehensive understanding of customers by cross-referencing diverse data sources, enhancing the precision of financial technology solutions.

Metis’ flagship platform, QANAT, uses AI and ML to analyse bank statements and GST data, cross-referencing information from sources like SMS, Bureau, ITR, and financial statements. It detects fraudulent transactions and processes statements from multiple banks, focussing on lending portfolio management — onboarding, risk assessment, early warning systems, and cross-selling.

The startup claims to have secured partnerships with domestic and international financial institutions. Metis has formalised arrangements with multiple companies to implement solutions for risk identification, early warning systems, and automated business rule engines (BRE) for lending.

Neo San

Waste Management Decentralised

Founded by Dhwaj Bagrecha and Alistair Sean D’Rozario in 2022, Neo San addresses hazardous waste management with innovative solutions using proprietary technology.

The startup’s flagship product, Neo-X, is a decentralised waste incinerator that treats waste at the source using clean energy.

Neo-X achieves efficient combustion, reaching 1200°C in under two minutes while consuming only 0.2 units of electricity per burn cycle. This significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 300 times compared to traditional methods like landfill fires or centralised incineration.

Neo San’s approach minimises CO2 emissions by reducing waste transport, which accounts for 60% of waste management costs, and promotes efficient burning processes.

The company is building decentralised networks of people and machines to manage waste locally and efficiently, cutting overall emissions by over 90% compared to current methods.

Nuuk

Bridging Modern Vibe To Appliances

Founded in 2023 by Gazal Kalra and Shalabh Gupta, Nuuk is a Gurugram-based D2C electronics brand. Largely focussed on consumer electronics, the startup sells table fans, circulation fans, personal fans and car vacuum cleaners.

Nuuk claims to draw inspiration from the Nordic countries, including Greenland (whose capital Nuuk is the inspiration for the startup’s name) in its product design and design language. The startup’s fans range between INR 2,599 and INR 10,999, while vacuums are available at INR 3,299.

Currently, the startup seems to be in the building mode, with only 11 people in its team, including the cofounders.

POP

UPI Payments Made Rewarding

Founded in 2023 by Bhargav Errangi, POP aims to establish itself as a premier destination for payments and shopping tailored for today’s discerning users. The cornerstone of POP’s offerings is the POPclub app, a comprehensive UPI payments and shopping platform.

On the POPclub app, users earn 2% cashback on every UPI transaction in POPcoins, which can be redeemed for a diverse array of products across categories like beauty, personal care, electronics, fashion, and home goods—all conveniently accessible within the app.

POPcoins are already utilised by over 200 online merchants as a loyalty currency on their respective ecommerce platforms, according to the startup.

Looking ahead, POP plans to introduce the POPclub credit card in collaboration with Yes Bank. This card will offer enhanced POPcoin rewards for all online expenditures. Cardholders can redeem their accumulated POPcoins for vouchers from prominent lifestyle platforms such as Zomato, Blinkit, and Cleartrip.

Quinn

Transforming Ecommerce With Videos

Founded by Mohit Kinra and Arvind Sasikumar in 2021, Quinn leverages video assets, such as Instagram Reels, to boost Shopify store revenue.

Currently live with over 100 leading brands, including Juicy Chemistry, Faces Canada, Arata, and The Face Shop, Quinn is backed by the founders of Purplle, Snapdeal, Kwench, and Mamaearth.

Quinn’s mission is to transform ecommerce by harnessing the power of video. The company believes that video can create more engaging, personalised, and interactive shopping experiences for customers.

By integrating shoppable videos into online stores, Quinn empowers businesses to showcase their products more effectively, connect with their audience, and drive sales. Its innovative solutions seamlessly merge video and commerce, enhancing the shopping experience and elevating online retail.

rampp.ai

Navigating Digital Transformation Of Enterprises

Founded by Ajay Agrawal and Huzefa Saifee in 2023, rampp.ai leverages the power of GenAI to automate processes, enhance operational efficiency and drive innovation, making it an indispensable partner in the digital transformation journey.

The startup’s flagship product, RADI AI Navigator, is a real-time solution designed to create digital journeys for enterprises. RADI AI synthesises deep industry insights, specific use cases, and technological expertise embedded within the rampp.ai platform, aligning them with stakeholder inputs to bring their digital visions to life. This enables enterprises to streamline their transformation efforts with precision and agility.

Additionally, the rampp.ai Digital Asset Library (DAL) provides customers with essential assets to accelerate their transformation journey, while rampp.ai Academy crafts hyper-personalised talent development programmes using digital journey data and enterprise information. This holistic approach ensures that enterprises have the necessary tools and skilled workforce to leverage these tools effectively.

Currently operating in North America and India, rampp.ai engages in a B2B model, offering the RADI Navigator platform as a SaaS solution. Going forward, the startup aims to position itself as the default transformation partner for enterprises.

Rizzzed

Gaming-Inspired Streetwear Brand

Rizzzed aims to merge the vibrant world of video games with the edgy nature of street fashion. Founded by Hrishav Bhattacharjee in 2023, Rizzzed was born from his desire to fuse the immersive experience of video games with the bold expression of street fashion.

As a gamer and street fashion enthusiast, he saw an opportunity to fill a gap in the fashion industry by creating apparel that resonates with both gamers and style-conscious individuals.

Each piece in Rizzzed’s collections pays tribute to iconic gaming elements, from retro pixel art to modern esports aesthetics. The designs capture the essence of various gaming genres, characters, and cultures while maintaining the cool, understated vibe of streetwear.

Rizzzed offers a unique blend of bold graphics, ergonomic designs and a colour palette that reflects the intensity and artistry of the gaming universe. The brand claims to use premium fabrics and innovative designs to ensure comfort, durability, and style. Additionally, Rizzzed actively participates in gaming events, sponsorships, and collaborations.

Segwise.ai

AI Agents To Increase Game’s Lifetime Value

Founded by Brijesh Bharadwaj and Shobhit Gupta in 2023, Segwise.ai is the byproduct of the duo’s experience at FamPay, where they realised that many tasks aimed at increasing the lifetime value (LTV) of mobile apps and games could be automated with AI.

Notably, Segwise.ai provides AI agents to help game studios optimise their game’s LTV.

The flagship product of Segwise.ai, AI Game Analyst agent, assists game studios by identifying root causes of metric changes and uncovering causal LTV drivers.

The company’s products stand out for their ability to automate daily root cause analyses (RCAs) and uncover hidden LTV opportunities, providing game studios with powerful tools to enhance their operations and revenue generation.

Segwise.ai operates on a B2B SaaS revenue model, offering subscription-based services to game studios and developers in the US and India. In the past three months, the company has started working with over 20 game studios across India, the US, Israel, Jordan, and the UK.

By 2026, Segwise.ai aims to enable lean studios to grow revenues from multiple games, continuing to innovate and expand its AI solutions for the gaming industry.

Sprih

Action-Oriented Sustainability Platform For Enterprises

Founded in 2023 by Akash Keshav, Ravi Singhal, Rohit Toshniwal and Hemant Joshi, Sprih emerged from their volunteer work with a non-profit organisation focussed on reforestation.

Their commitment to sustainability and firsthand experience with corporate challenges inspired them to apply their tech expertise to create a solution. This initiative led to the development of an advanced AI-powered software platform for sustainability.

Sprih specialises in providing organisations with a comprehensive sustainability platform designed to support their sustainability goals. The platform offers a suite of tools, including carbon emissions analysis across all scopes, setting science-based reduction targets, and benchmarking against industry standards and peers.

It also provides actionable recommendations for emission reductions and offsets, integrating global reporting frameworks to facilitate collaboration and generate detailed sustainability reports.

Sprih’s flagship products include an enterprise sustainability platform and a supply chain sustainability platform, both widely adopted by numerous companies. The key USP of Sprih’s products lies in its holistic approach to sustainability.

Currently operating on a subscription-based revenue model, Sprih serves a global market and has recently achieved significant milestones such as securing funding and expanding operations into the US.

Superjoin

Streamlining Real-Time Data Management

Superjoin aims to revolutionise how businesses handle their SaaS data and internal databases in real time. By empowering business teams to automate workflows, streamline forecasting, and build complex reports within the familiar environment of spreadsheets, Superjoin serves a diverse clientele, from startups to publicly listed companies worldwide.

Founded in 2023 by Abhinav Das and Vinayak Jhunjhunwala, Superjoin enhances the appeal of spreadsheets by enabling users to import live data into Google Sheets automatically using AI. With Superjoin, pulling live data from various tools is effortless and code-free.

The platform allows connections to unlimited data sources, enabling users to import data into Google Sheets with just one click.

Additionally, Superjoin offers scheduling capabilities to automatically update Google Sheets with the latest data from various sources, eliminating the need for cumbersome CSV exports.

Wahter

Monetising Water With Advertising

Founded in December 2023 by Amitt Nenwani and Kashiish A Nenwani, Wahter combines packaged drinking water with a unique advertising platform.

Wahter offers high-quality drinking water at INR 1 or INR 2 per bottle, ensuring affordability and accessibility without compromising quality.

Operating in the Delhi NCR region, the startup provides a comprehensive marketing solution from production to distribution.

Each Wahter bottle dedicates 80% of its surface to brand advertisements, with the remaining 20% reserved for Wahter’s branding. This model allows advertising investments to subsidise the cost of the water, creating a win-win scenario.

Wahter bottles feature QR codes, linking offline impressions to online engagement. Each bottle averages 48 impressions before recycling, enhancing brand visibility.

Whatmore

AI-Powered Video Commerce Platform

Founded in 2022 by Shaym Srinivas and Prabhu Dayal Sahoo, Whatmore aims to revolutionise the way ecommerce stores present their products.

Specialising in short-video content, Whatmore creates videos tailored for platforms like Instagram, TikTok, marketplaces, and websites.

Whatmore’s platform transforms product images into dynamic, engaging video compilations within just 60 seconds, seamlessly synced with trending music.

Users can easily create engaging product videos that showcase their collections, turn images into captivating product videos with popular music, and enjoy platform versatility ideal for Instagram, TikTok, ecommerce marketplaces, and websites.

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eyes In June 2024 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After a challenging few years, the Indian startup ecosystem appears to be on the recovery path. Startup funding is showing signs of resurgence, and the startup IPO season is thriving, providing investors with optimism. Furthermore, an increasing number of second-time founders are embarking on new adventures, and CXOs are joining the Indian startup fray in droves.

At a time when so much is happening in the world’s third-largest startup space, it’s time to shine the spotlight on some of the most innovative ventures that are making waves in the Indian startup ecosystem via Inc42’s ‘30 Startups to Watch’.  

While finalising the startups for our 47th edition of the ‘30 Startups to Watch’ series, we witnessed a healthy surge in the adoption of AI, along with the fact that close to 60% of these startups either raised less than $2 Mn or were completely bootstrapped.   

This speaks volumes about the entrepreneurial spirit thriving within the Indian startup community, where limited resources are no longer viewed as an obstacle to innovation. While the aftermath of the funding winter still lurks somewhere in the shadows, making investors cautious, there are also hopes of a complete revival on the horizon.

With that said, here are the 30 startups that caught our attention in May 2024.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.

Arch0

Remediating All Cloud Security Threats

The increase in cloud adoption has also led to a surge in cyberattacks. While cloud security remains a complex domain to implement and manage, a McKinsey report anticipates that damages from such attacks could hit $10.5 Tn annually by 2025.

To keep all kinds of cloud security threats at bay, Nithin Jois and Tilak Thimmappa founded Arch0 in 2022. Today, the startup proactively helps teams identify, prioritise, and address security threats.

Arch0’s proprietary AI-powered solution provides an immediate understanding of the ‘who, what, when, where, and how’ of each security incident, ensuring issues are addressed before they escalate.

Its solution goes over and above a code-to-cloud strategy, operating autonomously and furnishing comprehensive insights into every security incident. It plans to introduce enterprise-grade security to medium-sized enterprises, which manage sensitive data.

BRISKPE

Cross-Border Payments Made Seamless

Cross-border payments pose significant challenges for MSMEs in India due to their high transaction costs and lengthy processing times, hindering their ability to compete in the global market. Additionally, complex regulatory requirements and currency fluctuations complicate these transactions, impacting the financial stability of small businesses.

Founded in 2023 by Sanjay Tripathy, Nilesh Pathak, and Indunath Chaudhary, BRISKPE aims to solve this by abolishing excessive transaction fees and exchange mark-up. It empowers MSME exporters to partake in international trade with unprecedented ease and efficiency.

The startup’s flagship product, A2A (account-to-account payments), simplifies cross-border trade for MSMEs. It onboards MSMEs in under five minutes and helps them get started with international collection accounts instantly.

BRISKPE’s platform eliminates international fees such as correspondent bank charges and forex mark-ups, with a nominal 1% charge (including GST). It generates revenue by charging customers less than 1% of the transaction amount, including all charges and GST.

Having onboarded 1,000 exporters since its inception, the startup receives payments in 36 currencies from more than 180 countries.

Cautio

Cloud Connected Dash-Cams For Fleet Management

Bengaluru-based Cautio is developing affordable visual IoT devices (dash cams) and an operating system for fleet and commercial vehicles in India to enhance safety for drivers and riders, improve fleet productivity, reduce revenue loss, and decrease on-road accidents.

Cautio counts IIT-B, 3EV, Chandigarh University, Namma Yatri, and Vozi Cabs among its clients and has multiple pilot projects running across India. Cautio’s solution enables real-time visual tracking of vehicles and goods, allowing remote monitoring of driver behaviour, driving patterns, and the status of goods in transit.

It works with asset-light customers with dedicated fleets, meaning drivers are restricted from taking trips on other platforms. With deep API integrations, Cautio helps document and address such incidents effectively, ensuring appropriate actions are taken.

The startup’s solution captures footage of deliveries, providing visual evidence of the condition of goods upon arrival. This serves as proof of delivery and can help resolve disputes or claims of damaged or missing items.

Control One

Giving Slow-Moving Industry Equipment An AI Tweak

Pranav S, a core roboticist and seasoned expert in computer vision and robotics, founded Control One in 2023 after deploying over 70 robots across various industries in the US and India.

Through interactions with over 90 top supply chain experts and visits to numerous US warehouses, he identified the challenges of sourcing skilled labour and the high cost of autonomous solutions. To bridge the gap, Pranav set out to develop more practical and affordable solutions, leading to the inception of Control One.

Control One is building a vision-to-action AI model to operate on slow-moving equipment and empower them with human-like intelligence. This solution is ideal for warehouses, which is also the startup’s one of the key focus areas.

The startup is also targeting a wide range of slow-moving equipment in industries like mining, construction, cold storage, chemical industries, ecommerce, FMCG, and dairy.

Control One offers its autonomous software suite for a monthly subscription of INR 25,000. The startup has claimed to secure paid pilot orders worth INR 30 Lakh.

In the short term, Control One aims to pilot its solutions with three marquee clients, leveraging real-world warehouse data to train its AI systems effectively.

Looking ahead to 2026, the startup’s long-term goal is to achieve a $10 Mn annual recurring revenue (ARR), signalling its ambition to scale and establish itself as a significant player in the autonomous warehouse solutions market.

Circle Of Games

Web3 Gaming Hub

Many good games are today faced with the daunting task of attracting more players as they have yet to figure out the reward mechanism to woo users.

Rabilal Thapa, Rohit Tiwari, and Rajeeb VC, all avid gamers, witnessed that traditional gaming platforms lacked adequate incentive mechanisms. This led them to develop Circle Of Games (COG) in 2022, a gaming ecosystem that prioritises rewarding players for their time and skill.

Leveraging the surge of Web3 technology and the booming popularity of casual gaming, COG aims to revolutionise the gaming experience by integrating blockchain and providing a seamless and rewarding environment to players worldwide.

COG is a multi-gaming app, which consists of an array of popular games like Ludo, Fruit Slash, Rummy, and more, with plans to expand to over 10 games by Q4 2024.

The startup generates revenue through in-app purchases, subscriptions, ads, and NFTs. In 2024, the startup’s primary goal is to achieve multi-chain integration, launch new games, release an iOS version, and expand into global markets.

With a vision to be the premier destination for casual and hyper-casual gaming for crypto holders, COG aims to onboard 100 Mn users.

Dexif

One-Stop Shop For Borrowers & Investors

Dexif is a fintech startup founded in 2022 by IIT-Delhi alumni Deepank Bhandari (also an erstwhile Blinkit senior executive) and Tushar Sharma. Initially operating in stealth mode until April 2023, Dexif emerged into the spotlight with the addition of Pallavi Bajaj, a former associate vice president at Northern Arc Capital, as the third cofounder in October 2023.

The startup aims to transform the fixed-income securities market by providing a technology platform that bridges the gap between companies needing to raise capital and investors seeking reliable investment opportunities.

Dexif’s platform serves a dual purpose. For investors, both retail and institutional, it offers a marketplace to trade in a diverse range of fixed-income securities. For companies, it provides an avenue to raise capital through non-convertible debentures (NCDs), term loans, and other asset classes. By facilitating these transactions, Dexif creates a seamless connection between companies seeking debt financing and investors looking for fixed-income investment opportunities.

Revenue generation for Dexif comes from two primary sources. First, it charges companies that aim to raise capital from the public market via NCDs. Second, it earns fees from investors who wish to sell their securities by matching them with prospective buyers. This dual revenue model ensures that Dexif remains integral to both the supply and demand sides of the fixed-income securities market.

Eternz

Vertical Online Marketplace For Jewellery Brands

Founded by Arthi Ramalingam in 2023, Eternz is a vertical jewellery marketplace. It curates designs from quality-tested domestic and international brands, and designers and provides a holistic jewellery buying experience online through innovative technology.

Eternz, which has a pan-India presence, claims to have onboarded over 60 brands in fashion, silver, gold, and diamond categories.

It aims to diversify its brand portfolio by incorporating international labels and enhancing its reach in Tier I and II cities within India this year. Looking ahead, the company envisages an international expansion strategy targeting the lucrative US, UK and European markets by 2026.

Additionally, Eternz plans to integrate cutting-edge technologies like AR/VR and AI to offer unparalleled shopping experiences. Furthermore, offline multi-branded store expansion is on the cards, ensuring a seamless omnichannel presence for customers.

Fixerra

Digital Mall Of Fixed Deposits

A majority of Indians prefer simple and safe investment options. While many invest in fixed deposits (FDs), they usually stick with their banks and miss out on better returns elsewhere.

Observing this gap, the founder of Fixerra, Akshar Shah, built a digital platform that allows people to invest in FDs offered by various banks.

In simple words, Shah has created an FD marketplace where users can choose investment options from various banks, while the website shows how much each bank will be liable to return after a fixed tenure.

Fixerra’s key strength lies in its partnerships with seven banks and NBFCs. It uses APIs to connect with various financial institutions and handle the entire FD process for its users.

Fixerra recently rebranded itself from Fixed Invest. As of now, the company aspires to become a comprehensive banking-as-a-service (BaaS) provider by expanding its horizons beyond fixed deposits. It also aims to empower digital businesses with a holistic suite of banking products and services.

Flashaid

Making Health Insurance Accessible To All Indians

In a country as vast and diverse as India, access to affordable health insurance remains a significant challenge for millions. Therefore, on a mission to foster health equity for all Indians, Manoj Gupta and Gunjali Kothari founded Flashaid in 2020.

By partnering with D2C brands, ecommerce marketplaces, and fintech companies, Flashaid not only ensures that health insurance is affordable but also easily accessible.

Flashaid’s innovation lies in its distribution strategy, which focusses on a distinctive channel for retail health plan distribution through a B2B2C platform. This approach not only expands the reach of health insurance but also seamlessly integrates it into the digital lives of Indian consumers.

In just a year, Flashaid has made significant strides, forming partnerships with over 20 platforms
and distributing more than 30,000 health covers. Remarkably, the company claims to have achieved profitability at the EBITDA level.

With an ARR of $1 Mn currently, Flashaid has set its eyes on reaching $10 Mn in ARR in the next two years.

Last month, the insurtech firm raised $2.5 Mn in its Pre-Series A funding, which was led by Piper Serica Angel Fund and global venture capital firm SOSV.

Highperformr.AI

Better ROI From Social Media

Highperformr.AI, the brainchild of former Freshworks executives Ramesh Ravishankar and Srivatsan Venkatesan, wants to transform social media management with its innovative SaaS platform.

Founded in July 2023, this Chennai-based startup has swiftly made waves in the digital marketing landscape by harnessing the power of generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) to help businesses maximise their return on investment (ROI) from social media campaigns.

At the core of Highperformr.AI’s offerings lies its flagship product, Highperformr for Teams, designed specifically for B2B companies. The platform facilitates the seamless management of social media workflows, enabling organisations to scale their social publishing efforts and foster team collaboration.

Moreover, it empowers businesses to leverage social selling strategies and gain valuable insights into campaign performance through AI-driven analytics.

Highperformr.AI sets itself apart with its comprehensive suite of features tailored to amplify social presence and growth. The platform’s sophisticated AI capabilities enable enterprises to effortlessly generate compelling social media content, ensuring consistent engagement across platforms.

ICON

D2C Luggage & Travel Accessories Brand

Founded by Mohammad Patel, Poojan Shah, Fazal Lakhani, and Aakash Mehta, ICON is a premier internet-first direct-to-consumer startup specialising in luggage and travel accessories. Positioned within the mass premium segment of the LTA market, ICON’s product line includes hard luggage, backpacks and handbags.

Each product features elements such as wide handles, power bank slots, Bluetooth-enabled trackers, and premium materials.

These materials include unbreakable shells from Germany, super silent 360-degree wheels from the USA, and durable YKK zippers.

ICON’s focus on innovative and stylish products aims to cater to the evolving consumer mindset in the Indian luggage market, which is estimated to be worth INR 20,000 Cr by the end of FY25, as per Statista.

Recently, the D2C luggage and travel accessories startup raised $1.2 Mn (approx INR 10 Cr) in a seed funding round led by DSG Consumer Partners. ICON competes with new-age brands such as Nasher Miles, Mokobara, Acefour, and Wildcraft, as well as global players like VIP, American Tourister, and Safari.

Kanlet

AI-Driven Lead Generation Platform

B2B sales and marketing teams today face significant challenges in meeting targets and identifying efficient ways to grow qualified pipelines.

Kanlet addresses these challenges by offering a unified data model that integrates first-party, second-party, and third-party data. This, in turn, generates what is called “living GTM data.” This living data is enriched with layers of intelligence powered by Generative AI and is characterised by three core aspects: relationships, intent, and personalisation.

Kanlet was founded in 2023 by Satish Patil – who previously cofounded SaaS platform Crysagi Systems (acquired later by CoreView). He also served as the founder and CEO of enterprise tech startup Mitibase.

Kanlet’s AI-driven automation identifies the best buyers and sales triggers, helping sales teams act on these opportunities. By combining firmographic and technographic data, the engine identifies right-fit buyers, monitors them for relationship triggers and buying intent, and highlights them as warm leads in the sales pipeline.

Karban Envirotech

Bladeless Fans For Contemporary Living

Founded by Karan Bansal and Tanya Goyal in 2021, Karban wants to disrupt the Indian fans market with its revolutionary bladeless ceiling fan, Karban Airzone, which features an in-built air purifier and lighting. By leveraging Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Karban optimises efficiency, reducing electricity consumption while enhancing performance.

The Jaipur-based startup’s Airzone caters to diverse spaces, from homes to offices and hotels, offering multi-utility with airflow, air purification, and lighting. Addressing pressing issues like indoor air pollution, Karban’s innovation ensures healthier environments.

Karban Airzone and Karban Airzone Lite redefine integrated climate control devices, combining fans, lights, and air purifiers into sleek, bladeless units. Both feature remote control functionality for effortless operation, catering to modern lifestyles. The products are sold on its website as well as ecommerce marketplaces.

The USPs of Karban Airzone and Karban Airzone Lite include their bladeless design for safety, advanced technology for efficient operation, sleek aesthetics to complement any decor, and features like no flickering lights for enhanced ambience. These devices provide a seamless blend of functionality, safety, and style, catering to the diverse needs of modern living and working spaces.

Mysa

Unifying Business Finance Management

After experiencing firsthand the complexities of financial management during their startup journey with Mech Mocha, which was later acquired by Flipkart in 2020, Mohit Rangaraju and Arpita Kapoor founded Mysa in 2023. Frustrated by disintegrated finance systems and endless manual processes, they identified a widespread problem. After consulting over 100 founders and finance heads, they realised a streamlined solution was needed, leading them to create Mysa to simplify and unify business finance management.

Mysa is a B2B fintech startup, which is building a platform at the intersection of finance automation, SaaS and financial services. The Mysa platform offers AI-enabled invoice processing, automated accounting/taxation and seamless payments via partner bank accounts for new-age private limited businesses.

Mysa has been refining its finance automation services through a closed beta with select businesses over the past three months. Mysa’s revenue model revolves around SAAS subscriptions and the distribution of financial services.

In 2024, Mysa plans to transition from closed beta to public beta, targeting customer acquisition in India’s top six metropolitan areas. By 2026, Mysa aims to evolve into a tech-enabled financial institution, leveraging technology and exceptional customer support to enhance the financial experience for entrepreneurs and finance teams.

Mytek

AI-Driven Project Planning

Shivkumar Borade and Ashwajeet Wankhede founded Mytek to address common issues in contract management issues like improper planning, capital exhaustion, and a lack of skilled contractors.

Recognising these challenges, they created Mytek, an AI-based digital platform where contractors can select projects matching their expertise and regions. Mytek notifies them of opportunities and streamlines project planning, providing real-time progress updates and quality assessments from a single location.

Its flagship product, the Mytek AI Project Planning Platform, leverages advanced AI algorithms to streamline project management, optimise resource allocation, and enhance workflow efficiency.

Mytek provides project management solutions and operates on a profit-sharing model for funding services, taking full ownership to complete projects within set timeframes using the latest technology.

Its short-term plans for 2024 include offering a platform free of charge to all SMEs needing project planning, aiming to secure a 20% market share in infrastructure, expanding its presence in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, launching new AI features, and increasing client base by 30%. In the long term, it aims to expand the platform’s reach to encompass all engineering sectors globally.

Parseable

Log Analytics Stack For Developers

With the growing digital presence of businesses, log analytics has become more critical than ever. When effectively analyzed, log data can yield valuable insights into application performance, user behaviour, and potential security threats.

However, the main challenge lies in managing and analysing this data efficiently, without high operational costs or sacrificing scalability and flexibility.

Founded by Nitish Tiwari, Parseable addresses these challenges by being cloud-native. This design allows it to fully leverage cloud computing benefits like scalability, reliability, and flexibility.

Unlike traditional log management systems that struggle with scaling and high costs as data grows, Parseable uses cloud storage to dynamically adjust resources based on demand. This ensures businesses can manage their data effectively, regardless of volume, without worrying about infrastructure overhead.

Last month, the Bengaluru-based startup raised $2.75 Mn in a seed funding round led by Peak XV’s Surge and NP-Hard Ventures. It plans to use the funds to accelerate its innovation in managing the increasing amount of log data generated by new-age digital businesses.

Perceptyne

Building Industrial Humanoid Robots

Perceptyne, an AI and robotics startup, aims to transform factory floor automation with India’s first industrial humanoid robots. These robots are designed for tasks that require human-like dexterity, such as product assembly, ecommerce packaging, and commercial kitchen operations.

Founded by IIT Madras and BITS Pilani alumni Raviteja Chivukula, Jagga Raju Nadimpalli, and Mrutyunjaya Nadiminti, Perceptyne leverages extensive experience in deeptech product development, production, marketing, and sales across aerospace, industrial automation, automotive, and electronics industries.

Their industrial humanoid robots have two arms with seven joints each and five-fingered hands that can sense touch and force. These robots are set to revolutionise the electronics manufacturing and automotive industries. The benefits are substantial — a 90% reduction in automation implementation time, no need to pause production during implementation, and minimal infrastructure and workflow restructuring.

The startup recently emerged out of stealth mode when it raised its pre-seed funding from Venture Catalysts precisely a month ago.

Plane

Project Management Made Seamless

Founded in April 2023 by brothers Vamsi and Vihar Kurama, Plane aims to streamline project management for teams of all sizes and industries. Vihar, a seasoned consultant with over six years of experience, recognised the shortcomings of existing project management tools during his work with startups in the edtech, AI and ecommerce space.

This led him to the development of Plane, a software tool to efficiently manage projects and products. The tool helps organisations track product roadmaps and their progress in the simplest way possible.

Today, Plane offers comprehensive project management solutions tailored to diverse business needs. Its offerings include Plane One, a versatile software available for a one-time fee, supporting both new and existing self-managed platforms. In addition, Plane Cloud provides flexible, cloud-based solutions to organisations of all sizes.

For those preferring self-management, Plane Self-hosted is available in Community, Pro, and Enterprise versions, allowing full customisation and control. Currently in the beta phase, Plane’s offerings are available under an early adopter plan, with official pricing to be announced soon. Plane aims to be the ultimate tool for modern project planning and management.

The startup’s enterprise edition boasts collaborations with Fortune 500 companies. It also claims to have garnered trust from leading stock broking firms in India, becoming integral to their daily operations.

In the short term, Plane plans to expand its geographies and target emerging markets, customising offerings to diverse regional needs.

Plotline

Making Apps Dynamic

With the advent of super apps offering a multitude of services on one platform, the challenge for consumer brands is not just acquiring users but also ensuring their engagement and retention.

Founded in 2022 by Shubham Jindal and Adarsh Tadimari, Plotline recognises that traditional customer engagement platforms excel at bringing users back to apps through external channels like push notifications and emails but lag in influencing user behaviour within the app itself.

Plotline’s solution lies in making apps dynamic based on individual user behaviour and creating a personalised experience that significantly improves app usage. By analysing billions of data points, the platform enables consumer brands to tailor their apps to each user’s preferences and usage patterns, enhancing user adoption and engagement rates.

Moreover, Plotline integrates Large Language Models (LLMs) for content creation and continuous experimentation, ensuring that the user experience remains optimally engaging and evolves.

PointO

Creating A Lithium Battery Ecosystem

PointO, founded by Riki Biswas, Gaurav Jindal, and Pratimendra Bagui, pioneers a full-stack lithium battery ecosystem, targeting financial inclusion and climate action.

Leveraging Biswas’ experience in the cleantech space, Jindal’s leadership in the manufacturing sector, and Bagui’s tech expertise, PointO mitigates default rates and credit risk, particularly in financing lithium batteries for e-rickshaw owners in Tier II cities and beyond.

Since its inception, PointO has expanded its offerings beyond battery financing in the 3W segment. Beyond battery financing, the startup has also expanded into the home inverter segment.

The startup has grown 7X in the last 12 months. It plans to expand its physical centres to include 10+ cities over the next 12 months. With India’s shift to e-rickshaws and the $27.5 Bn e-rickshaw market projected growth, PointO strategically positions itself to capture significant market share.

ProsParity

Facilitating Access To EV Financing

The issue of financing electric vehicles (EVs) in India, such as high upfront costs, limited financing options, and the lack of government incentives, particularly within the two and three-wheeler segment, remains deep-rooted. Despite the growing interest in electric mobility, accessing capital remains a significant barrier to widespread adoption.

ProsParity, founded by Saurabh Khodke and Anirudh Dhakar, aims to offer innovative financing solutions for mass market and new-to-credit customers. It has developed an end-to-end electric mobility financing platform that emphasises compliance, scalability, and agility for lenders.

By streamlining financing relationships for EV dealers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), ProsParity aims to facilitate easier access to financing for end-customers.

Through its strategic B2B partnerships within the ecosystem, the company ensures scalable distribution while creating long-term underwriting advantages with ‘asset risk models’.

By tailoring products to sync with customer profiles, ProsParity aims to play a crucial role in accelerating the transition towards electric mobility in India’s mass-market segment.

Recently, the EV financing platform secured $2 Mn (around 16.6 Cr) in its pre-seed funding from BEENEXT, Sparrow Capital, All In Capital, DeVC, and Huddle Ventures.

Reelo

Smart Marketing Platform For Small Businesses

Parin and Prit Sanghvi, the brother duo, founded Reelo in 2021 after identifying that small businesses often lack efforts on the marketing front. However, the ones that do not, end up with poor results.

Today, Reelo brings enterprise-level customer data, loyalty and marketing automation technology to underserved small and mid-sized restaurant and retail businesses.

It helps restaurants and retail businesses maximise their revenue and growth through its loyalty marketing and data analytics platform. Reelo’s easy-to-use product requires zero expertise or effort, allowing businesses to get more customers, increase sales, and build a stronger brand.

Reelo’s loyalty programme builder helps restaurants launch powerful mobile-first programmes. Additionally, Reelo provides a library of over 5,000 ready-to-use templates of personalised customer engagement campaigns for channels across WhatsApp, SMS, and email.

Reelo claims to have grown 3X YoY, onboarded over 17K businesses and engaged over 16 Mn customers. It is operating on a SaaS model with a freemium offering, where businesses can try Reelo for free.

Sapience Automata

Making Vehicular Fleets Safer

Founded in 2021 by Satyajit Neog, a PhD in autonomous driving technology and AI from NTU Singapore, Sapience Automata provides a robust solution to mitigate accidents and enhance safety on Indian roads.

Its breakthrough plug-and-play driver assistance technology is tailor-made for Indian driving conditions. By focussing on custom-made products and applications, Sapience Automata ensures maximum effectiveness and safety for drivers, setting a new standard in automotive safety innovation.

The startup leverages cutting-edge technology to create innovative solutions that address the challenges faced by drivers while driving.

Operating primarily from Bengaluru, Sapience Automata currently focuses on commercial fleets. Its AI-powered driver and ADAS cameras mitigate the risk of road accidents stemming from distractions, drowsy driving, fatigue, and other unexpected occurrences on Indian roads.

Scimplify

End-To-End Specialty Chemicals Platform

Founded in 2023 by Sachin Santosh and Salil Srivastava, Scimplify is a B2B platform specialising in end-to-end sourcing and manufacturing of speciality chemicals.

It serves industries such as pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and flavours & fragrances, managing processes from contract research to commercial-scale production.

Scimplify’s revenue model is built on providing full-service solutions, handling everything from R&D in its labs to production in dedicated manufacturing facilities, and ensuring top-quality products through rigorous checks.

Operating primarily in India, Scimplify also engages in cross-border trade with countries, including New Zealand, the UAE, Egypt, Vietnam, Jordan, and Taiwan. The company aims to expand its manufacturing capabilities in India this year.

In the long term, Scimplify plans to become a leading global marketplace for speciality chemicals, connecting suppliers and consumers worldwide.

ShipEase

Simplifying Logistics Management For SMEs

Since 2011, India has witnessed an unprecedented rise in digital commerce shipping. To cater to the heightened demand, businesses tap into a plethora of logistics options to fuel their supply chain. With this, managing multiple logistics players in their supply chain gets cumbersome.

To simplify this process, Pawan Kumar, Ajay K, and Lalit Singh founded ShipEase, which consolidates all courier partners, virtual shops and communication tools like Whatsapp and IVR on a single screen to support SMEs in their ecommerce journey.

The startup also caters to different business needs, offering an order management system, a courier management system, or a combination of both with aggregation.

The startup generates revenue through a subscription fee. Additionally, it charges a transaction fee for each order processed and offers premium services for advanced features and integrations, ensuring a steady income stream.

It claims to have seen 1 Mn orders in March this year and plans to achieve a monthly recurring revenue of INR 10 Cr soon.

SuperKalam

AI-led Personal Mentor For Students

The Indian edtech sector, transformed by the Covid-19 pandemic, is on the verge of another major shift with the rise of GenAI. This technology promises to reshape education even more deeply.

SuperKalam, founded in July 2023 by Vimal Singh Rathore and Aseem Gupta, is an AI-driven mentoring platform for competitive exams like UPSC. Unlike traditional edtech platforms, SuperKalam offers a personalised learning experience, putting students at the centre.

SuperKalam addresses the challenges of affordability, accessibility, and quality in personal teaching in India. Using advanced AI analytics, the platform customises learning paths, resolves doubts instantly, and tracks progress, ensuring tailored support for each student. This personalised approach boosts engagement and effectiveness in exam preparation.

SuperKalam is Vimal’s second venture, following the success of Coursavy, which was acquired by Unacademy in 2020. A few days ago, the UPSC test prep platform raised $2 Mn (INR 16.6 Cr) in a seed funding round led by YCombinator and Fundersclub.

Topee

Custom-Made Hair Restoration Solutions

Founded by former Swiggy executive Kailash Nichani in 2024, Topee offers painless, guaranteed solutions for baldness in both men and women through its cosmetic hair restoration products.

Specialising in hyper-realistic hair systems, Topee creates custom-made hair patches, extensions, and full wigs, all made from 100% natural human hair. These products blend seamlessly with existing hair, ensuring an undetectable, natural look even up close.

Topee’s hair systems are designed to be comfortable and breathable, using high-quality, skin-safe adhesives and clips.

Located in Bengaluru, Topee’s studio offers a private, supportive environment where clients can explore products and receive personalised consultations from hair restoration experts.

Wizr AI

Offering AI-Powered Enterprise Solutions

Founded in 2023 by Rajesh Padinjaremadam and Sirish Kosaraju, Wizr is a comprehensive platform tailored for implementing cutting-edge technologies.

The startup is helping enterprise operations with two platforms: the Wizr AI Studio and the Wizr Cx Hub. Wizr AI Studio empowers enterprises to integrate AI into their documents and workflows seamlessly.

Meanwhile, Wizr Cx Hub delivers transformative intelligence and automation to customer service and support. Its advanced GenAI capabilities automatically tag and analyse customer service tickets, enabling proactive monitoring and prediction of escalations.

With features like issue clustering for root cause analysis, agent scoring, and Wizr Agent Assist, support teams can optimise productivity and responsiveness.

Wizr Auto Solve further streamlines operations by automating issue resolution, significantly reducing agent workload.

Wizr AI aims to onboard its first 10 customers, achieve PMF, and generate $1 Mn in revenue by 2024. By 2026, the startup targets an ARR of $3-5 Mn with 50 customers.

Zactor Tech

Digital Financial Wellness Platform

The Indian financial paradigm has long struggled with a lack of personalisation, offering one-size-fits-all solutions that fail to address individual financial needs and goals. Despite the growing number of investment tech platforms, there is a dearth of players who provide tailored advice or services to serve the unique needs of individual customers.

Zactor Tech‘s inception began when Abhishek Walia, a chartered accountant, identified this gap in the Indian fintech space at IIM-Calcutta. This led to the incorporation of Zactor Tech in 2023, which is today focussed on “simplifying finance and empowering every Indian to achieve their financial goals with ease and confidence”.

It is a platform for working individuals to make their financial journey easy with the help of its personalised recommendations and insights. So far, it has integrated mutual funds on its platform. The integration of FDs, bonds and P2P investments are in the pipeline. Zactor Tech wants to redefine personal finance management with an approach that includes goal-based investing, detailed financial roadmaps, and insurance optimisation insights.

The platform offers personalised investment recommendations tailored to its users’ goals, time horizons, and risk profiles. Additional features include comprehensive retirement planning, monthly PDF financial reports, automated financial data retrieval and a financial literacy app for learning.

Currently, the startup is working on the distribution model and not charging any upfront fees from the users. It aims to onboard 25,000 users by the end of this year.

ZEPIC

Helping Businesses Deliver Great Customer Experiences Across Channels

Founded by Naveen Venkatesan, Bharathi Kannan Ravikumar, Sunil Kumar, and Sreelesh Pillai in 2023, ZEPIC is a customer experience platform that unites all customer-facing teams.

ZEPIC helps marketers gather customer insights and create hyper-personalised experiences by seamlessly integrating business data with customer data.

Whether it’s product inventory, customer reviews, or order fulfilment data, ZEPIC allows businesses to use all available information to personalise customer experiences.

This ensures that campaigns are tailored to individual customer preferences and behaviours, considering the full context and journey of the business-customer relationship.

With browsers blocking third-party cookies, ZEPIC helps businesses prioritise first-party data collection through intelligent visitor tracking, identity resolution, and progressive customer profile enrichment.

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eyes In May 2024 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The year 2023 tested the limits of the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem. Faced with regulatory hurdles and dwindling funding numbers, Indian new-age tech companies navigated a terrain fraught with uncertainty.

Unfortunately, little has changed despite stepping into the financial year 2024-25 (FY25). As per Inc42, funding raised by Indian startups receded to a seven-year low, falling 33% year-on-year (YoY) to $2 Bn in Q1 2024.

Further, the first week of April 2024 (between April 1 and 6) saw a week-on-week (WoW) decline of 38% in funding. Similar was the trend towards the end of the month when the startup funding was down 33% WoW.

The repercussions of this funding winter continue to reverberate throughout the ecosystem, prompting a fundamental shift in focus towards sustainability. However, on the positive side, the vagaries of this two-year-long capital drought have not dampened the innovative spirit of the Indian startup landscape.

Lately, we have witnessed that the Indian startup ecosystem is experiencing a surge in early stage cleantech ventures, reflecting a collective commitment towards environmental stewardship. Alongside this, a diverse array of ventures spanning sectors such as direct-to-consumer (D2C), agritech, and AI are contributing towards the spirit of disruption pulsating within the ecosystem.

But, what truly sets Indian founders apart is their unwavering focus on creating value rather than raising funds. This is probably what is keeping Indian startups going despite the gloom.

Against this backdrop, we are happy to present the 46th edition of ‘30 Startups to Watch‘ — Startups That Caught Our Eyes In April. This latest edition is also the first edition of FY25.

Imperative to note that we gave the March edition of ‘30 Startups to Watch’ a conscious miss as the whole of the Indian Startup ecosystem was busy concluding FY24.

With that said, here is the full list of the startups that caught our eyes in April 2024.

(Editor’s Note: The list below is not a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.)

Aeria

Transcending Traditional Office Spaces

Founded by Priyanka Gera and Piyush Kateja, Aeria is transforming traditional office spaces with technology and AI. From access and parking management to visitor engagement and community services, Aeria offers a holistic solution tailored as per modern workplace demands.

By integrating data, technology, and customer interactions, Aeria enables convenient and contactless building entrance through mobile devices, improving the overall workplace experience. The platform offers simplified access control management, enhanced asset and tenant security, and streamlined operations with inventory accuracy.

Moreover, its full-stack analytics suite empowers real estate developers and asset managers to make informed, data-driven decisions, potentially boosting financial performance by up to 15%. By providing insights into asset risks, demand forecasting, space utilisation, rental optimisation, and tenant segmentation, Aeria enables stakeholders to unlock hidden value within their properties.

Arivihan

Using AI To Offer Personalised Tutoring

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing a pivotal role in transforming the Indian edtech landscape, and Arivihan, an automated learning platform, seems to be leading this shift.

Leveraging AI, Arivihan provides personalised tutoring to K-11 and K-12 students, essentially placing a personal tutor in each student’s pocket.

This platform is adept at guiding, teaching, and instantly resolving doubts, tailored to individual learning paces and comprehension levels. With the use of AI, Arivihan ensures high-quality learning experiences at affordable rates, fostering academic improvement.

Arivihan employs GenAI to craft text responses, scripts, and tailored study plans. Notably, it utilises open-source text and audio generation models to create AI-driven video lectures, akin to those delivered by human tutors.

With a Google Play rating of 4.7 and a substantial daily user base, Arivihan claims to have impacted over 1,500 students, whose average session duration lasts more than 65 minutes on the platform.

Basil

Redefining Lunchbox Standards

The genesis of Basil lies in Harini Rajagopalan and Mahesh Muraleedharan’s quest to find the perfect lunchbox for their children. The duo’s expedition of finding a leakproof, aesthetically pleasing lunchbox got intense when they found out that other parents also shared their peeves.

Understanding the gap, the duo started working in stealth mode. They then launched Basil in May 2023. The startup crafts aesthetically pleasing and leak-resistant lunchbox solutions.

While Basil’s current product line is only restricted to lunchboxes and water bottles, it aims to establish a new standard of excellence within the home and kitchen product sphere. Basil’s short-term goal for 2024 is to solidify its position as a leader in the lunchbox market.

The brand operates primarily through ecommerce channels, Basil targets the Indian market since launching their product line in February 2024. Basil has rapidly gained traction, securing a position within the top 100 in the Lunchbox category on Amazon.

Basil’s long-term vision is to build an INR 100 Cr business by 2026 and establish itself as a beloved brand in the often-overlooked home and kitchen category.

BlackCarrot

Health-Conscious Cutlery

BlackCarrot plans to redefine the way we approach dining experiences. Founded by the father-son duo of Vishal Gupta and Yadupati Gupta, BlackCarrot offers animal bone ash-free cutlery.

By not using traditional materials like bone china and prioritising 304-grade stainless steel for cutlery, and lead-free glassware, the startup wants to ensure that every meal is served with purity and peace of mind.

BlackCarrot, with trademarks in three categories, uses a revenue model combining D2C and marketplace sales, delivering across India. Their recent launch featured over 70 SKUs, backed by Bollywood star Neha Dhupia’s endorsement and investment.

Bummer

Disrupting Men’s Innerwear Segment

Founded by Sulay Lavsi in 2020, Bummer is trying to create a niche in the men’s underwear market with its innovative approach and contemporary designs. Offering a wide range of products, including hipsters, shorts, boxers, trunks, briefs, pyjamas, and loungewear, Bummer sets itself apart by using micromodal fibres sourced from beechwood trees, ensuring softness, lightweight comfort, and sustainability.

The startup has witnessed strong growth, boasting a 175% year-on-year revenue increase in FY23. It was also featured in Inc42’s FAST42 list of the fastest-growing direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands in 2024. With plans to expand into other Asian markets in the next two years, Bummer has earmarked 5% of its budget to pilot projects in these regions while maintaining India as its primary focus.

Primarily driving sales through its website, which accounts for 85% of revenue, Bummer also leverages online channels like Amazon and Myntra to drive sales.

Chaotix AI

Text-To-Game AI

Founded by brothers Ankur and Chirag Goel in 2021, Chaotix AI is a gaming startup that enables people to bring their gaming ideas to life in only two minutes. The startup’s genesis stems from Ankur’s journey in game development.

Recognising the potential of AI technology, Ankur envisioned the text-to-game AI platform to democratise game creation. The AI-driven platform takes the game concept via text prompts submitted by the user and, through contextual analysis, selects mechanics that align perfectly with the idea.

Subsequently, it generates all necessary audio and visual assets, tailoring each element to fit the game’s narrative and mechanics. The platform then assembles and deploys the game on its platform, allowing anyone to access and enjoy it easily.

The startup works on a freemium model. For advanced functionalities, users could opt for a monthly subscription plan. The startup also looks at advertisement revenue and in-app purchase monetisation.

The Delhi-based startup aims to onboard 1 Lakh creators. In the long term, ChaotixAI has set its sights on becoming the ‘YouTube of Games’, hosting 10 Mn creators. It envisions creating 100 Mn games by 2026.

EcoRatings

An ESG Rating AI Startup

Founded by Aditi Balbir, Aqeel Ahmed, and Shruti Anand in 2023, EcoRatings is a cleantech startup that utilises AI/ML and Big Data to quantify the environmental impact of products and services.

EcoRatings’ methodology, based on the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals and ESG norms, resonates with consumers’ increasing demand for transparency in product sustainability.

In recent years, consumers have increasingly embraced ‘greener’ purchasing habits, demanding high-quality, sustainable, and ethically sourced products at competitive prices.

EcoRatings’ methodology, based on the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals and ESG norms, resonates with consumers’ increasing demand for transparency in product sustainability.

Each product undergoes a rigorous assessment, receiving a rating on a scale of 10, derived from verified data sources. By providing numeric sustainability ratings, EcoRatings empowers consumers to make informed, eco-friendly choices, aligning with the global shift towards greener purchasing habits.

Elevate Foods

Creating A Sustainable Food Supply Chain

Founded by serial entrepreneur Gayatri Bhatia in March 2024 and owned by Singapore-based GBN Food Solutions, Agritech startup Elevate Foods is a platform supporting small- and medium-sized farm-gate processors.

Rather than focussing solely on building infrastructure, the startup aims to empower existing micro and small farm-gate food processors. By providing them with the necessary resources, assistance, and cutting-edge technology, Elevate Foods enables these processors to upgrade their operations and deliver products that meet stringent global standards. The startup is not only focussed on enhancing the sustainability of food processing but also minimising food waste.

With a focus on cross-border trade opportunities, the company aspires to be the largest food processing organisation without owning any factory assets of its own. Instead, it prioritises upgrading existing processors, thereby ensuring that sustainability and traceability are embedded in every product that reaches global markets.

GobbleCube

AI-Based Revenue Platform For Brands

During their tenure at quick commerce platform Blinkit, Manas Gupta, Srikumar Nair and Nitesh Jindal extensively utilised data to maximise ROI on every rupee spent on marketing and supply chain optimisation.

While collaborating with consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands, they observed significant discrepancies — the expenditure scale was much larger and the granularity of data and its freshness were notably inferior, often limited to the previous month.

Recognising this unmet market need as a significant opportunity for disruption, they founded GobbleCube in November 2022. GobbleCube is the revenue decoding platform for quick commerce players and marketplaces. It automates data and decision-making processes across the entire ecommerce value chain to prevent revenue leakages.

Its flagship product GobbleCube Micro-Market Intelligence is a proprietary system for real-time market share that can help brands make better strategic decisions.

For 2024, the startup’s focus is on integrating more ecommerce channels to enrich its product offering and refining insights based on user feedback. Looking ahead to 2026, GobbleCube aims to expand into new markets, establish a global GTM team and integrate with ecommerce platforms worldwide. It envisions becoming a leading revenue monitoring platform for CPG brands.

Hack2skill

An All-In-One Hackathon Platform

Founded in 2021 by Samkit Sharma, Hack2skill is a technology platform dedicated to innovation management and Product evangelism. It offers an all-in-one hackathon platform, providing an effective and personalised suite of tools designed to help communities and corporations better manage their hackathons and innovation funnel.

Hack2skill claims to connect a community of over 3 Mn technology innovators, encompassing startups, corporate professionals, freelancers, and student developers via its routinely organised hackathons. The mission of these hackathons is to accelerate innovation through effective collaboration and knowledge sharing, harnessing the collective genius of these talents to usher in the next generation of technological solutions.

Its clientele includes the likes of Google, Microsoft, Gifthub, and Meta, among others.

Jeh AeroSpace

Pioneering Defence & Aerospace Component Manufacturing

Jeh Aerospace (JAI) wants to transform the aerospace and defence industry by leveraging India’s robust capabilities and competitiveness in manufacturing and supply chain solutions.

Per its website, the startup offers manufacturing, engineering, and supply chain management solutions to the global aerospace & defence industry at all tiers, from OEMs to tooling manufacturers.

JAI was founded by ex-Tata Boeing COO Vishal Sanghavi and ex-Tata Sikorsky Aerospace’s Venkatesh Mudragalla in August 2022. The startup raised $2.75 Mn in a seed funding round led by General Catalyst in January 2024. The funds were raised to build infrastructure, fuel growth and set up a team.

It recently inaugurated its first facility in Hyderabad. Short-term plans for 2024 include developing cutting-edge capabilities and assembling a world-class team to deliver unparalleled customer experiences.

Looking ahead to 2026, Jeh Aerospace wants to achieve an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of $20 MN.

JustDeliveries

Hyperlocal Delivery For Perishables

Founded in 2022 by Mansi Mahansaria, JustDeliveries offers last-mile B2B logistics for F&B brands. The startup provides logistics for perishables — from primary pick-ups to same-day deliveries to outlets, retailers or end customers, real-time delivery updates, reverse logistics, and MIS & Data.

JustDeliveries tackles the last-mile challenge for B2B logistics involving perishable F&B products. Their asset-light approach leverages existing cold storage, warehouse, and vehicle capacity. This allows clients to scale up within cities and expand to new regions without the burden of owning infrastructure.

It aims to deepen networks in existing cities and net break even in Mumbai. It plans to launch in four more cities in the next two years.

Liquidnitro Games

Live Services & Game Production Studio

Having worked with EA’s India Studio for several years, Sandeep Kowdley, Arun Kunchala, Suresh Manthena and Dhanekula Krishna Phani recognised a significant opportunity to establish a world-class game development and live services studio in India. Thus, they founded Liquidnitro Games in December 2023.

Funded by Nexus Venture Partners and several renowned game industry veterans, Liquidnitro partners with game companies and publishers worldwide to produce and coproduce compelling games and live services.

Liquidnitro claims to craft fun, engaging, and meaningful experiences for players across the globe by leveraging the potential of data, AI, and technology.

It holds expertise in running live services for AAA games, geo adapting games and live services for new untapped markets.

In 2024, Liquidnitro Games plans to establish a live services and game production studio in Hyderabad. It aims to recruit top-tier game development talent from India. Discussions with major global game publishers are ongoing to explore partnership opportunities, while negotiations with top 10 AAA game companies are underway to adapt their games and services for the Indian market.

Medial

Next-Gen Professional Social Media Platform

Founded in 2023 by Niket Raj Dwivedi, Medial is a professional social media platform, which distinguishes itself by focussing on technical/knowledge-based content over traditional networking features.

The platform’s identity-switching feature allows users to toggle between real and anonymous profiles, fostering open dialogue and transparency.

Since its launch in August 2023, Medial has amassed over 20,000 registered users. Medial’s long-term vision encompasses global expansion, monetisation through subscriptions and micro-transactions, and establishing itself as the premier alternative to conventional professional social media platforms.

Minus Zero

Welcome To The Future Of Autonomous Driving

Founded in 2021 by Gagandeep Reehal and Gursimran Kalra, Minus Zero claims to be the first Indian startup to have launched a fully autonomous vehicle in the country with its in-house AI solution.

On its website, the startup claims to be the industry’s first software-defined platform that seamlessly integrates with next-gen vehicles, allowing automakers to enable autonomy beyond ADAS.

Minus Zero is currently in the pre-revenue stage. The company plans to integrate advanced autonomous driving technology into their vehicle models through collaboration with various OEMs.

Its goal is to establish strong OEM-supplier relationships at the Tier-1 level and generate revenue per unit sale of vehicles equipped with its technology.

By 2026, Minus Zero plans a commercial launch, transitioning pilots into full deployment with OEM partners. It is looking at global market expansion. It also plans to collaborate with regulators to advocate for autonomous vehicle policies and standards, accelerating the deployment and acceptance of its technology.

Nurturev

B2B Revenue Intelligence Platform

Founded by Sayanta Ghosh, Nikhil Ojha, and Rajat Jain, Nurturev is a Pune-based venture that aims to transform B2B industries with its AI-enabled revenue intelligence platform.

The startup captures crucial insights from diverse third-party sources, enabling B2B companies to tailor revenue pipelines effectively. Focussing on scaling its operations and increasing average contract value, Nurturev aims to demonstrate significant value by securing multimillion-dollar expansion sales and cementing its position in the B2B services and SaaS landscape.

Since launching its go-to-market strategy in January, Nurturev has swiftly gained traction, acquiring paid customers predominantly from mid-market and upper-mid-market segments.

The startup’s short-term objectives for 2024 include bolstering customer retention and satisfaction while steadily expanding its customer base. In the long run, it wants to become a global leader in revenue intelligence, providing actionable insights to facilitate expansion opportunities for key accounts, particularly in the US market.

ONO

Multisided Agritech Platform

Founded in 2021 by Rama Rao Kancharapu, ONO is a crop price and mandi discovery platform for farmers.

It offers services like price and market discovery platform ONO Connect, credit facilitation platform ONO Cash, SaaS platform for commission agents and traders that provides price and market intelligence, payments, collections and digitisation of market operations ONO Click and mid-mile trading platform ONO Mandi.

Over the last few months, ONO has expanded its access from seven to over 45 Mandis, with five now operationally profitable. Along with launching two new products, It aims to scale operations to 100+ mandis and 20+ commodities this year.

Looking ahead to 2026, ONO aims to scale to over 1,000 Mandis and 100+ commodities, solidifying its position as a leader in agritech platforms within Mandis.

Paytring

Payment Orchestration Platform For All Businesses

Two high school friends, Keshav Munjhal and Debal Chakraborty, after gaining experience in product development services and recognising a gap in the market for payment orchestration solutions, incorporated Paytring in 2023.

The Paytring platform integrates payment providers and acquirers worldwide, offering a unified communication, control, and management interface. The platforms support a wide array of payment methods, including major cards and alternative payment methods (APMs).

Paytring’s main feature is its AI-based rule engine, which lets businesses enable
businesses to customise transaction routing based on various parameters such as MDR
(merchant discount rate), transaction volume, SKU (stock keeping unit), card type,
bank, network, and transaction amount. The platform aims to facilitate and process 1 Mn transactions per day in the next two years.

PlatinumRx

Making Medicines Accessible For All

Inadequate healthcare infrastructure, market dynamics, government regulations and taxes, limited availability of generic alternatives, supply chain inefficiencies, and high manufacturing costs contribute to the high cost of accessing essential medication for chronic patients in India.

Despite playing a leading role in generic drug production and exports, India faces challenges when it comes to the domestic adoption of substitute medicines.

Bengaluru-based PlatinumRx aims to redefine the way chronic patients access essential medications by curating and offering best-value substitutes from top brands like Cipla, Abbott, Alkem, among others. It aims to offer affordability and quality by leveraging technology and innovation to bridge the gap in healthcare.

Founded by Ashutosh Pandey and Piyush Kumar, PlatinumRx’s substitution engine helps consumers find the exact substitute medicine with the same composition, strength, and effectiveness at a fraction of the cost

PlatinumRx claims to deliver to more than 20,000 pincodes and even offers same-day delivery in Bengaluru. They have also partnered with multiple old-age homes and rehab centers across the startup hub to help decrease medical expenses for patients.

Protecto AI

Making AI Interactions Safer

Founded by Amar Kanagaraj in 2021, Protecto is a data privacy solution that bids to safeguard interactions with GenAI softwares. It claims to guard against privacy breaches and unauthorised data access by filtering sensitive data from prompts given to AI applications, preventing privacy violations.

It offers end-to-end protection throughout the GenAI project lifecycle, from cleansing training data to securing interactions with LLMs.

Protecto’s efficacy spans across key AI touchpoints, including filtering sensitive data from prompts, retrofitting enterprise models to prevent leaks, and ensuring clean and secure training data.

By prioritising privacy as a fundamental right, Protecto empowers enterprises to harness the transformative potential of AI without compromising confidentiality or regulatory compliance.

QuID

Working Capital Solutions Provider

Founded in 2023 by Vikram AG and Subhash Gupta, QuiD is a B2B supply chain fintech. It provides anchor-led supply chain financing solutions.

It provides a B2B supply chain fintech marketplace platform, empowering businesses with a 0% interest B2B BNPL-based working capital solution. While the product is not patented or patent-pending, its revenue model revolves around transaction fees or subscription-based services.

Currently operational in major cities in South India, the Bengaluru-based startup aims to acquire 3 Lakh app users and achieve a disbursal book of INR 1,500 Cr by 2026.

Relso

Cloud Factory For Furniture

Founded in 2023 by Anshul Choubey, Abhinav Agarwal, and Jay Trivedi, Relso is pioneering a cloud factory for furniture with the vision to ‘make in India and sell globally’. This model offers medium and small-sized furniture companies a plethora of benefits.

These benefits include increased design opportunities, the ability to order low quantity orders at attractive prices, eliminate middlemen commissions, reliability, and scalability ensured through standardised, SOP-driven operations across cloud factories with multiple quality checks.

Relso captures demand from the US and European markets by employing local sales teams and participating in top furniture fairs such as the High Point Market and Las Vegas Fair. After a meticulous capability assessment, Relso places orders to its cloud factories.

The startup is targeting an ARR of $5 Mn predominantly through export orders, while it works on establishing a US sales team and launching a tech platform for lead generation. On the supply side, the focus is on meeting delivery timelines, maintaining quality, and expanding the Relso cloud factory network. The startup intends to explore manufacturing opportunities in Vietnam and Malaysia, broadening its manufacturing base.

SkinQ

Customised Dermatologist Formulated Solutions For Indian skin

Founded in 2021 by Dr. Chytra Anand and Meera Iyer, SkinQ is carving out a distinctive niche in the dermo-cosmetic industry with its proprietary formulations.

Operating primarily in India, the US, and the Middle East, SkinQ offers a diverse range of products addressing various skin concerns.

Among its offerings, the Acne Control Mask is clinically proven to significantly reduce acne size and sebum production within a short timeframe.

Meanwhile, its brightening serum targets uneven skin tones and hyperpigmentation, reduces melanin and enhances brightness.

Additionally, SkinQ provides sunscreen formulated to diminish tanning and enhance skin luminosity across all skin types and tones.

In the short term, the company aims to streamline operations and secure additional funding to fuel further growth and innovation. Looking ahead to 2026, SkinQ aspires to establish a robust global presence.

Sprih

Make Decarbonisation Your Competitive Edge

As sustainability becomes a key theme for businesses, many climate tech startups are emerging in India to provide solutions that streamline carbon emissions management, enhance energy efficiency, and promote eco-friendly practices across industries.

Founded in 2022 by Akash Keshav, Ravi Singhal, Rohit Toshniwal, and Hemant Joshi, Sprih leverages AI infrastructure to help companies achieve sustainability. Sprih is a carbon emissions management platform that enables enterprises to efficiently reach their decarbonisation goals through simplified measuring, benchmarking, and reporting of emissions across various scopes.

Operating on a SaaS model and fostering a robust ecosystem of climate solution providers, Sprih equips businesses with data-driven insights to formulate proactive sustainability strategies surpassing regulatory compliance. By simplifying emissions measurement, benchmarking, and reporting across operations and supply chains, Sprih facilitates efficient decarbonisation and enhances brand reputation.

Catering to diverse sectors such as manufacturing, construction, pharmaceuticals and IT, Sprih’s top clients include names like Indigo Paints, Hero Motors, and InfoBeans.

Looking ahead, Sprih aims to expand its footprint in India while targeting growth in key international markets such as the US and Europe.

TapFin

Access To Green Financing Made Easy

The clean mobility industry in India is expected to reach $110.74 Bn by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 26.05% from $34.80 Bn in 2024. This growth is expected to be driven by Tier 2/3 cities and urban centres, collectively contributing to the rapid expansion of the sustainability ecosystem.

Founded in 2023 by Terniza Berry, Aditya Singh, and Pramod Marar, TapFin aspires to emerge as India’s premier Sustainability Platform, empowering MSMEs and startups.

Currently, TapFin actively supports and advances the nation’s Net Zero ambitions. It facilitates financing, offers value-added services, and creates income-generation opportunities for participants in the clean mobility ecosystem. Over time, TapFin plans to expand its scope into other sustainability verticals such as solar and wind energy.

Troovy

Chemical-Free Nutritional Solutions For Kids

Founded by Mansi Baranwal and Aditya Mukherjee in 2023, Troovy is the result of the duo’s endeavour to address nutrition gaps in children.

It offers a range of chemical-free, nutrition-loaded sauces. One of Troovy’s standout products is its nutri milk mix, the result of over 12 months of research and development. This mix incorporates a blend of 13 millets, grains, lentils, nuts, and seeds, providing a comprehensive nutritional profile.

The company’s sales have predominantly been through direct-to-consumer channels. However, Troovy is now ramping up its presence on popular marketplaces such as Amazon and quick commerce platforms like Blinkit and Instamart.

Troovy has set a goal of achieving INR 10 Cr in annualised sales by expanding its product range and intensifying community engagement and marketing efforts.

Looking ahead, the company aims to achieve an annualised sales figure of INR 100 Cr in the next three to four years. This growth strategy involves a focus on optimising its hero products, expanding distribution channels, and bolstering marketing initiatives.

Urja Sathi

Sustainable Energy Platform

End users, small businesses, dealers, and distributors in the renewable energy sector often face challenges such as lack of awareness, technical knowledge, difficulty accessing quality products, and issues with warranties and aftersale services.

Urja Sathi, founded with a vision to address these challenges, aims to create a unified platform where manufacturers, suppliers, vendors and end users converge to streamline processes and enhance the adaptability of renewable energy solutions.

The startup assists stakeholders in the solar business community and end users by delivering comprehensive business solutions and facilitating product promotion. Through services ranging from technical validation to customer support, UrjaSathi ensures easy access to resources and fosters understanding and evaluation of solar system components and integrators.

The platform also plans to organise awareness campaigns and offer technical assistance to end users and small businesses, while providing a one-stop-shop for design, procurement, installation, warranty, and operations and maintenance services through verified partners.

Its revenue model encompasses advertisement/promotions and subscription services for businesses seeking leads. In the short term, Urja Sathi aims to onboard 2,000 companies and 1 Lakh users in Uttar Pradesh.

Vobble

Podcasts For Kids

Sowmya Jagganth and Neha Sharma, mothers and friends, founded Vobble in 2022 to combat screen-time struggles with kids.

Launched in 2023, Vobble is an audio OTT platform that offers an immersive storytelling experience to kids between 4 and 12 years of age. Its content library stacks story series, music, audio shows, and kids’ podcasts.

Published weekly, the content is either created in-house by Vobble or by renowned publishers like HarperCollins, Scholastic, Tinkle, Amar Chitra Katha, and Tulika.

Vobble also partners with brands such as Hasbro, Rebel Girls, Australian Broadcasting Company, and Owl Field, using their content IPs.

Additionally, to kickstart kids on their audio journey, Vobble has crafted The Vobble Box, containing not only the Vobble App subscription but also kid-safe headphones for the best immersive experience.

Vobble generates its revenues from subscriptions. Customers have the option to purchase a 3, 6, or 12-month plan with prices starting as low as INR 199 a month.

In addition, Vobble offers its flagship Vobble Box, which includes the Vobble App Subscription. This product is available at INR 2,900 (includes a 3-month subscription) and INR 3,500 (includes a 6-month subscription).

Yenmo

Instant Loan Against Mutual Funds

Founded in 2022 by Ashutosh Purohit and Aryan Agarwal, Bengaluru-based Yenmo is a platform that allows individuals to take loans against mutual funds. The founders vision behind the startup stems from its founders’ vision that debts or loans should be affordable, accessible and convenient.

