Be it rain or shine, summer or winter, fresh marginal fruit retailers from the National Capital Region routinely scour wholesale mandis at the crack of dawn to procure their daily stock. But by the time it reaches retail markets, much of the stockpile is sold at a fraction of its original value due to massive waste. In fact, nearly 18% of India’s fruits and vegetables are wasted annually, costing the economy an estimated INR 13,300 Cr, per a 2023 research by IJCRT. The global scenario also remains a cause of concern, with 40-50% of root crops, fruits and vegetables wasted each year.

Plugging these gaps is far more complicated than it may seem at first. Consider this: India is the world’s second-largest producer of fruits and vegetables after China. And it harvested 112.62 Mn metric tonnes of fruits alone in FY24. Yet, nearly 69% of smallholder farmers lack access to cold storage facilities within a 10 km radius of their land, according to a survey by Sambodhi Research and the Transform Rural India Foundation (TRIF). Additionally, there is a complex maze of challenges, including poor handling, lack of temperature-controlled transportation and delay in distribution, which systematically degrades product quality.

However, Fresh From Farm (F3), a B2B2C platform set up by Rohit Nagdewani in 2021, is now changing the rules of the game. By streamlining procurement, sorting, grading and deliveries, the full-stack platform caters to 400-500 marginal fruit retailers every day across Delhi NCR, including large- and small-format stores and stationery hawkers (fixed-location vendors, unlike door-to-door fruit peddlers). At any given time, its stock-keeping unit basket offers more than 15 premium products, depending on the season.

The startup sources fruits directly from farmers and orchards across India, cutting out intermediaries to reduce transit time and product costs.

“Fruits arrive at our central processing unit in Chattarpur at around 4-5 in the afternoon and are on their way to vendors the next morning. Vendors can place orders through F3’s easy-to-use app at night and receive their deliveries between 7:30 and 8 am, pre-sorted, pre-graded and ready for sale. This just-in-time inventory system prevents stock from piling up and minimises the time fruits stay in storage,” said Nagdewani. 

The platform also uses temperature-controlled storage and transportation so that the produce remains as fresh as possible upon delivery. 

Fresh From Farm has opted for machine learning algorithms to analyse sales and other relevant data and forecast the quantities and fruit grades a vendor can sell within a fixed timeframe. This predictive demand analysis ensures retailers stock only what they need, avoiding over-purchasing and excess inventory. Unlike traditional wholesale markets, F3 does not enforce minimum order quantities (MOQs), allowing retailers to buy what they need and thus reducing unsold stock.  

“We don’t just provide a service. We are solving a critical issue in India’s fruit supply chain,” said Nagdewani. “By managing everything in-house, we have better control over quality, can bring down post-harvest losses and maintain a just-in-time inventory system. These solutions reduce food waste and enhance food quality and safety.”

As the startup simplifies the chaotic pre-sales processes, retailers can skip their tedious early-morning trips to the mandis, negotiations with multiple suppliers and the hassles of sorting. Instead, they can focus more on their customers, sales and business development.

“Our business model has been a game-changer for marginal fruit retailers, giving them 18-20% more earnings than the traditional method,” claims Nagdewani.

F3 aims to achieve INR 300 Cr over the next 15-18 months and has introduced its private-label offering to reach the target. It sells branded fruits across five categories – apples, blueberries, kiwis, watermelons and bananas – and claims that 15-20% of its revenue now comes from private labels. The startup has raised $2.5 Mn and is reportedly in talks to raise another round to fund its growth.   

From Automotive To Hydronics To Fresh Fruit Supply: An Evolving Journey

Nagdewani is a serial entrepreneur whose journey is full of twists and turns. He started as an automotive journalist but soon launched an ecommerce platform selling automotive accessories. The business became a top seller in major marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart and ShopClues.

However, farming ultimately caught his interest. By 2017, he delved into hydroponics (growing plants in nutrient-rich water instead of soil), intrigued by its vast potential in urban farming. The experience initially exposed him to the challenges faced by farmers, from inconsistent demand to supply chain inefficiencies. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the idea for Fresh From Farm began to take root.

“We produced exotic herbs and vegetables at Farming V2, my hydroponics startup. Then, the pandemic struck and disrupted the traditional supply chain. So, I took it upon myself to deliver fresh greens to society stores, ensuring uninterrupted supply during a critical time. That was when customers frequently asked for fresh fruits, and I saw the gaps in the supply chain. This got me thinking, and I pivoted from Farming V2 to Fresh From Farm for efficient, high-quality fruit procurement and delivery,” the founder said.

How Fresh From Farm Builds A Better Supply Chain With A Five-Point Strategy

Fresh From Farm’s operations are built on a technology-driven foundation, focusing on innovation, efficiency and sustainability. The B2B2C platform has developed a five-point business strategy and a proprietary tech stack, taking charge of the end-to-end solutions required by fresh marginal fruit retailers. Here is a quick look at F3’s key operational features:

Pan-India procurement for variety and easy access: The startup is operational in Delhi NCR, but the team has adopted a forward-thinking strategy and a big agenda. “We have a pan-India procurement team [about 8 members] that can get all seasonal fruits and transport them to our central facility in Delhi. By eliminating middlemen, our venture reduces inefficiencies and guarantees the freshest fruits straight from the source,” said Nagdewani.

Multigrade retailing for best business outcomes: Fresh From Farm segments its vendors based on their markets, consumer preferences (think of fruit varieties and quality grades in demand), purchasing behaviours and more for product and price matches. As retailers today also navigate a more complex landscape, where tailored product offerings and refined market strategies are crucial for a competitive edge, they can take a cue from F3 and adjust their approach to align better with their customers.

Tech for right stocking: As discussed, both low and overloaded inventories can be business deterrents, and retailers need to balance it right. Fresh From Farm provides ML-based, data-driven solutions to analyse past sales data, geographical factors and socio-economic conditions to forecast demand at a granular level. This means retailers get the right amount of produce, not more or less, thereby reducing overstocking and minimising waste. Its MOQ approach also prevents stock overloads. F3 redirects all unsold stock to alternative channels (like juice vendors), reducing wastage/spoilage to less than 2% at the organisational level. 

Packaging and delayed ripening for extended shelf life: The startup has invested in safe and approved methods to slow the ripening process. Plus, it works with agritech startups and incorporates innovative packaging solutions to extend shelf life, giving retailers more time to sell their stock.

An intuitive app to help retailers: Fresh From Farm’s full-stack app is a central hub for all logistics operations. It allows retailers to place orders seamlessly, manage their purchases and maintain a demand-supply balance to minimise waste.

Can F3 Carve A New Path For Fresh Fruit Distribution In India?

Easy access to fresh fruits is an attractive idea that millions of health enthusiasts embrace, especially in post-Covid times. The market projections sound encouraging as well. According to Grand View Research, the market revenue from fresh fruits is estimated to reach $78.6 Bn by 2028 from $57 Bn in 2020, at a CAGR of 4.1% during 2021-2028. Moreover, the Asia-Pacific held a dominant market share of 42% in 2021 and is estimated to be the fastest growing during 2022-2027. Globally, the market may reach $940.8 Bn by that time. 

Given these positive indicators, it is not surprising that Fresh From Farm has ambitious growth plans to pursue over the next few years. In the short term, it will onboard more retailers in Delhi NCR to deepen market penetration and increase its market share through more SKUs and private labels. Apart from diversifying its product line, F3 will invest in technology and infrastructure to optimise its supply chain and enhance distribution capabilities.

Long-term goals include entering other major cities and growing its private labels, with 80% of its income from those offerings.

“Eventually, we aim to be a household name across India. With our operations combining quality, sustainability and innovation in fruit distribution, we can scale rapidly and address key issues in India’s broader food supply chain,” said Nagdewani.

What Fresh From Farm is trying to address is by no means trivial. Its innovative approach deals with food waste, inconsistent food quality and supply chain inefficiency, which plague the broader agricultural sector. Therefore, it can shine a light on how fresh produce, irrespective of categories (fruits, vegetables, crops or something else), can reach pan-India consumers in a timely, cost-effective and sustainable manner.

As the startup and its peers scale up, it will be interesting to observe how they continue to innovate and drive change across the Indian food distribution landscape.

The post How Fresh From Farm Is Helping 500 Fruit Retailers Earn More appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Modern technology is revolutionising industries, driving innovations in smartphones, autonomous vehicles, and advanced AI systems. As India strives for self-reliance in technological advancements, the country has seen a rapid rise in advanced technology startups.

At the core of this transformation lies the semiconductor industry and the government’s intention to give this space a much-needed push.

In 2021, the government launched the Semicon India programme, committing INR 76,000 Cr to incentivise silicon semiconductor fabs, display fabs, compound semiconductors, and more. 

A year later, the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) was introduced to establish India as a global hub for electronics manufacturing and design. 

The Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme, part of the ‘Semicon India Future Design’ programme, is one of the many initiatives that offers financial and infrastructure support to boost semiconductor development. It focusses on areas like integrated circuits (ICs), chipsets, Systems on Chips (SoCs), and related designs.

The ‘Make in India’ initiative further reinforces efforts to reduce dependency on imports and strengthen the domestic tech ecosystem. Not to mention, partnerships with global semiconductor giants, including AMD, Micron, and Qualcomm, have complemented these initiatives.

In February 2022, the Tata Group, in collaboration with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC), secured approval to establish India’s first semiconductor fab. 

However, this is not India’s first stab at doing something notable in this sector. The country’s journey in the semiconductor space dates back to 1976, with the establishment of the Semiconductor Laboratory in Mohali, Punjab, under the leadership of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. 

Years later, new-age startups have formed a beeline to chase the country’s semiconductor dream that could potentially transform the world for good. 

Amid this and the rising demand for faster and more efficient chips, Indian startups are exploring diverse opportunities in this space. According to an Inc42 report, the Indian semiconductor market is projected to become a $150 Bn opportunity by 2030.

Investor interest in the sector surged in 2024, with funding for semiconductor startups exceeding to$28 Mn from $5 Mn in 2023. Chennai-based Mindgrove Technologies led the way with $8 Mn in funding, followed by FermionIC with $6 Mn.

While much is yet to be achieved, here is the list of startups which are poised to shape India’s semiconductor future.

(Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the Indian semiconductor startups in alphabetical order. We will be updating this list periodically. If you would like to refer any startup, write to editor@inc42.com)

AGNIT Semiconductors

Established in 2019, AGNIT Semiconductors specialises in Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology. Headquartered in Bengaluru, the company focusses on designing and producing GaN materials (wafers) and electronic components primarily tailored for radio-frequency applications.

AGNIT’s GaN components find extensive applications in the defence and telecommunication sectors.

In 2023, the Ministry of Defence inked a contract with AGNIT for the design and development of advanced GaN semiconductors, slated for integration into the next generation of wireless transmitters for defence applications, including radars and electronic warfare jammers.

The founding team comprises Digbijoy Neelim Nath, Hareesh Chandrasekar, Madhusudan Atre, Mayank Shrivastava, Muralidharan Rangarajan, Shankar Kumar Selvaraja, and Srinivasan Raghavan.

According to the company’s website, AGNIT’s proprietary technology stems from over 15 years of research and development conducted at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

In October 2024, the startup secured $3.5 Mn (INR 29.4 Cr) in a seed funding round co-led by 3one4 Capital and Zephyr Peacock. The company counts the likes of Infineon Technologies and Innoscience as its competitors. 

Aura Semiconductor

Founded in 2011 by Srinath Sridharan, Aura Semiconductor or Aurasemi is a fabless semiconductor company that designs and supplies the industry with mixed-signal IC solutions for various applications. 

The startup specialises in high-performance products for markets, including IoT radios, enterprise timing, and portable audio. 

It makes products in categories such as timing, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), power, RF, IoT and sensors. Recently, Nasdaq-listed precision timing company SiTime Corporation acquired all time-related products from Aurasemi.

Headquartered in Bengaluru, Aurasemi also has its offices in China, the UK, and the US. Celesta Capital is one of the VC investors in the startup.

Blueberry Semiconductors

Bengaluru-based Blueberry Semiconductors is one of the leading very large-scale integration (VLSI) startups in India. It provides solutions and services in niche areas of ASIC/SoC, embedded product engineering supported by ML, industrial IoT and AI.

The 2017-founded startup delivers to clients on their latest and technically advanced projects in industries like aerospace, automotive, defence, AI, 5G, and RAM, among others. Its partners range from Intel and Mahindra to Microsemi and SanDisk.

CalligoTech

Calligo Technologies is a Bengaluru-based fabless semiconductor and systems startup serving segments like high-performance computing, Big Data and AI/ML segments globally. 

CalligoTech has developed a co-processor capable of doing computations using a new number system called Posit, which was invented in 2017. In June 2024, the startup unveiled an 8-core Posit-enabled RISC-V CPU named TUNGA. It claims to be the world’s first in doing so.

The company claims that TUNGA’s energy-efficient design results in lower power consumption and is scalable across a range of applications for HPC and AI. 

The startup is also a beneficiary of the central government’s DLI scheme.

Chipspirit

Founded in 2018, Chipspirit is a Bengaluru-based services and solutions provider in the semiconductor space.

Its application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) design services has a special focus on design and turnkey projects. On the other hand, it also claims to provide fully customisable hardware security solutions.

Chipspirit’s Abhed-1 is a dedicated secure hardware-based offline and online encryption device for transacting classified data over public or open Data networks.

The semiconductor company won the iDEX challenge in March 2019. It is now co-developing its hardware security solutions with Indian Defence under the Centre’s Make-In-India initiative.

As per MeitY’s website, Chipspirit is also one of the beneficiaries of its DLI scheme.

Cientra

Founded in 2015 by Uday Joshi and Sandip Kadtane, Cientra is a semiconductor solutions company, specialising in VLSI, ASIC, FPGA, SoCs, catering to telecom (4G, 5G, IoT), automotive (SDV, ADAS, connectivity, EV) and embedded software.

The semiconductor design solutions of the company include register-transfer level (RTL) design, design verification, physical design, and analogue design and layout offering.

Cientra is a multinational company with offices in India, the USA, and Germany. The company launched a vendor-agnostic 5G IoT aggregator solution in partnership with Amantya Technologies, which they claimed to be the ‘world’s first’.

In 2024, IT giant Accenture acquired Cientra to expand its silicon design and engineering capabilities.

FermionIC Design

Founded in 2020, Bengaluru-based FermionIC Design is a fabless semiconductor startup developing ICs for high-speed wireline and RF communication market. Its current product portfolio includes a highly integrated beamformer core chip in the silicon-germanium (SiGe) process that enables the X-band millimetre-wave communications for active electronically scanned array (AESA), sat-comm applications, and others. 

The startup’s mixed signal product family includes ultra-low-noise low dropout (LDO)-ICs, low-phase noise crystal oscillators and Serialiser/Deserialiser (SerDes) products. 

Founded by Gautam Kumar Singh, Prasun Bhattacharyya, Abhra Bagchi, and Shabaaz Syed,  FermionIC Design has remained bootstrapped so far. It claims to have multiple global and Indian OEM customers who are building their SoCs and systems using FermionIC products. 

In 2023, the Minister of State for Electronics & IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar announced FermionIC Design as one of the first set of startups selected under the government’s Semicon India Future Design DLI scheme. 

In 2024, FermionIC raised $6 Mn in a funding round led by Lucky Investment Managers’ Ashish Kacholia and his associates.

Incore Semiconductors

Founded in 2018, InCore Semiconductor is building 5th generation RISC/RISC-V processor cores in India. RISC or reduced instruction set computer is a microprocessor architecture that utilises a reduced number of computer instruction types, hence enabling systems to operate at higher speeds. 

InCore, founded by Arjun Menon, Gautam Doshi, GS Madhusudan, and Neel Gala, is headquartered at the IIT Madras Research Park. In 2023, the startup raised $3 Mn from Peak XV Partners.

The startup aims to make India a powerhouse in the RISC-V solution space. Its processor cores power high-performance application-class processors, area/power-optimised embedded processors, and more.

The startup claims to bring a high degree of automation to the processor and SoC design process.

InCore counts the likes of ARM, Andes Technology, and SiFive among its competitors. 

Mindgrove Technologies

Mindgrove Technologies is a Chennai-based semiconductor startup founded in 2021. It works in the space of design and production of SoCs. 

Incubated at IIT Madras, Mindgrove uses the indigenous RISC-V Shakti cores to power its chips. 

The startup is currently working on its inaugural chip, Secure IoT, which is designed for a range of consumer electronics devices, including TVs, washing machines, air conditioners, and refrigerators. Its multi-processor chip comes with security accelerators, a true random number generator, and one-time programmable memory.

Founded by Shashwath T R and Sharan Srinivas J, the startup secured $2.32 Mn in seed funding in 2023 led by Peak XV Partners. Its other investors include names like Speciale Invest and Whiteboard Capital. 

In December 2024, Mindgrove Technologies raised $8 Mn (INR 68.04 Cr) in its Series A funding round co-led by Rocketship.vc and Speciale Invest. 

Last month, the startup secured approval under the Government of India’s Semiconductor Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme, receiving INR 15 Cr to develop its new chip.

Morphing Machines

Morphing Machines is a fabless semiconductor startup building IP products and solutions. Its patented product ‘REDEFINE’ is a many-core SoC platform, in which domain-specific architectures (DSAs) for mixed critical application tasks are instantiated on demand of any event. DSAs are specialised and optimised hardware designs tailored to specific application domains or industries. 

Its technology serves various industries, including avionics, automobile, and telecom. Besides, ‘REDEFINE’ helps accelerate a host of applications for Big Data Analytics, Genome Analytics, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, Large Scale Scientific Simulations, and immersive gaming and visualisations.

Morphing Machines has also received projects under the DLI and Chips2Startup (C2S) schemes from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

Launched through the Technology Entrepreneurship initiative of the Indian Institute of Science at Bengaluru in 2005, Morphing Machines is a bootstrapped startup. Its founders are Dr S.K. Nandy, Dr Ranjani Narayan, and Deepak Shapeti. In June 2024, Morphing Machines secured $2.76 Mn in a seed funding round led by Speciale Invest.

Morphing Machine counts Intel, NVIDIA and AMD as its competitors. 

Netrasemi

Founded in 2020, Netrasemi is a Kerala-based Edge AI semiconductor technology company building SOCs to enable the new-age need for optimal computing for smart IoT products. Netrasemi has a power-efficient deep-neural AI acceleration core (NPU) and a rich portfolio of silicon IPs to enable this. 

Its key target segments are surveillance, smart sensors, smart infrastructure, machine vision and industry 4.0, robotics, drones, and autonomous vehicles, among others.

The company’s domain-specific architecture (DSA), IP-rich SOCs, AI development tools,  flexible SDKs, and platform reference designs help IoT product and solution makers to go to market with cost-effective and power-efficient advanced AI chipsets catering to their specific domains.

Its A2000 SOC has smart vision capability with advanced real-time video analytics and vision processing capabilities. On the other hand, NETRA-R1000 is a RISC-V-based SOC for smart sensor applications.

Netrasemi is also a beneficiary of the Central government’s DLI scheme.

In December 2024, Netrasemi raised INR 10 Cr (around $1.2 Mn) in a Pre-Series A funding round from Unicorn India Ventures.

Oakter

Oakter is an Original Device Manufacturer (ODM), which designs and manufactures electronic smart devices, including fintech giant Paytm’s revolutionary soundboxes.

Launched in 2015 by a founding team from IIT Delhi, the Noida-based Oakter soon became a leading name in the smart plugs market. In 2017, the startup became the launch partner for Amazon Alexa in India. 

In 2019, the startup pivoted to contract manufacturing. Over the years, Oakter fulfilled multiple B2B contract manufacturing orders from the likes of Sony (for its BRAVIA TV), Saregama (for Carvaan), and Syska, among others.

In 2020, Oakter collaborated with DRDO to manufacture Covid safety products.

With the emergence of new-age technologies, the startup has also collaborated with EV charging aggregation platform, ElectricPe, to develop its charge points.

Its early backers include IndiaQuotient and Flipkart founder Binny Bansal. As per publicly available data, the company is expected to have raised over $500K in total funding over the years.

RRP Electronics 

Founded in 2024 by Rajendra Chodankar, RRP Electronics assembles and tests semiconductor components to cater to the needs of automobile and telecom players. 

In September 2024, the company announced the launch of Maharashtra’s first semiconductor manufacturing OSAT/ATMP (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) facility. 

The first phase of the packaging facility setup started generating revenue in August 2024. The second phase, which is a pilot fab facility, began generating revenue in December 2024. Currently, it is developing existing facilities and expanding further. 

RRP Electronics a few days ago entered into a strategic alliance with US-based Deca Technologies to push its semiconductor capabilities, as per multiple reports. 

Saankhya Labs

The 2007-founded Saankhya Labs claims to be the country’s first fabless semiconductor solutions company. Based in Bengaluru, the startup manufactures integrated circuits (ICs) and other components for various satellite and broadcast applications, including 5G New Radio, direct-to-mobile (D2M) broadcast, rural broadband connectivity, and satellite communication modems for IoT applications.

The startup also claims to have developed the world’s first production Software Defined Radios (SDR) chipsets, which enable converting radio signals into electronic signals and vice versa for a wide range of applications, including, but not limited to, smart TVs and set-top boxes.

Founded by Parag Naik, Vishwakumara Kayargadde, and Hemant Mallapur, Saankhya Labs is a subsidiary of listed broadband and wireless networking company Tejas Networks. Its former backers included the likes of Intel and General Motors, who exited the company a few years ago.

Recently, in February 2024, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) approved Saankhya Labs’ application to the Centre’s semiconductor Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme for the development of a System-on-Chip (SoC) for 5G telecom infrastructure equipment. 

As per publicly available data, the company is expected to have raised around $18 Mn in total funding. However, Inc42 couldn’t independently verify the exact amount of funds raised so far.

Sensesemi

Founded in 2014 by Vijay Muktamath, Sensesemi builds the next-generation secured connected AI Edge chip for varied applications in the field of Industrial IoT such as smart appliances, healthcare, and automotive. Its flagship product is named SenseSoC.

By embedding AI capabilities directly onto the chip, it claims to enable edge inferencing, bringing real-time decision-making to the devices.

Sensesemi also won financial support under the Centre’s DLI Scheme earlier this year. 

On winning the government support, company founder Muktamath said, “As part of the DLI Scheme, Sensesemi will be developing the SoC for IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) and IoT devices, that shall have MCU and wireless IP integrated with ultra-low power analogue front end with AI inferencing IP.”

SignOff Semiconductors

Founded in 2015, Signoff Semiconductors is one of the pioneering Indian startups in semiconductor design services. 

Involved in very-large-scale integration (VLSI) services, the company has developed in-house capabilities to help customers with the designs of ICs — both application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) — that function in the areas of AI, ML, Edge IoT, as well as general-purpose processors.

Signoff claims to serve its clients with a range of services, including physical design, full custom analogue and digital custom layout and verification, register-transfer level (RTL) design, verification, embedded, and firmware.

The semiconductor company has served domains such as automotive, medical, connected edge, and consumer electronics.

Signoff currently has offices in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Toronto, and the US.

Silectric Semiconductor Manufacturing 

Founded in 2024, Silectric Semiconductor Manufacturing is a Zoho semiconductor venture specialising in manufacturing silicon carbide and compound semiconductors. 

The company is looking to set up a semiconductor manufacturing unit near Mysuru at a cost of INR 3,425.6 Cr. 

Silectric plans to establish a silicon carbide-based fabrication facility and an assembly, testing, marking, and packaging (ATMP) unit. 

Silizium Circuits

Hyderabad-based Silizium Circuits is an analog radio frequency (RF) IP focussed company. It develops indigenous IPs for a range of wireless applications, including 5G, IoT, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), smart mobility, AI, and ML.

Founded in 2020, the startup aims to replace analogue RF IP imports in India with indigenous Silizium Circuits’ IPs by 2025 and become the largest analogue, RF, mixed signal IP exporter from India by 2030.

In 2021, Silizium Circuits became one of the eight NXP FabCI 2021 cohort qualifiers, which is a two-year incubation and acceleration programme.

Founded by Rijin John and Dr Arun Ashok, Silizium Circuits also provides a faculty upskilling programme to guide, train, and upskill the electronics/electrical faculty community in the country. 

Terminus Circuits 

Founded in 2010 by Dr Sankar Reddy, Terminus Circuits designs and develops high-speed serial links, which are a type of communication protocol that transmits data in a single differential signal, enabling data and clocking information to be sent simultaneously.

The startup claims to offer a one-stop solution for all Serialiser/De-Serialiser (SerDes) designing. Besides, ethernet SerDes, it is also a leading provider of PCIe (peripheral component interconnect express), USB (Universal Serial Bus), and MIPI (mobile industry processor interface) to OEMs for big data, AI, ML, server chips, and 5G applications.

Terminus Circuits has a partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), one of the biggest chip producers in the world. 

VASBEAM

VASBEAM is an advanced electronically steered antenna (ESA) design and semiconductor design company. It offers turnkey solutions to defence, aerospace, civil, and maritime industries.

As a beneficiary of the Centre’s DLI scheme, VASBEAM has successfully completed a tape-out of its core beamforming IC product line, which operates within the 800 MHz to 18 GHz frequency range. This product line supports various applications, including radars, satellite systems, 5G communication systems, and more.

The startup has developed an antenna testing device (VASATD1) to enable accurate measurements of the antenna array, among other products.

Vervesemi

Incorporated in 2017, Vervesemi is a fabless semiconductor company developing application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for sensors and wireless devices.

The company has two business verticals – Analog-RF ASIC-Data converters and Analog IPs. It develops products and analogue IP solutions for various semiconductor application markets, including energy, 4G/5G market, medical, consumer, and smart power.

Noida-based Vervesemi currently has two design centres in India. Earlier this year, it announced the launch of India-made semiconductor ASIC.

MeitY in 2023 announced Vervesemi among the first set of startups selected under the Semicon India Future Design DLI scheme.

The startup claims to have over 25 patents in its kitty.

This is a running article, we will keep adding more names to the list. If you would like to refer any startup, write to editor@inc42.com.

Last updated on January 23, 2025

The post Meet 21 Semiconductor Startups Powering India’s Technological Prowess appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Just like binary numbers (0 and 1) form the foundation of computer systems and digital information, the fundamentals of the world of biotechnology are based on genetic codes — A, T, C and G. 

With permutations and combinations of these codes and programming and reprogramming, scientists have been able to modify the DNA of plants, animals, microbes, and even insects to address various challenges in medical science and find new avenues in various industrial use cases. 

For example, researchers at the University of Oxford are working on producing green hydrogen by bioengineering bacteria. Similarly, bioengineered bacteria are also being used to break down toxic compounds, including plastic waste, and produce biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels. And we have barely scratched the surface here. 

In these, precision fermentation often plays a key role. This specialised technology uses genetically engineering microbes with specific traits to produce targeted proteins, enzymes or bio-compounds that are further helpful in the manufacturing of biofuels, bio-materials, and specialised chemicals.

In India, Bengaluru-based Fermbox Bio is using precision fermentation and synthetic biology to programme microorganisms and produce bio-based enzymes and technologies to produce biofuels and manufacture cosmetics and industrial dyes for textile use.

Competing with global giants such as Novozymes and chemical companies like DuPont and BASF, which are also working on building bio-based materials, Fermbox Bio is part of the global precision fermentation market opportunity that is expected to grow to $57.01 Bn by 2032.

Building From India For The World

Fermbox Bio’s founder and MD Subramani Ramachandrappa started his entrepreneurial journey by founding Richcore Lifesciences in 2000, which was later acquired by Laurus Labs (now known as Laurus Bio). 

With Ramachandrappa at the helm, Richcore made several advancements in producing sulfur-free white sugar, treating industrial wastewater, reducing sugar loss during molasses storage, and minimising chemical use in processes like leather and grain processing.

With over two decades of experience building Richcore and working with Biocon, Ramachandrappa cofounded Fermbox Bio in 2022 with Preeti Dharmagoudar, who also brings more than 20 years of experience in building businesses at companies like Abbott Nutrition and Biocon.

“Fermbox Bio was set up after I realised that biotech needs to change and become more collaborative,” Ramachandrappa said.

“Computers have access to tech from hundreds of companies, but in biotech, we don’t have access to such large datasets. Thus, we try to do everything in-house and it takes much longer that way. So, at Fermbox, we are building a global collaborative model for biotech, the first of its kind,” he added.

Fermbox Bio functions as a biofoundry and a large-scale manufacturing startup of synthetic bioproducts. By replacing plants, animals and harsh chemicals for various industrial applications, the startup aims to build sustainable alternatives to traditional colours and dyes, flavours and fragrances, and fuel using microorganisms.

Currently, the company has developed three products — EN3ZYME, which is already commercialised, and Synbio-Indigo and Bio-hexenol, which are yet to be commercially launched.

Fermbox works in an asset-light business model and has raised $2.5 Mn so far to build its tech capabilities. The startup is backed by the likes of Speciale Invest and 3one4 Capital, among others.

Unison Of Rich Tech Capabilities & Strong Business Model

Fermbox Bio’s biofoundry in India is where gene-modified microbes are designed. Further, partnerships with larger companies have helped it scale production for commercial use. 

The startup has already entered a partnership with Thailand-based BBGI to establish an $80 Mn precision fermentation facility in Thailand.

Ramachandrappa said that synthetic bio companies fail in two main areas — developing cost-effective products and building a plant.

“We have passed these two and are clear about what we want to scale. That makes us very potent as a growth-poised company. We modify the gene, put it in a host, and ferment it. Although this has been happening for 60 years, the key is to select the right product. We are not operating in the biopharma space because this segment is crowded and has hoards of the whole regulatory process. We are targeting areas that can help scale both biopharma and food,” he said.