Yenmo reduces interest rates of individual borrowers by 50% by offering an opportunity to utilise investments as collateral.

Customers can retrieve all their mutual fund holdings, select which investments they wish to pledge and apply for a loan in under 3 minutes.

Its plans for 2024 involve disbursing over INR 3 Cr in loans daily. By 2026, it aims to expand its services and reach while optimising its operations to maximise efficiency and profitability.

Zulu Defence

Advanced Air Defence Systems

Bengaluru-based Zulu Defence Systems specialises in advanced air defence aerial systems. Its technology focusses on rapid deployment, resilient ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance), precision strike, and countermeasure capabilities in contested environments.

Zulu has developed a niche, patentable technology that caters to the needs of both the Indian Armed Forces as well as militaries across the globe. With in-house capacity for hardware and software development, they claim to hold a significant three-year advantage over competitors in similar technology.

Led by founder Nagendran Kandasamy, Zulu aims to reduce India’s reliance on expensive foreign military procurement while offering innovative air defence solutions globally. Its team boasts expertise in aviation, drone technology, computer vision, AI, and software development. Zulu’s USP lies in developing technologies that address the evolving challenges related to national security, focussing on providing reliable and impactful air defence solutions.

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eyes In April 2024 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

During the last 18 months, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has become a focal point of discussions across all circles, as OpenAI’s transformational large language model (LLM), GPT-3, and everyone’s favourite AI chatbot, ChatGPT, broke multiple records in November 2022.

With its ability to generate text, images, audio, and now video (with OpenAI’s scarily realistic large vision model Sora), companies are automating content-related processes faster than the Covid-induced digitization push. As LLMs become better and more sophisticated, both big tech giants and small startups are racing to create the next big AI tool.

Amid this mad dash, the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem, too, seems to be on AI steroids. A case in point is Bhavish Aggarwal’s Krutrim, which became a unicorn in January this year.

Further, according to Inc42’s ‘India’s Generative AI Startup Landscape, 2023’ report, the country’s GenAI market is expected to grow exponentially in the next few years, surpassing $17 Bn by 2030 from $1.1 Bn in 2023, growing at a CAGR of 48%.

Already, India’s startup ecosystem comprises 70+ GenAI startups. With a majority of them in the early stage, Inc42 took the opportunity to highlight the best of the lot in its AI-focused 45th edition of ‘30 Startups To Watch’.

Interestingly, most of these startups are based out of India’s very own Silicon Valley, Bengaluru. A significant chunk of these early-stage startups is building developer-focused tools. Besides, several startups have emerged to assist businesses transition to AI.

With the Indian AI ecosystem destined for exponential growth in the not-so-distant future, we have endeavoured to identify the gems in the Indian AI startup space. With that said, here are the 30 GenAI startups that caught our eyes in February 2024.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.

Alltius

Enterprise-Ready AI Assistants

Founded by Vibhanshu Abhishek and Siddhant Mishra in March 2022, Alltius transforms sales and support journeys with secure and intelligent AI assistants for enterprise applications, websites and contact centres.

Alltius’ no-code platform allows businesses to seamlessly create, train and deploy AI assistants, within a day. These AI assistants can be trained on an array of company resources, including documents, images, PDFs, website URLs, FAQs and videos, among other formats.

These AI assistants can answer queries, create pitches, compare insurance plans, create tickets, draft emails and more). Alltius’ customers can easily combine different knowledge sources, skills and channels like LEGO blocks and deploy across channels such as APIs, widgets, Slack and more.

Alltius wants to stand apart from conventional solutions by offering rapid ROI within weeks, the ability to go live within a day, low hallucinations, extensive integration options and robust infrastructure to handle up to 100K queries a day.

Athina AI

Making AI Applications More Reliable

Pre-trained models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini make it very easy to build prototype AI applications, but it’s incredibly difficult to release a safe and reliable AI in production. For example, these models frequently output completely made-up information – a phenomenon that’s been termed as “Hallucinations”.

This is the top challenge for small and large enterprises trying to integrate AI. Second-time founders Shiv Sakhuja, Himanshu Bamoria, and Akshat Gupta have set out to solve this problem and help companies build safer AI products.

Athina AI, founded in 2022, helps companies evaluate the performance of their AI models and set guardrails and safety nets around their AI systems. Its proprietary evaluations can detect when AI churns factually incorrect information, leaks Personal Identifiable Information (PII) or sensitive information, or says something that is racially biased or toxic towards certain groups, among others.

It also measures “correctness” on a number of other dimensions, including conversation coherence, answer relevance, truthfulness and other domain-specific criteria.

This helps companies monitor the performance of their AI models continuously, and set safeguards around the AI to prevent bad outputs from reaching users.

Athina AI operates on a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Additionally, it provides open-source solutions as part of its offerings. A majority of its customers are based in the US, and the rest are from Europe and Asia. It currently processes millions of logs every week.

In the short term, Athina is focussed on aiding teams in monitoring and evaluating their models to ensure the release of safer, more reliable AI products. By 2026, the company aims to facilitate the automatic continuous training of AI models to embed safety standards directly into the models themselves.

AuraML

Solving Dataset Challenge

Acquiring and labelling high-quality training datasets for machine learning tasks such as self-driving cars and robotics is a significant challenge as it consumes a lot of time and is cost-heavy.

Manual efforts to collect and label thousands of images require extensive fieldwork and laborious processing. The lack of efficient tools for managing and preparing millions of images further complicates the process.

Founded in 2023 by Ayush Sharma and Arjun Gupta, AuraML helps solve the problem of training datasets for computer vision using synthetic data. It provides a cloud platform where its users can generate varied synthetic datasets for their AI model training.

The users can simulate real-world scenarios easily with all the different variations in lighting, objects and backgrounds, set up virtual cameras with similar parameters to their real camera and record synthetic datasets with perfect labels. Some of the features it offers are: synthetic data generation, GenAI-based augmentation, and sensor simulation for LIDAR, IR and X-rays.

It offers a monthly subscription to its platform, which the users can subscribe to generate as much data as they need. The Bengaluru-based startup supports diverse use cases in the areas of warehouse automation, drone inspection, agritech, defect detection in manufacturing, and autonomous vehicles.

Aura ML has recently forged a strategic partnership with Capgemini. With over 2 Lakh synthetic images generated across various applications, it aims to expand into the US market, releasing the Synthetic Data GenAI model, and implementing usage-based and tiered pricing.

Babblebots

AI Recruiters

Mumbai-based Babblebots.ai is a GenAI platform that creates digital agents capable of conducting long-form human-like conversations with job candidates, known as ‘AI Recruiters’.

These AI Recruiters utilise advanced LLMs and proprietary AI models, including voiceAI, to simplify recruitment processes. They can engage in conversations in multiple languages, eliminating the need for scheduling interviews and assessing candidates across hundreds of parameters, allowing companies to shortlist candidates within a few days.

Babblebots.ai claims to have collaborated with over 70 leading companies such as Alkem Laboratories, Welspun Enterprises, MJ Biopharm, Indus Towers and IIT Bombay’s DRF. It has conducted over 10,000 interviews across 200+ roles and has analysed thousands of hours of interview data to rapidly improve its models.

The startup’s offerings also include AI recruiters, which serve as co-pilots for conducting job interviews and assessments, and AI-powered CV screening.

Cloodot

Unified Customer Interaction Support

Born out of the necessity to manage scattered chats and reviews across social media platforms, websites, and review sites, Cloodot offers a multi-channel team inbox designed to streamline customer interactions for businesses across various online platforms.

Established in 2019 by engineering graduates Adhil Munna, Fahmi Bin Bakkar, and Haris Sulaiman, Cloodot’s AI-powered unified team inbox for multi-outlet businesses helps automate conversations with customers across SMS, social messengers, webchats, and more.

Furthermore, its AI-powered review aggregation platform simplifies the process of collecting and responding to reviews across various review platforms.

Cloodot aims to establish a presence in the US market and achieve $12K in annual recurring revenue by the end of the current financial year. Over the next two years, it aims to solidify its presence across at least three sectors — auto, home services, healthcare — and reach $1 Mn in annual recurring revenue.

Clueso

Crafting Studio-Style Videos From Simple Screen Recordings

Making YouTube videos is important for many businesses to drive user engagement, but it poses significant hurdles. The process, which can span up to two weeks, involves scripting, voice acting, studio recording, and editing. The labour-intensive nature of video creation remains a formidable challenge, but this is where Clueso comes into the picture.

Founded by Akash Anand, Prajwal Prakash, and Neel Balar in 2023, Clueso helps companies create instructional videos and documentation for customer education and employee training. Its AI-powered product converts ordinary screen recordings into highly engaging videos.

Clueso does this by cutting down the time it takes to generate training materials by over 80% and improving the quality by 10X.

It automatically removes fumbling and rewrites the transcript to cover the same content in 30% less time. It also replaces an audio track with a professional, natural-sounding AI voiceover. Finally, Clueso adds zoom-in effects and custom branding to every video. Moreover, it also creates a written article for every video.

Clueso’s primary geographies are the US, India, Europe, and East Asia. Its revenue model hinges on monthly subscriptions, correlating with content volume and user seats.

CodeMate

Your Mate For Error-Free Coding

Founded by Ayush Singhal in 2022, CodeMate is changing the coding experience with its auto-correcting tool for programmers. Based in Delhi NCR, this startup streamlines the coding process by fixing errors in real time, boosting the efficiency and productivity of developers tenfold.

With a mission to enhance code quality and accelerate development, CodeMate boasts reducing project costs by 40% and timelines by 30-35%.

Its multifaceted approach encompasses features like code generation, translation, documentation creation, and seamless debugging.

By simplifying code navigation and comprehension, CodeMate empowers developers to code at unparalleled speeds, ushering in a new era of programming proficiency.

Crux

AI Co-pilot For Enterprises

The seed of Crux was planted back in 2019 when Himank Jain, Atharva Padhye and Prabhat Singh were all part of Mood Indigo’s core team at IIT Bombay. Their experiences working with the analytics and ML/AI teams within large organisations highlighted the stark gap between users and data-backed intelligence, laying the foundation for Crux.

With assistance from LLMs as well as traditional deterministic models, Crux is creating a decision-making AI copilot for enterprises. Crux transforms the schema, or database structure, into a comprehensible “semantic layer” that AI models can interpret.

Additionally, Crux offers customers the flexibility to tailor question-answering models to suit their specific business intelligence requirements, terms, and policies. This customisation enhances the accuracy and relevance of the generated outputs.

Crux utilises a multi-model framework, which dissects user-posed questions into individual components and allocates these components across specialised, purpose-built models.

The startup generates revenue through subscription sales, as well as by charging setup and maintenance fees. These fees are determined based on the type and scale of deployment within a company.

Over the next two years, it plans to develop a fully integrated data-centric AI platform, enabling text-to-3D and image-to-3D synthetic data generation, ultimately aiming for synthetic data to replace real data entirely.

Dashtoon

Blending Cutting-Edge AI With Creative Storytelling

Founded in December 2022 by Sanidhya Narain, Lalith Gudipati, and Soumyadeep Mukherjee, Dashtoon brings a new approach to comic creation, catering to storytellers without drawing abilities. Targeting existing writer communities, Dashtoon provides a suite of generative AI tools and a user-friendly platform for transforming narratives into captivating comics.

Utilising its innovative Dashtoon Studio, creators upload storyboards, select characters from the platform’s library, or even upload images to generate visuals, drastically reducing production time from 40-50 hours to a mere 5-6 hours per episode. This efficiency allows for daily episode releases, enhancing Dashtoon’s potential to produce hit content.

Dashtoon empowers creators to seamlessly translate ideas into high-quality comic content. Creators outline narratives, characterise key figures, and map storyboards, with Dashtoon’s technology seamlessly transforming these elements into polished comic output.

Dubpro.ai

Localising Video Content In Multiple Languages

Dubpro.ai is working on video content localisation with its innovative blend of advanced AI and human expertise. Harnessing the power of AI-driven dubbing solutions, Dubpro.ai enables seamless localisation of video content into multiple languages. What sets it apart is the incorporation of a Human-in-the-loop platform, ensuring over 10 quality checks to guarantee superior results.

This approach not only ensures accuracy and authenticity but also addresses previous limitations related to cost and time constraints. Dubpro.ai is helping businesses to reach wider audiences and expand their global presence effortlessly.

Induced AI

Automating Browser Tasks

Founded by two teenagers Aryan Sharma and Ayush Pathak and backed by prominent investors like Sam Altman, Peak XV, and Daniel Gross, along with Nat Friedman’s AI grant, Induced AI is working on streamlining repetitive tasks and workflows.

The startup offers a platform that translates plain English instructions into real-time pseudo-code, facilitating the automation of myriad back-office tasks.

At the core of Induced AI’s innovation lies its ability to spawn Chromium-based browser instances, employing advanced technology to comprehend on-screen content and manoeuvre browsers akin to human actions. This capability allows for seamless interaction with websites, even in the absence of an API.

The platform is distinguished by its development of AI workers that function as an extension of a company’s workforce, adeptly handling tasks across various domains such as sales, compliance, and internal operations.

What sets Induced AI apart is its infrastructure-centric approach, prioritising cloud-first architecture to ensure uninterrupted task execution without impacting users’ devices. Notably, the startup has engineered a purpose-built browser tailored specifically for automated workflows, further enhancing efficiency and reliability.

InsurStaq.ai

Sales Co-Pilot For Insurance

Mayan Kansal and Shivam Kaushik initially embarked on developing a D2C mobile app aimed at enhancing users’ understanding and management of insurance policies. However, they soon discovered that their tool was more impactful in the hands of insurance sellers.

Recognising this, they pivoted their focus to addressing challenges faced by insurance sellers, founding InsurStaq.ai in 2022. The startup is focused on creating a generative AI infrastructure tailored specifically for the insurance industry.

The startup’s first product is a sales co-pilot that helps insurance professionals search for insurance products, research and check for compliances, or compare multiple products. This product targets sales, business development, customer support, and compliance teams in insurance companies.

It also creates customised AI workflows to assist insurance professionals in various use cases such as sales, support, compliance, research, and underwriting. InsurStaq.ai plans to introduce multiple AI co-pilots to automate internal workflows for insurance businesses.

The Delhi-based startup plans to conduct multiple commercial pilots with insurance brokers and companies within the next few months. It has also set its eyes on raising an institutional round of funding to fuel its product development, expansion, and growth plans.

Keploy

Open-Source, Developer-Centric Backend Testing Tool

While leading a data engineering team at Lenskart and Fareye, Shubham Jain and Neha Gupta observed that while app development tasks could largely be automated, testing remained highly specific to each use case and consumed a significant amount of time.

Keploy.io was founded in 2021 to address this challenge. It is an open-source TestGPT toolkit designed to automate integration testing. Keploy.io generates test cases and realistic data mocks, achieving 90% code test coverage within two minutes.

Unlike existing test automation tools, Keploy.io requires zero effort from developers to create test automation suites. It identifies duplicate and complex edge cases of any backend application. Utilising EBPF to convert all user traffic to test cases locally, Keploy.io offers easy, no-code integration.

Enterprises invest in professional services and enterprise licences for Keploy.io’s enterprise platform, which is built upon the Keploy open-source platform.

Keploy.io is currently operating across the USA, the UK, Germany, Canada, France, and India. It aims to achieve $1Mn revenue and grow a developer community to 50K this year.

Kissan AI

Multilingual AI Agriculture Assistant For Bharat

While knowledge and advice are abundant and available for sustainable farming practices, many farmers face barriers like limited access to information and language and literacy issues, which hinder their economic growth. With over 600 Mn people associated with agriculture in India, the challenge of bridging the knowledge gap is particularly important.

Kissan AI has developed a multilingual information platform, bridging the knowledge gap and connecting farmers directly with the information they need. The startup’s voice-based agriculture copilot platform provides agricultural businesses with a means to assist their farmers through insightful advice and product discovery.

Leveraging a comprehensive and expertly curated agriculture knowledge base, coupled with a vertical LLM, KissanAI’s AgriCopilot platform delivers customised information to address a wide range of challenges encountered by farmers daily.

Kombai

Making Frontend Development Fun

Over the last decade, the significance of user experience (UX) has surged across businesses. Consequently, front-end development has grown in complexity, leading to heightened demand. Despite this, developers find themselves spending a lot of time on procedural tasks such as styling (CSS), managing the document object model (HTML), and dealing with framework-specific boilerplate.

Founded by Dipanjan Dey and Abhjit Bhole in 2022, frontend devtool startup Kombai aims to alleviate this burden by helping developers streamline these repetitive tasks. By simply prompting Kombai with design files, developers can get production-quality user interface (UI) code with just one click per component. This code can then be easily downloaded, modified in any way, and incorporated into their codebases. Kombai is currently accessible for free in the public research preview phase.

The startup simplifies UI code creation with a step-by-step approach, intelligently organising elements into a streamlined div structure with minimal hardcoded CSS. It segments code into clear components for easy understanding and potential reuse, replacing static text with variables based on identified patterns. Kombai enhances the code further using publicly available LLMs for refinement, resulting in a polished end product.

Kroop AI

A Platform For Responsible & Ethical Synthetic Data

The problem of deepfakes revolves around manipulating audio, images, or videos to create highly realistic yet fake content, leading to widespread misinformation, identity theft, privacy violations, and reputational damage. The problem has only been exacerbated ever since the rise of large diffusion and large vision models, which have made generating deepfakes far more easier and accessible.

Kroop AI offers a platform for responsible and ethical synthetic data. Its multimodal detection platform ViZMantiZ is a deepfake detector for images and videos. Another product, Artiste AI Studio, is a web app and API for synthetic data generation from avatars in different languages.

ViZMantiZ specialises in sub-continent data-based deepfake detection, and it can cater to the rich diversity. The startup plans to expand beyond India to the APAC region this year while integrating deepfake detection technology into KYC settings and social media platforms.

Kusho

Unlocking Truly Autonomous Testing For Development Teams

Kusho was founded in 2023 by BITS Pilani alumni Abhishek Saikia and Sourabh Gawande. The startup is building AI agents that harness the power of LLMs (Large Language Models) to ensure that the code is tested during development and with every new release.

Kusho uses proprietary models coupled with foundational LLMs to simulate an AI software developer that can discover bugs in code with significantly greater accuracy and in a fraction of the time compared to a human software developer.

Furthermore, KushoAI helps engineering teams set up API test automation with a single click. It helps you generate tests, execute them, and get analysed results for your entire codebase in sync with your CI/CD pipeline.

KushoAI writes and executes functional tests for REST APIs, allowing teams to ship quickly without worrying about overlooked edge cases that could cause issues in production.

By utilising inputs such as Postman collections, OpenAPI specs, or API information, KushoAI generates comprehensive tests that can be seamlessly integrated into the CI/CD pipeline via GitHub actions or executed locally. This approach streamlines the process of issue discovery, eliminating the need for manual test creation and easing the burden on development teams.

KushoAI is currently available to individual users at no cost. However, for enterprise users, it operates on a usage-based billing model.

After its launch in January 2024, KushoAI has rapidly expanded its user base, with hundreds of users spanning the globe. It wants to scale the enterprise offering in the US and EU regions this year. Additionally, the aim is to automate the backend testing process entirely, providing a user experience akin to interacting with a self-driving car.

Looking ahead to 2026, KushoAI aims to develop a comprehensive platform for software engineering teams so that they can serve as a one-stop solution for all testing and repair processes.

Listnr AI

Human Text-To-Speech In Seconds

With a selection of over 1,000 voices in 140 languages, Listnr AI empowers creators to craft human-like voices and videos in a matter of minutes. Founded by Ananay Batra in 2020, the startup offers include text-to-podcast creation and instant voice cloning, requiring only a 6-second sample.

Based in Gurugram, Listnr AI boasts users from over 50 countries. It has onboarded over 2.5 Lakh users in the last three months. The startup has a network of 1.2 Mn users. Listnr AI aims to achieve 5 Mn users by the end of 2024. Looking ahead to 2026, the startup aims to reach $10 Mn in ARR.

LongShot AI

AI Assistant For Content Teams

In today’s world, the problem of misinformation is rampant, exacerbated by the rapid spread of information through digital platforms. Fact-checking plays a pivotal role in combating this issue.

LongShot AI, founded by Ankur Pandey and Anushree Bishnoi in 2021, offers a solution tailored for enterprises seeking precise and verified content generation. This platform employs AI to simplify content creation across media, including blogs, articles and marketing collateral. What stands out is a fact-checking mechanism, integrated to ensure that all generated content remains devoid of inaccuracies or distortions.

Positioned as the ChatGPT for businesses, LongShot AI distinguishes itself by its ability to handle sensitive subject matter with precision and authenticity. Unlike conventional AI models, LongShot AI specialises in crafting SEO-friendly, verifiable, and engaging long-form content.

Meritic

AI Tools For Business Intelligence

Founded by Pallavi Chakravorty, Nipun Gupta, and Swapnil Basak in 2023, Meritic is helping mid-market companies with its innovative storytelling co-pilot, which is aimed at automating reporting and analytics.

Its mission is to empower business teams by providing cutting-edge generative AI tools, freeing them from mundane tasks and transforming them into strategic powerhouses.

Leveraging AI, Meritic enables the creation of knowledge graphs, analysis of business data, automation of financial reports, and preparation of commentaries.

Through these advanced technologies, Meritic is not only streamlining operations but also unlocking the full potential of business teams, allowing them to focus on high-value tasks and driving innovation.

NeuralGarage

Studio-Quality Lip-Sync With AI

Dubbed and regionalised video-based content has a critical pitfall: the visual cues are not in sync with what is being said.

NeuralGarage, founded in 2021 by Mandar Natekar, Subhabrata Debnath, Anjan Banerjee and Subhashish Saha, is developing a proprietary tool, VisualDub, which syncs recorded voiceovers with lip movement so that the content appears truly localised.

VisualDub provides visual lip-sync delivered at 2k-4k resolution with zero artefacts, as NeuralGarage claims. The product works on every screen size and transforms the face under the eyes, including jaws, mouth, chin, smile lines and micro muscles in the cheeks and upper neck, giving a natural transformation.

Currently, the startup serves clients in India but aims to expand to large markets soon. It also has large global clients such as Amazon, Coca-Cola, Britannia, Microsoft, GSK, and Ultratech Cement.

NeuralGarage’s short-term goal is to onboard 50 clients in advertising and achieve a revenue milestone of $1 Mn. By 2026, the startup plans to launch a complete self-serve desktop version of VisualDub.

Ovonts

Developer-First AI Agent

Manish Sau and Kinjal Bhattacharya founded Ovonts in September 2019 to develop an AI-powered influencer marketing SaaS solution and streamline partnership marketing workflows with AI and automation. However, they discovered that the technology they were building had broader applications beyond influencer marketing.

In August 2023, they pivoted to creating a developer-first AI agent platform. This platform enables developers and businesses to build and deploy custom AI co-pilots for data-driven decisions, task automation, and cross-platform deployment, shaping the future of human-computer interaction.

The platform has four key features – pre-built AI agents and components for task automation, human-like decision-making and explainable AI, focus on automation and deployment flexibility across cloud, on-premise, or edge environments with data privacy as a priority. Ovonts currently charges custom fees combining product subscriptions and professional services.

In 9-12 months, the startup aims for bottom-up adoption and self-serve subscription revenue. It also plans to expand its geographies in the next 24 months. Short-term plans for 2024 involve enhancing data preprocessing, expanding connectors, and improving reasoning for optimisation. Long-term goals by 2026 include implementing a distributed architecture, expanding pre-built agents, and developing low-code tools.

Raga AI

Fixing Flawed AI, LLM Models

Gaurav Agarwal founded RagaAI in 2021 after he had a narrow escape in a semi-automatic vehicle accident in California. Being concerned with the flaws of AI tech, Agarwal made it his mission to ensure the safety and reliability of AI and LLM models with top-notch testing.

RagaAI’s foundation model, the RagaAI DNA, ensures safe and dependable AI development across diverse data types. Their lineup of products spans LLM Evaluation, Guardrails, Compliance, Computer Vision, and Structured Data Testing, with a risk reduction of 90% and a threefold acceleration in time to market.

The startup has recently launched a new product, the RagaAI LLM Hub, which is an
open-source and enterprise-ready LLMs evaluation and guardrails platform. RagaAI operates on a subscription-based revenue model, tailored to its clients’ usage.

The startup’s 2024 aim is to lead the AI and LLM testing platform with a threefold increase in tests, expanding its reach to over 1,000 clients across various data modalities. RagaAI’s long-term plan is to ensure that all AI and LLMs are trustworthy, reliable, and compliant. RagaAI aspires to become the go-to solution for these needs.

Reo.Dev

AI-Based Revenue Intelligence Tool

Founded by Achintya Gupta, Piyush Agarwal and Gaurav Jain in 2023, Reo.Dev is an AI-based revenue intelligence tool for developer-focused companies. It helps go-to-market leaders learn which accounts have the highest conversion chances by analysing anonymous developer activities around their products and communities.

Reo.Dev’s revenue AI engine converts these intent signals into organisations and developers who are already interested in their products. It provides GTM teams with a comprehensive platform to take these intent signals to the last mile.

In the short term, the startup is building its revenue pipeline to cross $2 Mn in ARR, while Reo.Dev’s long-term ambition remains to become the default marketing stack for any developer-focused company.

Rootle

Revolutionising Hiring With AI

Recruiters spend 80% of their time making phone calls to candidates, leaving them with little time for assessment and other crucial tasks. Meanwhile, candidates are often unavailable during working hours. Vikram Patel, Naresh Prajapati and Jugal Bhavsar founded Rootle in 2023 to help recruiters scale their voice reach and meaningfully engage with interested candidates only.

Its voice-generative AI assistant calls a large number of candidates via mobile phone and captures their interest in job opportunities. By utilising Rootle, talent teams can process larger talent pools and focus on engaging with interested candidates only. As a result, Rootle reduces both the time and cost associated with hiring, delivering higher ROI for HR teams.

Rootle bills based on the number of candidates screened, with a minimum monthly commitment. The startup is focused on onboarding the top 200 employers in the country as paying customers and is building language generation capabilities and model training.

Additionally, it is developing an HR LLM capable of processing major Indic languages and addressing use cases across the entire hiring life cycle.

Segwise.ai

Observability Platform For Product And Growth Teams

Founded in 2023 by Brijesh Bharadwaj and Shobhit Gupta, Segwise is an observability platform tailored for rapid-moving product and growth teams. It assists them in closely monitoring their key metrics by delivering daily reports on the factors influencing metric fluctuations. Moreover, it aids in automatically identifying long-term key drivers of metrics and potential customer issues.

Bharadwaj spearheaded product and growth at FamPay, while Gupta led engineering. Throughout their tenure, FamPay experienced hypergrowth, revealing the challenges faced by product and growth teams in pinpointing the reasons behind metric fluctuations and identifying growth opportunities and funnel breaks. Recognising the need for ML and AI-powered observability tools to analyse data, identify root causes of metrics, and communicate insights automatically, they started building Segwise.

The startup helps companies to grow revenue, reduce costs and improve customer
experience at a much faster rate using the insights that they get.

The startup wants to onboard 20 paying customers this year and has set its eyes on generating $5 Mn in annual recurring revenue (ARR) over the next two years.

Siftly.ai

AI Business Analyst

Sharing a deep passion for startups, childhood friends Chalam PVS and Sandilya Miduthuri founded Siftly (earlier Airdot) in 2021 to help businesses connect to their company data and obtain insights by asking questions in plain English.

Teams across sales, marketing, product, operations, and other business verticals aspire to make data-driven decisions but often need help with bottlenecks due to limitations in their data team’s bandwidth availability to provide critical business insights promptly.

With Siftly.ai, these teams can instantly glean insights from their data by asking questions in plain English, utilising the system’s natural language processing capabilities and reducing the time to mere seconds, all without needing to comprehend database structures or possess technical knowledge.

Simplismart

Build, Deploy And Manage Custom Deep Learning Models In Minutes

Amritanshu Jain and Devansh Ghatak, former college friends from BITS Pilani, specialised in ML Ops and ML Optimisation while working at Oracle and Google, respectively. Recognising the potential to monetise ML Ops optimisations, they aimed to offer solutions to startups based on their experiences.

The ML Ops platform, Simplismart, founded in 2022, offers three product suits: Simplitrain to help users train ML models, Simpliobserve to monitor and observe ML models, and Simplideploy to help users deploy, optimise and scale ML models in production.

Furthermore, as part of its simplideploy suite, it offers specialised GenAI products. Simpliscribe is a speech-to-text service in Hindi and other Indic regional languages. The GenAI suite costs 10X less than Microsoft Azure and Google, is around 36% faster and has 6% fewer errors, per the founders’ claim. It is being used by 10+ companies to power their speech recognition workloads.

It also offers optimised text-to-image and image-to-image models as part of Simplidiffuse. Further, SimpliLLM deploys and fine-tunes open-source LLMs that work for specific use cases.

For its Simplitrain or Simplideploy products, the startup charges a $15,000 licensing fee. It offers discounts to companies and charges $25,000 if they want to buy both these suites together. It also charges a flat fee of $0.015 node/minute. In addition, it charges a $12,000 licensing fee for the Simpliscribe product suite.

It currently operates out of India and primarily serves SEA companies. It has plans to enter the US by the end of the second quarter of 2024. The startup aims to onboard at least two to three enterprises on the platform this year.

Snow Mountain AI

AI Sherpa For Your Business

After stepping down from early stage venture capital firm Rebright Partners as a general partner (GP) last year, Brij Singh Bhasin launched Snow Mountain AI, a GenAI-focussed startup, along with Nilesh Trivedi.

Snow Mountain AI, which currently offers early access upon request, aims to be a partner in conquering business challenges with GenAI. With a focus on tailored AI ‘Sherpas’ proficient in document analysis, data collection, and insightful execution, it wants to prioritise each client’s business functions.

While it is still unclear what specific functions the startup’s ‘Sherpas’ will aid, Snow Mountain AI’s website claims that it would shoulder team burdens, accumulating vital business knowledge to guide newcomers and support seasoned members.

Vodex

GenAI Powered Sales Agent

Founded by Anshul Shrivasthava and Kumar Saurav in 2022, Vodex was born out of the requirement to streamline voice-based communications using GenAI. The startup offers an AI-based sales agent for outbound calls in a human-like voice. Vodex’s tool automates up to 10,000 calls in a day.

Vodex’s sales agent offers applications across ecommerce, fintech and real estate. For instance, ecommerce companies can automate a call to a user who abandoned a cart at checkout to drive sales, or fintech companies can cross-sell or upsell new products to their existing customers.

Vodex claims to have touched an ARR of $1 Mn in FY24 and plans to achieve $4 Mn in ARR by FY25. Currently, it is operating in the US and Canada.

Recently, Vodex launched its 2.0 version. The startup not only plans to become a leader in the mid-segment organisation but also an end-to-end sales engagement platform in the long run.

The post 30 Startups To Watch: AI Startups That Caught Our Eyes In February 2024 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The year 2023 was one of the most important crucible moments for the Indian startup ecosystem in recent memory, filled with regulatory challenges, record-low funding influx and many, many more problems.

For some context, Indian startups had only managed to secure around $10 Bn in funding until December 25, 2023, according to Inc42’s ‘Indian Tech Startup Funding Report 2023’, as wary investors refrained from fuelling break-neck growth. The scarcity of funding was such that Indian startups had raised $12 Bn in 2018 – three years before the paradigm-shattering year of 2021.

As Indian startups adapted to the ‘new normal’ of massive funding shortfalls fueled by prolonged negative investor sentiment, there were questions about whether the up-and-coming startups in India would survive in an ecosystem more and more driven by a Darwinian environment, in which only the leanest and fittest companies would survive.

Even so, we were able to identify and celebrate 210 early stage startups during the year, which we covered across seven editions of 30 Startups To Watch. As we usher in 2024 with our 43rd edition of 30 Startups To Watch, we remain committed to the cause of discovering more Indian startups that we believe have the potential to take up the mantle of the next big thing.

In this edition, we have selected startups from a broad array of sectors, going from the ‘traditional’ startup segments of fintech, ecommerce and enterprise tech to new disruptors such as GenAI, electric vehicles and cleantech. What sets this cohort apart is that more than 70% of the featured startups have secured funding below $2 Mn. 

Further, keeping in line with the trend we observed towards the end of last year, a significant portion of the 43rd cohort of 30 Startups To Watch is bootstrapped, signalling in no uncertain words that raising funding is secondary to driving innovation for a startup.

Continuing our tradition of identifying some of the most pathbreaking startups every month, we bring you 30 startups that caught our attention this January.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.

Aarogya Tech

Data-Driven, Clinician-Led Healthcare

Founded by IIT Kanpur and ISB alumnus Prashant Trivedi and Mayo Clinic-trained Critical Care Physician Dr. Lokendra Thakur in early 2023, Aarogya Tech offers clinician-led, data-based personalised health management solutions tailored for home and community settings. 

The startup’s primary goal is to enhance population health, improve quality of life, and extend longevity by focussing on disease prevention and early diagnosis. Aarogya Tech’s vision revolves around democratising healthcare by providing accessible, intelligent health companionship. 

Its approach emphasises affordability, data-driven insights, and the expertise of clinicians, thereby shifting the focus of healthcare from traditional hospital settings to the comfort of individuals’ homes and communities.

In just a year of operation, Aarogya Tech has achieved significant milestones. It has developed a disease-specific patient monitoring system aimed at reducing chronic heart failure readmission rates to combat prevalent health challenges. Additionally, the Bengaluru-based startup launched DocSeva.com, a personalised health management platform catering to over 10 businesses in Bengaluru.

Alt Carbon

Locking Carbon For Sustainable Farming

The voluntary carbon offset market is predicted to become a $250 Bn market opportunity by 2050. Founded by Shrey Agarwal in 2023, Alt Carbon aims to meet this demand by focussing on permanent sequestration. 

Founded with a personal connection to the challenges faced by Darjeeling’s tea industry due to climate change, ALT Carbon is on a mission to make a significant impact on global carbon removal goals. Using accelerated silicate weathering with Basalt dust, their innovative product aims to contribute up to one-third of humanity’s gigaton carbon removal targets.

ALT Carbon’s process replaces traditional agricultural lime, not only balancing soil pH but also efficiently removing carbon dioxide. The company adopts a comprehensive approach, incorporating a robust measurement methodology, collaboration with agricultural partners, and an advanced soil nutrient management system. 

In the short term, ALT Carbon aims to permanently remove 1,000 tonnes of carbon in 2024, while assembling a team of top-tier geologists and geochemists. Looking ahead to 2026, its goal is to achieve the permanent removal of more than 1 Mn tonnes of carbon.

Ambitio 

Studying Abroad Made Easy

While an increasing number of Indian students aspire to go abroad for higher education, the overall process concerning this could be inconvenient and complex. 

Founded by Vikrant Shivalik, Dirghayu Kaushik and Vaibhav Tyagi in 2022, Ambitio specialises in the global education admissions process through its AI platform, which serves as a copilot for higher education abroad. 

Recognising the complexities and challenges faced by students aspiring for global education, the platform leverages decentralised information and advanced language models to provide personalised admission advice.

The platform’s unique selling points lie in its ability to offer tailored guidance, enhancing user engagement and stickiness. Ambitio operates on a subscription-based revenue model, charging students INR 1,500 for six months. It also has an Elite subscription plan for a higher fee, which provides additional expert support.

Since its beta launch in July last year, the platform has onboarded 10,000 active users. It has 150 paid customers and generates 60 Lakh in revenue. 

Ambitio’s short-term plans for 2024 include assisting over 1K students in their college applications, while long-term ambitions include assisting more than 50,000 students by 2026. With a focus on providing comprehensive support and leveraging advanced AI, Ambitio seeks to establish itself as a leading digital advisor in the global education admissions space.

BatX Energies

Sustainable Energy For Everyone

The growing demand for electric vehicles in India has not only brought forth the need for lithium-ion batteries but also the way they are being recycled.

Founded in 2020 by Utkarsh Singh and Vikrant Singh, BatX Energies specialises in the recycling of lithium-ion batteries. 

With a focus on a circular economy, BatX works on extracting crucial metals – Lithium, Nickel, and Cobalt – from used batteries. These recovered metals serve as vital components for battery cell manufacturing.

With a 20-year patent from the Government of India, BatX employs its “Zero Waste-Zero Emission Scrap Lithium Battery Recycling Technology”. The company’s operational footprint spans across India, with facilities in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh and a corporate office in Gurugram. Boasting an extensive reverse logistics system, BatX efficiently collects and optimises waste on a pan-India scale.

BatX has plans to establish operations in Hosur, Kolkata, and Surat, while simultaneously venturing into Malaysia and the US. 

The company is planning to get listed by 2027. It has set its eyes on generating INR 600 Cr in revenues and becoming 10% EBITDA profitable by 2026. Meanwhile, BatX aims to establish a cathode powder production facility utilising recycled materials within two years.

Beatoven.ai

Leverage AI To Create Royalty-Free Music

Besides core technology, AI is being used in the creative industry as well, empowering content creators. For example, several AI tools are helping creators to automatically generate unique soundtracks in response to user inputs.

Beatoven.ai was founded by Mansoor Rahimat Khan and Siddharth in 2021. With 18 years of experience in sitar playing and a family legacy in music spanning seven generations, Khan teamed up with Siddharth, a music technologist with IT and sound computing expertise, to create a groundbreaking solution.

The product empowers content creators to compose original soundtracks effortlessly. By providing text or genre prompts, users can harness the AI’s ability to understand intent, resulting in diverse and authentic soundtracks spanning multiple genres, including unique offerings like Indian classical and world music.

Beatoven.ai operates on a subscription and pay-per-track revenue model. It has a stronghold in key markets such as the US, Europe, and South Korea. The product is patent-pending in India and the US.

Recent milestones include the starting of monetisation in October and achieving impressive organic growth with 8 Lakh registered users within a year. 

The startup’s short-term plans for 2024 involve significant investment in music composition research, leveraging the expertise of Europe-based PhDs to enhance music quality. The long-term vision by 2026 is to establish Beatoven.ai as the go-to solution for music and sound effects generation, targeting a $10 Mn annual recurring revenue.

Bharatsure

Powering Bharat’s Access To Insurance 

Traditional distributors have long dominated the Indian insurance space. However, insurtech startups are now trying to capture this realm with the help of technologies such as AI, ML and Big Data and by enhancing the efficiency of insurance processes.

Bharatsure, founded by Anuj Parekh in 2021, is a provider of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions tailored for insurance distributors. Catering to licenced brokers, agents, banks, and institutions, Bharatsure enables them with seamless distribution of group insurance and healthcare products. 

Its infrastructure solution not only supports insurance distributors but also enables them to offer embedded insurance and healthcare options to end customers. The solution focuses especially on group health insurance, making it easier for distributors to provide these services seamlessly.

By offering a full-stack technology solution encompassing servicing and product infrastructure, Bharatsure allows distributors to focus entirely on their core competency of selling insurance. The company strategically partners with brokers, agents and B2B institutions to enhance its technological capabilities, servicing, product offerings and assisted sales processes.

With Bharatsure’s plug-and-play API suite, embedded insurance and healthcare solutions become easily accessible for customers across various third-party platforms. Bharatsure collaborates with leading insurers and TPAs through API integrations and its partners include ICICI Lombard, Digit, and Medi Assist.

ControlZ

Renewing Smartphones Sustainably

With the rise in online sales of new smartphones, there’s a growing trend among consumers to trade in their devices, thereby bolstering the supply in secondary markets. As such, despite its unorganised nature, India’s refurbished phone market commands an estimated worth of nearly $4 Bn. 

Founded by Yug Bhatia, ControlZ specialises in the component-level renewal of pre-owned devices. Unlike other refurbished devices, ControlZ focuses on renewing both cosmetically and functionally, increasing its life cycle and ultimately reducing the carbon footprint of smartphone manufacturing, which is believed to be over 85-95% of a device’s annual carbon footprint.

With a commitment to sustainability, ControlZ promotes conscious consumption by making old devices like new ones and reducing the demand for new smartphones. Through its efforts, ControlZ aims to establish new benchmarks in sustainability and change how the world thinks about smartphone consumption.

DashLoc

Stimulating Hyperlocal Growth For Retail Outlets

Founded in 2019, DashLoc  is working on offering a comprehensive solution to businesses so that they can manage their online presence efficiently. DashLoc provides monitoring, review management, and local SEO services, along with detailed reporting and analytics. Through integration with various platforms, it ensures accurate and visible business listings.

Key solutions offered by the startup include a comprehensive platform that helps businesses manage their online presence, engage customers and reputation, and generate leads.

DashLoc’s revenue model depends on the number of physical outlets, offering three plans. In Plan A, enterprises receive listing management services only. Plan B includes optimisation, listing management, and the creation of microsites for individual stores. Plan C includes all features, including call tracking, multilingual support, and an AI-based chatbot for review management.

The startup’s long-term vision involves turning into a globally recognised brand while also extending its services to individual store consumers, thereby expanding the market presence.

DevDham

Digitalising Spiritual Experiences For Devotees

In India, the business of faith is booming, and startups in the field of spiritual tech are thriving. This is because the Indian devotional market is estimated to be a $50 Bn market opportunity.

 To cash in on highly unorganised space, IIT graduates Pranav Kapoor, Suyash Taneja, and Sagnika Chowdhury founded DevDham, formerly DevDarshan, in 2020. 

The startup helps to connect devotees with temples through its app. It leverages tech to provide online daily darshan, conduct pujas, and facilitate digital donations.

One of the notable features of DevDham is its commitment to enable mantra chanting in temples across Bharat, further enhancing the spiritual experience for devotees.

DevDham’s long-term vision is to provide a digital platform for temples to share the millennia-old teachings of Indian culture with the world.

DevDham has built a network of over 500 temples and engaged with more than 2,000 pandits. The startup has claimed to facilitate pujas and darshan experiences for over 1 Lakh happy devotees. 

Digital Paani

Transforming Water Assets

Realising the global water shortage crisis affecting 2 Bn people, the father-daughter duo of Mansi Jain and Rajesh Jain understood the transformative potential of wastewater treatment. They founded DigitalPaani in 2020 to resolve water asset management issues with its IoT-enabled integrated operations platform, driving operational excellence while significantly reducing costs.

Its solution operates in three key steps, beginning with a comprehensive assessment of each water asset’s needs based on its design and current operational status. Subsequently, the platform acts as an expert manager, automating processes, providing precise dosing recommendations for chemicals, guiding maintenance tasks, and facilitating troubleshooting when issues arise. Finally, DigitalPaani recommends operational and physical improvements to enhance overall performance.

Unlike traditional approaches that merely monitor or automate equipment, DigitalPaani manages the entire operations process through scalable software, delivering superior results in water quality, reduced losses, and energy savings of up to 50%. Offering two distinct business models, the platform can be sold directly to customers with an IoT add-on pack for upfront fees, empowering building staff to manage water assets independently. Alternatively, partnerships with physical service providers offer complete operations packages for a monthly fee.

DigitalPaani claims to have secured repeat orders from clients like Amazon and Britannia. The company has plans to implement its solution in approximately 175 plants across target markets and secure international pilots for global expansion this year.

Looking ahead, DigitalPaani aims to transform water management in over 4,000 buildings across India and two additional geographies by 2026. 

Earthful 

Plant-Based Nutrition For All

The plant-based food industry has seen rapid growth not only in India. Expected to expand significantly by 2030, India’s plant-based sector is gaining traction both domestically and internationally. 

Founded by Sudha and Veda Gogineni, Earthful focuses on the creation of plant-based multivitamins and protein powders, formulated to tackle nutritional deficiencies in India. Drawing from nature’s bounty, they derive essential nutrients like iron from curry leaves and vitamin C from amla, ensuring efficacy and purity in every product.

Sudha’s background in chemical engineering coupled with her experience at ITC Ltd and Uber, provides a robust foundation for Earthful’s scientific approach. Meanwhile, Veda’s expertise as a biotechnologist complements Sudha’s acumen.

Their struggles with health catalysed Earthful’s genesis. Innovation and research are the two key imperatives for Earthful founders, who leverage their strong science backgrounds and work with a team of doctors and scientists to take their brand to newer heights. The two cofounders actively create content to increase nutrition and wellness awareness among people.

Electrifi Mobility

Unlocking India’s EV Potential

Founded in 2023 by former Cars24 CEO Kunal Mundra and Grip Invest cofounder Nikhil Aggarwal, Electrifi Mobility offers comprehensive solutions aimed at facilitating the transition towards electric mobility.

At the core of Electrifi’s offerings is its end-to-end approach, which includes a range of services including leasing, maintenance, post-sales support, refurbishment, and redeployment of EV assets. By providing a holistic suite of services, the company aims to address the various challenges associated with EV adoption, thereby making it more accessible and convenient for businesses and individuals alike.

One of Electrifi’s key strengths lies in its strategic partnership with Grip Invest. In a competitive landscape populated by players such as Ohm Mobility, Alt Mobility, and Vidyut Tech, Electrifi Mobility distinguishes itself through its integrated approach and robust technology platform. By connecting lenders, fleet operators, and reputable original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), Electrifi wants to facilitate collaboration within the EV ecosystem.

The startup’s focus on asset management and leasing enables businesses to transition to electric mobility with minimal upfront investment. By streamlining processes and leveraging technology, the company aims to unlock India’s mobility electrification potential, driving positive environmental and economic impacts.

Evify

Ensuring Carbon-Negative Last-Mile Deliveries

Sustainability in last-mile delivery is crucial for reducing emissions, minimising environmental impact, and ensuring the long-term viability of logistics operations in an increasingly eco-conscious world.

Surat-based Evify, with its carbon-negative fleet of electric two-wheelers, aims to reduce carbon emissions in last-mile delivery. Evify takes care of onboarding and rider training for its fleet of electric two-wheelers. Clients settle their invoices with Evify at the end of the month. Through its hub and spoke model, the startup maintains complete control over its fleet, optimising efficiency and reliability. 

Additionally, its in-house repair centres play a crucial role in maximising vehicle uptime, enabling timely service and dedicated riders for clients. Evify operates on a B2B2C business model, where it works with companies looking for last-mile delivery. The startup also engages gig workers for its operations, according to its website. Evify claims to pay the gig workers on a per-delivery basis.

Fittr

Tech-Driven Personalised Fitness Coaching

Founded by Jitendra Chouksey as a humble WhatsApp group in 2016, Fittr has become a comprehensive health and fitness platform. Originating with a mission to promote wellness, it evolved into a Facebook group before transitioning into a technologically-driven platform in 2022. Presently, Fittr employs both cutting-edge technology and human coaches to cater to the fitness needs of over 3 Mn individuals.

With over 2.5 Lakh monthly active users and more than 5 Mn app downloads, Fittr wants to establish itself as a prominent player in the health and fitness industry. The platform aspires to make 50 Mn people healthier while creating career opportunities in fitness. Fittr aims to position itself as a global leader in coaching, offering science-backed knowledge and personalised guidance to its users.

Operating on a freemium model, Fittr provides users with a suite of user-friendly tools, including a free diet tool, training tool, body fat calculators, and macros calculator. Additionally, it offers personalised guidance and customised plans to assist individuals in achieving their fitness goals effectively. 

Herby Angel

Organic Bodycare Products For Your Young Ones

Currently, India is flooded with baby care brands (both Indian and imported), which claim to be safe and toxin-free. Yet, there are no reliable ways to verify these assertions, which led to the creation of Herby Angel.

Founded in 2023, the startup the startup provides organic, ayurveda-based holistic wellness products for babies and kids. Every batch of its products is tested by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL), verifying the absence of heavy metals, aflatoxins, pesticides and other toxins.

Herby Angel also publishes the report of its products on its website where it can be verified by parents. The company ensures that all its products are made with organic ingredients and are free from harmful substances. 

Herby Angel operates across multiple sales channels, including its website, various online marketplaces and partnerships with distributors in the general trade sector. The startup has expanded from 9 to 13 states in the last three months, increasing the number of distributors from 80 to 149. They’ve also grown their retail presence from 2,000 to 5,000 points, resulting in a substantial revenue increase from INR 55 Lakh to INR 90 Lakh per month. 

Its short-term goals for 2024 include achieving a monthly net revenue of INR 3 Cr by December, doubling retail store presence to 10,000 points, and EBITDA profitability by June.

HOGR

The Future Of Social Dining

Founded in 2023 by Jugul Thachery and Harish Harshan, HOGR tackles the pervasive challenge of finding quality food options. Focussed on connecting food enthusiasts and emphasising the social aspect of culinary exploration, HOGR simplifies the “Where to eat” and “What to eat” dilemma through user-generated, peer-to-peer recommendations.

The Bengaluru-based startup works as a gamified food discovery platform that allows users to earn HOGR coins by engaging in platform games, which can be redeemed for exciting offers and discounts. 

Its revenue model includes restaurant commissions, micro-monetisation for CRM campaigns, and various advertisement/content-related streams. Currently, the operational focus is on Bengaluru, with plans for gradual expansion across India.

In the short term, HOGR aims to establish a robust food network, fostering connections among enthusiasts through personalised recommendations. 

In the long term, the startup wants to cement itself as the premier food exploration platform. This entails enhancing user experience, expanding the restaurant network, introducing dine-in and takeaway options, forging strategic partnerships, and leveraging emerging technologies to stay at the forefront of interactive food exploration.

Houseeazy

Changing Home Transactions Experience

Houseeazy is a vertical marketplace, which focusses on the pre-owned home buying and selling experience for middle-class consumers. It aims to revolutionise residential resale transactions by making them transparent, simple, and quick.

Founded by Tarun Sainani and Deepak Bhatia in 2021, HouseEazy offers instant quotes to sellers, backed by an upfront token of 10%.  

The customer-centric platform provides a hassle-free experience, ensuring instant pricing, liquidity, and timeline certainty. Verified and consolidated inventory, title checks, and end-to-end services contribute to a seamless transaction process. 

HouseEazy tackles resale market challenges through ML-based underwriting, boasting a pricing algorithm with over 90% accuracy.  

While currently operational in Noida and Ghaziabad, HouseEazy aims for market leadership in Delhi NCR, with plans for expansion into Pune and Bengaluru in 2024. The startup envisions market leadership in the top seven cities of India by 2026.

LarkAI Healthcare

Providing AI-Powered Healthcare

Founded in 2020 by Pritam Dhalla and Abhilash Chakraverty, LarkAI Healthcare is using AI to detect heart issues at an early stage. 

One of the notable features of the Bhubaneswar-based startup is its device that can detect early-stage heart impulses and valvular diseases within a remarkable 15-second timeframe. This rapid diagnostic capability has the potential to significantly improve patient outcomes by allowing for timely intervention and treatment.

In addition to cardiovascular diagnostics, the startup has developed a smart inhaler cap aimed at reducing drug wastage during the treatment of asthma and pulmonary tract disorders. This innovation aligns with the growing emphasis on sustainability in healthcare, ensuring that medication is administered efficiently while minimising environmental impact.

MyEra

Enhancing Customers’ Shopping Experience 

MyEra aims to enhance the overall shopping experience for consumers while driving sales for businesses. With MyEra Button, it makes online shopping more engaging by seamlessly integrating personalised product customisation directly into any website or online store. Shoppers can customise colours, materials and graphics without leaving the platform, enhancing their shopping experience.

Its product ‘MyEra Product Customizer’ seamlessly integrates into any online store or website, enabling buyers to personalise products without leaving the platform. Users can customise colours and materials and add custom text or graphics, enhancing their shopping experience. 

Moreover, its MyEra Quote Calculator generates precise price estimates tailored to user preferences, simplifying tasks such as tile count and cost calculation, bulk packing considerations, and print orders. Together, these tools optimise the customisation process, streamlining operations and enhancing user satisfaction.

In the short term, MyEra aims for aggressive user growth, establishing recurring revenue streams, raising a Seed round, enhancing sales capabilities, and refining technology to meet validated needs. By 2026, the focus will shift to building a strong presence in the US and European markets, achieving operational break-even, and securing Series A funding for further expansion and development.

Peptris

AI-Driven Drug Discovery 

In recent years, Indian pharmaceutical companies have been attempting to shift their focus towards the development of innovative medicines. Despite this ambition, the transition by Indian generic drug makers in the drug discovery segment has been slow. 

Peptris Technologies, headquartered in Bangalore, is introducing innovation in the field of drug discovery by harnessing the power of its cutting-edge AI platform. Specialising in AI-driven drug discovery, Peptris wants to reshape an industry characterised by lengthy timelines and exorbitant costs.

Peptris is addressing these challenges by efficiently navigating vast chemical libraries using its state-of-the-art technology, thereby identifying drug candidates with remarkable precision. This approach marks a significant departure from conventional methods, offering a more streamlined and cost-effective solution.

Peptris Technologies wants to capitalise on the recent advancements in AI technology, particularly in unsupervised learning and the availability of extensive chemical libraries. 

By leveraging the capabilities of AI, Peptris expedites the identification and development of potential drug candidates. This not only accelerates the overall drug discovery process but also has the potential to make essential medications more accessible by mitigating financial barriers.

Quebeq Venture

Creating A Carbon-Negative Ecosystem 

Founded in 2019 by Logesh Janarthanan, Chennai-based Quebeq Ventures specialises in Smart Grid energy solutions. At the forefront of their innovative offerings is the proprietary portable windmill, SmartPO, alongside Digital Twin and Digital Breaker Circuits. The startup aims to contribute to the acceleration of green energy adoption.

One of the standout features of Quebeq Ventures’ approach is integrating a micro-level virtual power plant (VPP). This solution not only alleviates stress on utility distribution transformers but also plays a crucial role in reducing overall energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

The company’s research and development efforts are strategically focussed on collaboration with government entities, private enterprises, and utility companies. Through these partnerships, Quebeq Ventures aims to advance Micro VPPs, leveraging its innovative SmartPO technology.

Reeudo

Cross-border Payments Facilitator For Students

Founded during the 2020 lockdown in India, Reeudo wants to address the challenges of cross-border payments for students. Originating from the firsthand experiences of its two executives navigating the complexities of paying tuition fees and managing monthly expenses in different countries, Reeudo offers its services to students, colleges, and universities in 25+ countries.

With a sole focus on cross-border payments for students, Reeudo has forged partnerships with multiple banking institutions, ensuring the security of student funds through an escrow system while facilitating seamless transfers to beneficiary accounts at universities worldwide.

Reeudo wants to extend its scope beyond mere transactional facilitation. It aims to revolutionise the entire student journey by digitising workflows and streamlining processes. Recognising the growing trend of Indian students pursuing programmes abroad, Reeudo endeavours to bridge existing gaps in the ecosystem, making the journey smoother and more cohesive.

Sahaj Gaming

Reinventing Indian Board Games

Founded by Deepak Saini, former VP and head of product at Games24x7, along with his former colleague Rahul Bantiya, who led revenue growth and retention for RummyCircle in 2023, Sahaj Gaming is re-inventing popular Indian board games.

The gaming studio aims to build a suite of games rooted in Indian culture such as Ludo, Snakes & Ladders, Tambola and Checkers. The recently launched beta of Sahaj Gaming’s 1ludo has already seen 25,000 pre-registrations. The game is available for pre-registration on the Google Play Store and is expected to go live shortly. 

Further, the RMG variant of the game will be available soon after the free-to-play Google Play Store release.

Salty

Disrupting The Indian Jewellery Space

Founded in 2022 by Twishaa Gupta, Sonaal Goel, and Kanishka Garg, Salty wants to stand out in the realm of fashion jewellery by offering pieces crafted from high-quality alloys. The brand utilises superior alloys and stainless steel, ensuring durability without compromising affordability, and minimising the risk of allergies.

With a diverse collection boasting over 2,000 designs, Salty introduces a distinctive jewellery gift box, containing 4-5 trendy pieces — an ideal choice for consumers seeking uniqueness. Notably, Salty pioneers an extensive men’s line, featuring high-quality stainless steel and sterling silver materials. The brand plans to expand its men’s collection to include over 1,000 designs.

While currently concentrating on the Indian market, Salty is getting traction beyond metro cities. A notable 50% of their sales originate from Tier II and beyond cities, with substantial demand from northeastern states and Jammu Kashmir.

Within one year of operation, the brand claims to have achieved remarkable milestones, surpassing 1 Lakh orders and achieving $1 Mn in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). 

SportVot

Live Sports Streaming And Analytics Platform

The absence of an effective infrastructure for talent development at the school, block, and district levels often leads to numerous talented athletes failing to reach their full potential and compete at state or district levels in sports. 

To address the absence of a structured and transparent talent discovery process at the grassroots, Sidhhant Agarwal, Yash Bhagwatkar and Shubhangi Gupta founded SportVot in 2019. The Mumbai-based startup enables streaming with the least amount of resources and provides tools that help sports entities edit, analyse, and share videos across channels.

SportVot’s target market encompasses the 99% of sports matches that are not streamed, including about 300k official sports tournaments annually, totalling approximately 5 Mn matches in India alone. The startup provides a comprehensive suite of solutions, including the SportVot Cloud Studio, a versatile web-based production studio facilitating premium live sports production and broadcasting from any device. Additionally, SportVot OTT offers live sports action, match highlights, and best moments from grassroots to national tournaments across 15+ sports. SportVot Play promotes active lifestyles by providing pay-and-play access to top-notch facilities.

SportVot’s revenue model includes streaming subscriptions for tournament organisers and sports entities, generating income from advertisement and sponsorship placements within their streaming platform, and leveraging sports tournaments’ intellectual properties for additional revenue streams.

Supaboard

Database Analytics Made Simple

As businesses grow and accumulate data, navigating databases becomes crucial for progress. However, many lack the expertise, limiting them to analytics tools like Google Analytics. Hiring data analysts or database engineers and investing in tools like Power BI or Tableau can bridge this gap but comes with significant monthly costs. This leaves valuable data untapped, hindering business potential. 

Aritra Ghosh and Subhrajyoti Modak identified this gap and founded Supaboard in 2023. The startup offers instant, real-time analytics through plain English queries with the help of GenAI and LLMs. Users can generate charts, metrics and tables, pinning valuable insights to customisable dashboards within minutes. Setup is swift, requiring only a database connection string paste, with Supaboard analysing and indexing data structures. 

Moreover, users can collaborate with team members, share dashboards, and connect with platforms like Slack and Teams. Supaboard ensures data security by only accessing read-only data without storing or using customer data for training purposes.

Supaboard operates under a B2B SaaS model with a revenue structure based on freemium offerings. The platform provides a limited free plan, allowing 30 questions per month. Users seeking enhanced functionality can opt for paid plans, offering access to additional features and resources.

The Bengaluru-based startup launched its product in February. It aims to expand its reach in 2024. Short-term goals include integrating solutions for diverse databases, collaborating with various SaaS platforms, and acquiring 100 business clients.

Swirl

Helping You Turn Your Viewers Into Shoppers

Cofounded by Kaizad Hansotia and Bheshaj Joshi, Swirl is leveraging the power of interactive video content to enhance people’s shopping experience. Swirl aims to transform short videos and livestreams into engaging, shoppable experiences, enhancing revenue streams and fostering deeper customer engagement.

At its core, Swirl offers a suite of solutions tailored to meet the diverse needs of modern consumers and businesses. This includes shoppable video content, characterised by its bite-sized, snackable format with embedded shopping functionalities. 

Additionally, Swirl offers immersive livestream shopping experiences, where hosts interact with thousands of viewers in real-time, creating a sense of community and urgency around product purchases. Moreover, the platform enables the conversion of user-generated content and video reviews into compelling shoppable content, amplifying authenticity and driving conversions.

Operating on a SaaS subscription model, Swirl provides customers with flexibility, charging a fixed fee supplemented by variable usage costs based on factors like watch time and video traffic. With a presence across countries like India, Canada, the US, the UAE, Pakistan, Singapore and Nepal, Swirl has garnered a global clientele spanning retail and D2C sectors.

The startup’s short-term plans involve penetrating the lucrative US and UAE markets while fortifying the product suite with advanced AI capabilities to enhance customer experiences and boost SEO performance.

TestnTrack

Automating Handwritten Test Evaluations

Founded in 2022 by Vinay Kamal Sharma, Priya Soni, and Ritwik Joshi, Jaipur-based TestnTrack is changing the conventional hand-written assessment process in educational institutions and coaching centres. 

The startup automates manual copy-checking, saving teachers significant time and effort. Using AI, teachers can scan and upload students’ answer sheets for real-time processing, providing not just scores but also audio feedback promptly.

Since its launch in May 2022, TestnTrack has onboarded over 112 institutions across three states and six cities, evaluating more than 56,000 test sheets to date. With a target revenue of INR 1.8 Cr in FY24, TestnTrack is also aiming to expand its footprint across 25 cities. 

Twyn

Phygital Twin Platform For Manufacturing

Founded by Avi Dahiya in 2021, Twyn leverages technologies such as AI and spatial computing to create extended reality-based digital twins for manufacturing units. These “phygital twins” bridge the gap between physical assets and their digital counterparts, offering a live and connected representation of the manufacturing environment.

Its flagship product, Twyn’s Phygital Twin Platform, changes how manufacturers monitor, optimise, and automate their operations. By seamlessly integrating data from multiple sensors, 3D models, and existing enterprise systems like MES, ERP, and SCADA, Twyn enables real-time monitoring, simulation, and optimisation of business operations.

The platform’s key differentiators lie in its ease of deployment and scalability, addressing the challenges faced by traditional digital twin solutions. With a DIY approach akin to setting up SCADA systems, Twyn drastically reduces deployment time and costs, making digital twins accessible and scalable for enterprises of all sizes.

With five patents pending in India and final filings in the US and EU, Twyn ensures the protection of its innovative technology. Revenue is generated through a subscription model supplemented by annual maintenance contracts and product certifications.

In the short term, Twyn aims to increase revenue by $5 Mn, establish a joint experience centre with TCS in KSA, and strengthen its presence in Europe. Long-term plans involve strategic integration with tech giants like Microsoft, Siemens Energy, TCS, and Accenture to scale its business to 150 geographies by 2026.

Zocket

Launch Digital Ads In Minutes

Founded by Karthik Venkateswaran, Nandha Kumar Ravi, Natesan Sundar, and Mukund Srivathsan in 2021, Zocket is a Gen AI-powered product, which helps businesses create digital ads in minutes. 

Zocket uses AI/ML models to instantly create ad copies across multiple social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Google based on what the business wants to promote. 

Zocket also provides tailored target audience segments across platforms and helps optimise ads for optimal results. For global businesses, Zocket provides a web app, which enables D2C brands in Shopify to launch ads aimed at increasing their website sales. Zocket auto-creates ad copies directly from the product catalogue and launches the sales campaign in no time for Shopify storefronts. 

 Zocket aims to tap at least around 10% of the growing $550 Bn+ digital advertising market with its self-serve AI product, which can be a potential replacement for traditional human-led agencies.

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eyes In January 2024 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Indian startup ecosystem has been on a rollercoaster ride since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, oscillating between exhilarating highs and disheartening lows. 

While the initial years of the pandemic were marked by a massive capital influx, the prolonged funding winter, since 2022, has forced many startups to re-evaluate their strategies and adapt to the changing landscape. 

Indian startups managed to raise a mere $7 Bn in funding between January and September 2023, a figure even lower than the $8 Bn that they secured during the corresponding period way back in 2020.

Needless to say, startup funding has reverted to pre-pandemic levels, and this, according to investors, is the new normal. Amid the current scheme of things, bootstrapping appears to have emerged as a major undercurrent within the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem. Focused on innovation and customer-centricity, a new breed of more resilient and frugal homegrown ventures are carving their niche in the startup ecosystem.

It is this resourcefulness that forms the core of the 42nd edition of Inc42’s 30 Startups To Watch, as a third of this month’s cohort is bootstrapped. More so, a mere five startups have raised more than $1 Mn in funding. 

This trend mirrors the fact that the country’s new-age ventures are shedding their reliance on VC and PE capital, a lesson that almost every investor wants Indian startup founders to learn. Well, better late than never!

Moving on, another recurring theme playing out within the early-stage startup ecosystem appears to be the B2B shift, a segment that is loaded with high-ticket billing. Continuing our tradition of identifying some of the most pathbreaking startups every month, we bring you 30 startups that caught our attention in November.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.

Actofit

Helping You Start Your Fitness Journey

Founded in 2015 by Pratik Saraogi, Tushar Patil, and Dr Ateeb Shaikh, Actofit helps individuals track the progress of their healthcare journey. The startup offers smartwatches, smart scales, chest straps, continuous glucose monitors (CGM) and smart rings, along with a companion app that offers deep insights based on data collected by Actofit devices.

The startup’s smart scales use advanced sensors to measure body composition metrics, including weight, body fat percentage, muscle mass, bone density, and visceral fat. These scales sync with the companion app, allowing users to track progress, receive personalised insights and recommendations, and access guidance from a team of personal trainers. The other devices operate, as the label says, with all devices feeding data into the Actofit app for insights.

The Mumbai-based startup primarily makes money from its smart devices and subscription fees for its premium app features. Additionally, the startup generates revenue through partnerships with healthcare providers, corporate wellness programmes, and fitness centres. The company also explores opportunities for data monetisation, leveraging its vast repository of user data to provide valuable insights to research institutions and pharmaceutical companies.

ANMER London

The Scent Of Luxury

Noticing a discernible gap in the Indian luxury body care and perfumes market, Jagrattan Singh Anand and Pravneet Kaur Anand established ANMER London in 2022. 

ANMER’s product line includes premium body care offerings such as perfumes, body washes, hand and body hydration, and shower oils. Their formulations, meticulously crafted in the UK, boast clean beauty ingredients. ANMER London’s commitment to sustainability extends beyond its formulations to eco-friendly packaging with recycled materials and refillable glass bottles. 

The Delhi NCR-based startup has crafted a revenue model that blends direct-to-consumer (D2C) channels, online marketplaces, offline exhibitions, and potential brand collaborations. With a 70% D2C and 30% marketplace sales ratio, ANMER London ensures a direct and personalised connection with customers while expanding its reach through renowned platforms like Ajio Luxe, Tira Beauty, Amazon, and Flipkart.

As part of its strategic focus for 2024, ANMER London plans to expand its range of fragrances, diversify its product portfolio with body mists and soap bars, and foray into the burgeoning market of home fragrances. By 2026, the brand plans to enter new segments like home and car fragrances, and establish offline stores for a tangible and immersive brand experience. It also has celebrity endorsements on the cards.

AquaAirX

India’s First Amphibious Drone

Founded in 2021 by Gouthami T S and Jitendra Kumar Purnmal Saini, AquaAirX has built an AI-powered amphibious drone capable of operating underwater and on land. This feature makes it ideal for offshore search and rescue missions, environmental monitoring, asset monitoring and military operations, among other amphibious applications.

At the heart of AquaAirX lies its groundbreaking multiplane propulsion system, designed to enable the drone to manoeuvre with precision in both air and water. The multiplane propulsion system can transition between media within seconds. The startup also has multiple model options designed for a variety of applications and services, each model being equipped with a customised array of sensors.

While AquaAirX is yet to make its commercial debut, Aeronuts has a clear vision for its future. The company plans to adopt a drone-as-a-service (DAAS) model, partnering with government contractors to provide access to AquaAirX’s capabilities on an as-needed basis.

Basil

Smoothies Stirred With Health & Taste

Healthier lifestyle choices often start with food, and it is a general perception that healthy food is tasteless and boring. Founded in 2020 by IIT Delhi graduates Harshita Kejriwal and Karan Dwivedi, Basil resolves this with its tasty health drinks and smoothies.

The healthtech startup offers a selection of 28 drinks through nine locations across Delhi NCR. Basil’s range of refreshers, smoothies, shakes, health-conscious coffee, hot beverages, pressed juices, and other drinks are made with fresh natural ingredients.

The startup claims that there is no added sugar or preservatives in its drinks. Basil also ensures that the drinks are ready to be consumed within five minutes of ordering. Its drinks start at INR 69 and go up to INR 299.

Chatclient.ai

Offering Tailor-Made AI Chatbots

In the ever-advancing universe of AI & ML, Indian chatbots are not exactly setting the best examples. This is because many are being built with pre-programmed responses, resulting in inaccuracies and unhelpful interactions.

After keenly observing the white space in the existing chatbot technologies and what consumers are being offered in the form of AI-driven customer support, Vikas Kookna and Navjot Singh Cheema founded Chatclient.ai this year. 

Unlike traditional bots, the Bengaluru-based startup leverages advanced LLMs, enabling instant, autonomous, and personalised customer support. According to the startup’s website, the startup helps businesses create custom AI chatbots based on the company data, just like ChatGPT, and seamlessly integrate it as a widget on their sites. 

Operating on a subscription-based SaaS model, Chatclient.ai caters to diverse business needs. The model ensures a steady revenue stream while offering flexibility and scalability to businesses, ranging from startups to large enterprises. Currently operating globally with a focus on English-speaking markets, the technology supports around 95 languages, providing room for future expansion.

In the last three months, the startup claims to have seen a 25% increase in the customer base. In the short term, the startup wants to expand language offerings, improve contextual understanding, and double its customer base. Chatclient.ai’s long-term vision is to enable chatbots to process audio and video inputs and integrate with more platforms.

CogniTensor

AI-Driven ESG Solutions

ESG (environmental, social, and governance) reporting is a crucial aspect of performance evaluation for enterprises, especially in the context of climate change and other related issues. However, the intricate process of collecting and analysing data on the environmental impact of a company proves to be challenging. As a result, only a few companies successfully execute ESG reporting, contributing to significant confusion within the industry.

Founded in 2018 by Arun Aggarwal, Pankaj Mathur and Ashish Airon, CogniTensor offers AI-driven solutions focused on ESG compliance and sustainability management. 

CogniTensor’s flagship product, Sustain3P, ingeniously combines data analytics, AI insights and performance tracking. The startup’s unique selling proposition (USP) lies in AI-powered analytics, offering energy optimisation, predictive maintenance, and robust ESG reporting. This product addresses key industry needs such as real-time energy management, predictive insights for sustainable practices, and comprehensive ESG compliance reporting.

The revenue model is structured on a subscription basis with tiered pricing, tailored to the unique needs and sizes of client organisations. In the past three months, CogniTensor has onboarded three major corporate clients. In the short term, CogniTensor aims to strengthen its presence in India, initiate operations in the Middle East and augment its AI capabilities for predictive analytics.

Concur

Harmonising Data Compliance

Founded in 2023 by Gaurav Mehta, Concur has been incorporated to play a pivotal role in the data protection space. The startup positions itself as a Digital Personal Data Protection Act compliance solution provider and is on a mission to harmonise data protection compliance for digital nagriks. 

Concur has its eyes set on safeguarding personal data. Its innovative suite of enterprise solutions is designed to simplify compliance and protect sensitive information, ensuring that businesses and individuals can navigate the complex world of data protection with ease and confidence.

The startup’s solutions encompass automated data discovery, Personally Identifiable Information (PII) categorisation, data lifecycle management, content management, systems integration, and DPO office operations. 

With a freemium model, Concur has successfully onboarded seven diverse organisations, ranging from NFBCs to technology enterprises. By 2026, Mumbai-headquartered Concur wants to enter the markets of Saudi Arabia and Brazil.

Curve Electric

E-bike Rentals In The Heart Of Kashmir Valley

Despite being a renowned tourism destination and a culturally significant region in India, the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir still needs to improve on the technology and innovation front.

However, Curve Electric aims to disrupt the status quo. Established in Srinagar in 2022 by Sheikh Yameen, the startup introduces a fleet of e-bikes through an extensive rental programme inclusive of maintenance, insurance, and 24/7 support. With 11 strategically placed docking stations across the valley, Curve Electric is dedicated to transforming the local landscape.

Beyond the conventional rental model for individual users, the startup also enables businesses to advertise on their e-bikes, creating an additional revenue stream.

DoubtClear AI

Personalised AI Teacher

Founded in 2023 by Abhishek Verma, Bengaluru-based DoubtClear AI utilises advanced ML and Gen AI models to instantly resolve doubts of students — ranging from third graders to PhD candidates.

The edtech startup claims to be combating the challenges of accessibility and socio-economic disparities in the Indian edtech space by developing scalable solutions that are affordable and cater to diverse learning styles.

Operating on a subscription-based Software as a Service (SaaS) model, users can ask unlimited doubt. Already operational on Android and serving 174 countries in APAC, Europe, and the Americas, the platform is gearing up for an iOS deployment by 2024.

A key highlight of DoubtClear AI’s 2024 roadmap is the customisation of its ML algorithms for specific exam types. DoubtClear AI’s revenue model revolves around monthly and annual subscriptions. The startup has ambitious plans to introduce immersive learning courses by 2026.

Equity Address

The New Way To Own A Second Home

India’s holiday homes market is projected to reach $8 Bn in the next 3-4 years. Amid this, the share of fractional ownership of holiday homes, too, is anticipated to rise to 5% from a mere 1% currently.

Founded in 2021 by Mohit Prem Gupta, Puneet Gupta, Abhishek Madhukar, and Aashish Raj, Equity Address wants to be the key force behind redefining the Indian holiday homes market, making it a compelling choice for investors seeking modern and accessible avenues for real estate investment. This tech-enabled marketplace facilitates co-ownership of second homes, democratising access to this asset class.

The platform seeks to simplify the investment process in second homes, making it more accessible to a broader audience. By allowing fractional ownership, Equity Address tackles the traditional barriers associated with owning holiday homes. The model involves a 5% revenue share on each fraction sold and 3% on fraction re-sale, ensuring a sustainable and mutually beneficial ecosystem.

Equity Address and The Venya are two of its vertically integrated technology platforms. Equity Address offers a modern investment approach, allowing individuals to co-own second homes through a tech-enabled marketplace. Meanwhile, The Venya serves as a global marketplace for luxury vacation home rentals.

The startup has already secured mandates of INR 50 Cr worth of assets in Goa. Looking ahead, the company projects an AUM of INR 100 Cr by 2024 and envisions an AUM of INR 400 Cr by 2026.

Fleetroot

Simplifying Last-Mile Deliveries For Businesses

Even though India’s third-party logistics ecosystem comprises a healthy mix of big and small players, issues like limited visibility into fleet operations, inaccurate delivery time estimates and high delivery costs continue to sour the overall customer experience.

Set up in 2021 by Moidu Chandanam, Motilal Keshavdas, Javokhir Vapaev, Nabeel Abdul, and Dattatray Kanaki, Fleetroot has built a logistics SaaS solution that enables enterprises to control their supply chain more efficiently by allowing them to optimise their delivery routes and operations. The startup’1s automated route planner helps businesses save time and money by efficiently managing their delivery fleet.

Fleetroot uses predictive analytics to anticipate delays and disruptions, helping businesses avoid missed deliveries and customer dissatisfaction. The startup further provides real-time tracking of deliveries, allowing businesses to monitor the progress of their shipments and keep their customers informed. Fleetroot’s APIs can integrate with almost all the popular CRM and ERP platforms, enabling businesses to easily get started.

The startup offers its solution for free for the first 14 days, following which users can select any one of the three plans it offers, based on the size of their business and the number of deliveries they expect to make in a given month.

Frendy

Leveraging Homemakers’ Potential With Micro-Commerce

India’s booming startup ecosystem has created a new wave of women entrepreneurs who are now driving economic growth. With the country’s GDP set to reach $5 Tn by the end of 2025, these women are breaking barriers to lead diverse industries.

One such venture is Ahmedabad-based Frendy. Founded in 2019 by Sameer Gandotra and Gowrav Vishwakarma, the startup is a convenience store network for India’s small towns that leverages existing micro-stores such as family-run kirana stores and new home-based stores set up by housewives as a last mile distribution point.

The platform sells household items with the help of its women community leaders or Frendy Partners. It claims to have expanded to over 40 Tier II- Tier VI towns in Gujarat, serving 50K customers with over 4.5K products. 

Frendy, which sells beauty, cleaning, grocery, and kitchen products, among others, under its private-label portfolio, claims that its revenue doubled to INR 82 Cr in FY23 from INR 40 Cr in the previous fiscal.

Furrl

New-Age D2C Brands At Your Fingertips

Anticipated to account for a significant chunk of the $400 Bn ecommerce opportunity by 2025, the D2C arena is one of the fastest-growing segments in India, as per an Inc42 report.

However, many of these businesses are new, therefore customers face a hard time discovering and trusting these new D2C brands. Furrl, established in 2022 by IIT Kanpur and Harvard Business School alumna Esha Tiwary, provides a platform for D2C brands to showcase their products and sell them to customers.

Furrl’s handpicked selection of brands undergoes a rigorous vetting process, ensuring that only authentic and high-quality brands make it onto the platform. This curation sets the startup apart from traditional ecommerce marketplaces, offering a more personalised and discerning shopping experience. 

Further, Furrl offers a seamless one-click ordering system, comprehensive product information, and hassle-free returns and exchanges. Consumers can browse through a diverse range of categories, from fashion and accessories to home décor and lifestyle products, all curated to cater to the tastes of discerning shoppers.

Furrl monetises its platform via two channels – earning a commission on each sale made through its platform and allowing brands to pay to have their products prominently featured on its homepage or within specific categories.

ImagoAI

Food Testing Takes A Deeptech Turn

For large-scale food production, testing remains an important final step before any food shipment goes out. However, the process of manual food testing also does not detect adulterants beyond a certain point.

To solve this, ex-Snapdeal research engineers Shweta Gupta and Abhishek Goyal founded ImagoAI in 2019. The startup claims to have developed the world’s fastest non-destructive food test – Galaxy. The test uses hyperspectral imaging and AI to detect mycotoxins, pathogens, vitamins, proteins, and other micronutrients in food. 

ImagoAI combines digital imaging with spectroscopy to give 3D imaging. Further, the startup’s proprietary AI micro models use each pixel’s spectral bands as a chemical signature. They extract features from each chemical signature and these extracted features are fed into its AI to generate test results in seconds.

ImagoAI claims to serve multiple Fortune 500 food companies and monetises its products through direct sales.

IndiaCharts

Cutting-Edge Analytics To Enhance Your Stock Market Returns

Even though India has the largest number of stock market traders in the world, a significant chunk of them do not possess the know-how to make informed trading decisions. This is probably why many end up losing a lot of money in the market. 

Acknowledging this, seasoned stock market investors Rohit Srivastava and Chavan Krishna founded IndiaCharts in 2022. The startup offers analytics on India’s stock markets via its platform STRIKE.

The platform provides data visualisation to easily spot trends and allows scanning and searching of data with predefined setups and analysis of trends and sentiment.

Indiacharts provides subscribers with daily, weekly, and monthly updates on the stock market, including analysis of Nifty50, Bank Nifty, commodities, currencies, individual stocks, and Indian and global economic trends. The startup also offers a mentorship programme and a discussion forum, enabling users to become better traders.

STRIKE is currently being offered for free by Indiacharts, with the startup planning to launch the paid version by 2024. In the long term, Indiacharts wants to throw open its platform to the world. It plans to foray into the US and European markets by 2026.

Jodaro

Sell Local Products To The World

While India has generated several multimillion-dollar manufacturing enterprises, a significant portion of them are highly localised and do not look outside their local markets, let alone the country, for prospective buyers. Though many Indian brands have global ambitions, a lack of connections to global buyers is often their undoing.

Founded in 2023 by IIT Kharagpur alumni Rajiv Patki and Sambuddha Adhikari, Jodaro provides global commerce solutions to manufacturers. The startup specialises in identifying supply gaps across geographies and automating global commerce operations.

Jodaro’s core product includes four key elements – storefront management, inventory management, global logistics and marketing and social media management. The startup also allows manufacturers to build an omnichannel presence globally, enabling them to sell efficiently across both online and offline sales channels.

It offers its products via a SaaS-based revenue model, with custom-built plans for each customer. By 2026, Jodaro envisions expanding operations to 10 global markets, collaborating with over 500 manufacturers, and curating 15,000 diverse products.

OnFinance AI

Foundational LLM For Finance and Banking

India’s banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector is often characterised by inefficiencies. Even though this sector is considered to be the backbone of the economy, technology adoption has been slow in this space.

Bengaluru-based OnFinance envisions a future where Gen AI can revolutionise the BFSI sector. Founded in 2022 by Anuj Srivastava and Priyesh Srivastava, the startup is committed to leveraging the power of Gen AI to deliver solutions that enhance efficiency, productivity and customer experience for BFSI institutions.

At OnFinance AI’s core is NeoGPT, an in-house LLM, tailored for the BFSI domain. NeoGPT can understand and generate human-quality text, translate languages, craft creative content, and respond to questions. 

The startup has developed AI copilots, which integrate with existing BFSI workflows to support internal teams across various functions such as research, relationship management, sales and customer support. It offers custom AI solutions and provides consultation services to assist BFSI companies in seamlessly integrating the startup’s AI solutions into its existing infrastructure and processes.

Procurabl

Turning Supply Chain Into Your Competitive Advantage

Even though new-age industries like electric vehicles (EVs) and drones are growing at a break-neck speed, companies working in these areas continue to be bogged down in supply chain issues. 

Seamless sourcing of complex machinery, components and technology is the need of the hour for sustained growth of these burgeoning industries. Founded by Ninad Kashid in December 2020, Procurabl does exactly this. The startup unclogs supply chain bottlenecks with its solutions. Drawing on his experience as a founding team member at a battery pack manufacturing startup, Kashid navigated the intricacies and risks associated with establishing supply chains for the EV industry.

The company offers end-to-end supply chain solutions for powertrain, electric drive systems, chassis assemblies, and their components. Procurabl claims to have an impressive 98% perfect order rate for its powertrain supply chain solutions. The business model also includes engaging in local manufacturing projects with Indian MSMEs. Revenue is generated through a project/milestone-based model. Procurabl collaborates with OEMs, offering contract manufacturing, white-labelling, and standardised part sourcing tailored to the specific needs of its clients. 

The startup positions itself as a strategic partner in addressing challenges faced by OEMs in areas like optimising projects for enhanced visibility, reducing time-to-market, and cost management. Procurabl aims to propel its business growth by 10X by next year. In the medium term (by 2026), the startup has plans to collaborate with over 100 OEMs in five countries.

Pulse Energy

Smart EV Platform For Fleet Operators

Founded by Akhil Jayaprakash in 2019, Pulse Energy is a SaaS platform dedicated to enhancing energy systems. The company’s primary offerings comprise a charger management solution designed for operators overseeing chargers remotely. 

Additionally, there is a fleet EV charger management product, enabling seamless access and payment for EV fleets at charging stations nationwide. Catering to EV OEMs, Pulse Energy provides a charger interoperability product, facilitating access and payment at any charger across India.

Central to Pulse Energy’s ecosystem is its “EV Charger Marketplace”, a one-stop solution for EV fleets, OEMs, and charge point operators. Through this platform, EV fleets and OEMs gain easy access to chargers, while operators increase charger utilisation by listing on the marketplace. 

Its D2C charging app, InstaCharge, directly serves EV drivers, enabling them to locate, access, and pay for public chargers. Billing is structured on a per-energy-dispensed basis, creating a revenue stream for Pulse Energy. A significant achievement for Pulse Energy has been the onboarding of Uber Green, with approximately 80% of Uber Green cabs now relying on Pulse Energy’s EV charging platform for hub and public charging. 

The company aims to expand its market share by leveraging partnerships with renowned brands like Moeving, Everest Fleet (Uber Green), Log9, and Tork Motors. In the long term, the startup aims to extend services to individual EV users.

Quoality

Managing Guests Made Easy For Hoteliers

Despite major advancements in the field of software development, India’s hospitality industry has often found itself tethered to outdated software.

This is precisely where Quoality, founded in 2022 by Akshay Dekate and Tejaswi Chawla, steps in to fill the gap in the Indian hospitality sector. The startup offers an all-in-one guest experience platform, addressing the need to digitise guest-facing processes. The startup offers a cloud-native platform that simplifies operations for hoteliers. 

One of the key features of the Quoality platform includes guest messaging, which automates communication through channels like WhatsApp and email. Further, its ‘ancillary upsell’ functionality offers additional services to guests, maximising revenue streams. Quoality also offers contactless check-in and checkout, reducing wait times. The platform’s payments feature allows hotels to collect ancillary sales and other payments online, mitigating revenue pilferage.

Quoality’s subscription-based pricing model includes the base platform and communication credits. As of now, the platform is active across 5,500 rooms, with ambitious plans to expand to 20,000-25,000 rooms by the end of 2024. The startup claims to have onboarded prominent players in the USA and Middle East markets, with recent collaborations including Choice Hotels India.

SecurWeave

Next-Gen Cybersecurity Platform

India is one of the world’s most adversely affected countries when it comes to cyberattacks. A recent report by Singapore-based cybersecurity firm Cyfirma shows that India is the most-targeted nation globally in state-sponsored cyberattacks, with 13.7% of all global state-sponsored attacks aimed at India.

To combat this, Hyderabad-based SecurWeave is building cybersecurity solutions for the future. The startup develops hardware-enforced security solutions to protect against advanced malware attacks. Its flagship product, CHESS (configurable hardware-enforced safety & security), is a platform that can be integrated into various devices, including endpoints, mobile phones, data centres and embedded systems. 

CHESS works by using hardware extensions to monitor and control the execution of software, preventing malicious code from gaining access to sensitive data and systems. The startup is collaborating with Intel to improve its advanced malware detection capabilities and protect operating systems from malware attacks. Another focus area for SecurWeave is to leverage its collaboration with Intel to provide security for the Industrial IoT (IIoT) segment.

The firm monetises its platform through strategic partnerships with device manufacturers and software vendors. By integrating CHESS into their products and solutions, these partners gain a competitive edge by offering enhanced security to their customers. 

Skydo

Simplifying Cross-Border B2B Payments

Indian companies working with overseas clients often face challenges related to remittances and receiving payments due to complications with setting up a FEMA-compliant system.

Founded in February 2022 by Movin Jain and Srivatsan Sridhar, Skydo is a fintech startup that aims to simplify cross-border B2B payments by enabling businesses to create a global virtual account within five minutes. Skydo’s platform facilitates invoicing, payments, and accounts receivable. By partnering with leading global banks, it offers businesses their foreign virtual accounts for receiving payments, eliminating taxation and compliance burdens.

Currently serving 750+ Indian businesses and exporters, Skydo claims to have witnessed a robust month-on-month growth rate of 25%, processing over $11 Mn in forex payments since its launch. The company aims to reach 2 Lakh small businesses, targeting $1 Bn in export payment flows over the next year.

Plans include providing financing options, introducing payout cards and offering treasury services to facilitate multi-currency payments, signalling a strategic approach to secure a strong foothold in the market.

StepChange

Enterprise Sustainability Management Platform

ESG reporting is one of the most important undertakings an enterprise engages in, second only to financial reporting in many instances. However, the lack of standardised reporting within the segment has led to much debate about the true performance of a given enterprise during a given time, and the arbitrary and subjective nature of ESG data can also be challenging.

Several startups are emerging to revolutionise ESG reporting for enterprises and Bengaluru-based StepChange is one of them. Founded in 2021 by ex-Ola executive Ankit Jain and MIT alumnus Sidhant Pai, PhD, StepChange offers a one-stop solution for enterprise sustainability, ESG reporting, financed emissions, portfolio climate risk management and product sustainability.

The startup’s software is employed by banks, asset managers, insurance companies, and corporations to measure their ESG performance, track progress towards their ESG goals, report ESG performance to stakeholders, identify and manage ESG risks and develop and implement ESG strategies. StepChange’s software is based on the latest ESG standards and frameworks, including the GHG Protocol, the TCFD, and the SASB. The company’s software is also cloud-based and easy to use.

The startup monetises its software through a subscription-based pricing model. Businesses can choose from various subscription plans that fit their specific needs. StepChange also offers a host of consulting and advisory services to help businesses implement and optimise their ESG programmes.

Sugarcane AI

AI For Everyone

In the AI universe, LLMs have emerged as powerful tools capable of generating text, translating languages and creating various types of creative content. However, using these models effectively hinges on the ability to craft effective prompts.

Sugarcane AI, founded in 2023 by NIT graduates Ravinder Kumar and Ankur Agarwal, addresses this challenge by introducing an open-source node package manager-like package ecosystem, specifically designed for prompts. In simple words, the platform enables developers to create, package and share prompt packages, akin to reusable modules that encapsulate prompt templates, datasets and LLM configurations.

The startup offers four components – Sugar Factory (a no-code playground for prompt developers to build and share prompts), Sugar Hub (a marketplace where developers can discover and access prompt packages), Sugar Bakery (a software development kit that simplifies the integration of LLMs into applications) and Sugar Farm (a tool for data scientists to streamline the process of building and training Micro LLMs).

Sugarcane AI monetises the platform through the sales of prompt packages on Sugar Hub, through subscriptions for Sugar Factory, Sugar Bakery and Sugar Farm, as well as support from the community.

Surplus

Keep Spending To Maximise Your Savings

Managing expenses can be a daunting task, often consuming valuable time and susceptible to errors. Despite the availability of numerous spending management tools, a persistent gap appears to exist. Moreover, entrusting third-party apps with access may jeopardise the security of personal data.

After witnessing this issue first-hand, Rajkumar Desai launched Surplus, a full-stack expense management platform, in 2021. The Mumbai-based startup helps users track their expenses, optimise spending and make informed financial decisions. The platform links with users’ bank accounts to offer features such as expense tracking, personalised insights and a live budget tracker. Surplus also enables users to buy and manage their subscriptions, providing discounts and trial packs based on their spending patterns. 

On the B2B side, the startup collaborates with brands to offer discounts, exclusive deals and more. Surplus claims that it enables companies to reduce their Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and target the right niche of users. The app also allows companies to pay based on the performance of their campaigns instead of a blanket fee.

The startup operates on a B2B2C model and has two revenue streams –  transaction fees and other related charges from B2B customers and a subscription fee from B2C users. Currently, the startup is working on rolling out its app on the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.

Swashaa

Affordable And Quality-Focussed Fashion

Founded in 2021 by Bhaavan Ramani, Swashaa has forged a distinct path in the fashion industry after learning from the collapse of a previous business. This close-knit team of friends and family has crafted a brand that offers stainless steel jewellery, offering unique design, affordability, and quality. Its flagship products include the Shiny Clover Necklace and Bree Band Bracelet, which embody the brand’s ethos.

Swashaa’s working model revolves around meticulous product management, media, and marketing strategies. The team curates products backed by a robust media and marketing plan executed by an in-house team of photographers, videographers, and influencers. The post-order process, managed by the CRM team, ensures swift communication and resolution, coupled with efficient shipping through selected partners.

Swashaa’s revenue model focuses on direct sales and an advertising model, while strategic decisions like eliminating local vendors and introducing leather handbags showcase a commitment to innovation. The brand’s expansion plan includes the launch of stores at domestic airports and a targeted entry into international markets, with a keen eye on the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Univest

Master The Stock Market With Impactful Insights

While millions of people in India invest in public markets, they require greater access to new-age investment vehicles and crucial insights that could contribute to their success on the bourses.

Founded in 2022 by Pranit Arora, Avneet Dhamija and Vikash Agrawal, Univest is a mobile app that offers investors a suite of investment solutions. It provides users with personalised investment recommendations based on their risk tolerance and financial goals. 

The app features AI-powered ‘Buy/Sell/Hold’ insights, advanced screeners and daily pre-market analysis. Additionally, it provides financial news and educational resources to assist users in making informed investment decisions.

The startup generates revenue through a combination of transaction and subscription fees. For each investment transaction initiated through the platform, Univest charges a small commission. Additionally, the company offers a premium subscription service that gives users access to in-depth research reports and personalised investment guidance.

Vance

Digital Banking Redefined for NRIs

Indian expatriates constitute one of the primary contributors to foreign remittances flowing into India. Goldman Sachs estimates net inward remittances to India to hover around the $104 Bn mark in calendar year 2023. Despite this, there are several challenges NRIs face while transferring money home.

Founded in 2022 by Stanford dropout Parth Garg, Bengaluru-based Vance is a neobank that streamlines remitting money to India from foreign lands. The startup also provides access to a free international debit card while enabling NRIs to invest in Indian stocks and mutual funds.

Vance charges a flat fee regardless of the transaction size. For instance, the startup charges £3 per transaction from the UK to India, regardless of the amount. The startup also offers NRE NRE (non-resident external), NRO (non-resident ordinary), and FCNR (foreign currency non-resident) accounts, allowing Indians living abroad access to the Indian banking systems.

The startup claims to have nearly 50K users across the US, the UK, Singapore, the UAE and Canada.

WorqHat

Revolutionise Businesses With Customisable Apps And Workflows

While proficiency in coding and programming is crucial for developing customised apps and workflows, a significant number of companies entering the technological landscape lack individuals with the requisite technical expertise to create applications from the ground up. This concern has grown exponentially in light of the escalating demand for applications.

Founded in 2022 by Sagnik Ghosh and Susmita Ghosh, WorqHat is a no-code platform that empowers companies to construct enterprise-grade web applications without coding. The platform, inspired by Photoshop’s user-friendly interface, guides users through a conversational journey of crafting data, components and security features.

WorqHat has developed in-house LLMs tailored to enterprise data, thereby enhancing the platform’s capabilities. The Pune-based startup enables companies to design bespoke applications for various departments, including sales, marketing, finance, operations and more.

Adopting a subscription-based monetisation strategy, WorqHat provides businesses with tiered pricing plans that cater to their specific requirements and usage patterns. This approach ensures a flexible and scalable solution for companies seeking to meet their diverse application development needs.

Xobox

Smart IoT Delivery Lockers

While India’s last-mile logistics services have made significant progress over the past decade, challenges persist, with issues such as products being damaged or stolen during the delivery process.

Enter Kiran Shivappa and Ravindra Nayaka, who founded Xobox in 2021, a startup that addresses these concerns by offering smart IoT lockers made of durable MS material. Xobox manages the entire process, from in-house designing and manufacturing of printed circuit boards to outsourcing the fabrication of metal lockers. 

With a focus on large apartment complexes, Xobox offers an end-to-end solution, and residents can opt to have their packages securely stored in the smart lockers, with the convenience of self-checkout or assistance from Xobox’s dedicated personnel, XMEN. The service aims to benefit elderly residents by reducing traffic within gated communities and instilling a sense of security. Xobox’s business model includes charging residents a nominal fee per transaction and providing an efficient and secure delivery process.

In addition to its primary focus on delivery services, Xobox empowers women entrepreneurs by enabling them to provide logistics services within the community for a reasonable fee. With a successful pilot programme at a 1,650-flat community and 6,000 customers, Xobox aims to replicate its model in 30 societies by the end of 2024.

Edited by Shishir Parashar.

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eye In November 2023 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The year so far has thrown many challenges at Indian startups, yet founders have emerged more powerful than ever in the face of adversities.

Well, speaking about adversities, the startup funding has regressed to 2020 levels. The $8.3 Bn raised in 2023 so far is nearly one-fourth of what the Indian startup ecosystem had raised during the same period in 2021.

From a macro lens, things may look quite challenging for Indian startups and new-age sectors, however, a closer glance would unravel the dark horses of the Indian startup realm. 

One such example is the Indian SaaS market, which is scaling quite impressively and is projected to become a $50 Bn market opportunity by 2030, quadrupling its current size. Notably, Indian SaaS startups have raised more than $899 Mn so far this year. 

Not only this, even though the funding winter engulfed most of 2023, the month of October infused some hope, as Indian startups raised $1.1 Bn during the month, up from $846 Mn raised in the corresponding month last year. 

While this was hardly any respite for Indian startups, who continue to see a funding famine, we decided to stick to our tradition of bringing some of the most past-breaking startups to the fore every month.

In this edition of ‘30 Startups To Watch’, we have endeavoured to shine the spotlight on SaaS startups, accounting for the maximum number of startups in the list, followed by AI, edtech and fintech startups.

Amid the current scheme of things, we yet again raise a toast to Indian founders for their resilience as we bring you the 41st edition of ‘30 Startups To Watch’.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.

AccioJob

Unlocking India’s Tech Potential

In today’s tech-driven world, data analysts and software developers are in high demand. This is because businesses have increased their reliance on data-driven strategies and software-powered solutions. These fields offer promising career prospects, luring a significant number of undergraduates to seek and cultivate the requisite skills.

Based in Gurugram, AccioJob has positioned itself to cater to this burgeoning market by providing structured online learning programmes, which are tailored to help recent college graduates launch their careers in software development and data analytics.

At the heart of its offerings are comprehensive, live training courses in areas like Java full-stack development, MERN full-stack development, and data analytics.

Established in 2018 by Yashwardhan Burad, Priyanshu Agarwal, Vishu Bansal, and Harsh Sharma, AccioJob has plans to include high-demand domains such as DevOps, Testing, and Data Science by 2024.

AccioJob’s vision for the future includes exploring opportunities in formal education. This entails potential collaborations with colleges to integrate their programmes into undergraduate and postgraduate degree curricula. Additionally, AccioJob is considering establishing its proprietary degree offerings, either in partnership with institutions or with its physical infrastructure.

Algomage

The AI-Powered Photography Companion

In a bid to help fellow photographers ease their workloads and deliver images to their clients faster and with greater efficiency, Anand Rathi, Canon India ambassador, founded Algomage in 2021.

The startup, which also made an appearance on Shark Tank India, has three flagship products – AlgoCull, AlgoEdit and AlgoShare.

AlgoCull automates the culling and rating of thousands of images within an hour, based on user-defined parameters. AlgoEdit, on the other hand, uses AI to edit images in Lightroom, learning a photographer’s style and preferences over time as it receives user input. AlgoShare employs facial recognition to ensure that all event attendees receive their images.

The startup monetises its products through a freemium subscription model, allowing photographers to subscribe to any of Algomage’s three apps on a monthly or annual basis. Algomage also offers a free plan with limited features.

Altitude

Invest In Modern Assets With Mutual Funds-Like Ease

While there is a growing number of Indians who are making investments across a wide variety of assets, alternative assets like private credit, agronomy, real estate and private equity remain one of the most attractive classes of assets. While they promise high returns, only a few have the acumen to invest in such assets.

The gap in knowledge and the absence of a platform to help users invest in such assets prompted Krisha Maggo to build Altitude, a fixed-income platform enabling investments in alternative assets. The startup is set to soon launch its first investment opportunity, Prism Fund, on the National Stock Exchange.

The fund is a multi-asset structured investment opportunity designed as a diversified basket of 10+ modern assets, including real estate, private credit, litigation, inventory and revenue-based finance, structured notes, and private equity, among others. Altitude is also in the middle of establishing thematic investment schemes within the alternative asset category.

While Altitude has yet to receive SEBI’s approval for the Prism Fund, it claims to have 35K+ investors waiting for the fund launch.

It is looking to reach INR 100 Cr ($12 Mn) in assets under management (AUM) by November 2023, with an eye on scaling the number to $30 Mn (INR 250 Cr) AUM by December 2024.

AuditCue

Streamlining Audits With Flexible Solutions

Effective solutions for risk and audit programs have often proven elusive for many companies. Legacy options tend to complicate processes, while other established players often offer one-size-fits-all solutions that fail to address specific challenges.

AuditCue aims to disrupt this paradigm by delivering tailor-made solutions that boost process resiliency and agility for its clients. Founded in 2022 by entrepreneurs Gaurav Kulkarni and Naren Janakiraman, AuditCue wants to redefine the audit experience for both auditors and auditees.

What sets this Chennai-based startup apart is its flexible and modular platform. AuditCue understands that each organisation has unique challenges and needs, and it is committed to tailoring its services to meet those specific requirements.

AuditCue’s SaaS solution not only streamlines audit lifecycles but also enhances process resiliency and agility. It accelerates audit cycles, allowing organisations to stay ahead of the ever-evolving risk landscape.

Avidii

On-Demand Personalised Learning Platform

Amid the rapid growth of edtech platforms in India over the past five years, Switzerland and Bengaluru-based Avidii, which is now expanding in the Indian market, distinguishes itself through its unique approach. Avidii offers immediate, personalised, and commitment-free educational services, catering to individual preferences and needs, setting it apart from the crowd of other edtech platforms.

Founded in 2021 by Deepak Subbarao, Avidii claims to have onboarded over 400 expert tutors across India and has garnered more than 5,000 downloads within a short period. Avidii, which is active in four countries, has plans to reach 1 Mn users and downloads in India by the end of the year.

Avidii’s core offering is a 24×7 on-demand learning service, providing customised support in subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, commerce, and arts, primarily aimed at students aged between 11 and 18.

The platform operates with two primary business models. While its B2B segment focusses on partnerships with educational institutions to enhance the learning experience within schools and colleges, the startup’s B2C segment enables direct one-on-one interactions between students and tutors, creating a personalised deep-learning experience.

BellyRubs

Comprehensive Pet Supply With Care

In a country like India, where pet ownership is on the rise, the pet care industry plays a pivotal role. The significance of this industry extends beyond convenience; it underscores the bond between humans and their pets. The growing awareness of pet care reflects an evolving society that values its four-legged members as family. BellyRubs understands this shift and stands at the forefront, offering a curated selection of high-quality products sourced from around the world.

BellyRubs, an online pet supply store founded by Shirin Lamba and Ridhi Verma, is a one-stop shop for all your pet-related needs. The startup boasts an extensive array of products, spanning grooming essentials, premium food, engaging toys, and fashionable clothing for dogs.

At BellyRubs, the focus is clear: happy owners, happy pets, and a happier world. It is not just about pet products; it is about improving the lives of beloved animals, ensuring they receive the best care possible.

Brown Living

Providing Easy Access To Sustainable Products, Deliveries

With the growing environmental concerns, businesses are increasingly acknowledging the need to minimise their environmental impact and maximise social contributions. However, challenges such as limited capital, small-scale production, and building brand credibility persist in the ever-expanding eco-conscious market, hindering the growth of sustainable businesses.

Established in 2019 by Chaitsi Ahuja, Brown Living aims to bridge this gap by making sustainability a mainstream choice through the doorstep delivery of eco-friendly everyday-use products via its ecommerce platform. The company follows a drop-ship model to ensure plastic-free deliveries and support remote businesses.

The ecommerce startup hosts over 500 brands on its platform, offering more than 65,000 SKUs across various sectors, including fashion, home decor, lifestyle, food, and kitchen essentials. Using its proprietary curation method, The Brown Lens, the company claims to have physically assessed over 1,200 businesses.

Beyond being an ecommerce platform, Brown Living provides knowledge and education to support a sustainable lifestyle through its media service content. According to the company, 78% of its GMV comes from its online platform, followed by B2B orders and offline sales.

ClearFeed

AI-Powered Conversational Support Platform

Incorporated in September 2021, Bangalore-based ClearFeed is a conversational support platform designed to improve customer service and streamline internal communication for enterprises. Cofounded by Ankit Jain, Joydeep Sen Sarma, and Lalit Indoria, the startup leverages the power of AI and deep integration with popular tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams to revolutionise how businesses handle customer and employee requests.

As remote work has become the norm, communication platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams have become integral to business operations.

ClearFeed recognises the growing need for efficient conversational support tools to bridge the gaps across various departments. The startup uses AI models to track and escalate inquiries and requests. This allows different departments to interact seamlessly, enabling service teams to manage high query volumes and provide quick responses.

ClearFeed has introduced innovative features such as triage channels, one-click ticket filing, and live two-way syncing of data. The startup’s platform also integrates OpenAI’s GPT-4, which indexes product documentation, knowledge bases and wikis. This system can automatically generate answers in response to user queries, assisting agents in resolving user issues.

With a strong focus on product development, ClearFeed has experienced exponential growth since its launch. The platform is now used by over 100 organisations globally, including industry leaders like Atlan Data, Last9, Sprinto, and Plum Insurance.

Clinikally

Expert Dermatology At Your Fingertips

India’s professional skincare market has experienced significant growth, driven by an increasing awareness of the benefits of skincare. While this market initially focused on women, it now attracts a growing number of men who recognise the significance of maintaining healthy skin and addressing skin and hair-related concerns.

Founded in 2021 by Arjun Soin, Clinikally is a healthtech startup that addresses the scarcity of dermatologists in India by offering a comprehensive and convenient telehealth platform. The company connects consumers with licenced dermatology practitioners, who create personalised treatment plans for various skin conditions.

In addition to its core services, Clinikally has expanded into pharma distribution with private-label products under the Clinikally brand for aesthetic conditions and the Soteri Skin brand for chronic skin conditions. The platform offers dermatologist consultations at an affordable rate of INR 199 and presents innovative skincare products to its customers.

Clinikally’s short-term objectives revolve around strengthening its telehealth services, broadening its nutrition and nutraceutical offerings, and increasing the number of private-label partnerships from 175 to 500+ doctor clinics. Looking ahead to 2026, the company aspires to become a comprehensive platform for dermatology and nutrition care, featuring telehealth services, an online pharmacy, premium consumer brands, a nationwide network of dermatology specialists, and offline clinic partnerships.

Contiinex

High-Accuracy Private Cloud Speech AI Platform

In an era of automation, speech AI has a crucial role to play in improving user experiences and aiding data-driven decision-making. Founded in December 2020 by Prateek Mehta and Vijay Krishna BS, Contiinex is looking to target the English-speaking global speech market.

With its proprietary speech-to-text engine and the Contiinex Open Framework for Insights (COFI), driven by Language Model (LLM) technology, the company has already made progress in the healthcare and insurance sectors.

The startup is focussed on transforming customer experience, enhancing business productivity, and optimising costs for companies in India, the US, and Australia. Contiinex’s Speech AI platform can analyse voice files and empower businesses to understand their customers better and make strategic business decisions.

The Bengaluru-based startup is also looking at expanding its Gen AI product offerings to address the space of unstructured data across all mediums like voice, chat, email, videos and visuals. With its in-house LLM capabilities, Contiinex wants to expand its horizons to other verticals like banking, retail and utilities.

DPDzero

Debt Collections Made Stress-Free

In recent years, India has witnessed numerous instances of debt recovery gone awry, leaving both lenders and borrowers in distress. The use of unscrupulous tactics by collection agencies employed by banks and NBFCs has exacerbated the situation, sometimes pushing borrowers to take extreme measures.

Recognising that the tech-enabled intervention in this domain has been limited, Ananth Shroff and Ranjith Ramachandra founded DPDzero, an AI-powered collections and debt recovery platform, in 2020. The startup serves both secured and unsecured products while maximising collection efficiency, especially for unsecured lending products.

In recent months, DPDzero has forged partnerships with major NBFCs, including Tata Capital, KreditBee, Cashe, LazyPay and Snapmint, witnessing an impressive 7X growth in revenue within the past ten months. The startup generates revenue by earning a share of collections.

In the short term, DPDzero aims to assemble a high-calibre team, bolster information security measures, and optimise its processes. By 2026, the company plans to invest in advanced AI models to introduce hyper-personalisation, expedite default prediction, and implement advanced borrower negotiation models.

Dressfolk

Ethical Fashion, Sustainably Sourced

The state of child labour in the fashion industry is appalling at best. According to a report, nearly 60% of the workers in Indian mills were under 18 when they were first hired.

Dressfolk, founded in 2017 by Nitin Mehrotra, specialises in creating traditional Indian dresses from across the country. The startup has partnered with 720+ artisans to empower the local weavers’ community, focussing on sourcing its products responsibly and free of child labour at any stage of its supply chain.

Dressfolk is also focussed on building collaborative relationships with artisans to understand craft regions and traditions.

The startup sells its products across categories such as sarees, blouses, fabrics, dupattas and suit sets via its website and several offline multi-brand and online marketplaces in the premium price category. Dressfolk claims to have a user base in 20 countries and boasts that it has increased the income of its partner artisans by more than 150%.

Equal

Consumer Verification Platform

Founded by Keshav Reddy and Rajeev Ranjan in 2022, Equal is a pioneering startup that envisions a world where access to essential services and opportunities is based on merit, not identity. In a nation as diverse as India, where numerous individuals are denied access to credit, housing, benefits, and products due to various factors, Equal seeks to level the playing field for over a billion Indians.

At the heart of their mission is the Equal ID Gateway, a product that empowers businesses to establish seamless and secure identity-sharing workflows for consumers. Much like a payment gateway facilitates financial transactions, the Equal ID Gateway facilitates the exchange of personal identification information when requested, all while maintaining privacy and security.

It spans a wide array of use cases, from healthcare to education, employment, and travel, essentially anywhere a consumer needs to share their identity with a business.

Equal’s revenue is generated through a pay-per-verification model. It claims to have over 1 Mn consumers currently.

Fairdeal

Revolutionising Retail Distribution With Data-Driven Insights

D2C brands have gained substantial traction in recent years, but expanding beyond online channels has been challenging due to high costs. The primary issue is establishing efficient offline distribution networks.

Fairdeal, founded by Prateek and Yash Bansal, aims to disrupt the retail distribution landscape in India with its innovative data-driven approach. The startup provides comprehensive offline distribution services to D2C brands, enabling them to tap into the vast potential of the Indian market.

Fairdeal connects D2C brands with a network of over 10,000 retailers. Leveraging data, Fairdeal ensures optimal brand-to-retailer matching, resulting in faster and more substantial sales. Additionally, the company helps brands co-create new products and develop pricing strategies. This approach benefits not only emerging D2C brands but also established local brands seeking expansion into new territories.

Figr

Next-Gen Design Tools On Offer

The user interface (UI) is a critical component of app and website design, serving as the initial point of interaction for users. However, many design teams struggle with a lack of inspiration, motivation, resources, or time, resulting in subpar UI and disappointing user experiences.

Founded in 2023 by Chirag Singla and Moksh Garg, Figr aims to address these challenges with its AI-driven tools, including Lookr, Flash UI, and Prokit.

Lookr provides users with a vast database of high-quality design work, helping them find design inspiration through a search-based method and recommendations for needed elements.

Flash UI takes that inspiration and offers editable templates, enabling users to create customised apps or websites. Prokit provides design resources such as icons, fonts, and colour palettes, allowing users to develop a unique design language for their brand.

Figr is also in the process of launching two new products, Identity and Construct, which will enable users to build a brand identity from scratch and visualise concepts in a UI format. The startup operates on a subscription-based model, monetising its platforms through monthly or annual subscriptions.

FlexifyMe

Curing Postural Syndrome With Technology

According to a 2023 report, approximately 19% of India’s adult population is grappling with chronic pain, often stemming from poor postural habits and a sedentary lifestyle. Additionally, India witnesses nearly 2 Lakh cases of spinal injuries every year, with the majority attributed to chronic bad posture and habits.

In response to these pressing health concerns, Manjeet Singh, who successfully recovered from Lumbar Spondylitis in 2016-17, joined forces with his long-time friend and tech veteran, Amit Bhayani, to launch FlexifyMe in 2021.

FlexifyMe is an AI-powered platform designed to assist individuals in correcting their posture and alleviating chronic pain. Utilising advanced AI motion tracking, it can detect postural defects, muscle inflexibility, and musculoskeletal disorders (MSD).

The startup claims its AI motion coach generates the world’s first physical posture analysis report that identifies the root cause of chronic pain and creates a custom plan combining the latest physiotherapy postures with yoga and meditation. FlexifyMe offers personalised subscription plans, with an average cost of INR 16,000 for six months.

Currently, FlexifyMe claims to have attracted 2,000 paying clients from India and 24 other countries. They have ambitious plans to expand their user base to over 10,000 by the end of 2024, establishing partnerships with over 200 doctors in the process.

Giga ML

On-Premise Custom LLMs For Enterprises

One of the biggest problems is that most LLMs are only available as cloud-based services, meaning enterprises need to share data with third parties to use LLMs. That is not a viable option for many enterprises due to privacy concerns or compliance requirements.

Solving these problems is Bengaluru-based Giga ML, set up by Varun Vummadi and Esha Manideep Dinne in 2023. The startup provides on-premise deployment, fine-tuning and privacy for LLMs. Its X1-Large model is currently the most powerful LLM available for on-premise deployment. Giga ML also offers an API compatible with OpenAI’s API, so users can switch to the startup’s API seamlessly without rewriting code.

The startup targets enterprises that need to use LLMs for internal purposes but don’t want to use cloud-based services or share their data with third parties. Giga ML’s on-premise deployment option gives enterprises full control over their data and their LLMs. The startup also offers fine-tuning services for LLMs, so enterprises can train LLMs on their data to perform specific tasks. This allows enterprises to create LLMs that are tailored to their specific needs.

Giga ML’s privacy features are designed to protect the confidentiality of enterprise data. The startup does not use any data its customers upload to its platform. Giga ML monetises its product through a subscription model. Enterprises can pay a monthly fee to use Giga ML’s platform to deploy, fine-tune, and use LLMs on their servers.

Novatr

Empowering AEC Professionals

India has witnessed a significant surge in the edtech sector, primarily focussed on K-12 education, test preparation, and upskilling in areas like data science and marketing. However, Novatr, formerly known as Oneistox, stands out as an educational technology startup with a unique emphasis on transforming the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry.

Founded in 2021 by a team of architects and engineers, including Harkunwar Singh, Vipanchi Handa, Mehul Kumar, and Chaithanya Murali, Novatr aims to bridge the gap between traditional AEC education and the rapidly evolving technological landscape, equipping learners to become future-ready professionals.

The platform offers a diverse range of courses and programmes, including Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Computational Design, to help learners develop essential skills and stay at the forefront of industry advancements.

Established by accomplished professionals with backgrounds from prestigious institutions such as SPA Delhi and IIT Madras, Novatr empowers learners to become forward-thinking AEC professionals. It achieved remarkable net revenue growth of 30% MoM in FY23 and is projected to experience a 12X revenue growth in FY24.

Oyela

Empowering The New Wave Of Digital Entrepreneurs

There is an emerging trend of millennials and Gen Z starting online businesses on social media. Recognising the potential and challenges, two IIT Bombay alumni Rahul Gope and Anjan Kumar Patel launched Oyela in 2021 to empower the creative entrepreneurship explosion in India by providing essential tools and opportunities through social media.

Oyela assists emerging businesses, product creators, and artists in effectively selling their products and expanding their online presence. It offers features such as digital storefront management, collaboration tools for wider exposure, and seamless integration with Instagram for automated sales through social media.

A core focus of Oyela is building trust among Indian consumers by providing transparent ratings and reviews, instilling confidence in sellers’ digital storefronts. Furthermore, Oyela prioritises operational efficiency by offering tools to streamline operations and logistics, ultimately enhancing the overall selling process and delivering a more personalised and efficient shopping experience to buyers.

Oyela currently operates across India, charging a 6-10% commission on orders, thereby facilitating seller collaborations and benefiting them. The platform boasts over 20,000 sellers who have joined at no cost and facilitates more than 1 Mn seller collaborations each month.

This Gurugram-based startup has set its sights on reaching $1 Mn in revenue and empowering 200K social stores by 2024. Its long-term aspirations encompass nurturing entrepreneurship and empowering 2 Mn social stores to capture a substantial market share in the Indian ecommerce and social commerce arena.

Pep

Social-first Content Marketplace

Founded in early 2023 by IIT alumni Nav Agrawal and Swapnil Upadhyay, Bengaluru-based Pep aims to revolutionise the content creation landscape in the era of Gen AI. The rapid evolution of technology has made content creation more accessible, but it has also inundated the internet with a deluge of low-quality content. Pep addresses this challenge through a unique approach, emphasising curation, categorisation, and content credibility.

Pep’s mission is to establish a social-first online marketplace for content that empowers users to explore, purchase, and monetise a wide variety of content and services. The platform offers a one-stop destination, granting users access to live sessions, one-on-one consultations, and the ability to purchase various content formats, including PDFs, videos, and audio.

Recognising content discovery as a major pain point for online users, Pep employs personalised machine learning algorithms to facilitate tailored content discovery at reasonable prices, making it effortless for users to discover valuable and relevant content.

Its core concept revolves around user-generated content, with a focus on micro-courses and micro-payments. The marketplace offers content ranging from INR 29 to INR 2,000, catering to a wide spectrum of user interests, from cooking and DIY crafts to fashion and health and fitness.

Pep empowers users to easily monetise their expertise by selling content through a commission-based model, with fees varying from 20% to 50%, contingent on the content category. With its machine learning algorithms, the startup ensures that customers discover and purchase content at affordable prices, fostering a no-regret approach to content consumption.

Platos

Simplifying Cafeteria Management

Running cafeterias without the use of technology often leads to operational inefficiencies such as manual order processing, inventory mismanagement, and a lack of transparency. To address these challenges, Arjun Subramanian and Raj Jain founded Platos in 2019.

At the heart of Platos’ vision are three distinct applications designed to create a smarter cafeteria experience for customers, food partners, and cafeteria managers. The Platos App empowers customers to effortlessly place orders, track their food, and provide feedback.

The Platos Partner App, tailored for on-site vendors, simplifies inventory management and order cycle control. Meanwhile, the Admin Web Dashboard offers comprehensive real-time data and financial insights, enabling administrators to efficiently manage cafeterias.

The journey of Platos began with thorough market research and hands-on experience running cafeterias without technology. Before the pandemic, the founders operated cafeterias in Chennai which clearly illustrated the imperative need for technological solutions to optimise and elevate cafeteria management.

Platos aims to tackle issues such as high aggregator commissions, cafeteria management inefficiencies, and transparency gaps, ultimately enhancing the cafeteria experience for clients and food partners. With its commitment to seamless technology and professional food partnerships, Platos is set to reshape the corporate catering landscape.

QuriousBit

Redefining Casual Gaming

Casual gaming has gained immense importance in recent years, reflecting the changing dynamics of the gaming industry, which like many other sectors and industries has greatly benefited from the widespread availability of affordable mobile data. Even those with basic smartphones can easily access and contribute to the growing mobile gaming community through app stores.

Founded by Ramakrishna Reddy Y L and Shubham Joshi in 2023, QuriousBit, a gaming studio based in Bengaluru, is on a mission to revolutionise the mobile gaming industry by offering high-quality casual puzzle games. In a genre largely dominated by match3 and blast-themed games, QuriousBit seeks to introduce a fresh and personalised gaming experience.

The founders bring a wealth of experience, having previously developed and managed games for PlaySimple Games, a global leader in word games that was acquired for over $500 Mn in 2021. QuriousBit is fuelled by the ambition to put India on the map of hit puzzle games globally.

With the global mobile casual games market valued at around $18 Bn in 2023 and projected to reach $25 Bn by 2027, QuriousBit is well-positioned to tap into the growing casual gamers of the country.

SYSOTEL.AI

Transforming Hospitality with AI, ML Solutions

Founded in 2021 by Raj Sahu, Kiran and Ravish, SYSOTEL.AI is on a mission to revolutionise the hospitality industry through innovative technological solutions. At the heart of SYSOTEL.AI’s product suite is a platform, Intelligent Booking Engine (IBE), that not only ensures secure online reservations but also simplifies the booking process for guests.

This engine integrates with Google’s extensive travel services, making it the preferred choice for hotels seeking to solidify their online presence.

The company also has a fully automated revenue management system, Intelligent Yield Automation (IYE), that harnesses the power of AI and ML to recommend competitive rates based on real-time market data and native demand trends. It also provides invaluable insights into market dynamics, event planning, and reputation management.

The 1% Club

Helping Indians Achieve Financial Freedom

Today, a majority of Indians are worried about their financial well-being, and there are several reasons behind this. One such reason is that India, despite being a savings-first nation, saw its household savings hit a 47-year low in FY23, according to the RBI data.

Amid the current scheme of things, many individuals get stuck in situations, be it poorly paying investment cycles or even investment scams, which only deteriorate their financial health further.

Having been in this space for a long time, finfluencers Sharan Hegde and Raghav Gupta set up The 1% Club in 2022 to address the challenges budding investors face in their investment journey.

The 1% Club is a members-only financial education platform that offers educational resources, mentorship, entrepreneurial opportunities and networking avenues to its members looking to achieve financial independence.

The platform offers curated courses across personal finance and the stock market. Each module starts with the basics and then goes deeper. For instance, the personal finance segment goes from investments across different asset classes to insurance planning and, finally, tax planning. Similarly, the stock market module starts with the stakeholders and moves to IPOs, financial statements, annual reports and the psychological aspects of investing.

The startup claims to be the first influencer-backed venture to delve into entrepreneurship. In the short term, The 1% Club is looking to get registered with the market regulator SEBI.

The Cube Club

Weights, Workouts, Tech & More

India is fast becoming the world capital for lifestyle diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Despite this, a lack of motivation to pursue a healthier lifestyle continues to grip most individuals.

Having sensed the underlying problem, Pratik Agarwal, Siddhesh Ghuge and Yash Thakur came together to launch The Cube Club in 2020. The Cube Club is an online marketplace from where users can buy fitness equipment and accessories such as dumbbells and weights, benches, pull-up bars, yoga mats, and more.

In October 2023, the startup launched its fitness app, Dopamine, which allows users to embark on their fitness journey with friends from the comfort of their own homes. Users can create workout channels on the app, allowing them to track their progress and stay motivated. The Dopamine app uses AI-based tech to track a user’s workout routine, which then can be shared with friends in a gamified manner.

Currently, The Cube Club generates revenue by selling fitness equipment on its website, Amazon, and over 100 offline stores. Looking ahead, the startup plans to diversify its revenue streams by monetising Dopamine.

Valo

Invest In The Stock Market And Earn Rewards

At the end of January 2023, Indians held more than 11 Cr demat accounts, up from around 8 Cr accounts a year ago. The high number still translates to a mere 3% of India’s total households actively investing in the stock market. The market’s complexity and the lack of substantial returns have made it a daunting prospect for many.

Recognising the challenges, Ayush Agarwal, Mihir Verma, Hemant Patil and Ajay Sharma, all avid stock market investors, seized the opportunity to create a platform that rewards investors for their consistent participation in the stock market. Thus, Valo was born in 2023.

The startup has formed partnerships with numerous brands, including Domino’s, Spotify, Netflix, Swiggy, Zomato, and others, to incentivise users for their stock market investments. Valo also offers a dedicated finance community where investors can engage, learn, and grow together in the personal finance domain. Additionally, it features a finance marketplace similar to the Google Play Store but for finance-only apps.

The platform utilises broker API to access investment data, providing users with rewards and key metrics without the need for email or SMS access, thus safeguarding user privacy.

Valo generates revenue through brand partnerships and commissions from trades, without imposing any charges on its users. Despite its recent launch in September 2023, the platform has already attracted over 1,000 users within a month. Valo’s ambitious plans involve expanding its user base to 10,000+ by the end of 2024.

Vegapay

Streamlining Credit Card Issuance For Enterprises

Credit cards are rapidly gaining popularity in India. This has prompted many companies across segments to launch co-branded credit cards with major banks and networks. However, the process takes anywhere between 12 and 15 months and requires 10+ tech integrations across processes.

With the NPCI and banks targeting 300 Mn credit cards in the next five to seven years, banking and technology veterans Gaurav Mittal, Abhinav Garg, Himanshu Agrawal and Puneet Sharma founded Vegapay in 2022. The startup offers a core Credit Card Management System (CCMS) for both the supply side (banks) and the demand side (co-brand partners).

Vegapay enables hyper-configurable solutions for credit card offerings, alongside white-label dashboards for the issuers to create and manage programmes without any dependency on tech.

Currently, Vegapay has established partnerships with a bank to oversee all aspects of credit card management and aims to onboard four banks by the end of the coming year. Vegapay has also recently introduced a multi-currency card in collaboration with two issuers and a co-branding partner.

Vegapay’s revenue model relies on a one-time fee and subsequent commission from minimum monthly billing done by the user banks. The startup is now working to expand to Middle East and North African regions and reach 15+ banking partners by the end of 2025.

Wootz.work

Custom Engineering Procurement Simplified

Founded by Karan Anand and Himanshu Uniyal in 2023, Wootz.work is a global sourcing platform specialising in custom engineering equipment and solutions. It is dedicated to streamlining the cross-border buying experience for light engineering products through technology and ownership of the entire process, from design to delivery.

The platform not only connects buyers with sellers but also offers a unique capability to link them directly to products and solutions tailored to their specific needs. The startup’s technology leverages an understanding of basic parameters, the buyer’s geography, industry, and application to instantly customise products. This approach reduces the procurement timeline, providing quotations within 24 hours.

In a rapidly evolving engineering equipment industry valued at $1.7 Tn, Wootz.work addresses the challenges faced by Western buyers looking to source from Southeast Asia. The platform simplifies the complex landscape of SME suppliers, overcoming language barriers, long pre-sales times, and other complexities. Wootz.work aims to bridge this gap and create a reliable global procurement channel for SMEs, allowing them to access value-driven capital expenditure.

Wootz.work emphasises value engineering, offering products optimised for easy installation and efficient shipping, with components chosen for end-market serviceability and compliance. The platform also provides virtual factory tours, comprehensive fulfilment dashboards, and round-the-clock after-sales support.

Zeron

Enhanced Cybersecurity For Enterprises

Cybersecurity challenges persist as threats become increasingly sophisticated. Issues such as data breaches, ransomware attacks, and vulnerabilities in technology infrastructure remain prominent. Addressing these challenges demands robust defence strategies, threat intelligence, and innovative solutions.

Founded in 2020 by Sanket Sarkar, Zeron, the cyber risk posture management platform, is working on cybersecurity for enterprises. It offers a comprehensive suite of solutions, following an ABCD framework, to address various aspects of cyber risk management. These modules include attack surface automation, business posture assessment, compliance automation, defence automation, and a cloud monitor.

Zeron’s flagship product serves as the single source of truth for cybersecurity, providing real-time insights into an organisation’s vulnerabilities, strengths, compliance alignment, and defence effectiveness. Zeron’s compliance automation and AI solutions automate workflows, technical evidence mapping, and policy enhancements, reducing compliance time and errors, improving audit readiness, and ensuring proactive policy improvements.

Zeron operates on a subscription-based revenue model, granting clients flexibility in payment terms. The company’s presence extends globally, with its headquarters in Mumbai, India, and outreach in the ASEAN, MENA, the Americas, and the EU regions through strategic partnerships.

In the short term, Zeron aims to onboard 50 customers and strengthen its presence in the MENA and ASEAN regions. In the long term, the company envisions creating an ecosystem for cybersecurity trust among organisations, simplifying their business journey.

Zopnote

Giving A Tech Boost To Local Commerce

India had 2.79 Cr formalised jobs as of August 2023, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. However, this figure represents only about 5% of the 52.4 Cr Indians actively participating in the labour force. The vast unorganised sector is gradually recognising the potential of technology and its transformative capabilities.

At the forefront of this transformative movement is Zopnote, a B2B2C SaaS platform dedicated to local commerce. Founded in 2019 by Rajesh Badgeri and Chengappa Chottera, this innovative startup offers two distinctive apps — a merchant mobile app and a customer app.

The former empowers small local businesses with features like customer engagement, automated billing, online collection, bookkeeping, and business intelligence. The latter enables end customers to discover and purchase products and services in their vicinity, track expenses, and make payments seamlessly. For instance, businesses can list their products and services on the platform, allowing users to explore and place orders directly from the app.

Although currently operational only in Bengaluru, Zopnote has successfully garnered over 52,000 B2C customers across 1,000+ communities in the city, processing more than 2.3 Cr bills each month. The startup monetises its platform through a subscription fee that merchants pay to utilise its services.

In the short term, Zopnote aims to achieve product-market fit (PMF), with long-term plans involving the creation of a decentralised model to leverage the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) and expand its reach across India.

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eyes In October 2023 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Ever since launching the first edition of ‘30 Startups To Watch’ in February 2020, Inc42 has aided the discovery of 1,200+ new startups. In this journey of more than three years, we have kept a close watch on the Indian startup ecosystem, which underwent significant transformations — some much-needed, others forced by market conditions.

As the days of generous inflow of capital into the ecosystem turned into investors exercising caution for months on end, the Indian entrepreneurial spirit has remained largely unaffected. More and more founders are entering the Indian startup ecosystem with more grit and ambitions to solve real-world problems with their Midas touch.

It is off the back of this positive stead that the number of government-recognised startups in the country has more than tripled since 2020 to 1 Lakh as of September 2023. This is exactly what has fuelled our ambition to find more pathbreaking new-age ventures over the years, as we remain steadfast in our mission of identifying newer startups every month. 

With that said, we present the 40th edition of ‘30 Startups To Watch’. We believe these ventures have immense potential to not only disrupt their respective playgrounds but also transform the world. In this edition, we have covered startups from various sectors, including cleantech, generative AI and D2C, among many others. 

Before we set the stage for this month’s 30 startups, we should also mention the ongoing funding winter and the fact that it has dragged on for too long.

Making it 18 months of near-continuous decline in the third quarter of 2023, startup funding was at a three-quarter low of a mere $1.7 Bn, according to Inc42’s ‘Indian Startup Funding Report Q3 2023’ report. Further, year-on-year funding for this period tanked by 43.8%, with funding deals plummeting 38.6% compared to Q3 2022.

Despite this, Indian entrepreneurs have displayed remarkable resilience and determination. And rather than retreating, more and more new ventures continue to add muscle to the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem. 

Editor’s Note: The list below is not a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.

altM

Sustainable Biomaterials For A Greener Earth

As the world seeks alternatives to environmentally harmful materials, biomaterials sourced from agricultural residue have gained prominence. While a majority has turned to recycled materials, biomaterials – materials sourced from crop residue – are another key variable in the sustainability equation.

Addressing the need for these biomaterials materials is altM. Founded in 2022 by Apoorv Garg and Yugal Raj Jain, both ex-Tesla employees, altM aims to develop and manufacture sustainable materials from agricultural residue to help companies reduce their carbon footprints and increase circularity in their supply chains.

altM uses lignocellulosic agricultural residues as their raw material to produce advanced materials as alternatives to unsustainable incumbents. Lignocellulosic residue refers to dry plant residue and includes wheat, rice, barley straw, corn stover, sorghum stalks, coconut husks, sugarcane bagasse and banana leaves.

Given its sustainability potential and functional properties, lignocellulosic residue can be used to develop materials such as paper, biofuels and polymers.

AppEQ.ai

Empowering Businesses To Bolster Revenue Streams

Retaining existing customers is the top priority for product-based companies, as customer churn can significantly impact their bottom line. AppEQ.ai, founded by Rajat Shukla and Manoranjan Ingudam, offers an AI-based copilot platform to help businesses preserve their revenue streams by improving customer retention.

AppEQ.ai provides a unified view of each customer account by integrating seamlessly with a company’s existing CRM and help desk systems. By using machine learning, it generates valuable customer insights, identifies patterns, and detects trends that can be used to enhance customer retention strategies.

For example, the platform can flag customers who haven’t recently used a product or contacted customer support, enabling proactive measures to address their needs. It also identifies upselling and cross-selling opportunities, boosting revenue retention.

AppEQ.ai offers a subscription-based pricing model starting at $25 per user per month, with pricing tiers based on features and the number of users.

In the competitive landscape of customer retention, AppEQ.ai empowers businesses with actionable insights to reduce churn and bolster revenue.

Aretto

Ultimate Comfort For Growing Feet

Founded in 2022 by Krutika Lal and Satyajit Mittal, Aretto is a kids’ footwear brand. It wants to emerge as a prominent player in the children’s footwear market in India while offering quality, and comfort for young wearers. 

Earlier this year, Aretto secured a patent for its innovative sole technology, making it one of the pioneering brands in India to receive such recognition.

Aretto’s unique selling proposition lies in the ability of its products to intuitively sense and adapt to children’s growth patterns, expanding up to 3 sizes to provide the perfect fit.

Looking ahead, Aretto has plans for global expansion, targeting markets such as the US, the UK, and the UAE. Currently headquartered in Pune, Aretto is poised to introduce a comprehensive product line in the children’s footwear market.

Aroleap

Home Gym Reimagined

Lifestyle diseases like diabetes and obesity are on the rise in India, especially in the country’s metropolitan and Tier I and II cities. One of the major contributors to this rising trend is that more and more Indians have distanced themselves from following a healthy lifestyle due to their ever-increasing workload to put bread on the table. As per a recent survey, only about 0.5% of India’s total population goes to a gym or exercise regularly. 

With a vision to democratise data-driven personal training for preventive healthcare, Anurag Dani, Rohit Patel, Amal George, and Aman Rai founded Aroleap in 2020.