For instance, he said that lanolin from Vitamin D3 commonly comes from the wool of the sheep. However, with Fermbox’s technology, this base material for producing Vitamin D3 can be done without exploiting the animal, which makes it a vegan, more sustainable and scalable source of the vitamin.

India has been highlighting the importance of biofuel since 2018. In the National Policy of Biofuels 2018, the country has also set a target of 20% ethanol blending in petrol and 5% biodiesel blending in diesel by 2030. In 2020, the ethanol blending target was advanced to 2025. 

As a major step towards building biofuels, Fermbox has developed a cellulosic enzyme cocktail, EN3ZYME, designed for the efficient conversion of pre-treated biomass (agricultural waste) into fermentable sugars. These sugars are then fermented into ethanol.

The startup claims to be the only Indian company to be able to develop this enzyme, solving a major cost challenge for the Indian government and energy companies working on bioethanol.

Fermbox Bio intends to onboard at least three customers and is targeting INR 500 Cr in revenue in the next two to three years. Its facility in Thailand, which is becoming operational soon, will have 4 Lakh litres of production capacity of EN3ZYME.

“Our idea is to create a use case, show big companies the margins, and then build facilities in Eastern Europe, India, Africa, and wherever there’s sugar and waterbodies around,” the founder said.

In terms of revenue, Fermbox Bio is aiming to clock $3 Mn in revenue in its first full year of operations, FY25. It eyes $10 Mn in revenue by FY26.

The startup also provides services to companies developing other products, such as dairy, using precision fermentation.

What’s Next For Fermbox  

Fermbox Bio’s plan is to double down on engaging with its potential customers this year, given its facility is almost up and running.

Besides, the startup is also working on developing a sustainable alternative to traditionally produced indigo dye, which can be used in textile and personal care products and as a sustainable alternative to cis-3-hexenol (aka leaf alcohol due to its strong odour of freshly cut grass), which is traditionally produced by cutting pine trees or grasses used in cosmetics, food, flavour, and fragrances.

In the next one year, Fermbox Bio wants to launch cis-3-hexenol commercially and onboard at least two to three customers. After building a strong R&D capability based in India, the startup also wants to strengthen its R&D capability in the US where it recently set up a subsidiary.

The company is also in the process of raising $15 Mn in its Series A funding round to scale its R&D capabilities and product development. 

Meanwhile, though opportunities are aplenty, scaling the business could be a challenge, especially in the presence of giants like Novozymes. On the other hand, the Indian government’s policy support is also limited.

Though there are intentions and discussions around building biomanufacturing and biofoundries in India, the government last year approved INR 9,197 Cr towards the same. However, according to Ramachandrappa, this amount can only do little and the outlay must be expanded along with its allocation.

“The government has just started supporting biomanufacturing, but the quantum of funding needs to be improved if we want to compete with the US or China. Besides, the policymakers have to understand that biotech is a strategic long-term investment in our efforts to prepare for any unexpected shock, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, in the near future,” he added.

With that, it now remains to be seen if Fermbox Bio can scale its business in India and globally to help cut down on the use of harmful chemicals and animal and plant slaughter in making industrial products and processes more ecofriendly.

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post Is Fermbox Bio India’s Answer To A Biofuels-Led Future? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

With a significant rise in over-the-top (OTT) platforms in the country and an explosion in user-generated content in recent years, we are consuming information like never before, so much so that an Indian netizen has today broken the language barricade.

Imperative to highlight that the shift is largely being driven by the pan-India release of content on OTTs and nationwide theatrical launches, all being facilitated by original content dubbed in different languages.

Films like Pushpa and RRR have proven that language is no longer a barrier for Indian viewers.

While regional films are being dubbed in Hindi and other languages, the reverse is also happening. In addition, international languages beyond English, such as Korean and Spanish, have been welcomed with open arms — think Squid Game and Money Heist.

At a time when much looks promising, a major headache for the industry is to sync the audio with lip movements.

While this could seem like a simple fix to many, the truth of the matter is that it is not, as even a slight mismatch can spoil good content.

It is precisely this space that Bengaluru-based NeuralGarage has found its niche and now plans to rule with its AI-powered solutions.

Founded in 2021 by Anjan Banerjee, Subhashish Saha, Subhabrata Debnath and Mandar Natekar (batchmates at IIT Kanpur), NeuralGarage offers tech that syncs the audio with the lip and facial movements of an actor.

Unlike traditional speech-to-text solutions that create dubbed content, the tech enhances and perfects the synchronisation of dubbed content.

The Ballad Of NeuralGarage

After completing their studies, the three cofounders decided to embark on the road less travelled, forgoing traditional career paths to embrace entrepreneurship.

Their first startup, VisageMap, founded in 2021, focussed on facial recognition technology and was acquired within a year by a US-based facial recognition company, FaceFirst.

Following the acquisition, they worked as research scientists in the US, gaining extensive expertise in facial recognition technologies, which also laid the groundwork for their deep understanding of generative AI.

Interestingly, until 2020, developing technology that could seamlessly sync with audio with facial movements wasn’t on the cards. But then the pandemic hit the world, giving a majority of the world’s populace enough time to engage in activities of their choice or to find new ones. During this time, Banerjee’s liking grew towards Korean content. And while he turned into an avid watcher of Korean media, dubbing was an area, he said, needed a major overhaul back then.

The more (Korean content of his interest) he consumed, the more prominent the gap became to him, until he finally had a late-night epiphany.

“We had created faces before. What if we could control them? Could this have applications in other industries, too?” the questions Banerjee would ask initially.

When he shared this with Saha and Debnath, it sparked discussions about the potential use cases, particularly in the media and communication sectors.

With all hands on deck, they envisioned scenarios like real-time multilingual interactions. However, as they evaluated the possibilities, they recognised the media industry’s willingness to invest heavily in dubbing as the smallest of changes in audio cost them a lot.

Their prior expertise in generating faces was now converging with an entirely new stream — synchronising facial movements with audio to create natural expressions.

As they shifted their focus to the media industry while developing VisualDub, they connected with Natekar, a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience in media and entertainment.

Having worked with leading companies like Viacom18 and Turner International, Natekar brought industry expertise.

In the early stages, the team sought feedback from key players in the entertainment industry, meeting with representatives from over 50 studios.

These interactions helped them refine their vision and solidify their understanding of the industry’s needs. Initially, Natekar joined as an adviser. At the time, there was no discussion about floating a startup. In fact, Natekar was planning to explore new job opportunities.

However, as conversations progressed, it became clear that the team’s combined strengths— technology expertise and deep industry knowledge — offered a unique advantage. This synergy led to the formation of a founding team for their venture in the media-tech space and the birth of NeuralGarage.

Building NeuralGarage’s Proprietary Tech

Speaking with Inc42, Debnath said that ever since Banerjee discussed his peeve with them, the cofounders knew that they were looking at a disruption. They recognised the need to build a proprietary model as no existing solution across any vertical met their requirements.

A big challenge they encountered was the vast difference in data quality across platforms. For instance, YouTube content, even in 4K resolution, might go up to 3-4 GB per video. The same video on Netflix could scale up to 200 GB, while a theatrical release might reach 600-700 GB.

“Most algorithms and systems in use today are designed to work with lower-quality data, typically consumed on platforms like YouTube or TV,” he said.

Hence, for tasks involving video manipulation, computer vision, or machine learning, the team had to engineer everything from the ground up to accommodate the high-resolution requirements of theatrical and Ultra HD content.

“Imagine you see a face on a screen. From a distance, it looks flawless. As you get closer, you might notice blemishes, pimples, or fine lines. With ultra-high-definition content, the smallest imperfections become noticeable. If you’re syncing lip movements for content meant for mobile phones, where the resolution is lower, such details might not matter. But for theatrical content shot in extremely high definition, every detail is pixel-perfect, and any flaw becomes immediately visible,” the cofounder said.

Its proprietary tech, VisualDub, helps maintain the original shoot’s integrity and creativity, no matter the platform. Currently, the startup brings two key offerings to the table. The first is its ability to deliver seamless lip synchronisation, ensuring that dubbed content appears completely authentic, meeting broadcast-quality specifications.

In addition, it also offers voice cloning, a natural complement to lip sync. For instance, imagine a Hrithik Roshan film being dubbed in Telugu. Traditionally, a Telugu dubbing artist would provide the voice, but it wouldn’t sound like Hrithik Roshan’s. With VisualDub, the dubbing artist’s audio can be transformed to match Hrithik’s voice, maintaining his distinct tone, timbre, and style.

While the startup aims to serve the entire media and entertainment industry, its primary traction so far has been in the advertising sector. Currently, the company is collaborating with 30-35 major clients, including industry giants such as Amazon, Coca-Cola, Ultratech Cement, Dream11, Nestlé, Unilever, and Britannia.

In terms of pricing, the startup charges between INR 2 Lakh-2.5 Lakh per minute of content for advertising projects. However, for feature films and other media projects, the pricing varies. The startup is preparing to announce its first film-related project soon. It has 5-6 media projects currently in the pipeline. In FY24, the founders claim to have garnered $35K in revenue. They are expecting to close FY25 with $450K.

What’s Ahead For NeuralGarage

The founders have identified three key goals for the next 12 to 18 months to strengthen their position in the media and entertainment technology sector.

First, they plan to develop and launch a downloadable desktop version of their proprietary VisualDub software within the next year, Natekar said.

To support this expansion, the company is preparing to close its Series A funding round. This funding will enable them to enhance their research and development capabilities and fast-track their go-to-market strategy.

Additionally, the founders aim to transform the startup into a $3 Mn to $3.5 Mn revenue brand within 18 months. This growth is expected to be fuelled by the startup’s strategic partnership with UFO Moviez, per the founders.

The startup is also engaging with global advertising agencies in regions like Singapore and Malaysia to explore opportunities.

The company is also actively targeting the United States. Plans are also underway to open a representation office in Los Angeles to build relationships with studios, directors, and other key stakeholders in the entertainment industry.

While there is no doubt that perfect lip-syncing in dubbing would remain in demand as content creators across the world aim to break language barriers, scaling a startup in the media-tech space could be challenging due to reasons galore, including capital-intensive.

Besides, gaining the trust of traditional media and entertainment companies and raising awareness among potential clients is tricky. However, what’s interesting is how NeuralGarage plans to turn the tables with its cutting-edge solution in the not-so-distant future.

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post How NeuralGarage Is Fixing The Dubbing Conundrum For OTTs Like Netflix, Hotstar appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The rising penetration of the internet and smartphones has turned India into an online shopping juggernaut, with more than 500 Mn online shoppers at its very heart. This has led to an exponential rise in the Indian ecommerce sector, which today comprises multiple subsectors and unicorns, expected to breach the $400 Bn mark by 2030.

Piggybacking on this, the Indian ecommerce sector became one of the top five most funded sectors in 2024. Besides, it was the frontrunner when it came to the deal count netted during the year. According to a recently-published Inc42 report, ecommerce startups raised a total of $1.5 Bn in 203 deals in 2024.

Under the vast realm of the ecommerce segment, D2C has emerged as a promising sub-sector. Notably, the D2C paradigm clinched more than half ($840 Mn) of the total funding raised by ecommerce startups last year. Besides, the ecommerce subsector accounted for nearly 80% of all the deals seen by Indian ecommerce startups in the just-concluded year.

Moreover, of the total $34 Bn poured into the ecommerce market between 2014 and 2024, Indian D2C has emerged as the second most funded sub-sector under the ecommerce umbrella, attracting 23% of the total capital infusion.

Well, there is little doubt about the fact that D2C is a high-octane space that has made itself lucrative to a large number of Indian entrepreneurs, both budding and established. But this is where the twist lies. Being a highly competitive space, D2C founders are often found groping in the dark to transition to their next growth trajectory.

In addition to challenges related to scaling up, they are under immense pressure to create unique products, build effective marketing strategies, create a sustainable customer base, and the list is far from over.

Identifying the peeves of early-stage D2C founders, we decided to do something about it. Therefore, we introduced D2CX, a 12-week programme aimed at helping 0-1 stage D2C brands chart their path to 10x growth and achieve INR 10 Cr in annual revenue.

Notably, Inc42 has been a key pillar of the D2C ecosystem since 2019, with IPs such as the 30 Startups to Watch and the FAST42 rankings to empower the community.

The inaugural cohort brought together 48 early-stage founders, who dedicated over 150 hours to accelerate their brand growth through intensive learning and development. With its grand success, we paved the way for our second D2CX cohort, which was held between August 13 and October 24, 2024. While D2CX’s third cohort was concluded in the last leg of December 2024, registrations are open for the next set of leaders, who are keen on unlocking the true potential of their brands.

With that said, we invite budding founders to learn the ropes of trade from the crème de la crème of the D2C space. This is your time to get mentorship from the likes of CaratLane’s Avnish Anand, Noise cofounder Gaurav Khatri, Adarsh Sharma of FS Life, and Juicy Chemistry’s Pritesh Ashar — and we have barely scratched the surface here.

The application window for the fourth cohort of D2CX will open on February 27, 2025. But for now, here are the 38 D2C brands that were part of D2CX’s second cohort.

(Note: This is not a ranking. Names of the brands have been listed alphabetically.) 

 1. Adven Naturals

Founded in 2017 by Adesh Sharma, Adven Naturals is a D2C beauty brand that aims to solve personal healthcare issues with homoeopathy. Its products cater to various ailments, including those related to hair, skin, respiratory issues, digestive disorders, and general holistic wellness.

The Delhi-based D2C startup claims to fill the void created by allopathic and other forms of treatment with its personal care products. The D2C startup further aims to give a healthy lifestyle to its customers by combining the power of new-age beauty trends with homoeopathic solutions. It has also introduced a range of veterinary care products to its product portfolio.

According to the startup, it currently operates more than 50 stock keeping units (SKUs), garnering a monthly recurring revenue (MRR) of INR 5 Lakh. A larger portion of its revenue comes from offline sources. 

 2. Akinna Milano

Founded in 2022 by Sanchit Goyal and Annika Saraf, Akinna Milano is a D2C fashion brand which manufactures designer luxury leather handbags for women. Akinna offers a range of collections, including mini bags, shoulder bags, crossbody bags and more. Its portfolio of products also includes a range of business bags for a formal styling look.

Delhi NCR-based Akinna’s designs take inspiration from Italian culture. Based out of Italy, its team of designers take cues from the country’s craftsmanship and production techniques. This helps the startup give a touch of luxury and elegance to their finished products. The brand claims to use the finest leather from Italy’s esteemed tanneries.

Further, it also claims to have an MRR of INR 4 Lakh, all of which comes from sales made on its website.

 3. Bambino West

Founded in 2024 by Kanpur-based businessman Pankaj Mordani, Bambino West is a kidswear apparel D2C brand, which uses organic cotton and plant-based solutions that protect babies from skin infections.

The startup, also known as Bontots, uses Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certified cotton, which ensures that its clothing is free from any harmful chemicals or pesticides. Besides, it also incorporates ‘Heal Touch Technology’, a unique innovation that provides a soothing sensation for your little one.

The Kanpur-based D2C startup has a range of organic clothing for babies aged three months to two years. As part of its portfolio, it provides a wide range of baby apparel from sleepsuits, rompers, bodysuits and joggers to t-shirts and leggings.

Bambino has 20-50 SKUs, generating all its revenue through online sales. 

 4. BlingBagLite

Founded in 2024 by Vipin Agrawal, BlingBagLite is a D2C jewellery brand, which sells jewellery for daily wear. Mumbai-based BlingBagLite aims to target a mass female audience of fashion enthusiasts seeking affordability.

BlingBagLite provides a wide range of budget-friendly jewellery products from earrings, rings, necklaces, hair accessories and more. According to its website, the brand has more than 600 products with the highest-priced product at INR 799.

The startup claims to be selling its products across all pin codes in India. It claims to have an MRR of INR 50K and more than 50 SKUs under its belt. All its revenue from operations are generated through online sales. 

 5. Cannavedic

Founded in 2020 by Jajati Keshari Mohanty, Cannavedic is a cannabis-focussed healthtech startup that is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life by integrating the benefits of cannabis with the holistic principles of Ayurveda.

The Odisha-based startup sells products made with natural cannabis medications for various ailments such as stress, anxiety, pain, digestive care and sleep disorders. Its healthcare products include skin care creams, pain relief oils, gummies, herbal supplements and pet care products.

Cannavedic claims to generate close to INR 1.5 Lakh of MRR with 90% of sales coming from online and ecommerce marketplaces and the remaining coming from offline sources. 

 6. Cerene

Founded in 2022 by Neha Krishnakumar and Sneha Adimurthy, Cerene was founded with the idea of ‘Skinimalism’, which is encouraging minimal and mindful skincare routines and breaking the cycle of excessive skincare consumption by offering a capsule collection of products.

Cerene wants to help its customers minimise their skincare routines to just four steps–cleanse, treat, moisturise and protect. Currently, the Bengaluru-based D2C startup offers a moisturiser kit, which includes oil-free gel moisturising creams.

The D2C brand currently claims to hit an MRR of INR 2 Lakh, with 55% of its sales generating directly from its website and the rest through ecommerce marketplaces. 

 7. Chef De Beauté

Founded in 2024 by Saumya Gupta and Anand Gupta, Chef De Beauté (CDB) is a personal care D2C startup, which provides a range of products from body care, CBD foods and natural oils.

The Indore-based startup claims that its products are 100% vegan, 100% natural and free from over 25 harmful chemicals like sulfates, silicones, and parabens. Its line of products includes body wash, scrubs, ghee, and almond oils, among others.

The startup says that its most popular product is the Chocolate Coffee Body Scrub, made with melted chocolate and coffee, organic avocado oil, walnut and natural plant extracts. It claims to generate an MRR of INR 30 Lakh. 

 8. Cure By Design

Founded in 2020 by Daanish Matheen, Cure By Design is a healthcare and wellness D2C startup that manufactures hemp-based products, including CBD oils, balms and pain aid items.

Its portfolio of products includes hemp-based food and personal care products like shampoos, face wash and serums. The product portfolio also includes pet care items, ayurveda-based products and supplements.

The D2C startup also offers consultation services from cannabinoid (CBD) medicine experts and other alternative medicine therapy practitioners.

As of now, medical research does not say much about the health benefits associated with CBD-based products or the use of the same. But it is pertinent to note that back in 2018, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Epidiolex– a CBD oral solution for the treatment of seizures in patients two years and above.

 9. Dharishah Ayurveda

Founded in 2019 by Naman Dhamija, Dharisha Ayurveda is a health and wellness D2C startup that manufactures organic healthcare products. Its product portfolio also includes personal care products like shampoos and supplements.

The D2C startup sells self-produced products with certified production practices and claims to have more than 100 distributors all over the country.

Dharisha claims to hold a legacy of 100 years of operating through offline stores with the name Hakim Dhari Shah Pharmacy before recently moving to online-based selling of their products. The Ambala-based D2C startup claims to have an MRR of INR 40 Lakh.  

 10. Easybiznus

Founded last year (2024) by Vishal Nathani, Shoemato is a D2C shoe retail brand that sells a range of shoes from sandals, sneakers, flip flops, slippers and formals for men, women and kids.

The Mumbai-based D2C startup sells various brands, including Bata, Lancer, Sparx, Van Heusen, and Campus, through its website. Easybiznus claims to garner an MRR of INR 30 Lakh, with all its revenue coming from online sales.

It operates in the Indian footwear market, which is expected to reach $ 25.5 Bn by 2028, growing at a CAGR of about 12%.

11. Foundation Gift

Founded in 2022 by Rakesh Adak and Abhishek Koley, Foundation Gift is a D2C gifting platform for personalised gifting options that blend modern style with a personal touch.

Its portfolio includes the likes of custom car keychains to engraved bracelets. The brand also has a B2B revenue channel through which it provides corporate and bulk gifting options to its clients.

The D2C gifting brand claims to have an MRR of INR 40 Lakh, with all of its revenues coming from online sources.

12. Genetic Nutrition

Sandesh Prasanna Kumar founded Genetic Nutrition in 2019 out of his passion for fitness and a healthy lifestyle. \

Bengaluru-based Genetic Nutrition is a clean-label nutrition supplement brand, which targets athletes and gym enthusiasts. Its line of supplements includes whey protein powders, mass gainers, creatine, L Glutamine, and Probiotics.

The D2C brand has whey protein, supplements and probiotics. It also has vegan-based products and sports essential products for athletes.

Genetic Nutrition attracts an MRR of INR 18 Lakh with most of its revenues coming from offline sources. 

 13. Gobrionuts

Founded in 2023 by Sparsh Goyal and Madhu Goyal, Gobrionuts is a D2C brand, which offers over 50 types of premium dry fruits, nuts, seeds, and mixes.

Gurugram-based Gobrionuts claims to deliver fresh, quality-checked products sourced from trusted suppliers. The dry fruit retailer ensures the quality of its products through its vigorous selection of hand-picked products.

Gobrionuts offers a wide range of nuts, dry fruits, berries, seeds, foxnuts and dates. To further enhance the snacking experience of its customers, the D2C brand sells combo packs, which have a mixed variety of premium nuts, berries and seeds.

Gobrionuts also has a B2B channel for making revenue by offering bulk gifting options to its clients. Currently, 90% of its sales come from offline channels, 8% from marketplaces, and the remaining 2% through its website.

 14. Goenka Jewellers

Founded in 2006 by Arpan and Ashok Goenka, Goenka Jewellers is a D2C jewellery brand that sells a range of lab-grown diamond collections, including earrings, bracelets, rings, bangles and necklaces.

The startup claims to be one of the top lab-grown diamond manufacturers in India and produces its offerings in an eco-friendly and sustainable manner. The brand competes with the likes of Giva, Svaara, and Fiona, among others.

Goenka Jewellers claims to maintain an MRR of INR 50 Lakhs. All their revenues come from offline channels.

Goenka Jewellers operates in the larger Indian lab grown diamond jewellery market, which is projected to soar to a size of $1.2 Bn by 2033 on the back of growing disposable income and demand for such products.

 15. Gramiyum

Founded in 2016 by Srinivasan Janakiraman, Ravi Padmanaban, Prakash Chandran and Shivaraj Purusothaman, Gramiyum makes natural food products. It began by mastering traditional cold-pressed oils.

Today, the D2C brand has expanded its offering to over 200 essential products, including millets, pulses, pure ghee, and spices to promote a holistic lifestyle.

Chennai-based Gramiyum delivers to its customers all over India and claims to serve people in more than 25 countries. It claims to have more than 1 Mn satisfied customers. It procures seeds from trusted farmers and home-based women entrepreneurs. With its cold-pressed extraction techniques, it ensures the preservation of flavours and nutrients of oil.

Gramiyum clocks an average monthly revenue of INR 40 Lakh.

 16. HarGulbano

Founded in 2023 by Harnoor Gauba, HarGulbano is a modern, Kashmiri-inspired retail brand in the fashion sector. inspired by traditional Kashmiri design, it provides a wide collection of Kurtas, dresses and capes for women. It also has a special collection for summer and winter wear.

New Delhi-based HarGulbano aims to give a feeling of “royalty” to its customers with its collection of dresses and designs.

HarGulbano claims to hit an average monthly revenue of INR 2.5 Lakh with all its sales coming from its online channel. It operates in the Indian online fashion market expected to grow to around $35 Bn by 2029.

 17. Heel Your Sole

Founded in 2023 by Raj Bhagat, Vipul Bhagat, and Huda Siddiqui, Heel Your Sole is a D2C footwear startup providing a range of formal shoes, sandals, sneakers and loafers for men and women.

The Mumbai-based D2C startup claims to be offering handcrafted designer footwear of luxury quality at affordable prices.

Heel Your Sole generates revenue through its online channels such as its own website and other marketplaces such as Myntra, Amazon and Nykaa. It also has 12 stores, which are spread across six cities, including New Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Chandigarh, Patiala and Pune.

The D2C brand generates more than half of its revenue from its offline stores.

 18. IKIRU

Founded in 2021 by Alisha Chouhan, IKIRU is a D2C brand that offers a curated marketplace for furniture and decor items sourced from artisans and manufacturers across India.

Indore-based IKIRU aims to bring the best-curated home decor and furniture for their customers. It claims to collaborate with more than 120 artisans and manufacturers to offer high-quality products. It offers a plethora of products from furniture, tables, lights and lamps, kitchenware, and soft furnishing items.

It works with a team of interior designers and curators to offer more than nine aesthetic home decor themes for its customers, and it also has a B2B revenue channel for bulk inquiries for design firms, architects, real estate developers, luxury hotels and others.

Operating entirely online, 100% of its sales originates from its website.

 19. Innovitoy

Founded in 2021 by Ayush Jain, Nrup Patel, Pritesh Patel, Hari Krishna, and Parth Patel, Innovitoy is a D2C toy brand that caters to kids between three and eight years.

It initially started its operations during the peak of the pandemic by creating toys for babies such as rattles, dumbbells, and stacking toys. But, eventually, the founders realised that there was a bigger untapped market for toys, beyond babies.

Today, the Ahmedabad-based startup has expanded its offerings to include inferno toy guns, trucks and other construction toy sets for kids.

Innovitoy claims that its USP lies in its in-house R&D lab and manufacturing facility, which enables the company to create customised designs catering to diverse markets and cultures.

The D2C brand competes with the likes of established players like Funskool as well as homegrown companies like PlayShifu, Shumee, and Desi Toys, among others.

Innovitoy operates in the larger Indian toy industry, which is projected to become a $2.73 Bn market opportunity by 2027.

 20. Jivika Organics

Founded in 2016 by Rupesh Patel and Rahul Patel, Jivika Organics specialises in producing wholesome and healthy food products, which it claims to be free from harmful toxins, fertilisers and other chemicals. All its products are procured from local communities and tribes.

Hyderabad-based Jivika provides a range of healthy food products such as ghee, healthy sweeteners, spices, cold-pressed oils and more.

The D2C health and wellness startup also provides a range of A2 ghee products, which is considered a healthier alternative to regular ghee. Apart from online marketplaces and quick commerce platforms, Jivika’s products are available in more than 1,000 retail outlets across Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bangaluru, Pune and Hyderabad.

 21. Lakdi.com

Founded in 2017 by Nikul Raj Gupta Lakdi.com is a D2C furniture brand specialising in ready-to-use furniture designs for residential, office and hotel and restaurant spaces.

New Delhi-based Lakdi.com has a range of products as part of its portfolio from dining chairs, beds, sofas, wardrobes, conference tables, outdoor furniture and more. It also caters to saloon professionals with its range of products like portable saloon trolleys and facial steamers.

Lakdi.com’s designs are inspired by a range of countries such as Italy, Japan, France, Korea, Malaysia, China, the USA & Sweden, and it claims to manufacture its furniture from recycled raw materials.

It also provides installation, delivery and packaging services to its customers.

 22. Minikin

Founded in 2020 by Adhil Mohammed and Zeba Shamsudheen, Minikin provides a range of baby products such as car seats, strollers, walkers, cradles, newborn clothing, and toys. The retailer of D2C baby care products also offers health and hygiene merchandise like oral and nasal care products and feeding nests.

With an online presence, the Kozhikode-based D2C startup also has physical stores in Calicut and Malappuram. Minikin claims to generate a larger portion of its income from its stores.

Minikin competes with the likes of Firstcry, Herby Angel and SuperBottoms. According to a report, the Indian baby care market will be valued at $38.51 Bn by 2029.

 23. Nauvab

Founded in 2023 by Gautam Bali, Nauvab is a D2C footwear brand, which specialises in blending traditional Indian designs with modern footwear aesthetics. Bali comes from a family that has been involved in manufacturing leather products for decades.

New Delhi-based Nauvab offers a diverse range of design collections, including Peshawari, Jutti, and loafers, crafted for both leisure and festive wear. Nauvab has partnered with Aza and Pernia Pop Up (retailers of apparel brands) to make their products available through their respective retail stores.

Nauvab generates 60% of its revenue from its website and marketplaces whereas the rest comes from its offline store sales.

It functions in the Indian footwear market, which is pegged to reach $25.5 Bn by 2028, growing at a CAGR of about 12%.

 24. Neenu’s Natural

Founded in 2017 by Neenu Agrawal and Ankur Agrawal, Neenu’s Natural is a D2C food and beverages platform, which offers a range of sweets, snacks, energy bars, masalas, pickles and spreads made from natural ingredients.

Bengaluru-based Neenu’s Natural claims to produce food items with zero chemicals or added preservatives. From energy bars and sweets to spices, pickles and spreads, the startup’s food items are prepared in small batches, just like at home.

It is part of the Indian food processing market, which is expected to reach $1.2 Tn by 2027 from $866 Bn in 2022. 

 25. Poco Mico

Founded in 2024 by Karan Sahni and Vikrant Rai, Poco Mico is a kidswear D2C brand, which offers premium-quality and durable clothing for children. It also offers home care products for kids such as crib mattresses, cushion covers and mats.

The D2C brand offers a diverse range of products tailored to different age groups of children, featuring collections that include wedding wear, casual wear, and party wear for kids.

Poco Mico claims to use certified cotton material with soft skin touch technology providing comfort to children. Moreover, the used material retains its size and colour with no shrinkage problems.   

 26. Poppi Clothing

Founded in 2020 by Pooja Baheti and Amulya Baheti, Poppi Clothing is a D2C clothing brand for women. It provides high-street trends and styles inspired by cultures around the globe. It offers a wide range of women’s clothing.

Mumbai-based Poppi Clothing offers fashion under multiple categories such as evening wear, day wear, printed dresses and more. It also has a luxury fashion section.