The startup uses cutting-edge technology to deliver personalised insights and training built on strong foundations of science-backed fitness knowledge. Its Aroleap X is a smart, wall-mounted gym equipment designed for comprehensive weight training.

What sets the Aroleap X apart is its patented motor-powered electromagnetic resistance technology, which simulates the sensation of traditional weights. This groundbreaking equipment is effective and portable as it occupies very little wall space, making it a practical choice for all. 

Not just this, Aroleap goes beyond conventional fitness equipment by precisely tracking user movements and mapping strength-related data, which is then utilised to identify imbalances and tailor a highly personalised fitness regime based on individual goals, strengths, and weaknesses.

Aroleap primarily operates in the B2C segment and has priced its home gym, the Aroleap X, at a competitive price of INR 1.99 Lakh per unit. Furthermore, the startup has strategically partnered with various hospitality chains to accommodate bulk orders, expanding its reach and influence in the fitness industry.

Bitsila

Simplifying ONDC Entry For Businesses

The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has gained significant traction in the Indian ecommerce segment over the past few months, with numerous startups and enterprises now joining the government’s digital commerce network. However, setting up shop on the ONDC network can be challenging for less tech-savvy companies.

Bitsila, established by Dasharatham Bitla in 2020, aims to assist these companies in joining the ONDC ecosystem. This SaaS startup provides an integrated platform that facilitates connections with all ecommerce channels, including ONDC. Once onboarded on Bitsila’s platform, a seller can link their retail ERP to all ecommerce channels.

Some prominent users of the startup’s platform include BigBasket, Rebel Foods, Himalaya Wellness, and Glenmark Pharma, among others. Bitsila monetises its platform through transactional commissions on all orders and SaaS charges for software usage.

Currently, the startup is working toward onboarding 500 major enterprises to become a full-fledged network partner of ONDC, with long-term ambitions to bring in 2.5 Lakh companies by 2026.

Boxs

Personalised Interior Solutions For Home & Kitchen

The world of interior design and construction has evolved beyond mere aesthetics, and this transformation has been evident in the current market landscape. Startups such as Pepperfry, Urban Ladder, Livspace, and HomeLane have emerged in recent years, bringing both style and substance to the interior designing industry. However, these brands often provide limited personalisation options, and modular choices are scarce.

Founded in 2022 by Vikram Venkatesan and Satheesh Ramdass, Chennai-based Boxs offers a comprehensive solution for all interior needs. The platform features an innovative online tool that empowers users to create modular designs and instantly calculates the cost for their specifications. 

This online tool allows users to upload their renditions and seamlessly integrate Boxs products, enhancing customisation and creativity. Boxs components are fully parametric, complete with precise measurements to help users visualise their desired interior.

The platform boasts an extensive catalogue of over 10,000 SKUs. Once users have crafted their ideal designs, they can order products directly from Boxs and have them delivered to their doorstep.

Cirkla

Healing The Planet With Sustainable Packaging Solutions

Packaging is a leading contributor to global pollution as this industry accounts for nearly half of all plastic waste generated worldwide.

To address this issue, Vaibhav Goel, along with Ankur Gupta and Kapil Bhardwaj, founded Cirkla in 2019 to supply sustainable packaging solutions to enterprises. Cirkla maintains a vast network for sales and manufacturing, offering various categories, including moulded fibre, recycled polymers, pulp, paper, and advanced technologies.

The startup has developed proprietary life cycle assessment models, enabling businesses to evaluate the environmental impact of their packaging and prioritise SKUs for maximum sustainability. Additionally, Cirkla has an in-house packaging development team that designs alternative solutions using sustainable materials, meeting functional requirements while remaining cost-competitive.

Cirkla generates revenue through designing, prototyping, and assessment services, as well as by supplying packaging. The startup now plans to expand its presence in the US and EU.

EaseMyAI

Streamlining Workflows With Video Analytics

In recent years, video analytics technology has made significant advancements, expanding its applications far beyond traditional security and surveillance. Recognising the potential of video analytics, Gagan Randhawa and Yaman Bharadwaj incorporated EaseMyAI in 2022.

The founders have built a platform that extracts data from videos, IoT sensors, audio devices and third-party software, enabling AI-driven decision-making and end-to-end process automation. 

The startup also provides a marketplace for AI and traditional IT companies to access, upload and download various business use cases and services to customise their dashboard and automate their specific workflows.

EaseMyAI charges clients through a subscription-based model, with pricing ranging from $2 to $1,000 per month per AI model or IoT device. The Mumbai-based startup claims to have secured 20 clients across sectors. Its use cases include railway track defect monitoring, textile quality control, and gunshot detection.

With a team of 25 and month-on-month revenue growth of 15%, Ease My AI wants to enter the US market through partnerships with AWS and Microsoft.

Ellipsol

Making Solar Cells More Efficient

A typical photovoltaic cell can only convert around 15-20% of the sunlight it receives into electricity, making it a less efficient process than generating electricity from other renewable sources such as wind (30-40%) and hydroelectricity (90%). 

Ellipsol, a Delhi NCR-based startup founded in 2022 by Samarth Jain and Kaustubh Tyagi, claims to “Brighten The Sun” by doubling the energy generation capability of a solar panel at only 10% additional cost. To be sure, there are several ways the efficiency of a solar panel can be improved – anti-reflective coatings and microinverters can take the efficiency up from around 15% to 20%, but none of the conventional methods doubles it.

The startup’s core product is a retrofittable solution, which it claims can double the yield of conventional photovoltaic solar panels. It can potentially be installed across all existing solar panels. 

Jain and Tyagi, who have previously worked together on an energy storage startup, Baud Resources, are currently working in stealth mode. As such, the specifics of the technology behind Ellipsol’s solution remain undisclosed.

Floik

The Storyteller Of SaaS Companies

Thousands of SaaS companies have come up across the world, each competing with dozens that offer similar products and services over a similar sliver of market share. Given the competitive landscape in the space, conveying the right message plays a pivotal role in aligning the needs of individuals or businesses with your products and services.

Understanding this, Vartika Bansal and Vidyasankar Krishnamurthy founded Floik in 2022. Bansal’s struggle to find, purchase, and effectively implement SaaS tools led to the ideation of Floik, a platform that showcases SaaS products effectively. Today, the Bengaluru-headquartered startup positions itself as the storyteller in the SaaS industry. 

Floik’s product offers a diverse range of use cases, including interactive knowledge base content, feature announcements, internal communication, ongoing customer support, and product-led blogs. The platform allows users to effortlessly record workflows and transform them into interactive demos, explainer videos, or step-by-step guides using an intuitive editor.

Operating across India, the US, Singapore, and Europe, Floik transitioned from beta to a full-fledged platform in July 2023. The startup monetises its platform with a subscription-based revenue model, including a Pro plan at $29/month and a Teams plan at $499/month.

The startup’s short-term goals include global market expansion, team scaling and user base growth by 2024. Meanwhile, Floik aims to invest in technology, diversify its product portfolio and forge strategic partnerships in the long term.

Growtomation

HubSpot Tailored To Your Needs

HubSpot is one of the top companies that competes with giants like Salesforce and Zoho in the CRM space. While its platform’s versatility allows for plugin integration, this often necessitates significant resources — both human and financial — to tailor it to specific requirements.

Founded in 2021 by Nishant Gupta and Jatin Chhabra, Growtomation addresses this challenge by offering customised HubSpot solutions, which are designed to streamline and optimise marketing and sales processes. The startup primarily serves the US market and has collaborated with over 350 companies spanning various industries.

Growtomation facilitates seamless integration across sales, marketing, CRM, service, and web development operations. After conducting a thorough audit for potential clients, Growtomation defines all HubSpot deliverables and subsequently implements them. Following this, the startup provides support while adopting the new HubSpot implementations and fine-tunes them to align with specific needs.

In addition to HubSpot customisation, the startup enables companies to incorporate generative AI solutions into their workflows, encompassing strategy development, training, capacity building, development, deployment, and data management. This integration enhances automation and boosts productivity for businesses.

HaiVE

Supercharging Chat Support With GenAI

Generative AI revolutionising industries, with customer support being at the forefront. From chat support to how-to guides, GenAI platforms are doing it all. However, most of these platforms require companies to upload sensitive user data to their servers, posing a security risk.

Incorporated in 2023 by Deepika Loganathan and Aravinth Ramesh, HaiVE brings AI to the premises of its customers, developing LLM models that run off a company’s servers. The startup builds and trains chat support AI for companies looking to automate customer support. The AI can integrate across several platforms, including Salesforce, Freshworks, Shopify and WooCommerce. 

What sets HaiVE apart is its commitment to data security. The intellectual property generated during the process remains the customer’s property. Additionally, HaiVE offers customised AI training, tailoring solutions to specific use cases, eliminating the need for generalised intelligence in many contexts.

HaiVE monetises its platform through a one-time setup cost, varying based on user requirements, and charges for ongoing maintenance and support.

House Of EM5

Solid Perfumes To Revive Your Skin And Senses

Fragrances are an integral part of personal grooming for individuals of all genders, and the Indian market is replete with brands offering a variety of products. Unfortunately, many of these products contain harmful chemicals like Parabens, linked to skin cancer, and Phthalates, which can disrupt hormones.

House of EM5, a D2C fragrance brand founded by Shashank Chourey in 2022, addresses these concerns by curating products made from sustainable ingredients. The startup proudly asserts that its products are entirely free from parabens, sulfates, silicones, and all other carcinogenic chemicals. EM5 has developed a range of fragrance products in multiple forms, including sprays, roll-ons, mists, creams, beard balms, foot sprays, candles, and reed diffusers.

In addition to its core product line, the D2C brand offers curated gift sets and an annual subscription package that includes five fragrance samples delivered to customers at a rate of INR 1,999 per month. Since April 2023, EM5 has maintained a monthly revenue run rate of INR 75 Lakh.

Hypergro.ai

Supercharging Brands With UGC Video Ads

In today’s digital landscape, rising customer acquisition costs (CAC) often consume substantial budgets without delivering satisfactory returns. This challenge is exacerbated by poor returns on ad spend (ROAS), even with substantial investments. 

Hypergro.ai, founded in 2022 by Rituraj Biswas, Neha Soman, Abhijeet Kumar, and Arijit Mukhopadhyay, offers a solution. This startup empowers brands to create compelling video ads using user-generated content (UGC).

Hypergro.ai’s AI-powered platform connects brands with creators who can craft videos that resonate with their target audience. The platform also enables content creators to monetise their work by collaborating on UGC-based ads for brands.

Additionally, Hypergro.ai provides a comprehensive platform for brands to oversee the video creation process and monitor campaign results. The dashboard facilitates collaboration among multiple users, simplifies content approval processes, and tracks key metrics, all in one place.

The startup operates on a SaaS-like subscription model for brands to access its platform, with separate pricing agreements for brands and content creators on its platform. 

InsideFPV

Fostering India’s Drone Ecosystem

India’s dependency on drone imports has been a notable concern. When geopolitical tension escalated in 2020, Deyvant Bhardwaj and Oshi Kumari founded InsideFPV to address this challenge.

It started by designing and building drones and educating Indians on how to ply them by setting up drone experience arenas in schools and colleges. Now, the Surat-based startup builds and sells drones catering to consumers, agriculture, and defence needs.

InsideFPV claims to have delivered more than 1,600 shipments and served more than 1,200 clients to date. It offers a comprehensive range of services, from selling ready-to-fly FPV (first-person view) drones to providing a wide selection of spare electronics and parts for repair and service needs. 

The startup generates revenue through the sale of domestically designed, assembled, and software-integrated plug-and-fly FPV drones. They also offer spare electronics and parts for repair services as well as drone consultation services.

It plans to launch an upgraded consumer product line soon. By 2024, the startup has plans to establish drone experience arenas in malls akin to gaming zones, supply drones for educational labs, expand into the UAE market, offer type-certified agriculture drones, and advance its V2 product for defence applications. 

Justbaat AI

GenAI-Powered Brand Anchors

With nearly 500 hours of video content uploaded every minute, YouTube presents a vast landscape of content creators and consumers. However, video content generation remains a complex and time-consuming endeavour, involving meticulous planning, execution, production, and editing.

Streamlining this process is Justbaat, a video creation platform harnessing AI to simplify video production for users. It empowers users to create digital avatars, translate videos into 63 languages, and generate videos from text inputs.

Users can initiate video creation by uploading text, images, or videos onto the platform, which then utilises AI to generate a video based on the provided input.

The startup also offers the capability to craft lifelike images of individuals to serve as ‘anchors’ for video content. Justbaat’s AI models recreate the person’s voice, enabling content creation without requiring audio inputs. Furthermore, users can generate videos in various formats and export the final product to platforms like YouTube.

Kidbea

Kidswear Made Of Bamboo

Despite a plethora of kidswear options in the market, a significant portion of these products is made from synthetic materials, which can lead to allergies or skin irritations.

Recognising the need for natural materials in kidswear, Swapnil Srivastav, Mohammad Hussain, and Aman Kumar Mahto founded Kidbea in 2021. Kidbea is a kidswear brand that utilises bamboo to create its products.

Kidbea claims to address common issues such as germs from food spillage, skin rashes, and discomfort in newborns through its patent-filed herbal spill-proof textile technology, which also has antibacterial properties.

The startup offers a range of products, including reusable cloth diapers, clothing sets, rompers, t-shirts, and non-toxic soft toys. Kidbea currently operates in India and the UAE, with plans for further expansion in the MENA region and long-term aspirations to enter the US and European markets through a partnership with Lidl, a series of large-format stores, given that the CEO of Lidl has invested in the startup.

LISSUN

Mental Peace At Your Fingertips

Despite the increasing need for care, mental health remains a neglected aspect of health in India. According to a report by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), nearly 150 Mn Indians require mental health care but fewer than 30 Mn are seeking it.

Founded in 2021 by Dr Krishna Veer Singh and Tarun Gupta, LISSUN aims to make therapy more accessible, particularly for individuals with chronic illnesses such as cancer, kidney diseases and so on. LISSUN collects real-world data on these diseases via its partner hospitals and using its AI and ML-enabled engines, develops holistic therapy and mental healthcare into their journey.

LISSUN’s platform is focused on maximising micro-interventions in its user’s journey so that they are more accessible, repeatable and habit-forming. It has developed a telehealth platform, wellness journeys, gratitude journals and communities platform to help improve the mental health of its users. Further, the startup has also developed several child development centres – Sunshine – to address autism spectrum disorders.

The startup works on a B2B2C business model and gets a majority of its customers and revenue via its partner institutions. Working across 40+ cities, LISSUN is looking to expand its Sunshine centres across the country and launch contextualised products for its users.

Newtrace

Betting Big On Green Hydrogen

Founded in 2021 by Prasanta Sarkar and Rochan Sinha, Newtrace focuses on sustainability and aims to address the pressing issue of fossil-fuel-derived hydrogen production, which generates over 900 Mn tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. 

Newtrace’s proprietary electrolyser technology leverages fluid engineering techniques and an enhanced electrocatalyst, eliminating the need for rare earth metals. This results in ultrapure hydrogen while slashing production costs by an impressive 60%. 

Moreover, Newtrace employs advanced manufacturing methods and real-time analytics, making their electrolysers not only cost-effective but also readily deployable across various industries.

Newtrace plans to extend its impact to multiple sectors, including refineries, fertilisers, chemicals, steel, cement and transportation. Additionally, they are exploring opportunities for long-term storage and conversion of green hydrogen and ammonia.

PierSight Space

Satellite-Powered Ocean Surveillance

India is surrounded by three major water bodies – the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. The larger Indian Ocean Region, which comprises these three regions, is a major travel route as 80% of the world’s maritime oil passes through this area, as per US Air Force University. However, this region is also fraught with issues such as piracy.

Founded in 2023 by ex-ISRO scientist Gaurav Seth and former US-based National Instruments employee Vinit Bansal, PierSight keeps a watchful eye over the high seas in all weather conditions, 24/7. The Ahmedabad-based startup manages this via a constellation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging and Automatic Identification System (AIS) satellites.

PierSight’s objective is to provide continuous monitoring of maritime operations in 30-minute intervals, a service it claims to be unparalleled in the industry. The startup’s engagements span a diverse spectrum of clients, including island nations, commerce divisions of governments and environmental agencies, all of which share a pressing concern about the pervasive exploitation of Exclusive Economic Zones.

Over the next two years, PierSight is poised to launch the world’s first commercial satellite integrating SAR and AIS capabilities. The startup’s commitment to this endeavour is fully aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 14, which underscores the importance of conserving and sustainably utilising oceans and marine resources for the benefit of present and future generations.

Peping

Offering Complete Gastro Care

According to a 2022 research paper, 18% of Indian adults suffered from chronic gastrointestinal problems, with numbers only rising with age. While India has seen a surge in people becoming more health-conscious post-pandemic, those already suffering from chronic gastrointestinal issues face hurdles in getting the correct care.

Peping founders Prateek Maheshwari and Chirag Maheshwari saw the gap for an end-to-end chronic gastric management and health platform, and they went the digital way to solve the problem.

Founded in 2022, the startup offers care plans for managing diseases and disorders such as IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) and Dyspepsia, among others. The solution includes a holistic and personalised approach to dietary interventions (focus on healthy eating) with lifestyle interventions (stress management, physical activity). 

Peping’s team of gastro and hepatology doctors, nutritionists and lifestyle coaches claim to deliver a patient-centric care plan to manage and reverse chronic gut health issues that have become especially prevalent thanks to urbanised lifestyles.

The company has a suite of products with proprietary formulations containing high-quality probiotics. Currently, the startup is focused on finding the right go-to-market approach and is testing various strategies to streamline its unit economics.

Portkey.ai

Helping Business Incorporate Generative AI Seamlessly

Many startups and corporations are integrating generative AI capabilities into their products to enhance customer experiences. From recipe suggestions to improved product listings, the applications are diverse. However, managing and deploying large language models (LLMs) can be complex.

Founded in 2023 by Google alumni Rohit Agarwal and Ayush Garg, Portkey.ai simplifies this process. The startup offers three key products — model management, prompt management, as well as monitoring and analytics.

Portkey.ai provides a centralised platform to manage all LLM models, including versions, configurations, and parameters. The platform simplifies the often challenging task of handling multiple models.

Additionally, the platform allows companies to manage all LLM prompts in one place, facilitating prompt experimentation and result optimisation. Finally, it offers real-time monitoring and analytics of LLM usage, enabling businesses to identify and address potential issues promptly.

Portkey.ai’s platform is available as a cloud-based SaaS product, eliminating the need for businesses to set up complex infrastructure. Companies pay a monthly fee based on the number of LLMs they manage and the volume of traffic they route through the platform.

Rebolt Network

Establishing a Nationwide Charging Network

As of July 31, 2023, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) reported 10,967 operational public EV charging stations in India, equipped with 15,493 EV chargers. Despite the government’s ambitious goal of installing 5 Lakh public EV charging stations by 2027, the rapid surge in EV adoption across India has outpaced the growth of public charging infrastructure.

The inception of Rebolt dates back to 2021, when its founders, Murali Shankar and Sunil Prabhakar, recognised the crucial need for robust charging infrastructure to foster EV adoption. The startup is on a mission to create what it proudly claims as India’s largest public EV charging network, strategically placing charging stations in urban hubs, along highways and in key commercial areas.

Through the Rebolt mobile app, EV owners can effortlessly locate charging stations on a map, reserve charging slots in advance, or check real-time charger availability before arriving.

Once at the charging station, EV owners can scan a QR code to initiate charging, with automatic payment deducted from their wallet upon session completion. Rebolt charges a uniform rate of INR 18 per kilowatt nationwide, but they also offer a subscription plan that grants users unlimited charging for a monthly fee.

Additionally, Rebolt generates revenue through partnerships with businesses hosting their chargers. Hosts are provided with a comprehensive dashboard that allows them to manage their charger locations, track bookings and usage, monitor commissions due, process payments, and more.

SayF

Empowering Individuals To Save While They Shop

India has one of the largest populations of online shoppers in the world, with the number set to reach 350 Mn by 2025. However, the prevalence of dark patterns on major online shopping sites ensures that customers end up spending more than they should, shrinking their savings.

This enabled Aman Singh and Priyesh Gandhi to incorporate SayF, a platform that empowers users to save money while shopping online. The startup, which has partnered with over 400 brands, offers discounts ranging from 3% to 15% on top of brand or platform discounts. 

Users can access these discounts by selecting SayF’s gift card as their payment method during checkout. Following a transaction, the app invests the discount’s value into the user’s SayF account, which can then be utilised to invest in various financial products. SayF’s flagship product is its savings platform, allowing users to either save while shopping or set specific savings rules for regular saving and improved returns.

The startup primarily earns commissions from brand partnerships and stands to gain commissions when users invest their savings via SayF’s platform. 

Currently, SayF is developing a UPI layer and plans to evolve it into a Credit-on-UPI system by 2024, with a target of reaching 1 Mn users by then. In the long term, SayF aims to expand globally, integrate blockchain capabilities, and reach 10 Mn users by 2026.

Sheshi AI

Effortless Financial Reporting

Reporting financial performance is one of the most crucial activities for any for-profit company, as they have a fiduciary responsibility towards their stakeholders and sector regulators to present their performance. However, this task is far from simple, especially for tech startups with complex business models and intricate revenue recognition systems.

Having been in the finance industry for nearly two decades, Ganesh Kumar and Sumedha saw the struggles of highly qualified professionals being reduced to the mundane tasks of putting out financial statements. The duo, themselves qualified chartered accountants, came up with the idea of an AI-enabled financial reporting system, setting up Sheshi AI in 2021. 

The startup’s reporting platform, Sheshi FR, generates financial reports in under 30 minutes. The platform delivers print-ready financial statements that can be digitally signed and submitted for audits. The platform seamlessly integrates with major ERP systems, effortlessly fetching financial data. Additionally, AI-enabled ledger tagging minimises errors, ensuring streamlined data interpretation. Users also enjoy the flexibility to customise financial reports while remaining compliant with the latest GAAP regulations.

Sheshi AI operates on an annual subscription model for its SaaS platform. The startup’s short-term plans involve refining its product further and expanding into new geographies.

Svenklas

Luxury Made Sustainable

With the rise in the disposable income of individuals, India has witnessed a spurt in the demand for luxury goods, especially office and travel bags. According to Statista, luxury bags are now a $1.4 Bn market, which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 1.51% annually till 2028. However, such goods have a major environmental impact, which can’t be overlooked.

In a bid to cull the impact of such products on the environment, Nischal and Nikhil Sharma set up Svenklas, a brand that makes luxury bags from sustainable materials, in 2017. With a total of 24 SKUs across six categories, the brand’s flagship products are its unisex backpacks.

Svenklas, which manufactures its products in Gurugram and Noida, claims to ensure sustainability across its supply chain, including clean energy-powered manufacturing and fair wages to workers. The startup currently sells all its products online via its website and other ecommerce channels. Svenklas recently launched its offline stores in Delhi and Mumbai and stepped outside India by opening a distribution channel in the Middle East.

As of now, Svenklas has set its eyes on introducing new products, keeping its female audience in mind, while its long-term plans include expanding to the Southeast Asian market.

TaxNodes

Simplifying Crypto Tax Complications

While India has not yet implemented comprehensive regulations governing cryptocurrencies, it did bring crypto transactions under taxation in July 2022. Founded in December 2022 by Avinash Shekhar, Singapore-based TaxNodes is a crypto tax startup that aims to simplify crypto profitability assessment, taxation, and reporting in India.

TaxNodes streamlines the tax computation process for both retail investors and cryptocurrency exchanges. The startup allows users to automate crypto taxation by consolidating transactions from multiple sources, including various exchanges, peer-to-peer trades, private wallets, and diverse blockchains, providing near real-time profit/loss calculations and portfolio tracking.

TaxNodes not only caters to individual investors but also assists crypto exchanges in enhancing their internal controls, automating crypto accounting and integrating with traditional accounting systems.

Furthermore, TaxNodes offers solutions to government regulators, empowering them to ensure tax and regulatory compliance among crypto users and exchanges through audit tools.

Teleport

Enabling Hassle-Free Tourist Visas

Obtaining a tourist visa can be cumbersome and time-consuming, especially for individuals unfamiliar with the requirements. The extensive documentation and long wait times can disrupt travel plans.

Nikita Dresswala encountered these challenges during her three-week cycling journey across Southeast Asia. Her experiences, coupled with her visa application struggles, led her to establish Teleport in 2022. Today, the startup streamlines the visa application process for travellers by offering automated flows, guided steps, and data-driven decisions to maximise visa approval rates. 

Teleport provides tourist visas for over 40 countries, including popular destinations like France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Malaysia, and more. Powered by AI and ML, the platform automates various tasks in the visa application process. It also leverages its AI and ML capabilities to provide users with personalised advice and recommendations.

The travel tech startup monetises its platform via commissions from visa applications and from more than 100 travel agents who use its platform. In the short term, Teleport aims to process 1 Lakh visas in 2023, with long-term plans to expand into other travel-related services, including forex, eSIMs, and insurance.

Ulipsu

Empowering Students With Multi-Skill Learning

In India, the need of the hour is to align the skill sets that are taught in schools with the demands of industries. Addressing this, in the ever-expanding edtech universe, Ulipsu stands out as an OTT-like platform that offers a wide range of skill development courses for school students.

Set up in 2022 by Sumanth Prabhu and Nikhil Bhaskar, Ulipsu is an OTT-like edtech platform that offers multiple skilling courses for schoolgoers. The platform features basic to intermediate courses across multiple future-ready subjects.

Ulipsu delivers its courses through mobile and web apps, with partner schools incorporating them into their curricula. The gamified content fosters effective and engaging learning, converting passive screen time into active learning. The gamified content that the startup offers helps children grasp better, ensuring an effective and comprehensive learning process.

The startup aims to increase its user base from 350K to over 1 Mn by 2025, driven by its partnerships with schools across the country.

ZEVO

Airbnb For Microwarehousing

Per the European Environment Agency, the logistics industry is one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions in the world, accounting for nearly 25% of the total global annual emissions. Experts opine that these numbers may rise to as much as 40% if corrective actions are not taken. Access to sustainable mobility for businesses remains patchy, especially in India, which contributes to the ecological damage. 

Chartered accountants and childhood friends Aditya Singh Ratnu and Dhruv Bhatia have first-hand experience in solving this problem even before they founded ZEVO in 2022. Their research on the electric mobility segment showed that the ecosystem lacked a suite of products and services that address sustainable mobility and micro-warehousing challenges.

As ecommerce fulfilment trends move towards same-day delivery and quick commerce, companies require sustainable solutions that address micro-warehousing (smaller delivery hubs) and last-mile logistics needs. 

ZEVO’s core products include electric vehicle mobility as a service (EVaaS), micro-warehousing as a service (MWaaS), temperature-controlled refrigerated delivery, refrigerated micro-warehousing and agricultural supply chain electrification.

The startup enables integrated same-day fulfilment on a demand or subscription basis. Businesses can book EVs for various purposes such as deliveries, transporting goods, as well as forward and reverse logistics for both refrigerated and non-refrigerated products. The startup is currently operational in Delhi-NCR, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Pune and Mumbai.

In the short term, the startup is working to expand its electric fleet and geographic reach to 3,000 EVs and 16 cities, respectively.

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eyes In September 2023 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

With Indian startups shifting their focus from growth at all costs to achieving sustainable profitability, the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem is going through a paradigm shift.

Unfortunately, this much-needed shift has come at a time when investors are restraining from writing large cheques, despite sitting on billions of dollars of dry powder.

However, what stands out is the fact that taking lessons from past mistakes, Indian startups have now started to innovate like never before, achieving maturity and thereby becoming more promising bets for both domestic and international investors.

Despite this upheaval in the startup ecosystem, innovation and the launch of new ventures have refused to stop on a dime. While the pace may not match that of 2-3 years ago, what’s particularly intriguing is that these new ventures are largely being helmed by individuals who have previously held top roles in large corporations and startups.

And continuing our tradition, we are back with the 39th edition of 30 Startups To Watch to shine a spotlight on the early stage startups who are set to become disruptors of tomorrow. What makes these startups appealing is the way they have embraced technology to run businesses efficiently, with a key focus on solving real-world challenges.

What’s more fascinating is that at the core of the operations of many of these startups is their conscious efforts to serve environmental, social and governance (ESG) obligations.

As many as 20 of the 30 startups that comprise the August edition of our endeavour to identify cream-of-the-crop early stage ventures operate in the B2B space, with none of them having raised more than $1.5 Mn in funding since their establishment. Incidentally, last month’s edition of 30 Startups To Watch featured 17 startups from the B2B segment. 

This also mirrors the trend that an increasing number of Indian founders today want to solve enterprise-level problems, thereby building a customer base that has lower acquisition costs but higher average revenue per user compared to their B2C counterparts.

Without any further ado, here are the startups which caught our attention in August.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.

30 Startups To Watch: August 2023

Attron Automotive

Solving Component Sourcing Challenges For Indian EV OEMs

One of the primary obstacles in India’s burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) sector is the dearth of essential components such as batteries, motors, and controllers. Attron Automotive, a Pune-based startup, aims to handle this with an iron hand by introducing motors and controllers with advanced features.

Mosam Ugemuge and Shubham Pode, schoolmates and now the founders of Attron, had long dreamed of becoming entrepreneurs one day. Their desire in this direction was fuelled when they collaborated on a race car project in their earlier years. In 2021, when the EV industry was booming, the duo shifted their focus from building a motorcycle to developing customised EV components, solving sourcing challenges for Indian EV OEMs. Later, Udhay Singh and Mohit Borkar, too, joined the startup as cofounders.

Today, the startup’s product line consists of high-performance electric motors and controllers tailored for various applications, including EVs, industrial machinery, defence systems, marine vessels, aviation, and agriculture. 

With its patented technology, Attron Automotive aims to enhance the performance of EVs in India while staying committed to meeting stringent environmental standards. 

The startup wants to enter the EV market with its offerings in 2024. Further, it plans to expand its product portfolio by incorporating e-drive systems, comprising a motor, controller, and gearbox, in its fancy lineup of products.

Blend

AI-Powered Design Partner for Ecommerce Success

Design plays a pivotal role in shaping a brand’s identity, and it often constitutes a significant portion of a brand’s expenses. To put things in perspective, the process of photographing products and formatting images to meet the diverse image guidelines of various ecommerce platforms can cost a lot.

With a background in ecommerce, Vaibhav Prakash, Vishwanath Kollapudi, and Jamsheed Kamardeen recognised the challenges faced by small ecommerce businesses, as these often struggle to allocate substantial budgets for branding. In response to this, the trio came together to establish Blend.

The startup offers an AI photo editor, graphic designer, and poster maker platform for digital creators, small businesses, online sellers, ecommerce sellers and online resellers. The startup offers three flagship products — Background Remover, Magic Create and AI-generated background scenes. Magic Create, for instance, uses generative AI to create custom designs with a simple prompt. 

Similarly, its background scene-generating feature also deploys generative AI to develop backgrounds for product images. Lastly, Blend’s background-removing tool does what it says on the tin – removes backgrounds from images for further editing. The startup also allows its users to edit images in batches.

Blend also offers a DAAS (design-as-a-service) set of APIs that allow users to remove backgrounds from images and access the startup’s growing library of templates to use in social media posts, ecommerce creatives and more.

Coupl

A Neobank For Young Couples

Today, on a global scale, India is known to foster one of the most reliable and robust banking systems. However, when it comes to catering to specific verticals like teenagers, couples, and freelancers, Indian banks have yet to scale up. 

Understand the need of the hour, a Bengaluru-based startup is focussed on resolving the evolving financial requirements of couples.

Founded in 2022 by Srinivas Sarkar, and Kushagra Manglik, Coupl wants to position itself as a neobank for young couples and simplify their shared financial management. They provide a joint wallet equipped with two RuPay cards, one for each partner, facilitating shared expense management. Couples can pool funds into the Coupl Joint Wallet, execute shared payments via individual RuPay virtual cards, and establish auto-deposits. 

Additionally, Coupl has partnered with Bharat BillPay, an NPCI-powered service, to enable seamless utility bill payments through their app. The app is available on both the Google Play Store and the App Store.

Traditional joint accounts are typically restricted to married or blood-related individuals, excluding unmarried couples, LGBTQ couples, and live-in partners. Coupl wants to disrupt this paradigm by offering a swift solution regardless of the relationship status.

Covrzy

Disrupting Business Insurance For SMEs & Startups

Even though insurance is vital for contingency planning in small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and startups, a substantial number of such companies often overlook the necessity of choosing required safety nets.

Founded in 2023 by Ankit Kamra and Veera Thota, Bengaluru-based Covrzy aims to assist founders in securing their businesses against a variety of risks. The business insurance aggregator offers the right insurance recommendations for startups and SMEs based on their needs, such as workforce and category of work.

However, Covrzy aspires to go beyond a conventional insurance aggregator. The founders claim the product will directly help founders and business owners navigate the complexities of business risk and insurance claims.

For instance, its recommendation engine considers the specific details of an industry and sector to suggest coverage that’s tailor-made for startups and SMEs. Further, businesses can complete the purchase of insurance entirely on WhatsApp thanks to the Covrzy chatbot.

Covrzy claims to have onboarded more than 150 businesses as customers and is targeting 1,000 clients by the upcoming quarter.

DailyPe

Helping MSMEs Manage Their Daily Cash Flows

Despite being one of the largest contributors to the Indian economy, The Indian MSME sector continues to grapple with several issues, with easy access to financing being the most prominent one. 

To address this glaring gap, Shashwat Shrikhande and Saurabh Gupta founded DailyPe, a lending tech startup, in 2023 to solve the daily cash flow needs of micro, small and medium-sized businesses.

The Surat-based startup provides business loans to MSMEs such as medical stores, food joints, mobile repairing shops, and saloons, among others, which depend on daily revenues for their day-to-day operations. By offering daily loans, as low as INR 5K, DailyPe claims to ease bookkeeping efforts for such business owners.

Not just this, DailyPe offers collateral-free loans at low-interest rates. It currently claims to have a portfolio value of more than INR 100 Cr. It aims to generate revenues to the tune of INR 30 Cr in 2024 and achieve a customer retention rate of 80%.

Going forward, it wants to obtain a bank licence and build a portfolio size of INR 5,000 Cr with revenues of INR 1,000 Cr. It also aims to expand its offerings by taking multiple financial products such as savings, current and demat accounts, and insurance under its ambit.

Devnagri

Breaking Linguistic Barriers With AI-Human Collaboration

In a bid to unlock the full potential of the internet for Indian netizens, Himanshu Sharma and Nakul Kundra founded Devnagri, an AI-enabled language translation platform, in 2019. Today, the platform can translate online content into all major Indian languages, including English. Not just this, Devnagri also offers translation for documents, websites, mobile apps, APIs, images, and searches.

Along with this, the founders have developed a machine translation engine, which allows users to translate between languages automatically and the platform can also be trained to fit certain industry-specific contexts.

Devnagri’s translation services are powered by a combination of artificial intelligence and human translators. The AI helps to provide a quick and accurate translation, while human interventions ensure that the translations are accurate and culturally appropriate.

The startup claims that it has 100+ paying users, which include brands like Zomato, Swiggy, Policybazaar, Meesho, and Network18. The startup earns revenues by offering subscription plans on a monthly and yearly basis.

Expertia AI

Hiring Gets An AI Tweak

Hiring has always been a time-consuming process, as it sometimes takes anywhere between weeks to months for businesses to hire the right talent. Yet, there is a high chance of candidates backing out or not proving to be the right cultural fit, which may lead to high attrition rates.

Having met at the Entrepreneur First (EF) cohort in 2021, a former researcher at IBM, Akshay Gugnani, and the cofounder of Koovs.com, Kanishk Shukla, joined hands to address this issue together, and from this partnership emerged Expertia AI, an AI-enabled platform built to assist hiring teams across companies.

The startup offers an AI-powered recruiting platform for end-to-end hiring, the Expertia Recruiter, which can go beyond the resume to understand the skills, personality and background of the candidate and provide a certain Expertia score. 

The platform not only identifies a candidate’s skills but also pinpoints skill gaps. It actively engages with candidates on various fronts and makes them offer-ready. The startup boasts a user base of over 9,500 companies and has successfully screened and assessed more than 4 Mn professionals in less than a year.

Expertia offers a freemium B2B SaaS subscription model. Users can get started for free and explore Expertia’s ability to find professionals for them. Expertia subscriptions start as low as $200 a month and go as high as $10K or more for custom enterprise users.

The startup has set a short-term goal to reach 10 Mn professionals and 25K+ companies using the platform. Expertia is poised to reach $1 Mn in annual revenue run rate (ARR) for FY24.

Fundamento

An AI Platform To Manage Call Centres

Second-time entrepreneurs Ankit Durga and Megha Aggarwal got the idea for Fundamento while in the seventh year of their first startup, LEAP Skills. 

The duo noticed a gap when it came to customer support services through call centres. They realised that while companies were aware of the criticality of investing in customer support teams, the return on investment was low due to high attrition rates of agents and extended ramp-up periods, that is, training and onboarding.

Fundamento positions itself as an automation platform catering to customer contact centres. The platform consists of a multimodal, multilingual, API-centric stack, which becomes the core pillar for customer contact centres. 

Fundamento’s AI stack is claimed to help companies transition from agent assistance to full automation of customer support at the lower levels. The Delhi NCR-based startup has forged partnerships with tech giants like IBM, Google, and Microsoft. In the last quarter, it claims to have also secured three large contracts from IndiaMart and two other enterprises.

Its product offerings include Augment (agent copilot for query handling), Accelerate (agent copilot for task automation), and Automate (near-human AI bots for upstream customer interactions).

Fundamento’s pricing model offers per-agent, per-month subscriptions for Augment and Accelerate, while Automate operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, billed per minute of usage. Besides this, there’s an initial one-time cost for tech integration and setup. 

In the next six months, Fundamento aims to secure 10-12 significant accounts and expand to the US market through channel partnerships. The startup plans to establish a global sales team by 2026 to support its potential client base in the US and eventually extend its reach to the APAC region.

GoldPe

Invest In Gold With As Little As INR 10

According to a consumer data intelligence report from 2022, more than 65% of Indians invest a part of their income in one form or another. Even though gold is one of the most popular investment vehicles, the connection with the yellow metal among younger generations appears to be diminishing.

Understanding the need for ‘fun’ investment opportunities while working in the personal finance space, Parth Shah and Yaagni Raolji founded GoldPe, a digital savings platform helping users start their gold investment journey with as little as INR 10.

Not just this, every time users save INR 100, they earn 10 entries to the platform’s weekly draw where they can win prizes in the range of INR 1 Lakh to INR 10 Lakh. The more users save, the more entries they receive, increasing their chances of winning cash prizes. 

The startup works on a commission-based revenue model and earns a commission on the amount saved in the digital gold. The app has 140K+ downloads on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

GoldPe has plans to expand its user base to 1 Mn and manage INR 100 Cr in assets under management (AUM) by 2024. The founders anticipate these numbers to increase 10X by 2026.

GroClub

Subscription-Based Bicycle Marketplace

Cycling holds a special place in everyone’s childhood memories. However, in recent years, the cost of bicycles has been steadily rising, and as children grow, it becomes increasingly impractical to keep purchasing larger bikes to accommodate their growth.

Established in 2021 by Roopesh Shah and Hrishikesh Halekote Shivanna, GroClub is dedicated to providing a bicycle subscription service rooted in sustainability. The startup offers bicycle subscriptions for individuals aged four and above. 

Customers can select their desired bicycle, which is then delivered fully assembled right to their doorstep. GroClub goes a step further by offering comprehensive service and maintenance throughout the entire subscription period, all while guaranteeing a lifetime warranty on all mechanical components.

Upon completion of the subscription term, GroClub retrieves the bicycle and offers customers the option to receive a newer model if desired or renew the subscription for the existing one. Returned bicycles undergo a rejuvenation process, where the old frames are repurposed to create brand-new bicycles. 

Additionally, GroClub extends the opportunity for customers to purchase the bicycle outright at the end of their subscription, offering a generous 30% discount off the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. What’s more, the startup deducts the subscription cost from the total bill. 

GroClub also sells multiple bicycle accessories to fit the particular model. The startup is also planning to introduce multiple children-focused products soon, including car seats, carry cots, strollers and bunk beds to its repertoire.

Guardians

Medical Emergency Support In Under 10 Seconds

Efficient medical emergency response mechanisms are a major challenge in India. This is due to several alarming statistics which reveal that over 50% of ambulances fail to arrive within 60 minutes of a medical emergency, 90% of them lack basic equipment, and 97% of them do not have adequately trained personnel. 

Having spent more than 10,000 hours in emergency rooms in India and the UK, Dr Karan Raj Jaggi had seen the problem up close. His experiences with this problem drove Shubham Jain and Vedant Jain to come back to India and set up Guardians in 2022.

The startup’s approach revolves around a real-time emergency management system and a comprehensive network of ambulances and hospitals. This approach empowers them to address the critical prehospital phase of a patient’s journey. To date, they have successfully established a network of more than 3,300 ambulances, 500-plus hospitals, and highly-trained dispatch officers.

The medical emergency response platform claims to be able to connect patients to trained personnel in less than 10 seconds, taking 500-1,000 emergency calls per month. The startup has developed systems that help users make decisions during medical emergencies.

The startup’s core revenue stream is Protect, a subscription plan that includes a medical emergency plan and zero ambulance charges, among other things. Users can sign up for the plan for as low as INR 49 per user per month. Guardians also makes money via monthly service fees it charges from hospitals for using its network.

Presently, operational in Delhi NCR and Bengaluru, Guardians has plans to expand to 100 cities by the end of 2024. Additionally, the company is forming partnerships with health insurance providers to extend its protective services to the masses.

Humanify

Transforming User Research Through Technology

User research is an imperative step for any product-based company, as such research methods can help companies find the right product-market fit faster than their peers. More often than not, user research is time-consuming, slow and difficult to scale, which can lead to problems in the future.

Understanding this, second-time cofounders Geetika and Jashish Kambli incorporated Humanify in 2022. The startup offers a remote research platform called ExploraStory, which allows businesses to conduct user research without stepping foot outside of their offices.

ExploraStory helps businesses directly connect with their users via a secure video call, providing companies with much-needed pace and context in their research results. The startup claims to cut down research conclusion time significantly – from weeks to mere days – which is crucial in a fast-paced startup environment.

After connecting with users, businesses can then ask them to complete tasks or answer questions while they are using their products or services. ExploraStory monitors users’ screen activities, audio and videos, which are then analysed by Humanify’s AI platform to provide insights into their behaviour and experience.

Humanify offers a subscription-based pricing model for the platform, allowing companies to choose from a variety of plans based on their needs and budget.

humblx

Housekeeping Made Digital

According to a report by IBEF, India’s housekeeping market was worth $6 Bn in 2022, and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5% between 2023 and 2028. However, much of this market is fragmented and unorganised, making it difficult for businesses to hire housekeepers.

Bringing some meaning to the madness is humblx. Founded by Samir Dayal Singh, Ujjwal Kumar, and Yadev Jayachandran in 2018, the startup helps enterprises manage housekeeping and janitorial staff effectively through its SaaS solution. 

Via humblx’s QR-based solution, staff managers can schedule shifts, create and assign tasks for the housekeeping staff, track their progress, and receive notifications when tasks are completed. The platform also generates reports and analytics for better efficiency. The platform also offers remote monitoring of staff and public feedback on their performance. 

The startup offers usage-based plans, with its basic plan starting at INR 200 per QR code per month. Some of humblx’s top clients include Sulabh, State Health Society Maharashtra, AIIMS Patna, and Garv Toilets, among others.

Instaminutes

AI-Powered Sales Assistant

AI automation tools are emerging as an integral part of the modern sales stack, not just for their ability to streamline productivity and processes, but also to enhance and drive revenue growth. IIT alumni Shivam Gupta and Akshat Anand drew upon their experience in natural language processing (NLP) development to launch a summarisation tool that simplifies note-taking during meetings.

This idea became the seed for Instaminutes which was founded in 2021 as an AI assistant tailored for revenue teams, which claims to boost their productivity by over 2X. Powered by InstaGPT, a specialised ChatGPT framework, it automates non-productive tasks. What sets it apart is its capacity for continuous improvement through training and optimisation. 

The core tech of Instaminutes is patent-pending — the startup has filed for a patent in India and is also planning to file applications in the US and UK within the next six months.

The founders want to position it as ChatGPT integrated with the popular productivity apps, capable of summarising meetings, and emails, updating CRMs, and executing recurring tasks with a simple command. While currently available only in English, the roadmap includes support for Hindi, Spanish, French, and more.

The startup’s go-to-market strategy includes SEO and content marketing, Google Search Ads, and LinkedIn engagement. Right now, Instaminutes operates a freemium revenue model, offering essential features for free and pro, and advanced versions through monthly or annual subscriptions. 

On2Cook

Offering AI-Powered Cooking Solutions

At a time when artificial intelligence-driven products and services are increasingly gaining popularity across sectors and industries, the constantly-evolving tech, AI, has found a use case in the cookware segment as well. 

In a bid to make the lives of individuals or professional chefs easier by making cooking a hassle-free affair, with a core focus on healthy meals, Ahmedabad-based On2Cook entered the cookware market in 2022. 

Founded by Sanandan Sudhir, the startup, with its AI-based connected cooking devices, is on a mission to make cooking at home or restaurants more efficient, thereby saving a lot of time for individuals living a fast-paced lifestyle.

According to the founder, Sudhir, the product reduces the time and effort that go into cooking by 70% and 50%, respectively. Further, the product speeds up the cooking process without compromising on the quality of the meals — nutrients, natural colour and texture.

Last year, the cookware startup secured seed funding of INR 17 Cr from angel investors. Besides ensuring faster and better quality food at an economical price point, On2Cook can be operated via a smartphone app. 

Ossus Biorenewables

Pioneering Green Hydrogen Production For A Sustainable Future

According to the Asian Development Bank, hydrogen demand is set to rise to 15-25 Mn metric tonnes per annum by 2040, taking the market to $35 Bn by then. This growth can be attributed to the numerous practical applications of this highly flammable gas in industries such as steel manufacturing, fuel cells, fertilisers, and refineries.

Capitalising on this opportunity is Ossus Biorenewables, a green hydrogen startup, which specialises in providing process industries with on-site, on-demand green hydrogen using the waste carbon present in on-site effluents. This approach eliminates the need for storing, compressing, and transporting hydrogen.

The startup has developed its proprietary autonomous bioreactors – the OB HydraCel – that use the organic content of industrial effluents as feedstock for green hydrogen production. Pending patents in India, Japan and Italy, the OB HydraCel can produce one gram of hydrogen from a similar quantity of organic content in effluent.

One of Ossus Biorenewables’ unique advantages lies in its bioreactors’ ability to recycle effluent by consuming both organic and inorganic components, making it available for reuse on-site.

Ossus operates on a build-own-operate model, which implies that the potential customer has to pay for every kilogram of hydrogen produced, apart from a nominal installation fee. Ossus sells green hydrogen at $0.5-1.2 per kilogram, depending on the organic content in the industrial effluent and the chain length of the primary organic chemicals contributing to production. The business model has put the startup on a revenue run rate of INR 37.9 Cr for the upcoming year.

The startup has set up shop in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, with another plant coming up in Ahmedabad, which will help it take green hydrogen production to 5 metric tonnes per day. The startup also has a demo plant in Bengaluru, producing 500 litres of green hydrogen daily. Ossus’ long-term goal is to boost its production to 20,000 metric tonnes per day by 2026.

Pikndel

Efficient Same-Day Delivery For Brands

While shoppers are increasingly showing interest in D2C brands, they ultimately turn to larger marketplaces like Amazon or Flipkart due to the more seamless delivery experience, especially same-day delivery. 

To enable all ecommerce startups with same-day delivery experience, logistics startup Pikndel comes with a network of shared dark stores which tackle the problem of last-mile delivery. 

Brands can store their products in the startup’s dark stores for ultra-fast 4-hour deliveries and the company also collects products directly from existing brand-owned warehouses for same-day delivery.

The Delhi NCR-based startup charges a fixed fee on brands for every order it fulfils, while it is currently operating in the capital as well as Mumbai and Bengaluru, two high-volume hubs for D2C brands. 

Over the next year, Pikndel aims to expand its same-day delivery services to all Tier-I cities in India. The startup’s roadmap includes an AI-based product that it claims will provide a personalised experience to shoppers in its delivery network.

Recipeat

Hospitality Sector Gets A Job Marketplace

As per a report, India’s food services industry is set to create 10 Mn jobs by 2025, with hundreds of thousands of establishments looking for job-ready individuals. However, hiring is a major challenge for this space given the highly unorganised nature of the domain.

To change this, Ram Vaibhav Kumaran and Adrien Jasserand set up Recipeat, a job marketplace for the hospitality industry, in 2022. The platform connects job seekers in the hospitality industry with establishments seeking workers across roles such as waiters, cleaners, baristas, receptionists, and stewards, among others.

The Bengaluru-based startup onboards restaurants, hotels and other establishments, allowing them to make job listings on its platform. 

The startup charges INR 4,000 (excluding GST) per month for a single listing, with pricing going up to INR 22,500 (excluding GST) per month for up to five listings. Recipeat also offers custom pricing plans for establishments looking to list more than five jobs per month.

Roopya

Empowering Fintechs For Seamless Digital Lending

Lendingtech has become the largest market opportunity within fintech and is set to rise to $1.3 Tn in size by 2030, per Inc42 data. Lending has also emerged as a viable option for many fintech startups to hit profitability and grow sustainably. However, many fintech startups simply lack the technical know-how to set up a lending infrastructure.

Having worked in finance and banking for nearly two decades, Raman Vig and Sudipta Ghosh set up Roopya in 2022 to provide fintech startups with the means to kickstart their digital lending ventures in under five minutes through the Roopya Money product suite.

Roopya offers four key solutions – AI Insights, Loan Origination System, CRM for Fintechs and Loan Origination Platform. The startup’s analytics platform gives insights into bureau data, alternate data and customer behaviour data, allowing fintechs to predict their customers’ needs and act accordingly. Roopya is also a part of India’s OCEN (Open Credit Enablement Network) network.

The startup’s loan origination system connects a B2B user with hundreds of LSPs (loan service providers) to generate leads. At the same time, Roopya’s loan origination platform, a cloud-based, automated platform, helps lenders to originate and underwrite loans. Lastly, the startup also offers a CRM platform designed for fintech startups to manage lending operations.

The startup has two pricing plans, one each for a credit institution and an LSP. For the former, Roopya charges INR 3.75 Lakh per month, alongside INR 95 per transaction. An LSP can avail the startup’s products at INR 5.5 Lakh per month, along with INR 125 per transaction.

Satyukt Analytics

Transforming Indian Agriculture With Satellite-Powered Solutions

Agriculture is India’s largest industry, with nearly 55% of the country’s population directly relying on agriculture and related sectors for their livelihoods. According to statistics from Inc42, the Indian agritech sector is projected to grow to $24 Bn by 2025, highlighting the pressing need for agricultural modernisation in the country.

Recognising this need, Sat Kumar Tomer and Yukti Gill founded Satyukt in 2018, a SaaS startup harnessing satellite technology to provide advisory services to customers. The company has developed proprietary technology capable of swiftly measuring soil nutrient content, enabling farmers to assess soil quality through their mobile devices without the need for on-site visits. Satyukt offers four primary products: Sat2Farm, Sat4Agri, Sat4Risk, and Sat2Credit.

Sat2Farm is a mobile app that delivers real-time data to farmers, including information on soil moisture, crop health, and crop yield potential. Sat4Agri offers agricultural enterprises insights into crop acreage, growth stages, and distribution. Sat4Risk supplies crop insurance companies with data regarding crop health and yield potential. Lastly, Sat2Credit assists BFSI  institutions in evaluating a farm’s creditworthiness.

The startup provides its services in nine different languages and boasts an impressive client roster that includes Marico, Mahindra, Bosch, Adani, IIM Bangalore, and CISCO, among others.

Seekho

Bridging The Skill Gap in Regional Languages

Skill development is one of the fastest-growing sub-segments within the Indian edtech space and is set to become a $2.5 Bn market opportunity by 2030, as per an Inc42 report.

While working with Kuku FM, the trio of Rohit Choudhary, Keertay Agarwal and Yash Banwani realised that there was a high demand for educational content in regional Indian languages. As such, they started building Seekho, a learning-focussed edutainment platform offering skill-development courses.

The platform offers engaging bite-sized videos around technology, money and business categories in Hindi and Bangla. The content is created by experts and is curated to deliver a fun learning experience. Seekho focuses on edutainment, crafting an engaging learning environment that merges education with entertainment.

Seekho monetises its platform via a subscription model. A user can subscribe to unlock all available content on the platform for INR 199 per month, as the startup continues to focus on affordability. The startup plans to tap an ARR of $10 Mn by 2024, which currently stands at $1 Mn and is growing 35% MoM.

SellerGeni

Enabling Sellers Unlock The Full Potential Of Amazon Ads

A recent Amazon India report showed that there were more than 10 Lakh sellers active on its ecommerce platform, making it one of the largest online retailers in the country. While it offers advertisement services to sellers to be more competitive, there are only a few sellers who can effectively leverage Amazon’s advertising tools.

Having witnessed the problem first-hand, Athmajith Colote, Yogendra R. and Andrew Jervis set up SellerGeni in 2020 to help brands and sellers accelerate growth and automate ads through its suite of tools on Amazon.

Brands working on Amazon can connect their Amazon accounts and get intelligent recommendations on strategy automation. The startup claims to automate 98% of the user’s day-to-day activities in the first seven days of onboarding.

The startup has two key products, GrowZ and AisleDominator, which help brands execute complex growth strategies in just a few steps. SellerGeni’s tools allow users to know what is not working in their campaigns, why it is not working and how users can improve the outcome.

The startup charges users based on their ad spend on Amazon, with plans starting from $100 per month. Having gained 100+ users, SellerGeni is on course for a $700K ARR for FY24, growing at 20% MoM. The SaaS platform is active across geographies, though 51% of its clients come from India. 

Moving forward, SellerGeni is looking to expand to the US, Canada and Japan by 2024, adding support for other platforms, including Meta, Google, Walmart and Flipkart (subject to API availability).

Skippi

Ice Pops With A Healthy Twist

There is hardly any kid in this world who will say no to an ice pop or maybe two. While several brands manufacture ice pops in the highly fragmented Indian market, there is hardly any brand offering healthier popsicles that are largely free of sugar and artificial flavours.

To change this, Ravi and Anuja Kabra decided to set up Skippi Ice Pops in Hyderabad in 2020. While the husband-wife duo faced initial teething issues during the pandemic, the brand took off in 2021.

Today, the startup offers popsicles in more than five flavours, cream rolls and cornsticks via an omnichannel retail business model. The products are made using all-natural ingredients and flavours and use only RO water for their ice pops. Skippi sells via its website and quick commerce apps. It also has a distribution network of 200+ stockists and distributors across India. The startup claims to manufacture its products using a patented technology.

Skippi appeared on ‘Shark Tank India’ in 2021 and secured an ‘All-Shark deal’ in the process. The startup claims to be on a sharp growth trajectory, recording a 40X growth in revenue last year and receiving orders worth INR 2-2.8 Cr per month.

StarAndDaisy

Your Parenting Partner

Over the past few years, the mom and baby care segment has emerged as one of the fastest-growing sectors in the Indian startup ecosystem. This can be substantiated by the fact that the country today fosters more than 6K startups, which offer baby products and services to parents.

Founded by Akshay and Anshul Arya, Delhi NCR-based StarAndDaisy aids parents in their parenting journey with its products, including prams, cribs and cradles, baby walkers, study tables for kids, and toys, among other babycare items.

StarAndDaisy’s lineup of products is available across marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart, and Firstcry. The startup roped in Indian actor Ameesha Patel as its brand ambassador last year.

tan90

The Cold Chain Enablers

The Indian cold chain market is highly unorganised, and it is due to this fragmented nature of this sector that many businesses that trade in perishable goods have no other option but to depend on rudimentary solutions like using ice slabs, dry ice or cost-intensive solutions like a refrigerated truck.

Notably, even though the country has cold storage that is run on solar panels; however, these solar-powered centres lack efficiencies on various fronts.

During their research days at IIT Madras in 2015, Dr Soumalya Mukherjee, Dr Shiv Sharma, and Dr Rajani Kant Rai were working on phase change materials (PCM), a substance which releases or absorbs sufficient energy at phase transition to provide useful heat or cooling. This research enabled them to manufacture PCM for the thermal management of supply chains. As a result, tan90 came into existence in 2019.

The startup manufactures 20 tonnes of inorganic PCM daily in various form factors, including sachets for short usages to panels for lengthier usages, at its Chennai plant. The startup has developed its PCMs and can serve temperatures between -24 to +50°C for applications across industries such as frozen, chilled and ambient food products, pharmaceuticals and biological samples.

These PCMs have pending patent applications in India.

The startup also offers Cooling-as-a-Service (CaaS), which is aimed at customers who are in the mid-mile movement and have been using dry ice and refrigerated trucks. Via its PCM-based solutions, customers can use normal trucks for the movement of frozen products. For the same, the startup provides pre-frozen PCM panels on a lease to maintain the temperature inside ice boxes.

tan90 has two primary revenue streams – selling PCMs directly and leasing them via CaaS. The startup sells PCMs across India, UAE, Oman, Philippines, Germany, and South Korea, while CaaS is available in Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, and Hyderabad.

The startup plans to ramp up its CaaS to six more cities, while its long-term plans include expansion into the SEA market and HVAC services.

The Mainstreet Marketplace

Reseller Marketplace For Sought-After Sneakers

The sneaker culture is one of the biggest subcultures within the fashion industry, and India is no exception. According to research firm Allied Market Research, India’s sneaker market reached $3 Bn in size in 2023 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.18% between 2023 and 2028.

However, some of the most coveted sneakers are beyond the reach of many. Having witnessed the absence of good sneakers, Vedant Lamba founded The Mainstreet Marketplace in 2017. The initiative first started as a YouTube channel and eventually became a reselling marketplace.

Today, the platform has expanded to include other fashion goods such as watches, handbags, t-shirts, and more. Currently, the startup lists more than 8,000 SKUs on its platform.

The Mainstreet Marketplace follows a C2B2C business model, which means that the platform connects individual sellers to buyers. The startup acquires stock from sellers and then ships it to buyers from its locations in Delhi and Mumbai. The Mainstreet Marketplace also allows users to pay for their products in instalments via MNST Pay Later at zero extra cost or interest.

The startup earns a commission on each product sold on its platform. Its YouTube channel, which now has more than 100K subscribers, also contributes to its overall revenues.

The Mainstreet Marketplace recently achieved INR 100 Cr in annualised revenue run rate and is gearing up to launch its in-house range of products, MNST Gear. In the long term, the startup is working on expanding its retail business to four more countries beyond India.

Transitry

Transforming ESG Metrics With Digital MRV Solutions

Companies are now mandated to report the environmental impact of their activities in the form of ESG reports. However, while attempts have been made to introduce a standardised system, many companies have internal metrics to showcase environmental impact, which may not be accurate and unbiased.

Having witnessed the problem first-hand while working with farmers to develop and implement climate-friendly land management practices, Navarun  Atraya and Vishan Ravi Tejaas established Transitry, a climate tech startup, in 2021.

Transitry, an AI-enabled platform, provides digital MRV (measurement, reporting and verification) solutions to help organisations measure, report and verify their carbon emissions. 

The startup also allows organisations to track their carbon footprint, identify opportunities to reduce emissions and demonstrate their commitment to sustainability metrics. The platform helps organisations, businesses, government departments and NGOs compile and verify their carbon emissions data, which is essential for complying with carbon reporting requirements.

Transitry’s advisory services help companies develop and implement climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. The startup also guides how to access green finance, used to invest in climate-friendly projects. 

WorkHack

Elevating Data Solutions With ChatGPT

Pretty much nothing has changed the dynamics of the tech industry in the past decade as much as generative AI.  An increasing number of organisations are jumping on the AI bandwagon now with the proliferation of ChatGPT-based tools, so naturally, the market is ripe for early innovation in this domain. 

Like WorkHack, a startup founded in early 2023 by Akshat Tyagi, started off exploring some use cases in HR and marketing, before turning its focus to data collection via generative AI.

The startup is targeting pre-sales areas such as lead generation, lead qualification, quote generation, and order creation where ChatGPT can automate repetitive manual tasks. 

Going forward, the startup aims to cater to solutions down the funnel, i.e., after customers are brought on board, with features targeting engagement, retention, and cancellation.

WorkHack operates on a subscription-based pricing model, billing users monthly. It claims to be catering to businesses that have workforces ranging from 10,000 to 2,00,000 individuals. The pricing ranges from INR 7-INR 3 per user per month. The startup currently serves customers in the Indian and US markets. 

Xylem AI

Building AI Infra For Software Engineers

Bengaluru-based Xylem, which positions itself as an AI infra provider, is building a low-code platform for software development teams to build, manage, and deploy production-ready AI models into their products.

Founded in 2023 by Arko Chattopadhyay, Enrique Ferrao and Pranav Reddy, Xylem has various use cases for developers. With the help of Xylem, developers can simply connect their data source, choose from its embed models, decide on resources and select the required LLM model.

The startup’s proprietary search and ranking engine, RavenX, integrates both keyword and semantic search, which helps reduce LLM costs and latency as well as eliminate inefficiencies by processing relevant data. 

Xylem is planning to release the first public build of the platform by 2024 and aims to clock in $75K-$100K ARR in the same year. Xylem AI is looking to capture the growing global market of the AI enablement layer. In the short term, the startup also plans to train its in-house AI engines for use cases in businesses beyond generative AI.

Zoplar

Unclogging Supply-Chain Bottlenecks In The Procurement Of Medical Supplies

Although India has been one of the major pharmacy markets in the world, supply-chain issues remain a major pain point internally. 

Understanding that the fragmented nature of supply chains makes the procurement process complex and hampers the quality of products, Amit Sah and Umesh Sharma founded Zoplar to simplify medical supply procurement with a one-stop platform for all healthcare requirements.  

Incorporated in 2022, the Gurugram-based startup makes the procurement of medical supplies more convenient and cost-effective, thereby giving hospitals and manufacturers of medical equipment a much-needed respite.

Zoplar offers access to a wide range of products eliminates pricing and inventory complexity and ensures quality delivery and after-sales experiences. 

The medical supplies provider counts Titan Capital, Saison Capital, and Beenext as its investors. It claims to have over 250 clients and delivered 50,000-plus units across more than 7,000 pin codes in India.

[Edited by Shishir Parashar]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eyes In August 2023 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After two years of unmitigated growth powered by the rocket fuel of FOMO-driven funding, India’s startups are facing a reckoning. With startup funding plunging to 2020 levels, volatility in public markets and the US economy on the verge of entering a recession, the world is looking at similar conditions as the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008.

However, the present moment might also be the best time to build a startup. Flipkart, Dream11, Policybazaar, EaseMyTrip and Zomato – all storied names in India’s startup ecosystem – were founded during the height of the GFC when global markets were facing an extinction-level event.

The crucible that is the current market will forge companies that will make headlines throughout the next decade. Startup funding is in a freefall zone and investors have tightened their purse strings significantly, making selective deals. However, the bullishness for early bets remains as high as ever.

We have always had the opportunity to discover the market leaders of tomorrow with ‘the 30 Startups To Watch’ column, and this endeavour holds more prominence right now.

Recognising the immense responsibility we have on our shoulders, we took a step back, talked with startups and investors backing them and reprioritised what kind of startups need the spotlight the most today.

After spending two months on the drawing board, we have returned with the 38th edition of ‘30 Startups To Watch’ with a sharp focus on sustainability, echoing the sentiment across global markets.

30 Startups To Watch: July 2023

No startup that was selected has raised more than $4 Mn in funding, with many securing less than $500K in investment and still turning a profit. While these 30 companies employ more than 650 employees cumulatively, 17 startups have 20 employees or less.

The list is loaded with fintech, ecommerce and enterprise tech ventures, with a total of 20 startups. We have also featured startups from the currently relevant fields of generative AI and semiconductors, with one startup each from the two red-hot industries.

More interestingly, the 38th edition of ‘30 Startups To Watch’ features 17 startups operating in the B2B space and only eight ventures making waves in the B2C segment. The remaining five startups hold the B2B2C flag.

In our most recent editions of this series, we have witnessed a growing wave of startups catering to other businesses. Usually, these startups are either already profitable or are about to turn a profit, which ensures better exit opportunities for investors who have burnt their fingers already and are looking to make safer bets.

For Indian startups, however, the present is anything but the time to play it safe.

With that, we bring you the 38th edition of the 30 Startups To Watch list by Inc42.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.

abCoffee

Stirring Up Indian Coffee Culture With Grab-and-Go Playbook

Coffee is undeniably one of the most beloved beverages in India, with coffee chains like Starbucks, Tim Hortons, and Cafe Coffee Day being quite popular. However, the prices at these chains have been notoriously high, with markups reaching as much as 1,700%. That remains true with the presence of local speciality coffee chains, even as India is the world’s eighth-largest exporter and the fifth-largest producer of coffee.

Having experienced European coffee for many years and after extensive research on Indian coffee varieties and roasting techniques, Abhijeet Anand started abCoffee in 2022 from a single outlet in Mumbai. The startup has nine tech-enabled, grab-and-go outlets in Mumbai, with one coming up in Delhi NCR soon.

abCoffee prides itself on its efficient service, claiming that customers can get their favourite beverage and be on their way in just 90 seconds, provided they place an order right before arriving at the outlet. 

The QSR coffee chain sources green beans from across the country and roasts per its in-house recipe. abCoffee has 95+ SKUs across five categories, including hot and cold beverages and ground coffee.

The startup has multiple revenue streams, including direct sales via its QSR outlets, online sales via delivery partners like Swiggy, Zomato, Magicpin and Dunzo and online orders via the website. So far, abCoffee claims to have sold 103K+ cups of coffee to more than 31,000 customers. It reported an ARR of INR 3.4 Cr as of July 2023.