The D2C fashion brand recently forayed into the jewellery space, offering earrings, rings and bracelets.

Poppi Clothing operates in the Indian online fashion market expected to become a $35 Bn market opportunity by FY28.

 27. Prathaa

Founded in 2016 by Sukanya Bhataacharya, Prathaa is a traditional handloom weaving fashion brand. The Mumbai-based D2C fashion startup collaborates with the weaver and artisan community of Kutch and Bengal, reviving the art of handloom weaving in the Indian fashion industry.

It provides a range of collections in women’s fashion from sarees, dresses, tops, pants, palazzo and more. The D2C fashion brand also has kidswear as part of its offering portfolio.

Prathaa offers various types of traditional fabrics such as Ajrakh, Jamdani, Kotpad,

Khesh that are made using varied weaving techniques. It also offers a reselling marketplace to its customers where they can sell their purchased items. Prathaa claims to clock an MRR of INR 7 Lakh.

 28. Routinely

Founded in 2024 by Kartik Katta and Spriha Baid, Routinely is a dietary supplements D2C brand, which offers multivitamin capsules. The healthcare startup claims that its supplement capsules help boost energy, metabolism, and immunity, enhancing and improving brain and heart health.

The D2C healthcare platform offers capsules for men and women of different ages. It claims to provide certified, 100% vegetarian and allergy-free products to its customers. Routinely manages to clock an MRR of INR 50K.

 29. Spellbound

Founded in 2023 by Ishita Shah and Raghav Gupta, Spellbound is a healthcare D2C brand, which provides supplements tailored for Indian women to help them during pregnancy.

It also offers pills and supplements to support women through Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and claims to reverse its symptoms in 90 days.

It also offers bundled products for pregnancy preparation and pre-pregnancy nourishment. With its offerings, Delhi NCR-based Spellbound aims to fight the issue of PCOS in females, which creates issues during pregnancy. According to a study, PCOS is the most common endocrine disorder in reproductive-age women worldwide, affecting 6%-15% of the population. Spellbound claims to clock an MRR of INR 80K.

 30. Suyu

Founded by Ghrinesh Bhagia and Nimehsa Bhagia, Suyu is a D2C organic skincare, haircare and bodycare startup. It has a range of products under its portfolio. Some of them include hair oils, shampoos, conditioners, creams, serums, face wash, and scrubs.

Hyderabad-based Suyu claims to use organic ingredients for all its products avoiding the use of harmful chemicals and synthetic additives. For instance, for its face wash, Suyu uses natural ingredients like sweet lime, turmeric powder, aloe vera juice, and essential oils of lavender and sandalwood, among others.

Suyu has also introduced Astaxanthin-based products to its offering, an antioxidant which protects cells from damage. Astaxanthin is an antioxidant that is said to have anti-inflammatory properties. It is good for joint health, eye health, and skin health. Suyu claims to generate an MRR of INR 3 Lakh.

 31. Terra Viva

Founded in 2023 by Tusharika Agarwal, Terra Viva is a furniture and home decor brand. The Panchkula-based D2C furniture venture claims to preserve the natural beauty of the wood used in its products. Its artisans select sustainable materials for the making of home decor products.

As part of its portfolio, Terra Viva provides lighting, tables, bookends, serveware and other home decor accessories to its customers.

The D2C startup’s designs reflect the true beauty of outdoor nature. For instance, its bookends are designed in the shape of fish, and animals like elephants. Moreover, its tables can be seen with a touch of vining plants, cactus and herbs to give a natural green look. Terra Viva currently clocks an MRR of INR 30K. 

 32. The Curl Co.

Founded in 2024 by Isha Mahabal and Rutvika Charegaokar, The Curl Co. is a haircare brand, which specialises in providing solutions for women with curly and wavy hair. Mumbai-based The Curl Co. offers a range of products from shampoos and conditioners to hair creams and serums for the nourishment of difficult-to-manage curly hair. Its products also protect from UV rays and pollution.

The company claims that its products are formulated keeping Indian hair and climate in mind. and with all-natural ingredients. The Curl Co. claims to incur a revenue rate of INR 6 Lakh per month.

The Curl Co. competes with the likes of Mamaearth, SUGAR Cosmetics and MyGlamm in a space in the Indian beauty and personal care space expected to breach the $46.6 Bn mark by 2032.

 33. The Zappy Box

Founded in 2018 by Prerna Taneja Mehrotra and Arpit Mehrotra, The Zappy Box is a D2C gifting brand, which specialises in occasional gifting, personalised gifting and custom corporate gifting with its more than 500 products part of the offering.

Apart from its B2C gifting channel, it also offers gifting solutions to corporates. Under its B2B arm, the Bhopal-based gifting platform has served Amazon, Uber, Google, Samsung and many others. Moreover, the gifting platform claims to have catered to more than 50,000 customers.

The Zappy Box claims to clock an MRR of more than INR 20 Lakh. A large chunk of this income comes from corporate gifting. 

 34. UniBlu

Founded in 2023 by Vrinda Girotra, UniBlu is a fashion lifestyle brand that offers streetwear and comfortable loungewear. Delhi NCR-based UniBlu provides a range of apparel, which includes t-shirts, co-ord sets, overshirts, dresses, shorts, hoodies, jackets, and more. UniBlu specialises in crafting fashion for people who are always on the go. Therefore, their styles seamlessly transition from streetwear to athleisure.

The D2C fashion brand also has a B2B revenue channel, offering customised designer t-shirts and hoodies for universities, schools and corporates under the brand name UniStreet. Under this offering, UniBlu has worked with notable companies like ITC, Mahindra Finance, IIM Bangalore and TEDx. It currently generates an MRR of INR 88K. It sells through its website and online marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart.

 35. Urban Mills

Founded in 2024 by Shivans Gupta and Bharat Singhal, Urban Mills is a D2C edible oils brand. The unique selling proposition of the brand lies in the fact that it offers natural cold-pressed oils to its customers. Cold-pressed oils are extracted without using heat or chemicals.

The New Delhi-based D2C startup offers a range of cold-pressed oils such as olive oil, groundnut oil, mustard oil, olive oil and virgin coconut oil. Urban Mills’ oils are also free from preservatives. The D2C brand attracts all its sales only through online sources. 

 36. Viah

Founded in February 2024 by Riddham Baahri and David Pritchett, Viah is a D2C skincare brand that offers various skincare products to help its customers deal with all skin problems, including acne, wrinkles, pigmentation, dark circles, sun care, sensitive skin and pollution.

Viah creates skincare formulations with globally sourced ingredients. Its product range includes moisturisers, serums, toners, cleansers, sunscreens, eye care, and more, typically priced between INR 549 and INR 1,699. The brand sells through its D2C platform and Amazon and is actively expanding its online presence across additional channels.

New Delhi-based Viah claims to use natural ingredients like oils, fruits, natural acids, honey and berries in its products.

Viah operates in the Indian cosmetic industry, which was valued at $8.12 Bn in 2023 and is expected to reach around $11 Bn by 2032, growing at a CAGR of roughly 4% between 2024-2032.

 37. WiseLife

Founded in 2020 by Prateek Kedia, WiseLife provides fashion lifestyle and accessories for yoga enthusiasts. WiseLife’s journey began with the founder’s journey to self-realisation and a simple desire to eliminate the stress, anxiety and unease that was affecting his mental and physical well-being.

The Delhi NCR-based D2C brand offers a range of products from yoga apparel for women to yoga mats, yoga props and other travel and lifestyle accessories. According to the company, it is a one-stop solution for all fitness essentials.

Apart from having an online presence, WiseLife has physical stores in Mumbai, Hisar and Bengaluru. The D2C apparel and lifestyle brand also caters to the bulk order requirements for fitness centres and yoga studios.

WiseLife operates in the Indian sports apparel market expected to grow to cross the $1.9 Bn mark by 2030.

 38. WishLuck

Founded in 2024 by Vishal Singh, WishLuck is a D2C toy brand. It offers a range of fun and educational toys to foster learning through play among kids. The startup also collaborates with educators and child development experts to ensure that its toys provide maximum educational value and safety.

The New Delhi-based toy brand includes remote control cars, educational interactive toys, soft toys and puzzles for kids up to five years of age.

WishLuck operates in the Indian toys market and is expected to breach the $4.4 Bn mark by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 10.6% between 2024 and 2032.

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post Meet The 38 D2C Brands From Inc42’s Second Cohort Of D2CX appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Day: February 19, 2024. The Company: The Wise Travel India Cabs (WTicabs), a mobility startup specialising in corporate car rentals and employee transportation services (CCR & ETS). The Achievement: The 16-year-old cab service debuted on the NSE SME platform at a 32% premium over its IPO price – at INR 195 against the issue price of INR 147.

The WTicabs stock saw a 48% premium in the grey market prior to its listing and was oversubscribed 160 times, with the retail allocation booked 108 times. The 94.68 Cr IPO was open for subscription from February 12-14, and the price band was INR 140-147 per share.   

If this sounds impressive, looking at two core elements may explain WTicab’s success story. First, it started operations before Ola’s ride-hailing service or the ubiquitous Uber hitting the Indian roads. Its founders – Ashok Vashist, Hema Bisht and Vivek Laroia – were seasoned professionals with decades of experience in the transportation sector. In fact, Vashist’s career spanned more than three decades and prominent roles across renowned car rental firms. It was the era when Mega, Meru and EasyCabs ruled India’s radio taxi services. 

The founding team’s thorough understanding of the corporate mobility sector, especially the rising demand for a reliable platform offering tech-driven and environment-friendly solutions, led to the launch of WTicabs in 2009. Its goal was to create a significant presence across the B2B value chain through car and coach rental and leasing, customised solutions for employee transportation, and airport pickups, drops and transit transfers. 

The company set up an asset-light model by partnering with local operators and deepened its market penetration beyond metros by reaching Tier I-III cities. It has also entered the B2C segment, providing city rides and outstation services for one-way and round trips. 

If understanding an industry inside out is the primary condition for business success, operational excellence through technology integration is next in order.

“It helped us gain a competitive edge within the transport sector’s grinding competition,” said founder and CEO Ashok Vashist. 

WTicabs has integrated AI-ML and cloud solutions for optimum fleet management and quick scalability and added electric vehicles (EVs) to support the green initiative embraced by most corporate houses. Besides, it has automated day-to-day operations like cab booking, billing and transactions, thus minimising human errors and speeding up hassle-free service delivery (more on its tech offerings later).

It caters to 500+ corporate houses and covers over 250 cities and 17 airports in India. The firm is also operational in Dubai and is working on other overseas plans. It earns through long-term corporate contracts, customised pay-per-use packages based on employee headcount, route complexity and operational hours, and cost-efficient pay-per-ride options for added convenience. Together, these models ensure competitive pricing and consistent revenue growth. WTicabs rode past the INR 400 Cr revenue mark in FY24 and eyes 20.25% in the current financial year.

How WTicabs Carved A Niche By Building Credibility, Staying Frugal

Corporate mobility has long been a critical challenge for businesses, primarily due to unreliable vendor services, high costs and an increasing need to meet safety and sustainability concerns. Managing employee commutes, airport transfers and fleet operations remains a logistical nightmare for many companies.

Given their professional exposure, Vashist and the other two founders were well aware of these gaps. They came together in 1996 when India’s economic expansion gathered momentum due to a supply surge fuelled by newly implemented reforms. The concept took shape through endless discussions over coffee and fructified after years of planning and deliberations.     

But producing a change in the corporate transportation paradigm or solving long-standing issues in an unorganised sector cannot be a journey without hurdles. 

“First, we had to convince large organisations why they should shift from their current vendors to WTicabs. That, itself, was a daunting task. Our team had to build credibility to assure corporate houses of our service services. However, operational challenges like fleet management, driver reliability and security issues persisted,” the CEO said. “Developing an in-house fleet management and cab-booking system also demanded technical expertise and a lot of upfront investments.”

WTicab’s asset-light model, steady revenue stream and overall frugal approach helped at the time. It started as a bootstrapped business, with the founders pooling their savings to fund the venture. It also minimised opex and ensured scalability and profitability by forming strategic alliances with local fleet operators. Plus, its focus on corporate client acquisition, long-term client relationships and service excellence quickly gained traction and helped establish a stable revenue stream. Additionally, the business reinvested its revenue to meet growth capital requirements instead of raising external funding.

“The initial challenges we faced served as benchmarks, paving the company’s growth path and leading to important milestones along that route,” said Vashist.

WTicab grew exponentially over the years, hitting a CAGR of 45.41% before the pandemic.    

From Coping With Covid To A Technology Leap For Growth

WTicabs demonstrated remarkable market expansion through a multifaceted growth strategy prior to the pandemic. The company leveraged a diversified service portfolio, including corporate transportation and airport transfers, which enabled consistent revenue growth. Strategic market penetration was achieved through fleet expansion and targeted partnerships with businesses and institutions, allowing WTicabs to establish a strong presence in both urban and semi-urban markets. 

When the pandemic struck in early 2020, public and private transportation was hit the hardest, as India slapped strict lockdowns time and again in the following two years. Urban mobility was literally crippled (locations where WTicabs used to run most of its business). The only silver lining: Covid-19 saw an inclination away from public transportation and a preference for private modes when travelling for essential activities.    

In a bid to cope with the near-zero revenue period of 2020–2022 and keep the business afloat, WTicabs reduced operational costs (through process streamlining and contract renegotiations with service providers/vendors), leveraged technology to comply with health protocols and diversified its services to include essential deliveries and employee transportation for critical sectors. The company also optimised resource allocation and prioritised workforce retention through flexible work hours and proactive support systems.

When the world emerged from the pandemic, the founders were keen to pursue new market dynamics for sustainable growth. Commenting on the post-Covid landscape, Vashist said the team was committed to empowering businesses and commuters facing mobility challenges. So, they decided to analyse emerging trends, delve deeper into digital-first solutions and fulfil specific requirements by customising their solutions.

For instance, the company took note of the hybrid commute model – a work arrangement where employees split their time between on-site and remote working – and adjusted its services accordingly. Customer trust was regained through advanced safety measures. And its in-house tech stack integrated advanced digital tools for process excellence and customer satisfaction. 

WTicabs now uses AI-ML solutions for route optimisation, predictive maintenance (PdM) and real-time tracking to ensure efficient fleet management. Plus, its adoption of cloud-based systems enables the company to scale quickly, providing seamless integration of new locations and services. 

It is also adding more EVs to the fleet and looking at alternative-fuel vehicles (bio-CNG and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles) as businesses increasingly adopt ESG standards today. Capital market regulator SEBI now mandates all listed companies in India to identify ESG risks and detail their mitigation strategy and contingency plans against those risks.

WTicabs’ Expanding Horizons

The Indian corporate mobility market is experiencing rapid growth as businesses increasingly seek reliable and efficient CCR & ETS solutions to support their employees. The ETS market, valued at $6.1 Bn in 2023, is projected to more than double by 2030, while the CCR market is expected to surge to $8.8 Bn from $4.7 Bn, according to Eco Mobility’s Red Herring Prospectus (RHP). 

Frost & Sullivan also indicates a new mobility market worth $90 Bn by 2030 as the global trend gradually shifts towards shared commuting instead of solo driving to workplaces. Given these projections, WTicabs and its ilk have huge growth potential and may bring new tech-driven modalities to the traditional work commute modes.

While WTicabs’ primary focus is the domestic market, the company has set its sights on global markets, including London, the Middle East and the Far East. It will also introduce new offerings such as car rentals, chauffeur-driven vehicles and shuttles.

The company will continue to scale operations in India, using data analytics to identify underserved markets and forge strategic partnerships with corporate houses and airport authorities. Its ability to innovate and scale quickly will set it on a strong growth path, ensuring it stays competitive in a rapidly evolving market.

The journey of WTicabs from a bootstrapped startup to a listed entity and one of the biggest corporate mobility service providers is a perfect blend of vision, innovation and resilience. It also proves that the transportation culture can change fast, and one should evolve just as quickly to be ahead of the curve. Vashist and his team had the insight and the speed. All they need now is global validation.

The post How WTicabs Transformed Corporate Mobility Space To Become A INR 550 Cr Brand appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Quick commerce is a rapidly growing sector within the consumer market. Initially focussed on delivering daily essentials to doorsteps, it is now evolving to influence consumer behaviour by offering a wide range of products, beyond just groceries, with extremely short delivery times.

This shift has not only transformed the nature of quick commerce but has also pushed established players like Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, and Zomato’s Blinkit to broaden their offerings. These companies are now venturing into electronics, clothing, and footwear, while also launching platforms for quick food delivery.

Notably, the three giants together reported over $1 Bn in revenue in FY24 while a report estimates that the quick commerce industry in India has seen a sales surge of 280% in the last two years.

Such has been its sudden rise that many project quick commerce platforms to eventually eat into the market share of traditional ecommerce platforms. 

Fearful of missing this opportunity, Flipkart has already entered the burgeoning space with “Minutes” and Amazon has begun piloting its quick commerce offerings under a new label called Tez. 

In addition to established ecommerce brands, a wave of new startups and conglomerates has entered the market, eager to replicate this success and claim their share of the quick commerce space. 

While Nykaa and Myntra have been experimenting with this for apparel deliveries, Swish wants to utilise the model to bring piping hot quick-to-prepare dishes to users within “10 minutes”. And this is just the tip of the iceberg as many new players in the ecosystem are now looking to emulate the growth trajectory of the “Trinity”.

As a new wave of quick commerce players and adopters continue to spawn, we thought of curating a list of companies planning to ace the “10-minute” delivery game in the country. Without further ado, here’s a look at the Indian quick commerce landscape outside of the Blinkit, Instamart and Zepto universe. 

Editor’s Note: This is neither an exhaustive list nor a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.

Meet India’s New Quick Commerce Brigade 

1. Amazon India

The Indian arm of the US-based ecommerce giant has been slow to jump on the quick commerce bandwagon. Despite the rising competition, Amazon plans to roll out its quick commerce vertical in the first quarter of 2025, even though its closest rival, Flipkart, already has made its foray into the segment. 

Amazon claims to be already building up to the launch, saying that it is strengthening its supply chain for grocery and essentials through Amazon Fresh and is currently targeting deliveries within 20 to 30 minutes.  

Earlier this year, its grocery delivery arm expanded its footprint to 130 cities, including Ambala, Aurangabad, Hoshiarpur, Dharwad, and Una, doubling its presence from about 50 Indian cities a year ago. 

Alongside, Amazon India has also been pushing for same-day deliveries across various product lines for its Prime membership customers as it lines up quick commerce foray.

2. Blinkit Bistro

Being one of the biggest players in the quick commerce game, it was only natural progression for Zomato-owned Blinkit to foray into the quick food delivery space. As part of its expansion plan to boost the top line, the Albinder Dhindsa-led company spun off a new app, called Bistro, in December 2024.

Currently in its pilot phase and catering to select pincodes in Gurugram, Blinkit’s Bistro delivers meals, snacks, and beverages like tea and coffee in up to 15 minutes.

Notably, Bistro’s launch came just days after Zepto also launched a separate Zepto Cafe app to deliver beverages and snacks within 10 minutes. 

3. BBnow

Tata’s BigBasket is arguably one of the biggest competitors to the three incumbents in the Indian quick commerce arena. Having already experimented with 30-minute deliveries for some products for the past few years, BigBasket, as a natural extension, became a full-scale quick commerce platform earlier this year. 

BigBasket’s quick commerce strategy will see the deployment of 500-600 dark stores nationwide, which will work alongside its 56-60 large warehouses. It plans to link clusters of dark stores with these warehouses to streamline the delivery of both popular grocery items and non-grocery products. 

As per reports, BigBasket has set its eyes on generating $1 Bn out of its projected $1.5 Bn sales for the ongoing financial year 2024-25 (FY25) through the quick commerce vertical.

4. FirstClub

Founded by former Cleartrip’s chief executive Ayyappan R, FirstClub aims to establish itself as a Costco for India. The startup is said to be in talks with Accel and RTP Global to raise capital for the quick commerce-centric retail venture.

FirstClub will likely focus on delivering a curated selection of premium products in a timeline of 20 to 30 minutes. This quick commerce offering will also uniquely feature an offline retail presence, which is why large VCs are in talks for the seed round.

This platform is looking to offer consumers a variety of products, including unbranded goods like dry fruits and freshly ground atta, along with premium food items such as blueberries and avocados.

5. Flipkart Minutes

In what has been touted as Flipkart’s biggest bet in years, Minutes was first piloted by the ecommerce major in parts of Bengaluru in August. Subsequently, the company expanded its quick commerce offerings to Delhi NCR.

Modelled after giants like Blinkit, Instamart and Zepto, Minutes sells an assortment of grocery and non-grocery products within “10-minutes”. 

What sets it apart from competitors is the company’s claim that its users can cancel or refuse to collect their orders if the experience does not “meet expectations”.

6. JioMart

Reliance Retail-owned JioMart has also made a comeback in the quick commerce arena by piloting instant delivery of groceries and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) in some parts of Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.

The service went live on the JioMart app under the ‘hyperlocal delivery’ section and is said to deliver orders within an hour in the initial stages. 

The retailer, however, plans to reduce the delivery time between 30 and 45 minutes during the later stages, while also expanding its product categories to include apparel and electronic items.

JioMart will bank on Reliance Retail’s network of over 18,000 stores across the country to fulfil its orders.

Reliance Retail previously operated its quick commerce venture under a pilot called JioMart Express, which was shut down in early 2023.

7. magicNOW 

Having experimented with state-backed ONDC for some time now, hyperlocal delivery platform Magicpin, too, took the quick commerce plunge in December last year with the launch of magicNOW, a 15-minute food delivery service.

Taking on the might of Blinkit, Swiggy and Zepto, Magicpin appears to have been experimenting with quick delivery for some time now. Before the full rollout in December, the Delhi NCR-based startup claims to have completed 75,000 deliveries during its pilot in select localities of Delhi NCR and Bengaluru. 

Operating within a 1.5km to 2 km delivery radius, magicNOW directly partners with restaurants to offer freshly cooked food to its customers. It has partnered with over 2,000 QSR brands including Chaayos, Faasos, Wendy’s, Burger King, McDonald’s, Taco Bell and more than 1,000 local restaurants.

The new service will be powered by Magicpin’s Velocity service, which aggregates third-party logistics providers, including Shadowfax, Dunzo, Rapido, Porter, Ola, and Zypp. 

It plans to expand to Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune in the near future. 

8. Myntra

2024 was all about Flipkart-owned Myntra’s experiments with quick delivery. It became one of the first fashion and lifestyle ecommerce platforms in India to jump onto the quick commerce bandwagon last year. 

Even though Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy have added fashion SKUs in the past few years, Myntra is the first dedicated player in this space. In September, the ecommerce major piloted a four-hour delivery service in some parts of Bengaluru and Delhi.

Following the experiment, the company, in November 2024, began rolling out its “M-Now” offering, which offers a 30-minute to 2-hour delivery feature in some parts of Bengaluru. 

Notably, an internal assessment conducted by the company also showed a significant increase in consumers’ propensity to complete purchases when offered shorter delivery times. Earlier, Myntra’s ‘M-Express’ service delivered orders in a 24 to 48-hour window to select cities.

9. Nykaa

Listed beauty marketplace Nykaa, too, has been experimenting with a quick commerce pilot in the financial capital of the country. In October 2024, Nykaa launched a 10-minute delivery pilot in select parts of Mumbai, covering 5% of its SKU base. 

However, brokerages expect Nykaa to witness higher fulfilment costs due to its ambition of fast deliveries, adversely impacting its EBITDA margin.

10. Ola Food Delivery

To cash in on the 10-minute food delivery segment, Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola Consumer began piloting quick food deliveries in some parts of Bengaluru in December last year. 

The offering, which was rolled out on the native Ola Cabs app, claims to deliver food items from various restaurants within 10 minutes. This marks yet another attempt from the company to disrupt the food delivery segment via Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC).

Previously, the company ventured into quick commerce under the label Ola Dash in 2015. However, Ola pulled the shutters down on Dash in mid-2022 to channel its focus on its electric vehicles and mobility businesses.

11. Ola Grocery Delivery

A week after Ola Consumer began piloting quick food deliveries in December 2024, the Bhavish Aggarwal-led company also rolled out a 10-minute grocery delivery service in select pin codes in Bengaluru.

The launch officially marked Ola Consumer’s foray into the quick commerce segment even though the mobility major has been experimenting with grocery deliveries on ONDC for some time now. 

Via this new offering, Ola will deliver grocery and kitchen staples such as fresh fruits, vegetables, and dairy items, along with home care and personal care products, to customers in select parts of Bengaluru.

12. Slikk

Slikk is one of the newest entrants in the quick commerce space, having been founded in August 2024 by Akshay Gulati, Om Swami and Bipin Singh. Earlier this year, it raised INR 2.5 Cr in a pre-seed round led by Better Capital, with additional participation from Untitled Ventures.

The fashion ecommerce platform claims to deliver branded apparel items within 60 minutes in select locations of Bengaluru and claims to be catering to about 100 users per day. 

Slikk claims to have implemented algorithms and machine learning to gauge customer preferences and shopping behaviours to personalise its app.

13. Swiggy SNACC

Amid the increasing cut-throat in the quick commerce arena, Swiggy launched a new 15-minute food delivery app on January 8. Called SNACC, the app currently delivers to only a select few places in Bengaluru.

The platform offers quick delivery of various food options, including “homestyle meals”, meal bowls, beverages and quick bites to its users.

It is pertinent to note that in September 2024, the foodtech major experimented with the ‘Cafe’ option to deliver snacks and beverages in 15 minutes. However, instead of launching a separate application, this option was integrated into Swiggy’s food delivery app.

Furthermore, Swiggy has also launched a new service, Swiggy Bolt, to deliver quick-to-prepare dishes in 10 minutes from popular restaurants and QSR chains within a two-kilometre radius of consumers.

14. Swish

Founded in August 2024 by Aniket Shah, Ujjwal Sukheja and Saran S, Swish offers 10-minute food delivery services in select parts of Bengaluru. The startup delivers a range of fast food offerings in just 10 to 15 minutes via its application. 

Swish operates as a vertically integrated startup that controls all aspects of operations in-house, including food preparation, delivery and supply chain. While it currently operates just one cloud kitchen, it caters to nearly 150-200 orders daily, with an average order value in the range of INR 250 to INR 300. 

In the near future, it plans to set up 45 cloud kitchens to cater to the “most high-demand areas of Bengaluru”, and expand outside the startup hub in due course of time.

15. WAAYU

Founded in 2022 by childhood friends Mandar Lande and Anirudha Kotgire, WAAYU is a quick food delivery platform, which claims to serve fast and nutritious food to customers. 

Taking a different route than established giants in the space, WAAYU is looking to make a dent in the quick food delivery space with its zero-commission fee model. Unlike its rivals, WAAYU operates on a subscription model, which is designed to be affordable and easily accessible for restaurants. 

It charges a one-time setup fee of INR 4,650 and a monthly subscription fee of INR 1,200 from individual restaurants, freeing them from giving commissions on every order. For deliveries, it partners with third-party logistics platform for last-mile operations. 

On the B2C side, it claims to have achieved 25,000+ app downloads and was able to acquire 1-1.5 Lakh users on its app till September 2024. Afterwards, it joined the ONDC as a seller app and, as a result, the number of users on its platform grew 10 Lakh. 

On the financial front, the startup reported a revenue of INR 75 Lakh+ in FY24 and is looking to generate around INR 2 Cr in FY25, as per the cofounder.

16. Zing

Quick commerce has revolutionised how Indians shop online. With 10-minute deliveries becoming a norm, Indian foodtech startups are leaving no stone unturned to capitalise on customers’ growing penchant for fast deliveries. 

While there is no dearth of deep-pocketed rivals in the space, the competition has not stopped new startups from entering the fray and Zing is the latest player in the game. Founded in 2024 by Tarun Arora and Rachit Sahi, Zing offers 10-minute food deliveries.

Its unique selling proposition lies in delivering freshly made meals while its competitors are focussing more on ready-to-cook food items, its founders claim. What also sets Zing apart is that it does not partner with third-party restaurants and has set up its own cloud kitchens. 

The hyperlocal cloud kitchen startup claims to handle over 100 orders daily, with an average order value of INR 220. 

Going forward, the startup has set its eyes on scaling up its operations to 100 kitchens in the next one year and entering Bengaluru and other cities in the Delhi NCR. Alongside, it also plans to work on turning its initial four to five kitchens profitable by 2026.

Updated | January 17, 2025 | The listicle has been updated to include five more names.

The post 16 Quick Commerce Newcomers Aiming To Replicate Blinkit, Zepto Formula appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Imagine having VIP access to Wimbledon, securing tickets to sold-out music festivals, or owning a limited-edition Hermès bag — all with just a WhatsApp message. That’s the promise which Indulge Global is aiming to deliver.

Launched in 2022 by Karan Bhangay and Advita Bihani, Indulge Global provides luxury lifestyle concierge service. The startup garnered significant attention after its debut on a recent episode of the latest season of Shark Tank India.

“The response was overwhelming, with phones buzzing as affluent audiences rushed to embrace this new wave of effortless indulgence. The experience was both pivotal and exhilarating,” Bihani said.

The brand has grown from serving just three ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNI) and their families in 2022 to catering to over 180 clients today and facilitating unique requests in 180+ countries.

“We identified a gap in the market for bespoke, high-end experiences tailored for UHNIs and decided to create a platform that prioritises privacy, personalisation, and seamless service. The idea was to transform ordinary moments into extraordinary experiences, leveraging our (the founders) expertise in hospitality, technology, and cultural curation,” Bhangay shared. 

The startup’s clientele, which includes high-profile industrialists, actors, and entrepreneurs like Kunal Shah, Washington Sundar, and Arjun Kapoor, rely on its ability to provide extraordinary experiences that would be difficult to replicate elsewhere.

Shark Tank India: A Game-Changer For The Brand

The turning point for Indulge Global came when it appeared on one of the episodes of the latest season of Shark Tank India. The show, which has become a significant platform for entrepreneurs, offered Indulge Global a chance to present its unique value proposition to a panel of investors. 

The startup’s innovative approach to concierge services, including its 0% commission model and the availability of a 24/7 concierge team (referred to as “Genies”), captured the attention of both the sharks and the audience.

During the episode, the founders offered insights into how the startup’s service works and the growing demand for high-end, personalised experiences. They also highlighted the brand’s transparent business practices, particularly the approach to pricing and the direct value that customers receive on the platform. 

This openness resonated with the Sharks, who were impressed by the founders’ clear vision and business model.

What Indulge Global Offers To Its UHNI Clients

Indulge Global provides an exclusive gateway to luxury experiences through two models –  Indulge Blue to cater to the Indian audience for INR 50k annually and Indulge Global that caters to clients worldwide at  INR 4 Lakh annually.

Members gain access to a dedicated team of six to seven globally experienced professionals who are available 24/7 and can fulfill unlimited requests via a private WhatsApp group—from securing hard-to-get restaurant reservations to sending international birthday surprises. 

It recently launched the Indulge App, which, it claims, is the ‘world’s most expensive app’. Designed to offer a comprehensive luxury experience, the app allows users to manage their schedules with personalised calendars, conduct secure transactions using Indulge Tokens, and access curated reels showcasing the latest luxury trends. 

The startup also introduced Indulge Blue, a special tier focused on the Indian market, which offers a relationship manager and a range of exclusive services for a price of INR 50,000 annually. For global services available 24/7, the premium package costs INR 4 Lakh per year.

Surge In Demand For Luxury Concierge Services In India

The luxury concierge market in India is experiencing a transformative shift, driven by an evolving mindset among UHNIs. Unlike traditional wealth preservation services, today’s affluent clientele seeks curated, personalised experiences that transcend conventional luxury.

Indulge Global has strategically positioned itself at this intersection of changing preferences, offering services that prioritise cultural enrichment, seamless convenience, and unparalleled exclusivity. 

A recent study underscores the market’s potential – the number of ultra-rich Indians is projected to surge to 19,908 by 2028, up 50% from 13,263 in 2023. Capitalising on this exponential growth, Indulge Global has set an ambitious target of serving 12,000 families globally by 2025. 

Its recent breakthrough on Shark Tank India has not only validated its innovative approach but also positioned the startup to capture a significant share of this burgeoning luxury market.

The post How Shark Tank Fame Indulge Global Is Disrupting The Concierge Market Via WhatsApp appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Quick commerce in India is evolving at a fast clip, growing beyond daily essentials and consumer durables. Gadgets and gizmos (even the iPhone16 family) now arrive at shoppers’ doorsteps within minutes, and food delivery is all set to follow suit. However, the biggest game changer could be the q-commerce foray into healthcare and pharmacy markets, with the 10-minute ambulance service, recently announced by Blinkit, looking like the cherry on top.        

The q-commerce model for medicines initially raised many eyebrows despite the convenience of speed. After all, these are not regular products to be delivered in a hurry but need to follow regulatory compliance at every step for the best possible outcomes. 

Yet, when pure-play grocery delivery platform BigBasket (a TATA enterprise), Walmart-owned ecommerce giant’s quick delivery vertical Flipkart Minutes, as well as quick commerce veterans Zomato’s Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart, all joined the pharma race, the hook was quite clear. They wanted to leverage the core expertise – quick and efficient delivery – to maximise their cart value. In FY24, all three q-commerce players exceeded $1 Bn in GMV, indicating the kind of revenue ‘speed delivery’ could bring.

Unhappy with the quick-fix solutions – not many players in this space are from the healthcare domain or solely focussing on this vertical – a new startup (and bootstrapped at that) entered the fray with significant service differentiations. Aman Priyadarshi and Aniruddha Sen saw a big opportunity to address a pressing consumer need and further provide a host of related services for 360-degree healthcare.

The duo launched a full-featured, 24×7 medicine delivery platform called Plazza in November 2024, aiming to do doorstep deliveries in 15-17 minutes, and is currently operating from a single location in Bengaluru (Yemalur, to be precise). It initially partnered with seven licensed pharmacies and recently launched a Lifestore in Yemalur to maximise sales and optimise inventory management. 

Lifestores are regular pharmacies converted to Plazza-operated outlets via a franchise model, with the startup providing comprehensive support in areas like inventory management, software installation, workforce recruitment and customer acquisition through its platform. As the business expands, It plans to open two more Lifestores, one in the Electronic City and another in Haralur. 

Given these tie-ups, Plazza has instant access to an inventory of 10K+ health products, including prescription medicines, OTC drugs, supplements and personal care items. It also claims quick access to complex medications for post-operative care and cancer treatment.

The platform enables quick ordering via its app and website, offering multiple payment options, real-time order tracking and timely delivery. Its core revenue model is built on a profit-sharing arrangement with partner stores, while 20-25% of its earnings come from medicine retailing through its Lifestores. The average order value stands at INR 700.

Detailing the profit-sharing model, Priyadarshi said when medicines are sold at a profit (factoring in packaging cost and delivery charges), the partner shop gets a share for managing operations, and Plazza retains the rest for covering logistics, customer engagement and support services. Other revenue sources include brand promotions and shelf rentals, wherein companies pay to place their products in a Plazza store for fast shipping.     

To distinguish itself from players like Practo or Apollo 24/7 (it has also rolled out a 19-minute delivery model), Plazza is looking beyond delivery speed and convenience. It aims to emerge as a one-stop healthcare hub with a full spectrum of services such as doctor consultation, diagnostic tests, home nursing, home delivery of diagnostic equipment and access to personalised healthcare services through a subscription model. Its goal is to provide end-to-end services for hospital treatment, surgery, emergency assistance and therapy, making healthcare more accessible, fast and reliable.

The founders claim 1K sign-ups since its launch and are in talks to launch drone deliveries for hospitals (more on that later).

Asked how the Plazza model differs from pure-play quick commerce or same-day ecommerce deliveries, Priyadarshi said that the format and the intent could never be the same. 

“Health purchases are driven by high intent, but existing apps bury medicine tabs under multiple clicks. Moreover, healthcare needs to go beyond quick access to medicine. It should include easy replenishment, exploring alternatives and proactive consultations to save time,” said Priyadarshi. “Ecommerce platforms focus on increasing cart value with non-health items. When a health issue arises, people need quick, convenient health solutions, an area that the Swiggys and the Flipkarts are unlikely to address fully anytime soon.”

How A Health Crisis, Lessons From Kenko Paved The Path For Plazza

Home delivery of medicines took off at scale with online pharmacies coming into play. But their delivery windows frequently failed to meet emergency requirements. Offline pharmacies, accounting for 95-97% of the market share, provide home deliveries now and then. The process remains cumbersome, though, requiring customers to share prescriptions, discuss quantities and alternatives, and provide payment screenshots. As delivery times are usually unpredictable, many customers are compelled to visit their local medicine stores in person. Essentially, the medicine delivery market was ripe for disruption. 

However, Plazza was not born until Priyadarshi went through a personal emergency. His sister underwent a kidney transplant during the Covid-19 pandemic and his brush with critical healthcare exposed how broken the system was. Medicines were overpriced; hospitals did not provide ancillary services, and insurance did not cover post-operative care. 

At the time, he also met Sen, a longtime friend and former client at one of the startups Priyadarshi had launched. The serial entrepreneur was invited to help build Kenko, a healthcare financing startup founded by Sen in 2019. It also raised $13.7 Mn from Peak XV, Beenext, Orios Venture Partners and a clutch of angel investors.

Priyadarshi had limited experience in healthcare but joined Kenko in 2023, banking on his expertise in consumer internet companies. He had been with Zomato for nearly four years and founded two startups. The first was Ibism, where he developed a SaaS tool for business process automation, while DhoduDhodu provided logistics solutions to companies such as Paytm, MobiKwik, FT Cash, 1Mg and Freecharge.

“Back then, Kenko said the ecosystem was outdated and over-regulated, preventing new-age startups from entering the space. We tried to change the paradigm by designing subscription-based plans to cover the costs of OPD, medicines and healthcare products,” said Priyadarshi.  

He had built Zomato Gold, a similar concept in the consumer internet space, but it did not take off in the insurance sector. “I realised that we were trying to sell a subscription that people had not used before and promised them all those benefits later in life, something that never worked historically,” he added.

“At Kenko, demand was never an issue, but supply was,” said Sen. The startup focussed on meeting healthcare costs, but its lack of control over service quality was a growth barrier. So, a reverse approach was adopted when setting up Plazza. 

“Our initial focus is to provide convenient and reliable healthcare services. Later, we aim to introduce healthcare subscriptions to ensure customers receive high-quality healthcare without out-of-pocket expenses. First, we need to deliver on our promise.  That’s our thesis and our core philosophy,” the duo affirmed.

A few months after joining Kenko, Priyadarshi started exploring more sub-segments under healthcare and zeroed in on medicines, which are the biggest expense for most people. His research revealed that access to medicines remains a persistent pain point in many areas. “Even in metro cities like Bengaluru, basic medicines aren’t always easy to find,” he observed.    

To delve deeper, he also worked with a pharmacy in Bellandur for a couple of months and noticed a clear divide between online platforms and offline stores. Although e-pharmacies have existed since Covid times, 97% of people rely on physical outlets for quick access during medical emergencies. This insight inspired him to rethink the medicine delivery space and reinforced his resolve to launch Plazza. 

Priyadarshi left Kenko in February 2024 to explore this opportunity further and piloted the business idea as a small WhatsApp experiment. His hypothesis: Customers want to buy all their medicines from one place and always seek quick, reliable deliveries. 

“To validate this, I took orders via WhatsApp, promising fast delivery. On the very first day, I received more than 100 requests, and the next day, I sold medicines worth INR 10K. That’s when I realised there was a market here,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kenko halted operations last August as it ran out of funds and could not secure the insurance licence from the regulatory body. Sen joined the new venture in October after Priyadarshi learnt about Kenko’s shutdown and decided to bring his friend on board, drawn by his passion for the healthcare sector.

Coping With Limited Inventory And Logistics

Despite a clear-cut market opportunity, Plazza encountered a series of hurdles, ranging from inventory management to logistical roadblocks and the critical task of figuring out a sustainable business model.

The startup began as a platform that connected local pharmacies with end customers (basically, a medicine marketplace). But it quickly became clear that local pharmacies often struggled to provide medicines beyond common prescriptions. 

“Take Bengaluru, for instance, a city with a robust market for dermatology products, especially skin and haircare items. But many local pharmacies don’t stock these products. Likewise, new moms frequently need specialised babycare items but fail to find them locally,” explained Priyadarshi. 

Realising inventory management would be a major bottleneck, the founders pivoted and tied up with good-quality pharmacies. It also forged unique partnerships and launched Lifestores, a concept similar to Blinkit’s dark stores or mini-warehouses, enabling quick deliveries.

Plazza now operates within a limited delivery radius and uses bikes and Yulu EVs for deliveries. Delivery times are automatically calculated, factoring in customer location, traffic conditions, driver availability and packing time. The startup employs gig workers, keeping the business model asset-light. Its drivers also benefit from handling lighter loads and enjoy better work quality. The entire operation is managed in-house following a full-stack approach.

“Delivering medicines can be extremely challenging for several reasons. All team members are well-versed in critical details like drug expiration dates, alternative medicines and timely delivery. This isn’t a casual or luxury business. The stakes are incredibly high, and with our limited resources, it takes time to streamline processes,” added Priyadarshi.

What’s Next For Plazza?

The startup is poised for selective expansion, starting with Bengaluru, before branching into other cities metros like Delhi and Hyderabad and smaller markets such as Nagpur, Jamshedpur, Indore and Chandigarh. “Once we establish the product-market fit, we will expand strategically, learning from larger cities before entering smaller ones,” the founders said. 

Setting up more Lifestores is another mandate to meet the unique challenges of quick commerce in the pharma space. Unlike grocery delivery, pharmaceutical/healthcare logistics requires a more nuanced approach and a skilled workforce to manage operations. Think of temperature-controlled storage and delivery, safe transportation, and other critical factors contributing to product efficacy and safety. Even slight deviations from regulatory standards can impact people’s health.  

However, Priyadarshi noted that retail pharmacy is still stuck in the traditional mode, where small teams grapple with workload and compliance issues. Building a robust tech stack to handle operations can enhance efficiency, but creating the necessary infrastructure for every chemist is the biggest challenge. To empower pharmacies and distributors with advanced technology, Plazza founders are developing new-age ERPs and leveraging AI to streamline processes. Once these systems are up and running, they can convert prescriptions into carts in 0.4 seconds. 

Each Lifestore is also expected to handle 500-600 orders daily, depending on its size and location, and will also serve walk-in customers. The startup aims to open 15 of these franchise stores in Bengaluru alone.

Additionally, the founders are exploring drone deliveries, although it may take a considerable period to fructify. For years, tech giants like Amazon, Alphabet and Uber promised their laden drones would land at our doorsteps, but they never did due to regulations. However, the delivery of medicines in minutes is a different ball game.

“We are working with a specialised team to overcome regulatory hurdles for specific use cases. For instance, we want to speed up deliveries from warehouses outside Bengaluru to the city or from retail outlets to hospitals in case of emergencies,” said Priyadarshi. “Critical medications for cancer treatment and post-operative recovery require faster deliveries, and drones are the solution.”

Going forward, Plazza plans to diversify its revenue model further by introducing additional healthcare services. Given its push to achieve early-stage growth, the revenue drive will be only too useful if it wants to go beyond deliveries and emerge as an all-encompassing healthcare service provider.   

This brings the founders to a crunch situation – they must raise funding to scale up. “We are in talks with investors,” agreed Priyadarshi. “We still have the capital to set up at least two Lifestores. But additional resources will be required as we expand.”

The funding winter is, hopefully, over, and IPO-bound Zepto’s back-to-back funding rounds at a $5 Bn valuation augur well for the quick commerce sector as a whole. But will there be investor interest in a virtually new category while others have trodden the safe path and taken to medicine delivery as an add-on?

[Edited By Sanghamitra Mandal]

The post Can Plazza Become The Blinkit Of 15-Minute Medicine Delivery In India? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Driven by the country’s technological prowess, digitisation efforts, a supportive regulatory regime, and the launch of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in 2016, India’s digital payment ecosystem has grown unhinged.

Launched by erstwhile RBI governor Raghuram G Rajan, UPI was first piloted in Mumbai with 21 member banks. The tech stack was introduced to address the challenges of traditional banking by creating a seamless platform that could allow fund transfers through mobile devices. 

Today, UPI has not only revolutionised traditional payment methods by eliminating the need for extensive details like account numbers or IFSC codes but also made digital payments accessible to all. 

Since its launch, the total volume and value of UPI payments have grown manifold. Notably, UPI transactions surged almost 46% to a record 17,220 Cr in 2024 from 11,768 Cr in 2023. Meanwhile, the total value of UPI transactions zoomed over 35% to INR 246.82 Lakh Cr from INR 182.84 Lakh Cr in 2023.   

Now, what has given a big push to UPI adoption in the country is the rise of fintech apps like PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, and CRED. Despite more than 77 mobile apps in the UPI ecosystem, only a few rule this space, with Google Pay and PhonePe holding the top spots. 

In the whole of 2024, Walmart-owned PhonePe dominated the UPI market with over 48% share, while Google Pay held the second spot with a 37% share. Paytm took the third spot, even though its market share plummeted in 2024 to 7.03% from 14.1% a year ago.

One of the biggest reasons for their dominance is the user “stickiness” these apps have created over the years. Now, in this cut-throat segment, a new entrant is aiming to create its own niche.

Founded in 2023 by a former Flipkart employee Bhargav Errangi, POP is a Bengaluru-based fintech startup that is obsessed with outdoing Paytm to take the third port in the UPI-verse.  

However, this is not the interesting part — what’s intriguing is that it plans to accomplish this with its unique UPI-plus-commerce proposition. 

Within just six months, the founder claims to have captured 0.2% of the market share and is on track to target 10% with its distinctive offering.

The startup’s core features include UPI payments, an integrated marketplace, and a credit card that accelerates the earning of POPcoins. 

POP enhances shopping and payments by combining UPI transactions with its unique rewards programme, POPcoins, just like CRED Coins. However, the founder thinks otherwise. (More on this later.)

Users earn POPcoins for every UPI payment made, which can be redeemed for products from top direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands across categories like beauty, electronics, fashion, and home goods.

POP works with over 600 brands, including Portronics, Bombay Shaving Company, Snitch, The Souled Store, Boat, and Yoga Bars, just to name a few.

POP has been approved by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to operate as a third-party application provider (TPAP), enabling UPI payments through its app, POP Club.

The company has raised more than $5 Mn and counts IndiaQuotient as its key investor. 

The startup has partnered with Yes Bank and Juspay to develop its UPI stack.

The Making Of POP

With nearly a decade of experience in ecommerce, Errangi was instrumental in establishing one of India’s earliest social commerce companies, Spoyl. Launched in 2015, Spoyl was a fashion ecommerce platform designed for Gen Z shoppers.

After successfully running Spoyl for over five years, the company was acquired by Flipkart in 2020. Post-acquisition, Errangi joined Flipkart as general manager of Shopsy, where he played a pivotal role in its inception and early growth. Within just four months, he scaled Shopsy to achieve a $1 Bn annualised GMV run rate.

Following his success with Shopsy, Errangi transitioned into a wider role at Flipkart, driving growth across emerging consumer channels. 

As a senior director, he developed and implemented the group’s customer growth strategies, focussing on everything from acquisition to retention. His efforts extended to enhancing the Flipkart Plus loyalty programme, growing Supercoins as a leading loyalty currency, and establishing Flipkart’s re-commerce division.

Although launching another startup wasn’t initially on his radar, Errangi began to notice how ecommerce was evolving. During his time at Flipkart, he closely observed emerging consumer trends and how the industry was preparing for a shift a decade later.

“New-generation commerce was taking shape, and I wanted to create a lifestyle destination that brought customers together around shared interests — whether in commerce, entertainment, or offline events. However, building a B2C company in India before 2023-2024 was still expensive,” he explained.

According to Errangi, while ecommerce in India had matured with robust demand, logistics, and infrastructure, a significant gap was building a loyal customer network.

Motivated by this, Errangi began conceptualising POP in mid-2022, leaving Flipkart alongside a few colleagues to pursue his vision. By early 2023, POP’s first product, POPcoins, was launched.

So, How Did UPI Became The Core Of POP’s Proposition? 

Soon after the founder started working on his initial idea, he realised that building the customer cross-category network was more of a thesis. 

“Building a network means reaching millions of customers, and you can’t just spend money on Meta ads back in 2014 or 2015. So, we thought we should build this network creatively,” the founder said. The question that got him was how to engage customers daily. 

He was sure that ecommerce isn’t a daily activity, but quick commerce is.

“To build a strong, scalable customer network with repeat engagement, we needed a daily activity that would drive them to open the app. That’s when we realised UPI could be that large phenomenon, as it is fast, efficient and secure,” the founder of the fintech startup said.

Interestingly, another reason the founder became more confident in entering this space was that while existing apps like PhonePe and CRED were fast and secure, these were either dealing with revenue challenges or customer retention issues.  

This gave him the idea to shift to a payments-to-commerce approach, where the entry point to the platform would be UPI.

According to the founder, the core customer value proposition of POP is centred around rewarding UPI transactions. 

The plan was to create a ring-fenced D2C brand network alongside the marketplace, all tied together with a shopping currency called POPcoins. 

When users use the POP UPI instead of other payment apps like CRED, Paytm, or Google Pay, they earn 2% POPcoins on every transaction. These coins can be redeemed at hundreds of partner merchants, offering users the freedom to choose where to redeem them — unlike the voucher code model used by competitors.

To make this a reality, the startup obtained a UPI licence (TPAP), which took a few months. Following that, the development of tech took over six months, and after being audited by NPCI and RBI, POP became operational.

POP operates on a unique payments-to-commerce model that integrates payments with a curated D2C network. The platform is built on UPI, offering a high-velocity product that rewards users for every UPI transaction made on the app.

Currently, there are over 600+ brands and 1 Lakh+ SKUs available on the POP app. These brands come from a range of new-age companies, such as Mamaearth, Mcaffeine, Souledstore, and FixMyCurls. 

When users make purchases, they can redeem POPcoins for discounts. For example, if a product is priced at INR 500, it can be purchased for INR 400 plus 100 POPcoins, ensuring that the startup offers the lowest market price.

POP’s revenue model is built around three key channels. First is the commerce revenue model, where POP earns a commission (usually around 20%) on products sold through its platform. Second, the platform earns from credit card transactions through the Merchant Discount Rate (MDR). 

For every INR 20,000 spent on POP’s credit card, the platform generates around INR 150 in revenue. Once a credit card is activated, it creates a consistent, recurring revenue stream for POP. Additionally, POP charges a one-time activation fee of INR 1,000 per card. Another revenue stream is transactional fees from credit card usage, which generate ongoing revenue with every purchase made using the card. 

But, Is There A Need For Another CRED?

While POP’s business model may seem similar to CRED’s, the founder emphasises that POP is not trying to replicate CRED or any other existing players. POP is different from CRED in several key ways.

“One major difference is that POPcoins are closer to real currency, with a fixed value of INR 1. These coins can be redeemed across all selections on the platform and within the network. On the other hand, CRED coins are primarily used for non-commerce engagement, such as playing games or unlocking offers, and they do not have a fixed value.”

Furthermore, while CRED operates across multiple sectors like insurance, loans, and payments, with ecommerce being one aspect, POP is solely focussed on the payments-to-commerce conversion. The founder’s vision for POP is to carve out its own unique niche and capture 10% of the market share.

“While Google Pay and PhonePe dominate the top spots, there’s still room for new players. Paytm, for example, holds just 10% of the market share, and we’ve already captured 0.2%. Our goal is to grow steadily by introducing more products, features, and engagement tools. By mid-2025, we aim to be among the top 10 players in the UPI space,” the founder said.

Further speaking about the differentiation, the founder said that POP differentiate itself by the rewards it offers. Unlike cashback-driven apps, it focusses on creating a stickier reward proposition centred around new-age commerce and the consumption habits of the modern consumer. Besides, it is targeting a young audience. 

What’s Next For POP?

In terms of revenue, while the startup is new, it is currently processing 2.1 Lakh UPI transactions per day. It recorded a total of 6.4 Mn UPI transactions in December 2024. The startup is currently processing close to 10 Mn UPI transactions per month and is already among the top 25 apps in the UPI space. By next month, its goal is to break into the top 20.

The platform is also handling 1,500 ecommerce orders daily, contributing to an annualised GMV of INR 30 Cr on its ecommerce platform. Additionally, it is issuing approximately 4,000 credit cards per month.

In the short term, POP aims to reach 100 Mn transactions per month. Additionally, the company is targeting to onboard 1 Lakh active POP credit card users within the next four months.

It aims to focus on expanding its brand network and introducing more credit products, including a secured credit card. Along with this, the startup plans to grow its merchant network, both online and offline, with the intention to partner with large enterprise brands like food delivery services and event platforms.

“This expansion will allow customers to redeem POPcoins across a wider range of merchants, making the POPcoin ecosystem more robust and accessible,” the founder said.

While many things might have worked in favour of the founder so far, the biggest challenge that the founder has been facing is convincing consumers to switch from apps like PhonePe and Google Pay to POP and make it their primary UPI app. 

“Since money is involved, building trust is crucial. The startup is overcoming this by offering more value than existing players,” he added.

Although still in its early stages, it will be interesting to see how POP competes for a top spot in the UPI market, which is currently led by PhonePe and Google Pay.

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post Can POP’s UPI+Commerce Playbook Dim CRED & Paytm’s Dominance In The UPI-verse? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In 2008, little did people know that the arrival of Zomato would transform how food would be ordered in the not-so-distant future. Then came Swiggy in 2014, and what began as a convenience (ordering food at the click of a button) became a lifestyle.

More than a decade later, we are standing on the cusp of yet another revolution, with companies setting their eyes on making a sweet buck by providing Indian customers instant gratification. 

With 10 and 15-minute deliveries becoming a norm, Indian foodtech startups are not leaving any stone unturned to make the best of this high-octane space, offering a wide spectrum of offerings at the disposal of their customers. Not to mention, Indian foodtechs are now part of the larger quick delivery sector, which is poised to become a $9.9 Bn+ market opportunity by 2029, growing from a mere $3.3 Bn+ in 2024.

While traditional players like Swiggy and Zomato have entered the fast-food delivery race, offering meals within 10-15 minutes, newly borns, like Bengaluru-based Swish, are not far behind in the race. Imperative to mention that, Swish delivers a range of fast food offerings in just 10 to 15 minutes via its app.

To make things more interesting, another player, Zing, has emerged in the 10 to 15-minute food delivery space. Launched in November 2024 by Tarun Arora and Rachit Sahi, Gurugram-based Zing operates a hyper-local kitchen with the help of technology and a menu optimised just for quick deliveries.

The startup operates a cloud kitchen that are close to customer locations. This helps it reduce delivery time. Further, Zing’s menu comprises high-demand and quick-to-prepare dishes.  

What makes Zing’s foray more interesting in this space is that it claims to offer freshly made meals at a time when food items with longer shelf lives seem to be the primary play of many. 

Now, before we dive deeper into understanding how Zing plans to rule this roost for shine in this space, let’s understand what led to its inception.  

Inside The Genesis Of Zing

A foodtech was never on Arora’s cards until 2022 when he was working with Inshorts. Arora, a BTech graduate, started his career as a software engineer but soon realised that the monotony of routine coding work wasn’t a sustainable path for him in the long run.

In his quest for new challenges and to make a real world impact, he joined a news aggregator and content distribution company, where he steadily advanced through the ranks to become the chief operating officer.

However, during this time, he was experimenting with multiple ideas to quench his entrepreneurial thirst, but with little success — until the quick delivery space caught his attention, prompting him to contemplate a foray into the field.

This was when he thought of ultra-fast food deliveries. “While grocery and essentials are riding the quick-commerce wave, only a few are confident about addressing the need for ultra-fast food delivery. This thought laid the foundation for Zing,” Arora said.

The founder added that he observed the growing popularity of Blinkit and Zepto among the younger population. Alongside, he noted that when it comes to the need for instant food, current delivery times are around 40-45 minutes.

“Since food is more fundamental than groceries, it demands quicker solutions, which is why they decided to address this gap,” Arora said.

How Zing Is Carving Its Niche

Zing began its operations in November 2024. According to the founder, its approach has been slow and steady. This is because scaling operations quickly can be both challenging and capital-intensive. Therefore, Zing started small, operating in only two sectors of Gurugram. However, it has now expanded its reach to three or four sectors.

Now, in a bid to ace the quick delivery game, Zing does not partner with third-party restaurants. It has rather set up its own cloud kitchen and delivers food within a two-kilometre radius.

“While giants like Blinkit and Zomato have mastered the logistics of delivering food and groceries, food itself isn’t their core focus. For us, food is the business, not just delivery. Even for the big players, food remains a fresh and complex challenge,” Arora said.

This is exactly where the unique selling proposition lies — food. To ensure high-quality food is delivered within 10 minutes, it is essential to have end-to-end control over the kitchen operations, the founder said.

Moreover, per the founder, several factors are at play when one wants to truly ace the 10-minute food delivery market.

“Everything matters when you are racing against time — placement of utensils and appliances, as well as the distance between them. This is why we are meticulously optimising our kitchen setup and design,” Arora said.

Zing’s Blueprint For Success

Since its launch, Zing has made significant progress, surpassing 5,000 downloads on the Play Store. Starting with just 8-10 orders per day, the startup has grown steadily to handle over 100 orders daily, with an average order value of INR 220.

What makes Zing’s growth notable is its near-zero customer acquisition costs. The startup relies on cost-effective strategies like placing posters in corporate areas and offering referral discounts to existing users.

Moving ahead, Zing aims to scale its operations to 100 kitchens over next one year. The initial 4-5 kitchens are projected to handle 700 to 800 orders per day and achieve profitability by then, creating a model that can be replicated across new kitchens. Geographically, the startup plans to penetrate deeper into NCR and capture a few locations in Bengaluru.

Zing’s entry into the ultra-fast food delivery segment has come at a time when the Indian quick commerce space is expanding its ambit. While there is no doubt about the fact that the revolution of ultra-fast deliveries is here to stay, sustaining in this space will come at a cost.

Several deep-pocketed players already have their eyes on this highly lucrative space. In the absence of any investor backing, survival could get tough once the competition starts to beef up. However, before that happens, Zing has a first-mover advantage in the space. Now, if it plays its cards right, it has the potential to become the north star of the ultra-fast food delivery business.

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post There’s A New 10-Min Food Delivery Kid On The Block; What’s Its Game Plan? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Indian startups charted a notable turnaround in 2024. After enduring a prolonged funding winter over the past two years, the homegrown new-age tech ecosystem displayed promising signs of recovery, with funding numbers rebounding as investors started to deploy dry powder, albeit cautiously.

It is imperative to mention that Indian startups cumulatively netted more than $12 Bn in fresh funds during the year. This was a promising more than 20% increase from the $10 Bn raised last year. Similarly, funding volume or number of deals saw an over 11% spike this year, paving the way for 1K+ deals in the entirety of 2024. 