In the short term, abCoffee plans to expand to major urban hubs of the country, with 323 outlets by 2024. By 2026, the startup plans to set up more than 6,650 outlets across India, with an ARR of INR 6,656 Cr.

Agrigator

Meet The Uber & Ola Of Farm Logistics

According to a 2021 report by the Standing Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, India lost around 412K metric tonnes of wheat and rice between 2017 and 2021, owing to poor transportation and logistics. For context, the amount of food grains lost in transit could have fed 82.3 Mn people for a month.

To alleviate the issues shrouding the sorry state of grain logistics in India, Udit Sangwan and Charu Chaturvedi founded Agrigator in 2019.

Similar to Uber or Ola, Agrigator acts as a platform that connects grain traders and small-scale millers with on-spot logistics services. Truck drivers can sign up on the platform to offer their services, similar to how ride-hailing companies operate. Since its inception, Agrigator has onboarded more than 2,000 truck drivers.

The startup offers multiple services to its customers, including guaranteed truck confirmations within an average of 28 minutes and freight discovery through its freight prediction model, which is patent-pending in India.

Agrigator has its supply network in four states to enable the pan-India movement of grain. In the last three months, the logistics startup has achieved significant milestones, including 9,000 trips and increasing its matching fees from 2.5% to 6%, amassing a user base of 24,000 clients. 

They have also joined hands with an NBFC to expedite payments.

Agrigator takes a certain percentage from the payment received by each truck through its platform, making way for the Bhopal-based startup’s core revenue stream. By 2024, Agrigator is looking to increase its revenue by 8% YoY.

CapitalSetu

Giving Small Businesses A Supply Chain Financing Boost

Per the Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, there were 14.39 Mn MSMEs in India as of February 2023, with more than 99% being micro and small enterprises. These businesses have limited access to financing, which limits their growth.

Pankaj Goel, a chartered accountant, saw an opportunity in the supply chain finance segment for distributors, retailers and MSMEs, which inspired him to start CapitalSetu in 2020. Today, Goel runs the startup with his wife Ayushi and Yogesh Vaishnav, a family friend and the startup’s CTO.

CapitalSetu’s offerings comprise six products, three fintech and three SaaS. Its flagship product, SetuX, is aimed at providing supply chain financing to businesses. With SetuX, the startup helps MSMEs increase the pace of their cash flow by releasing ‘early payouts’ against their invoices.

Further, while the startup’s SetuPay is a peer-to-peer invoice discounting platform, which enables faster payment cycles, its SetuDyna solution offers a dynamic discounting platform through which MSMEs can offer early payment discounts to their respective suppliers.

CapitalSetu’s SaaS product SetuFi is a tally reports and dashboards mobile app. Similarly, its SetuTIP is an app-based trade intelligence platform that offers credit assessments, GST reports, ITR reports, banking reports, and bureau assessments. The startup also offers an order management system, SetuBiz.

CapitalSetu generates revenue through its supply chain finance operations by charging interest and through SaaS subscriptions. 

The startup has disbursed INR 250 Cr so far, a quarter of its 2024 target of INR 1,000 Cr loan book in supply chain financing for MSMEs. By 2026, CapitalSetu aims to take disbursals to INR 5,000 Cr across 1 Lakh MSMEs in India.

Centricity

Giving Private Wealth Management A Tech Boost

Traditionally, wealth management has been a mostly manual process with limited automation and outdated reporting methods. Due to the unavailability of tech-enabled solutions, the requirements of HNIs and UHNIs have often remained underserved in this segment. In addition, independent financial advisors (IFAs) today need help in scaling up their services amid a dearth of tech solutions. 

With India’s wealth management market set to reach $429.70 Bn in assets under management (AUM) in 2023, the lack of tech in the space is telling.

Having worked with single-family offices and UHNIs for over 20 years, Manu Awasthy founded Centricity. The startup offers plug-and-play solutions for IFAs looking to make the transition to the wealth management space or scale their businesses. For HNIs, UHNIs and single-family offices, it offers a suite of tools for efficient wealth management. 

Centricity primarily focuses on two products – OneDigital and Invictus. While OneDigital is a digital infrastructure platform for IFAs, Invictus is an insights-generating tool designed for single-family offices (SFOs).

OneDigital enables onboarding, KYC processes, multi-asset transactions, comprehensive investment product listings and comparison tools. Invictus, on the other hand, enables SFOs to assess investment risks, implement policy guardrails, and create asset allocation.

The startup’s revenue accruals come from commissions generated from asset management companies/product manufacturers and fee incomes on secondary bond trades with clients.

Centricity’s short-term plans for 2024 include scaling the technology team, expanding its physical presence, enhancing the product bouquet by adding more products and growing key metrics such as the number of digital partners, product penetration, AUM for OneDigital, and the number of families on the Invictus platform.

Evolved Foods

Switching To Plant-Based Protein Products

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 35% of Indians do not get enough protein. Further, the livestock industry is responsible for about 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, solidifying the case for plant-based alternatives for protein.

To bridge the protein gap and make the most of this opportunity, Roma Roy Choudhury and Pradeep Rao established their plant-based protein startup, Evolved Foods. The founders got the inspiration for the startup from their personal experiences, including a visit to Singapore in 2014 and the subsequent launch of their restaurant in Bengaluru.

Evolved Plant Meat, the flagship product of Evolved Foods, is a 100% vegetarian product that offers 15 gms of protein per 100 gms of serving, has zero cholesterol, and does not contain any animal-derived ingredients. The startup uses soy, coconut and rice protein to manufacture plant-based protein alternatives.

Recently, Evolved Foods also entered the heat-and-serve food category to celebrate the rich regional culinary heritage of India with dishes such as Hyderabadi dum biryani, Chettinad fry, dhaba-style tandoori tikka and Kashmiri rogan josh curry.

The startup operates on a B2B business model, selling its products to 25-plus clients in the food service industry. It is also finalising the launch of its products in the overseas markets and its short-term goal is to start exporting the products soon. In the long term, Evolved Foods aims to focus on developing more plant-based protein alternatives while immortalising Indian cuisine.

Fundly.ai

Funding Small Pharma Businesses

According to an IBEF report, India’s pharmaceuticals industry is expected to reach $65 Bn by 2024 in market size, further expanding to nearly $130 Bn by 2030. A significant chunk of the industry consists of regular chemist shops across India’s towns and cities. 

However, with the rise of online pharmacies, there is a need for financial solutions for small pharma business owners, retailers, and distributors to enable them to compete with major online pharmacies. Amit Chawla and Shreeram Ramanathan, having recognised the gap in the market, founded Fundly.ai in 2021 in Mumbai. 

Fundly.ai, which operates at the intersection of supply chain and MSME finance, empowers pharma distribution tail, speciality players and brands by providing them with affordable financial solutions. Fundly.ai’s platform streamlines the financing process, making it easier for retailers and distributors to access funds for their operations. 

Fundly.ai offers two products – invoice payment and InstaCash. The former allows small pharma distributors to pay the invoices in advance. InstaCash, on the other hand, is a direct line of credit offered by Fundly.ai to non-registered distributors and small pharma businesses.

The startup has empowered more than 2,000 retailers and 30-plus distributors across 9+ cities and has so far disbursed more than INR 140 Cr in credit. The company plans to deepen engagement with existing customers, invest in technology development, and introduce new product offerings in the short term, on the back of its recent $3 Mn seed fundraise.

GrowAgro

Empowering Farmers With Enhanced Livestock Care Solutions

According to a report by Mordor Intelligence, the veterinary healthcare market in India is projected to reach $1.86 Bn by 2028. Despite this potential, Indian farmers continue to face challenges in accessing healthcare services for their livestock, as only one government-certified veterinary professional is available for every 21,000 cattle.

This scarcity of veterinary care has resulted in a high animal mortality rate, decreased productivity, and significant negative impacts on the profitability of over 120 Mn farmers engaged in cattle rearing.

Having experienced the bleak realities of rural livestock healthcare while helping their families with livestock management during the Covid-19 pandemic, Harish Phalswalm, Naveen Shokeen, Prince Yadav and Krishna Sharma founded GrowAgro in 2022 to address the gap in the system.

The startup has developed a mobile app that offers farmers multiple healthcare services for their livestock. The app focuses on preventive healthcare, breeding assistance and nutritional consultation. It uses AI-based image recognition technology, which allows farmers to upload images of their cattle to detect potential health risks and get treatment recommendations.

Along with nutrition plans for animals, the app offers AI-enabled solutions for breeding healthier and more productive animals. GrowAgro’s app also facilitates consultations with experienced veterinarians and livestock experts when need be.

GrowAgro charges a consultation fee for personalised expert consultations and offers premium subscriptions to users. Further, the startup earns commissions from every transaction that happens on the app.

Currently, the startup is conducting a pilot in one district of Haryana and plans to expand gradually across North India soon.

HexoAI

Generative AI-Powered Creatives For Marketing Success

Creating high-quality marketing content can be expensive, especially if it involves hiring professional photographers or designers. While the pricing differs across categories and can cost heavily with images edited as per the style guides of various ecommerce platforms.

Hexo.ai, founded by Kunal Bhatia and Vignesh Baskaran in 2022, uses a proprietary generative AI engine trained on a massive dataset of images, creatives, and marketing data to help businesses solve these challenges. The AI engine allows the startup to generate customised, high-quality, and realistic creatives.

The startup’s product suite includes a product photography generator, a creatives generator, a personalisation engine, an expenditure strategist and a variations generator for all visual needs of an ecommerce brand.

These tools can help businesses save time and money on marketing while also creating more effective and engaging content. Hexo.ai’s generative AI can also help companies track the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and make necessary adjustments.

While Hexo.ai is in the pre-revenue stage, it plans to monetise its product suite through a subscription model. Users will be able to subscribe to Hexo.ai’s services on a monthly or annual basis.

Kikibix

Seizing Growing Health Foods Market With Nutritious Snack Offerings

Over the past few years, Indian consumers have been increasingly incorporating healthier food options in their diets, given a steep rise in the cases of lifestyle-related diseases. That has helped the health foods market to expand at a CAGR of 20%, and according to a report by Avendus Capital, this sector will reach $30 Bn in size by 2026.

Increased demand for healthier snacking options enabled Dr Ridhi Kaur to launch Kikibix, a D2C brand offering healthy snacking options like cookies and peanut butter, in 2022. The Gurugram-based D2C startup has developed 12 types of cookies and three peanut butter flavours. Kikibix claims its cookies are baked using whole grains and don’t contain wheat, gluten, palm oil, refined sugar and artificial sweeteners.

So far, the D2C startup has served 20,000-plus customers, and its products are available on its website and major online channels, having recently boarded the quick commerce bus with Blinkit. With a team of 5-7 people, Kikibix claims to have grown 8X YoY.

The startup’s short-term plans include launching two new product lines – nuts and namkeens – and expanding the catalogue to 30-50 SKUs across five categories by 2024. In the long run, Kikibix aims to go omnichannel and onboard a brand ambassador by 2026.

Leumas

On-Demand Manufacturing For D2C Brands

In the burgeoning landscape of Indian D2C brands, the majority outsource their production due to the high investment required for in-house manufacturing. However, Leumas has emerged as a game-changer for D2C brands in nutraceuticals, health supplements, skincare, hair care, oral care and healthy foods.

Founded by Nitesh Kumar and Subhajit Biswas in Bengaluru, Leumas offers a unique solution that allows D2C brands to manufacture goods as per their demand. By leveraging Leumas’ scalable production capacity, brands can access flexible batch sizes and efficiently produce multiple products.

Central to Leumas’ offering is its innovative tech stack, integrated with its manufacturing facilities. D2C brands can now upload their product recipes to the cloud, enabling Leumas to manufacture precisely according to each brand’s demand.

At the heart of their services lies the flagship product, Leumasware, an on-cloud manufacturing suite that empowers D2C companies to design, develop, and manage new products. Additionally, it enables seamless production and quality control while maintaining a digital inventory that enhances supply chain visibility.

Not stopping there, Leumas goes the extra mile by offering expert assistance to D2C startups venturing into specific product classes, helping them bring their envisioned products to life.

Magma

Bridging Gaps In Indian Manufacturing

After China, India is on its course to becoming one of the largest manufacturing hubs in the world. Per World Bank data, India’s manufacturing gross value add (GVA) stood at $450 Bn during 2022, compared to China’s $4.98 Tn and Japan’s $1.02 Tn.

Despite this, manufacturing units in India continue to face a slew of challenges in areas like capacity utilisation, quality control and supply chain management, leading to high customer churn and challenges in exporting their goods. To bridge this widening gap between Indian factories and global markets, Neal Thakkar founded Magma in 2021.

A B2B manufacturing platform in the building materials space, Magma helps factories with procurement, manufacturing and sales to compete with their global counterparts. By leveraging Magma’s mobile app and its web-based platform, factory owners can streamline their operations, connect with and manage suppliers, optimise and track logistics, and enable a consistent energy supply.

The startup operates on a commission-based business model, generating revenue through margins earned on the products sold via its platform. Magma claims to have onboarded 110-plus clients across 12 states in India, making an annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) of INR 200 Cr in the past three months.

Magma’s plans for 2024 include expanding its product offerings by increasing the number of SKUs available on its platform and serving more factories.

By 2026, the startup aims to expand into verticals beyond construction materials.

Maya

Programming Made Easy

Programming is a complex and time-consuming task, and many who lack technical know-how may find it difficult to learn.

Bengaluru-based Maya Labs, founded by Sibesh Kar and Shubham Mishra in 2020, is solving this problem by developing a program synthesis engine called PAC-1 that can convert natural language instructions into computer codes.

This allows users to instruct machines to perform tasks without having to write codes. At the enterprise level, Maya Labs’ PAC-1 helps software engineers focus on more complex tasks such as developing new features or fixing bugs.

Maya Labs plans to monetise its product through a subscription model. Users can subscribe to the startup’s service and use PAC-1. The startup also plans to offer enterprise-level pricing for businesses that need to automate large volumes of tasks.

Mindgrove Technologies

Revolutionising Mid-Range Chip Market With Indigenous Systems On Chips

Throughout 2021 and 2022, the world witnessed a massive shortage of semiconductor chips, impacting industries across the globe. This came as a wake-up call for countries like India, which are heavily dependent on China and Taiwan for these chips. While the supply chain has stabilised in recent months, there is still a problem of overdesigned chips.

At a time when many global chip designers are looking to develop the next-fastest chip, there is a large section of engineers working on mid-range applications like IoT, computer vision and automobiles with outdated, inefficient and expensive tech.

Understanding the challenges faced by system engineers, Shashwath TR and Sharan Srinivas J founded Mindgrove Technologies in 2021 to provide SoCs (systems on chips) for mid-range use applications. The cofounders worked at IIT Madras’ Reconfigurable Intelligent Systems Engineering (RISE) Lab — while Shahwath was a systems engineer, Sharan was a PhD student at RISE Lab.

Mindgrove has been working on three primary SoCs – Secure IoT, Vision SoC and Edge Compute. While all of them are in the design phase, Secure IoT will enter production by late 2023 at fabs in the US and Taiwan.

These chips are powered by IIT Madras’ SHAKTI, an open-source initiative by the RISE Group, to develop state-of-the-art SoCs in India. Mindgrove also benefits from the Indian government’s push for self-sufficiency in chip design and manufacturing.

The startup claims its SoCs have several use cases across categories and segments, including IoT, edge computing, EVs, smart utility meters, and security equipment such as fingerprint locks and CCTVs.

Now&Me

AI-Enabled Mental Health Platform For GenZ

According to an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) research report, the Indian population is facing a severe mental health crisis, with depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorders constituting one-sixth of all health-related disorders.

Another research by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) finds that nearly 150 Mn Indians require mental health care services but fewer than 30 Mn are seeking care. Having witnessed this problem firsthand, Bani Singh and Drishti Gupta founded Now&Me, an AI-enabled startup focused on self-care for Gen Z. 

Their flagship product is an expert chat panel, which helps users connect with mental health and self-improvement experts via text, calls, or video calls. Unlike traditional therapy sessions, the platform caters to individual needs, allowing flexible session durations at as low as INR 7 per minute. The expert panel, which comprises professionals fluent in multiple languages, offers both therapy and coaching. 

Additionally, the startup provides a peer support community, enabling users to connect with like-minded individuals and express their feelings. The peer support community provides a safe space for users to share their stories openly, combating feelings of isolation.

Now&Me has adopted a freemium model, providing users with a free trial of therapy and expert services, followed by paid recurring sessions. The pay-per-minute approach allows users to pay for the duration of their sessions with experts. 

In the last three months, Now&Me has assisted over 7,000 individuals. The startup now aims to expand its reach beyond individuals and provide enterprise-level support. The plan by 2024 is to offer an expert chat panel for both B2C and B2B needs, enabling more individuals and organisations to access the necessary guidance and support.

Ohm Mobility

Dial Ohm For EV Financing

India has a 100% electrification target to decarbonise its transportation by 2030, and the homegrown EV market is likely to become a $206 Bn opportunity by that time, according to a CEEW-Centre for Energy Finance report. But the country will require investments worth $180 Bn+ to reach its green mobility goals.

Despite the sector’s rapid growth and great potential, financing for EV startups has been sluggish at home. Nikhil Nair, who earlier worked with SELCO and M-COPA for solar financing in India and Nigeria, was aware of how a capital crunch can affect the mass transition to EVs. So, the cleantech veteran launched Ohm Mobility in 2020, an EV financing platform connecting startups with FIs.

The Bengaluru-based EV fintech collaborates with multiple FIs, including banks, NBFCs and EV leasing companies, to ensure hassle-free lending and speedy disbursals. It claims to have disbursed loans worth INR 35 Cr in the past three months and charges a platform fee from the EV startups.

Short term, Ohm Mobility aims to help finance 30% of Indian EV companies by 2024.

OneDios

After-Sales Services Just Made Easier

While buying products, especially electronic items, vehicles and consumer durables, is fun, they can become a headache over time, especially when they start to wear out, demanding servicing. Getting after-sales service of any kind, be it appliances or vehicles, is a long process and demands maintaining a long list of contacts. Further, customers often face long wait times, while companies incur high costs in just registering requests.

Understanding that the country’s after-sales services sector required a disruption when it comes to offering better customer experience, Nitin Chawla, a former IBM employee, founded OneDios in 2019, along with a fellow IBMer, Amit Sharma.

The startup runs a mobile app, OneDios, which allows users to search and register a service request within 60 seconds. Its flagship product, the OneDios Request Booking System (ORBS), works as a gateway to connect customers with brands.

Customers can also upload their invoices and warranty cards to tag their products in the app to schedule after-sales services and register requests faster.

The solution can be integrated with any CRM, enabling brands to deploy ORBS within two weeks. OneDios has partnered with 90-plus major brands, including Daikin, Hitachi and Voltas. Partnerships with brands and dealerships not only allow the startup to sell extended warranties and register service requests but also acquire customers at the point of sale.

The primary revenue stream for OneDios is the commissions that it earns from service requests raised via its app. It also makes money by working with brands to sell extended warranties.

OneDios estimates that at least 1.6 Bn service requests are routed through call centres across India per year, giving it a large TAM. This TAM has allowed OneDios to register more than 800K users and 60K service requests per month. The startup’s revenue during FY23 was INR 1.35 Cr, up 20X from FY22.

In FY24, OneDios aims to sell 50K extended warranties, deliver 10 Lakh service requests and onboard 500K new customers, with hopes to become profitable by FY26.

OneGreen

A One-Stop Shop For All Natural Products

While there are numerous brands in India claiming to offer ‘natural’ and ‘green’ products, determining the authenticity of these claims can be challenging. Additionally, many brands that offer genuine products often fail to grab consumers’ attention as they primarily sell through their websites.

Seeking to adopt a more mindful lifestyle, when they became parents for the second time, Abhijit Bhattacharya and Neha Gahlaut faced similar difficulties. They realised that finding genuine products, which are no green sheen, from various websites and platforms was quite a challenge.

This led Bhattacharya and Gahlaut to found OneGreen, a one-stop shop for all green and mindful products, in 2020. The platform offers products across categories such as baby care, food and beverages, home and dining, clothing, fashion and pet supplies, among others. In just three years, OneGreen has grown to become a horizontal ecommerce platform that offers over 20,000 products from 500-plus brands across more than 85 categories.

OneGreen has developed a three-step quality and credibility measurement model, OneGreen Index, to mitigate green-washing in the market. The algorithm validates and confirms claims made by a brand and testifies its presence and popularity, rating it on a scale of 1 to 10 — the higher the score, the better the product. 

OneGreen operates on a commission-based revenue model. The startup has managed to reduce its burn rate by 90% in the past six months and grow its GMV by 10% MoM. The startup also claims to have a 20% repeat rate over 90 days.

By 2024, OneGreen plans to cut down its costs even further, increase repeat customers and improve average order value.

ONWO

Simplifying Cross-Border Food Trading For Indian SMEs

According to an IBEF report, India recorded $50.2 Bn in total agriculture exports during 2021-22, up 20% from $41.3 Bn in 2020-21. However, cross-border trade of food products faces several challenges, including complex ecosystems and middlemen, limited access for SME buyers and a lack of price transparency.

Having faced these challenges while working in the international sourcing division at Flipkart, Bipul Kumar founded ONWO in 2022 to ease the cross-border trading of food products.

ONWO is an exporter of rice and sugar. The startup’s curated platform offers overseas SME buyers a range of products from Indian producers, including multiple variants of rice as well as processed and raw sugar.

The platform simplifies the procurement process by offering quality-assured, low-touch pre and post-order experiences. ONWO provides its services across both online and offline channels, allowing customers to reach the platform via all avenues.

The platform also provides contract manufacturing and private label solutions, quality assurance and risk management and complete order fulfilment. ONWO has 15-plus partner mills located primarily in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana. So far, the startup claims to have delivered more than 10,000 metric tonnes worth of produce to regions such as North America and the Middle East.

ONWO generates revenue through multiple streams. It charges a commission on the price of the products sold on its platform. Additionally, it earns fees for fulfilment services and value-added services provided to manufacturers and buyers.

Recently, the startup claimed to have achieved a 90% repeat order rate, turning EBITDA positive in the process. ONWO also claims to have $10 Mn in ARR in FY23 and plans to hit $1 Bn in revenue by 2026.

Papa Pawsome

All-Natural Grooming Products For Furry Friends

Keeping the four-legged, furry companions squeaky clean can be tricky. But more worrisome are the ingredients used in off-the-shelf grooming products that can be extremely harmful if licked or swallowed by dogs and cats. The market needed a Mamaearth for pet care – brimming with the goodness of natural products – and Mumbai-based Papa Pawsome has created that niche. 

Nishita and Nikita Agarwal (unrelated), the digital-first D2C pet grooming brand offers a wide range of holistic wellness products which use plant extracts instead of harmful chemicals like sulphates, parabens, silicones and artificial fragrances. These include wet and dry shampoos, detanglers, itch creams and medicinal ointments for ticks, fleas and infections, paw and skin creams, spa kits and more. Pet parents can also choose products from dog breeds.

Papa Pawsome sells through its dedicated website, quick commerce platforms like Blinkit and Zepto, and marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart and BigBasket. It claims a user base of 20K+, a 60% rise in repeat customers and an ARR of INR 4 Cr in FY23, including month-on-month revenue growth of 20%.

The D2C brand plans to launch new products, including dog toothpaste, hemp oil and pet wipes in the short term.

PensionBox

A Power Planner To Secure The Golden Years

Elderly poverty in India can be quite alarming in the next decade or two. As per the National Statistical Office, the country’s aged population will reach 194 Mn in 2031 from 138 Mn in 2021. And more than 90 Mn of them will not have financial security, according to a 2021 report by the Agewell Foundation.

Although the Vision India@2047 document considers (post-retirement) gainful engagement for the active and healthy, brothers Kuldeep and Shivam Parashar wanted to do more. They were alarmed by the inadequacy of the US retirement system when they worked there and planned for their parents’ golden years. The viability of the Indian pension system is also under the scanner. For instance, a 2022 report by The Print estimated that around 300 Mn would be without pension benefits by 2050. So, the Parashars launched the PensionBox app in 2021 to help people plan their retirement.

The Bengaluru-based fintech uses AI solutions to generate pension plans based on the contributions made to the National Pension Scheme (NPS). It further takes into consideration a person’s age, salary/monthly income, desired retirement age and place and whether they have a business plan for post-retirement years. The platform allows complete control over contribution schedules so that users can put the money in at their convenience.

In case there is no NPS contribution during the one-year period the user has for matching their contribution target, the app adjusts the goal within the selected retirement age accordingly.

It has also come up with a B2B2C vertical, partnering with private-sector companies to ensure pension benefits for their workforce. It has teamed up with five such companies so far. PensionBox claims to have onboarded more than 1.5 Lakh users, tracking INR 250 Cr in pension savings. The platform takes a 0.5% cut on every NPS investment as recurring revenue. In other words, PensionBox charges a small percentage on each transaction happening on its platform.

It also charges users a one-time fee for opening an account with the NPS.

PensionBox aims to onboard 2 Mn users and 100 B2B clients by 2024. It plans to bring in 10 Mn users and 2K companies by 2026 and wants to emerge as the country’s first pension tech unicorn. It will also apply to patent its AI-powered dynamic pension planning engine.

Powerbot

Improving Power Efficiency With Custom-Made Power Filters

Despite waves of technological advancements, a majority of Indian enterprises are still operating on low PF circuits, which results in a lot of electricity wastage. For the uninitiated, the PF or power factor expresses the ratio of actual power used in a circuit to the apparent power delivered. 

Another challenge for Indian enterprises is that the ones that pay more than INR 50,000 in electricity bills are charged differently. This is because authorities believe that they induce disturbances in power lines. These were two of the major headwinds that Anand Teke faced during his previous stint as the founder of a rooftop solar startup, HelioKraft. 

To address this, Teke joined hands with Hemant Shinde and founded Powerbot in 2020 to arrest runaway costs by improving efficiency. The startup examines the electricity data of enterprises through its proprietary smart analyser, which is designed to analyse power quality on 100-plus parameters. 

Next, the analyser, installed at the premises of users, sends the data to Powerbot’s cloud. The data is then analysed by Powerbot’s proprietary algorithms to design filters aligned to the client’s power needs, which are then installed at their respective properties. 

The smart meters and power filters are the primary revenue generators for Powerbot, which operates on a B2B business model. With 50-plus clients onboard, the startup claims to be on the course to generate 8X more revenues this year compared to last year.

The founders have plans to expand to 15-plus states by next year. It recently also struck a distribution deal with a well-known Indian brand.

Rehook.ai

Automating Customer Promotions And Loyalty Programmes For B2C Companies

Every customer-facing company, especially B2C companies, have several promotions and loyalty programs in place to drive customer retention and improve sales metrics. However, this process is complex, expensive, time-consuming, and disrupts internal workflows.

To resolve this complex web of problems, Akhil Suhag, Akshay Suhag, Mukul Anand and Tushar Dhara founded Rehook.ai in 2023.

The startup offers a full-stack platform that automates the entire user promotion stack and saves time, money and resources required to build promotional strategies and loyalty programmes, including coupons, bonuses, leaderboards, action-based rewards, referrals, streaks, gift cards and more.

It has developed an in-house rule engine, which enables companies to create rules and tailor promotional campaigns based on user actions. This approach also allows for high-impact and personalised campaigns that can be optimised and targeted for maximum impact.

One of Rehook.ai’s unique selling propositions is its platform-independent, API-first, and event-driven architecture, which ensures scalability and eliminates any tech dependency post-integration.

This allows brands to build hyper-personalised promotions at scale while having complete control. Clients can edit, pause or modify any campaign at any time and set conditions for budget, time frame, reward validity, and recurrence.

Rehook.ai operates on a SaaS subscription and pay-as-you-go revenue model. Having onboarded its first 10 customers, the startup aims to achieve $1 Mn in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) by 2024 and targets $5 Mn ARR by 2026.

SheerDrive

Using AI/ML To Unleash True Potential Of Used Cars

The used car market is known for its complexity and fragmentation, leading dealers to invest significant time and resources in sourcing, grading, and pricing pre-owned vehicles. While various startups, such as Cars24, CarDekho, Droom, and Spinny, have entered the segment, persistent challenges remain.

One notable newcomer is SheerDrive, a digital platform cofounded in 2020 by Siddharth Panikar and Ravisen Mehra. The primary goal of SheerDrive is to assist both new and used car dealers in efficiently procuring and remarketing used vehicles.

The platform boasts a range of AI and ML-enabled features designed to streamline the car evaluation and pricing process. Among these is the Vehicle Scan tool, which utilises AI and ML algorithms to analyse a vehicle’s condition based on a photograph, identifying any potential damage or issues.

Another noteworthy feature is Intelligent Computation, a web dashboard that allows dealers to review and grade various vehicle parts, thereby gaining valuable insights into the car’s overall condition. Armed with this information, dealers can proactively address any damages or necessary repairs before putting the car up for sale.

Assured Pricing is yet another critical component of SheerDrive, offering an algorithm that generates fair market values for used cars. By considering factors such as the vehicle’s condition, mileage, and location, the algorithm provides dealers with an accurate and guaranteed fair market value for each car.

Lastly, the Robust Remarketing platform serves as a valuable intermediary between car retailers and web aggregators. By connecting used cars with potential buyers, this platform also offers insights into the optimal timing and location for marketing a particular used car.

SheerDrive operates on a subscription-based revenue model, with dealers paying a monthly fee to access the platform’s robust features. The fee structure is determined based on the number of vehicles each dealer sells, ensuring a fair and scalable pricing system.

Shipturtle

Transforming Marketplaces Into Asset-Light Digital Bazaars

Marketplaces are one of the most popular ecommerce formats nowadays. But traditional platforms still struggle with vendor onboarding, inventory cataloguing, order processing and fulfilment, resulting in longer processing times and hindered growth. Sharad Kabra, a second-time entrepreneur, faced similar issues when he built myBageecha, a multi-vendor online marketplace offering garden products. 

To make life easy for online sellers from every nook and cranny, Kabra set up Shipturtle in 2021. The ecommerce SaaS suite can transform any run-of-the-mill marketplace into an asset-light digital bazaar where shoppers can search through a huge catalogue or directory of brands, and businesses can sell their offerings to a much larger user base.

Its plugin can be easily integrated with the store formats of Shopify (WooCommerce and Magento frameworks are also getting developed) for vendor syncing, cataloguing, order automation, fulfilment, tracking, commission generation and reconciliation.

The Ahmedabad-based startup recently launched a host of website and app-building tools to create vertical markets and extend digital commerce scope beyond Amazon and Flipkart. It has also partnered with logistics players, such as Shiprocket, Amazon Shipping and Delhivery, to provide various delivery options.

The ecommerce enabler has multiple revenue streams in place, including subscription fees for its website and app-building toolkits, customisation fees and a one-time logistics carrier integration charge. It has onboarded 30 B2B clients so far.

By 2024, Shipturtle will build a directory for D2C brands to help them cross-sell to similar companies without third-party intervention, with plans to hit $1 Mn ARR by 2025. It also plans to roll out a social commerce arm by 2026, where content creators will boost brand credibility and drive their sales.

SuperAPI

Supercharging APIs For Efficient Coding

When a request is made to an API, it can take a few seconds to fetch responses. This can be a problem when developing a web or mobile app that needs to make frequent API requests. As such, slow and unreliable APIs can cause poor user experience, increased bounce rate and loss of revenue.

Often, using a caching solution is the only way out, which helps store the responses from APIs for faster response rates. Integrating the best of both worlds, Aditya Agrawal and Adithya Kavuluru founded SuperAPI in 2022, making APIs instantly cacheable with their solution.

Under the hood, SuperAPI does everything an app developer does to make APIs cacheable. The startup offers HTTP caching, in-memory caching, database caching and stale-while-revalidate caching. SuperAPI also offers API monitoring, validation and compression, allowing data transfer to remain manageable within a limited bandwidth and keep API data up-to-date.

These features ensure a better user experience with improved responsiveness and reliability. Since the startup does everything in one place, it helps save a lot of money, which developers would have spent buying solutions to make their APIs cacheable.

SuperAPI is free to use for up to 100 requests per month and hits a subscription paywall after that. The subscription fee starts at $10 per month for 1,000 requests and goes up to $100 per month for 1,00,000 requests.

Swytchd

Switching To EVs Now Made Easy

Between June 2022 and June 2023, India registered nearly 8.27 Lakh two-wheeler electric vehicles (EVs), according to data from the government’s Vahan portal. Despite this, the price of a two-wheeler EV could burn a hole in the pockets of a large chunk of the Indian population, which can lead to stagnation in EV demand.

Having worked in the vehicle leasing department of Jaguar Land Rover, Sameer Arif came up with the idea of launching a similar product for EVs, which led to the inception of Swytched in 2021, which offers two-wheeler EVs on a monthly subscription.

Like popular subscription models, the startup provides customers with a complete package, covering everything from vehicle to servicing. Customers can choose from Swytched’s diverse range of brands such as Ather, Ola and Revolt. Once subscribed, the startup takes care of all the necessary support and services.

At the end of each month, customers can decide whether to renew the vehicle subscription, switch to another model, or discontinue the service. Swytched’s pricing structure accounts for the vehicle, insurance, servicing, breakdown support and charging refunds. Over the past three months, Swytched has gained more than 300 active monthly subscribers.

Swytched’s short-term plan for 2024 is to double its fleet size. By 2026, the startup aims to expand its operations beyond Bengaluru and establish a presence in multiple geographies with a fleet of over 2,000 vehicles on the road.

Togai

Simplifying Pricing And Billing Processes For B2B SaaS Companies

India has become the world’s SaaS hub, with companies like Zoho and Freshworks building for the world. However, almost all B2B software companies face challenges with pricing and billing in their operational workflows.

SaaS products are typically billed as per usage, along with other billing models such as subscriptions. However, managing large-scale data in real-time for usage-based pricing can be challenging. Similarly, offering tailored pricing strategies can also be a roadblock, when businesses rely on traditional subscription billing platforms that may not provide the flexibility required.

To uncomplicate complex billing processes in the enterprisetech space, Abhishek Rajagopal, Aravind Sriraman and Tholkappiyan Velavan founded Togai in 2022.

Togai’s flagship product is a billing platform that focuses on addressing the limitations of traditional subscription billing platforms. The platform excels in handling metered billing, allowing businesses to price their products based on customer usage, though it also offers SaaS companies to design subscription models, be it usage-based, subscription or hybrid pricing.

Togai’s event-based architecture enables SaaS companies to create and adjust pricing models quickly, catering to the specific needs of their customers. The platform also integrates with existing tools such as CPQ, CRM, billing systems, usage analytics and revenue recognition, ensuring smooth and efficient pricing updates across all systems.

Enterprises can avail of Togai’s solution for free, up to the first $50K in billing per month. After a company crosses the free limit threshold, it can choose from either its growth plan (with 100/1,000 invoices worth $25K/$250K) or its custom-made enterprise plan.

TransBnk

Transactional Banking Tech Stack For Banks & NBFCs

According to a 2019 McKinsey report, global transaction banking pulls generate nearly $1 Tn in annual revenue across segments such as trade finance, cash management and working capital products, including overdrafts and deposits. However, much of this work happens manually, which slows down the entire value chain.

Having worked in the banking sector, Vaibhav Tambe, Lavin Kotian, Pulak Jain and Sachin Gupta witnessed the tech and functionality challenges in setting up transaction banking infrastructure. As such, the quartet built TransBnk, a plug-and-play solution which digitises the escrow process for banks, NBFCs and other companies that engage in lending and supply-chain financing.

The startup has digitised the onboarding process and the post-onboarding transactions via its TrustHub platform, reducing the time it takes to onboard users to an escrow account from 45 days to hours. Further, it also offers banks pre-onboarded anchors (companies offering lending solutions via banks) via the DEBS platform, simplifying the escrow journey.

TransBnk also offers a plug-and-play co-lending solution for banks and startups looking to set up lending operations. The startup’s APIs provide access to multiple banks and manage the entire process, from escrow opening to transaction management. The startup has also developed a tech stack to handle recurring payments.

The startup monetises its tech stack by taking a small percentage of the value of transactions that happen via its platforms. In the short term, TransBnk is looking to expand its tech and product teams and product line to triple its clientele by 2024.

Vaaree

A Curated Marketplace For High-Quality Home Décor

India is rich in arts and crafts, weaves, colours and designs. And the creative minds from every niche bring forth their offerings through multiple home décor platforms. But these are either too expensive or the affordable ones often lack the quality. Also, most of these premium products are exported directly and similar products are unavailable in the domestic market to retain ‘product exclusivity’. 

When setting up a new home shortly after their marriage, Varun Vohra and Garima Luthra also started searching for exquisite home décor at pocket-friendly pricing. Although digital commerce has effectively done away with all borders, creative or otherwise, they were unable to find their choice of products, and the prices were not to their liking.

Eventually, the duo, along with Garima’s cousin Pranav Arora, launched a B2C curated marketplace, Vaaree, in 2022 to cater to the connoisseurs at home.

The Bengaluru-based ecommerce startup has developed a curated marketplace and operates on a manufacturer-to-consumer business model where quality remains the soul of creation. Before onboarding, manufacturers have to undergo a 32-step quality control checklist put together by Vaaree to assess quality and process control. Surprise monthly checks are also carried out at production units for maintaining and improving quality standards.

The platform has tied up with 100 Indian manufacturers and has listed 20K+ SKUs across 75 categories, including bedding, furnishings, kitchen, dining, décor, bath and garden. Additionally, its team of experts offers personalised curation services for free to cater to shoppers’ requirements. Vaaree’s platform has an ‘Inspiration’ section, where users can talk with the startup’s team to select designs and colours best suited to their tastes and budget.

The marketplace earns commissions from manufacturers on products delivered.

Vaaree claims 40% month-on-month growth in GMV and says it shipped more than 50K products in the first year.

Volt Money

Unlock Secured Loans With Mutual Funds

According to a report by the Association of Mutual Funds in India, the average assets under management for the Indian mutual fund industry for June 2023 stood at INR 44.82 Lakh Cr. Most of this value is locked away in long-term investments, and redeeming mutual funds means closing the account and losing returns.

To address the emergency demands of customers and their unwillingness to withdraw from mutual funds, Bharat Lamba, Lalit Bihani, and Ankit Agrawal launched Volt Money in 2022, offering secured loans against mutual funds. Customers can avail loans from INR 25,000 to INR 2 Cr, depending on the size of their mutual funds.

The fintech startup’s interest rate starts at 9.95%, much lower than personal loans. With flexible lending terms compared to the rest of the industry, Volt claimed it is yet to see a default.

The startup earns revenue by charging a commission from the interest paid by the borrower and through direct processing fees. Since Volt operates in the B2B2C business model, Lamba claims it has nearly zero customer acquisition cost (CAC).

The startup is working on expanding its loan book and hiring resources to improve its tech stack. However, the long-term vision for Volt Money remains to diversify beyond mutual funds and leverage all financial assets for secured lending.

[Edited by Shishir Parashar and Sanghamitra Mandal. With inputs from Chetan Thathoo]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Attention In July 2023 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Are we facing a lost generation of startup businesses? There is no denying that Indian startups have experienced turbulence in the past year and a half. No easy money is sloshing around to fund mundane or moonshot projects as investors are becoming more profit-conscious and risk-averse. Business shutdowns are hitting entrepreneurs hard as founders routinely take to social platforms to write goodbye posts. And thousands of startup employees are at risk as pink slips flood the ecosystem.       

But the question is: Will this ongoing funding winter and operational strife eventually impact the growth trajectory? 

Overall, there has been a lack of support for first-time business owners and a lack of growth funding. And it has been a do-or-die situation for the young businesses we cover every month under 30 Startups. Not surprisingly, they wanted a month to return to the drawing board, rework their strategies and ramp up their investment returns before beginning a new financial year with sustainable business goals. 

So, we quietly put away the March list and waited until startups were ready to discuss their business, and growth plans again.

Now that we are back with our data analytics and observations, a couple of trends are surfacing. 

To begin with, the ecosystem is constantly evolving, throwing open a great many opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors. Despite the slowdown, a handful of startups are marrying B2B and B2C trends with best-in-breed technology solutions to find their business sweet spots and disrupt incumbents. 

Earlier this year, we looked at the startups that sailed through the dystopian scenario and learnt to be lean and self-reliant. In fact, the February edition of Inc42’s 30 Startups to Watch shone a light on the new-age businesses that reimagined traditional sectors and business models.

So, when we started to handpick the April list (published in May 2023), were we looking for the ‘next big thing’ that might have suddenly turned up? 

Clearly not, because big things take time to happen. Think of generative AI and all the buzz it is creating just now. ChatGPT is not the outcome of a light bulb moment as many would like to believe but has undergone years of testing, arguably since ELIZA, the chatbot, was developed at MIT in 1966. 

Therefore, at the shortlisting stage, we had a single focus. We looked for startups operating across mainstream sectors but doing things differently. 

It may sound cliché, but numbers show that enterprise tech, ecommerce and fintech topped the startup lists in 2022 and 2023 (to date) in terms of popularity, funding and growth. Their continued success is a testament to the vibrancy of these sectors and makes it imperative to find out what these startups are doing right. 

30 Startups To Watch: April 2023

Apart from a deep dive into the top three segments, the 37th edition of our 30 Startups to Watch column explored the next-best performers in the Web3, edtech and EV space despite their uneven growth graphs. Startups in the sunrise sectors, such as drone tech, climate tech and deeptech, also made the cut.

As many as 10 startups are in the enterprise tech space, followed by three each in the ecommerce and fintech sectors. We have also picked two startups each from Web3, EV, cleantech, edtech and HR tech sectors and one each from deeptech, drone services, social media and healthtech.

More interestingly, 16 out of the 30 startups listed this time operate in the B2B space; six have B2B2C models, and just eight startups are in the B2C segment. 

This wave of B2B and enterprise tech dominance indicates engineering excellence and a growing emphasis on innovation and automation, the eventual outcome of Industry 4.0. Such value propositions will also ensure better exit opportunities and more focus on the ‘next big thing’ – brilliant ideas that must be nurtured from the beginning.

Check out the 37th edition of the 30 Startups To Watch list by Inc42. 

Editor’s Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups in alphabetical order.

50Fin

LAS To Empower Retail Investors

Many Indian retail investors save up to 30% of their monthly income to put their money in the stock market. But when the need for cash arises, most small investors are compelled to sell in a hurry and fail to earn their desired returns.

Bengaluru-based lending tech startup 50Fin has set up a credit platform with a LAS (loans against securities) option to solve this liquidity issue. 

Of course, banks provide these loans, but legacy players typically prioritise larger portfolios. In contrast, 50Fin offers small loans starting from INR 25K, with an interest rate of 12% per annum or 1% per month (for a 12-month tenure). The maximum loan-to-value is 55% of the entire portfolio on the application date. The tenure is flexible, meaning one can close the loan anytime without a pre-closure fee. But the assets marked lien cannot be released before the loan closure.

The startup says a loan approval takes just seven minutes, requires zero documentation and CIBIL check, and the loan gets disbursed in two hours. Due diligence is solely done on the credibility of the applicant’s portfolio. 

50Fin has partnered with Bajaj Finserv and Chola Mandalam for loan disbursals. It earns a commission on each transaction, but more revenue comes from processing fees and API integrations for wealth tech companies, brokers and AMCs. Although launched in 2022, the startup claims more than 5K early signups and is looking to disburse INR 100 Cr worth of loans by March 2024.

Accelero Vehicles

Building Smart, Affordable EVs For Bharat

India’s EV market is estimated to hit $114 Bn by 2029 from $3.2 Bn in 2022. Contributing to this growth is a host of homegrown players making smart but pocket-friendly electric vehicles. One such company is Accelero, building affordable e-bikes and retrofitted engines.

The New Delhi-based EV startup commercially launched its product line in 2019. Its flagships are two heavy-duty e-bikes – eBik Speed (for daily use) and eBik Cargo (for deliveries) – with a maximum speed of 25 km/hour and up to 60 km coverage in a single charge.

Accelero’s USP is eBik Smart, a conversion kit turning traditional bikes into EVs. The kit includes an integration device, a battery box, a throttle, a pedal assist, a hub, freewheel and chain, a charger and other fitments. These ‘converted’ bikes can peak up to 25 km per hour, cover 75 km on a full charge and take under five hours to juice up the battery.

The startup has manufacturing in a Delhi unit. While the e-bikes are sold pan-India via its website, Accelero offers at-home repair and maintenance services for as little as INR 250.

Currently, it is working on two more models, increasing production capacity and building the sales and marketing teams to target B2B customers by 2024. Its long-term goal is to create an e-mobility ecosystem for 138 Mn Indians who use non-motorised transportation (walking and biking).

AI Health Highway

A Smart Stethoscope For Accurate Diagnosis

The efficacy of auscultation, a diagnostic procedure where a stethoscope is used to listen to a patient’s heartbeats, lung functions, or other body sounds, largely depends on a physician’s expertise. However, the doctor-patient ratio in India stood at 1:834 in 2022, according to a government disclosure in Rajya Sabha, which means foolproof diagnoses by medical experts may not happen every time.

Aware of the ground realities, Dr Satish S Jeevannavar and Dr Radhakrishna Jamadagni, friends from their MBBS days, set up AI Health Highway in 2018 to leverage smart medical devices for health emergencies. The duo has developed an AI/ML-based Bluetooth stethoscope (AiSteth) and a companion app to detect anomalies and early warning signs.

Built on the lines of a snickometer, used in cricket to detect inaudible sounds (like the ball slightly edging the bat), AiSteth captures and streams the audio data on its companion Android app. The input is then converted into a visual waveform for screening, detecting and predicting cardiovascular, cardiorespiratory or other medical conditions.

The app also stores patient data and sound recordings in the cloud for instant access and further diagnosis.

The patent-pending medical device has received an ISO certification and is awaiting FDA and CE approvals to enter the US and UK markets, respectively.

The Bengaluru-based medtech startup earns revenue from device sales and enterprise and individual subscriptions for app usage. Primary sales channels include medical colleges, state- and privately run hospitals, diagnosticians and medical professionals.

AI Health claims it has partnered with 130+ doctors who have screened 12K+ patients. It aims to serve 1 Mn+ Indian patients by 2024 and 10 Mn+ patients globally by 2026.

Bijson

Turning Biowaste Disposal To Green Power

Generating clean energy from waste disposal is critical for a thriving circular economy and sustainable growth. Hence, Jaipur-based Bijson has developed a suite of innovative solutions after more than two years of R&D.

The startup launched five products late in 2017, including an organic waste processor, a bio-CNG plant, a dairy waste-based biogas plant, a sanitary pad disposal machine and a programme to audit solid waste management.

Converting organic waste into cooking gas and organic manure is carried out through a series of biochemical reactions in a sealed environment. Bijson’s organic waste processor does not require any external power source for operations and can be installed outside any property that produces a considerable amount of wet/food waste.

The dairy waste-based biogas plant recycles dairy and kitchen waste, agricultural surplus, animal or bird excrement and municipal solid waste into biomass using anaerobic digestion principles. This biomass is later purified and compressed into usable gas at the startup’s bio-CNG plant, attached to the biowaste-to-biomass converter.

Next comes SPD-10, a fully automatic and compact sanitary pad disposal unit that can be mounted in toilets and takes less than 10 minutes to incinerate the waste without impacting the environment.

Finally, the audit programme helps organisations identify the type of waste they produce and manage each category more efficiently. It also educates the staff on waste disposal methods and promotes natural processes, thus reducing waste management costs.

Bijson plans to expand beyond Jaipur in FY24 and generate more revenue by selling its equipment, customised gas products and biowaste-related services.

Blue Circle

A C-Suite Network Turns Digital, Doubles Down On Offerings

Despite the presence of professional networking sites like LinkedIn and its ilk, offline and exclusive networking events held a unique advantage for CXOs, who wanted to boost their influence and expertise. But with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, digital became the new physical, and virtual networking lost the C-suite exclusivity.

It also resulted in a pivot for Gurugram-based Blue Circle, which used to run offline, industry-specific leadership events since 2017 and broke even. After the pandemic struck in 2020, it launched an online professional network for senior executives, entrepreneurs, VCs and industry professionals.

The platform has a freemium membership in place and offers various value-added features via its apps. Members can connect with more than 20K leaders from India and abroad, search for relevant people, start discussions, seek expert advice and exchange business opportunities via a dedicated ‘opportunities’ feed.

They can also join virtual masterclasses and sector-specific offline conferences, access bite-sized sectorial insights and choose from 20+ sector-focussed communities.

Currently, Blue Circle is an ‘invite-only’ exclusive platform for senior leaders, but soon, it will be open to all professionals. The startup has a waitlist, and eligible candidates are approved within 24 hours.

Before launching its digital-only platform, Blue Circle charged up to INR 1.5 Lakh per year as a membership fee. It piloted a paid membership programme in 2022 and gained 100 paid members within a few weeks. The startup plans to increase the number of members to 500K by 2024 and launch a sector-specific jobs section.

Clueso

Auto-Generating Product Tours, Updating Help Docs For SaaS Firms

Ever heard of Deskamp, a note-taking tool for students and researchers? Three techies from IIT-Madras developed it but struggled to cope with an issue they never anticipated. It was that age-old query from new users: How does it work?

It was an eye-opener for college mates Akash Anand, Neel Balar and Prajwal Prakash, who soon realised the pain point of SaaS companies taking new customers through product tours and how-to guides. This business necessity ties up valuable resources as customer help centres must be updated around the clock. Also, for every product release/upgrade, one must start working from scratch to ensure the UI/UX is not out of sync.

Recognising the need for a technology leap, the trio set up Clueso in February 2023. Its cutting-edge solution combines robotic process automation with generative AI to crawl through any SaaS tool and convert screen recordings of product features into interactive videos to auto-generate product tours, audio/video tutorials/how-to guides and other help documents. Better still, they get auto-updated whenever it is required. The startup claims to generate help content up to 15x faster than traditional methods.

The Bengaluru- and San Francisco-based startup earns through an annual subscription model and claims to have made $400K within two months of its launch. Clueso is operational in India, the US, Australia and several countries from the SEA, EU and LATAM and plans to grow its annual revenue to $1 Mn by FY24.

CodeParrot

Automates API Testing For App Development

Creating backend tests involves setting up test environments, simulating dependencies and regular maintenance. This complex and time-consuming process also leads to errors and regression risks. So, SaaS startup CodeParrot aims to automate this critical but routine task for developers.

Set up by serial entrepreneurs Royal Jain and Vedant Agarwala in 2022 in Bengaluru and San Francisco, CodeParrot captures API (application programming interface) calls from the production environment (including requests made to the backend service) and downstream calls to databases, third-party APIs and other dependencies. It then generates intelligent test cases automatically using this data.

Whenever the backend service is updated, CodeParrot runs the service in an isolated container and replays the generated test cases. It also compares the responses with those captured in production while mocking downstream services. All regressions/discrepancies are automatically highlighted during this phase, enabling developers to identify and fix the issues.

As plug-and-play turnkey integration runs the test automatically, app developers need not set up a test environment separately.

The startup is still in beta but offers demos to showcase the solution to potential customers. It plans to launch the product in 2023 with a subscription model and introduce an open-source project by 2024.

Coffeee.io

Creating A Vetted Pool Of Tech Talent For IT

India has a vast pool of talented IT developers who are in great demand. Still, the sector suffers from hiring hiccups due to poor talent discovery and a shortage of comprehensive assessment tools. That’s why Gurugram-based HRtech startup Coffeee.io is on a mission to identify and evaluate developers to help them get hired.

Launched in 2022 by college friends and telecom veterans Amit Veer and Neha Sharma (former ZestMoney executive Ankit Mittal later joined the founding team), the startup works at two levels. Developers joining the pool can be assessed for the skills they want to highlight. They can also be vetted for communication skills, logical reasoning and solution designing and may appear for AI-simulated interviews. Next come recruiters who shortlist top candidates based on job openings and conduct interviews on the platform. The entire process is completed in under 48 hours.

As Coffeee works with highly skilled, vetted talent, its success rate is more than 20% compared to traditional hiring agencies with 1-1.5% success rates, the startup claims. It charges companies a one-time recruitment fee (a percentage based on the candidate’s salary) or receives recurring payments for contract workers. The service is free for jobseekers.

The platform operates in India but plans to enter global markets, including the US, Australia and Singapore. It also aims to build a community of 750K+ developers and reach $2 Mn ARR by FY24. In another two years, it will expand the developers’ community to more than 2 Mn and target an ARR of $20 Mn.

Done Deal

A Matchmaking Platform For Startup M&As

The startup ecosystem in India is the third-largest globally. But the country still follows an antiquated merger and acquisition procedure, with little visibility in product-market fit, market position and valuation. To revamp the outdated process, serial entrepreneur Rohit Raj partnered with financial experts Aneesh Sivakumar and Ankur Jain to launch Done Deal in 2023.

It has developed a web interface for startups to input crucial business data to help assess their valuations, position them against competitors and post their M&A terms and conditions. This information is used to generate anonymous cue cards, which are then shared across the buyer ecosystem.

Similar to how Tinder and other dating apps work, startup founders can choose who they want to engage with when potential buyers show interest.

Done Deal also provides several tools to speed up deal closures, including a data room builder for buyers looking for target companies and due diligence details. However, only actual buyers and sellers are privy to documents like term sheets, representation and liabilities.

Currently, there is no usage fee, but the platform charges a percentage of the deal value when a transaction is closed. It is still in the early-access mode for buyers, but founders can list their startups without any obligation to sell.

Done Deal went live in March 2023, but more than 180 startups have already signed up, and the platform has received 25+ active mandates from buyers. It aims to close 30 deals in the current financial year.

Its immediate focus is to grow the seller base in India, SEA and the MENA region and the buyer base in India and the US. It will also expand its team to help with cross-border transactions.

Drooyh

Drone Services & Insurance Aggregator

The drone industry in India is a sunrise sector projected to see more than 10% CAGR in 2023-2028. So, Bengaluru-based startup Drooyh has set up a service aggregation platform to connect service seekers with reliable vendors to help drive growth. The platform ensures a hassle-free experience for drone users (people/businesses), while service providers can easily reach out to prospects. 

Launched in 2018, Drooyh’s web-based platform also provides access to bespoke solutions and end-to-end execution, catering to many industry verticals such as agriculture, road and railway, power, mining, construction and geospatial tech. 

In addition, it aggregates drone insurance offers for individuals and enterprises in compliance with DGCA norms. Customers can avail of an INR 20 Lakh+ cover for third-party liabilities and a complete annual cover for DGCA-certified drones. Drooyh earns a commission from the businesses listed on its platform.

EMO Energy

Developing Fireproof EV Battery Packs For Rider Safety

EVs are the future of sustainable mobility, but the widespread adoption of electric vehicles in India leads to safety concerns around battery packs. As EV-linked fire incidents claimed many lives and injured several, former Ola Electric executives Rahul Patel and Sheetanshu Tyagi decided to solve the safety, range and charging concerns faced by electric two-wheelers in India.

Launched in 2022, Bengaluru-based EMO Energy has developed a swappable battery pack system called ZEN PAC that uses thermal management technology to monitor battery health and maintain consistent performance in all weather conditions.

Backed by the ZEN RIG tech monitor, it assures 100% fire safety, a 20-minute fast charge and more than five years of battery life. According to the company, both two- and three-wheelers can use the battery pack. EMO’s manufacturing unit is in Mysore, and the commercial launch of its battery packs is expected by 2024.

The startup plans to monetise the venture through D2C sales, partnerships with EV OEMs and tie-ups with B2C companies and gig economy platforms electrifying their fleets. It also aims to enter the global market in the long run.

Entvin

Automating Sales Ops With No-Code SaaS

It may come as a surprise, but nearly 40% of sales teams still rely on spreadsheets for critical tasks such as sales data review and analysis, payment reconciliation, commission tracking, sales planning and forecasting. However, sales operations today require better tools and technologies to move beyond mere report generation. Besides, salespeople are not trained data analysts, and many struggle with numbers, workflows and dashboards, a veritable spreadsheet purgatory from where there is no escape.

To address these challenges, IIT-Bombay alumni Kshitij Jain, Sanskar Jain and Hemant Phalak set up Entvin in 2022. The no-code SaaS platform enables businesses to automate sales tasks, create customised dashboards and gain real-time insights. Moreover, companies can instal the programme in just one day and connect it to their CRM, HRMS and data lakes using pre-built templates to streamline operations and enhance ease of use.

The Bengaluru-based startup is still in early-access mode. But it plans to launch a subscription-based solution in 2024 to ensure integration with more functionalities and provide an option for template customisation.

Excheqr

Secure Management Of Digital Assets Across Chains

Many believe digital assets like CBDCs, private cryptocurrencies and other popular value-generators will shape the economy’s future. Regardless of whether that happens or not, they require secure and efficient management, especially in cases of multiple and cross-chain access.

That’s why Excheqr, a startup based in Bengaluru and San Francisco, has developed a robust SaaS solution to combat the typical challenges associated with the security of this asset class.

Launched in 2021, the blockchain startup provides a secure platform for individuals, teams and institutions to manage their digital assets across multiple chains. Its cryptographic protocol prevents breaches and offers gasless, multi-owner vaults with inbuilt risk monitoring and portfolio access, all built on the next-generation MPC (multi-party computation) technology.

MPC tech allows off-chain signature computation and masks signer data from everyone except authorised team members. Excheqr has also merged various authentication factors (owner keys, login credentials and trusted device fingerprints) for added security. Then there are advanced access control, daily spending limits and time locks on fund outflows to minimise the fallout from hacks or stolen keys.

The platform is non-custodial, meaning it cannot access user vaults. On the other hand, users can create wallets on any chain without paying for gas, add/remove contributors (based on owners’ discretion) and change quorum rules.

The startup plans to launch globally by 2024 and will charge a transaction fee from individuals and enterprise customers (Web3 teams, DAOs, institutions and more). Its research arm will focus on using cryptography and blockchain for other critical functions such as wallet operations and recovery, decentralising Web3 identity management and quantifying smart contract risks.

Finhaat

A Fintech Service Bouquet For Bharat

On many occasions, traditional financial institutions find it difficult to design products and services to meet the requirements of their target customers. This is especially true when fintechs/FIs move beyond Tier 1 cities and the affluent class.

Finhaat, a Mumbai-based financial product delivery platform launched in 2021, aims to bridge this gap through insurance, investment and savings-related offerings suitable for the emerging middle-class and lower-income segments primarily in rural India and Tier 3 and 4 cities.

The startup works with FIs and individual financial partners (micro-entrepreneurs trained and supported by Finhaat to serve its community) to deliver bespoke solutions. Its offerings include short-term and medium-to-long-term products such as FDs, digital gold, equity and debt mutual funds, life and general insurance, annuity and pension schemes.

Finhaat operates a B2B2C model, and its APIs are integrated with FI platforms to ensure smooth onboarding, continuous support, fully automated claim processing and payment integration. Additionally, accounting and user modules for process management and reporting are leveraged by individual finance partners.

The fintech provides individual partners access to multilingual content for ease of use. Plus, a recommendation engine has been built around client queries, preferences and historical data to suggest desired products.

Revenue comes from commissions on financial products/services sold on the platform and annual maintenance fees paid by FIs and individual partners.

Floworks

A Virtual Assistant For Seamless Multitasking

New-age businesses heavily rely on various software tools for daily operations, from project management and productivity enhancement to communications or CRM. However, most of these operate as standalone tools, and updating a task involving multiple programmes is mostly done manually.

To do away with these operational silos, Bengaluru-based Floworks has developed its virtual assistant called Flowy. Powered by a natural language interface, the VA can read, update and retrieve information for employees on Slack/WhatsApp. For instance, if an employee requests to book a meeting or update a project status, the VA can navigate through all related programmes and complete the task. Additionally, it can execute tasks related to data repositories such as CRM databases, calendars, mailing lists and note-taking apps.

Floworks was set up in 2022 but went live in March 2023 and onboarded 10 customers. The startup charges companies a monthly subscription fee based on the number of users. By 2024, it plans to add more workspace and messaging tools like Notion and Teams for seamless operations and grow its customer base to 100.

GetSsup

A Vertical Marketplace Offering Nutrition Supplements, Expert Help

The Covid-19 pandemic may be officially over, but people increasingly consume health supplements for good nutrition. However, consumers across India feel that they need more support from the current ecosystem to reach their wellness goals. Arpit Gupta and Deven Vyas, who previously worked for the online healthcare platform Practo, recognised this gap and set up GetSupp in 2022.

The Bengaluru-based startup runs an online marketplace featuring 3K+ products from 100+ brands and 50+ categories, such as daily wellness, skincare, hair care, immunity building and weight management. Among these are noted D2C healthcare and fitness brands like The Whole Truth, cult.sport, Yoga Bar, The Vitamin Company and more.

GetSupp offers a 45-day programme that connects users and certified experts to enhance people’s wellness journey, supported by products from partner brands. Users can join the programme for free, while experts are compensated based on conversion rates.

The startup charges the brands a commission on each sale and provides value-added services in marketing and content. It has not disclosed its numbers but claims that the marketplace is nearly doubling its user base month on month.

Houseware

Breaking Data Silos To Drive B2B SaaS

India-origin B2B SaaS has enjoyed a dream run for years. But given the turbulence during the pandemic, followed by a harsh funding winter, all cross-functional teams need to work in sync to drive growth and revenue. Houseware (a wordplay on warehouse) was launched in 2021 by former Atlan executives Shubhankar Srivastava and Divyansh Saini to help B2B SaaS firms break down data silos and accelerate earnings through seamless data flow and analytics.

The duo had earlier noticed a massive disconnect between the data and the revenue teams at Atlan when essential business metrics were unravelled and used. Hence, they developed a no-code interface to help all teams work together.

A practical example is how the customer and the revenue teams collaborate to determine optimal pricing (profit-maximising price) with minimal impact on sales (the higher the price, the fewer the units sold and vice versa). This requires easy access to all relevant data and analytics for a win-win outcome. So, a unified report is created with pertinent metrics for the teams.

The model also tracks key problem areas such as glitches in product flow, customer churn and inadequate user engagement and creates a solution good enough for all teams involved. The startup charges a monthly subscription fee based on the size of the organisation.

Located in Bengaluru and California, Houseware came out of stealth mode only recently and claimed its (undisclosed) revenue is coming from two big SaaS companies. It plans to expand the user base in FY24 by focussing on U.S. companies and intends to grow its team by including data and engineering roles.

LokiBots

Creating A ‘Bot’ For Every Non-Core Repetitive Task

In this digital-first era, the focus is on automating routine and repetitive tasks to minimise errors, free up human resources and reduce costs. Located in Bengaluru and Silicon Valley, LokiBots has been doing just that since 2018 to help businesses stay competitive and cost-efficient.

The cloud-native SaaS platform has developed a bouquet of solutions around finance, accounting and forecasting, marketing and sales (including conversational AI/CRM), human capital management, document AI (for human-like document review with the help of natural language processing or NLP and machine learning) and more.

The startup uses advanced AI/ML technologies, including computer vision, deep learning and neural networks, to create virtual assistants capable of handling various tasks and fulfilling industry requirements. Also, when connected to the backend, its patent-pending bot technology continues to learn from user activities to enhance NLP capabilities, thus taking the ‘digital clones’ (Loki’s coinage for virtual assistants) to the next level.

LokiBots has adopted a subscription-based payment model (with predefined hours) and a pay-as-you-go option. However, there is no capital expenditure cost for users, hardware requirements or dependency on IT teams for deployment/usage.

It plans to onboard 100 global customers by 2024, up from the current 25, and earn annual revenue of $1 Mn by that year. It targets to grow the number of customers to 500 and annual revenue to $3-5 Mn by 2026.

Luru

Seamless Data Capture For Sales CRM

Every business seeks an easy-to-use sales CRM tool to seamlessly capture customer data from multiple interfaces and store it at a central hub for quick and easy access. But in reality, whenever there is a lead, most salespeople skip complex CRM operations and manually feed the data. This often results in poor data quality, friction (data flow impediment) and complicated follow-up processes.

During their stint as Exotel leaders, Karthikeyan Krishnamurthy, Sanjeeth R, Sid Ramesh and Anand Kumar struggled to plug these CRM data gaps and increase efficiency. So, they launched Luru in 2022 to enable no-code workflow automation, allowing sales teams to fill in/update CRM data from almost anywhere. This makes data flow as frictionless as possible, enhances productivity and boosts the go-to-market playbook of a business.

For instance, sales representatives can create if/then statements with Luru’s Chrome extension. When they use communication channels such as Zoom, Outlook, or any web page on Chrome, a question board-style prompt will come up on that page itself for easy and accurate data inputting.

Luru also takes notes during meetings and automatically updates the CRM. Besides, one can update the contact details and choose the next action to explore cold leads. Additionally, it allows sales teams to create Asana-style tasks to remind them of the upcoming work on their preferred messaging channels.

Luru earns through a subscription model for teams but is currently free for individuals.

NoCap Meta

Migrating To Web3 Made Easy

Migrating from Web2 to the world of Web3, a disruptive landscape replete with blockchains, metaverses and digital assets, can be quite challenging for traditional businesses lacking the tech muscles. But there are Web3 Samaritans around, like the Mumbai-based NoCap Meta, which realised that Web2 enterprises would need a high degree of hand-holding when taking the leap.

Set up in 2021, NoCap offers a variety of tech services, including Web3 integrations, metaverse and blockchain-based system development, tokenisation of physical assets, smart contract-based secure transactions, advanced data analytics and AR/VR designing.

The startup promises complete transparency when it works with clients to value, tokenise and list their assets, thus bringing more liquidity through NFT creation. It claims to have tokenised private and museum collections and collectables of all kinds.

NoCap caters to popular industry segments by developing online classrooms and virtual office spaces and allowing real-time participation and interaction. It also targets the entertainment space through metaverse gaming and virtual events.

It charges project-based fees and will develop Web3 tools for blockchain, AI/ML, healthcare and agritech in FY24.

Payfura

A Global Payment Gateway For Fiat-Crypto Transactions

Despite legal issues in countries like India, investments in private cryptocurrencies continue, along with a rise in crypto exchanges, wallets and NFT marketplaces. However, transacting in local currencies is not allowed in many regions, putting investors in a tight spot.