With this, the homegrown startup funding paradigm has settled at the 2020 levels, before the Covid-19 pandemic brought the world to its knees. 

However, what truly turbocharged the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem was a surge in startup IPOs, ensuring investors got the bang for their buck.

The year was also a testament to the grit and innovation of Indian startups. The ecosystem rapidly embraced emerging technologies, such as GenAI, and joined the semiconductor revolution amid a fluctuating but steady flow of investor capital.

Now as we stand on the cusp of 2025, it is time to glean the spotlight on some of the hottest startups that caught our attention in 2024. 

For the past four years, the Inc42 team has been cherry-picking the cream of Indian startups and putting them in the public domain via its flagship ‘30 Startups To Watch’ series. Since the start of the initiative, we have been able to spot and bring to the limelight nearly 1,500 startups across 53 editions of our flagship series. 

Continuing the tradition in 2024, 10 editions of “30 StartupsTo Watch” put the spotlight on 300 startups that disrupted various facets of India’s tech ecosystem. 

Now, as part of our “2024 in Review” series, we are showcasing the crème de la crème of all the startups that featured in the 10 editions of “30 Startups To Watch” this year. 

This special edition, part of Inc42’s 2024 in Review, brings forth more than 30% of ventures that hail from the burgeoning AI space. Meanwhile, familiar sectors like ecommerce and enterprise tech contribute significantly to the tally. Another key takeaway is that 90% (or 27) of the startups in this special edition were founded within the last three years.

As we step into 2025, we present the 54th cohort of 30 Startups To Watch, featuring a curated selection of the budding ventures that shone the brightest in 2024. 

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

Athina AI

Offering Tech To Eliminate AI Hallucinations

While GenAI has emerged as a major buzzword in the global business environs this year, popular large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini still produce inaccurate or biased outputs. 

This is where Athina AI steps in to help organisations adopt GenAI seamlessly by circumventing hallucinations. Founded in 2022 by Shiv Sakhuja, Himanshu Bamoria and Akshat Gupta, the startup’s proprietary evaluations help organisations detect when AI churns factually incorrect information, leaks personal or sensitive information, or says something that is racially biased or toxic towards certain groups. 

Besides, it also ensures the correctness of AI outputs on a number of other dimensions, including conversation coherence, answer relevance, truthfulness and other domain-specific criteria.

In 2024, the startup claims to have onboarded several unicorns, including the likes of Meesho, PhysicsWallah, Perplexity, and Doximity, as its customers. Growing its user base by 30% month-on-month, Athena AI’s total user base stood at 50 by the end of 2024. 

The rapid expansion aligned with new product launches for Athina, include Athina ID, a spreadsheet for LLM engineering; Athina Flows, which helps companies build powerful AI workflows in a Notebook format, and Athina Annotation, which allows teams to manage the human review of AI-generated responses alongside automatic testing.

Including its latest seed funding round of $3 Mn, the startup has raised a total of $4.1 Mn so far. With the fresh capital, Athina AI plans to expand its platform as a unified stack for teams to build, test, and monitor production-ready AI features in the coming year. 

Agnit Semiconductor 

Future Of Gallium Nitride Semiconductors

Founded in 2019 by seven semiconductor experts – Hareesh Chandrasekar, Madhusudan Atre, Mayank Shrivastava, Digbijoy Nath, Muralidharan Rangarajan, Shankar Kumar Selvaraja, and Srinivasan Raghavan — AGNIT Semiconductors is a Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductor startup

With the founders’ cumulative 100-year experience in GaN technology, AGNIT Semiconductors bids to capture the GaN wafer tech market. The founders are leveraging their technical know-how to build 4-inch wafers on silicon carbide, which is also more expensive than building larger GaN wafers on silicon that Infineon has manufactured.

These wafers primarily cater to RF applications and not the power electronics market. While it plans on developing and selling its wafers to semiconductor fab companies, it will also sell GaN devices or the discrete RF power transistors built on the wafers.

The startup’s immediate potential market entails applications in the strategic sector such as defence radar, electronic warfare, and others.

The startup raised $3.5 Mn in a seed funding round co-led by 3one4 Capital and Zephyr Peacock in October. It plans on utilising the fresh capital to further the reliability check of its devices and fuel its plans to make about 1 Lakh devices in the next two years. 

Beatoven.ai

AI Embraces Music 

Musicians Mansoor Rahimat Khan and Siddharth founded Beatoven.ai in 2021 to pioneer the use of generative AI (GenAI) in music production.

The startup’s platform enables content creators to compose original background music using an AI music generator. By inputting text or genre prompts, users can create diverse soundtracks across multiple genres, including Indian classical and world music.

Beatoven.ai claims over 2 Mn tracks have been created on its platform, with more than 15,000 paying customers. It has raised $2.5 Mn from investors, including Info Edge, Entrepreneur First, IvyCap Ventures, Rukam Capital, and Upsparks Capital.

In 2024, the company introduced multi-modal generative AI, allowing users to create music by providing inputs like text, images, audio, or video. Looking ahead, Beatoven.ai plans to enter the B2B market with a marketing autopilot—a personal, data-driven assistant that automates marketing while learning from user data to drive growth.

The startup aims to achieve $5 Mn ARR and onboard over 50,000 businesses by the end of 2025.

BeBetta

Empowering Gaming Enthusiasts

After observing gaps in casual real-money gaming apps, Meet Shah launched the social gaming and sports engagement platform BeBetta in 2023. 

BeBetta allows users to participate in sports betting and games without risking losing money. The platform uses BetCoins, its official social currency. 

Users earn BetCoins by playing games and placing sports bets, which they can redeem for real-life rewards through BeBetta’s partnerships.

The platform offers social betting options for popular sports like football, cricket, and kabaddi, enabling users to place bets against friends and rivals without financial risk, creating a more socially interactive environment.

The startup claims to have onboarded 10 Mn users since its inception. It expanded its sports offerings this year, potentially adding F1, NBA, and UFC to complement its existing options.

Further, it also got selected for Google For Startups and Forbes Select 200 this year.

As of now, BeBetta operates at a pre-revenue stage, which is something it plans on changing next year. Further, it also wants to expand to Southeast Asia and enhance its product offerings. Since its inception, it has raised an undisclosed capital from Adani Family Office this year. 

BetterInvest

Financing Solutions Tailored For Content Producers

Founded by Pradeep VS, Sethu Rajendran and Sriram Anax in 2022, BetterInvest is an investtech startup that helps content creators get timely and reliable financing.

Its platform specialises in invoice discounting by advancing funds against future receivables from OTT platforms, satellite channels, and audio rights. This innovative model helps content producers access capital swiftly.

It has raised $1.1 Mn from investors like Isha Homes (India) Private Limited, SVF, and Sanjay Arjundas Wadhwa, among others. 

At the end of 2024, BetterInvest’s client base comprised 5,000 individual investors and over 50 production houses. With 1,744 new investors, the platform’s user base grew by 34.88% this year.

During the year, its Gross Transaction Value (GTV) in financing productions stood at INR 475 Cr. It funded over 600 deals across 165 movie and TV show projects and established partnerships with over 50 production houses. It also launched a Creator Financing program for digital content creators.

Blip

Blinkit For Fashion

Founded in 2024 by Ansh Agarwal and Sarvesh Kedia, Blip is a hyperlocal fashion business offering 30-minute delivery of fashion items in Bengaluru. The company partners with a variety of local and national brands and operates dark stores to ensure quick deliveries. Blip’s model focusses on convenience by offering fast, localised service, and it is also planning to expand into physical retail with offline stores.

In its first year of operations, Blip onboarded brands, including UCB, Raymond, TIGC, Celio, Inc 5, Metro Brands, House of Anita Dongre, and Jolger. The company aims to continue growing its brand portfolio while extending its geographic reach. In the short term, it plans to cover all pin codes in Mumbai and expand to cities such as Bengaluru and Delhi.

By 2026, Blip plans to diversify further by launching offline showrooms for mid- to large-scale D2C apparel brands, positioning itself as a “Shopify for offline retail”. 

It also intends to offer logistics services for D2C brands, facilitating same-day delivery and improving supply chain efficiency. Additionally, Blip plans to expand its marketplace and integrate with ONDC as a buyer app to enhance the customer experience and strengthen its market position.

Clientell AI

Your RevOps & CRM Dream Team

In 2021, Neil Sarkar and Saahil Dhaka identified the growing demand for Revenue Operations (RevOps) in the US, where sales and marketing systems were often siloed and lacked integration. They also observed that while AI was transforming software, the user experience with Salesforce remained outdated, complicating SaaS sales. This insight led to the creation of Clientell.

Clientell develops AI tools for RevOps that integrate with existing Salesforce systems. These tools aim to streamline administration, boost go-to-market (GTM) efficiency, and lighten the load for RevOps teams. Key products include AI-powered data capture, on-demand analytics, and Salesforce administration. Clientell has already launched its AI agent and Chrome plugin for beta users. 

In 2024, the startup introduced an autonomous AI agent for data management and analytics within Salesforce, which was also selected for the Salesforce for Startups programme. The startup also netted $3.1 Mn this year in two tranches from investors like Bestvantage Investments, ah! Ventures, and Soonicorn Ventures.

In 2025, Clientell plans to launch a Salesforce Developer agent in beta, designed to create complex workflows for over 100 beta customers. By 2026, the company aims to introduce a fully autonomous AI Salesforce developer to handle all manual RevOps tasks, potentially reducing the need for large RevOps teams and consolidating multiple SaaS solutions.

EcoRatings 

An ESG Rating AI Startup

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

The company’s methodology aligns with the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals and ESG standards, responding to the growing consumer demand for transparency in product sustainability.

EcoRatings’ AI platform evaluates products through a comprehensive assessment, providing a sustainability rating on a scale of 10, based on verified data. This rating system helps consumers make informed, eco-friendly purchasing decisions, reflecting the global shift towards sustainable consumption.

In 2024, EcoRatings secured 15 corporate clients, generating $100,000 in revenue, with an additional 16 clients in the pipeline, valued at $250,000. The company also launched its US Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy, marking its entry into international markets. It raised $1 Mn in a pre-seed funding round and obtained a SEBI license for ESG Ratings.

Looking ahead, the startup aims to scale its operations, deepen client relationships, and expand into sustainability-focused regions such as Europe and Singapore. It plans to launch a Small Language Model with 10 Bn tokens, which will expand to 20 Tn tokens, offering advanced features and multimodal capabilities.

ELIVAAS

Addressing Gaps In Luxury Property Rentals

Founded in 2023 by Ritwik Khare and Karan Miglani, Delhi NCR-based travel tech startup Elivaas serves two main segments — second homeowners and short-term luxury travellers. It offers a comprehensive 3M solution — maintain, monitor, and monetise — for property owners.

Elivaas simplifies property management by using advanced technology, enabling homeowners to manage and profit from their properties with ease. The startup operates on a revenue-sharing model, handling short-term rentals through its website, social media, online travel agencies, B2B agents, and corporate partners.

In 2024, Elivaas expanded to 10 cities, achieving 5x top line growth. The company raised over $8 Mn from investors such as Peak XV SURGE and 3one4 Capital.

The startup introduced several innovations, including 3D walkthrough videos, a tech-enabled central reservation system, AI chatbot assistance, a guest self-check-in portal, and an app-driven housekeeping audit.  

Flashaid

Making Health Insurance Affordable 

Founded in 2020 by Manoj Gupta and Gunjali Kothari, Flashaid aims to address the challenge of affordable health insurance in India, where access remains limited for millions. The startup’s mission is to promote health equity by making insurance both affordable and accessible.

Flashaid’s innovative distribution strategy focusses on a B2B2C platform, partnering with D2C brands, ecommerce marketplaces, and fintech companies. This approach enhances the reach of health insurance while integrating it into the digital lifestyles of Indian consumers.

In 2024, Flashaid raised $2.5 Mn in its Pre-Series A round, expanded into three new locations, and partnered with six large fintech and education firms. It also introduced its Unique Student Total Protect plans, which cover health, fees, and placement, gaining significant traction.

The startup reached a monthly revenue run rate of $100K and achieved profitability at the EBITDA level this year. Moving forward, Flashaid plans to sign agreements with 100 universities, covering 5 Lakh users, and aims to raise $15 Mn in its Series A funding round in 2025.

Flutrr

Dating App For Real Bharat

Founded in 2021 by father-son duo Kaushik and Anirban Banerjee, flutrr is a vernacular dating app designed to cater to the unique needs of non-English-speaking users, particularly in tier II and tier III cities. The app focusses on ensuring women’s safety and addressing the gender imbalance.

Flutrr’s key differentiators lie in its emphasis on women’s privacy and security, with features such as face recognition, a no-screenshot policy, location-hiding, and AI-driven safety technology. The app also introduced features like ‘ghost mode’ and private mode messaging to protect users from cyber harassment. Its value proposition is to serve as a safe space for users seeking long-term, meaningful relationships rather than casual dating or arranged marriages.

In 2024, flutrr had more than 5 Lakh monthly active users (MAUs) and 9 Lakh+ app downloads. The startup generated a turnover of INR 2.5 Cr in FY24, up from INR 99 Lakh in FY23. It raised INR 3.75 Cr in a strategic funding round from Zee Media in October.

Flutrr generates revenue through microtransactions, ads, and its campus ambassador network. In FY25, the app plans to double its user base to 2 Mn downloads, aim for 1 Mn MAUs, and expand into offline experiences like singles meetups.  

FRAMMER AI

Helping Companies Create Highly Discoverable, Monetisable Content

Frammer was founded by Arijit Chatterjee, Suparna Singh, and Kawaljit Singh, former management team members at NDTV, who bring extensive experience in the news and publishing industry. Recognising the growing demand for high-quality short-form content, they launched Frammer to help publishers create engaging, digital-ready videos for social media platforms

Frammer’s platform transforms any video into formats suitable for YouTube, Reels, and YouTube Shorts, ensuring accuracy and editorial integrity. Initially designed to create short-form videos, it has evolved into a comprehensive 360-degree platform capable of processing live feeds, not just video clips.

In 2024, Frammer secured six major clients, including a contract with Brightcove, an online video platform. The startup is now powering key features of Brightcove’s AI strategy, which serves over 2,000 clients globally.

Frammer raised $2 Mn in seed funding from VC firm Lumikai in October 2024. With this funding, the startup aims to scale globally and strengthen its position in news and news-adjacent content. It also plans to expand into sports and entertainment.

GreyLabs AI

AI-Powered Speech Analytics Platform

GreyLabs AI, founded in 2023 by Aman Goel and Harshita Srivastava, aims to tackle the inefficiency and inconsistent performance of call centre agents. 

The startup offers a GenAI-powered speech analytics platform that analyses every interaction between agents and customers, providing insights that help improve sales conversions and ensure compliance, particularly in EMI collection calls.

GreyLabs AI follows a business model based on charging businesses per minute for processed recordings, with additional packages available on a per-agent, per-month basis.

Operating in India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, GreyLabs AI’s list of key clients include RBL Bank, AU Bank, HDFC Securities, SBI Life Insurance, Axis Finance, BankBazaar, and Groww.

The startup raised $1.6 Mn from Z47 and other angel investors. This funding helped GreyLabs AI scale its revenue by 47% MoM, and the startup plans to triple its top line in 2025.

Kiko Live

Catalysing The Q-Commerce Plunge 

Founded in 2020 by husband-wife duo Alok and Neeta Chawla, along with their childhood friend Virendra Chouhan, Kiko Live addresses the challenges posed by the rapid growth of quick commerce, which has impacted small-scale retailers in India. 

The platform enables retailers to create their online storefronts and go live within 24 hours, offering a large product repository and an easy-to-use seller solution. The quick commerce startup has raised $2 Mn to date from Powerhouse Ventures, 9Unicorns, SOSV, GSF and Venture Catalysts.

With around 800 active retailers and over 500K transactions processed to date, Kiko Live has partnered with ONDC, providing sellers visibility across buyer apps like Paytm, PhonePe, and Mystore. 

In 2024, Kiko Live was acknowledged by the Government of India in the Economic Survey, and recognised by ONDC as a key digital enabler for retailer-led grocery retail. 

Additionally, the startup has introduced automated WhatsApp orders for home deliveries, enabling D2C brands and B2B distributors to engage in quick commerce through local retailers.

Mitra 

Nutrition-Focussed FMCG Startup

Founded in 2023 by Abhishek Kaushik, Mitra is an FMCG brand focussed on offering nutrition-driven products crafted using a traditional 300-year-old stone-grinding method. Its product range includes flour, gram flour, edible oils, millet-based goods, and spices. The startup operates a 1.5-acre manufacturing unit in Mathura, catering to consumers in tier II and III cities, who seek affordable, high-quality branded goods.

Mitra’s flagship products, including pearl millet, corn flour, black wheat flour, and keto flour, are stone-ground and rich in fibre. The brand has built a strong offline presence with 500 distributors and 15,000 retail points across Delhi NCR and western Uttar Pradesh.

In 2024, Mitra upgraded its production facility to full automation, improving filtration and fibre content. It also launched new product lines, including gram flour and oil, while continuing to emphasise its unique stone-grinding technique.

The startup raised $1.2 Mn in a funding round this year, achieving a valuation of INR 168 Cr. Mitra aims to expand its exports to the Middle East and Europe and plans for an IPO by 2026. 

NeuralGarage

Studio-Quality Lip-Sync With AI

Founded in 2021 by Mandar Natekar, Subhabrata Debnath, Anjan Banerjee and Subhashish Saha, NeuralGarage is revolutionising video localisation with its proprietary tool, VisualDub. 

This tool syncs recorded voice overs with lip movements to ensure content looks authentically localised, addressing the common pitfall in dubbed videos where visual cues are out of sync with the audio.

VisualDub delivers lip-sync at 2K-4K resolution without artefacts, working across various screen sizes and transforming the face, including jaws, mouth and micro muscles to create a natural look. The startup serves clients in India and globally. Amazon, Coca-Cola and Microsoft are some of its key customers.

In 2024, NeuralGarage tripled its revenue and quadrupled its client base. It also filed patents in the US and EU and developed core models for 4K resolution. The startup has joined prestigious accelerators like AWS Global GenAI and Google APAC. It plans to raise Series A in 2025 and open an office in LA for Hollywood collaborations.

Pepsales AI

AI Platform For Personalised Demos

Founded in 2023 by Ajay Singh and Abhinandan Sahgal, Pepsales addresses a critical gap in the B2B SaaS sector — ineffective live product demos. 

Reports show that 80% of demos fail due to their generic approach. Pepsales uses AI and machine learning to create personalised demos, enhancing engagement and interest in SaaS products.

In 2024, Pepsales launched its Discovery Copilot and Demo Copilot. Discovery Copilot empowers sales teams with tailored questions and real-time objection handling, while Demo Copilot streamlines the creation of personalised demos. 

Backed by Chiratae Ventures and angel investors, Pepsales has raised $1.1 Mn. The startup competes with global players like Consensus, Folio, and Demoboost.

In 2024, Pepsales secured partnerships with 10 prominent B2B SaaS companies, expanding its market presence in the US and India.

Plane

Project Management Processes Made Seamless

Founded in April 2023 by brothers Vamsi and Vihar Kurama, Plane is transforming project management for teams across a range of industries. 

Vihar, an experienced consultant with over six years in sectors such as edtech, AI, and ecommerce recognised the limitations of existing tools, which led to the creation of Plane — a project management software designed to simplify the tracking of product roadmaps and progress.

Plane offers tailored solutions, including a one-time fee software for self-managed platforms, flexible cloud solutions), and Plane Self-hosted (available in Community, Pro, and Enterprise versions for full customisation). The platform is currently in its beta phase.

The startup has already secured partnerships with Fortune 500 companies and leading stockbroking firms in India.

The startup bids to use its simple, powerful, extensible and secure design to position Plane as a key player in enterprise project management, with plans to focus on closing more enterprise deals moving forward.

Quinn

Help Businesses Boost Conversions

Founded by Mohit Kinra and Arvind Sasikumar in 2021, Quinn harnesses video assets, such as Instagram Reels, to enhance Shopify store revenue. The startup claims to help businesses boost their conversions by 68% using existing content from TikTok or Reels.

The platform is already live with over 100 leading brands, including Juicy Chemistry, Faces Canada, Arata, and The Face Shop, and is supported by the founders of Purplle, Snapdeal, Kwench, and Mamaearth. It has raised about $400K in funding to date. 

Quinn’s mission is to revolutionise ecommerce by leveraging the power of video. The company believes that video can provide more engaging, personalised, and interactive shopping experiences. By integrating shoppable videos into online stores, Quinn helps businesses effectively showcase their products, connect with their audience, and drive sales. Its solutions combine video and commerce, enriching the shopping experience and enhancing online retail.

In 2024, Quinn achieved profitability. Looking ahead, the company aims to scale further in 2025 by targeting larger enterprises.

Reelo

Smart Marketing Platform For Small Businesses

Reelo was founded in 2021 by brothers Parin and Prit Sanghvi after recognising that small businesses, especially in the restaurant and retail sectors, often struggle with ineffective marketing.

Reelo brings enterprise-level customer data, loyalty, and marketing automation technology to small and mid-sized businesses. Its easy-to-use platform helps businesses increase revenue, attract more customers, and strengthen their brand.

Reelo’s loyalty programme builder enables restaurants to launch mobile-first programmes, while its library of 5,000+ ready-to-use templates allows for personalised campaigns across different channels like WhatsApp, SMS, and emails.

In 2024, Reelo secured $1 Mn in funding from Silicon Valley investor Gokul Rajaram. The startup grew its customer base by 3X and onboarded major brands like Punjab Grill, Bercos, and The Beer Cafe. Additionally, it expanded internationally, securing deals in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Looking ahead, Reelo plans to launch a marketing autopilot – a data-driven assistant to automate marketing efforts. It aims to reach an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $5 Mn and onboard 50,000+ businesses next year.

Reo.Dev

Revenue Intel For Developer-Focussed Companies

Founded in 2023 by Achintya Gupta, Piyush Agarwal, and Gaurav Jain, Reo.Dev is an AI-driven revenue intelligence tool for developer-focused companies. 

It helps go-to-market teams identify accounts with the highest conversion potential by analysing anonymous developer activities around their products and communities.

Reo.Dev’s revenue AI engine converts these intent signals into actionable insights, enabling GTM teams to convert interested developers into customers. 

The startup serves companies like Aporia, Lightbend, and MEM Graph and has raised $1.2 Mn from India Quotient.

In its first year, Reo.Dev achieved an ARR of $600K and aims to cross $2 Mn in ARR in 2025. With plans for 4X top line growth in 2025, the startup targets securing 20 of the top 100 global DevTool companies as clients.

Revrag AI

AI Agents For Revenue Teams

Revrag.ai, founded in 2022 by Ashutosh Prakash Singh, Neeraj Gupta and Pankaj Gupta, is a GenAI startup focussed on the B2B sales sector. The company’s goal is to automate repetitive tasks for revenue teams across industries to improve sales efficiency. 

In 2024, Revrag secured $600K in pre-seed funding led by Powerhouse Ventures, with participation from over 20 angel investors, including Kunal Shah of Cred and Vetri Vellore of Rhythms.

Revrag offers two GenAI products — Emma and Kristi. While Emma is an AI sales development representative designed to scale sales by prospecting, creating personalised emails, and scheduling meetings, Kristi is an inbound sales AI agent that engages website visitors, qualifies them based on intent, and schedules meetings directly on the calendar.

In the last two months, the company has secured 13+ paid pilots and over five annual contracts. Looking ahead, Revrag aims to build advanced AI agents for revenue teams and achieve an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $3 Mn by 2025.

Schmooze

India’s First Meme-Based Dating App

Schmooze, founded in 2021 by Vidya Madhavan and Abhinav Anurag, is a dating app that targets GenZ and millennials by leveraging memes to connect users. The platform matches individuals based on their preferences for memes, which include content from featured meme creators, an in-house meme officer team, and user-generated content. 

Schmooze’s proprietary compatibility algorithm analyses users’ meme swipes (likes and dislikes) and humour preferences to recommend the most compatible profiles. 

With $4 Mn raised this year, Schmooze has bagged about $7.5 Mn from investors Elevation Capital and Silicon Valley Quad. It also expanded its platform across India, collaborated with Swiggy for their Single’s Day campaign, and introduced AI-assisted dating to help users tackle ghosting with personalised ice-breakers and pick-up lines. 

With 25% more users joining each month, Schmooze claims a user base of 2 Mn within 14 months of launch. 

Moving forward, the startup plans to enhance its AI algorithm, which draws on over 1.5 Bn memes to provide personality insights.

Scimplify

End-To-End Platform For Specialty Chemicals 

Scimplify is a B2B platform specialising in end-to-end sourcing and manufacturing of speciality chemicals. Founded in 2023 by Sachin Santosh and Salil Srivastava, it serves industries such as pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and flavours & fragrances, managing processes from contract research to commercial-scale production.

The company’s revenue model involves providing full-service solutions, handling R&D in its labs, managing production in dedicated manufacturing facilities, and ensuring high-quality products through rigorous checks.

Scimplify has raised $13 Mn from investors, including Omnivore, Bertelsmann, Beenext, and 3one4 Capital, with $9.5 Mn secured in August to enhance R&D capabilities and expand into new geographies. 

In 2024, the startup onboarded 300+ customers and over 150 manufacturing partners, working across 3,000+ chemical products in sectors such as agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, and industrial chemicals. With the establishment of two R&D centres, Scimplify has expanded its customer base to Europe and the Middle East.

Looking ahead, the startup aims to become a leading global marketplace for speciality chemicals, connecting suppliers and consumers worldwide.  

Segwise

Copilot To Boost Return On Ad Spends

Founded in 2023 by Brijesh Bharadwaj and Shobhit Gupta, Segwise is an observability platform designed for fast-moving product and growth teams behind games and apps. 

It provides digital companies an AI monitoring of campaign data and analysis of the performance of their Mobile Measurement Partners (MMPs). For this, it provides daily reports on the factors affecting metric fluctuations and automatically identifies long-term drivers and potential customer issues.

Bharadwaj and Gupta, former leaders at FamPay, saw firsthand the challenges product and growth teams face in understanding metric changes and identifying growth opportunities. To address this, they built Segwise, leveraging AI and ML, to automate data analysis and root-cause identification.

In 2024, Segwise launched several tools, including AI-powered marketing data monitoring, creative insights for ad components, and a predictive ROAS tool. 

The startup raised $1.6 Mn from Powerhouse Ventures, Antler, and Blume Ventures and achieved 8X revenue growth in 2024. 

It was also part of the Google AI Startup Accelerator and SaaS Spotlight APJ. Moving forward, Segwise plans to expand into the US market and raise another round of funding.

Sports for Life

Changing India’s Sporting Culture

Founded by ex-DealShare founder Sourjyendu Medda and Armaan Tandon, Sports For Life (SFL) aims to transform India’s youth sports ecosystem by improving access to quality training and scaling mid-tier sports academies. 

The startup targets backing 2K to 3K academies with 15-30 coaches that cater to 300–500 students, offering high-quality coaching but lacking the resources to expand. SFL provides these academies with technology, branding, infrastructure, and access to a digital platform for scheduling, communication, and performance tracking.

SFL offers multisport training, including cricket, soccer, badminton, tennis, table tennis, and basketball, and plans to add swimming and martial arts. It also introduces value-added services like nutrition, physiotherapy, and mental health support.

SFL also arranges tech-enabled tournaments and partners with educational institutions, housing societies, and corporations. With plans to expand into 30 Indian cities in five years, SFL seeks to democratise access to world-class sports training, capitalising on India’s growing youth sports market.

SFL has raised $1.5 Mn from investors like Blume Ventures, Roots Ventures, and Kunal Shah’s QED Innovations Lab. With this, it aims to scale academies across India through its roll-up strategy, acquiring minority stakes in academies and gradually increasing control, to drive growth and expand operations.

Swish

Instant Food Gratification

Swish, a 10-minute food delivery startup launched in August 2024, aims to fill a gap in the food delivery market where larger players have struggled. 

Founded by Aniket Shah, Ujjwal Sukheja and Saran S, Swish operates cloud kitchens in Bengaluru, delivering fast food within a 1.5 km radius. It has seen impressive early growth, with 150-200 orders daily and plans to expand rapidly.

Unlike its competitors, including Zomato and Swiggy, who have struggled with 10-minute delivery services, Swish stands out by optimising food preparation and delivery within minutes. 

The startup’s model focusses on hyperlocal deliveries, low operational costs, and a high-margin food offering. With a team of 15-20, Swish operates with low overheads, no marketplace fees, and an efficient delivery process.

Swish’s future plans include scaling its operations across Bengaluru and offering healthier menu options.  

In November, the startup raised $2 Mn in a seed funding round led by Accel. The round also saw participation from angel investors such as ex-Swiggy Instamart head Karthik Gurumurthy, and Urban Company founders Abhiraj Bhal and Varun Khaitan.

Vodex.ai

GenAI Powered Sales Agent

Founded in 2022 by Anshul Shrivasthava and Kumar Saurav, Vodex aims to streamline voice-based communications using GenAI. The startup offers an AI-powered sales agent for outbound calls that can automate up to 10,000 calls daily, providing a human-like voice.

Vodex’s tool is used in the ecommerce, fintech, and real estate sectors. For example, ecommerce businesses can use it to recover abandoned carts, while fintech companies can cross-sell or upsell to existing customers.

In FY24, Vodex claims to have reached an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $1 Mn, with plans to achieve $4 Mn by FY25. In April, Vodex raised over $2 Mn from investors Unicorn India Ventures, Pentathlon VC, and 100x.vc. 

With an additional $2.32 Mn in funding, it claims to have scaled to $10 Mn in contracted revenue with an average order value (AOV) of over $1 Mn in 2024. Vodex now aims to replicate this success and reach $10 Mn in contracted revenue in 2025.

Whatmore

AI-Powered Video Commerce Platform

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

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

The platform quickly turns product images into video compilations synced with trending music, allowing users to create captivating videos in just 60 seconds. Since its launch, Whatmore has raised $650K from Goodcapital and Callapina Capital.

In 2024, the startup launched its flagship product, Studio, enabling ecommerce businesses worldwide to create product videos in minutes. Its customer base grew from 100 to 1,500, with 20% of revenue coming from US, Canada, and EU customers. Whatmore plans to expand its customer base to 10K by 2025.

Zippee

Enabling Same-Day Deliveries For D2C Brands

Founded in 2021 by Madhav Kasturia, Zippee is India’s first quick commerce logistics-as-a-service platform, designed to support over 1 Lakh ecommerce brands. 

The platform enables brands to offer two-hour or same-day delivery through their websites and channels, supported by an extensive network of dark stores and last-mile fleets across India.

Zippee’s flagship product, Zippee Blaze, helps brands boost web conversions, reduce RTO rates, and increase customer loyalty. The startup has raised $8.5 Mn from investors including Haldiram’s, South Asia Technology Partners, and CRED’s Kunal Shah.

In 2024, Zippee expanded its services to 12 cities and launched super-fast deliveries for marketplaces. Moving forward, it plans to extend operations to 20 cities and introduce 30- and 60-minute delivery-as-a-service for ecommerce platforms.

[Edited by: Shishir Parasher]

The post 2024 In Review: The Best Of Inc42’s 30 Startups To Watch appeared first on Inc42 Media.

From the elegant sandals and shoes worn in ancient Greece and Rome to Debbie Wingham high heels or an Antonio Vietri classic in gold, diamonds and a fragment of a five-century-old meteorite (priced at $19.9 Mn), footwear has been a style and wealth statement all over the globe. India, too, is putting its best foot forward as the second-largest footwear producer and consumer after China. The country is eyeing a $36 Bn market by 2030 from $15.9 Bn in 2023, at a CAGR of more than 12%.

Much of this surge could be attributed to the domestic market driven by rising disposable incomes and changing preferences due to tech and design innovations. After all, who would not prefer a trendy, all-weather ‘performance’ brand for jogging/hiking or a pair of Insta-worthy dress shoes styled by celebrities and artists? The outcome was a dual market, with aspirational buyers looking for premiumised products and the masses struggling to fit themselves in low-cost, uncomfortable footwear.

The split in the traditional footwear market was bridged by Yoho, a comfort-first, pocket-friendly direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand making functional shoes designed for daily wear. Launched by corporate veterans Ahmad Hushsham and Prateek Singhal, the startup claims it has created a niche for ‘second shoes’ (everyone keeps the best pair to go with one’s formal outfit) with zero compromises on quality and style.

The brand was not initially started for sneakerheads. It aimed to make comfortable shoes like Skechers, a famous American shoe company. However, sneakers were favoured in every market and pushed the founders to innovate Blinc, India’s first hands-free sneakers. 

Yoho also introduced Lofos, a flexible loafer; Freestep, a slip-on with great space for the feet; and Waves, a slipper that offers excellent arch support. Over the years, it has developed a diverse product line for men and women and currently sells 100+ styles and more than 700 SKUs. These are available in different hues, on a par with Western brands, costing around INR 1-2.5K, going by the prices displayed on its D2C site. 

Yoho has adopted an omnichannel business model that targets customers from metros and Tier I and II cities. It aims to reach INR 100 Cr in revenue in FY25, a 400% jump from INR 20 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

The homegrown brand’s unique blend of comfort, style and affordability has made it an investor’s favourite. It recently raised INR 27 Cr as part of its pre-Series B round and secured a total of INR 47 Cr. The funding is used for R&D, product development and strategic overseas expansion.        

From A Chance Meeting To Building A Growth Brand: How Yoho Found Its Mojo 

Yoho was set up to bridge the glaring gap between customer expectations and experience, as most Indians found that comfortable and ergonomic shoes were either unaffordable or unavailable. This mindset changed when everything else gave way to the pandemic demand for health and comfort. Hushsham and Singhal said Yoho’s timing was impeccable, helping it earn INR 3 Cr in the first year of operations.      

The beginning was dramatic as the duo met in Kanpur through a friend. Hushsham, an alumnus of Chatrapati Sahuji Maharaj Kanpur University, ran a small shoe shop after working for Jabong (later acquired by Flipkart’s Myntra) and Paytm Mall, where he led footwear and other categories. Singhal, a mechanical engineer from IIT-Delhi, worked in healthcare (Tata 1mg) and foodtech (Zomato). Their first meeting and Hushsham’s interaction with a customer at the time revealed a shared passion for cushy shoes minus the mind-boggling price tags.

Launching their footwear brand looked like an alpha opportunity. But it was difficult to crack a market overcrowded with homegrown giants (think of Bata or Metro Brands) and top MNCs. Besides, attracting mass market buyers to value-added offerings did not happen frequently. To drive that change, the founders adopted four key strategies.

Research & tech incorporation: Yoho has blended R&D and technologies with its mission to build the very ‘sole’ of its product line.

“From the start, we wanted to deliver comfort to the Indian masses. But achieving the desired level of comfort without raising prices was tough. It took us two years of rigorous research to find suitable and sustainable materials that would last long and reduce waste,” said Hushsham. “We pilot every product, opt for customer feedback and refine it before hitting the market.” 

The brand also uses data analytics and feedback loops to personalise recommendations, identify gaps and discover opportunities.

“Take, for instance, women’s sneakers, which were either too expensive or the styles were all too similar. After speaking with our customers, we saw the gap and recently came up with a large range,” added Hushsham.

Additionally, Yoho is exploring AI solutions to tailor a shoe sizing system for Indian consumers, as these measurements differ from those in the US or the EU.                

Driving down costs: The founders put it to their make-in-India strategy, a robust supply chain (inbound) and efficient and economical outbound logistics for fast deliveries and returns. Logistics can be a significant challenge when the brand expands beyond Tier II markets. Given that the next billion online shoppers will come from Bharat, where the demand for affordable, high-quality footwear is surging, streamlining logistics remains a critical mandate. However, Yoho got into it early and kept its operational costs down.

Marketing that resonates: In spite of its two pillars – comfort and affordability – Yoho would not have been where it is today had it not been for its trendy designs and vibrant colours. These features strongly resonate with the Instagram-first crowd, especially students and young professionals, who want eye-catching footwear that does not lack functionality.

To foster a sense of community beyond traditional advertising, Yoho runs campaigns like Scene Hai, featuring pop-up performances, open mic nights and collaborative art projects to showcase budding talent. These are posted on social media to connect with a wider audience beyond live events. The brand also partners with artists to design its limited-edition footwear, a ‘signature’ offering few could resist. It claims strong marketing outcomes due to these measures, including a return on ad spend (ROAS) at 3:1 and the CAC (customer acquisition cost) at INR 150 against an ARPU (average revenue per user) of INR 757.

Tapping into offline retail, quick commerce for rapid scaling: Yoho has adopted an omnichannel model, with 75% of its revenue coming from online marketplaces like Amazon and Myntra, 20% from its D2C website and only 5% from physical stores. As offline retail plays a critical role in scaling up, the footwear brand has set up kiosks and entered into strategic partnerships with multi-brand outlets (MBOs). It is present in 500 MBOs and aims to expand to 2K stores by 2025 for better visibility and enhanced shopping experience.

Keeping in mind the fast lifestyle and the desire for instant gratification among the urban populace, Yoho is also tapping into quick commerce platforms like Blinkit to ensure 30-45-minute deliveries in metro cities like Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. This initiative underscores Yoho’s commitment to customer convenience and has yielded a 400% surge in order volume within a month.

How A Collaboration With Rukam Capital Propelled Yoho

Unlike many D2C brands, Yoho has found strategic investor backing to take its growth story forward. For instance, Rukam Capital, an early stage venture capital firm focussed on consumer products and services, has been a major supporter and has invested INR 7 Cr in two rounds.

Besides funding, it has been a hands-on partner, providing strategic guidance and helping shape key business strategies at Yoho. Its consumer insights also helped the brand expand its product range and refine sizing options to cater to a broader market.  

“As India is now home to a rapidly growing organised workforce, the need for appropriate workplace attire, especially quality shoes, is rising. With growing disposable incomes, people who once overlooked footwear now seek stylish, comfortable and affordable options,” said Archana Jahagirdar, founder and managing partner, Rukam Capital.

“This is a significant opportunity, and we researched the category thoroughly before selecting the right brand. Yoho stood out due to Ahmad’s deep knowledge of footwear and Prateek’s deep understanding of scaling consumer businesses.”

The Journey Ahead

A mid-priced and functional footwear range primed for total comfort has not entered the Indian mainstream market until now. Of course, global brands like Skechers and Adidas have made inroads here, but their pricing remains prohibitive. Local players, on the other hand, often lack the quality and innovative approach to address this pain point.

Yoho considers this a unique growth opportunity, especially as its products tick all the boxes. To begin with, it’s not just a comfort thing but also a style thing, not merely about the cushioning, support or the excellent space for the feet but also trendy looks. The style quotient will be enhanced if more artists collaborate with the brand and create unique designs. Additionally, there could be extensive scope to explore biomechanics and India-first innovations to raise the bar for comfort and functionality.              

The brand aims to keep moving. It will soon introduce a kids’ line and sports/athleisure shoes, growing from 100 to 300 styles by 2025. Another significant area of growth will be expanding to markets like the US, the Middle East and Africa, where the demand for affordable, quality footwear is on the rise. 

Expansion at home and abroad will also drive Yoho’s offline growth. It aims to set up exclusive brand outlets (EBOs) powered by interactive merchandising and personalised fitting to deliver a premium shopping experience. 

“We aim to capture 10% of the Indian footwear market,” said Hushsham.

Although the market is ripe for disruption, the journey ahead is challenging. In a country where incumbents have substantial brand equity and new-age D2C brands vie for a lucrative market, Yoho must balance quality and innovation with the price factor and the complexities of scaling up. That is the winning combination for young disruptors in the traditional footwear space.

The post How Rukam Capital Backed Yoho Is Making Bold Strikes In India’s Footwear Market appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Although in its infancy, India’s climate tech industry holds immense potential to drive a meaningful change in the country’s sustainability journey. With global urgency around solving climate problems, the Government of India, too, has become serious about its net-zero emissions goals by 2070.     

However, this space is marred by challenges ranging from high capital requirements and difficulties in scaling innovation and infrastructure to a slow rate of regulatory approvals and adoption. 

To address the increasing complexity that businesses face in managing their sustainability goals, engineers Akash Keshav, Ravi Singhal, Rohit Toshniwal, and Hemant Joshi launched Sprih.

Founded in 2022, Sprih is an AI-powered climate tech platform that is designed to assist companies in streamlining their path towards attaining sustainability goals.

“Around 2019-2020, when sustainability was becoming a critical topic for businesses, the market lacked tech-driven solutions to help businesses in their ESG journey. At the time, most of them were focussed on basic consultancy or Excel-based models,” Keshav said, adding that he, along with his other cofounders, then decided to rethink ESG metrics from the lens of technology. 

They imagined an advanced SaaS platform that could help businesses achieve carbon neutrality with ease and efficiency. Today, Sprih enables enterprises to achieve their decarbonisation goals by measuring, comparing, and reporting emissions across their operations and supply chains.

The startup caters to companies across multiple industries, including manufacturing, construction, chemical, paint, pharma, IT and higher education. Sprih claims to have a customer base of over 20 clients in India, while it serves two customers in the US. 

Some of Sprih’s top clients include Indigo Paints, Hero Motors, Arvind SmartSpaces, Espi Industries, and InfoBeans, among others. Additionally, the startup claims to have research partnerships with leading institutions like IIT Kanpur and IIT Bombay. 

Founders’ Climate Tech Expertise Behind Sprih’s Genesis

Sprih’s origins trace back to 2019 when its cofounders volunteered with an NGO focussed on reforestation in the outskirts of Pune. With a shared passion for sustainability and deep expertise in technology, the cofounders bring diverse experiences to the table. 

Keshav, an IIT alumnus, built and scaled multiple business categories across his career. He transitioned to the sustainability space, collaborating with global brands to enhance their sustainable operations. 

Meanwhile, Singhal, an IIT Kanpur graduate, has extensive experience developing large-scale distributed enterprise systems. As an early member of the engineering team at Arkin Networks, he played a pivotal role in building and scaling the company for global markets.

Toshniwal, who cofounded Arkin Networks (later acquired by VMware), led the development of a leading Internet Datacenter Operations product. Known for building world-class teams and driving innovation, he combines technical expertise with a passion for impact. Joshi, with experience spanning venture capital and startups, has cofounded successful ventures such as Pentathlon Ventures, In-Reality Software, and Sapience Analytics.

Their strong tech backgrounds and shared passion for sustainability brought the cofounders together and sparked the idea to explore something related to sustainability. 

However, the real trigger came when they encountered numerous questions and identified significant gaps in the industry.

“During our volunteering days, we frequently encountered questions from donors and corporate customers on the impact of tree planting or how such initiatives have an impact on the overall sustainability story. That’s when I realised there was something significant happening in this field,” Keshav said.

Next, the cofounders decided to study the market and realised that there was a lot of white space in the market. For instance, many companies were emerging but there was a lack of tech integration in the space. A majority of players were focussed on traditional consultancy models, with interventions happening in isolated ways.

There was a lot of confusion around elements like how to accurately calculate emissions, and what actions to take and what to avoid. In addition, the overall understanding of sustainability was limited. The founders said what surprised them most was the unavailability of big players in the space. 

Seeing this gap, the cofounders decided to leave their corporate jobs and build a carbon intelligence and management platform, Sprih. The only thing they were sure of this startup was tech, rest they knew they would note down all the pain points and then work to resolve them.

In 2022, the founders registered Sprih as a B2B business that offered an AI-powered Saas platform to help businesses reduce their carbon footprint.

Currently, the startup addresses specific pain points in each industry by working closely with clients to understand their unique challenges. Rather than relying on generalised solutions, Sprih’s configuration-driven approach adapts to customers’ needs and customises solutions specifically for them. 

Sprih’s Initial Hiccups

While building Sprih, the founders faced many challenges. The first and biggest one was that sustainability data was hugely scattered across different segments (electricity, water, waste, fossil fuels) locations and facilities. 

“Comparing emissions across industries proved challenging. For instance, an IT company’s monthly emissions might equal a cement company’s daily emissions. Providing context and perspective for these numbers became essential, leading to the use of AI for benchmarking,” he said, adding that going to executives and talking about sustainability was also not easy.

Another challenge as per Keshav was auditable data for regulatory compliance. With the introduction of new regulations, there was a growing need to ensure that sustainability data was auditable and backed by credible, verifiable audits. This posed a significant challenge for the founders.

“To understand things, I used to look at the annual sustainability report of companies and found that around 2021-2022 these reports were primarily driven by the marketing team with more talk and fewer numbers but if you look at reports now, the decisions are happening more on the data side,” Keshav said.

Now, the next big peeve was to develop a long-term plan. “Sustainability is a long-term journey, not a short-term fix. Developing a plan that can sustain for 10 to 15 years was a key pain point, as it required careful, forward-thinking strategies,” Keshav added.

To overcome all these, the founders had to up their tech game.

Sprih’s Tech At Play

Notably, the founders of Sprih have developed SustainSense, an AI-driven product designed to build a knowledge graph for sustainability and enhance decision-making. 

The knowledge graph integrates publicly available sustainability data, such as peer insights, regulatory updates, and global trends, creating a comprehensive knowledge base. This data helps clients make informed decisions. 

For example, if a client wants to set a net-zero goal, SustainSense can analyse both internal and external factors, like the targets set by the industry peers and provide data-driven recommendations. 

Unlike systems that rely on general statistical approaches, Sprih’s platform adapts dynamically to complex, real-world scenarios and global changes. This flexibility ensures that clients receive tailored, intelligent solutions that evolve with their needs.

In addition to its AI-driven capabilities, Sprih’s platform empowers clients to overcome challenges in data collection, regulatory compliance, and long-term planning.

Moreover, the platform also helps companies mitigate compliance risks by staying ahead of evolving regulatory requirements, ensuring they remain aligned with current sustainability standards. This approach not only supports decarbonisation goals but also safeguards businesses against potential regulatory penalties.

Currently, the startup offers services in areas like gaining an in-depth understanding of emissions, comparing sustainability performance with industry leaders, customised blueprints for achieving sustainability goals, and transparent reporting to ensure compliance with global standards.

The Way Forward For Sprih

Sprih’s pricing model which is primarily subscription-based is currently in the price discovery phase.

According to Keshav, the charges can start from $10K, depending on the market, facilities, and other factors. “Right now, we are focussed on customer acquisition and increasing product usage,” Keshav said.

Moving on, the startup competes with the likes of Sustainiam, Varaha and INDRA. While the startup did not disclose any financial numbers as its sales began only after FY23 and its FY24 numbers still need to be audited, it has had little to no impact of the ongoing funding winter, according to the founder. In fact, it raised $3 Mn from Leo Capital in the last fiscal.

Looking ahead, the founders plan to increase the focus on the US market and target top-funded companies in India. The founders are currently focussed on adopting a “building block” approach instead of building an entire product up front. This would allow them to create flexible, modular components that can be easily integrated or modified.

While the founders are optimistic about their technology, the challenge in India lies not just in providing solutions but in changing perceptions and helping companies recognise the value of sustainability. 

As of now, the climate tech industry faces several hurdles, including regulatory changes that can cause confusion, a lack of awareness among businesses about the actions they need to take, and a general misunderstanding of sustainability mechanisms like carbon credits, which undermines trust in the industry. 

With these issues on the prowl, can Sprih lead the climate tech revolution in India?

The post How Sprih Is Empowering Businesses To Achieve Net-Zero Goals appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India is well on its way to becoming a Vikshit Bharat in a few decades. It is projected to emerge as the fastest-growing economy among the G-20. And its equity market has seen a near-non-stop bull run since the pandemic, primarily driven by institutional investors and a newfound surge in retail participation. Despite a few hiccups in the near term, J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs anticipate strong returns in the medium turn and a virtuous cycle of liquidity, sell-side coverage and capital issuance.

Not all retail investors can hope to become the next Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, though. Fast-paced financial markets are in constant flux, with a whirlwind of data, trends, split-second decisions and mammoth losses, overwhelming uninitiated individuals. However, AI-ML-powered algorithmic trading – automatically executed after strategies are pre-programmed based on investors’ goals, risk tolerance and trading preferences – has become accessible to a bigger user base. 

Set up by Pushpak Dagade, Suraj Bathija and Jimmit Patel, Mumbai-based AlgoBulls offers a user-friendly platform for algorithmic trading, encouraging greater participation from retail investors. The startup has also developed a cutting-edge technology stack that uses AI, trading parameters, deep data analytics and real-time market insights to generate sophisticated trading algorithms.  

For context, algo trading covers all aspects of the financial market, from stocks to futures & options and commodities & forex. The auto-trading system is highly coveted by many as it ensures speed and efficiency, reduces operation time and costs (no one has to scan the markets 24×7 to find a suitable deal manually) and minimises human biases and errors. 

SEBI has recently released a draft circular aimed at making algorithmic trading more accessible to retail investors—a positive move for both retail traders and compliant platforms like AlgoBulls. Dagade is a member of the SEBI working group that has actively contributed to shaping these upcoming regulations.

AlgoBulls provides a wide range of strategies, from off-the-shelf solutions to wholly customisable and dynamic models, to meet different requirements. Even users with zero coding knowledge can tweak pre-built templates to generate tailor-made options. These can be further modified, or new parameters can be added without adjusting the core code. Seasoned traders and traditional/small brokerages can leverage these solutions to develop their algorithms.

It has integrated the APIs (application programming interfaces) of several broking houses across India and the US. Hence, anyone with a trading account and an activated algo solution can benefit from automated trading on these platforms when the system finds a match for ‘buy’ or ‘sell’. Additionally, it generates server logs and ‘live reports’ to establish audit trail for every trading movement.

The platform has introduced extensive backtesting and paper trading capabilities to validate trading strategies before going ‘live’. Simply put, these are used to gauge how effectively these strategies will work in different market conditions so that users can assess potential risks and refine parameters.

It has adopted a diversified pricing structure to cater to retail traders, brokers and enterprises of all sizes. The revenue model has been designed to deliver flexibility and value, aligning with the varied requirements of platform users (more on that later).

AlgoBulls has attracted significant investor backing, securing $ 2 Mn in January 2023 during its pre-Series A round led by VCats++, an investor network funding early stage ventures across sectors. The startup raised INR 2 Cr in 2020 from the same lead investor. VCats++ combines funding with mentorship and networking opportunities to help founders drive growth and scale their businesses effectively.  

Advantage AlgoBulls: Its USP And Evolving Tech Stack

The journey of AlgoBulls started with a vision: To make tech-driven algorithmic trading accessible to all because of its transformative potential. After graduating from IIT-Delhi, Dagade moved to Bengaluru, where a chance introduction to trading by his colleagues sparked his interest.

“Initially, we were looking at a large block [read application], but soon realised that the pragmatic approach would be to develop more targeted services to cater to different users,” the founder and CEO said. “At AlgoBulls, users can create trading strategies from scratch using Python, opt for as-is templates or get modified ones.”

Dagade started with a core algorithmic trading engine and a bunch of strategies capable of fetching live market data so that the system could analyse the information and generate trading signals for automatic buying and selling. Over the years, the startup has developed miscellaneous service platforms and strategies. Here is a quick look at AlgoBulls’ major offerings.

Platforms for all traders – Odyssey & Phoenix: AlgoBulls lists its pre-built strategies on its curated marketplace called Odyssey and charges monthly subscriptions ranging between INR 499 and INR 3999. There are two more subscription models – Phoenix (INR 1,600-8300 for India, $20-$100 for US) and Phoenix Pro Build (starts from INR 20,000). The first is a customisable powerhouse, enabling users to create, test and execute their strategies. The ‘Phoenix Pro Build’ version allows traders to turn their unique ideas into actionable strategies minus any coding, as the startup’s in-house experts help them throughout the procedure.

An advanced AI tool – Phoenix Copilot: All AI-generated trading strategies are developed using Phoenix Copilot. For instance, a user can describe his/her trading strategy in simple English and say: Buy if the stock rises above the 200-day moving average and sell if it falls below. Once the parameter is specified, AlgoBulls’ AI-powered tool generates a sophisticated algorithm for auto-trading. 

Phoenix Copilot is primarily trained on indicator-based strategies for equity and options to identify potential entry and exit points. However, it is constantly refined to optimise algos, ensure the accuracy of predictive analytics and provide personalised insights based on historical and live market data.

“AlgoBulls also offers adaptive algorithms to dynamically adjust trading parameters with shifting market conditions such as changes in volatility and volume. These algos help users seize opportunities and minimise risk,” said Dagade. “Again, for certain strategies, we use machine learning to detect anomalies and outliers, alert users in real time and safeguard investments. Our AI tool will increasingly support more complex strategies and Indic languages, starting with Hinglish.”        

White-label partnerships and Enterprise setups: While its subscription-based models are available as SaaS offerings, AlgoBulls also provides white-label solutions (costs INR 50K onwards) and enterprise setups (INR 3 Lakh and above) for brokers, RAs, RIAs, small-medium-to-large hedge funds, fund managers and fintech companies operating in wealthtech space. These setups are hosted on client servers/cloud infrastructure and ensure complete customisation, control and scalability.

The startup claims 75% of its enterprise revenue comes from these custom setups and the remaining 25% from white-label solutions. Enterprise business accounts for 65% of its total revenue, and retail subscriptions contribute the remaining 35%, demonstrating a well-rounded revenue model that balances institutional and individual traders. 

The Five Pillars Of AlgoBulls’ Performance

In the high-stake financial markets, the likes of AlgoBulls are quickly becoming a darling of retail traders, wresting the stock market away from the traditional gatekeepers and letting people trade. However, putting huge amounts at risk requires responsible trading, even at the algo level, with zero human intervention. Hence, the startup has built its service platforms on five core pillars. These include:

Robust infrastructure: At AlgoBulls, each strategy operates on a virtual server, avoiding resource contention and maximising efficiency. The cloud-based platform also eliminates concerns about local hardware, network downtimes, or resource limitations.

IP protection for strategies: The platform employs proprietary formatting to safeguard user-developed strategies. The strategies generated here remain secure as these cannot be transferred to or run on other platforms.

Low-latency, high-speed execution: AlgoBulls has optimised its low-latency setup for low- and mid-frequency trading, thus ensuring high-speed execution. This speed advantage is critical for highly time-sensitive algo trading, as the goal here is to capture fleeting market opportunities with precision. 

Guardrails for risk management: It has incorporated robust risk management tools such as exposure limits, position monitoring, order controls and stop-losses to ensure disciplined trading. It also provides detailed transaction logs and performance reports in sync with compliance norms for easy tracking and monitoring. 

Regulatory compliance: AlgoBulls has a compliance-first approach and strictly adheres to SEBI regulations (in India), the SEC (in the US) and other jurisdictions where it plans to operate. Its compliance framework also covers risk management protocols, data privacy measures, internal audits and real-time monitoring systems, strategies and user activities for a secure trading experience.

AlgoBulls’ Vision For The Future 

According to Dagade and his team, AlgoBulls has gone beyond a fintech platform that demystifies algo trading. It is building a thriving community, conducting ‘Quant Quest’ competitions for algo trading across IITs and other institutes, educating the next generation of algorithmic traders and democratising access to wealth.  

In fact, it is high time for algo trading to take off in India. Despite the rise in overall retail trading, around 50% of the trade volume is automated here compared to 80-90% globally. Moreover, the record increase in demat accounts – the total number surged to 17.5 Cr in September 2024, according to Motilal Oswal – underscores the potential for algo trading. The newbies and the professionals flooding the market will require technical leverage to drive inclusion and profitability.

Globally, the algorithmic trading market is expected to hit $33.9 Bn in 2028 from $20.5 Bn in 2024. On the other hand, India’s algorithmic trading market is estimated to see a CAGR of 11.65% between FY25 and FY32, growing from $1.08 Bn to $2.6 Bn in FY32.

Realising the scope for empowering a new generation of investors, AlgoBulls aims to grow its product portfolio and enhance platform capabilities by integrating advanced AI-based features. It will also explore more complex multi-asset and multi-market strategies and expand its global footprint across North America, the EU and the Asia-Pacific. 

In the long term, the fintech startup wants to provide easy access to high-frequency trading (HFT) and introduce ASIC- and FPGA-powered algo trading via web browsers. While ASIC chips, short for application-specific integrated circuits, are optimised for specific tasks, FPGAs, or field programmable gate arrays, are more flexible and easily reconfigured to adapt to market shifts. 

It will also continue to work on educating retail users, forging strategic alliances with brokers, refining personalised investment strategies and upholding rigorous global compliance and risk management standards.

Global financial markets are changing fast. Automated algo trading will work well in India, or any market, for that matter, if new-age platforms like AlgoBulls can devise ingenious strategies and develop sophisticated trading algorithms.

The post AI On Trading Floors: Can AlgoBulls Make Automated Trading Mainstream In India? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India will bid for the 2030 Summer Youth Olympics and aspires to host the 2036 main event, announced youth affairs and sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya a couple of months ago. But in spite of a rising focus on games, sports and fitness, the country’s sports ecosystem struggles to produce global medallists. Although we have seen improvements in urban areas, rural and semi-urban regions remain vastly underserved.

The outcome could be alarming. According to a 2023 survey by PUMA India and analytics firm Nielsen Sports, Indian kids spent 86 minutes per week on sports and fitness-related activities against WHO’s recommendation of 420 minutes or more. It was even less than the Indian adults who spent 101 minutes in these activities per week, the survey said.

Globally, the scenario is quite different. In the US, the EU, Australia and similar countries, well-established funnels guide sports development from the age of three to the professional level. But India’s transformation to a true sporting nation through disruptive changes in youth sports is still a far cry. Of course, random sports academies have popped up. However, a well-structured and tech-driven pan-India initiative in the private sector is not happening at scale.

Set up by former DealShare cofounder Sourjyendu Medda and former Cartesian employee Armaan Tandon, Sports For Life (SFL) wants to change India’s youth sports culture and bring forth potential talent who may excel in different sports streams. The mission is to nurture young people’s passion for various sports and create a roll-up model for private sports academies to ensure long-term viability. For context, a roll-up strategy is about acquiring smaller entities within a specific sector and turning them into a consolidated business to reduce operational costs and maximise revenue.

SFL is Medda’s second entrepreneurial venture, the fruit of a long-standing connection with Tandon. The two had been acquainted for years, frequently sharing their views on various subjects, and recognised their shared vision for youth sports development. After stepping away from the day-to-day operations at DealShare (where he still retains a 7% stake), Medda began exploring new opportunities and eventually joined forces with Tandon.

Sports For Life has initially identified six core sports streams based on their popularity, high participation levels and sound commercial viability in the Indian context. These include cricket, soccer, badminton, lawn tennis, table tennis and basketball. The startup may also add swimming and martial arts to its portfolio to attract a broader audience.