As this goes against the core concept of digital cash that promotes hassle-free, borderless money, former Paytm employees Gajendra Khatri and Sagar Agarwal set up a TransferWise-like platform in 2022. Based in New Delhi and Lewes (Delaware), the global payment gateway called Payfura ensures fast and secure transactions and converts fiat money to crypto and vice-versa using local payment methods.

Users can transact on Payfura’s web-based interface, which also provides detailed insights and analytics regarding their orders. On the other hand, Web3 companies can integrate the startup’s widget/API to leverage its seamless transaction facility.

Payfura supports 150+ fiat currencies and 100+ cryptocurrencies across the Americas, the EU, Southeast Asia and Africa. Payment methods cover credit and debit cards, e-wallets, bank transfers and more. It is still working on the legal aspects of crypto sales in India, but local users can buy crypto from global exchanges.

Payfura charges a fee on every transaction processed through the platform and handles KYC and AML (anti-money laundering) requirements whenever applicable. It also plans to build its customer base in FY24.

Peoplebox

Integrating Growth Goals To Boost Business Success

As companies grow and become more complex, they frequently encounter HR-related challenges such as team alignment, goal-setting, focus, accountability or below-par execution of human resource policies. All these are bound to hinder smooth scaling and an upward journey.

Hence, serial entrepreneurs Abhinav Chugh and Alagu Muthuraman set up Peoplebox in 2018, offering an OKR (objectives and key results) package to help fast-growing businesses overcome these obstacles, achieve their goals and build an outcome-driven unbiased organisational culture.

The Bengaluru-based startup has developed a web-based dashboard that enables companies to track initiatives, strategic goals and progress by integrating it with various work tools like SQL, Slack, Jira, HubSpot and Asana. Managers can use the solution to develop and track goals and KPIs and schedule business review meetings and performance reviews without installing new software programmes.

Other features include employee coaching, 1:1 check-ins, engagement surveys, anonymous messaging to engage employees, conducting quizzes, and generating virtual water cooler chats and virtual coffee meets.

Peoplebox has a subscription model, charging B2B clients on a per-employee per-month basis. While the startup plans to operate globally in the long term, its primary target is mid-market enterprises in the US, India and Southeast Asia until 2024.

Praakritik

An F&B Startup Nourishing Health With Organic Goodness

Everyday food items like rice, flour, sugar, cooking oils and spices are often chemically treated to enhance their taste and flavour. But people are now aware of their harmful impact on health and buy unprocessed/naturally processed and organic foods. Mumbai-based Praakritik was launched in 2016 to cater to these health-conscious consumers.

The startup’s journey began with A2 ghee (hand-churned, clarified butter) made from the milk of desi Gir cows. And its sales went north from 2020 with the onset of the pandemic as the demand for organic foods rose significantly. Today, it offers 90+ products across eight categories – groceries, staples, oils, spices, flours, fruits and vegetables, superfoods and ready-to-eat breakfast items. All Praakritik products are FSSAI-certified and manufactured in-house.

The startup claims to source raw materials directly from farmers. Its products are sold through multiple channels, including its website, ecommerce platforms, offline retail partnerships in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, and farmer markets in Mumbai. It plans to sell countrywide by 2024 and double its farmer network from 700.

Prorata

Co-Own Luxury Cars Without Spending A Fortune

Many Indians are passionate about high-end Teslas and other luxury cars, but purchasing one can be a far-off dream for most. However, Prorata, a Bengaluru-based startup launched in 2022, offers ‘fractional’ car ownership to make this dream a reality.

The startup registers all target vehicles under LLPs (limited liability partnerships) and helps car owners set up escrow accounts, making it easy to split the cost and usage. It also provides reservation apps (Android and iOS) for slot booking and manages the pick-up and the drop-off every time a co-owner goes for a drive.

Additional offerings include periodic servicing and maintenance of the vehicle, insurance, contingency management, fair and transparent cost-sharing, reselling and exit from the co-ownership arrangement.

Co-owners can purchase 8.33%, 16.66% or 25% shares in the LLP and get to use the car for 30, 60 or 90 days, respectively, every year. One has to pay an annual maintenance charge of INR 15-50K on top of the ownership cost.

Prorata’s services are now available in Bengaluru, but its apps can be downloaded throughout India. Its goal is to run up to 1 Lakh cars in each Indian city by FY27.

RootFi

A Unified API For Accessing Business Financial Data

RootFi’s cofounders – Ishwar Gogineni, Sidharth Rao and Parth Shah – were determined to set up a fintech startup in India after their overseas stint, but the market was overcrowded. Eventually, they launched RootFi in 2022, providing lenders easy access to their customers’ business financial data across platforms (prior consent is required) through API integration. This is critical for performance analytics, automated accounting and underwriting credit risk.

But there is more to this narrative. Last year, the trio had to integrate three ERP software from three countries (Tally in India, Jurnal in Indonesia and Sage in South Africa) for a client. It boosted their confidence, and they were further inspired by the success of UPI and the account aggregator network developed along the same line. To date, the Bengaluru-based startup has developed 11 such APIs for integrations across ERP and accounting space.

In essence, global companies using various accounting and ERP programmes can use RootFi to access a consolidated database via a unified API, thus saving time and resources. The startup develops a custom API for each client and charges a monthly subscription fee based on usage.

The startup also handles the ISO/IEC 27001, SOC 2 compliance and General Data Protection Regulation to ensure stringent data security.

The fintech is now operating in the APAC region, the Middle East and Africa but plans to expand to the EU and the U.S. markets by FY24 to reach an annual revenue of $1.5 Mn.

ShortLoop

API Workflow Automation For SaaS Businesses

APIs have greatly simplified the integration of third-party applications with business processes. But developers still encounter various challenges that hinder operational efficiency. This is especially true for SaaS businesses working with multiple APIs and requiring efficient workflow management.

ShortLoop was created in 2022 by former Cult.Fit executives Sumit Mulchandani, Deepak Thakur and Vishnu Vinjam to help developers deal with issues involving payload (an information data pack sent to the server for an API request), manual changes, out-of-sync documentation and difficulty in scaling up operations.

Based in Bengaluru and San Francisco, the startup has built a centralised hub that streamlines and automates API workflows. It samples network traffic, analyses it, and puts together up-to-date API collections and dependency maps (including request-response payloads), API usage and behaviour to ensure lower downtimes, reduced backlog and faster updates.

ShortLoop offers a subscription-based, plug-and-play SDK that alerts users to any backend change. Additionally, it enables developers to maintain API collections and documentation in existing tools without any manual effort.

The startup has been operational only recently and plans to grow its global customer base in FY24.

Sorted

Designing Training Programmes For Digital Marketing Greenhorns

In a digital-first world, businesses must build a solid online presence and drive digital marketing to widen their reach. But the abundance of information and tech tools available everywhere to ‘market it right’ often overwhelm people and enterprises. The cognitive overload in these cases makes it difficult to identify where and how to begin and how best to push digital marketing efforts.

Those requiring the fundamentals of digital marketing need not worry, though. Launched in 2020 by former Future Group executives, Mumbai-based Sorted has come out with personalised and practical training programmes. These courses are developed along the lines of structured curricula taught by experts and cover all essential strategies and major digital marketing channels.

These programmes are priced between INR 799 and INR 12,400, and each can be accessed on the Sorted website. After successful completion, a participant gets a certificate recognised by top digital marketing agencies and brands.

Sorted’s flagship is a four-session masterclass with case studies from the industry, real-time workshops and one-on-one Zoom sessions. This will be launched in late 2023, teaching how to create high-impact content and provide SEM and SEO courses for maximum impact on Google, Meta and Instagram.

SuperHire

Hiring Made Easy Through Marketplace, Expert Recruiters

Traditional hiring can be laborious and costly, and far from perfect. Even after multiple interview rounds, companies and candidates may struggle to match skills, talent, backgrounds and expectations. Couple that with rising salaries and growing HR expenditure, which will further overwhelm many businesses. That’s why Kochi-based SuperHire is using new-age technologies to make recruitment more efficient and cost-effective.

Set up in 2021, the HRtech platform connects top jobseekers to open positions through expert recruiters via its web-based staffing platform. Companies can subscribe to various plans, each with a different interview credit (maximum number of candidates they can interview). More than 250 independent recruiters currently work on job listings and provide thoroughly screened candidate profiles.

Businesses can post unlimited jobs on the platform, but a credit is only deducted when an applicant is shortlisted and interviewed. Post the hiring, each corporate client pays a commission to the recruiter concerned via SuperHire and a platform fee to the startup. Although jobseekers can use SuperHire’s services for free, they may have to pay to recruitment agencies.

SuperHire will explore additional revenue through advertising and promotional fees for highlighting premium jobs. It will pay extra commissions to recruiters for faster submission of candidate profiles (there is no timeline yet) and selling upskilling courses taught by industry experts.

The startup came out of private beta in March 2023 but plans to triple its corporate client base of 80+ by the end of 2024. It will also launch operations in the Middle East and North America and work on AI-based solutions to automate routine recruitment tasks such as job description mapping, resume screening and profile rating. It plans to operate in more than seven countries by 2026.

Updapt

Bringing ESG Tech Mainstream For Business Sustainability

Experts worldwide warn of environmental crises and how businesses must act responsibly to mitigate these challenges. Clearly, sustainable development is the most effective path forward, achieved through ESG (environmental, social and governance) compliance.

Set up in 2019, Bengaluru-based SaaS startup Updapt helps corporate houses track, monitor and report their ESG data, identify gaps (if any) against widely accepted global sustainability standards and improve performances accordingly.

Its web-based dashboard allows enterprises to record their ESG performance indicators based on geographical and government-set standards. The startup also signs agreements with companies to gather and monitor data for their ESG metrics and create reports.

To begin with, it will automatically collate ESG data under various metrics such as energy and water consumption, carbon footprint generation, employee diversity and more. Based on this information, the platform does a wide range of analyses, generates ratings and rankings for corporate activities and produces comprehensive reports on the overall impact of businesses in the ESG space.

In addition, it suggests corrective measures for corporate houses to work on to avoid potential penalties or reputational damage.

Its tech tools also track each supplier’s carbon footprint through its ESG responses and calculate the risk score accurately to do away with sustainability risks at the top of the pyramid.

Updapt customises its annual subscription charges depending on the size of the organisation and the number of people using its dashboard. It also plans to enter global markets by 2025.

UpTrain

An Assessment & Retraining Tool For ML Models

The word ‘autonomous’ is now commonly used in many industries, but developers still depend on customer feedback to gauge how their machine learning (ML) models work. Sourabh Agrawal, Vipul Gupta and Shikha Mohanty (all three are friends and professional developers) recognised this dependency on human input.

So, they started looking for a tool that could assess, validate and refine algorithms. Soon, the trio realised the lack of an automated and reliable tool in this space and launched UpTrain in 2022 after discussing the issue with hundreds of ML experts.

Located in Bengaluru and San Francisco, UpTrain is an open-source observability and refinement tool designed to monitor ML models in real time (current precision level is around 89%) and automatically retrains where accuracy is low. Apart from tracking data drifts, it tests the quality of object embedding, provides model explainability and incorporates domain-specific knowledge filters to enhance retraining.

One can also integrate data annotation, training and deployment criteria to set up a fully automated, round-the-clock model improvement system.

As the startup offers an open-source programme, it can be integrated with major ML libraries and tools within five minutes without disrupting production pipelines.

UpTrain is in limited beta and caters to a few AI-focussed startups as part of a no-strings-attached pilot. However, the company is doing all the heavy lifting to ensure seamless integration with client models. Its goal is to generate revenue through enterprise support and consulting services by FY24.

[Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eye In April 2023 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The startup ecosystem in India never saw a dull moment, even during a pandemic year or a cyclical downturn, made harsher by geopolitical unrest and macroeconomic headwinds. Of course, it was counterintuitive to assume that Indian startups would be on course for record funding amid the pandemic gloom. But in 2021, they amassed $42 Bn, nearly a 4x jump from the $ 11.5 Bn raised in 2020.

The year 2022 was sombre. As investors went into a wait-and-watch mode due to stagflation fears and VC funding slowed to a trickle, the cash burn rate had to be minimised and profitability needed to go up. Thousands were laid off in the process (even legacy companies and the big tech did the same, citing a sharp slowdown), and many startups were shuttered or acquired. The utopian growth narrative of the previous year suddenly had a hollow ring.

But the exercise in frugality brought value. It added to the maturity of the ecosystem, promoting more robust business models and tempering the breakneck growth with steady profitability. Meanwhile, industry disruptors continued to leverage the latest technologies to cater to fast-evolving consumer trends and enterprise-level requirements.

We took a month’s break after publishing the annual review in January, listing the best of the 30 startups shortlisted from the 320 profiled throughout 2022. But now we are back in action, ready with the February list, after delving deeply into how startups prepared to build a stronger future.    

While young businesses are learning to cope with a challenging landscape, the all-new ground rules are expected to give rise to a more robust startup ecosystem, currently the third-largest in the world. The funding inflow is still down, though. During January and February of 2023, Indian startups cumulatively raised $1.7 Bn, a drop of more than 81% year on year.

Is it business as usual in startup land?

Well, they quickly shrugged off the aftereffects and went back to the drawing board to work out new business strategies. Some of the theses are already well-known, including the hyperfocus on profitability, differentiated business offerings and a spotlight on the sunrise sectors like e-mobility and climate tech. For the new entities, 2023 is an opportunity to find a new growth path not taken by their less successful counterparts. 

Clearly, the next big thing will take time to happen. We cannot get ahead of our time without solid groundwork and a slow but steady climb up the ladder.

30 Startups To Watch: February 2023

The February edition of 2023 – overall, the 36th edition of Inc42’s 30 Startups to Watch – explored the current trends and featured some promising startups operating in enterprisetech, ecommerce and fintech. These sectors have seen exponential growth in recent years, and their continued success validates the vibrancy of the country’s startup ecosystem. 

There is a renewed focus on digitalising employee-employer communications and workflow collaboration in the enterprisetech space. In fact, out of the seven startups covered under this category, four are building data-driven open platforms for employee engagement and retention. 

Then there are D2C brands and marketplaces. True to their mettle, these formats evolved in the past three years as consumer/prosumer behaviour changed significantly. We have featured seven of them in the current edition as they continue to dominate the digital commerce space. 

Others who made their way to the curated list include four startups specialising in fintech, two each from EV, gaming, edtech and agritech, and one each from climate tech, logistics, foodtech and travel tech.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups in alphabetical order.

aastey

Sustainable Athleisure For The Petite And The Plus

The onset of the pandemic in 2020 prompted people to adopt healthy lifestyles such as consuming natural foods, opting for holistic wellness and exercising. As people spent more time in leisure and workouts, the global demand for athleisure/activewear went through the roof. And for many, it became the new style on the street. 

In India, the activewear market was worth INR 80 Cr in that year and counting. But work friends Jeevika Tyagi and Kanupriya Mundhra observed a size disparity between what women needed and what was available in the athleisure market. To do away with the limitations of clothing choices, the duo set up Aastey in 2021.

The Mumbai-based D2C brand offers a sustainable line of athleisure apparel under three categories – Aastey Flex (gym wear), Aastey Seed (comfort wear) and Aastey Breeze (sportswear). Made of recycled polyester that uses plastic waste from landfills (procured and processed by GRS-certified vendors), the mid-luxury, long-lasting clothes are lightweight, stretchable and breathable. Also, sizes vary from petite to plus, another deal-maker for many women body-shamed by the traditional fashion industry.

Overall, there are 70+ products under five categories, ranging from apparel to eye masks, scrunchies, yoga mats and water bottles. All products are made in-house and sold on the brand’s website.

Aastey aims to become carbon neutral by FY24 and triple its annual revenue from FY22 by serving a community of 60K+ women in 2023.

Aerem

A Fintech’s Cleantech Drive To Empower MSMEs 

More than 38% of Indian MSMEs do not rely on any formal source of power provided to industrial units. Yet, few have shifted to green energy alternatives like rooftop solar in spite of several schemes promoted by the government. 

Anand Jain, an MBA from Yale University, was aware of the pain points hindering rooftop solar’s easy adoption – a lack of low-interest credit for installation, difficulty accessing the tech stack and no ready reach to a green energy market to monetise excess production. On the other hand, large-scale implementation would have brought down fuel imports, decarbonised the country and led to significant job creation. Keen to use his domain knowledge in solar and finance to help change the existing power dynamics, Jain set up the solar financing platform Aerem in 2021.

Its flagship is Aerem Asset Assurance, a collateral-free financing solution for approved rooftop solar systems. Loans are provided through its NBFC arm Aerem Finance and its partner bank, the Bank of Baroda. Loan amounts vary between INR 5 Lakh and 1 Cr for a tenure of 36-72 months, and interest rates (undisclosed) are low. 

Aerem also does in-house quality checks of the hardware offered by various solar installers and EPC companies. Post a comprehensive product scrutiny, MSMEs on the platform can compare prices for the best possible deals and opt for post-purchase support. 

The solar-focussed fintech is now creating brand awareness and building partnerships with installation companies to bring solar capacity to more than 2 Cr MSMEs by 2025.

Amama

Crafting A Classic-Contemporary Jewellery Range 

With many Y2K trends making a comeback, minimal metal jewellery (read subtle but impactful) has carved a niche and appealed to both millennials and Gen Z. It has also seen the rise of startups like Noida-based Amama, selling a unique range of handcrafted silver and gold jewellery. Inspired by her grandmother’s heirloom silver, former Louis Vuitton and Forever 21 executive Nikita Gupta launched the D2C brand in 2018.

Amama’s in-house production unit in Noida has created more than 5.5K jewellery pieces. Its ‘Exclusive’ range of jadau, kundan and navratna jewellery, made to order by the startup’s designers, brings a royal touch to contemporary concepts. In contrast, its ‘Curated’ category features items from global designers. 

The startup sells its products across marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart but claims 95% of the revenue comes from its website. It also participates in jewellery shows to promote its premium-affordable range and gets a 10% ROI. 

Amama products are available in more than 47 countries, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the US, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France and Switzerland, among others. 

The brand eyes an annual revenue of INR 18.3 Cr in FY23 and aims to 4x it in another two years by growing its online business globally and setting up physical stores in India. It also plans to open walk-in stores in Tier 2 and 3 Indian cities in 2023 to increase brand awareness.

Aponyx EV

Re-engineering EV For The Differently Abled

The EV ecosystem in India is fast nearing large-scale adoption, with the government planning to electrify more than 30% of the vehicles by 2030. However, few startups in this space have rolled out an adapted vehicle to make this new-age technology genuinely inclusive. Gurugram-based Aponyx (formerly GoGreenGo) is an exception, though.

Its flagship is a recently launched tri-scooter for the differently abled. The vehicle is fitted with a proprietary 48V lithium-ion detachable battery, which runs up to 95 km on a full charge and can be charged up to 2,500 times. Its removable storage space also allows riders to use the vehicle commercially. 

Aponyx has a portfolio of 13+ products, including two- and three-wheelers, loading vehicles, e-bikes, EV batteries and software. It has a company-owned manufacturing unit in Gurugram and a dedicated team of engineers and designers for developing EV hardware and software. Plus, it ties up with small retailers and roadside shops to set up EV charging stations.

The startup was set up in 2017 but launched its first product in 2021 after years of R&D. Compared to its new-age peers, its digital presence needs to be improved, but the EV player has made big strides into the offline ecosystem. 

Aponyx claims a strong dealership network for B2B (white-labelled EVs) and B2C (personal use) markets. It is also building a physical distribution network and plans to launch more high-speed bikes and tri-bikes for the differently abled by 2025.

Aretto

Making Shoes Which Expand As Kids Grow

Kids are bound to outgrow clothes and shoes within a few months, and preschoolers grow even faster, going through up to six clothing sizes by the time they are three. It is often a strain on parents’ wallets and leads to massive waste generated by the kids’ wear industry.

Pune-based Aretto is solving part of this problem by designing a footwear brand that can grow with a child’s feet.

Launched in 2022 by school friends Satyajit Mittal and Krutika Lal, the D2C startup’s flagship is Aretto Leaps. These shoes are made using proprietary technology that helps expand shoe soles up to three sizes or 18 mm and thus reduces the standard size chart from 15 to 5 for kids aged two to six. The startup has a patent in India and filed for a utility patent (a patent for invention) on its sole technology across 20+ countries.

Biomechanically speaking, Aretto shoes provide expandable soles, memory foam insoles and a 3D knit pattern, making footwear flexible, breathable and comfortable. It offers 38 SKUs in five sizes, nine styles and four categories, made in its Faridabad factory and sold pan-India via the website. The shoes are priced affordably between INR 2,199 and INR 2,799.

In addition, it has partnered with preschools, primary schools and kids’ enrichment centres, helping 3K+ parents shift to the brand in the past three months.

Aretto plans to launch an affiliate programme for mompreneurs in 2023 as part of a wide sales funnel. In another two years, it will target selling 500K+ shoes and open exclusive brand stores (EBOs) in Tier 1 cities. It will also enter the US, the UK and the Chinese markets in 2026.

BHyve

Building Tools For Intra-Company Tacit Knowledge Transfer

Water cooler chats go far beyond petty office gossip, paving the path for solid social interactions in an oft-disconnected professional world and revealing interesting insights into a company’s culture. Now that work has gone hybrid and work from home (WFH) has become more routine than exceptions, most employees need a ‘digital’ water cooler place to stay updated on anything that matters.

Launched in 2020 by childhood friends Ketaki Ogale, Omkar Pandharkame and Vihang Mirkhelkar, Mumbai-based enterprise tech startup BHyve has developed web and mobile applications to offer just that, connecting employees in large, hybrid organisations.

Its flagship is a knowledge passport for all employees, featuring their skills, interests and positions in the organisational hierarchy. It also allows colleagues to endorse them, learn from them or create toolkits for casual questions.

Employees can ask questions, host polls, discover mentors and share their knowledge across formats (audio, video and text). This helps reduce the learning curve for new team members and do effective knowledge harvesting, capturing the knowledge of experts within the organisation. In addition, the gamified platform rewards employees for asking questions or sharing answers through points and social recognition.

BHyve has a subscription-based revenue model with monthly charges per user, given the number of licences a company has purchased. It is available globally but currently building a B2B client base in India. So far, it has onboarded 11 companies and 15K+ employees.

By FY24, it aims to reach $1 Mn in annual revenue by entering the US market. The long-term plan is to build a connected community product called Hexaverse that will act as a knowledge transfer platform between corporations and universities and enable companies to discover and hire talent.

BranchX

Easy Banking For Non-Tech-Savvy Migrant Workers

As India’s fintech ecosystem took wing and explored different subsects, serial entrepreneurs Sajid Jamal, Rajesh Johnny and Ankur Gupta wanted to factor in inclusivity to push growth. They had exposure to the global remittance space and also witnessed the plight of the underbanked migrants at home when cash became scarce due to policy reasons or during the Covid-19 crisis. So, the trio built a neobank called BranchX in 2020, mainly to help the rural poor who frequently migrate to urban India in search of income.

At BranchX, every family gets two debit cards – a Raja card for the breadwinner and a Rani card for the family – linked to a single wallet. The BranchX Android app acts as a ledger for the whole family and tracks all money movements. It also features an animated AI chatbot Xenie that educates users about financial products like micro-insurance, investments and small-ticket loans in six or more Indian languages.

The startup has partnered with more than 3K small retailers and individuals who operate as customer touchpoints. For a small commission, they will help migrant workers access their wallets to load, transfer or spend money. BranchX earns a 20% commission only when users opt for loans, insurance, investment and other financial products.

By the end of 2022, the neobank created 11K+ wallets and facilitated 400K+ remittances worth more than INR 300 Cr. It plans to acquire 30 Lakh+ customers, set up 50K+ financial outlets and facilitate transactions worth INR 1,200 Cr+ in another two years.

Elchemy

From Selling To Shipping, A Zero-Hassle Service For Chemicals Manufacturers

Globally, India is the sixth-largest chemicals manufacturer, accounting for nearly 7% of the country’s GDP. However, low-volume growth, a falling rupee and extreme competition make it difficult for small and medium enterprises to run their plants at 100% capacity or build businesses at scale. So, Elchemy is helping them increase export revenue by eliminating supply chain inefficiencies and ensuring a seamless customer journey.

Launched in 2021, the New Delhi-based startup runs a tech-powered marketplace and distribution platform that connects Indian manufacturers with global buyers and ships the cargo to more than 13 countries, including the US, the UAE, Singapore, Brazil, Switzerland, Uganda and Tanzania, among others. It has partnered with logistics players at various levels (first-mile and last-mile deliveries, FCL/LCL shipments, tracking, customer service, and more) to provide end-to-end shipping solutions. Currently, it has a presence in more than 20 national and international ports.

Elchemy supports the movement of 55+ chemicals across six industries – adhesives and sealants, agrochemicals, water treatment chemicals, cosmetics and personal care items, dyes and pigments, and plastics and polymers. The platform helps companies with order procurements, quality checks, domestic and international logistics and customs clearances, earning a gross margin on the orders fulfilled.

The startup claims to be making around 10 FCL shipments every month since October 2022. It aims to improve its supply chain operations in 2023 and strengthen the team to make order fulfilment more efficient. By 2026, it plans to do $5 Bn worth of business with small chemical manufacturers in India.

Eveez

An EV Rental Startup For Every Need

As clean mobility becomes part of our everyday narrative, Gurugram-based EVeez has created a hassle-free option for businesses and individuals to take this ‘green’ revolution ahead. Launched in 2019, EVeez offers e-bikes on rent for commuting, delivery and in-campus mobility, helping reduce the carbon footprint of vehicular traffic and deal with incredibly high fuel prices.

These customisable e-bikes are meant for individuals, gig workers, small businesses and logistics companies, and users can rent these as long as they want. The startup has worked out a wide range of monthly subscriptions, keeping in mind EV features like range (60-130 km per charge), carrying capacity (up to 150 kg), speed, battery capacity, number of battery swaps and more. Plus, there is no additional cost for a rider as the company takes care of maintenance and replacement of parts required due to wear and tear.

EVeez has partnered with OEMs to deploy more than 2.5K e-bikes across Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kolkata. With more than 1.5K gig workers, 150 small businesses and 15 logistics players and fleet operators on the platform, it hopes to clock INR 6 Cr in revenue in FY23.

By 2024, it plans to rent 25K e-bikes, delve deeper into personal mobility solutions and add preventive maintenance to its list of services. The next target is to cater to 100K gig workers by 2026 and establish a presence in all metros and Tier 1 cities.

Faarms

An Agri E-Marketplace For The Underserved Farming Community

The agrarian distress in India is far from over. According to the Economic Survey Report recently tabled in Parliament, the agri growth rate was down to 3% in 2021-22, and a ‘reorientation’ is urgently needed to cope with multiple challenges. Among the major issues are rising input costs and a fragmented supply chain that fails to make farming profitable for small-scale farmers. Aware of the ground reality, Bengaluru-based Faarms has developed a comprehensive agri ecommerce solution to lower input costs and drive revenue growth.

Set up in 2020, the startup operates at three levels. To begin with, it runs a procurement marketplace and sells a complete range of farm inputs, including seeds, biofertilisers, agrochemicals, animal feed and agricultural equipment. Better still, it makes doorstep deliveries, reaching out to nearly 9 Lakh farmers in 140+ pin codes in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

In addition, the platform helps farmers list their produce in a centralised catalogue management system and enables them to sell to institutional buyers across the country. The startup charges a commission on the products sold through the marketplace.

Registered users can also pay utility bills via Bharat BillPay, buy insurance products and pay premiums. Faarms has partnered with Axis Bank to provide short-term agri loans to its farmer base and charges a fixed (undisclosed) processing fee.

Finally, there is Faarms TV, a YouTube channel featuring best farming practices and related information from scientists and agricultural experts. It offers videos in seven languages and has nearly 6K subscribers.

The startup will begin pan-India operations by 2024 and help small farmers with agri exports in the long term.

Hesa

Providing Digital Access To Rural Consumers Via Assisted E-Shopping

It is tough to convince rural communities to adopt a new digital commerce platform unless recommended by someone they trust. Aware of how rural India differs from urban e-shopping, the husband-wife duo – Vamsi Udayagiri and Hema Nandiraju – decided to bank on the power of ‘peer influence’ and launched the assisted ecommerce startup Hesa in 2020.

The Hyderabad-based startup has onboarded local partners/influencers across its operational areas to help rural consumers access a wide range of products and services, from financial solutions (such as small-value loans, FDs, insurance schemes and cash withdrawal facilities) to agri inputs, skill development courses and more.

These influencers, or Hesaathis, are trained to assist buyers in finding the most relevant products. They also bundle and process bulk orders via an Android super-app to simplify online shopping. Overall, they act as a customer touchpoint for all issues and get a small commission from the startup.

On the B2B front, the startup has partnered with more than 35 brands from agritech, edtech, fintech and FMCG segments to sell their products on the super-app. It charges a 1-30% commission depending on the product/service. Hesa is responsible for last-mile deliveries (in the case of products) and connects Hesaathis with relevant officers to ensure smooth procedures (in the case of services).

The startup currently operates in seven Indian states, claims to have onboarded 46K+ Hesaathis and eyes an average monthly turnover of INR 15 Cr in FY23. As agritech and FMCG categories account for 60% of its revenue, Hesa plans to add more brands under the top-grossing categories to 5x its revenue in the next financial year. It will also double the Hesaathi base to support extended business operations.

Jollee

An Ecommerce Marketplace For New-Age Parents

Parents tend to get overwhelmed when buying kids’ clothes because there are too many brands in the D2C space. To simplify their buying journey across product categories – from everyday essentials like clothes and diapers to baby accessories, toys, books and more, IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus and former Udaan executive Akriti Gupta launched the ecommerce platform Jollee in 2022.

The Gurugram-based managed marketplace provides a one-stop shopping solution, helping parents discover the most suitable products for babies and kids up to 12 years. According to the startup, it works with a handful of companies chosen by experts. Among these are Cherry Crumble, R for Rabbit, Thasvi Wooden Toys, Smartivity, HarperCollins, Bloomsbury and more.

Jollee runs a website and Android and iOS apps, selling 10K+ products from 100+ brands. It earns a seller’s margin on each product sold and ships the goods pan-India. It has started making revenue from Q1 2023 and plans to streamline the model by FY24.

Kalvium

Bridging The Gap Between Classroom Knowledge & Industry Skills

The lack of ‘employable’ people among university degree holders underlines the biggest bane of Indian education – a gaping mismatch between academic learning and job skills in demand. Eventually, many ‘freshers’ get stuck in low-paying, low-skilled jobs with few growth prospects. Realising that a new sync would be needed between higher education and industry-level skills in a post-pandemic India, Bengaluru-based Kalvium was started in 2021.

Its flagship product is a four-year, earn-as-you-learn undergraduate programme in computer science held in partnership with accredited universities. In the first year, students undergo rigorous training in relevant industry skills. During the next three years, they intern as remote software developers with leading tech companies alongside their academic training. This helps them earn a minimum monthly stipend of INR 15K.

Currently, students from India, the Middle East and Africa can join the programme, and upon completion, it will help them earn an annual package between INR 25 Lakh and INR 40 Lakh. The edtech startup charges a 10% fee on a student’s annualised CTC in the first year. But students need to pay it only after their graduation. 

Kalvium partnered with Lovely Professional University in 2021 to launch its first B.Tech cohort of 34 students. By 2024, it plans to tie up with more than 10 Indian universities and build a student base of 500+. In another two years, it will join hands with 20+ universities in India and onboard 20 more across the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia, scaling to an annual intake of 20K+ students.

LabelBlind

A Food Rating System Doubling Up As A Nutrition Labeller

When the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) made nutrition labelling mandatory for packaged food items, many F&B brands struggled to comply with the new system. However, Mumbai-based LabelBlind recognised a fresh opportunity emerging from heightened compliance.

The startup was launched in 2021 as a SaaS-based food rating system. But the FSSAI mandate to disclose nutritional information on food packages soon spurred its product offerings. By December 2022, it was ready with three products – a digital food rating solution (LabelBlind), a food labelling solution (FolSol) and a nutrition and quality checker called the Positive Nutrition Labelling (PNL).   

LabelBlind rates the nutritional value of food products on a scale of 1-to-5 (where 5 signifies the highest standard), thus helping consumers with healthy eating. The algorithm of the rating system has been validated against the guidelines set up by the FSSAI and the US FDA. 

Still in beta, FoLSol is a web-based label-making solution that has aggregated and digitalised the entire compliance process for F&B players. A company opting for this service has to choose the F&B item/s from the menu, add serving sizes and specify nutrition data, health tags, allergen advisory and other parameters to generate the digital label. This can be downloaded and printed for a small fee. 

FoLSol also puts all essential services, including laboratory tests, quality checking and standard certifications, on a single platform for F&B companies. This minimises the risk of incorrect labelling. 

PNL is an R&D work-in-progress, studying the baseline nutrition values of packed food products. 

As the FolSol solution is less than a year old, the startup is still in talks with F&B companies to understand their nutrition labelling requirements. Based on the input, it will create a standardised labelling software product by 2025. 

Lio

An All-In-One App For Mobile Data Management

India held a mobile edge when the pandemic struck the world in 2020. And its app economy has continued to flourish due to a significant rise in mobile-first consumers and businesses. Whether it is work or entertainment, education or health, ecommerce or hyperlocal deliveries, there is an app for every possible use case, underlining an urgent need for mobile data collation, analysis and management at business and personal levels. Hence, brothers Anupam and Anurag Vijayvergia built Lio, an easy-to-use, all-in-one mobile app to optimise efficient data usage.

Launched in 2020, the Mumbai-based SaaS startup has developed all-in-one Android and iOS apps to help organise all sorts of data under 60+ data templates, varying from income and expenditure tracking to creating wedding registries to making to-do lists and more. It is available in 10 Indian languages and Bahasa (used in Indonesian), with more than 45% usage in vernacular languages.         

Lio’s user base includes SMEs, home businesses and solopreneurs, communities with professional affiliations (doctors, salespersons, taxi drivers, farmers and the like), personal interest groups like fitness or travel enthusiasts or individual users like students or homemakers. The apps allow businesses to work with their teams in real time by creating documents together and sharing them with others on WhatsApp, Gmail and other social apps.

The startup has a freemium model and plans to expand its reach by adding more languages and integrating with more communication apps to enhance user experience. It has not disclosed its revenue but plans to build more data templates to engage with a large number of professionals and interest-based communities.

Liquide

Equity Stock Trading Simplified For Newbies

With the investment tech industry awash with perplexing jargon, Bengaluru-based Liquide was launched to make stock market investing more simple and more fun for new users. Its journey started in 2021 with an equity investing app. It allowed a user to log in with an existing brokerage account and get the essential context regarding the stocks. 

On the Android app, users can buy stocks curated by Liquide’s specialist investment team and get automated notifications about selling. They can also analyse market movement and investor sentiment, browse top-rated stocks, track portfolio health and manage their stock holdings. 

The app offers freemium features such as expert guidance and access to exclusive benefits, including smallcase (Liquide-curated portfolios), expert hotline, VIP screeners, unlimited trades and unlimited portfolio health checkups (one-time free consultation available).

Liquide’s prime product is LiMo, an AI-powered bot that accesses in-depth stock research reports and offers buy/sell/hold recommendations for free, resulting in gains nearly 75% of the time. For context, the startup is registered as an enterprise research analyst with market regulator SEBI.

Liquide has not disclosed its plans but claims a steadily growing investor base of 200K+ and an AUA of INR 500 Cr with more than 5% monthly returns to investors.

Mantys

Business Planning & Analytics For New-Age Tech Companies

Data management and data-driven actions become increasingly complex as companies grow due to disparate data sources and high reliance on spreadsheets. Bengaluru-based Mantys aims to simplify this process by integrating different data sources (such as CRM and ERP) and automating data processing. 

Set up in 2022, the SaaS startup provides a business planning and analytics solution for mid-market, new-age tech companies. Its web-based dashboard enables them to access real-time data, including financial and business metrics, in one place, track the metrics, simulate different scenarios, get insights faster and plan for the way ahead. 

The startup claims that its automated processes reduce the time to generate reports and metrics by at least 60%. The subscription-based plug-and-play solution also provides access to many planning and analysis templates, cutting down on data input and structuring time.

MatchLog

Optimising Logistics To Reduce Supply Chain Wastage

Globally, the supply chain architecture tends to be capital-intensive, but not without reason. Think of under-optimised resources (empty rides post deliveries, poor warehousing and inefficient inventory management) or inadequate data sharing among key functions, leading to ballooning costs. That is why Mumbai-based MatchLog has developed a suite of solutions to reduce wastage in the supply chain and deliver value to all stakeholders – sellers, buyers and logistics companies.         

For starters, the SaaS player offers its logistics clients a plug-and-play web dashboard called MiSTY (MatchLog’s Integrated Street Turn Yard) to ensure streamlined road, rail, air and maritime transport operations.

MatchLog offers first-, middle- and last-mile deliveries and drayage services, all supported by a single-window transport management system (TMS). This ensures optimum route planning (based on cost and minimum carbon emission), offers intermodal and multimodal shipping, enables quick price comparison, manages documentation and bookings and tracks shipments and invoices.

Then there is container triangulation or street turns, where containers are taken directly to the next loading points to cut down on empty rides. The startup says this practice has reduced 36K Mn tonnes of carbon emissions annually and saved its customers millions in freight charges. 

Its TMS also ensures that the cargo, equipment and vehicles are within a mile’s range of each other to reduce multiple/empty trips. In fact, more than 40 parameters are considered before a decision is taken in these cases.

MatchLog charges a customised fee in each case as MiSTY’s end-to-end logistics interface manages the entire journey for its client base of exporters, shipping lines, BCO/4PL/3PL players, transport partners and asset owners.

Nimbbl

Adding Hassle-Free Multi-Payments To Ecom Carts

Ecommerce has changed the way we shop. But digital-first brands still struggle to cope with payment hassles as very few fintech companies provide comprehensive solutions for a fast-evolving environment. Mumbai-based fintech SaaS startup Nimbbl addresses this pain point by integrating major payment methods, technologies, products and services. 

Set up in 2020, the startup’s key product is a one-click checkout that simplifies payments for online shoppers. It eliminates redundant form fields, unnecessary steps and multiple OTPs and redirections, making e-transactions easier and reducing cart abandonment. It enables businesses to run their payment operations from one place with multiple payment gateways where businesses can choose from a list of providers. Businesses can track their payments via the startup’s dashboard.

Nimbbl’s ‘payment links’ allow businesses to receive payments via UPI, cards, net banking, wallets and more through a personalised link, while its ‘payment pages’ offer a ready-to-use interface for businesses operating without websites and apps. Another no-code solution provides multiple payment gateways, and businesses can choose from a list of providers.

It also offers an RBI-compliant consumer credit product/BNPL so that ecommerce brands don’t have to set up a similar tool. It only needs to specify the type of BNPL (standing instruction, stack-up, balloon and more), select/create a funding partner, add and enable the payment plans and upload customer credit limits. 

Nimbbl’s products are designed to serve businesses of all sizes, from ecommerce players to payment aggregators, BNPL providers and more. These can be integrated into websites using SDKs and help companies plug into various enablers like Shopify, Woocommerce, OpenCart and Magento. The fintech charges a transaction fee based on the transaction volume of the business.

NymbleUp

Workforce Automation For Retail Players

With the ‘gig’ model dominating many industry sectors, enterprises and aggregators increasingly look for automated solutions for efficient workforce management. But Mumbai-based NymbleUp has gone beyond the routine and built a retail-focussed forecasting engine that can predict demand across all sales channels to help companies with resource planning and workforce scheduling.

Launched in 2019, the SaaS startup’s AI solution guarantees 90% forecasting accuracy, resulting in smooth operations and a 1-3% reduction in labour costs. Moreover, service levels are not compromised as NymbleUp ensures that workers with the right skill sets are available across all hours. 

Once the solution is integrated with a company’s human resources management system (HRMS), a customised dashboard will pull employee details to generate schedules based on sales demand, operational guidelines and team availability. The startup also provides tools for digitalising store tasks and conducting checks and audits. In addition, its AI-based operational analytics helps retailers make data-driven decisions and respond to changes in demand in real time.

The startup has not disclosed its revenue but claims to be working with two global food service brands and plans to cater to other industry sectors, including warehousing, healthcare and hospitality, by 2024.

Pice

Simplifying Financial Management For Small Businesses

Financial management is the backbone of any business, big or small. While big companies leverage large teams and robust tech solutions to manage accounting, payrolls and payments, small businesses often do things manually to cut costs. Launched in 2021, Bengaluru-based Pice aims to solve the challenges of payment processing for small and micro-entrepreneurs.

One of its key offerings is a hassle-free, inline payment system that does not require multi-platform capabilities. Payments made via the SaaS platform are instantly settled without any waiting period for new beneficiaries or restrictions on the first transfer amount. Its all-in-one web dashboard enables instant salary disbursals and automatic reconciliation to run day-to-day operations without a hitch.

These are viable solutions for small businesses as the startup has a flat fee structure and does not limit the number of transactions.

Pice claims to have finished beta-testing its products and plans to launch the service suite by mid-2023.

Podeum

A One-Stop Digital Engagement Platform For Cricket Fans

Fanboys and fangirls are back in action post-Covid. But given the digital enhancement, both in-stadium and at-home sports viewers seek deeper engagement. Apart from traditional broadcasts (and webcasts), a plethora of fantasy games, prediction contests, analyses and discussions on social media and the web keep people engaged. However, the market is far from saturated, and there is enough scope to monetise content and merchandise. Aware of the demand-supply gap, Podeum was launched in April 2022 to bring all activities and engagement solutions for cricket fans within a single app.

The Bengaluru-based startup offers creator-led engagements and customisable fantasy and prediction games. For instance, influencers on the Android app-based forum can host games and run live sessions during live matches to boost engagement. Fans can participate in these live prediction and fantasy games, engage with others and access live match analyses by experts and celebrities.

Podeum was a pre-revenue startup until December 2022, but now it has started charging gamers a one-time subscription fee. Users can make in-app purchases from April 2023, and creators will be paid for branding and promotions.

In 2024, Podeum plans to build its community of gamers and cricket enthusiasts while scaling up its platform and building a bigger market. In the long term, it intends to leverage the rapidly growing user base (current growth rate is 4x month over month) to emerge as one of the largest sports fandoms in India.

Rivia.AI

Product Demos Created In A Jiffy

A lot of tech products/solutions are too difficult to understand at first go and need product demos or instructional/how-to videos for better customer engagement. But click-through demos are often too generic for one’s liking, while making personalised product videos is time- and resource-consuming. So, Bengaluru-based Rivia.AI provides users a Loom-like video solution and interactive features to create and share media.  

Launched in 2020, the SaaS startup has developed a no-code Chrome extension for companies to create interactive videos by cloning their solutions and then recording, annotating and editing the screens on top of the clones. These demos can be instantly shared by links or by embedding them in websites. One can also add voice-overs and ensure that end users can play these videos at their required speed.

Although intended for product demos, the startup claims that the Chrome extension is increasingly used by companies to record their workflows and automatically convert those into step-by-step guides complete with screenshots. The solution is mainly used to create onboarding and training guides, document products and internal tools and share know-how. 

Rivia.AI has not disclosed its financials or plans, but the startup claims it is working on product development and monetising the solution.

SanKash

Travel Now, Pay Later Is Transforming The Way Indians Travel

The pandemic has waned considerably, but revenge travel continues to trend even in 2023. Aware of a vast gap between aspirations and constraints (fund crunch was a common issue even before the unprecedented health crisis), Abhilasha Negi and Akash Dahiya launched SanKash in 2018.

Although sales slumped during the pandemic, the travel fintech startup built sound business partnerships and currently provides a travel-now, pay-later option, enabling users to borrow between INR 10K and INR 10 Lakh. Some TNPL features include easy loan processing, instant approval and a customised payment plan for booking a package with its partner tour operators such as SOTC, Thomas Cook and Veena World.

The startup charges a processing fee from customers, an MDR fee from travel partners (typically a percentage of the total transaction amount for transaction processing) and a commission from its partner NBFCs.

SanKash has a wide offline presence with 90K+ PoS, but it plans to enter the online market in a big way and work with OTAs, hotels and airlines by 2024. Its revenue has been growing nearly 40% month-over-month in FY23, and it will up its customer base and annual revenue by 50% in the next financial year.

Studio Sirah

Focussing On Indian Lore For Mid-Core Gaming

The gaming industry in India is rooted in Western lore and myths. But there lies a vast but untapped repository of Indian content that can be used for a wide range of intriguing games. So, brothers Abhaas and Prateek Shah launched Studio Sirah in 2020 to tap into the immense potential and build unique games embedded in millennia-old Indian culture.

The Bengaluru-based startup combines rich content with immersive art and deep progression systems to create mid-core mobile and PC games. Its flagship free-to-play game, Kurukshetra: Ascension, is inspired by the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, besides the country’s ancient literature portraying gods, heroes and mythical creatures. 

The game, still in beta, claims more than 120K organic downloads on Android and Steam (a platform for buying and playing video games). Its DAU/MAU ratio (a stickiness metric) exceeds 20%, and an average session spans more than 25 minutes.

The startup plans to launch its second game by 2024 while adding features to its existing game and monetising it through collectable cards, in-app purchases and more.

Threado

A Community Management Platform For Driving Growth

As online communities empower brands to engage with a larger audience meaningfully, they play a crucial role in driving awareness, customer loyalty and sales while reducing business costs. Aware of their growing business impact (not surprising as customers want a say in how things are run), Bengaluru-based Threado has developed a web-based solution and dashboard to help businesses manage their online communities on platforms like Slack, Discord, Twitter and GitHub. 

Set up in 2020 by former Zomato executives Pramod Rao and Abhishek Nalin, the SaaS platform generates actionable insights into how community members engage (maximum contribution and other essential metrics are considered for the same), enabling community managers to optimise their strategies. 

Threado automatically fetches and analyses the data from integrated platforms so businesses can view, filter and customise member cohorts based on engagement criteria and send personalised messages at scale. It also provides easy-to-use templates for member onboarding, engagement and surveys.

The startup offers a 21-day free trial and three types of monthly subscription plans (Pro, Growth and Enterprise) based on the size of the community, number of integrations, workflow templates, personalised reach-outs and more. It also claims to engage with nearly 3 Mn people across 680+ online communities and businesses such as On Deck, Rocketlane, Glide, Ultrahuman, Scalar Academy and FamPay. 

Threado plans to 10x its clientele by 2025 after launching on Product Hunt in August 2023.

Up

An All-In-One Upliance for Smart Cooking

Young people away from home often need help with what (and how) to cook. But faced with a similar challenge during the pandemic, IIT-Bombay alumni Mahek Mody (a former Ather executive) and Mohit Sharma (earlier with Chaayos) decided to build a smart cooking system to help people prepare nutritious, bowl-style meals minus the hassle.

Keen to transform modern Indian households, Mumbai-based Up has launched its first home ‘Upliance’ called delishUp in 2021. It features a smart jar with pre-set cooking tasks (chop, grind, stir fry, sauté and boil), an integrated weighing scale and 200+ recipes (essentially, step-by-step guides) on a tablet-style touch screen. One can choose from the existing oriental food bowls (rice, pasta and more) and cook for up to four people using delishUp. 

The Wi-fi-enabled appliance uses jar sensors to read food temperature and blade sensors for ‘customised’ food processing, as these can perceive the thickness of ingredients. The product has been patented in India and manufactured in-house in Bengaluru. 

The startup has adopted a D2C model and offers a four-day trial for INR 499 in Bengaluru. The commercial delivery of the product started in January 2023. 

Upplans to deliver 150K+ appliances by FY24 and targets INR 150 Cr in revenue. It plans to build and beta-launch a smart and connected microwave (warmUp) and a refrigerator (chillUp) by 2026.

Upsurge

Gamifying 21st Century Skills For Young Learners

Gamification is good for learning, says seasoned professional Karan Baweja, and what he preaches has been put into practice with the launch of his skilling startup Upsurge. Launched in 2021, the New Delhi-based edutainment platform uses gamified solutions to help schoolchildren learn a host of 21st century life skills, including critical thinking, problem-solving, communication and empathy, financial literacy, entrepreneurship and more.

The platform focusses on STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics), a holistic combination of logic and creativity, and features educational games, content, quizzes and knowledge quests curated by experts. Games like Gourmet Empire (virtual café management) and Knowledge Quests (10-15 minute adventures) are designed to be fun and engaging. But they also challenge young learners while teaching them important skills like teamwork, leadership and creative innovation fit for a fast-evolving, largely automated world.

Upsurge has developed a unique rewards programme to keep children learning more and making progress. Kids earn points that can be redeemed for real-life prizes like books and stationery, educational trips and vouchers from Decathlon, Crosswords, Zomato and Swiggy.

So far, Upsurge offerings have been free for its 3K+ users. But it has adopted a monthly subscription model and eyes INR 25 Lakh in revenue in March this year. By 2024, it plans to grow its user base to 1 Mn with at least 10% paid customers. It will also add more than 25 games and 50 courses and run a B2B campaign to onboard more schoolchildren.

Zenduty

Incident Management Made Quick And Easy

Cybersecurity incidents disrupt all industries and businesses in today’s hyper-connected, tech-first society. But some geographies suffer more than the rest. For instance, IBM Security’s annual X-Force Threat Intelligence Index found that the Asia-Pacific region topped the attack list in 2022 for the second consecutive year. The growing concern over such threats has led to the rise of incident management platforms like Zenduty. 

Set up in 2019, the Bengaluru-based startup provides comprehensive solutions to help companies respond quickly and efficiently to critical incidents. Its flagship is a web-based dashboard called Zenduty Incident Command System (ICS). While cybersecurity incidents are just one of the many types that Zenduty alerts on, it is used by infrastructure, SRE and support teams amongst others. The solution can be integrated with infrastructure, application monitoring and logging tools and a wide range of collaboration tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams and Google Chat.

The SaaS platform’s intelligent routing and notification system alerts the right people within 30 seconds of an incident. An on-call and post-incident management feature allows employees across divisions to communicate fast for rapid action. And an analytics dashboard helps engineers learn from such incidents for better prevention. Overall, these risk mitigation solutions can effectively help DevOps, SRE (site reliability engineering), ITOps and support teams.  Zenduty charges a subscription fee based on the number of employees served.

It plans to enter major global markets across North America, the EU and the APAC region by 2024 and add a host of solutions, including incident intelligence and diagnostics, automated root cause analysis, alert correlation and incident forecasting, to its suite of services.

Zerocircle

Seaweed Packaging To Fight The Plastic Menace

Mumbai-based Zerocircle is the brainchild of ex-Googler Neha Jain, an environment enthusiast promoting a minimal carbon footprint. She started to explore what could be done at an industrial scale to maximise greening and came across a natural alternative to paper-and-plastic packaging – seaweed, to be precise.  

After extensive R&D, Zerocircle was launched in 2020 to produce thin films, coatings and glues from seaweed. These products are home-compostable and marine-safe (in case the bioplastic packaging materials end up in the water and get consumed by aquatic life). 

The low-energy, green processing technology can be easily integrated with the existing (plastic) production line with minimal changes, thus ensuring an affordable green transition without impacting jobs. 

Most importantly, its large-scale use will soon reduce the packaging industry’s heavy dependence on single-use plastic that does not get dissolved even after hundreds of years.  

The startup has tied up with two farms in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu to procure red, brown and green seaweed sustainably. After collection, the weed is dried and powdered to make products like wrapping film, fabric, bags, shoe soles, gloves, masks, medical sutures, laminates and more.

Zerocircle is at a pre-revenue stage, still conducting R&D and creating products for government certification. It is also in talks to set up a large-scale, affordable manufacturing ecosystem in Pune by 2024.

[Edited By Sanghamitra Mandal]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eye In February 2023 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Indian startups witnessed a roller-coaster ride in the past three years. They were pounded by the pandemic in the first place, followed by geopolitical uncertainties and the ongoing economic downturn. However, technology adoption, strategic thinking and a VC-led funding spurt (2021 turned out to be a record year in terms of capital inflow) kept the lights on for the startup ecosystem.

Overall, startups across the country found ways to adapt and innovate, positioning themselves for success in a fast-changing market.

The trials and tribulations continued, though, and many companies (even mature businesses) did little to impress their users in 2022. In contrast, a host of early stage startups rose and shone with solutions that addressed real-life pain points.

Interestingly, the strategy playbook of Indian startups also underwent a sea change during this critical phase. With the onset of a funding winter in 2022, startups abandoned their growth-at-any-cost strategy and focussed on revenue generation for long-term play. When consumer spending dwindled, businesses embraced utility and value addition to keep them coming back. And when the competition was fierce, we observed market consolidations as never before.

As always, Inc42 has carried the torch for the country’s startup ecosystem, and our flagship series, 30 Startups To Watch, has been a testament to that.

In the past 11 editions, we have featured 320+ startups across sectors, and in this special edition, 2022 In Review, we bring you the top startups from those 320+ business entities.

The top two sectors with the maximum number of startups from our 2022 lists include enterprisetech and fintech. We have featured more than 90 enterprisetech startups across HR, marketing and sales, inventory and billing management and more. Similarly, we have listed 88 fintech and blockchain startups operating in a number of sub-sectors such as insurance, lending, investment/wealth management and lending.

Other sectors with a large number of startups are ecommerce (61), healthtech (17) and EV (9).

Most of these startups were launched shortly after the tech push post-pandemic and are bootstrapped or sparsely funded.

Sadly, some of these early stage startups also fell prey to harsh market conditions and shut down their operations or laid off many employees.

After A Harsh Funding Winter, Can Spring Be Far Behind?

As experts predict, the downturn will likely continue for at least a couple of quarters going into 2023. But in spite of the tight money supply, drastic cuts in expenditure, pivots and shutdowns, there is much to be optimistic about the new year.

“While the world slips into an economic slumber, Indian founders and teams will build. From our experience across multiple cycles, we know that the right motivations drive the founders who start their entrepreneurial journey under these conditions. They will build business models with more core strength,” Nitin Sharma, partner at the VC fund Antler India and global blockchain lead at Antler, told Inc42.

According to him, the key themes in 2023 will be the emergence of GenZ founders, the rise of SaaS and deeptech and the adoption of digital public goods as startups focus on building global platforms instead of geography-specific products.

As startups develop innovative technologies and new business models in sync with evolving requirements, exciting things are bound to be in store. Besides, many will find strategic sweet spots and product-market fits, leading to impressive growth narratives.

The regulatory landscape also continues to evolve, providing more growth opportunities as startups push the boundaries and explore new horizons.

While reviewing the startups featured in our 30 Startups To Watch column throughout 2022, we took a close look at their growth and explored their plans moving forward. Here is a rundown of the top 20’s achievements and vision. However, we need to keep in mind that business rules and the environment will continue to shift in 2023, and new leaders will emerge.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups in alphabetical order.

Arthan Finance

Loan Disbursements Jump 7x, Profitability On The Cards

Short-term, small-ticket lending is the core business model of many fintech startups. But Mumbai-based Arthan Finance has seen growth like no other. Inc42 featured the MSME lender in January 2022, when it used to disburse monthly loans worth INR 5 Cr. But the amount jumped more than 7x, crossing INR 35 Cr in December. Additionally, the number of loans processed each month reached 2.5K+ compared to 400 in December 2021. Overall, it disbursed INR 300 Cr since its launch in 2018, of which INR 250 Cr was paid out in 2022.

Arthan also hit operational breakeven in November as the number of loan disbursals  grew nearly 10x year over year. Its AUM also quadrupled YoY, from INR 25 Cr to INR 100 Cr. Besides, its branch network doubled as it launched operations in 27+ states and UTs, 200+ cities and 3K+ pin codes. 

The lending tech startup raised $6 Mn in equity and $10 Mn in debt funding from Dell Foundation and other existing investors. Arthan will use the money to lend to more than 50K businesses and disburse loans worth INR 750 Cr+ in 2023.

BuyOFuel

This Biofuel Aggregator Clocks 2x Rise In User Base, Revenue

To reduce India’s dependence on exports and fossil fuels, the government wants to ensure that biofuels will account for 20% of the country’s total fuel mix by 2030. Among the cleantech startups working towards this end is Coimbatore-based BuyOFuel, which aggregates biofuel suppliers, consumers and waste generators (waste biomass is converted to biofuels). 

When Inc42 listed the startup in May 2022, It had a user base of 1K+. The number nearly doubled to 1.8K+ in the following six months as BuyOFuel launched its Android and iOS apps in June to grow its user base. It claims that 90% of its users are active and repeat customers, and the business has clocked a 2x increase in monthly revenue since May 2022. 

The cleantech platform saw transactions involving 30K million tonnes (MT) of waste and biofuels since May, substituting 10K MT of fossil fuels. It plans to launch a sustainability dashboard to help businesses with their ESG reporting based on global greenhouse gas protocols. 

BuyOFuel is also working with small companies to help them generate a regular income from waste sales and thus establish a sustainable market. It is currently operational in certain parts of west and southern India but aims to foray into north India in 2023 and clock INR 200 Cr+ in annual revenue.

Capitall

Gross Margins Up By 35%; MSME Funding Among Key Pillars

After equity financing took a backseat in 2022 due to economic headwinds, debt-based crowdfunding (P2P lending) surged as a viable option for many businesses. Since Inc42 listed Capitall in February 2022, the crowdfunding-based lending tech startup decided to bank on this emerging trend to grow its business manifold.

The Bengaluru firm redesigned its underwriting algorithm to include MSMEs, in addition to startups, which were its sole clients until September. Between September and December, the MSME sector accounted for 30% of its monthly loan disbursements.  

Throughout the year, Capitall onboarded more than 1,500 new investors, funded nine companies and signed lending term sheets worth INR 1.5 Cr+. It also tied up with a P2P NBFC partner.

Capitall claims a 35% YoY rise in gross margins in 2022. Its north-star metrics included a 120% monthly growth in loan disbursements, a 72% repeat borrower rate and a 30% rise in the average investment amount per deal, while 45% of users referred new customers. It also claims zero NPAs/delayed repayments and a 25% rise in the average loan amount. 

In 2023, the startup aims to raise a seed round, reach INR 10 Cr in monthly disbursements and have INR 30 Cr+ assets under management (AUM) from its community of investors. It will diversify investment opportunities by including fixed-income options, enter Tier 2 cities to widen its MSME client base and onboard overseas investors to let the world invest in India’s growing economy.

Chargeup

This Battery-As-A-Service Provider Serves 2K+ EV Drivers, Clocks 1 Lakh Monthly Swaps

New Delhi-based Chargeup wants to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles through its network of battery swap stations, which will reduce range anxiety and enhance ease of use. When Inc42 featured the startup in April, it used to serve 1.2K drivers via its 150+ swap stations in Delhi-NCR. 

Although it has not extended its operations beyond the region yet, the number of swap stations has gone up to 200+. Currently, the startup clocks 1 Lakh swaps per month and caters to 2K+ EV drivers. 

Chargeup recently raised a pre-series A round of $7 Mn from Capital A, Anicut Capital and several angel investors to expand its services to 20 more cities and increase its user base to 50K+ in 2023.

Elever

INR 3.5 Cr Assets Under Administration; Equity-Only Portfolios Launched

Since it was featured in Inc42’s fintech edition (July 2022), investment tech startup Elever added new financial goals to its offerings, including vehicle purchase and early retirement plans. Most notably, the company launched five equity-only portfolios in November for passive, long-term investments to help its 3.5K users.

The Bengaluru-based startup plans to launch 15-20 more equity-only portfolios by March this year. It has also started beta-testing financial planning services to increase assets under administration (AUA) and drive conversion rates. Currently, it has INR 3.5 Cr worth of AUA, with a monthly committed SIP of INR 26 Lakh. 

The startup saw 25K+ app downloads and 3K+ sign-ups during August-December, clocking MoM growth of 119% and 58%, respectively.  

In 2023, Elever will push financial planning and tactical model-based equity strategies like factor and sector rotations. It will also provide B2B services (details undisclosed) from Q2 2023 and aims to serve 50K customers by the end of the year, amassing $60 Mn AUA in the process.

Explorex

This Restaurant SaaS Player Operates In 15 Cities; Billing Volume Up 25% MoM

SaaS was suitable for digitalising restaurant operations when eateries functioned partially amid the Covid-19 pandemic. By the time fine dining (and all other establishments) became fully operational again, the benefits of this technology were heartily acknowledged and actively sought. As a result, restaurant SaaS specialists like Explorex have continued to flourish. 

Featured by Inc42 in July 2022, the Bengaluru-based startup soon experienced rapid growth in the food & beverages space. For instance, more than 50% of the payments at its client restaurants were processed on its web-based platform. Within four months, it handled $1.5 Mn worth of bills, clocking 25% MoM growth in billing volume. It also added 150 restaurants to its client portfolio between July and December 2022 and started operations in Mumbai and Delhi, taking its presence to 15 Indian cities. 

Explorex processed more than 3 Mn orders worth INR 150 Cr+ since its launch in 2020. It also received four awards from the restaurant and the SaaS sectors and secured a seed round of $5 Mn. 

The startup has partnered with Pine Labs (for payment gateway) and Axis Bank (to help restaurants take business loans). It will focus on customer acquisition, product development and pan-India expansion in 2023.

Falca Solutions

Achieved: A 100K-Strong Active Farmer Base, INR 150 Cr In Annual Revenue

Agritech startup Falca Solutions has digitalised many critical functions of traditional agribusiness since 2018 and made it to the Inc42 list in October 2022. 

In the two months that followed, the Bengaluru-based startup piloted its f-Hire feature to connect farmers with agri machinery renters and onboarded more than 11K farmers. 

In December, Falca started to procure maize, soybean, wheat and paddy in three districts of Madhya Pradesh for export. It also secured $2 Mn in debt funding and bagged supply contracts for 7K tonnes of maize and 30K tonnes of paddy from leading agri manufacturers and exporters, respectively. 

The startup claims an annual revenue of more than INR 150 Cr in 2022 and an active farmer base of 100K.

Falca eyes annual revenue of INR 300 Cr in 2023 by expanding its operations in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. It will open 60+ physical centres to onboard 150K+ farmers by the end of this year.

Goldsetu

Onboarded: 5K+ Jewellery Retailers; Nearly 50% Avail Procurement Services

Pandemic or not, fine jewellery is selling, but the way of doing business has changed from traditional to digital to ensure business continuity and growth. Leading this digital transformation is Noida-based SaaS startup Goldsetu, creating digital storefronts for jewellery retailers, automating workflow and offering supply chain services.  

When Inc42 featured it in the February 2022 list of 30 startups, Goldsetu was in the pre-revenue stage. Since then, the startup has added a B2B procurement channel for its 5K+ retail partners (up from 300+ from its time of listing), enabling them to source materials, parts and products from pan-India vendors. The startup claims that more than 2.2K retailers are actively procuring through its B2B website.

The SaaS player also acquired the B2B jewellery ecommerce firm BuymyJewel for an undisclosed amount for a deeper foray into the B2B space and raised seed funding of $1.1 Mn in October 2022. A month later, it claimed to have clocked INR 3.8 Cr in revenue from its usage-based transaction fee and said it was on track to reach INR 5.2 Cr in December.

Goldsetu has ambitious plans for 2023, including launching and scaling up a supply chain credit product. It will also expand its presence in four states to earn monthly revenue of $10 Mn.

Kosh

Loan Disbursals Up 2x, IM Feature Drives Customer Retention By 30%

When we featured Gurugram-based Kosh in July 2022, the lending tech startup for blue-collar workers used to process INR 4 Cr worth of loans every month. But by November 2022, the amount nearly doubled to INR 7 Cr. 

Meanwhile, Kosh also launched an instant messaging feature on its Android app, enabling borrowers to communicate with the team or use its channels to find financial solutions. One of these channels focusses on job search, an instant crowd-puller, upping customer retention by 30%. 

The startup onboarded new B2B clients such as SIS, GarageWorks and Numer8 to help their workers with loan assistance. It also tied up with new NBFCs such as Apollo Finance, Arvog Finance and Arthmate to expand its loan portfolio. 

Kosh plans to 5x its monthly loan disbursal to INR 35 Cr by the end of 2023. It is also working on more features within the IM (Kosh Chat) to help users with lending, savings and job searches to grow its operations.

Moneyboxx Finance

Active Customer Base Doubles, Loan Disbursals Grow 184%

Lending tech platform Moneyboxx was featured in Inc42’s January edition and achieved new milestones throughout the year. To begin with, the Mumbai-based startup, which provides unsecured loans in the range of INR 70K-3 Lakh, disbursed total loans worth INR 155 Cr to 22K+ customers in 2022. Among these borrowers, 45% were women entrepreneurs, and 35% were new to credit, the startup said.

Its active customer base more than doubled to 19K+, and YoY loan disbursements grew 184%.

Moneyboxx claims an AUA of INR 200 Cr and a network of 50 branches across six states. It also raised INR 35 Cr in equity funding in June from undisclosed investors to grow its operations. Besides, it signed lending partnerships with the SBI, Tata Capital, two more NBFCs and a small finance bank (details were not provided in these cases) to grow its AUA.

The digital lender eyes an AUA of INR 350 Cr by the end of the current financial year and plans to reach INR 1K Cr by March 2024. It will also double its branches by the end of 2023.

Oben Electric

After 17K+ Bookings, Oben To Kickstart 2023 With Deliveries, 4 More EV Launches

One of the early movers in the electric motorcycle space in India, Oben Electric was listed by Inc42 in March 2022. At the time, the startup had just announced its flagship EV2W Rorr. But throughout the year, it had seen significant traction and 17K+ bookings across India, the UAE, Germany, the UK and a slew of other Southeast Asian countries.

The Bengaluru-based EV startup bagged $4 Mn in an extended pre-series A round with plans to raise $50 Mn in Series A for further research and four more product launches. Using the money from the previous round, it will fulfil existing orders, ramp up production capacity and expand its distribution network. Rorr deliveries are scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2023.