Although headquartered in Bengaluru, SFL has strategically chosen Mumbai as its launch city, with plans to expand to Bengaluru and Delhi NCR in the next phase. It has already acquired a stake in a soccer academy and is finalising documents to part-own a lawn tennis coaching centre. Discussions are also under way regarding investments in a cricket and a basketball academy.

The 10-month-old sportstech startup recently raised $1.5 Mn from a clutch of investors, including Blume Ventures, Roots Ventures and Kunal Shah’s QED Innovations Lab. It also received backing from Tandon Group chairman Manohar Lal Tandon’s family office and others.

What’s Missing In India’s Youth Sports Training

According to Medda, while professional sports leagues like the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the India Super League (ISL) have attracted the country’s largest conglomerates such as the Reliance and the Jindal groups, the youth sports segment remains unorganised and lacks adequate funding. The funnel creation for the formative years, between three to four years and 16–18, is where the real gap lies.

“Take the fitness industry as an example. About eight years ago, gyms were largely unorganised. Today, we see something very similar in youth sports. There are a lot of small, unorganised academies doing good work, but there isn’t a single branded player operating at the national level. No one is offering top-tier facilities, services and technology even to the upwardly mobile urban takers who love sports and are ready to pay for a premium experience,” said Medda.

“Parents today are looking for the right coaching and related expertise for their kids. The market for youth sports training and associated services is huge. In the US, it’s a $30 Bn market per annum. As for India, it currently stands at $1 Bn and is growing exponentially. I believe this market will grow to anywhere between $3–5 Bn in the next five years,” he added.

How Sports For Life Aims To Transform Mid-Tier Academies, Enhance Coaching

India is home to around 30K sports academies for children and youth. At the top of the rung are 100–150 academies run by world-famous sports personalities such as Prakash Padukone, Pullela Gopichand and Dibyendu Barua. These academies cater to professional sportspersons performing at the district, state, or national level. However, this creamy layer only contributes 5–10% of the existing market. The long tail of this segment is the other end of the spectrum, around 25–27K smaller setups, each run by one or two coaches and training 10–50 young people.

Sports For Life does not target either of these segments and only explores the mid-tier, a group of 2–3K well-established centres operating nationwide. Run by 15-30 coaches, usually former state or national players passionate about sports training but not celebrities, these academies have been well-recognised brands in their micro-catchments for the past five to 10 years. They operate two to three centres in a city and typically train 300–500 at any given time in the sports they specialise in.

These mid-tier academies also generate an annual turnover of INR 2–4 Cr, contributing up to 50% of the current market.

“The academy owners are often well-educated and ambitious. They understand the importance of technology and scaling but lack the resources to build it themselves,” said Medda. “So, here is SFL’s opportunity to provide advanced technology, branding and the infrastructure these academies need to expand and scale their operations on one unified platform.”

As the startup provides multisport training within a city, users need not hunt for different academies for different streams. In today’s market, no single brand offers access to high-quality coaching across multiple sports in the same catchment area. Sports For Life helps cope with this issue by collaborating with leading academies in each sport and offering users a unified option for all training needs.

Another key challenge the startup addresses is the lack of a digital ecosystem in existing academies. Most operate solely in physical spaces and feature no digital scheduling, communication, or feedback system. In contrast, the SFL app provides a comprehensive digital platform streamlining parent-coach interactions, class scheduling, performance tracking and financial transactions.

It has also introduced value-added services from nutritionists, physiotherapists, mental health specialists and others to ensure well-rounded training sessions. Modern sports science supports an interdisciplinary approach, making these services essential for sports success. However, individual academies cannot always provide these due to budget constraints. SFL makes these accessible through its integrated platform and brings global expertise to curriculum development by collaborating with overseas sports clubs.

Besides regular coaching, SFL arranges high-quality, tech-enabled tournaments, setting new standards for competition. These events will attract top teams, ensuring a high level of participation and incorporating live streaming, performance scorecards and highlight reels powered by AI.

SFL’s Cutting-Edge Strategies To Manage The ‘Business Of Sports’

Sports For Life’s business model revolves around a roll-up strategy for sports academies, similar to how Cult.fit consolidated unorganised gyms into a single, branded platform. Cult.fit brought existing gyms under one umbrella, offering standardised experiences, a standard technology platform and a unified curriculum. SFL seeks to replicate this success in the youth sports training segment by consolidating mid-tier academies that are already delivering high-quality sports training.

Simply put, the startup follows a strategic investment model, initially acquiring minority stakes in sports academies and gradually moving to controlling stakes within one to two years. This business strategy enables SFL to transform all partnering academies into fully integrated SFL Academies.

For its portfolio academies, Sports For Life provides growth capital to help them achieve scale and stay in the black. Most organisations struggle to expand beyond two or three centres that have opened over the years. However, SFL’s investment enables them to open multiple centres within a brief period, facilitating citywide and statewide growth, claimed Medda.

“The academies under SFL’s portfolio are inherently profitable, boasting 50% or more gross margins. To achieve EBITDA-level profitability, they need to scale their revenues by 1.5–2x, a milestone we plan to achieve within the first year of operational collaboration with academy founders. Beyond that, we aim to grow each academy by 7–10x its current scale in five years,” he added.

Meanwhile, the startup has a multifold revenue stream in place. It earns a part of the coaching and value-added service fees from its portfolio academies and generates revenue from its digital management platform and merchandise sales.

Additionally, it earns participation and hospitality fees from the tournaments it arranges. SFL designs these tournaments as high-quality and tech-enabled popular sports meets, which can attract top-tier teams and lucrative corporate sponsors as these culminate into state- and national-level events.

The startup also partners with educational institutions and corporations to offer sports training and recreational activities, earning fees from these affiliations. In addition, it collaborates with housing societies and live-stream programmes for a fee.

India Has Talent; Can Sports For Life Create A Generation Ingrained In Sports?

Sports For Life has ambitious plans and is keen to meet success halfway to ensure quick culmination and growth. Although the founders would not comment on this, the startup’s strategy to explore mid-tier academies underscores tapping into talent without delay and gaining financial leverage at the earliest. Understandably, sports coaching at the grassroots level will be out of bounds for a single private sector organisation.

To make the best of the available facilities, SFL plans to acquire at least one high-quality academy for each sport in Mumbai, providing young users easy access to trusted and well-managed academies in their city. It will expand its operations to the top 30 Indian cities in the next five years, democratising access to excellent coaching/sports training.

The growing market for sports training will be an added fillip to SFL and its ilk, leading to a substantial opportunity for sports academy roll-up in India. Although the India market projections for the next decade are not immediately available, globally, the sports training market is estimated to reach $50.7 Bn by 2035, from $27.8 Bn in 2023.

Plus, there will be further scope for growth. A significant portion of India’s sports fan base is Gen Z, who engage in soccer and hockey or traditional games like kabaddi and kho-kho. This shift in fandom also underscores a large, untapped market for new and emerging sports leagues. It means more discipline, increasing coaching opportunities and better monetisation across multiple sports streams. Whether Sports For Life can rise to the occasion and utilise an evolving market remains to be seen.

[Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal]

The post Will This DealShare Cofounder’s Bold Plan Be A Game-Changer For Youth Sports Training? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The year: 2002. The hospitals are G.B. Pant Hospital in Port Blair and Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute in Chennai. The project: Linking the two to mark the beginning of the telemedicine era in India. A year ago, ISRO ran a pilot, telelinking Chennai’s Apollo Hospital with a rural facility in Andhra Pradesh. Since then, this digital format fostering fast and efficient healthcare thrived and peaked during the Covid-19 pandemic, when virtual medical visits rapidly overtook in-person consultations.

In a country like India, telemedicine is not merely convenient but transformative. It can help the country’s rural population (about 65% of the total populace) remotely access more than 75% of the healthcare professionals in metropolitan regions. A survey also revealed a wide disparity: More than 60% of people from rural areas often travel up to 100 km to access critical treatment, and nearly 90% of the total population have no financial protection for health.  

While offering virtual consultations during Covid-19, Dr Vishesh Kasliwal became painfully aware of how rural healthcare fell short of standard services due to limited access to qualified doctors, lack of essential medicines and inadequate diagnostics facilities. The seasoned medical practitioner with an MBA in healthcare management joined forces with his wife, Rachita, an expert in healthcare marketing, branding and strategy. Together, they set up Medyseva, a platform focussing on underserved regions, matching patients’ requirements with the nearest specialists and connecting them for fast and affordable treatment.

At its core is a B2C phygital platform that enables teleconsultations via an app or by visiting any of its 200+ satellite clinics in 10 states, all fully equipped for secure video consultations. These rural hubs are managed by trained nurses and paramedics who help with initial assessments, connect patients with doctors via the Medyseva app and provide diagnostic services. Test reports are directly sent to the doctor concerned for review. 

What sets these clinics apart is the on-site installation of Medyvend, an IoT-powered automatic drug vending machine to ensure a seamless supply of medicines across rural and remote regions. Besides, the startup offers specialised healthcare services, including Medyvision for eyecare, Medyshe for women’s health, Medydiet for nutrition-related requirements and Medymate for preventive healthcare workshops.     

In the B2B space, it collaborates with medical colleges and hospitals to expand its teleconsultation network and set up more satellite clinics. Medyseva has partnered with five medical colleges and more than 25 private hospitals for quick referrals and claims a network of more than 1K doctors across specialities.

The startup earns from teleconsultation (accounts for 40% of its revenues), satellite clinic charges (35%), sales from drug vending machines (10%), specialised healthcare services (10%) and partnership fees from hospitals and doctors (5%). About 70% of its revenues come from rural areas and Tier III cities; the rest is from Tier II locations, underscoring its focus on non-metro healthcare. 

Medyseva is eyeing a more than 200% revenue jump in the current financial year and preparing to raise a Pre-Series A round of INR 8-10 Cr to scale operations and enhance its tech stack (more on its expansion plans later).

How Medyseva Is Redefining Rural Healthcare With Tech & Trust-Building

By the time the Kasliwals decided to launch their telemedicine platform, the pandemic benefit of the digital format had worn off, and questions were raised globally regarding the quality of care. Hot tech startups were accused of prioritising growth above everything else. In brief, a new telehealth format was needed to bring back the boom in a post-pandemic world. Here is a quick look at what the founders did to take their telemedicine startup a notch higher.  

Changing patient perception through a phygital model: As the realisation dawned fast that telemedicine was a mere tool and could not replace the traditional touch of a medico, the founders knew that a more integrated approach would be required to add value to the digital-only telehealth model. A well-juxtaposed phygital format, like a satellite clinic operating physically and digitally, was the first step to building accountability and trust among rural communities.

As the satellite clinics are closer to home, patients typically travel 0-15 km to access treatment, significantly reducing long-distance travel. Many of these units are strategically set up near a medical college or hospital to ensure quick access to emergency medical services. 

Medyseva has further deepened its reach through health camps and workshops via its Medymate initiative, localised campaigns promoted by village health workers and panchayats, spreading the word through educational institutions and building social media engagement.

In-clinic hand-holding and follow-up care: Unlike many telemedicine providers where patients are left on their own for appointments and consultations, Prior to the teleconsultation, a trained nurse assesses a patient’s vital signs (blood pressure, temperature, pulse and respiratory rates, oxygen saturation) and selects the appropriate speciality care (general medicine, dermatology, cardiology and so on). 

The platform instantly notifies all available doctors from the selected speciality, thus minimising wait time. Secure video consultations are carried out via the Medyseva Doctor App, and multilingual support is provided to facilitate effective communication.

“The entire process, from a patient entering a clinic to completing the consultation and leaving, typically takes eight to 11 minutes. This efficiency is crucial for serving more patients in rural areas and enhancing overall accessibility,” said Dr Kasliwal.

Follow-up consultations are managed through reminders and automated scheduling to ensure the continuity of care, especially for chronic conditions. 

Robust tech for medicine vending, digital framework: To optimise its telemedicine delivery, Medyseva has integrated diagnostics services with its satellite clinics and digitally records all outcomes and case histories for instant access by doctors and patients. All patient data and transactions are encrypted for healthcare data confidentiality.

Each satellite clinic will install Medyvend, an IoT-powered automatic medicine vending machine, to source prescribed medicines instantly. These are connected to a secure cloud platform synced with the Medyseva app and the entire telemedicine system. When a doctor prescribes medication, the prescription is directly sent to the vending machine of the specific clinic from where the patient has signed in. 

These machines verify each prescription before dispensing the correct dosage, thus minimising human errors, while patients can use QR codes or unique prescription IDs to access their medications. These are also equipped with sensors to monitor stock levels and send real-time alerts.

B2B and B2G collaborations for specialised care: The platform will increasingly tie up with private hospitals, global organisations and government initiatives such as Ayushman Bharat to integrate with rural healthcare. It aims to expand medical services, increase Medyvend installations and 5x its satellite clinics in the next five to 10 years to provide inclusive care for the most marginalised communities.

How Tie-Ups With iStart Rajasthan, Other Investors Are Driving Growth

Support from iStart, a flagship initiative by the Rajasthan government, has played a key role in shaping Medyseva’s growth journey. The programme has provided valuable mentorship and much-needed networking opportunities, as well as a space to showcase the startup’s innovative services and cutting-edge technologies. 

The platform is now looking at widespread campaigns, word-of-mouth promotions and social media engagement to grow pan-India, with a focus on underserved tribal communities and the northeast region. Hence, iStart’s access to the grassroots and expertise in building a vibrant ecosystem around target audiences will stand in good stead. 

It has already secured INR 1.6 Cr from Arise Ventures, Anikarth Ventures, ITI Ventures and a clutch of angel investors. It is preparing to raise a pre-Series A round to fund its business growth and next-gen medtech products.

Will Medyseva Witness A Business Boom Post-Pandemic?  

Is the telemedicine boom over now that physical visits to doctors and hospitals are no longer a near-impossible task? In 2020, at the outset of Covid-19, India’s healthtech market size was estimated to reach $21 Bn in 2025 on the back of telemedicine and preventive healthcare, growing from a meagre $6.8 Bn. However, after a 4.8x funding surge during the pandemic – from $456 Mn in 2020 to $2.19 Bn in 2021 – capital flow in this sector dipped by 19% CAGR between 2022 and H1 2024.

Some industry experts believe that the lack of a value-added care mechanism in telemedicine was partially responsible for the dip. Others feel telemedicine will continue to thrive if specialist doctors and hospitals remain out of bounds for rural and remote India.    

Medyseva seems to be addressing the hybrid requirement rising out of this scenario – a combination of remote consultations and human help at hand. In a way, telemedicine would always thrive in a hybrid setting, as a Deloitte report said. Even when artificial intelligence identifies all medical conditions, human validation and help will be needed to meet people’s emotional requirements.       

Meanwhile, the startup is not sitting on its laurels because it may have cracked the value code. Instead, it will grow patient registrations to 1.5 Mn in the next two to three years, enter semi-urban areas with high population density, set up 100 more satellite clinics with Medyvend machines and partner with 10 more medical colleges and 50 additional private hospitals to expand its network.

“We aim to upgrade Medyvend machines and deploy them to Tier II and III cities and primary healthcare centres. The aim is to dispense OTC devices like glucometers and thermometers. Plus, we will introduce advanced AI-based health monitoring to improve the quality of remote care,” said Dr Kasliwal.    

In the long term, the startup plans to enter all Indian states and replicate its business model in South Asian and African nations where similar conditions prevail in rural healthcare. It will also develop SaaS solutions for global hospitals and healthcare providers, build a top-notch team and target an annual revenue of more than INR 100 Cr.

Can Medyseva emerge as a trusted and innovative healthcare partner for millions worldwide? It seems to be taking healthy steps towards the right direction for now. 

The post How Medyseva Is Solving The Doctor Drought In Rural India With A ‘Phygital’ Telemedicine Model appeared first on Inc42 Media.

It’s almost the end of 2024, and by now, you are likely familiar with ChatGPT — a platform that has revolutionised how people write, code, or carry out various creative tasks. You’ve probably also come across other generative AI (GenAI) tools like Claude, Bard, and DALL-E.

With the rapid rise in GenAI adoption and an ever-growing number of models available, users often face the challenge of selecting the right tools.

However, what if there’s a single platform that could offer access to multiple GenAI tools under one subscription plan at a fraction of the cost?

This is exactly what OneAIChat is currently trying to do. The Mangaluru-based startup aggregates various GenAI tools into one platform, helping users save time and money while eliminating the hassle of juggling multiple AI tools.

While the approach isn’t entirely new, and a few international companies are already working on this concept, OneAIChat is undoubtedly one of the pioneering names from the country to be pursuing this. In its endeavour, it desires to serve users in creative fields and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) use cases.

Founded in 2023 by Prasad Kale, OneAIChat claims to provide one subscription with unlimited access across various LLMs, potentially saving professionals 30-40% on the AI tools available in the market.

As the enablement layer of GenAI continues to get stronger and attract more investments, OneAIChat is set to play a critical role in India’s GenAI market set to breach the $17 Bn mark by 2030. 

OneAIChat’s Game Plan

It is now well-established that GenAI is shaping almost every aspect of human communication, content creation, science and research, and business management, gradually becoming part of our everyday lives. 

Despite transitioning from a solely free-to-use platform to a subscription model starting at $20 per month, ChatGPT’s user base has continued to grow significantly. It recorded more than 200 Mn weekly active users in August this year. 

However, the problem is that ChatGPT has its shortcomings. For instance, it is largely good at generating human-like text responses to different prompts but struggles with certain domain-specific questions and hallucinations. In many cases, Anthropic’s Claude has proven to perform better than ChatGPT.

Meanwhile, OpenAI’s Sora, which is specifically built for video generation, is often compared to Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion. Even Elon Musk has entered the fray with Grok AI, focussing on image generation.

Besides the main foundational models, more than 1.2 Lakh transformer-based models are available in the market across natural language processing, computer vision, and multimodal use cases such as audio-to-text, text-to-image, video-to-text, and so on.

As OneAIChat has taken the multimodal approach by bringing several of these models together, the startup is helping create comprehensive content by generating blogs, visuals, audio, documents, and music. Yet these are categorised and focussed towards precise industry needs.

Speaking with Inc42, OneAIChat’s founder Kale said, “When we say aggregation, it’s not just providing ChatGPT and Gemini or Mistral of the world, we have partnered with the likes of Haiper, which has been doing text-to-video for the last eight months now; we have partnered with Beethoven, which is an Indian company for text-to-audio; we have also partnered with some niche image generators like Ideogram.”

OneAIChat is also building its own models, using various open-source foundational models. Currently, these models have 11 “focus categories”, including health, marketing, coding, faith, science, finance, and art.

Prasad, who comes with more than a decade of product development experience in Reliance and startups like MobiKwik and Intelegain Technology, dedicated the last one year to building these in-house models and forging partnerships with the global GenAI giants.

While much of it requires subscriptions, certain tools in OneAIChat are free of cost. Besides, the startup is not B2B focussed and is rather providing common users with its platform.

How Does OneAIChat Make Money? 

One of the key factors driving the growth of OneAIChat is the high subscription fees of existing GenAI models and applications. This is also exactly where the GenAI aggregation startup has an edge.

To give a few examples, ChatGPT Plus has a monthly cost of $20 while ChatGPT Pro comes with a $200 monthly cost. Similarly, Claude Pro and Gemini Advanced cost around $20 per month.

On the other hand, OneAIChat offers six tiers of subscriptions — from $13 to $1,000 per month — which include unlimited free access across 10 or more tools and models that users can pick and choose from. 

Its daily subscription plan starts at $13 (INR 1,099) and provides access to all pro models provided by OpenAI, Anthropic, Stability AI, Google’s Gemini, DALL-E, and more, and allows generating an image to audio documents, and more.

OneAIChat’s monthly subscription costs around $84 (INR 7,099) with access to the same features. Besides, the platform also provides quarterly and yearly subscriptions.

OneAIChat’s founder Kale said that besides the attractive price points, the platform also stands out because of its unique daily subscription feature.

“Two of our biggest differentiators are that we provide unlimited tokens (the prompts) and not restricting users to a monthly subscription,” he said. 

According to the founder, users often come to pro-generative AI platforms for specific tasks and don’t need them for a full month. So, now they don’t have to subscribe to multiple platforms and pay $200+ for a full month when they only need it for a day or two.

The Road Ahead For OneAIChat

The journey of OneAIChat has just begun. Currency, the startup is growing its footprint markets in India, the US, the UK, South Korea, China, Australia and Zealand, Japan, Canada, South America, and a few other European countries with free access to its platform.

The startup is currently bootstrapped but plans to raise $9 Mn-$10 Mn in the next three to five years in external funding. 

By the end of the June quarter of the next fiscal year (Q1 FY26), OneAIChat expects to onboard at least 30,000 users on its platform when it also sees a revenue inflow.

Once it starts clocking revenue, OneAIChat has a rough estimate of generating $761K in sales in three months.

Meanwhile, the startup will continue to refine its LLM models and develop highly sophisticated models fine-tuned for domain-specific use cases, particularly in health and finance.

Going forward, OneAIChat expects its largest revenue to come from the European region, followed by the Americas.

With US-based platforms like Magai and Poe developed by Quora working on a similar business model and TCS launching the GenAI aggregation platform, WisdomNext, for businesses, it will be interesting to see OneAIChat tap into the vast global market opportunity.

All said and done, while OneAIChat’s innovative aggregation model holds promise, the startup faces stiff competition from established global players and emerging Indian rivals. Its pricing model and focus on individual users could carve out a niche but long-term success will depend on staying ahead in a rapidly evolving GenAI landscape.

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post Can OneAIChat Become The One-Stop Shop For All GenAI Tools? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Prior to the funding winter, raising mind-boggling amounts from private investors was usually considered a surefire path to startup success. But when financing dried up, bootstrapping to build a successful, sustainable business became tricky for cash-guzzlers. Those who survived realised that the quality of holding out and evolving into an enduring business would be the success benchmark in the new normal. 

Long before the exuberant funding years triggered by the pandemic-led FOMO and the brutal market corrections that followed, two engineering students proved that a strong product could overcome growth hurdles minus the VC dollars. Tejas Rathod and Kunal Kothari did not attend elite institutions (read IITs and IIMs). Neither were they connected to the old boys’ club (venture capitalists, per se). But during their college days itself, Tejas Rathod and Kunal Kothari transformed their college project into a content monetisation platform.

They were elated when the duo earned a $100 paycheque from Google for their initial work. But it set them thinking about a technology-driven business to navigate complex customer journeys better than any traditional tech solution. The year was 2017, and the portmanteau concept (a cocktail of martech and adtech, but more on that later), globally introduced by David Raab in 2015, was nascent in India. 

Realising the limitations of traditional digital marketing was not adequate for businesses in a hyper digital-first era, Mobavenue pivoted to the all-new hybrid model. Customers expect a continuity of experience when connecting with brands via numerous digital channels. Hence, madtech combines martech’s individual reach and the massive datasets of adtech to ensure that advertisers can reach and cater to target customers across all possible platforms. 

To ensure end-to-end offerings, the duo launched a programmatic advertising platform, essentially an automated way for selling and buying online ad space, so that brands can decide where, when and how to display their digital ad campaigns to top off their marketing efforts. Today, Mobavenue operates as a one-of-its-kind madtech agency, enabling brands to grow beyond walled gardens by guiding consumers through awareness, acquisition and retention. 

In 2020, Rathod and Kothari met Ishank Joshi, a serial entrepreneur and thus, began a long-standing association among them. Soon Ishank joined as CEO and cofounder of Mobavenue, bringing his long-standing association with Kothari and Rathod to the forefront. He was tasked with driving the company’s growth strategy, market expansion and profitability.

Mobavenue caters to startups of all sizes, large enterprises, media agencies and ad publishers. Its key clientele includes  HDFC Bank, PhonePe, Groww, Swiggy, Zepto, Nykaa, and Games 24×7.

It has executed more than 30K campaigns and expanded to a team of 150+. According to Joshi, the startup has a strong presence across travel, gaming, retail, BFSI and entertainment sectors.

With its operations spanning eight countries – India, UAE, the US, the UK, Australia, Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia – and overseas offices in London, New York, Kuala Lumpur and Dubai. Mobavenue wants to emerge as a global madtech powerhouse and feels confident of sustainable growth, given its track record.

How Mobavenue Navigates Its MadTech Journey To Empower Brands

Aware that martech and adtech (marketing tech and advertising tech, respectively) are interdisciplinary yet collaborative aspects of holistic branding to drive sales, Mobavenue has built a full-stack madtech pack in-house for comprehensive and connected operations. It required targeted hiring – picking and choosing talent who could wear multiple hats typical of a startup culture. Given its bootstrapping strategy, setting up a lean team was mandatory at the time.

Next came the pivot from a straightforward digital marketing agency to a madtech platform. For context, martech utilises first-party or consent data captured from owned media (CRMs, CDPs, email/website/app interactions and more) to create and manage personalised messages. Adtech, on the other hand, gathers third-party datasets (as permissible by law) and displays relevant campaigns on paid media like digital ads, paid searches and social networks. 

Madtech is the convergence of both. Essentially, it is an amalgamation of the valuable customer insights retrieved from internal systems and data from external channels for more value-added engagement to attract target customers across all channels, locations and devices. Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI-ML) are also incorporated in madtech for process automation, optimisation and better decision-making based on cutting-edge data analytics. 

Consider this. A fashionista browses online for the latest fashion trends on mobile. As one explores, this activity sends a signal to advertisers (in this case, fashion brands) interested in showing highly relevant ads. Behind the scenes, these advertisers compete to display their ads by real-time bidding. The highest bidder wins the opportunity. Soon, one sees an ad within a given app offering a special discount. Intrigued, one clicks the ad, downloads the app, and makes a purchase. It is an excellent example of personalised mobile/app marketing and advertising technology, demonstrating how effective programmatic advertising is in identifying, reaching and acquiring new users (and later, retargeting them).

Initially, Mobavenue launched two products – SurgeX and ReSurgeX – to cover the entire funnel from awareness creation to acquisition, retargeting and retention. Here is how it works:

SurgeX: The AI and ML-powered demand-side platform (DSP) automates ad impression buying and selling and ensures that ads are placed in the best spots online. Essentially, brands/advertisers leverage the DSP to bid on ad space, while publishers list their inventories on its supply-side platform (SSP) on ad exchanges. Using data analytics, Mobavenue enables these ads to reach target audiences.  

SurgeX employs advanced algorithms and predictive bidding tools to forecast ideal costs, manage ad spending and maximise return on ad spend (ROAS).

“Our ML algorithms are designed to adapt and evolve with the unique demands of each industry segment and continuously optimise campaign performances,” said Joshi. 

Its real-time monitoring and tracking dashboards allow brands to assess their alignment with key performance indicators (KPIs) and enable data-driven decision-making for maximum impact.

ReSurgeX: Designed for customer re-engagement, ReSurgeX uses contextual and product-based ads to convert past visitors and retain lapsed users, driving higher conversions.

This was followed by the launch of AudX in 2023, PrsmX in early 2024 and now, the brand is set to launch GMP360 in 2025. 

AudX: AudX is a consumer intelligence platform that collects and analyses customer data for AI-driven, personalised campaigns. With access to a database of over 500 million unique users in India, AudX helps brands define user cohorts in real-time.

PrsmX: The platform focuses on upper-funnel activities, enhancing brand awareness, engagement and uplift through a programmatic ecosystem that includes video, connected TV (CTV), OTT, audio, and retail media solutions.

GMP360: The company is set to launch the Growth Marketing Platform 360 (GMP360) in early 2025. This unified growth platform will integrate Mobavenue’s entire product suite, harnessing the power of AI and ML to streamline media and performance marketing operations. By incorporating advancements in generative AI, GMP360 aims to reduce time and costs while driving comprehensive growth across all marketing touchpoints.

Overcoming Growth Hurdles And Data Privacy Challenges

“Around five years ago, brands used to allocate 50-60% of their digital budgets to paid searches and social platforms. So, we needed to educate brands about the advantages of programmatic advertising [the kind of work Mobavenue does] as a transparent, data-driven, scalable and cost-effective solution. As the outcomes demonstrated its effectiveness, brands’ trust in us and programmatic advertising gradually grew,” said Joshi.

The founders also understood that a stellar product alone could not thrive in a market where awareness was limited. To bridge this gap, the leadership team started awareness campaigns to showcase the benefits of programmatic advertising (and madtech), resulting in a surge in brand interest and user engagement.

Mobavenue products are built to address the distinct challenges faced by specific industry verticals such as BFSI, ecommerce, fintech, gaming and D2C businesses. By analysing historical data, consumer behaviour and market trends, it has crafted strategies that resonate with target audiences and deliver measurable outcomes. 

“Our deep sector knowledge enables us to create highly effective, industry-specific advertising campaigns that drive business growth and sharpen competitive edge,” said Joshi.

Interestingly, the startup’s decision to expand overseas is driven by analytics and precision.

“We enter a new market only after a meticulous, comprehensive analysis. We evaluate key metrics such as population size, mobile user penetration rates, internet usage levels and the scale of digital media expenditure,” the CEO added.

The Road Ahead For Mobavenue In A World Of People & Data

Over the next three years, Mobavenue aims to expand its global footprint by establishing offices across North and South America, the UK, the EU, East Asia and LATAM. This strategic expansion includes hiring local talent in these regions while retaining its core global operations teams in India, leveraging a cost-efficient model akin to software-as-a-service (SaaS).

“India will remain our technology and operations powerhouse as we expand globally,” said Joshi. Adding further, “we will continue investing in tier 2 cities like Surat, Pune, Hyderabad and Jaipur to build a world-class tech and operations workforce.”