Plix Life

New Products Among Best-Sellers, Sales Jump 3x

In the past year, personal care brands offering vegan (cruelty-free) and eco-friendly products caught the attention of ‘woke’ customers and led to the growth of D2C startups like Mumbai-based Plix Life. Featured in Inc42’s January list, this one specialises in plant-based offerings, including women’s health, wellness and weight loss products and workout supplements. 

The brand has now launched hair care and skin nutrition categories for all, resulting in a 3x rise in sales. Its new product range includes ingestible sunscreens, hair growth supplements and topical and drinkable skincare products. Plix has also introduced dermatologist-tested vegan hair growth serums, which are the highest-selling products, the company claims. 

Plix sells 60+ SKUs under six categories via its website, online marketplaces and retail stores, and its customer base has grown to 1.5 Mn+ in the past year.

The startup eyes an ARR of INR 180 Cr by March 2023 and aims to reach INR 350 Cr in annual revenue by the end of the year. It will grow its wellness and personal care range in 2023 and retail its products through 10K+ stores.

Poshn

From $100 Mn To $1 Bn ARR: Poshn’s Ambitious Supply Chain Play

New Delhi-based Poshn focusses on fixing a broken supply chain, making sales and procurement easy for farmers and institutional buyers, respectively. Since it was featured in May, the two-year-old agri supply chain startup expanded its offerings beyond food grains and added new categories, including dry fruits, milk and wood pulp.

Poshn offers 1K+ products, caters to 400+ pin codes and currently works with more than 500 wholesalers. It has partnered with major institutional buyers such as Jubilant FoodWorks, Swiggy, Blinkit, Dunzo, Reliance Retail and more. 

The startup claims 5x revenue growth YoY, while the new categories account for 30% of its topline. It eyes an annual run rate of $100 Mn in FY23 and has recently raised $2 Mn in venture debt from Alteria Capital to reach $1 Bn in ARR in the next financial year.

Recur Club

This B2B Lending Startup Claims INR 3K Cr AUA, 2.5x Growth In User Base

Amid a lull in equity funding, SaaS and D2C businesses with recurring revenues are increasingly opting for revenue-based financing to meet their capital requirements. New Delhi-based Recur Club is a trading platform that helps recurring revenue companies trade their contracts/subscriptions to raise quick and hassle-free funding.

When Inc42 listed it in March, it backed 400+ companies which traded their recurring subscription revenue for upfront capital. By December 2022, Recur Club’s customer base grew by 2.5x to 1K+. It also claimed INR 3K Cr worth of assets under administration (AUA), growing at 200% MoM. 

In April, the fintech startup raised $30 Mn from InfoEdge Ventures and others to launch its operations in the US and Singapore. It also partnered with IVY Growth Associates to allocate up to $10 Mn to the VC fund’s portfolio companies. Recur Club plans to fund 500 IVY-backed startups in the next few years. It also aims to reach more than 2K customers in 2023 and increase its AUA to $1 Bn.

SALT

A Neobank Helping 300+ Businesses Expand Globally

Bengaluru-based neobank SALT aims to make global expansion easy and affordable for everyone, a concept widely lauded when the business was featured in Inc42’s fintech edition in June. 

The startup has three focus areas – inward remittance (peer-to-peer and peer-to-merchant), investment inflow to India and overseas business expansion. Although it did not provide growth details regarding the first two segments, SALT worked with 300+ Indian companies between June and December, enabling them to scale up their operations in more than 50 countries. 

It has also created communities on WhatsApp and Telegram to help small businesses understand how to run international operations. Additionally, it plans to more than double the number of partner companies in 2023. 

Between 2023 and 2025, SALT will expand its use cases to make P2P and P2M remittances as easy as using UPI, offer cross-border banking solutions and automate compliance procedures.

Solv

Serves 273K+ MSMEs, Revenue Grows 5x YoY

Indian MSMEs often struggle to access growth capital and tap into potential customer base due to the lack of technology adoption. With an e-marketplace stack and a bouquet of financial and logistics solutions in place, Bengaluru-based Solv has addressed the pain point and serviced 273K+ MSMEs since its launch in 2020.

When we listed the startup in April 2022, Solv worked with 200K+ micro-entrepreneurs and planned to add another 100K by the end of the calendar year. Backed by Standard Chartered, it has now expanded its offerings to ‘softline’ businesses, those specialising in ‘soft’ goods such as apparel, footwear, fashion accessories and home furnishings. 

The B2B ecommerce startup has not disclosed its revenue but claims 5x YoY growth in 2022 through deliveries of 3 Mn+ bulk orders. 

In June 2022, it launched Solv Atom, an invoice financing service backed by 12 anchor and 12 FI partners, and also raised $40 Mn in Series A, led by SBI Holdings and SC Ventures.

The June Shop

User Base Up 20% MoM; Revenue Jumps 1.5x

D2C home décor and lifestyle brand The June Shop made it to Inc42’s 30 Startup To Watch list in August 2022. At the time, it offered 7.5K products across 20+ categories, with home décor being its mainstay. In the past four months, the Kolkata-based startup added many new products to its line of iPhone covers, planners and journals, leading to a 2x jump in orders and a 1.5x increase in revenue. 

It also upgraded its website and servers to ensure ease of use, which upped the conversion rate by 30% and helped drive the daily traffic to 200K.

The June Shop claimed 20% MoM growth in user base and an average increase of 35% in the MoM sales of new products. The D2C startup saw a big surge during its Black Friday Sale in November, followed by a strong December marked by the sales of journals and planners.

In 2023, the brand aims to introduce more lifestyle products designed in-house and expand its customer base by adding sustainable, made-in-India products.

Traya Health

Servicing 2 Lakh+ Users, Clocking 20% Revenue Growth Month Over Month

Traya was covered in the May 2022 edition, but the Mumbai-based haircare brand added many categories and products since then to improve the overall efficacy of its offerings. These include a night lotion for those suffering from dandruff, seborrheic dermatitis (scaly scalp and skin) and psoriasis; a range of products to prevent hair loss in women and an ayurvedic range of gut health products to address issues like chronic constipation, acidity and bloating (these can also trigger hair loss).

In December 2022, the brand started selling on Amazon India, where its hair vitamin is one of the best-rated products. Sales of the hair vitamin product alone resulted in a revenue of INR 30 Lakh for the startup. 

Traya claims to have treated more than 2 Lakh Indians since its inception in 2019 (1 Lakh customers signed up in May-December 2022) and increased its team size from 60 to 200.

Overall, the D2C brand saw 20% revenue growth month over month, with more than 50% coming from repeat customers. Also, 40% of its revenue came from product sales sans any marketing spend compared to 10% in May. 

Going forward, Traya will develop solutions to improve hair quality. A line of ayurvedic products is also on the cards to address the nutritional needs of women to cope with the postpartum phase, menopause, PCOD, anaemia and more. Plus, it will develop an app to help users round the clock. It also acquired a U.S. company (name not disclosed) to expand its global reach in 2023.

What’s Up Wellness

Top-Selling Products Trigger 50% MoM Revenue Growth, 35% Repeat Buying

D2C wellness brands have thrived in the wake of the pandemic due to their focus on holistic healing. After getting listed in August, this Kolkata-based startup launched sleep gummies to aid muscle relaxation and pain recovery. These FDA-approved gummies are designed to regulate sleep cycles and contain muscle and nerve relaxants to help users wake up feeling refreshed and energised.

The sleep gummies have gained significant traction, ranking among the top four sleep supplements on Amazon India in less than two months of their launch. The startup recently started selling on Nykaa and claimed more than 35% repeat purchases and gross monthly revenue of INR 50 Lakh as it recorded 50% MoM growth.

The brand also raised an angel round, but the details were not disclosed. 

What’s Up Wellness targets an annual revenue run rate of INR 18 Cr in 2023 and plans to launch 10 more products in two new categories. As part of its ESG activity, it donated 1% of its revenue through Give India to fund 60 girls under the Every Girl In School programme.

ZFW Dark Stores

Post-Pivot, Serving 60+ D2C Brands, Clocking $60K MRR

After pivoting from the logistics business in late 2021, Delhi-based ecommerce enabler ZFW Dark Stores launched same-day intercity delivery service for D2C brands and other ecommerce businesses. Inc42 featured it in January, post which it added 50 more D2C clients from five markets – Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. In fact, it forayed into the last two markets in 2022 alone.

The startup clocked 20% MoM growth in order volume and currently serves more than 60 D2C brands, with the monthly recurring revenue (MRR) at $60K. Additionally, it signed contracts worth $100K with a host of brands, which will be launched by March 2023.

It recently partnered with ZYPP Electric to incorporate EVs in its fleets and move towards a sustainable delivery system. It already has a fully electric fleet in Delhi-NCR. 

ZFW closed two funding rounds: $1.2 Mn in a seed round and an undisclosed amount in pre-series A from South Asia Technology Partners, RiSo Capital, SEA Fund and many angel investors. The money raised will be utilised for pan-India expansion, including major state capitals, tech investments and growing its brand portfolio to 200 by 2023.

Edited By Sanghamitra Mandal

The post 2022 In Review: The Best Of Inc42’s 30 Startups To Watch appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The lasting legacy of Covid-19 has disrupted the startup ecosystem as never before. But when the pandemic waves waned considerably in 2022, and the world looked forward to a cash-gushing year filled with big IPOs and mega-funding rounds, there came a hard-hitting downturn and sustained market pullback due to macro factors.

It is not new. Startups had been through these periodic down cycles, these moments of fear and panic, before roaring back to business. This time, too, there is a severe funding winter, wiping off the ebullience of easy capital.

Undoubtedly, every entrepreneur has tried to navigate the choppy waters, but few have come out unscathed. Many startups abruptly shut down or announced multiple rounds of layoffs to cut costs. According to Inc42 data, as many as 17,000 people got the pink slip by the time we published this monthly column. Valuations were slashed, too, and the ‘growth at any cost’ mantra is no longer valid.

Indian startups have been jolted out of their comfort zone really and truly. But this disruptive era’s learning and unlearning are also paving a recovery path. The business fundamentals have changed to operational profitability, and the means to achieve it is innovation – technology efficiency, which is affordable and resource-friendly.

The startup ecosystem in India has been hustling persistently to build disruptive brands, and for some, it has paid off. The late-stage funding scenario has been stark compared with just a few months ago, but this has been an eye-opener for early-stage investors. They are now guiding their portfolio companies better than before.

As businesses continue to innovate guided by aces, Inc42’s 30 Startups To Watch list adds another edition of 30 remarkable young companies which are building from India for the world.

30 Startups To Watch: November 2022

More than growth, startups are now focussing on sustainability and business continuity. This has led to the exploration of new niches, building scalable products and innovating for both enterprises and consumers.

The 34th edition of Inc42’s 30 Startups To Watch list features a healthy mix of B2B and B2C entities across fintech, enterprise tech, blockchain, deeptech, manufacturing, green mobility (EVs), ecommerce, logistics, healthtech and more.

From intelligent data management to democratising the creator economy, insurance aggregation to end-to-end access to cancer care, babywear made of bamboo linen to making Asian condiments for every kitchen – this edition showcases many faces of technology and the growing maturity of India’s tech ecosystem.

Gone are the days when the unique usage of the internet and deeptech, heavy discounting and product personalisation wooed consumers who wanted to try everything under the sun. It is the era of utility and scalability, showcased by the startups in this list.

Check out the 34th edition of Inc42 Plus’ 30 Startups To Watch list.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups in alphabetical order.

AIBorne Tech

Automated Inspection For Enterprises In Need

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic mandated the need for remote connectivity across most sectors. However, inspection companies with critical ground operations suffered at the time as they needed a unified way to collect, integrate, share and monitor real-time, on-the-ground data.

To help companies specialising in survey, service and maintenance, Delhi-based IaaS (Inspection as a Service) startup AiBorne Tech has developed a two-layered solution for a thorough but cost-effective digital inspection. There is a no-code simplifier to digitise survey data and an AI/AR platform to enable quality checks to ascertain whether all is well with the operations under its scanner.

Think of a surveyor assessing a damaged car, an EPC company monitoring a solar farm or an engineer in charge of an automated pipeline, and you get an idea about AiBorne’s service range.

The procedure is quite simple. Once the images/videos of the ‘target’ are uploaded on a dashboard, an interactive, AR-based graphic is created, much like what we see on 360-degree virtual tours on Google Maps. Next, the startup’s AI platform auto-checks this visual for quality issues and provides details of repair costs, if needed.

The startup had a commercial launch in 2021 and claims to have reduced manual QC by 85% for its 150+ enterprise clients, which pay a monthly subscription fee. It plans to expand globally in 2023 and aims to serve more than 25K businesses in the next five years.

Ceres Foods

Tasty Condiments For Asian Delectables

Between 2016 and 2019, Mumbai-based Ceres Food ran 45 cloud kitchens and specialised in authentic Asian cuisines. But when the pandemic struck in 2020, the food startup pivoted to produce a lip-smacking range of culinary sauces, pastes and frozen items to help add authentic flavours to many delicious Asian dishes.

Ceres offers more than 20 products under two brands – Ceres Foods (liquid desi spices for non-veg dishes) and MoiSoi (a collection of oriental sauces). All items are produced at its two in-house units in the state. But the startup is planning to add two more factories in 2023.

Products are sold on its website, online marketplaces/entities like Amazon, Flipkart, BigBasket and Swiggy, and physical retail stores. It also runs a B2B business and supplies to restaurants and hotel chains. Ceres sauces and mixes are also shipped to the UAE, Singapore, Nigeria and South Africa.

Big expansion is on the cards as the startup will enter the US market by December 2022, open its brick-and-mortar retail stores across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Kolkata, and add 20 more products to its offerings.

On average, Ceres sells 15K+ units per month but aims to triple its sales in 2023 and take its annual revenue to INR 15 Cr.

DataBrain

A BI Dashboard For Smart Monitoring

Data scientists Rahul Pattamata and Vysakh Sreenivasan earlier built several machine learning and data products and understood the complexity of creating a central data repository. But the problems multiply when business functions (finance, sales, marketing and more) across companies demand separate data dashboards for every critical metric set. So, the duo is building a business intelligence (BI) platform called the DataBrain to iron out the data silos and provide companies with a comprehensive view of the data landscape.

The Chennai-based SaaS startup is developing a multi-functional, cloud-native dashboard that will present real-time data for task monitoring, in-depth data visualisation and comprehensive analytics, resulting in informed business decisions.

One only needs to connect all the data sources to the dashboard for BI reporting, as DataBrain supports 150+ data warehousing solutions. Companies can write simple codes for customisable visualisation of key metrics or use pre-existing templates.

DataBrain charges an annual subscription for its services and currently runs an invite-only model to set up its client base.

Dhiway

A ‘Building Block’ For Silo-Free Information Flow

Despite a rapid surge in tech developments across Web 2.0, our validation processes tend to be slow and manual. But verifying documents with a blockchain system where intermediaries do not broker the trust factor can efficiently deal with these challenges. Bengaluru-based Dhiway has taken this path to ensure large-scale data management, sharing and authentication with zero friction.

The three-year-old blockchain startup has developed a Layer 1 open-source project called CORD to help enterprises build decentralised digital repositories/utility networks at scale for hassle-free information management.

Coupled with Dhiway’s MARK Studios, a patent-pending digital credential management platform, this comprehensive tech stack enables all sorts of data exchange/migration and sharing, along with tamper-proof validation. In fact, MARK Studios creates a verifiable trust mark anchored on the CORD Network, allowing any on-ramp organisation to verify the authenticity of off-chain data.

This blockchain solution is in stark contrast to silo-based information management systems and high-cost, centralised data centres maintained by legacy enterprises.

Dhiway charges an annual subscription from enterprises using MARK Studios and has a pay-as-you-use model for those building their digital repositories on the CORD Network. It also eyes an annualised revenue of INR 2.5 Cr for the current financial year.

Currently, more than 1,500 educational institutions use the CORD Network. But Dhiway is looking to scale it up to cater to diverse goals and targets involving financial and economic inclusion, healthcare, education, agriculture, governance, migration and registry management.

DhiWise

Adding Speed & Customisation To Programming Via LCNC

Low-code/no-code (LCNC) platforms are gaining popularity as they help automate repetitive programming tasks and reduce the time and costs required for manual coding. The only glitch: Users have to choose from pre-existing modules on most platforms, leaving little scope for customisation.

However, IT consultants Vishal Virani and Rahul Shingala saw a great scope to bring both speed and creativity to routine LCNC ops. Surat-based DhiWise was launched in 2021 to help developers focus on unique-to-programme features and customisable interfaces.

For development work, the startup uses an MVC format or three interconnected elements – the model (application), the view (interface) and the controller (the backend).

Developers on DhiWise only need to code the ‘controller’ part or modify the auto-coded parts, making the process 10x faster, the startup claims. But unlike other platforms, one can also customise the ‘view’ by creating a new interface or importing a previous ‘model’, following which it will be converted into structured, legible and simple codes.

DhiWise’s API plugin will further automate the newly coded part by adding data binding, authentication, run time permissions, authorisations and more.

Individual developers can use the platform for free, but teams and enterprises have to buy monthly/annual plans for using the SaaS tools. DhiWise has not disclosed its financials but says the platform has more than 37K users. It plans to more than triple the user base by 2023.

EMotorad

Building Dual-Suspension E-Bikes For Clean Mobility

The concept of clean mobility for all has become increasingly popular as people and businesses across the globe join the fight to reduce vehicle pollution. Pune-based EMotorad had a similar mission and came up with a wide range of e-bikes and accessories, minus the charging headache.

Its flagship product is EMX, a dual-suspension e-bike with a 10.4 Ah removable Li-ion battery, a top speed of 25 kmph, a 50 km range and multi-terrain modes. To date, the startup has 10 SKUs across four categories – mountain e-bikes, foldable bikes, kick e-scooters and accessories such as batteries, bike helmets, cycle locks, tyre pumps and more. It has a manufacturing unit in Pune with a capacity to produce 90K e-bikes and e-scooters per year.

As the bikes come with removable batteries, these can be swapped easily or charged with a three-pin plug.

EMotorad sells its e-bikes and e-scooters online (via its website and marketplaces) and offline (through dealers, distributors and exclusive brand outlets). It claims to have sold more than 40K bikes since its launch in 2020 and has a monthly revenue of INR 10 Cr. Besides India, its products are available in a number of countries, including Nepal, Japan, the UAE, Spain, Germany, France, the UK, the Netherlands and Australia.

The EV startup plans to build an activity tracker for its e-bikes and develop Android and iOS apps to create a cycling community by 2023.

Fairdeal Market

Offline Distribution Made Easy For D2C Brands

Gurugram-based Fairdeal Market was launched in April 2022 to make offline distribution of D2C brands as easy as selling via online marketplaces. So, it has developed a web-based platform and additional features to help brands choose the retail outlets through which they want to sell their products.

The digital platform onboards all types of retailers – kiranas, convenience stores, pharmacies/drug stores and superstores from various locations – for widespread reach and deep collaboration. Brands can sign up on Fairdeal to connect with their preferred retailers, and the startup helps them with logistics.

In simple terms, the marketplace-like distribution platform has done away with the brands’ dependency on wholesalers and other intermediaries who claim a large chunk of the revenue as sales commission.

Besides running the B2B bazaar, Fairdeal uses AI tools to provide real-time insights into brands’ inventories via a one-stop dashboard. It also partners with NBFCs to finance retailers who need the money for bulk buying.

The startup charges an undisclosed price markup from D2C brands and charges registered retailers a subscription fee for platform usage and brand relationship management. It has not disclosed the number of retail outlets on board but claims to be working with 12 brands, while 30 more are expected to join the platform by March 2023.

Fanztar

Web3 Makes Fans & Creators Partners In Profits

Built at the intersection of Web3 and the creator economy, Gurugram-based Fanztar promises a more rewarding engagement between creators and their fans. In this case, both can benefit monetarily from an interlinked digital journey.

For starters, fans will no longer consume content passively, hoping that a growing subscriber base will eventually attract monetary gains for their favourite creators. Instead, they can buy Fan Card NFTs developed by creators to drive their favourite’s growth. But this will not be a one-way thing.

Fans, too, stand to gain as each fan card is loaded with exclusive content, meet-and-greet opportunities, backstage access, social hangouts, virtual interactions and more. Plus, one gains from an income-sharing agreement for a limited period – say, a certain percentage of earnings from Insta ads or Spotify streams.

These creator NFTs are built on the Polygon blockchain and can be traded as collectables. Fanztar earns by charging a service fee on every transaction.

The year-old startup claims to have onboarded 80K users and more than 18 creators, besides selling 80K+ fan cards on its web-based platform. It plans to 10x the user base by 2023 and eyes more than 10K creators and over 10 Lakh fan cards in circulation.

Finequs

Financial Inclusion Goes Offline

Embedded finance like BNPL (buy now, pay later) has gone mainstream to enable large-scale financial inclusion. But most Bharat consumers need access to technology and devices to avail themselves of these new-age credit facilities. Realising the need to bring the ecosystem offline for greater reach, former banker Krishnan Vaidyanathan launched Finequs in 2019.

The Chennai-based fintech startup helps retail stores facilitate small-value loans, credit card usage and insurance schemes through its web platform. Users can visit the startup’s partner retail stores and specify their financial requirements, following which store owners can input the details via the Finequs dashboard. Next, the fintech firm uses its proprietary algorithms to assess credit risks, and loans are disbursed by its 60+ lending partners.

Users can apply for loans up to INR 10 Lakh for five years. Those seeking credit cards and insurance can specify their requirements, and the Finequs dashboard will display products to suit specific needs.

The startup claims it has tied up with more than 1 Mn retail outlets to facilitate loans for walk-in customers. Each retailer gets a commission on a successful application, while the fintech charges a service fee from its lending partners. For context, it only acts as an intermediary within the loan cycle but does not take any risk.

Finequs has not disclosed its financials but says it is growing its pan-India network to act as a catalyst for widespread financial inclusion.

Finverv

Embedding Credit Into Consumer Tech Platforms

Embedded financing has two distinct operational segments – the consumer tech players and their lending partners. To make the operations smooth and seamless for both sides, fintech experts Siddharth Bhardwaj and Sangeet Verma launched Finverv in 2021.

The Gurugram-based fintech SaaS startup offers a small-value loan product, enabling consumer internet companies to provide credit to their users. Besides, it helps them find a lending partner of choice (from its current portfolio of 10) or onboard a new lender by taking care of the agreements, tech support, onboarding and more.

For lenders, it has a plug-and-play toolkit covering loan origination and loan management systems, credit bureau services, risk management, KYC and onboarding of borrowers.

Finverv charges a subscription fee from lenders and their consumer tech partners, with plans to build a loan book of INR 100 Cr by mid-2023. As many as 20 companies have embedded the credit infrastructure, and the fintech aims to double the number in the current financial year.

FitBudd

All-In-One App For Personalised Health Coaching

Personal health coaches help people get 70% better results than self-serving apps and gym memberships. But appointing a personal trainer costs a lot, and only a few can afford them. Launched in 2021, Gurugram-based Fitbudd has a mission to bridge this outcome gap to change one’s lifestyle in a meaningful, sustainable way.

The all-in-one fitness app has been designed to provide full-stack services, including training and nutrition modules, activity tracking, analytics, chat and video calling, CRM features and e-payment options.

Trainers/instructors can use the SaaS platform for a subscription fee and engage with their clients digitally without losing their quality or personal touch. Fitness enthusiasts can pay a fee for the personal coach of their choice and start working out.

FitBudd has onboarded 1K+ solopreneurs from 20 countries and plans to more than double the number in 2023.

FretBox

A SaaS Platform For Rental Property Management

Platforms for managing rental properties are becoming increasingly popular as they focus on essential functions like tenant acquisition and screening, lease development, rent management and customer care.

Joining the bandwagon in 2021, Noida-based SaaS startup FretBox has developed a multi-featured app for hostels, PGs, coliving chains and rental housing communities to look after a whole bunch of routine-to-critical tasks. These include maintaining a digital notice board and a visitor log, amenities booking, digital assistance, rent collection, security desk and more.

Using FretBox is quite easy. A property manager has to set up an account on the platform and add the building and its residents to activate the service. Residents, too, can add their respective societies via FretBox’s Residents app and use it as a digital helpdesk. The platform charges a monthly subscription from housing societies/property owners.

FretBox caters to 100+ PGs and 10+ college campuses in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi-NCR and Odisha, earning a monthly revenue of INR 10 Lakh. It plans to onboard more than 300 properties by 2023.

Gladful

Lip-Smacking And Loaded With Protein

FMCG veterans Parul and Manu Sharma put the concept of Gladful into motion in early 2021 when their family paediatrician told the couple how protein deficiency could impact a child’s growth and daily activity.

Months of research later, the Jaipur-based D2C startup ventured into ready-to-cook chilla (multigrain pancakes) batters, offering vegetarian mixes made of rice, pea, beetroot, sprouts, milk protein and more. The FSSAI-approved brand also makes protein-rich cookies using unrefined cane sugar.

Gladful has 14 SKUs under two categories, containing 4-5g of protein per serving. All products are made at its in-house unit in Jaipur and have a shelf life of 270 days.

The FMCG brand has completed 60K transactions in a year, clocking 25% MoM growth. Nearly 30% of its revenue comes from sales on its website and through WhatsApp commerce, and the rest from ecommerce marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and more.

It plans to cater to the quick commerce space from 2023 and earn an annual revenue of INR 600 Cr.

Goofy Tails

A One-Stop Hub For Petcare Products

More often than not, pet parents have to hunt through numerous websites to find best-in-class products – nutritious (and tasty) food, treats, toys and accessories – to keep their furry friends healthy and happy. To make their life easier, pet parents and brothers Karan, Kartik and Kunal Gupta joined Ashish Kaushal and launched Goofy Tails.

Started in 2019, the Delhi-based D2C brand has set up a one-stop hub for petcare products. It offers 80+ SKUs under four categories, including food (toppers, treats and broths) for pups, adult and older dogs, cat foods, pet toys, bowls and feeders, beds and mats, houses and water fountains, grooming accessories, bows, bandanas, party gear and more.

All its products are designed at the startup’s studios in Delhi and Noida and contract-manufactured in Delhi-NCR and Gujarat. However, its FSSAI-approved pet foods are developed by pet chefs and vets and exclusively produced at its in-house facility in Delhi.

Products are now sold on marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart, on the startup’s website and through vet clinics and pet stores, totalling nearly 2 Lakh orders since its launch.

Goofy Tails projects an annual revenue of INR 1.2 Cr by 2023 and plans to enter the Middle East, Singapore and the UK markets.

Gordian

Tech-Powered Lockers For Secure Parcel Delivery

Ecommerce has emerged as the most popular retail format due to its convenience. But every business model has a downside, and digital commerce is no exception. Lack of product provenance, loss of parcels, and fake and damaged goods often hit the headlines and make customers angry. So, Bengaluru-based logistics startup Gordian developed a secure delivery solution to prevent on-transit thefts.

To keep parcels safe during intracity transit in and around Bengaluru, Gordian offers IoT-enabled portable lockers and a dedicated delivery fleet. One can book the tech-locked safe box via its mobile app, and a delivery executive will arrive at the pickup location to initiate the process.

The sender can open the box using an OTP, secure the item inside and relock it. The storage box is tracked throughout the journey, and once it reaches the drop location, the recipient can open the same using another OTP.

Gordian’s services are primarily used by businesses and individuals delivering fine jewellery, gold coins and bars, laptops, mobile phones, documents and other expensive or important articles. It has a monthly subscription service for businesses and regular senders, but an on-demand booking for a one-off delivery is also possible.

Gordian has 200+ clients in the jewellery segment and plans to double the number in 2023. It may also launch secure delivery in two more cities early next year.

Karnival

Bolstering Post-Purchase Customer Engagement

In a consumer-first economy, getting real-time customer feedback is essential for businesses for sales growth and retention. But the manual process of gathering this data could be time-consuming, tedious and error-prone, leading to below-par performance and a broken engagement. So, Bengaluru-based Karnival is looking to simplify and personalise the post-purchase journey by leveraging a proprietary ‘smart receipts’ technology.

Launched in 2019, the SaaS startup offers a plug-and-play service suite for brick-and-mortar stores, including a digital billing tool, coupons for upselling and cross-selling, digital forms for surveys and feedback, rewards-driven engagement, warranty cards and more.

A partner brand will have to integrate Karnival’s API into its ERP, and the ‘smart receipts’ solution will capture and store user data during billing in compliance with the law of the land. The data capture and subsequent analytics will allow retailers to target customers better and engage with them meaningfully via texts and email messages.

The martech startup claims a 50%+ increase in feedback responses and a 130%+ rise in data collection from targeted campaigns. It currently caters to four enterprise clients and charges them an annual subscription fee.

Kidbea

Making Sustainable Babywear From Bamboo

Making quality baby clothing is no child’s play, especially when it is made from sustainable materials like bamboo. For context, bamboo makes an excellent fabric – soft, breathable and naturally hypoallergenic, protecting tender baby skin.

But Noida-based D2C brand Kidbea has gone one step further and used a proprietary nanotech to make the fabric spill-proof and easy to clean. The startup sources raw materials directly from bamboo farms, and the fabric is made at partner mills in Delhi. Next, the products are designed and manufactured at its in-house unit.

Kidbea launched a range of diapers and babywear in 2021 and currently offers 60+ SKUs under these categories. Products are sold on its website and across major ecommerce platforms like FirstCry, Myntra, Amazon, Flipkart and Fynd.

The baby clothing brand will open physical stores in India, expand to the MENA region and launch a baby skincare range in 2023. It plans to enter the US market by 2025 and build a community for young and soon-to-be parents.

Kytchens

A Multi-Brand, Multi-City Cloud Kitchen Operator

F&B brands (read restaurants) are increasingly looking at volume growth, but rapid expansion – within the city or pan-India – costs a pretty penny that few can afford. Enter Kytchens, a cloud kitchen service provider that allows F&B brands to operate on its turf for intra-city and intercity growth.

The service was launched in 2020 by former UberEats operations head Bansi Kotecha and celebrity chef Nachiket Shetye.

Mumbai-based Kytchens offers a ready-to-access solution that covers order procurement, production and food delivery for neighbourhood F&B brands if they want to expand to other parts of the cities where they operate or wish to enter new locations. Standalone restaurants can join its cloud kitchen operations, and customers are serviced via food aggregators like Swiggy, Zomato and Kytchens’ own outlets.

However, Kytchens now operates only in Mumbai, and its multi-city cloud kitchen services have yet to start.

The startup works with partner restaurants on revenue-sharing and helps them scale from 1 to many locations without any capex or opex burden. The cloud kitchen’s proprietary Kytchens Operating System (KOS) provides easy access to customers’ choice brands and streamlines inventory management, workforce training and planning, SOP implementation and more.

It currently runs seven cloud kitchens in Mumbai and has partnered with 25+ food brands. Kytchens also plans to increase its footprint in the city in 2023 by opening a QSR chain. In the next three years, it aims to reach the top 30 Indian cities where online food ordering sees significant growth.

OneAssure

A Nudge Towards The Right Insurance Plan

Too many term plans and health insurance options can confuse people as most want simpler choices and proper guidance to nudge them towards the best plans. Three-year-old OneAssure is focussing on that to make insurance buying seamless and hassle-free.

The Bengaluru-based insurance aggregator has developed a web-based platform where one can book an appointment with a OneAssure agent to make an informed choice. Several critical parameters, including insurance needs, lifestyle details, coverage limit and premium, among others, are considered during the consultation to zero in on the best deal in the market. The startup also offers lifetime assistance and helps with claim settlement.

OneAssure has more than 150 agents who help people choose from 10+ partner insurers. It earns a commission on every transaction, has an insurance broker’s licence from IRDAI and claims to have served more than 2.5K users.

Pricing.AI

Helping Businesses Manage Dynamic Pricing

Finding the optimal price for a consumer is a critical challenge faced by companies with dynamic pricing. Oftentimes, customers and service providers are unhappy with the outcomes, and the former frequently complain about being overcharged.

Realising the need for a DIY tool that can be commercialised and used by all and sundry, Rahul Gupta, OYO’s former head of data science, launched Pricing.AI in 2021.

The AI-powered SaaS tool enables retail and travel enterprises to set up pricing and discounting experiments. A business can sign up and build a custom dashboard with details of its products. Next, the startup’s web-based algo runs through more than 500 parameters (current demand, price elasticity, competitor’s price, season, day and dates, paying capacity and more) to optimise product prices and discounts. This prevents underselling products and protects a company’s bottom line.

The startup charges an annual subscription fee and claims to have onboarded 22 clients, while 90% of its revenue comes from the US, the UK, LATAM and a few Middle East nations. It targets an annual revenue of $1 Mn in the current financial year, with an EBITDA margin of 25%. By FY25, it plans to 10x the number of clients and annual revenue.

ProfitWheel

A Consumer Intelligence Platform For Optimised Marketing

Companies today prefer to run targeted campaigns instead of generic ads for the best possible outcomes. The only hitch: Customer behaviour evolves fast, and one needs to stay attuned to it for maximum impact. Real-time insights into consumer intelligence can get this job done without hassles, a core theme adopted by the Mumbai-based startup ProfitWheel.

Set up in 2020 by serial entrepreneurs Vivek Bhargava, Gautam Mehra and Aman Khanna, its flagship is Consumr.ai, a web-based dashboard allowing advertisers and their agencies to decode the mindset of their target audience.

The platform creates an initial layer of customer data that companies provide and combines it with non-personal behavioural signals from audience-focussed platforms. These behaviour points help brands understand what their customers are passionate about, the kind of content they consume and the activities they undertake, thus providing actionable insights for targeted advertisements.

ProfitWheel charges an annual subscription fee and plans to increase its client base in India and the US in 2023.

PulsOps

Data Analytics Made Efficient

In this age of big data, businesses have to handle more data than is cognitively possible for humans to monitor and analyse. In fact, without cutting-edge techvantage, navigating numerous data points across company dashboards, spreadsheets and manual processes may easily lead to misinformed or delayed actions, thus impacting business efficiency.

Aware of the complex nature of business data analysis, Delhi-based PulsOps has developed a full tech stack for data monitoring and a root cause analytics platform to help businesses derive actionable insights.

Launched in 2021, it provides a web-powered, company-specific dashboard where the operations team can connect all relevant data clusters, specify the filters/context for running the analysis and set up alerts to monitor all changes in the data.

PulsOps currently targets ecommerce and logistics sectors and monitors critical metrics such as fleet, inventory and incentive optimisation. It looks at weekly business performance via its machine learning algorithm and deduces patterns and anomalies.

The data intelligence platform charges a subscription fee and plans to hire more engineers and data scientists to enhance its product.

QubeHealth

Care Now, Pay Later

Compared to the global average of 4.1%, only 0.4% of Indians have health insurance. But the scenario gets worse due to inadequate coverage as pre-existing diseases/critical illnesses are not always covered by a standard package, or there is a long waiting period.

Mumbai-based QubeHealth was set up in 2019 to help the under-insured, especially salaried employees, and introduced the concept of no-cost EMIs to meet their out-of-pocket medical expenses.

When a company opts for QubeHealth’s services, it has to add its employees to the startup’s customised dashboard to extend access to a money-on-tap feature. Based on their salary details, QubeHealth’s finance partner Apollo Health provides a credit line to the employees of the registered company.

Employees can raise additional amounts for healthcare/medical expenses not covered by the company-provided health insurance. One can use the physical/digital health card or QubeHealth’s Android/iOS app to raise money. But to avail of this medical financing, they must be treated at one of the 11K+ QubeHealth-affiliated hospitals and clinics.

The startup charges a subscription fee from employers and an affiliation fee from hospitals and clinics. It claims to have disbursed more than INR 1,000 Cr in medical loans and eyes an annual revenue run rate of nearly INR 60 Cr by March 2023.

Ripik

AI Power For New-Age Manufacturing

In recent years, consumer and enterprise tech have matured by leaps and bounds, but the same cannot be said about manufacturing. So, in early 2020, third-generation manufacturing engineer Pinak Dattaray launched Ripik, an AI platform providing a bunch of solutions to make manufacturing more efficient and competitive.

By February 2022, the Delhi-based startup registered more than 11 IPs (intellectual properties) in the US and launched as many as six SaaS solutions. These enable production managers and manufacturing units to run analytics across procurement, distribution and shop floor optimisation for real-time decision-making.

For instance, Ripik Vision uses machine learning to convert random data into structured models to help decide on raw material and equipment requirements as well as production targets. Ripik Optimus enhances line balancing, scheduling and manpower allocation. Again, its APC (advanced process control) solution creates digital twins to optimise manufacturing processes.

Among the other three, there is Ripik Maintenance, a predictive maintenance solution for workforce management and store planning. Ripik AIFE helps build AI models of equipment to conduct root cause analyses (RCAs) and identify operating sweet spots that will maximise yield, energy efficiency, quality and throughput. Finally, there is Chao/s, a purpose-built solution to bring down costs by 3-5% at chlorine, alkali and caustic soda units.

The startup charges a development fee for creating floor plans and a monthly fee for its solutions. It eyes INR 3.75 Cr in revenue for the current financial year and plans to enter global markets by 2025.

Sangti

Controlling Carbon Footprints, One Shipment At A Time

Businesses today need to reduce their carbon footprints to control environmental impact. Many greentech platforms across industry segments are helping companies achieve net zero, but only a few focus on the supply chain, which cannot put a brake on gas or travel. So, former Bain & Company consultant Hitesh Bhuraria and second-time entrepreneur Nishant Singh started Sangti in July 2022 to help logistics players reduce their carbon footprints.

The Indore-based carbon tracking and advisory platform uses a plug-and-play dashboard to measure carbon outputs per shipment based on the weight and nature of the consignment and the type/s of shipping vehicles used.

Next, it features a host of suitable carbon management and climate financing solutions for the concerned companies so that they can make meaningful contributions to offset their carbon outputs.

Sangti currently works with India’s three largest logistics players to help them achieve decarbonisation goals. It charges a subscription fee for its dashboard use and an advisory fee on the carbon management solution/s chosen by its clients.

Shypmax

A Specialist in Cross-Border Logistics

India’s burgeoning export-import ecosystem requires robust logistics support. Keeping that in mind, New Delhi-based Shypmax has developed a SaaS solution for end-to-end cross-border shipping, including air and road freight, door-to-door delivery of small-to-large parcels (50g-5,000 kg) and everything in-between.

Launched in 2020, the startup caters to B2B, B2C and C2C markets, helping clients book and track their global shipments in a hassle-free manner.

For the B2B segment, Shypmax takes care of all compliances and taxes, customs clearance, end-to-end warehousing, freight forwarding and more. For B2C businesses, it offers an API solution that can be integrated with carts, marketplace accounts and order processing platforms for quick and reliable services. Individuals looking to ship their packages can book its courier service.

Shypmax owns first-mile and last-mile fleets in 20 Indian cities and partners with 70+ third-party logistics and warehousing companies for global connectivity. It currently operates in 220 countries, including the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and a few Middle East nations, among others.

The startup eyes an annual revenue of $10 Mn in FY23 and plans to expand its presence in 50 more cities in India. It will introduce self-owned fleets in major operational areas by 2023 and offer ocean freight services.

The Energy Company

Quick Battery Boost For EV 2Ws

The Energy Company (TEC) founders – Rahul Lamba, Pratik Somani and Prashant Rathee – were part of the founding team of EV maker Ather Energy and product managers at mobility startup Micelio. But soon, the trio realised that most of the EV two-wheelers made in India failed to fulfil the commercial requirements of green mobility due to issues around battery technology.

So, the hardware-focussed SaaS startup was launched in 2021 to provide a state-of-the-art energy storage system. Its battery, called FlexiPack, can be charged in just under 15 minutes for a 50 km top-up and requires 40 minutes for a full charge to cover a 100 km range.

Better still, these batteries can be used with all popular EV models and chargers. TEC promises to repurchase them after the battery life ends in about four years.

FlexiPack’s operations are further boosted by FlexiTwin, a freemium SaaS tool that provides timely insights into predictive maintenance, performance improvement and sustainability. But it is still in the MVP stage and will be open for beta testing in March 2023.

The Bengaluru-based startup is still at a pre-revenue stage but has run pilots with two fleet operators. It plans to sell more than 3,000 batteries in early 2023.

Wranga

Rates & Reviews Kids’ Content To Guide Parents

Kids today are growing up in a digital-first world, constantly surrounded by gadgets and technology. The outcome: Most of them, including younger children and toddlers, are glued to the internet and social media, sampling content that may not be suitable for their age.

Despite parental controls and limited screen time, iPad kids are aplenty, and content curation for young adults remains a critical issue. Enter Delhi-based Wranga with Android and iOS apps to help parents find kid-friendly content.

Launched in February 2022, the startup categorises kid-specific content, games and apps under suitable age groups and provides detailed reviews and ratings to guide parents. It also flags objectionable content in any format, whether audio, audio-visual, images or graphics.

Still in an early stage of content curation, Wranga is building its library with manually created long-length reviews of prominent pieces.

A parent has to log in to the platform and choose a piece of content from the gallery to check its suitability. Or they can pick a piece of their kid’s choice and check the ratings and reviews. If the content is watched or downloaded on the Wranga app, they are charged a pay-as-you-go fee.

The startup also creates online safety curricula for schools and conducts interactive workshops. So far, it has hosted five physical workshops. In addition, the platform makes people aware of parental controls to safeguard children’s exposure to social media and provides a toolkit to help parents counter incidents like cyberbullying.

Wranga is currently building an AI platform to aggregate parents’ reviews, ratings and choice of age-appropriate content. Next year, it will license its patent-pending review algorithm for OTT platforms and other content-focussed apps to show a kid-friendliness score and content review on the go. It will also launch a community feature, helping parents talk with experts and clarify queries.

YouShd

Turning Customers Into Influencers for Brand Marketing

Organic word-of-mouth recommendations tend to hold sway even when they come from perfect strangers. That’s why looking at customer reviews is a must for most online shoppers. But this feeling of trust is bound to grow manifold when the voices of friends and family gain weightage on social media, winning as much traction as influencer marketing does.

Interestingly, Delhi-based YouShd is building an entire ecosystem around this concept of ‘customers turned influencers’. It helps D2C brands gain traction based on the positive shopping experiences posted (on request) by shoppers on social platforms. In doing so, the startup has also democratised the world of influencer marketing.

This is how it works. YouShd’s B2B2C marketing solution can be integrated with a brand’s Shopify stores. When shoppers buy from that store, there will be auto sign-ups on the YouShd platform, and they will be asked to share their purchases with friends and family on social media. In return, the customers-turned-influencers will get monetary rewards based on views, clicks and conversions.

The social commerce enabler was set up in 2022, but it has yet to launch commercially. It will charge a performance-based fee from clients, a percentage of which will be awarded to consumers-turned-influencers. Currently, YouShd is inviting brands to join its waitlist.

ZenOnco

Holistic Support To Fight Cancer

Fighting cancer is a life-changing experience, more so due to the lack of a one-stop platform featuring the A-to-Z of cancer care, from treatments and procedures to lifestyle modifications and stress management. But no one understands this ordeal better than those who have lost their near and dear ones to cancer. It was precisely why cancer researchers Dimple Parmar and Kishan Shah launched ZenOnco in 2019 to provide streamlined, end-to-end patient care in India.

The Bengaluru-based startup has developed Android and iOS apps to connect patients with cancer experts and oncologists over calls and texts for details on surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and other advanced treatments.

It also provides support services such as diet monitoring, oxygen therapy, use of medical cannabis (for pain control) and ayurvedic practices, immune system stimulation, exercise and counselling (for patients and their families), and access to support groups.

ZenOnco charges a fee per service and has partnered with more than 12 hospitals for patient appointments via its apps.

[Edited By Sanghamitra Mandal]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eye In November 2022 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Indian startup ecosystem is undergoing a paradigm shift. But young companies are no longer on the same track followed by the country’s storied IT industry or deep-pocketed startup veterans like Flipkart, Ola and Zomato.

Today’s entrepreneurs have moved away from the exclusive realm of software services and are treading the hitherto unexplored territory. Hardware, to be precise.

With Industry 4.0 well and truly upon us, new-age technologies have already transformed machines and manufacturing processes. IoT and IIoT, or HeSaaS (hardware-enabled SaaS), for that matter, will be the game changers soon, bringing the cognitive edge to proprietary hardware. So, it is surprising to see a steady rise in the number of Indian startups that design and sell these next-generation connected devices.

Having said that, one has to admit that the ecosystem lacks adequate exposure to lab research and market testing, making this segment hard (and expensive) to penetrate. In fact, there are two schools of thought prevalent around startups specialising in hardware.

The first argues against investing more capital and resources into these digital devices and targets the ‘software’ products – the nerve centre of innovation until now. The second school acknowledges the ‘high cost’ concerns but states that the rise of hardware companies will stabilise the market that primarily deals in SaaS.

As we sat down to shortlist the startups for Inc42’s 33rd edition of 30 Startups To Watch, we wanted to showcase how easy it could be to explore a niche and develop physical products with digital excellence/software-like functionalities. The journey has started even when equity funding in startups is at its lowest in two years. This is also why the latest edition is nothing short of a meaningful deep dive into the core of India’s startup ecosystem.

While manufacturing in India is slowly but surely getting disrupted with deeptech-led automation, the world is taking notice. Much of the tech-driven precision manufacturing is moving to India in spite of the availability of cheap labour across other South and Southeast Asian countries.

Add to that the Indian government’s pro-industry policies and production-linked incentive schemes, which have paved the path for a hardware metamorphosis.

Consider this. More than 12 startups out of our carefully curated 30 are building commercial hardware tools and devices with a layer of cloud-integrated software applications. This is the right time to turn the spotlight on them as they try to revolutionise their specific industry segments.

30 Startups To Watch: October 2022

Although enterprise tech startups never fail to catch our attention, the Inc42 team was determined to make this list completely sector-agnostic (and tech-focussed) this time. What’s more, we have primarily focussed on bootstrapped startups or those securing less than $1 Mn in funding. But entering the hardware-heavy tech ecosystem and bringing to the fore novel use cases truly intrigued us, and our readers would love the experience.

Our current edition features a myriad of startups. From remote working enablers to esports studios, from EVs to drones, from blockchain-driven checkouts to fintechs reimagining savings and investments – we have it all and more. As many as six of the 30 startups are enterprise tech businesses, followed by five ecommerce startups. There are four fintechs with unique value propositions, three each in agritech and EV, two each in healthtech, blockchain and deeptech, and one each in gaming, HR tech and proptech.

Check out the 33rd edition of Inc42 Plus’ 30 Startups To Watch list.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups in alphabetical order.

AgriGator

An Agricultural Marketplace For B2B Deals

The agri-supply chain in India is broken, to say the least, leading to food wastage and impacting farmers’ incomes. Aware of the ground realities (especially the profiteering intermediaries), IIM-Ahmedabad alumni Udit Sangwan and Charu Chaturvedi set up AgriGator to ensure sustainable growth for agri-businesses.

Started in 2019, the platform runs an online marketplace that brings together producers/suppliers, agri processors, bulk buyers and logistics providers to facilitate sound and fair trade.

The B2B marketplace deals in food grains and focusses on end-to-end supply chain management, including product discovery, price negotiations, supplier review, shipping, payments and reconciliation. It also provides agri-financing in partnership with banks and NBFCs.

AgriGator charges a commission on every transaction plus a membership fee from agri-businesses for premium services like supply chain analytics.

The startup began its journey from Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal, to be precise) and expanded into Gujarat, Delhi, Haryana, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh. It is now planning to grow its annual revenue by 5x to INR 400 Cr in FY23.

BirdAI

Bridging The Gap Between Digital & Physical

As hybrid work becomes the new normal, collaborative workspace solutions are in great demand. BirdAI was set up in 2021 to bridge the divide between physical and digital spaces in sync with the new-age requirements.

The Bengaluru-based startup has adopted HeSaaS (hardware-enabled SaaS) to come up with BirdHub, a wireless collaboration device with a built-in camera, an array of microphones and a digital whiteboard. Placed on a TV/computer monitor, it transforms an existing meeting room screen into a collaborative workspace with immersive videoconferencing and presentation capabilities, thus reducing Zoom fatigue.

Another flagship is BrightClass that caters to the hybrid learning ecosystem. Simply put, this is an AV whiteboard with a host of features such as a built-in learning management system (LMS) and support for all learning modes, including live discussions, classroom-style teaching, quizzes and presentations.

Most of the startup’s revenue comes from device sales. BirdAI claims to have sold products worth $1.5 Mn within six months of a pilot and plans to reach $20 Mn by 2023 by entering international markets.

Butterfly Learnings

Paediatric Care For NDD, Behavioural Issues

In India, one in six children aged between two and nine suffers from at least one type of neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD). (For context, NDDs can range from learning disabilities to mental retardation, autism and more.) Moreover, young adults aged 7-15 also feel depressed, which may lead to functional impairments and other behavioural disorders also coming under this overarching category.

Aware of the lack of paediatric care in this space, Sonam Kothari and Abhishek Sen, both of them medical practitioners, founded Butterfly Learnings in 2021. The platform helps children suffering from NDDs and behavioural issues through applied behavioural analysis (ABA), speech therapy and occupational therapy.

It runs four brick-and-mortar centres in Mumbai and Thane and also provides online sessions for real-time treatments.

Butterfly Learnings is looking to scale up and treat more than 2,000 children in 2022 and expand its physical presence across the country.

Crowd Control

Building The Esports Fraternity

Esports is becoming increasingly popular in India, but the ecosystem still needs an organised fraternity to spur its growth. So, Gurugram-based Crowd Control Esports has been building such a community since 2020.

The phygital platform provides access to gaming events to a dedicated fan base and helps them benefit from the ecosystem. Currently, it offers three services.

CrowdForge helps gamers create local esports intellectual property (IPs). KhelShala is for honing skills as it teaches how to develop games using GFX, VFX, 3D, XR and more. Then there are brick-and-mortar CCE Studios in India and Singapore that hold tournaments and live events like e-gaming conventions.

The startup also mentors gamers, streamers and community ambassadors and streams online sessions of not-so-popular games.

Crowd Control declines to disclose its revenue numbers, citing confidentiality but claims it is growing 20% month-on-month. It plans to host a couple of conventions, expand to gaming infotainment and teach how to build games to more than 12,500 enthusiasts with the help of 2,500+ professionals involved in game design and development.

dox2U

Hassle-free Information Warehousing

Document management at the enterprise level remains laborious and expensive for companies still sticking to paperwork, using legacy DMS with data silos (read virtual walls that hinder moving from one folder to another) or storing digitised information in local servers. Gurugram-based dox2U has solutions for all.

Unlike the hard-to-read scanned documents uploaded in most workplace databases, this startup uses an integrated ICR (intelligent character recognition) engine to extract text from images efficiently. More importantly, 160 languages are covered by this tool.

Once the documents are processed, and the repository is built, these can be stored in easy-to-navigate smart cabinets in the cloud. Moreover, every piece of information can be quickly retrieved using content-based deep search and multilevel filtering. dox2U also ensures bank-grade security, enabling companies to control information access as per requirement.

The SaaS startup did several pilots since its inception in 2020 and finally went live in August this year with 15 enterprise clients. It has adopted a freemium model, offers a pay-as-you-go option and aims to onboard more than 1K enterprise clients from India, the Middle East and North America by 2023.

Dubverse

Auto-Dubbing Videos In Multiple Languages

Video consumption will grow by leaps and bounds as technology finally removes language barriers. Launched in 2021, Gurugram-based Dubverse uses generative AI to auto-dub video content in more than 30 regional and international languages. Moreover, video creators (both individuals and brands) can choose from 150+ pre-set voiceover tracks and add subtitles in English or any other language.

One needs to upload the video on the web-based platform and choose the language and the voice track for dubbing. Next, a script in the specified language is generated for the user to self-review before the actual dubbing. Understandably, this reduces the cost and time of video regeneration.

Dubverse says it has worked with 600+ users and processed 20K+ videos since its launch. There are two payment options – a monthly fee per creator and a charge for per-minute dubbing in case of one-off projects. It has yet to disclose revenue numbers but claims to be growing 2x month on month.

By 2023, the SaaS platform will offer contextual translations and focus on training, learning and development, knowledge building, product explainers, how-tos and review videos.

EroEV

EV Charging Made Easy

EVs are the most preferred mode of sustainable commuting in the net-zero era. But with less than a thousand public charging stations in India, the ecosystem needs a boost. EroEV is a 10-month-old Kolkata-based startup that instals IoT-powered fast EV charging points in commercial buildings, kirana stores, malls and offices to ensure round-the-clock service for all EV users.

EV owners (2W, 3W and 4W vehicles) can download the startup’s Android/iOS app to locate the nearest charging point and scan the QR code to pay and schedule a charging session. One can pre-book a slot or book it on arrival by scanning a QR code at the charging station. The device gets activated after payment, and an LED indicator denotes it when the vehicle is fully charged.

EroEV’s revenue mainly comes from device sales to property owners who set up charging points on their premises. It also charges a maintenance fee to ensure the infrastructure runs smoothly 24×7.

The startup is operational only in Kolkata, works with one enterprise client and runs five charging stations. But it plans to expand to 10 more Indian cities, deploy 2K+ charging points and have 4K+ daily active users (DAU) by FY23. It also targets an ARR of $150K in the current financial year.

In the long term, EroEV plans to set up 50K+ charging outlets and cater to 100K+ daily active users.

Esmito

EaaS For Commercial Vehicles

Battery-swapping is a popular option to keep EVs running minus range anxiety. But only a few solutions exist for goods and passenger vehicles like pickup trucks, three-wheeler cargo carriers or electric buses. Chennai-based Esmito is an early-mover in this space and provides IoT-powered EaaS (energy-as-a-service) for logistics companies and last-mile mobility players.

The startup sells Lithium-ion batteries for electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers to end users and OEMs and runs battery-swapping stations using franchise and subscription models. It has also developed a centralised SaaS system for efficient management of EV charging, connecting drivers’ dashboards to charging stations.

Four-year-old Esmito claims to have done more than 10K battery swaps and operates around 520 charging stations across the country. It plans to maintain its growth momentum in the 2W and 3W charging space to push its revenue in FY23.

Falca Solutions

Tech Transforming Indian Farming

Farming in India is yet to see optimised production and better income generation. Fortunately, agritech startups like Falca Solutions are providing cutting-edge services to take Indian agriculture to the next level.

The Bengaluru startup has a phygital business model and offers high quality agri inputs, farm advisory services, marketplace connects, machine renting and warehousing across Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

Its F-shop helps farmers procure farm inputs from 60+ manufacturers and choose from 950 SKUs. F-market enables the farming community to sell their outputs to 65+ corporate buyers. F-advisory offers personalised advisory services on call (best agri practices, crop maintenance, weather data, market prices and more). Again, F-hire is for renting farming machinery, and F-storage ensures reliable warehousing.

Falca says it has served more than 120K farmers since its launch in 2018, helped reduce production costs by 20% and increased production by 10%. As a result, farmers’ net income has gone up by 25%.

The agritech startup charges a markup on the goods and services and aims to grow its revenue nearly 4x in FY23 to INR 300 Cr.

Falca is working on private-label farm inputs and an in-house ERP called Falca Connect, scheduled to be launched in FY23. It also plans to integrate its call centre-style advisory services with WhatsApp, create a crop doctor tool and develop a crop quality analyser based on image processing. The agritech startup wants to reach 10 Indian states by 2025 and earn an annual revenue of INR 2,500 Cr.

Flebo

At-Home Diagnostics With Benefits Galore

Doorstep diagnostics are fast emerging as a go-to solution for people looking for convenience and quick results. But the results can take longer than expected, or documents may go missing, leading to stress and delayed medical treatment. So, Gurugram-based Flebo is looking to disrupt the system by offering a bunch of convenient options.

To begin with, people can book these tests online and select their preferred labs. They can schedule it at the time and place of their choice – it can be done at home or even in one’s office if the situation demands it.

Customers can compare the prices of more than 2,500 diagnostic tests/health packages from the marketplace-style web platform that features 80+ major labs.

Flebo also provides trained phlebotomists (for Covid testing), guarantees on-time sample pickups, uses bevel-tipped needles for patient safety and ensures safe transportation of temperature-sensitive samples in cold gel backpacks (developed in-house).

All reports will be available on Flebo, making it easy to access historical data. It charges commissions from lab partners and currently operates in the Delhi-NCR region. However, the medtech startup plans to expand into other metros by FY23.

Fuzen.io

The SaaS Enabler For Businesses

In a digital-first era, startups and legacy players adopt SaaS tools and systems for cost-effective and resource-lean business operations. But there is a problem of plenty. Finding the right setup from a wide range of solutions can take time, while developing everything in-house may not be viable for cash-strapped entrepreneurs.

Nashik-based Fuzen.io is building a no-code DevOps solution and a SaaS marketplace to bridge this gap. This will enable non-tech founders to assemble SaaS solutions as per their requirements and developers to build and sell applications via the marketplace.

A user has to sign in, create a project and choose a pre-designed template to start working. One can also develop a customised solution using the drag-and-drop feature of these web-based solutions. If a SaaS tool is available on Fuzen’s marketplace, users need to instal the same, pay the subscription fee and connect with the workflow to start using the tool.

As the SaaS builder is currently in private beta, users can only choose from pre-designed templates.

Fuzen aims to expand its user base to 100+ SaaS builders by FY23, besides adding a bouquet of services such as user analytics, visitor insights, content marketing, SEO and more. Once open to the public, the SaaS marketplace will charge a 15-25% commission on the subscription revenues earned by developers.

Investmint

Smart Solutions For Retail Investors

Retail investors in India are growing at a fast clip. But given their lack of in-depth knowledge of the financial markets – only 27% are financially literate compared to a global average of 33% – investment advisories are rapidly gaining traction.

Set up in January 2022, Bengaluru-based Investmint has a simple but critical value proposition. It clarifies short-term and long-term investment scenarios and offers several simulations to understand the nitty-gritty before actual investments.

One has to sign up on Investmint’s Android/iOS app to access its services. If the user has an investment portfolio, it can be linked to the simulations. Otherwise, the person can open an account with its partner brokerage firms.

The app features eight systematic and quantitative models to invest in concepts such as sector superstars, momentum investing, beat the index and more. After testing the simulations to understand what works best for one’s financial goals, the same can be replicated on the portfolio.

The app is currently in early access mode. Hence, its data-backed models and investment tools are free for its community of 1K+ retail investors. The startup is looking at a freemium model with subscription tiers and aims to get more than 250K members by 2025.

Karpine

Product Provenance Via Blockchain

Barcodes and holograms may not be adequate safeguards against fake products, as many online and offline shoppers have found. But the game changes when blockchain is brought into this mix. So, Bengaluru-based Karpine has introduced Web3-based anti-counterfeiting solutions for retail and an automated checkout system for brick-and-mortar stores.

To weed out counterfeits, the startup’s web platform uses IoT and blockchain to create a ‘digital twin’ for every physical product. It also generates a unique smart label for each item (similar to a product code). Any QR code/RFID/NFC reader can read the label online or offline (it is also stuck on a physical product) to track the product’s journey.

Additionally, a no-code plugin creates NFTs for limited-edition items directly from a brand’s catalogue to prevent online fraud. Brands can also develop loyalty board-style metaverses for these NFT usages.

The automated checkout is a two-click process aimed to improve the in-store experience. Here buyers can choose a product and swipe it on the machine for the ‘reader’ to view the digital code and authenticate it. Users can pay after product provenance is established beyond doubt.

Unlike the AI-powered checkout machines priced at around $100K, Karpine’s blockchain-based hardware costs about one-tenth.

The Bengaluru-based startup ran a pilot with a brand two months ago and currently works for fashion and luxury retail segments. It will charge companies per ‘digital twin’ and expand its client base in FY23.

Loopworm

A Sustainable Leap From Food Waste To Animal Feed

Commercial insect-farming to produce nutrient-rich animal feed (fishmeal, poultry feed, livestock and pet food) and soil fertilisers is still a niche segment in India. But early-mover startup Loopworm is bang on it, building multi-species insect-rearing units in partnership with smallholder farmers.

Started in 2019 by IIT-Roorkee alumni Ankit Alok Bagaria and Abhi Gawri, the Bengaluru-based business collects and uses food waste (post-consumer waste accounts for 50% of the total waste in India) for insect rearing. It is still in R&D mode but will soon develop animal feed products for B2B customers, mainly feed manufacturers.

Loopworm will sell four products – Loop-Meal (defatted insect protein concentrate), Loop-Oil (fat source for animal food), Loop-Grubs (feed for fish and birds) and Loop-Frass (soil fertiliser made of insect skins, droppings and fibres).

It plans to manufacture 2K tonnes of products per month by FY23 and 300K+ tonnes of insect protein and insect-based oil every month by 2030.

LXME

A Neobank Targeting Inclusivity

Mumbai-based LXME is a neobanking startup that taps into the middle-income segment and helps women control their finances better. The two-year-old startup was the brainchild of Harvard Business School graduate Priti Rathi Gupta who realised how the digital-only banking ecosystem fell short of financial inclusivity.

LXME offers the usual features of a neobank, investment and insurance products, financial planning calculators and financial literacy modules. It has recently introduced mutual fund-style child education plans and ventured into the personal loan segment.

The startup operates via its Apple and Android apps and charges commissions on all its products.

It claims cumulative downloads of more than 100K downloads as well as 30 Mn+ content views across a community of 4K+ women. It also plans to take the number of women on its platform to more than 10 Mn in the next five years.

MasterChow

Pepping Up Asian Cuisines

Most Indians love authentic gourmet dishes, especially the delicious varieties from all over Asia. Aware of this penchant for delectable Asian cuisines, F&B entrepreneurs Sidhanth Madan and Vidur Kataria opened New Delhi-based MasterChow in 2020.

The D2C startup offers 14 SKUs under three categories, including Asian stir-fry sauces, oils and ready-to-eat dips, to help home cooks quickly whip up restaurant-style dishes. The startup creates original recipes, uses natural ingredients and produces all condiments in-house in batches of 100K bottles.

Currently, MasterChow products are available on its website, major marketplaces and a number of kirana stores. But it plans to set up offline distribution in FY23 and eyes revenue of INR 25 Cr. The food brand aims to become a household name by 2025 and clock a 20x jump in revenue.

Neuron Energy

Powering Up The EV Future

In spite of an up-and-coming EV ecosystem in India and the government’s production-linked incentive schemes, EV battery startups are pretty few. However, childhood buddies Pratik Kamdar and Raj Shah quickly identified a huge opportunity in this segment and set up Neuron Energy in 2018 to reduce the country’s dependency on China.

The Mumbai-based startup makes lead-acid and Lithium-ion batteries for EV two-wheeler and three-wheeler manufacturers. Its sophisticated batteries feature a microprocessor-based battery management system to ensure constant output, quick charging, a longer cycle due to optimum utilisation and multiple safety layers.

Interestingly, Neuron is also the parent company of Adler, which makes battery-powered golf carts.

The startup sells more than 3K batteries a month and plans to scale up the monthly production to more than 20K by 2024. It will also expand into ancillary products such as chargers and charging stations across 24 cities and targets an annual revenue of INR 100 Cr by 2025.

Okulo Aerospace

UAVs For Smart Monitoring

Unmanned aerial vehicles or drones are now built in droves for mapping, surveying and aerial photography. However, Bengaluru-based Okulo Aerospace specialises in two varieties of surveillance drones – one to cater to enterprises and another to fulfil defence requirements.

Okulo’s long-endurance solar-EV hybrid drones and pseudo satellites (high-altitude unmanned aircraft) are patent-pending in India. Those developed for the defence forces will also feature military-grade intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. Once deployed, these UAVs will help with live target monitoring, quick decision-making based on real-time data and critical mission controls.

The startup is still in the pre-revenue stage but claims to have five prospective clients. Okulo will sell its UAVs to defence units and other customers and offer surveillance-as-a-service. It also plans to conduct test flights and get all necessary certifications by FY23.

Planify

A Marketplace For Founders And Funders

Raising funds for startups has become a daunting task with the onset of a funding winter. Investors, too, find it equally challenging to zero in on curated companies with good growth prospects. Hence, Gurugram-based Planify offers a marketplace-style investment platform that benefits both founders and funders.

Set up in 2021, the investment tech platform helps founders with personalised financial projections, pitch decks, investment decks, research reports, valuations and equity restructuring services. It also educates startup employees about ESOP programmes, helps determine the value of their ESOPs and enables ESOP liquidation when required.

For investors, it offers pre-IPO and secondary share sales in partnership with AIF distributors, mutual fund agents, stock brokers and more. All its revenue is generated through investment activities.

Planify claims it has 250 unlisted companies/startups on the marketplace and 10K+ investors. It plans to grow the number of investors to more than 50K by 2025.

Reevoy

Export Enabler For Fashion & Home Décor SMEs

Coming from textile business families, Ishan Dadhich and Mohit Agarwal had a fair idea about the difficulties encountered when exporting fashion and home décor items from India. So, the duo joined hands with fellow Drip Capital colleague Ankur Khetan to foray into this space with Reevoy.

Launched in 2020, the Mumbai-based export marketplace helps big brands in fashion and home décor space buy from small businesses across India and Bangladesh. Apart from finding quality exporters, Reevoy streamlines the entire production process (from concept to final quality checks) and purchases goods on credit from its 80+ partner factories across India and Bangladesh.

The B2B commerce startup currently caters to importers from the UAE and the UK. The latter can directly find the suppliers on the web-based platform and share design expectations with them. Otherwise, they can choose the products from Reevoy’s extensive catalogue. The startup uses 3D modelling for cost and TAT (turnaround time) estimates and ships the orders booked on the platform.

Reevoy says it has sold more than 1 Mn products and aims to sell another 2 Mn by FY23. It will also add 200+ factories and 40+ importers to its portfolio by that time.

Runo

Mobile CRM For End-To-End Call Management

Forget the age-old call centres or new-age, cloud-based CRMs. Hyderabad-based Runo has built a SIM-based mobile CRM solution with loads of features, making it both efficient and cost-effective.

In simple terms, a number is allotted to a registered company for seamlessly managing all telecalling processes, especially sales CRM. This can be a standalone system or connected to existing CRMs and cloud telephony operations.

Set up in 2018, Runo’s Android and iOS apps fulfil the requirements of a full-fledged CRM service suite, including outbound call management for sales and marketing, customer care, follow-up and callback notifications, contact database management and more. It tracks and records business calls, meetings, email messages and the live status of remote teams, as well as all other interactions between salespeople and prospects.

Businesses can also customise mobile CRM features as per requirements.

The startup is looking to expand globally and will enter the Middle East, Southeast Asia and the US markets in a phased manner.

Settl

Co-Living Makes A Comeback

The pandemic drove people away from offices and academic institutions for months, and co-living as a business model took a beating for more than two years. But Bengaluru-based Settl was foresighted enough to estimate the regrowth in the era of the hybrid workspace. (It would require people’s physical presence in a given location if not mandatory office attendance throughout the week). That was why former Nestaway executives Abhishek Tripathi, Bharath Bhaskar and Ashok Reddy went ahead with their co-living startup in 2020 when people huddled up at home.

Settl currently offers more than 1,500 beds across 30 properties.

The business model is simple. It pays (long-term) leasing fees to owners of fully furnished properties, manages renters’ onboarding and looks after maintenance and marketing.

Its earnings come from rents that cover housekeeping services, power and water bills, Wi-Fi charges and more. Settl property managers also organise events like parties and picnics to build an engaged community.

Currently, Settl properties are only available in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Gurugram and have 98% occupancy. But the startup plans to expand into three more cities, offer 3,500 beds and hit an annual revenue of INR 15 Cr in FY23. It targets more than 15K beds across 10 cities by 2025 and eyes INR 200 Cr in yearly revenue.

Strive

A Stock Exchange-Style NFT Marketplace

The Gurugram-based Web3 startup was launched in December 2021 to create a mass-level understanding of the new-age tech ecosystem. Within two months, it amassed more than 35K learners but pivoted to an NFT marketplace after noticing that part-ownership of NFT assets was a niche not explored much in India.

In mid-2022, Strive launched a multichain-compatible fractional NFT protocol, allowing NFT holders to sell part ownership of their collections. Interestingly, people can buy NFTs of physical collectables on this platform for as low as $1.

Additionally, users can launch NFT collections on multiple chains, buy NFT index fund tokens (mutual fund-style baskets for investments) and short NFT collections for better profit.

The startup charges a commission of 0.25-0.5% on NFT buying and selling and 10% for NFT minting when users launch their non-fungible tokens. It plans to introduce a native token called STRV, build a million-strong user base and hit an annual revenue of $5 Mn in FY23.

TeamInUp

An Intelligent Platform For Job-Talent Match

Hiring the wrong candidate is the worst nightmare of every business. So, Bengaluru-based Teaminup has developed a role recommendation engine based on behavioural analytics to bring together ambitious companies and talented candidates.

Employers can create projects/tasks on the startup’s mobile app or web-based platform and use its patent-pending psychometric solution to find ‘collaborators’ or hire team members with the desired skills and mindset.

Teaminup also has a database of 50K+ jobseekers who can search the platform to discover ideas, projects or events that match their interests, skills and comfort levels.

Since its launch in 2021, the startup has done paid pilots for a few large organisations. It has a pay-per-use model in place and eyes an ARR of $70K in FY23.

Tradyl

A Marketplace Pushing Sellers’ Growth

The world loves the creative excellence of Indian fashion and home décor items. But big gaps in the cross-border supply chain often hinder the global growth of local manufacturers. Shweta Agrawal noticed this during her stint with Flipkart and set up Tradyl to connect international retailers with Indian SMEs specialising in these verticals.

The social marketplace was launched in 2021, enabling global D2C brands, online sellers, digital labels and influencers-turned-entrepreneurs to communicate, procure and explore unique and stylish products online. On the sellers’ side, there are more than 50 small manufacturers and suppliers from Tirupur (Tamil Nadu), Panipat (Haryana), Surat, Jaipur, Delhi, Kolkata and other Indian cities.

Tradyl takes care of quality control, order placement, payment processing, customs clearance and logistics for buyers and sellers. It charges an undisclosed product margin from sellers and targets an annualised GMV of $1 Mn in FY23.

By 2025, the marketplace plans to onboard more than 1K buyers and 2K+ suppliers for selling desi products across international markets.

Unscript AI

Reducing Cart Abandonment With Re-Engagement

Ecommerce lacks the personal touch of brick-and-mortar retail, often leading to a high cart abandonment rate. So, IIT-Kharagpur alumnus Ritwika Chowdhury decided to leverage AI and communication technology to protect the business bottom line of online sellers. She set up unScript.AI in 2021 and onboarded cofounder Apurv Jain (also an IIT-KGP alumnus) in July this year.

The Bengaluru-based SaaS startup follows a three-pronged approach to re-engage with customers. When a shopper abandons the cart, it sends a personalised video as a product reminder. If they are first-time visitors, messages are mailed and retargeting videos are sent via WhatsApp to turn them into customers. It also offers a guided video shopping experience within a seller’s app.

In the backend, a seller needs to upload just one video and the product catalogue, and the AI tool clones the speaker’s face and voice for product-specific interactions.

The startup charges a fee per video and targets an ARR of $1 Mn in FY23. It will enter the US market within the next six months and the EU and other Southeast Asian countries by 2025.

VFLYX India

Driving Drone Adoption For Critical Use Cases

The drone ecosystem in India is still nascent, but Bengaluru-based VFLYX has already made its mark among the early movers. Founded in 2021, this startup builds UAVs for different use cases. These include agricultural ops (spraying and seeding), mining activities (surveying, inventory tracking, stockpile estimation and more), air cargo services, mapping, surveillance and inspection.

Approved by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), these drones have a maximum payload of 16 kg, can fly up to 50 minutes, have a battery capacity of 13,000 mAh and feature ultra HD cameras for video and pictures.

Revenue comes from selling and renting drones (drone-as-a-service) to logistics companies and other industry segments. The startup plans to push the sales of its heavy-lift drones to cater to top logistics players dealing in medical and ecommerce supplies.

VFLYX claims to be working on wireless charging of drones and drone pods to automate their operations further and ensure maximum convenience.

Wright Research

Automating Investment Intelligence For Retail Investors

Robo-advisors for ‘informed’ investment decisions are not exactly new. But with the number of retail investors skyrocketing and many people lacking in-depth financial knowledge, more fintech startups need to enter this space for easy enablement at pocket-friendly charges.

Set up in 2019, SEBI-registered robo-advisory Wright Research does just that with the help of its web-based investment intelligence solutions. The startup offers portfolio strategies designed on market movements, risk modelling, AI-driven performance forecasting and its research team’s financial expertise.

These strategies are built on a data-driven approach, quantitative themes such as momentum, value and growth, and additional factors like analyst expectations and institutional holdings.

When users sign up for the investment tech firm’s subscription-based services, they have to build their risk profiles on the platform. Curated portfolios will be created accordingly to take the investments forward.

Mumbai-based Wright Research says it has already onboarded 40K+ retail investors and has close to INR 200 Cr assets under its advisory ambit. It eyes an annual revenue of INR 3.5 Cr in FY23 and plans to get a PMS (portfolio management service) licence this year to work with HNIs and institutional investors.

YOHO

A Footwear Brand Blending Comfort With Style

Footwear brands are plentiful in the market. But finding trendy yet comfortable shoes could be difficult, as former 1mg executive Prateek Singhal realised early on in his life. When he met ex-Paytm executive Ahmad Hushsham, the latter was already selling shoes offline. By then, the rise of direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands in India intrigued both and led to the launch of Yoho in 2021.

The startup has worked with orthopaedics and polymer scientists to create a range of 50+ slippers under three categories – Wave, Bubbles and Breeze. All of them are lightweight, supported with cushioned padding and comply with global standards. Design and quality testing are done in-house, but the products are made in partnership with several white-label manufacturers.

Yoho sells its slippers through its website and ecommerce marketplaces, besides supplying to a few B2B clients. It also claims that its revenue is growing 60% month on month. The New Delhi-based startup plans to launch a collection of shoes by 2025 and aims to go global with its new range.

Zenskar

Solutions Tailored For SaaS Billing

SaaS solution providers have been on a roll since the pandemic as the world, and its businesses, have gone digital-first. But are they earning as much?

Most SaaS companies do high-volume and cross-border transactions and offer a multi-tiered product mix, including upselling and cross-selling, upgrades and downgrades. Done manually, this will gobble up time and resources and may lead to miscalculations and costly revenue gaps.

To help SaaS firms with the right billing solutions, Bengaluru-based Zenskar has developed a web tool with a drag-and-drop interface for easy configuration of deal structures and pricing based on usage, subscription models, discounts, credits and multicurrency payments. Moreover, it works for various SaaS stacks like CRM and ERP.

Besides bill processing, the startup automates accounting, streamlines receivables management workflow and provides billing analytics.

Zenskar charges a subscription fee and has worked with just one company since its launch in March this year. However, it claims that 12 more clients are on the waitlist, and they will be onboarded by 2023.

[Edited By Sanghamitra Mandal]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eye In October 2022 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Thirty-one editions and 900+ startups later, we can rightfully claim that the 30 Startups To Watch series is truly sector-agnostic (except when we were close to in-house events and focussed on specific areas). All these years, we have thrown light on some of the most promising startups building robust businesses across emerging sectors. 

But we must also acknowledge that the startup ecosystem evolves fast, and our focus changes accordingly. Think of the former poster boys in this space – the edtech startups during the pandemic or the thriving fintechs exploring novel concepts and ushering in new business models with much fanfare. Both seem to have lost their early sheen for different reasons.

Edtech needs to rediscover its innovative touch as life gradually returns to normal, and attending remote classes is no longer synonymous with educational continuity.

Fintechs, on the other hand, are struggling to cope with the regulatory disruptions of late. It could be a long and arduous journey to innovation if they have to enter the ‘sandboxes’ to validate how sound their new products and services will be (contrary to the optimism and funding inflow). 

Quality healthcare is all the rage, and so are ecommerce, blockchain and deeptech. But the one word that has caught the attention of innovators across the startup ecosystem in the year 2022 is enablers.

Whether it is something as routine as payment aggregation or ecommerce checkout, recording meetings or automating invoicing, or something as daunting as queue management or sales channels analysis, business and technology enablers are all the rage now. 

The viability of enterprise tech has also won the attention of investors, who are increasingly funding these startups. In Q3 2022, the segment raised $423 Mn from 58 deals, the second-highest among all sectors.

Unsurprisingly, these B2B startups have stolen the limelight in this edition as they are transforming pen-and-paper businesses and siloed tasks. Despite the rise of B2C startups, one cannot ignore how companies of all sizes have understood the need for rapid digitalisation and even entrusted certain business operations (especially workflow management) to focus more on their core competencies.

30 Startups To Watch: September 2022

As we took a deep dive into nearly 100 early stage startups for the September 2022 edition, we shortlisted 30 startups based on their disruptive solutions, technical capabilities and the innovation they bring to the table.

Interestingly, most are enterprise tech startups with a unique value proposition that makes them stand out. As efficient enablers, these B2B players are making life easier for MSMEs and mom-and-pop stores. (Do we see an overarching narrative of collaborative growth here?)

More than two-thirds of the startups offer solutions around payment management (along with bookkeeping and tax help), client engagement and automation of in-house processes. 

There are 15 enterprise tech startups, four ecommerce players, four fintech entities, and one each in blockchain, deeptech, edtech, HR tech, real estate, social media and the gig economy.

Finally, we suggest you should not miss the B2C players in the list as these consumer-facing businesses are the first to identify new opportunities and customers.

Check Out The 32nd Edition Of Inc42’s 30 Startups To Watch list.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups in alphabetical order.

ALYF

Why ALYF Made It To The List

Holiday home ownership has traditionally attracted high and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. But it has been out of reach for most people, considering skyrocketing prices, limited usage and property management expenses. As these second or even third homes are not used all year round, former NoBroker executive Saurabh Vohara set up ALYF to allow partial ownership of holiday homes by two-eight persons.

Launched in June 2022, the Mumbai-based startup takes care of the entire process – from onboarding to reselling – when a user ‘co-buys’ a holiday home. Three months into the launch, the realty startup has already done a recce of 15 properties in Lonavala, Alibaug and Goa, providing a detailed analysis of locations, amenities, co-ownership prices and maintenance costs to help one make an informed decision.

Incidentally, all co-owners can use the entire property for a specified number of days, depending on the number of co-owners. For instance, a person holding one-eighth ownership can use the holiday home for 44 days a year. A dedicated property attendant manages the co-owners’ schedules with the help of the ALYF app.

The startup also takes care of legal requirements such as due diligence, title ownership and government taxes. Additionally, it offers end-to-end property maintenance services and takes charge of leisure needs like spas, parties and chefs.

ALYF charges two types of fees – a 5-10% commission on property deals and a property management and maintenance fee. It eyes INR 50 Cr in sales by March 2023 and plans to expand to 10 more locations by 2024. By 2025, it aims to enter major global holiday destinations and hit INR 2,000 Cr in sales.

Arth

Why Arth Made It To The List

Economic independence is the backbone of a strong nation. However, a large number of micro-entrepreneurs from semi-urban and rural India find it difficult to access working capital as the country is yet to optimise financial inclusion.

To bridge this gap, phygital (physical+digital) lending startup Arth was set up in 2018 to cater to the owners of nano and micro-enterprises like local kirana stores, food stalls, small boutiques, home-based beauty businesses and more.

The Gurugram-based startup provides short-term micro-credit (inventory payment, unsecured loan) and insurance products (medical and credit insurance, among others) without requiring too many documents. It works with 500+ hyperlocal partners such as distributors, contractors and NGOs who help onboard new-to-digital and new-to-credit individuals.

Arth has partnered with NBFCs and insurers such as Capital India, Setu and Digit Insurance to deploy its products. So far, it has disbursed INR 470 Cr+ in credit to more than 370K individuals, of whom 55% are new to credit, the company claims.

As potential borrowers look for collateral-free loans, the fintech startup has developed an underwriting system based on socioeconomic factors, occupational insights and alternative credit data such as bill payment history, government transactions, property records and more.

Arth charges a processing fee on loans and claims to be on a revenue run rate of $2 Mn+ for FY23. It plans to co-develop a RuPay-enabled credit card-based solution in FY23 to provide on-demand credit.

The startup will expand its products and services by 2025 for upscaling MSMEs via a financial services platform which will feature business tools and financial literacy content for micro-entrepreneurs.

Augnito

Why Augnito Made It To The List

When physicians create clinical documents manually, it detracts from the time available for direct patient care and often leads to poorly written notes that are difficult to decipher. So, Mumbai-based Augnito is simplifying the process with its AI-based speech recognition technology.

Set up in 2020, the startup offers a software programme based on natural language processing that converts a doctor’s audio notes into electronic medical records, making clinical documentation faster, more accurate and easier to access across the healthcare ecosystem.

With Augnito’s patent-pending products Everywhere and Voice Services, doctors can create, edit, format and complete reports through dictation and voice commands. Hospitals, too, can integrate its APIs and SDKs with existing clinical software for instant use.

The startup charges annual subscription fees for all its products, and currently, 10K+ physicians and 240+ enterprises in more than 15 countries are using them. It is looking to scale up all existing accounts in FY23 and aims to launch voice biomarkers by 2025.

Breakout

Why Breakout Made It To The List

Equity financing is one of the most popular (and most expensive) methods of business funding. But with the onset of a long funding winter, most Indian startups have started exploring other capital options like recurring revenue financing or collateral-free debt instead of diluting their stake.

Founded in 2021, Bengaluru-based Breakout offers INR 10 Lakh-50 Cr collateral-free and non-dilutive finance, especially to D2C and ecommerce brands. Currently, it has four products – Jarvis, Expand, Extend and Hawk Eye.

The first provides an automated vendor payout system for managing bill payments and the second provides unsecured business loans based on recurring sales-based revenue. The third is a BNPL-style merchant financing solution and lastly, Hawk Eye users get a real-time monitoring system that connects sales, accounting, banking and ERP to get a holistic visibility of expenses, liabilities, revenue trends etc. Loans are disbursed through its lending partners, M Capital, Arthmate and U GRO Capital.

Companies looking to raise ‘Expand’ funding must share capital requirements, indicative future growth, bank statements, GST returns and sales details. Breakout provides a provisional term sheet after running the data through its proprietary underwriting model and disburses the loan within seven days.

Under the ‘Extend’ scheme, the lending tech startup finances a company’s inventory, but the amount must be repaid in 30-90 days, unlike the industry practice of daily/weekly payments.

While the startup’s revenue figures are undisclosed, Breakout is looking to grow its B2B client base and expand its offerings to brick-and-mortar retailers trying to go online.

Chat360

Why Chat360 Made It To The List

The global chatbot market is estimated to reach $2 Bn by 2027, growing at a CAGR of more than 22%. Despite the current nascency, interactive and intuitive AI chatbots will soon become the gold standard in customer service across sectors as digitalisation is happening en masse.

Keeping in mind how omnichannel conversational bots can optimise business outcomes, Pune-based SaaS startup Chat360 has developed a drag-and-drop chatbot builder for WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram and websites, enabling businesses to boost sales and engagement. These chatbots can help with sales and marketing (explaining products and closing deals), order-taking (for restaurants), customer support and more.

Setting up the programme is not difficult, either. The startup’s web-based dashboard allows businesses to create individual no-code chatbots for social platforms and websites. The dashboard also saves all permitted contact details of users collected via chatbots for marketing purposes.

To ensure bot responses are lucid and proactive, companies need to fill in all information regarding products and services, as well as standard answers to customer queries.

Revenue comes through subscriptions, but Chat360 has not disclosed the numbers. However, the three-year-old startup claims to have onboarded more than 100 clients such as LeadSqaured, Prystin Care, Renault Saudi Arabia, LG Saudi Arabia, Vectus India and more. It is also looking to expand its user base in India and the UAE in the current financial year.

Cheerio

Why Cheerio Made It To The List

The art of storytelling is changing as digital content creators take centre stage. But new-age creators often find it challenging to build, engage, retain and eventually monetise their respective communities. For users, too, it is not easy to find people who cater to their specific interests.

Bengaluru-based Cheerio was launched in 2021 to bridge this gap. The startup has developed a SaaS tool to help creators build communities, engage with members (by sharing newsletters, creating polls and more) and monetise all content formats. It also helps them automate content posting through RSS feeds, hold events and offer rewards to followers.

On the other hand, users can leverage its interactive content discovery and community aggregation platform to easily access communities and content creators appealing to their interests.

Users can also act as group admins and moderators and curate quality and paywall content for their communities. Content creators will incentivise them by sharing the revenue from paywalled content curated by them.

The startup charges subscription fees from creators, group admins and moderators, processing fees for paid events and locked content, and a premium subscription fee for all other users.

It has already onboarded more than 200 creators who have 10K+ followers. Cheerio plans to connect to 5K creators and 500K followers by FY23 and 2 Mn+ creators by 2025. It has projected $150K in revenue for FY23 and $50 Mn by 2025 on the back of 50 Mn users.

Cone

Why Cone Made It To The List

Hiring a CA at the tax season’s peak is a nightmare for many SMEs. But few have the means to hire full-time accountants throughout the year. To address this pain point, Cone was launched in June 2022, connecting SMEs to its dedicated accounting team for bookkeeping and taxation services.

Apart from basic features, the Hyderabad-based fintech service provider offers a bouquet of specialised solutions depending on the nature of the business and its requirements.

For ecommerce, it provides a dedicated financial expert and a web-based dashboard to generate real-time P&L statements, reconcile sales channels, analyse marketplace performances and more.

For startups and other businesses, Cone tracks KPIs such as topline numbers, ARR and burn rate, manages cash flow (invoices and payments), forecasts specific metrics and handles multi-entity tax and cross-border transfer pricing.

Cone charges a subscription fee for its services and its solutions can be integrated with existing accounting software like QuickBooks, Zoho Books, Excel, Stripe and more.

coto

Why coto Made It To The List

India is home to an estimated 150 Mn digitally savvy women. But only 33% use social media due to a lack of confidence or for security reasons like online harassment. Launched in 2021, Mumbai- and Singapore-based coto aims to address this concern with a community platform for women to engage, connect and create content in a toxicity-free environment.

The web-based startup has tied up with blockchain behemoth Polygon for a zero-knowledge proof system that will allow only women (or those who identify themselves as women) to enrol. The forum will also implement facial recognition to identify all rogue factors and build a self-governing, Web3-based social community.

The Reddit-style platform is still in the pre-launch stage, but it has 500+ enrolments and aims for a hard launch in FY23.

Like all social media platforms, coto will feature user profiles and enable members to explore their interests without undue interference. (It will still have its community guidelines.) Besides, it will help women become creators and monetise their content.

Its long-term goal is to grow the community globally and experiment with revenue sources such as platform usage fees, content and merchandise commerce, NFT marketplace and brand partnerships.

Creatosaurus

Why Creatosaurus Made It To The List

Can creative tasks be automated or speeded up using tech tools? Whether it is content creation, curation, copywriting, graphic designing or publishing, various solutions are available for each requirement. In contrast, Creatosaurus was set up as an all-in-one enabler, helping users manage the entire content workflow on a single platform.

Founded in 2018, the Pune-based SaaS startup offers a host of cloud-based tools to collaborate with team members, curate ideas, design graphics, edit videos, schedule posts and manage social media accounts. Other value-added features include AI copywriting, hashtag analysis and integration with 20+ third-party apps such as Unsplash, Google Drive, Slack, Bitmoji and Giphy for quality-driven, asset-light production.

The startup has a freemium model and offers four subscription plans. But it has not clocked any revenue yet as the platform was in a restricted beta until recently. It is now open to the public and claims to have around 250 free users.

Creatosaurus plans to onboard 10K users by FY23 and add new features like video, audio and text editors. It also aims to increase third-party integrations to more than 50. It plans to onboard 1 Mn+ users by 2025 and earn $1 Mn+ in annual revenue.

DigiPhyNFT

Why DigiPhyNFT Made It To The List

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a recent phenomenon that gained popularity when creators of all sorts started tokenising their works and got huge returns. Soon enough, brands began to join the bandwagon in droves to incentivise customers, enhance engagement and earn additional revenues via digital assets.

NFTs for brands may not be a fad (given their scalability to the metaverse and endless possibilities). But Chirag Jain and Lipi Gulati were aware of the pain points faced by many companies.

For instance, there was a need to spread tech awareness and simplify the processes so that businesses could quickly launch their NFTs, crypto tokens, wallets and more. So, the husband-wife duo launched DigiPhyNFT in January 2022.

The Gurugram-based startup offers an all-in-one PaaS (platform-as-a-service) solution to help brands provide utility NFTs (coupons, tickets, and more). They can also integrate custom NFTs with their online/offline stores, trade those on the DigiPhyNFT’s marketplace and reward customers with crypto-based assets like tokens, NFT badges and metaverse accessories.

Additionally, a metaverse integration service allows businesses to create customised spaces.

In less than a year, DigiPhyNFT has partnered with more than 15 brands and creators (galleries and artists, musicians, fashion and jewellery designers, edtechs and event organisers) to build and showcase their NFTs on its marketplace. It charges a one-time fee for API integration and a commission on each NFT transaction.

The startup plans to work with 100+ brands in 2022 and targets 100K+ users on the platform. By 2023, it aims to reach 200+ brands, deal in 200K+ NFTs and earn $1 Mn in revenue.

DINGG

Why DINGG Made It To The List

Spas and salons can bring steady profits as life slowly returns to normalcy after the pandemic, and more people now focus on wellness and personal grooming. But small establishments using a pen-and-paper work mode often suffer as they cannot leverage the advantages of digitalisation to tap into their full potential.

Founded in 2018, Pune-based queue management startup DINGG realised how digitally transforming these beauty services would optimise operations and enhance customer services. So, the B2B SaaS platform pivoted in 2020 and developed an array of tools to help beauty clinics, spas and salons looking for a technology makeover.

DINGG’s services include booking management (through calls, messages and social media), inventory tracking and workflow automation for attendance and salary payment. It also offers invoicing services, automates marketing operations and provides customer insights. Businesses can access these services via a web dashboard and Android and iOS apps.

The startup charges an annual subscription fee and caters to around 1,200 companies in India and the UAE. It plans to enter the US market in FY23 and extend its services to gyms and fitness centres, wellness centres, nail art salons and tattoo artists, targeting annual revenue of $600K.

DocTunes

Why DocTunes Made It To The List

More than 20% of Indians are not bilingual, which means they are not able to read languages other than their mother tongue. As for English, only 20% of Indians use it as their first, second or third language.

To overcome this language barrier, data science and deep learning experts Dewang Bhardwaj and Kunal Singh Shekhawat set up DocTunes in 2021, which scans the written text in any language and converts it into an audio file in the user’s preferred language.

The text-to-speech conversion and translation service supports more than 30 local and foreign languages. Plus, it features 150+ sample voices to help users choose language, speed and pitch for a better experience. DocTunes leverages neural network learning, and users can access the service via its Android and iOS apps.

From news pieces to entire books, the Jaipur-based startup claims to have converted nearly 500 Mn characters for 50K+ users across 170+ countries.

It has adopted a freemium model and targets INR 25 Lakh in revenue in FY23. The number of paid subscriptions is still low, but its ad-supported model helps push the earnings. The platform aims to reach 10K+ subscriptions and INR 1 Cr in revenue by FY24 and plans to build a vocabulary of 5 Bn+ words.

DropTheQ

Why DropTheQ Made It To The List

India’s brick-and-mortar retail market is estimated to be worth $1.4 Tn by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 9%. Interestingly, fast food and grocery buying will account for more than 50% of this market. As physical retail is not going anywhere soon, one can expect longer queues at the checkout counters of malls and stores.

Not anymore.

India may not have its desi version of Amazon Go (no-checkout shopping at brick-and-mortar stores). But Noida-based DropTheQ offers a unique point-of-sale (PoS) system that enables users to place orders directly at stores via a mobile app and pay online to self-checkout without queueing up at the till.

The startup was founded in 2019 but went live in January 2022 as life slowly returned to normal after pandemic disruptions. It now caters to B2B clients, mainly supermarkets, food courts and restaurants, and offers three comprehensive solutions via its consumer-facing Android and iOS apps.

Besides store ordering and payment, there is a specific service for food courts, restaurants/cafés and quick-service restaurants (QSRs). A QR code-based Order2Serve tool enables customers to order food from their phones and get it served at the table (users can pick up their orders at self-serve places). Plus, they can pay online for a hassle-free experience.

The pre-order feature also helps cafeteria and mess owners, as users can book their meals early and pick up the food later. Businesses can manage all orders via the startup’s web dashboard or integrate the backend with their existing CRM tools.

DropTheQ charges a per-order fee from partner outlets but has not disclosed the revenue run rate for FY23. But it claims to have taken nearly 200K orders by onboarding more than eight food courts and 15+ QSRs and restaurants/cafes in the last eight months. To scale up its business, it plans to onboard cafeterias and canteens of tech offices and management institutions.

Dubdub.ai

Why Dubdub.ai Made It To The List

If you have heard the Hindi, Bengali or Telugu iterations of late Pt Jawaharlal Nehru’s Tryst With Destiny speech in his own voice, meet the startup behind the dubbing.

Aware of the immense potential of vernacular content, Dubdub.ai was set up in 2021 to enable audio dubbing in more than 50 languages, using AI-powered speech synthesis and generative modelling.

The New Delhi-based SaaS startup claims that the system is 4-10 times faster than traditional dubbing and does not require a recording studio, making the process up to 70% cheaper. When a translated script is submitted, the web platform’s text-to-speech tool generates the audio by cloning the speaker’s original voice. In fact, clients can create or clone any voice and edit the speech in real time.

The startup is still in closed beta, but to prevent the misuse of ‘deep fake’ in dubbing, it only provides an audio cloning licence for restricted use cases. When it goes for a hard launch in 2023, it will ask users to disclose the dubbing usage and seek permission from voice owners for cloning (in case they are living persons).

Dubdub.ai charges a subscription fee, but there is a pay-per-minute module for short-duration and single-use dubbing projects. It has not disclosed revenue details, but its client base includes a mix of OTTs, content production houses and news and sports channels.

The startup will provide API-based solutions for social media apps in FY23 and aims to become the preferred content localisation partner for local and global studios looking to dub content in Indian vernaculars. Its long-term goal is to enter the US, the EU and the APAC markets.

Ezo Books

Why Ezo Books Made It To The List

Most small and medium businesses in India rely on kaccha bills and the age-old bahi-khata to manage their offline business accounting. But in the absence of a qualified accountant, managing those paper invoices, filing taxes manually and following critical compliances tend to be tough. To combat these issues, Ezo Books, an ad hoc invoicing solution for offline retailers, was launched in 2020.

The Mumbai-based SaaS startup has developed an easy-to-use accounting programme in more than 10 languages such as English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu and Punjabi.

Companies only need to register with Ezo Books and use the desktop interface for billing. The rest is done by the backend programme as it generates sales reports, builds customer profiles and updates the inventory and account payables and receivables based on sales, purchases and expenses. An entrepreneur can also manage multiple shops/businesses using a single interface.

Home entrepreneurs and freelancers can also use Ezo’s Android app to generate on-the-go bills and share payment links/QR codes for quick payments. Moreover, Ezo makes it easy for retailers to manage taxes as it helps with filing income tax and GST returns.

Globlam

Why Globlam Made It To The List

India is the fifth-largest manufacturing economy, but even now, its exports account for less than 21% of the country’s total GDP and contribute only 1.7% to global trade. But the big picture changed in the wake of the pandemic. Indian businesses underwent a digital transformation to cope with physical lockdowns; ecommerce grew by nearly 20%, and digital borders started disappearing.

Realising how the tide was turning, former IndiaMart executive Khushiram Kadian set up Globlam in 2021, a cross-border and category-agnostic wholesale marketplace, to help Indian companies grow their overseas business.

Based in Sonipat, Haryana, the startup onboards large manufacturers, traders, exporters and artisans for its B2B marketplace and provides them with a full suite of business enablement services. These include digital marketing solutions, access to international payment facilities and logistics support via tie-ups. An account management team is in place to iron out all operational challenges.

The Alibaba-like startup charges a percentage of the transaction value as its fee but has not disclosed the numbers.

Globlam currently features 20+ categories and 6.5K+ products and claims to have onboarded more than 70 merchants during its beta run. It is still working on a product-market fit and eyeing $500K revenue in FY23 by reaching 10K+ buyers across the globe.

Habitat

Why Habitat Made It To The List

The rise of online learning in the wake of the pandemic has brought several benefits to the student community. For instance, they can get coaching from well-known teachers/subject matter experts as there are no geographical barriers in the digital world. But the teachers (read: creators) may not find it too easy to get started.

First, they need to boost student engagement on social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. Next, they must rely on encoded messaging platforms like WhatsApp or Telegram to securely share content links and monetise the same. Finally, many struggle with spreadsheets to manage workflow and track their incomes.

The shift to virtual learning will likely push higher education despite these glitches. Hence, New Delhi-based Habitat was set up to do away with multiple platforms used by creators to share their content and manage their workflow.

Founded in 2020, the startup’s web-based interface allows creators to automate the entire subscription management procedure, from sending payment links to keeping track of payments, renewals, memberships and offers.

Additionally, it has developed Android and iOS apps with WhatsApp and Telegram-like features to improve student engagement. Users can write posts, create polls and collaborate with other creators for a well-rounded experience.

Habitat charges creators a 3-10% transaction fee when their students pay for the content and claims to have onboarded 100+ creators. All other features available on the platform are currently free.

The startup has not disclosed its revenue run rate but says it is growing at 30% month on month. It plans to onboard about 1,000 creators by the end of this financial year and aims to monetise some of its free features (current and new) by 2025.

HireSure

Why HireSure Made It To The List

In these days of great resignation, quiet quitting, and moonlighting concerns, staffing remains a critical issue and a great equaliser. Companies of all sizes, especially new-age tech startups, are gunning for top talent to push business growth. But hiring fails to keep pace as many selected candidates ‘ghost’ or leave for greener pastures due to better salaries, more value-added work profiles, or both.

Keen to take the pain out of hiring and resolve the issues around right-compensating a candidate (both financially and non-financially), IIT-Kanpur alumni Anurag Dixit, Anshul Mishra and Ramesh Konatham launched HireSure in 2019.

The Bengaluru-based startup has developed an API-driven compensation benchmarking tool that provides real-time industry data and helps HR go beyond routine offer letters. In simple terms, it not only sells the job but brings forth the company culture and non-financial benefits along with a graphical salary breakup. HireSure also predicts a potential dropout based on the behaviour signals during interviews and suggests a course correction strategy.

The HRtech startup has also developed a chatbot called Arci for candidates to ask questions about the job offer or the company or request a shift in the joining date. In addition, the bot completes many recruitment formalities like document collection, procuring candidates’ signatures and onboarding.

HireSure solutions can be integrated with existing HR and payroll systems. The startup charges a subscription fee for its services and claims to be catering to 500+ startups. It plans to scale the platform for its Indian clients and aims to go global, starting with the US.

MeetRecord

Why MeetRecord Made It To The List

The sales function of any company, big or small, is critical for survival and sustenance. And when this function went digital, many conversational AI tools came up to extend online support. However, Indian SMEs rarely have trained resources to manoeuvre complex systems.

Snehal Nimje, Sachin Sinha and Paras Jain, cofounders of traveltech player Zoliday, faced a similar challenge and decided to build MeetRecord.

Launched in March 2022, its transcription tool uses artificial intelligence to analyse meeting and CRM data to generate insights and discover patterns in sales deals. The web interface can be integrated with all popular CRM systems like Salesforce and Pipeline to create teams and provide data-driven sales solutions for enhanced operations.

Also, unlike the intricate systems built for legacy tech companies, the startup’s web-based solutions can be easily used by non-tech businesses.

Bengaluru-based MeetRecord has adopted a freemium model and onboarded about 20 paying clients and 40+ free users within a few months of its launch. It charges subscription fees for premium features and claims to be en route to $150K in annual revenues for FY23. It also aims to hit $20 Mn in yearly revenue by 2025.

NautOne

Why NautOne Made It To The List

Online retail is dominating the new normal in the aftermath of Covid-19. The outcome? Both legacy businesses and small-format stores are now keen to move online and optimise sales. But to achieve that, companies must have a well-aligned channel mix plan to turn every prospect into a paying customer.

In comes Chennai-based NautOne to help businesses ‘market’ and ‘sell’ their products online.

Launched in 2021, the startup has trademarked its solutions under SHOWcial Commerce and SHOWcial Marketing. The ‘commerce’ part enables brands to manage and optimise all distribution channels like websites, apps, social media platforms and marketplaces (Amazon, CRED, eBay and the like) to drive multichannel sales. Also, its dashboard helps brands analyse where most users come from and create a marketing strategy accordingly.

SHOWcial Marketing, on the other hand, has been specially designed for service industries (think real estate or restaurants) to boost performance marketing on relevant marketplaces like NoBroker and Swiggy/Zomato, respectively.

The digital marketing agency charges real estate companies and restaurants a 2-3% commission per transaction, while D2C brands pay a flat fee to NautOne for managing their marketing. From its partner marketplaces, it charges a commission for upselling and cross-selling and gets commissions on advertisements.

With 250+ clients in its kitty, the startup is eyeing an annual revenue of $1 Mn in FY23 and aims to increase it 15x in another two years.

PickMyWork

Why PickMyWork Made It To The List

As the cost of living continues to skyrocket, many college students look for part-time jobs to earn a little money. While these opportunities (giving tuition, ghostwriting, data entry work and more) are plenty in Tier 1 cities, students from Tier 2 and beyond often face many hurdles finding such jobs.

Aware of the young people’s plight, second-time entrepreneurs Kajal Malik, Vidyarthi Badireddy and Utsav Bhattacharjee found a way to help non-metro students find gainful employment by training them as sales agents.

The trio launched PickMyWork in 2019 and primarily targeted the student base as their previous venture Reculta was a college placement startup. However, others can join the Internshala-style platform that trains part-time hires/freelancers to sell digital products by creating bank accounts, completing KYCs, enabling merchant acquisitions (for marketplaces) and doing efficient data labelling. All B2C users are paid commissions on weekly sales.

To create more job opportunities, the gig platform onboards internet companies looking to scale across Tier 2 locations and charges its B2C and B2B clients a fee per sale.

PickMyWork has not disclosed the current number of gig workers on its platform but aims to reach 1 Mn by FY23. It has 25 B2B clients, including Google, Flipkart, Lucidata and more, and plans to double this number by March 2023.

Produze

Why Produze Made It To The List

India ranks fourth among the world’s top agricultural producers. But poorly managed procurement and an inefficient supply chain controlled by multilevel intermediaries lead to inconsistent quality, low pricing and massive wastage, thus impacting agri exports.

To boost the earnings of Indian agri producers, former Ninjacart executives Ben Mathew and Gaurav Agrawal, along with serial entrepreneurs Rakesh Sasidharan and Emil Soman, launched Produze in 2022. The B2B ecommerce platform will connect Indian producers and wholesalers with retail businesses across North America, the EU and the Middle East, thus enabling direct transactions and ensuring a good profit margin on a par with global markets.

Global buyers will also benefit as they can access good quality agri produce at competitive pricing.

Produze will further help with source-level logistics, international port operations and last-mile distribution for a fee.

The startup has not yet launched commercially but recently raised a seed round of $2.6 Mn to onboard all stakeholders and build a full-fledged capability, from product discovery to fulfilment.

Rupyz

Why Rupyz Made It To The List

India is home to 7.9 Mn SMEs, and their production surpassed the pre-Covid level earlier this year. But as businesses grow exponentially, more companies need handholding and tech-based solutions for rapid growth.

Aware of the country’s massive potential in industry and commerce, Gurugram-based Rupyz was launched in 2018 as an end-to-end businesses enabler as its Android apps help companies with product discovery, online transactions, fulfilment, credit and cash flow management.

Its sales app allows brands, manufacturers and traders to feature their digital business profiles and transact via an online marketplace. Besides, companies can hold one-on-one chats, manage their order portfolio and promote their businesses on the app’s social feed.

Rupyz’s B2B business app also helps businesses build their respective credit profiles by managing and reconciling their payments and invoices using the app’s auto-reminder feature. This also helps analyse the red flags before raising working capital or business loans.

The startup is also educating small and medium businesses about the benefits of real-time business credit scores and aims to grow its customer base to 100 Mn in the long term.

Subtl.ai

Why Subtl.ai Made It To The List

People often look up specific queries on the internet using standard search engines like Google and Bing. But these public search tools do not work in private settings.

In a world that is rapidly turning digital, governments, banks, legal firms, libraries, universities and other organisations have come up with vast databases. And employees are compelled to use the traditional Ctrl+F function to search multiple documents for the most relevant data.

Hyderabad-based Subtl.ai was set up in 2020 to provide internet-search-like ease of access to those databases. It has developed a U.S. patent-pending plug-and-play neural search system that helps personnel locate the most relevant answers from their company databases, intranets, cloud storage and personal records.

Subtl.ai clients can integrate the API with their cloud databases and use the chatbot to ask questions. Like web searches, the startup’s neural processing tech reads through the text and pinpoints the most relevant information.

Currently, it works with three B2B clients and charges a subscription fee per user per annum for its search service. But there is a provision for usage-based pricing for companies that want to embed Subtl.AI in their search bars. It also offers a 30-day free trial for potential customers.

Subtl.ai targets more than $100K in revenue for FY23 and aims to serve nearly 5 Mn end users. It is also planning to enter the B2C space by 2025.

Sudo Foods

Why Sudo Foods Made It To The List

Veganism is no longer a micro-trend but a widely followed global lifestyle choice. But for some, the move to veganism is marred by the limited product range that fails to satisfy one’s taste buds or meet nutritional needs. One way to eat cleaner and healthier without giving up on gourmet delights is to choose mock/plant-based meat.

Launched in June 2022, the D2C pseudo-meat brand Sudo Foods has come up with more than five FSSAI-approved food products, including seekh kebab, chicken samosa, burger patty, chicken popcorn and mutton galouti kebab.

The Bengaluru-based startup claims that all its products contain high protein but no cholesterol/trans fats or preservatives. Also, most of these are soy- and gluten-free for better gastrointestinal health and fast autoimmune responses.

Sudo recipes have been created and curated in-house, and the product range is contract-manufactured in Kochi.

All products are sold through its website and marketplaces like BigBasket, Herbivo and VeganDukan. But the range will soon be available in Bengaluru supermarkets.

The startup did not disclose its revenue but said it would launch five more products in snacking and non-veg meal replacement categories. All products will be shipped to metro cities beyond Bengaluru by FY23. Sudo Foods plans to double down on its R&D and become a ‘House of Vegan Food’ in another two years.

The WorldGrad

Why The WorldGrad Made It To The List

In 2021, more than 4.4 Lakh Indian students went to study abroad, a 41% YoY increase, and the number continues to rise. This trend calls for expert education counsellors who can guide young students and help them make the right choices.

However, Mumbai-based The WorldGrad has gone one step ahead to bring remote learning to the overseas education format for several benefits.

Set up in 2021, the edtech startup ensures that the students qualifying for overseas programmes can learn remotely throughout the first semester with the help of a virtual learning model and one-on-one tutors. This will help reduce overall living expenses by INR 20 Lakh or so.

More importantly, students will have enough time to get all essential documents in place. Plus, the remote induction and year-long interaction will help students adjust quickly to the new socio-cultural environment when they go overseas for the rest of their tenure.

The WorldGrad also offers essential student counselling services, helping users to apply to 100+ foreign institutions and ensuring a 6+ yearly intake of students compared to the industry standard of 2-3. Besides, it helps with IELTS preparation, student visa and work permit.

The startup currently covers universities in the UK, the US, Australia and the UAE but plans to expand to Canada and Singapore by the end of this financial year. The fees for hybrid overseas study programmes comprise nearly 80% of its revenue, while the rest comes from other services such as IELTS prepping and visa support provided to 50K+ students.

The WorldGrad aims to grow its partner universities to 200 in FY23 from the current 100 and targets $3 Mn in revenue by increasing its student base by 10x. In another two years, it will explore upskilling programmes and international internship opportunities for its students in major foreign countries.

TSAW

Why TSAW Made It To The List

Delivery drones are likely to disrupt the future of the logistics industry. But Indian startups building UAVs or developing a third-party drone logistics platform are rare.

Launched in 2019, Technit Space and Aero Works (TSAW) has delved deep into this space and is currently working on a bouquet of solutions. These include building drones (Maruthi and Adarna), charting a government-approved dedicated drone corridor for last-mile intracity deliveries and developing a drone cloud intelligence system (DCIS) for real-time access to telemetry data from drone fleets.

Based in Noida (Uttar Pradesh), the drone-as-a-service startup is still in the pre-launch stage but has conducted trial flights in Kolkata, Indore, Mumbai, Gurugram, Madurai, Hyderabad and Coimbatore. When fully functional, it intends to provide its in-house drones with a 5 kg payload over a distance of 40 km and use its DCIS for path planning and drone traffic deconfliction.

TSAW will also provide access to its dedicated drone corridors for clients in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand for transportation of medical supplies.

Although it is undergoing final-phase developments, the drone startup aims to launch its services in three Tier 1 cities by FY23. This will be done in partnership with Zypp Electric, a logistics company specialising in EV-as-a-Service.

It will charge a monthly subscription fee for its services but has not announced its full business model.

Unfinance

Why Unfinance Made It To The List

India recently overtook the UK to emerge as the fifth-largest economy. But according to a recent S&P survey, more than 75% of Indian adults do not have a thorough understanding of basic financial concepts. The gap widens for women – around 80% still lack financial education.

Aware of this pain point, serial entrepreneurs Kunwar Raj and Amit Singh set up Unfinance in 2021 to bring financial literacy to all so that people can make informed decisions.

The Gurugram-based startup began its journey as a social media page. It later evolved into a 60-word financial news app and also came up with a newsletter. The latter is distributed via WhatsApp and has an open rate of 85%.

It has a team of journalists who curate (and summarise) financial news and provide stock market updates, money-saving and money-making tips, and investment guides on the app. The startup also recommends personal finance books and teaches how to use the free decision-making tools developed by the platform. Lately, it has started publishing video news summaries.

Unfinance boasts 300K+ downloads (across Android and iOS) and a 25K+ reader base for its newsletter. Currently, its revenue comes from digital ads and paid content partnerships. But it aims to earn more from in-house courses and masterclasses to be launched in FY23. By 2025, the startup aims to onboard 500 Mn users, up from the current 1 Mn.

Vossle

Why Vossle Made It To The List

The global AR-VR market size is estimated to reach $110 Bn by 2027, growing at a CAGR of nearly 25%. The technology will be used by businesses keen to enhance user engagement or build more interactive metaverses. This underlines a growing need for AR-VR enablers similar to what Shopify does for ecommerce and Akamai for content streaming.

Understanding the emerging trend, serial entrepreneurs and siblings Prafulla and Pulkit Mathur built Vossle in 2020 as a no-code SaaS platform in the cloud for businesses to create web-based augmented reality (WebAR) and virtual experiences.

The Gurugram-based tech startup enables businesses to create AR/VR campaigns for product visualisation, packaging, virtual try-on, interactive teaching, 3D reproductions for advertisements/gaming and more.

It has a freemium business model, and during the free trial, companies can create unlimited AR experiences that can get up to 100 free views per experience. Paid subscription starts from $99 per month, where users can create various AR experiences for up to 10K views and need to pay $0.01 per additional view. A commercial subscription also allows white-labelling/custom branding of virtual creations.

Vossle operates in India and the US and caters to 1,000+ businesses. It is looking to increase its client base in FY23 by bringing in more marketing and creative agencies. Besides, it plans to set up a network of channel partners and platforms by 2025 to enable more VR integrations.

Xpresslane

Why Xpresslane Made It To The List

Ecommerce, especially the direct-to-commerce (D2C) format, is thriving in a post-pandemic world. But all is not well with the e-retailers.

Around 51% of online shoppers still abandon their carts due to a lengthy checkout process or because they have forgotten login details or do not want to create yet another online account. Moreover, a higher COD rate leads to higher returns-to-origin as shoppers have no obligation to accept orders.

Realising the need for a one-click universal checkout, former Jabong executive Ashwin Koorakula joined Blue Yonder product specialist Madhukar Reddimasi to launch Xpresslane in 2019.

The Bengaluru-based ecommerce enabler has developed CheckoutOS for D2C brands to provide dynamic checkout experiences based on a user’s visit frequency (first-time/recurring). Simply put, when a shopper (not a first-time visitor, though) reaches the checkout part, the autofill option gets activated, and one need not fill in the information recorded earlier. Additionally, Checkout Analytics helps brands understand user behaviour, create custom campaigns and track campaign performances for better growth.

Xpresslane has not disclosed its revenue numbers but charges a fee per transaction and claims to have partnered with 120 D2C brands in India. In the current financial year, it will expand into headless checkouts (where shoppers can purchase a product on any digital interface instead of visiting the brand’s dedicated app/website) and aims to enter the global market by 2025.

[Edited By Sanghamitra Mandal]

Update | October 4, 2022, 3:30 PM

Minor changes in profiles and factsheets of some profiles.

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eye In September 2022 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

They came. They prepped the innovation blueprint. And they reimagined the consumer retail market with aplomb never witnessed before. Today, India is a thriving hub of 50,000+ digital-first brands keen to be a part of the $300 Bn opportunity. But their success stories were not scripted overnight.

It was the darkest hour when an unprecedented health crisis brought the country’s vibrant startup ecosystem to a grinding halt and threatened to eliminate all brick-and-mortar entities. But digital tech democratised the tools to start and scale a new class of startups that gunned for direct-to-consumer (D2C) distribution, thrived on enablers’ expertise and did their marketing on cost-effective social media to bag every revenue dollar they could.    

The tectonic shift in the customer mindset from offline to online also helped. Indian consumers are loving their newfound online engagement in the wake of the pandemic and the zero-intermediary, direct-to-business conversations that create value on both sides. Even then, D2C brands face challenging issues like high customer acquisition costs, complicated distribution channels, difficulties in brand building and a big question mark on the long-term viability of their products and services.  

A funding winter has followed the D2C bloom, and the current bleakness calls for a systematic discussion about the sector, its potential, challenges and the road ahead.

Unlike every month where we select sector-agnostic startups, we brought you a list of innovative and future-ready D2C brands for our August edition, published ahead of The D2C Summit 3.0 scheduled for September 16 and 17, 2022. We wanted our readers to explore the D2C brands that empower the sectors they are operating in.

Out of hundreds of startups, we looked at, these 30 would amply highlight how the internet made an impact on consumer preferences and brought about lasting changes.

30 Startups To Watch: August 2022 [D2C Edition]

As the focus was on D2C brands, we deep-dived into the sector and handpicked some excellent brands that brought several innovative products and use cases. For instance, snacking, eating, drinking and overall food habits were clubbed together to showcase eight F&B D2C bands and their impact on public life.

Feminine hygiene, consumer electronics, home décor and other lifestyle products constituted a major part of this list (14 in all). Better still, we found some exciting D2C brands doing remarkable work in the pet care space and baby care ecosystem.

It is interesting to note that before the pandemic, these businesses were few and far between. But thanks to high-speed internet (5G will be launching soon) and ease of logistics, these D2C brands are attracting a vast user base. In fact, the rise of the D2C business models has necessitated a forum to discuss the drawbacks of the ecosystem. 

Check out the 31st edition of Inc42’s 30 Startups To Watch list while we await your presence on the other side of the event!

Editor’s Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the D2C brands in alphabetical order.

Allegra

Why Allegra Fashion Made It To The List

Among all D2C segments, fashion, especially women’s apparel, has the largest market opportunity, worth nearly $20 Bn and growing at a CAGR of 20%. But this apparel sub-segment within ecommerce is marred by a 30% RTO rate, mainly due to size and quality issues. Given the growing market size, Gurugram-based Allegra Fashion saw an excellent business opening there and started to provide virtual sizing.

Allegra was set up in 2021, but the D2C band did not begin full-fledged operations until Q2 2022. By then, it had acquired its first 100 customers with an average basket size of INR 25K. Interestingly, there are two sides to this business. The startup offers nearly 500 products under categories like ethnic and western wear, nightwear, athleisure, swimwear, footwear and accessories. It has also partnered with eight fashion designers from the Delhi-NCR region for design customisation and production.

The other unique selling point is the fashion tech for virtual sizing. The process is simple enough. The website asks the buyer to input her height, weight and age post which she can choose the bust, hip and waist shapes. Based on the body type, Allegra offers the best possible size option. The digital-first fashion brand has not disclosed any financial details as the business has just started, and the customer base is small. However, it claims to have a sales margin of 25%.

Allegra sells through its website and social media channels. It is also planning an app launch by September this year and aims to carve a solid retail presence to put Indian designers on the global map by 2025. The fashion startup is eyeing INR 1 Cr revenue by FY23 and currently working with a third-party marketplace to build a new distribution channel.

Alpino Health Foods

Why Alpino Health Foods Made It To The List

When six childhood friends from Surat staked everything to launch Alpino in 2016, just a year after graduating, India’s annual peanut butter consumption stood at around 1K tonnes. It also took the founders three months to sell the first 100 jars. The reason? India was not aware of its health benefits and did not add the item to the breakfast platter. 

Interestingly, the West has already done so as the spread made from dry-roasted and ground peanuts is rich in protein and nutrients and takes care of heart health, body weight and blood sugar. And the young entrepreneurs were confident that India would soon follow suit. 

They assumed right. By 2022, the domestic consumption of peanut butter was growing at an annual rate of 33.7%, and Alpino was selling a peanut jar every 30 seconds. Besides the plain-vanilla product, the startup offers more than 40 FSSAI-approved items under four categories – flavoured peanut butter, muesli, peanut butter powder and coffee blends. 

For most of its products, peanuts are sourced from Junagadh in Gujarat and products are developed in-house in Surat. The startup has adopted an omnichannel approach, selling on its website and ecommerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, JioMart and the like. Alpino products are also available offline in 4K+ stores and across 40+ cities. Modern Bazaar, ITC and Godrej Nature’s Basket are some of its major brick-and-mortar partners.

According to Alpino, its products have reached more than 6 Lakh consumers. Now it plans to drive online sales and targets INR 44 Cr in revenue for FY23. The D2C brand will expand its product line in the next couple of years and introduce apple cider vinegar and cereals to promote healthy eating and therapeutic diets.

Avni

Why Avni Made It To The List

Menstrual care startups operating across India’s femtech ecosystem have one goal. They want to create mass awareness and educate their target consumers. But unlike other brands in this space, Mumbai-based Avni recognised a more critical issue – the ecological impact of machine-made sanitary napkins and other ‘period’ supplies.

For instance, around 12.3 Bn used pads, amounting to 1.13 Lakh tonnes of waste, reached India’s landfills in 2021. Also, there is a serious pollution threat as disposable pads contain up to 90% plastic. So, the husband-and-wife duo Sujata Pawar and Apurv Agrawal decided to take the sustainability route to meet women’s menstrual needs and launched the feminine hygiene brand Avni in 2021.

The D2C brand offers a range of GOTS-certified (global organic textile standard) products for menstrual care, intimate care and incontinence issues. There are more than 12 products across three categories, including panty liners, menstrual cups, wipes, cotton pads, reusable cloth pads and more.

The entire range is designed and tested at an in-house unit, but the production is outsourced to third-party manufacturers who employ women from rural and semi-urban areas. The packaging is also sustainable, and the startup claims to donate 80% of its profits to create ‘period’ awareness.

Although the startup has not disclosed its revenue run rate for FY23, it claims to be growing at 30% MoM and spreading awareness about its products, starting with urban women. As D2C (direct-to-consumer) is a preferred channel for many consumer-facing brands, the femtech segment will likely cater to a larger market.

Therefore, Avni is planning to launch various wellness products by 2025, catering to everything between menarche and menopause with help from a community of experts.

BabyAmore

Why BabyAmore Made It To The List

Baby skin is extremely soft, delicate and much more permeable than the skin of older children. Hence, skincare and other lifestyle products for newborns should not contain harsh chemicals, fragrances or dyes that may cause skin irritation and rashes. Buying the right products for toddlers thus becomes a challenging task for rookie parents. 

Former Wipro consultant Hameed Imthad was afflicted even more as his second child used to get rashes from most diaper and clothing brands. He was living in the UAE then, and products for highly sensitive baby skin were readily available in the country. But that was not the case when the family moved back to India. 

Realising how frightening such incidents could be for new parents, Imthad and his cousin Abdul Wahab started importing a few toddler-friendly products and sold them in India. But soon, they understood that the massive demand across the country warranted a full-fledged marketplace for baby care brands. The duo launched BabyAmore in 2019, which sells premium, organic and eco-friendly product lines. 

The Chennai-based startup offers more than 3.7K baby care products under 60+ categories, including skin and hair care, baby clothes, training pants, feeding utilities, changing tables and more. More than 115 local and global brands like Allter, Burt’s Bees, EZPZ, Masilo, Pampers, ZoLi and Johnson & Johnson already sell through BabyAmore’s website and its offline stores.

The FirstCry-like platform has adopted an outright purchase (it owns the inventory) and warehousing model for offline outlets and a dropshipping model (where it does not stock merchandise or hold an inventory) for its digital store. 

So far, BabyAmore has set up two offline stores in Chennai and claims to have served nearly 20K customers. It is currently working on a same-day delivery feature across metro cities and will be launching a BabyAmore community for parenting tips by March next year. The next big step includes setting up 50+ offline stores by 2025.

Bartisans

Why Bartisans Made It To The List

The rise of the pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns led to extensive home cooking, experimenting with novel dishes and a penchant for home bars as almost everyone had too much free time. The mother-and-son duo of Jovita and Jordan Mascarenhas was no exception. They used to experiment with various cocktails as they had some duty-free alcohol purchased from Dubai.

Many people could not go out at the time and get their drinks. But making the perfect concoction at home requires a specific skill, and few know how to do it. Jovita and Jordan had it and realised the need for shelf-stable cocktail mixes on such occasions. So, Bartisans was launched in 2021.

The Mumbai-based artisan brand offers 10 different drinks using two types of cocktail mixers. First, there are the classics that go to make margarita, mojito and whiskey sour and then the exotic mixers like tamarind and orange, smoked pineapple and basil, and hibiscus and lavender.

The liquid mixers have a six-month shelf life and can be mixed with different spirits to create new varieties. Bartisans also offers home bar tools like shakers, muddlers, jiggers and more. The D2C brand makes its FSSAI-approved vegan mixers in-house, does not add chemicals or preservatives, and sells these through its website and Amazon.

The startup has not disclosed its topline but claims a user base of 5K. Bartisans is planning to push the number by partnering with more ecommerce players by the end of FY23. It aims to go omnichannel in the long run and sell directly to bars, restaurants and other establishments.

Bombay Island Coffee

Why Bombay Island Coffee Made It To The List

Choosing a favourite brew can be challenging for someone new to artisanal and speciality coffee. The options galore and the information overload indicate the need for a solid coffee brand that can guide newbies to the world of fine coffee and turn them into coffee aficionados. 

Set up in 2018, Bombay Island Coffee vows to do just that. The D2C coffee brand started as a simple roastery but later added a complete bean-to-cup experience via its flagship cafés in Malad and Vikhroli. It sources coffee beans from its partner farms in Chikmagalur (Karnataka), the birthplace of coffee in India, and these beans are roasted in-house at the Vikhroli experience store.

The D2C brand now offers eight coffee blends and more than five brewing gear (brew makers, french presses, grinders, espresso machines, filter papers and more). It also provides vending machines and coffee beans to 150+ corporate houses and HORECA businesses.

The brand sells its products through its website, ecommerce platforms and two flagship stores. Plus, there is a subscription model to attract coffee lovers. It targets more than INR 2 Cr in revenue in FY23, amounting to 50% YoY growth. Moreover, its cafés host coffee workshops throughout the year, aiming to capture a significant share of the $1.5 Bn Indian coffee market via these popular events.

CURRYiT

Why CURRYit Made It To The List

Life in metros (and other cities) is changing rapidly as young people increasingly migrate there for higher education and better career opportunities. Millennials with kids, young people living alone or busy professional couples often skip cooking at home and dine in or dine out. They also opt for fast and easy cooking but find it difficult to get the right ingredients for whipping up authentic flavours. 

The demand for tasty spreads grew even more in the wake of the pandemic as restaurants offered limited services, and people preferred to eat at home for health and safety reasons. Given the fast-growing target market, CURRYit was launched in 2020 with a specific mission: It would reduce cooking and cleaning time by up to 90% and bring home the taste of gourmet food. 

The New Delhi-based D2C brand offers 20+ products under three categories, including curry pastes, biryani paste and vegetable pastes. These FSSAI-approved products are preservative-free, chemical-free and do not contain refined oils, added sugar or trans fats.

However, they have a shelf life of nine months as Flexi-packs are used to reduce the presence of moisture. All products are made at the startup’s kitchen in South Delhi, and ingredients like spices and vegetables are sourced from local partner farms.

CURRYiT’s products are sold pan-India through its website and third-party marketplaces. However, it has not disclosed its revenue numbers but claims to be growing 30% month-on-month. According to the D2C brand, it has sold more than 100K+ products and grown 20x in the past two years.

The brand has seen a significant rise in demand among customers whose friends and families stay abroad and look for similar products to bring the taste of authentic Indian cuisines to their food items. So, it plans to build a robust supply chain by 2025 to export to countries like the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and others with a sizeable Indian diaspora.

Deciwood

Why Deciwood Made It To The List

Indians love listening to music and typically spend 21.9 hours per user per week, compared to the global average of 18.4. It also underlines their love for quality audio, and many prefer to use top-quality speakers with a series of filters for a customised experience. But half a decade ago, the audio journey was not so smooth.

Few homegrown hardware companies were around then. And the market for Bluetooth speakers was peppered with Chinese imports with not-so-perfect basses and trebles (the sound used to get distorted when the volume was high) or hugely expensive overseas brands which people could ill afford. 

Recognising this gap, three friends with a passion for music and an urge to make good quality, acoustically sound audio devices, launched the Deciwood Bluetooth speakers in 2018.

The New Delhi-based D2C brand combines the sound purity of a wooden medium with its patented audio technology Energy Tube that channelises sound waves into the device to balance bass and treble and ensure minimum distortion. The wood-and-leather designs bring cottage core aesthetics to the streaming era, where the likes of Spotify come with sleek interfaces and high-quality audio.

Other features of this product line include batteries ranging between 1,200 and 4,500 mAh, 5-45W output, playback time up to five hours, Bluetooth 5.0 for a wireless range of 10-25m, hands-free calling, compatibility with iOS, Android and Windows, and FM, AUX, USB and SD card connectivity. Deciwood also personalises a user’s speakers by engraving their names, personal logos or music motto on the grills.

The audio hardware brand currently offers seven products, including five Bluetooth speakers, a pair of wired earphones and wireless earbuds, all sold on its website and ecommerce marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart and Nykaa. It is now looking to launch a soundbar and headphone range and generate INR 6 Cr in revenue in FY23. Deciwood also aims to grow its revenue by 15x to reach INR 100 Cr in another three years.

Fitspire

Why Fitspire Made It To The List

Protein is a critical nutrient, but its sources vary widely. Researches reveal that some plant proteins like soybeans, quinoa, spirulina and buckwheat are as good as animal proteins and contain the whole range of essential amino acids needed for our diet. But others lack one or more nutrients and require some careful mix-and-match (think of rice and beans, a perfect pair) and elaborate cooking to whip up a tasty and wholesome meal. However, today’s fast-paced lifestyle and ready-to-eat platters often put such nutritional discretion on the backburner, and people’s health tends to suffer. To fill this dietary gap, former Max Life executive Vipen Jain set up Fitspire, which helps people choose plant-based food alternatives for a healthy and green lifestyle.

Launched in 2020, the New Delhi-based startup has moved beyond traditional nutraceuticals and developed more than 50 FSSAI-approved vegan and vegetarian healthcare supplements. These include a wide range of multivitamin tablets, peanut butter, energy bars and healthy snacks.

Fitspire uses traditional Indian spices like turmeric, black pepper and cinnamon, and rich natural extracts like berberine, ginseng, ginkgo biloba and more. All products are made at the startup’s in-house plants at Paonta Sahib (Himachal Pradesh) and Greater Noida (Delhi-NCR).

The nutritional supplements startup claims to have served 50K+ users via its website, ecommerce marketplaces (Amazon, Flipkart) and retail chains (Apollo, GnC, WH Smith stores and others). It recently partnered with Delhi Metro and several domestic and international airports to offer healthy snacking products. 

Fitspire plans to reach 100K+ customers and targets a revenue of INR 10 Cr in FY23. But the long-term goal is to drive its revenue 50x (INR 500 Cr) by 2025 on the back of a fast-developing natural supplements market that will be worth $106 Bn in another five years.

Flexnest

Why Flexnest Made It To The List

Before the pandemic, the fitness industry thrived on brick-and-mortar gyms. But with Covid restrictions in place during multiple lockdowns, the segment eased into fitness apps and virtual sessions, home gym equipment and tech-powered fitness tools. In fact, home gyms ranked only second to wearables, according to a 2022 fitness survey.

To help the health-conscious and fitness enthusiasts get a smooth and effective ‘home gym’ experience, Raunaq Singh Anand and his wife Rhea launched Flexnest in 2021.

The Gurugram-based startup sells a wide range of connected and non-connected equipment and accessories, including smart cycles, rowers, cross trainers, treadmills, dumbbells, yoga mats, resistance bands, weighing scales and more. The products are designed in India but contract-manufactured and imported from Taiwan and China. Besides the hardware, the Flexnest app offers free trainer-guided classes and syncs with connected equipment for a seamless experience. 

The startup currently has 40 SKUs, sold pan-India via its website (70%) and third-party marketplaces (30%). Plus, it has set up an offline experience centre in Bengaluru, where users can try out the startup’s products and buy them online. The D2C brand clocked more than INR 37 Cr in FY22 and aims to increase its revenue by 2.5x to INR 100 Cr in the current financial year. In addition, it plans to set up experience centres in Indian metros and expand to GCC countries by 2024.

Floryo

Why Floryo Made It To The List

When it comes to daily nutritional needs, a standard food item does not serve all, according to FMCG veteran Manohar Kumar. Inspired by the age-old chakki (a milling technique) and the nutritional sufficiency of traditional foods, he tapped into custom flour mixes and launched the D2C brand Floryo in July 2022.

The Bengaluru-based startup makes different types of whole grain flours such as functional and customised multigrain flours, flour-and-veggie mixes and gluten-free items. It offers more than 40 varieties under five categories and does next-day, doorstep deliveries across the city. All its products are FSSAI-approved and freshly milled, processed and packaged in-house.

Floryo procures the grains – wheat, bajra (pearl millet), jowar (sorghum), ragi (finger millet) and more – from its partner farms across the country. It also offers online consultations from nutritionists and develops custom flours for individuals based on their health and dietary needs. 

The startup has a subscription model in place, sells products via its website and aims to clock INR 20 Cr in revenue for FY23 in spite of being operational for a couple of months.

Lauriko

Why Lauriko Made It To The List

Named after the chemical compound lauric acid, this D2C nutraceutical brand is the brainchild of second-time entrepreneur and nutritionist Lavanya Sunkari. When she learnt about the potential danger of consuming haircare and skincare supplements – these may increase the risk of liver failure – Sunkari deep-dived into veganism and came across lauric acid, a powerful substance extracted from many vegetable fats and known for its medicinal value.

After four food scientists worked on 24 lauric acid formulations and patented eight, Hyderabad-based Lauriko was launched in 2021.

Currently, the brand offers 10 products under four categories (haircare, skincare, multivitamins and snacks), and the entire range is made at a Bengaluru unit. The startup claims that each product contains 53% of lauric acid and enables 83% higher absorption of vitamins and minerals in the body.

Although Lauriko became commercially operational in April 2022, it claims to have served more than 30K users via its website and ecommerce channels. The brand eyes $1 Mn in revenue in FY23. Lauriko also plans to introduce malts, serums and liquids to its existing product lines by June next year and aims to reach 1.5 Mn users by 2025.