Its expansion strategy aligns well with the emerging opportunities in programmatic advertising and the madtech sector. Globally, programmatic ad spend, a critical component of the madtech business, is estimated to reach $800 Bn by 2028 from an estimated $595 Bn in 2024. On the other hand, industry analysts predict that by 2027, stakeholders will invest $245 Bn annually in the madtech space, up from $100 Bn in 2020. 

That is a lucrative market, but Mobavenue faces competition from players like Inmobi, Affle and global giants like Applovin and The Trade Desk. However, what differentiates the startup is its proprietary service platform that enables brands to make data-informed decisions, refine strategies, and optimise costs. This is crucial in an era when nearly 40% of global digital marketing spend is estimated to be wasted on underperforming campaigns.

The startup is preparing to lead the charge as the digital ad space shifts toward AI-driven personalisation and privacy-conscious practices. “Technologies like contextual advertising and persona-based targeting, which analyse usage patterns without collecting personally identifiable information, will play a pivotal role. As consumers demand stronger data protection, Mobavenue’s privacy-first approach positions us to lead this shift,” said Joshi.

The only glitch: Despite all tech advantages, markets will always be about people and what they choose to buy. Technologies like madtech can help brands carve a path to reach consumers amid constant flux. But brands, publishers and tech service providers like Mobavenue must understand why and how people choose. That will remain the cornerstone of effective campaigns and madtech success.

The post How Mobavenue Bootstrapped Its Way To Global MadTech Success appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India’s refurbished smartphone market has grown significantly in the last few years on the back of the rising aspirations of Indians for premium gadgets. Be it a college-going student or an early professional, everyone today aspires to own high-end smartphones. 

However, these aspirations often clash with financial constraints. This, in turn, has increased the appetite for refurbished products, which are available in the market for a fraction of the cost. 

To cater to the growing aspirations of Indians and cash in on the rapidly growing refurbished smartphone market (projected to grow at a CAGR of 13.73% by 2028), Nitin Goyal and Shrey Sardana launched GREST in 2021. 

What fuelled the purpose behind their endeavour was the absence of premium-quality phones at affordable prices from the market. To cater to these aspirations of millennials and Gen Z, Goyal and his childhood friend Sardana decided to launch GREST. 

The Gurugram-based recommerce platform sells refurbished iPhones, MacBooks, and laptops. GREST has over 500 SKUs, and every smartphone sold via its platform goes through 50+ points of quality checks.

Recently, the startup raised INR 2.5 Cr. Following the round, the startup has been able to achieve a 5X revenue growth. According to the founders, the recommerce startup has seen a 52% increase in units sold and registered a 200% revenue growth in Q2 FY25 compared to the same quarter in FY24, driven by high demand for premium phones.

The GREST Story

Operational since 2021, GREST is the byproduct of Sardana and Goyal’s childhood dream of starting a business together.

Before joining forces, the duo were stuck in the corporate rat race. While Goyal has worked with multiple telecommunication giants, Sardana hails from the electronics repair sector. 

With their electronics background, both founders consistently stayed attuned to industry trends. Around 2016-2017, the founders observed the trend of the recommerce industry picking up, particularly in repairing and refurbishing goods. 

This period also saw a surge in ecommerce companies, brands and large retail chains actively adopting exchange plans.

By 2017, the exchange, trade-in and buyback market had grown significantly, with many ecommerce players adopting exchange schemes as their key sales drivers. 

During this time, Cashify was also gaining a lot of traction with its model of procuring old phones in exchange for new ones.

Inspired by the business model, the duo decided to repair and refurbish devices that were returned to ecommerce sellers for various reasons.  

In 2018, the duo left their decade-long corporate careers to embark on their entrepreneurial journey and started Radical Aftermarket Services, a B2B service company focussed on providing repair services.

For nearly two years, the founders focused on providing repair services. However, the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the supply chain, prompting them to rethink their business model.

“During the pandemic, everyone around us was looking for a gadget, whether it was our maid or our security guard. Kids needed a gadget for their online classes, while many young professionals were looking for a second-hand iPhone to fulfil their aspiration,” Goyal said.

This highlighted an opportunity for affordable refurbished devices, prompting the founders to launch a platform in 2021 for both B2B and B2C consumers. Their goal was to meet the demand for premium gadgets at accessible prices.

Hence, the founders decided to pivot from the repair services offered by Radical Aftermarket Services to a product-based business and incorporated GREST.

GREST’s Market Play

GREST has evolved its distribution network in the last three years and is now present in 26 states and five Union Territories. It aims to create a niche in the refurbished phone market by reintroducing phones that are deemed “dead” or have short lifespans. 

“We buy low-cost phones, address issues, and prepare them for resale. For spare parts, we have developed a machine to aid in this process. For example, screen replacements in the market typically cost INR 5-10K, but with our machine, the cost of a display replacement will drop to just INR 1,000,” Goyal said.

The founders have developed a beta version of this machine, which was previously available only in China. With this, they aim to eliminate supply chain dependencies and avoid relying on other countries for the future.

Based on the device’s condition, GREST employs a transparent grading system with three quality levels (Superb, Good, and Fair) to give customers clear insights into its cosmetic and functional status. Every phone undergoes a 50+ point inspection to ensure overall performance. 

Its 50-point quality check includes cosmetic checks for frame and screen condition, connectivity tests for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, GPS, and NFC, and functionality assessments for buttons, charging ports, and vibration. It also ensures battery health, examines hardware like sensors, microphones, and speakers, and performs performance testing for speed and touch responsiveness. 

Additionally, it verifies lock and biometric features such as Face ID and Touch ID, conducts software validations like iOS activation and certified data wipes, and checks camera quality for both front and rear setups. Additionally, it provides a 6-month warranty on all refurbished phones, a 7-day return policy, and free shipping across India.

In addition to this, the startup operates through a five-tier supply chain. The first tier includes market players like Amazon, where GREST is a direct vendor. However, it doesn’t purchase stock from them as the pricing is determined by Amazon, according to the founder.

The second tier involves original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) like Samsung, OnePlus, Apple, etc. GREST has partnerships with offline retailers like Imagine, Invent, and other Apple retailers. These retailers act as buyback partners, replacing old phones with new ones when a consumer buys a new device.

The third tier includes major retail chains like Reliance Digital and Croma. GREST has PAN India partnerships with them. The fourth tier involves partnerships with unorganised players. 

Lastly, on the B2C front, consumers who purchase refurbished phones from GREST are given the option to sell or exchange their old phones. 

While sourcing and working on the business model was never a big challenge for the founders, the initial few months were challenging due to the lack of awareness. 

“No one knew what refurbished phones were. While there was some awareness about second-hand phones, consumers often confused second-hand phones with refurbished ones. However, players like Cashify helped us create that awareness,” the founders said.

GREST’s Plan To Dominate India’s Refurbished Smartphone Market

Even though Cashify is its biggest rival, GREST positions itself quite differently. For starters, the founders have kept their prices consistently lower than Cashify. 

“We tend to keep our prices 5-10% lower than Cashify. For iPhone 14-15 models, the price difference can be up to 15-20%. For MacBooks, the difference is even more significant,” the founder said.

According to the founders, Cashify primarily focusses on buying old phones, but there are very few players that solely sell refurbished phones. Recently, Amazon has also begun piloting the sales of refurbished phone sales with one seller.

It is pertinent to note that Cashify is a recommerce platform that allows users to sell old and used electronic items. The startup is widely known for selling refurbished mobile phones. It posted an operating revenue of INR 815.9 Cr for FY23.

According to the founder, what sets GREST apart from other players is its deep expertise across every stage of the refurbishment process. 

“From sourcing devices via our proprietary C2B price discovery and evaluation application, in collaboration with over 20 big trusted partners, to performing advanced in-house repairs and refurbishments, we control every aspect,” Goyal said.

It takes pride in its 20,000 sq ft state-of-the-art facility, which is equipped to handle even the most complex repairs, including intricate chip-level and motherboard issues.

Going forward, the founders aim to expand beyond retailers and shopkeepers. For this, it is planning to launch its own company-operated physical stores in the first half of 2025. The first phase will include four stores in Delhi NCR. In the long term, GREST plans to expand to around 400 stores both in India and internationally.

The founders claim to have garnered INR 15 Cr in FY24 revenues. They project to double their top line in FY25. With a monthly revenue rate of INR 4 Cr, the company has processed between 50,000 and 1,00,000 phones to date. 

Now as GREST strives to differentiate itself from established players like Cashify with lower prices and a strong focus on refurbishment expertise, its ability to sustain in the market will be key. 

While the refurbished smartphone market in India continues to expand from the current $5 Bn to $10 Bn by 2030, GREST’s success will depend not only on its pricing strategy but also on its ability to scale operations, enhance consumer trust, and maintain product quality in a rapidly evolving market. 

With that said, the coming years will be critical in determining whether GREST can truly disrupt the refurbished phone market or if larger competitors will continue to hold sway.

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post This Startup Has A Bold Plan To Make iPhones Affordable For All appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The second day of the ongoing ‘Rising Rajasthan Global Investment Summit 2024’, being held in Jaipur, on Tuesday (December 10) saw the top names from the Indian startup ecosystem as well as key political figures coming together to discuss Rajasthan’s potential as a leading investment destination. 

The Summit is a platform for fostering collaboration, showcasing the economic opportunities, and attracting investments with a vision to transform Rajasthan into a $350 Bn economy in the next  five years. It aims to promote Rajasthan as a top-tier hub for investment and innovation. 

The three-day event is bringing together 5,000 participants, including industry leaders, investors, entrepreneurs, and international dignitaries. Diplomats and representatives from 32 countries, including Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Denmark, and South Korea, are participating in the Summit, with 17 nations designated as partner countries. 

The event was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 9. 

Business Leaders Highlight State’s Investment Potential 

Speaking during the event, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma exhorted founders to build AI-first ventures. “If you are not building technology that replaces humans in workflows, your startup might not survive five years,” he said. 

Sharma emphasised that all jobs currently being done by humans – physical or mental – will eventually be done by AI-powered machines. 

Meanwhile, CarDekho cofounder and CEO Amit Jain talked about the growth of Rajasthan’s startup ecosystem over the last few years. “The Rajasthan government has always been very supportive of startups. One of the benefits of starting CarDekho in Jaipur was the fact that we could directly connect with consumers, understand their problems, and build a product that solved them. We are thankful to generate jobs for 12,000-15,000 people in Rajasthan,” Jain said. 

Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, the minister of information technology and communication in the Rajasthan government, made a strong pitch to invest in the state. 

He urged NRI industrialists and diaspora members to invest in Rajasthan, and underlined six key reasons for investing in India and the state – democracy, demography, data-driven growth, delivery, demand, and decisive leadership. 

Citing the steps taken by the state government to facilitate investments and growth of businesses, Colonel Rathore said that new policies have been formed to eliminate red tape and make it easier for startups and businesses to set up base in Rajasthan.

“To streamline the investment process, the government has designated officers as single points of contact for different countries and states, who will serve in this capacity for the next five years,” Colonel Rathore said.

He also highlighted the economic incentives offered by the state, including subsidies for technology, MSME support, and assistance in reducing export costs. 

He emphasised India’s position as the world’s largest market, and called on business leaders to leverage this market by investing in Rajasthan to drive the country towards self-reliance, as envisaged by PM Modi. 

The post Rising Rajasthan Summit Day 2: Colonel Rathore, Minister IT&C Makes Strong Pitch For Investing In The State appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Social media-savvy young Indians are driving the latest consumer trends, especially in the beauty and personal care (BPC) sector.

But as buzzwords like “paraben-free,” “natural” and “fruit-enriched” become commonplace, beauty brands must genuinely deliver on their promises to meet the expectations of a discerning younger audience. In response, many newcomers to India’s BPC market are rising to the challenge.

One notable example here is Dot & Key. 

Interestingly though, its journey didn’t begin with a targeted focus on the younger generation. Instead, it was born from a personal struggle. 

Anisha Saraf, an avid swimmer, faced severe tanning issues due to chlorine exposure and harsh sunlight. After searching the market in vain for suitable products, Anisha and her husband, Suyash Saraf, decided to create their own solution. This personal need, combined with Suyash’s expertise in FMCG, led to the launch of Kolkata-based Dot & Key in 2018.

In essence, it’s a brand designed for young women, from late teens to early 30s, addressing a range of skincare needs with fruit-based ingredients. With a diverse portfolio of 100+ SKUs spanning more than eight categories — sunscreens, moisturisers, face washes, lip care and more — it has successfully expanded its offerings to cater to a wide array of skincare needs.

The Sarafs leveraged social media platforms, mainly Instagram, where influencers inspire millions to pick what’s hip and hot. 

Then, in 2021, Dot & Key partnered with Mumbai-headquartered third-party logistics (3PL) provider Emiza. 

This collaboration has enabled it to scale effectively by accommodating increased inventory needs, implementing accurate demand forecasting algorithms and ensuring efficient order fulfilment. 

“We are able to efficiently manage fresh and return inventory through effective batch management and regular inventory counts, maintaining the freshness and accuracy of their stock,” said Ajay Rao, Emiza’s founder and CEO. This ensures seamless fulfilment, crucial for Dot & Key’s scaling needs.

Dot & Key’s impressive growth is evident, with over 60 Lakh customers and counting.

Dot & Key claims its net sales grew 3.4x YoY between FY23 and FY24. They are targeting a revenue of INR 350 Cr in FY 25.

Dot & Key’s Formulations To Grow Customer Base

The Sarafs were aware that building brand recall would not be easy unless they could address consumers’ pain points and turn one-off shoppers into loyal brand advocates. Therefore, they conducted thorough market research before adopting a nature-forward approach for a healthier, cleaner impact. 

From the start, quality has been a key part of Dot & Key’s brand identity, as it aims to produce the best after plenty of iterations. Suyash calls this micro-detailing, which is required to create go-to essentials that earn a lot of customer love.

 “Say we want to launch a sun stick, a popular alternative of sunscreen lotions. Initially, we will have 62+ prototypes of the same formulation. Then, our in house R&D experts test and iterate before releasing the final product. That’s the level of detailing that goes into every product,” he added.

The brand sources ingredients from India and across the world, tests raw materials and conducts in-process inspections and random samplings during production. (It has tied up with third-party players who specialise in different product categories and follow good manufacturing practices.) Final products are tested for safety, efficacy and compatibility with various skin types. 

The digital-first D2C brand also emphasises that communication with customers is a key growth driver and listens to them carefully for continuous improvement. 

However, Dot & Key’s social media engagement takes the cake when it comes to customer relationships and trust building. The brand educates its  social community about using the right product for their skin and motivates them to consistently use skincare for healthy skin

It recently partnered with Shanaya Kapoor (daughter of actor-producer Sanjay Kapoor), a prominent social media face who will soon make her film debut. This strategic move aligns with its attempt to target the young audience by presenting a ‘fresh face’ as the brand ambassador.

Conquering Issues Of Speed & Scale 

In a consumer-first world, the defining factors of customer satisfaction boil down to quality, availability and fast delivery. Dot & Key quickly realised this and entered marketplaces like Nykaa, Myntra and Amazon, as well as quick-commerce platforms like Blinkit and Zepto. 

It has started working on offline expansion, and its products are available across 170+ Nykaa outlets and several retail shelves across India. Although most of its customers are currently concentrated in metros, the brand has seen growing traction in Tier II, III and beyond. Hence, there is a requirement for an omnichannel presence, Suyash tells Inc42.

 But with scale came the need for an enabler to help the brand deliver its products quickly and efficiently. To ensure that Dot & Key would always be at the top of its game, even during demand spikes in festival and holiday seasons, the founders started looking for a 3PL partner specialising in ecommerce order fulfilment and inventory management. They picked Emiza in 2021.

As a case in point, Suyash said that during last year’s Diwali surge, Emiza quickly scaled up operations, optimised workflows and deployed extra staff to meet delivery demand without delay. “Its proactive approach and scalable infrastructure are vital for high customer satisfaction during peak periods,” he added. These strategies ensure that Dot & Key can handle increased order volumes efficiently. 

The brand has also seen significant enhancements across critical metrics. For instance, SLA compliance has risen from 90% to 98%; order processing time has dipped by 50%, from 48 hours to 24 hours, and return processing time has come down from seven to four days. “These improvements result in faster delivery and better service for our customers, ensuring a smoother and more efficient logistics process,” explained Suyash. 

“We’ve partnered with Dot & Key for nearly four years, expanding from one to four locations. Post-Nykaa acquisition, we remain their 3PL partners. It’s been wonderful to see their growth with Dot & Key believing Emiza contributed to their success,” said Rao from Emiza.

Rao delved deeper into how Emiza optimises return management, especially for BPC brands.

He said, “We adhere to stringent quality checks and ensure returned inventory is back on the shelf within 48 working hours. Managing returned inventory from various batches is a unique challenge in the BPC sector, but Emiza addresses this by storing returns in designated areas to ensure returned inventory is consumed first prior to consuming fresh stock.”

Will The Focus On ‘Missing’ Dots & Solution Keys Unlock Bigger Success?

Curious about the brand’s offbeat name, we looked at its website to find that it strives to identify the missing dots in one’s skincare regime and provides solutions or keys. Interestingly, the same approach can help it create a niche in a competitive market crowded with new-age contenders like Juicy Chemistry, The Derma Co, Nat Habit and Organic Kitchen.

However, Dot & Key has recognised a couple of missing dots and is working on solutions to emerge as a go-to beauty brand.

For one, the BPC market, especially the clean beauty segment, is growing exponentially. Although India-specific data is not available, clean BPC brands will reportedly account for 5-10% of the total BPC market, pegged at $28 Bn by 2030.

To cater to the bigger Bharat market beyond metros/Tier I, Dot & Key is amplifying its brick-and-mortar presence in 2024, planning to set up offline kiosks and double down on existing retail partnerships. 

Now, with Nykaa’s increased stake, the founders are optimistic about the brand’s growth potential. 

Dot & Key appears to be on the winning path with its targeted marketing efforts and a comprehensive product portfolio that resonates with its audience and can make a significant impact in the BPC space. 

The post How Dot & Key Cracked The Speed & Scale Code To Make A Mark In India’s Booming BPC Market appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The concept of brain-machine or brain-computer interactivity (BMI/BCI) has long intrigued researchers across the globe. But it gained mainstream attention only after innovation mogul Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup Neuralink was in the spotlight in 2019 when the team live-streamed a technology presentation. 

Interestingly, Blindsight, an experimental implant device developed by the company, recently got US FDA approval. Neuralink said the device would enable “even those blind from birth or lost their optic nerve to see for the first time provided their visual cortex is intact” – that part of the brain responsible for receiving, processing and integrating visual data.        

Closer home, neurotech or brain-controlled activation for different functions at consumer and industry levels is also catching up. The efforts of BITS Pilani alumni Siddhant Dangi and Deepansh Goyal are a case in point. They went through years of extensive research to make the core technology more accessible and multi-functional beyond medical or therapeutic usage.

In 2020, while the duo was still in college, they set up Nexstem. The deeptech startup has developed a cost-effective BCI headset called Instinct and a supporting operating system (OS) to capture brain signals with minimum noise and near-medical precision.

The recordings are then processed to extract and categorise critical data features and digitalise the same, making them ready for research/innovation and commercial applications.

For context, brain signals are neural/neuronal activities detected in the human brain or peripheral nerves. Nexstem acquires these signals using electroencephalography (EEG), a non-invasive procedure and cuts the noise to ensure excellent output or data features. Understandably, the extracted features should strongly correlate with the incoming signals (for the action intended) for BCI/BMI data to work effectively.

Although Nexstem’s EEG headset and OS are in beta, the founders have applied for a patent for their proprietary BCI tech infrastructure. They also secured $3.5 Mn in November 2024 from InfoEdge, Gruhas, Zupee and the Smile Group to boost its existing tech stack and expand its IP portfolio.

Currently, Nexstem’s IP portfolio includes sensor technologies, advanced signal acquisition systems and a high-performance computing platform, all of which are patent-pending in India and can act as the cornerstone for BCI product development.

According to Dangi, the tech will enable companies to decode continuous brain activities so that one can read the general gist, a kind of thought-to-word process powered by EEG and ChatGPT-like large language models (LLM). It can also revolutionise the gaming industry, as games can adapt to real-time user perception.

The founder mentioned a horror game in development where the story mode and game design evolve based on a player’s response. Then there are mental health startups like Mave Health that can potentially use Nexstem’s tech stack to diagnose and treat different conditions.

Nexstem started licensing its IP portfolio about three months ago and catered to 14 companies, primarily from the US. These deals raked in about $850K, but the founders declined to reveal customer details due to non-disclosure agreements. The startup will monetise its EEG headkits and has signed deals with 50 beta users and 4 Business Partners. 

Why Nexstem Pivoted From Prosthetics To Commercial Neurotech

For Siddhant Dangi, venturing into neurotech was far from a novelty. His visits to the Army Base Hospital in Delhi with his father, a military officer, shocked and pained the youngster as he witnessed the struggles of many who had lost their limbs, suffered from spinal cord injuries or damaged their nervous system. 

The concept of brain-controlled artificial limbs was not in practice at the time. Even now, biomimicry or brain signal mapping for easy movement of artificial limbs is not frequent due to its complexity and the prohibitive costs of these ‘smart’ prosthetics.

In contrast, a regular (and more affordable) strap-cable artificial arm requires flexing one’s biceps for body-powered mobility but exhausts the muscles even more than a strenuous workout. 

Moved by the plight of people who had lost their limbs, Dangi was determined to build better solutions. He met Goyal at BITS, Pilani, and continued their research. But by that time, the concept of bionic limbs had forayed into the mainstream. 

In essence, bionics taps into the brain’s ability to send electrical signals down the spinal cord and a network of peripheral nerves to reach muscles, especially those in the arms and hands. These signals trigger muscle contractions, which move bones via tendons, enabling movement. 

When an upper limb is amputated, the peripheral nerves are severed. However, research shows that the brain continues to send signals along these severed nerves for years, trying to command the now-missing limb. Based on this core concept, brain signals can be recorded and harnessed to control a prosthetic limb.

Inspired, Dangi and Goyal, then third-year computer science students, focussed on brain-computer interfaces, aiming to ‘crack the arm’ and build something better. After all, the ultimate goal can be building a bionic arm trained and controlled by one’s mind. However, there were challenges galore. 

“During that journey, we realised that brain signals were clumsy, very difficult to work with and expensive to capture. The cheapest EEG system is $40K apiece, which would cost a prosthetic arm as much as $60K,” said Dangi. Further discussions with the doctors at the same Army Base Hospital convinced the duo that building better bionics would be formidable. 

It was a pivot at the research stage, but the duo was undeterred, and the challenge was clear – developing affordable hardware capable of capturing near-medical-grade brain signals. 

“We soon realised that experts in related fields would be better equipped to design advanced prosthetics. So, we shifted to something bigger – capturing, analysing and fine-tuning brainwaves. Our goal was to make this technology accessible to anyone so that they could build anything using brain signals. By simplifying the process, we wanted to unlock endless possibilities for innovation, empowering people to create far beyond prosthetics,” said Dangi. 

The hard work paid off when they developed an affordable EEG headset and the supporting software, and Nexstem was launched in 2020. 

A Deep Dive Into Nexstem’s Niche Tech & Revenue Model

By 2021, the founders debuted their first product, the Nexstem V1 EEG headset. It was later upgraded to become the startup’s flagship, Nexstem Instinct, a wearable with 19 auto-adjusting, silver chloride-based active electrodes. These electrodes can cover every head shape and size and capture bio-signals from the brain, driving everything from muscle movements to complex mental processes such as thinking and learning, decision-making and emotion regulation. 

Next, the startup’s proprietary software converts these raw bio-signals into usable digital data. However, the entire process posed a big challenge due to the high costs associated with top-grade EEG devices. To overcome cost constraints, the founders used brain signal-like simulations to test and optimise the algorithms until they achieved the desired results for interpreting brain signals accurately at minimum costs.

Instinct has integrated its hardware and software into a single platform, which comes with onboard AI, Edge computing capabilities and an intuitive companion app with multiple functions. The ecosystem also features software development kits (SDKs), APIs and pre-built BCI paradigms for applications like emotion detection and facial recognition. Plus, it provides a zero-latency, minimum-noise experience for accurate, large-scale analysis.

Once brain signals are acquired and processed, the digital output can be customised by end users for specific use cases and applications, thus laying a solid tech foundation for innovations to thrive. Aware of this broader role Nexstem can play, its founders are uber-focussed on constantly improving its EEG headset and the tech ecosystem. 

Its primary revenue stream currently hinges on licensing the BCI technology to enterprises, product innovators and researchers. It also plans to commercialise Instinct’s integrated hardware and software as a comprehensive development kit. As part of its growth roadmap, the team is preparing for the official launch of Instinct in the coming months and believes this all-in-one solution will drive transformative change in biosignal technology.

“Our immediate goal is to widen the reach of Nexstem Instinct, and we expect a strong response before its official launch next year. Instinct has tremendous potential, and we are fully committed to enhancing its adoption and unlocking its potential,” said Dangi.

The Road Ahead For Nexstem 

Although brain-computer/brain-machine interfaces primarily took off with advanced bionics in mind, rapid development in EEG technologies has thrown open new horizons for commercial neurotech and in-depth therapeutic research. 

San Francisco-based Emotiv, for example, sells affordable headsets and earbuds that use machine learning to decode brain signals and send the data wirelessly to cloud storage. 

Another innovator, NextMind, has developed a device that is worn on the back of the head, allowing users to control computers with their thoughts. So far, people have used it to complete tasks like changing TV channels or unlocking virtual safes.

A quick look at the market estimates also reflects the growing interest. Globally, the BCI market size is projected to reach $8.36 Bn by 2032 from $2.23 Bn in 2023, growing at a CAGR of 15.8%, according to S&S Insider.     

Aware of the global potential, Nexstem is keen to explore the full potential of biosignals and expand its technology portfolio. A key focus will be launching advanced EXG (electroexpectogram) sensors to detect subtle changes in brain waves when a person is anticipating or expecting a specific stimulus or event. It differs from traditional electroencephalography (EEG), which measures the overall electrical activity of the brain.

It is also working to integrate transcranial alternating current stimulation, or tACS, into its Instinct platform. This non-invasive technique delivers gentle electrical currents through electrodes on the scalp to stimulate brain activity.

Additionally, the startup plans to roll out a ‘coin’, a small device surgically implanted within the brain to capture neural signals, and a ‘peak performance suite’, a system/set of tools designed to optimise performance.   

But the biggest achievement has been an affordable price tag in a price-sensitive Indian market. According to its website, Nexstem will charge INR 2.1 Lakh for its Instinct headset kit. 

It will also lower its charges for other offerings to ease its entry into the Indian market. Currently, pricing varies based on clients and the markets where they operate. But Dangi said the startup would standardise costs before approaching Indian prospects.

However, the startup’s vision and goals go beyond its brain-gauging tech. “Ultimately, our vision is to put the entire Nexstem IP into a semiconductor chip, paving the way for the next wave of futuristic technologies,” he told Inc42 without divulging any more detail.

Meanwhile, there will be the usual glitches in the form of tough competition in the global market, cybersecurity and privacy concerns, and techno and medical ethics when BCI applications are used randomly, without critical protection. 

Brain fingerprinting could have a high-risk outcome without stringent regulatory measures, a clear code of conduct regarding consent and transparency or public education and awareness. 

Given the record spike in cybersecurity attacks in Q3 2024 – a 75% increase compared to the same period in 2023 and a 15% rise from the previous quarter, Nexstem and its peers must practise extra caution before making brain data available for large-scale commercial use.

[Edited By Sanghamitra Mandal]

The post Can This Startup Lead India’s Neurotech Revolution With Its Brain Signal Reading Tech? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The demand for radio frequency (RF) chips is rising globally due to their growing applications in defence, the need for faster and more sophisticated telecommunication systems, and increasing satellite communication requirements.

However, much like the broader electronics manufacturing sector, India remains heavily reliant on importing semiconductor chips used in radar systems, 5G telecommunications and similar applications.

Despite its efforts to reduce dependence on imports, India’s imports of electronics, telecom and electrical products soared to a massive $89.8 Bn in FY24, according to a report by the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI). Notably, China and Hong Kong accounted for a substantial 56% of India’s total imports in this area. 

The report also suggests that the integrated circuits (ICs) witnessed a significant import surge of 2,415.1% from $166.1 Mn in 2007-2010 to $4.18 Bn between 2020 and 2022.

While it is hard to predict by when India will become semiconductor self-reliant, the burgeoning semiconductor and electronics market does present a promising outlook for the future. 

Amid this, Bengaluru-based fabless semiconductor startup FermionIC Design is among the emerging players aiming to lead this shift (of reducing India’s dependence on imports) in the RF chips market.

Founded in 2020 by Gautam Singh, Prasun Bhattacharyya, Abhra Bagchi and Shabaaz Syed, FermionIC aims to make India self-reliant in the domain of electronics, especially homegrown chips designed for X-band communication for active electronically scanned array (AESA), satellite communication applications, and more. 

Armed with a cumulative experience of over a century, working with Texas Instruments, OnSemi, Cadence, Cosmic Circuits, Qualcomm, Google and other tech giants, the founders aspire to rule over a significant portion of the global RF semiconductor market projected to grow from $50.26 Bn by 2032 from $23.72 Bn in 2024.

Speaking with Inc42, FermionIC’s director and CEO Singh said, “The key driver in the semiconductor industry has always been communication. Whether it’s communication over wires or 5G or SATCOM. There are also other domains like power where people are developing chips for EV charging and others. Our ambition is to build RF chips from India and then serve the global market.”

FermionIC’s Game Plan

As highlighted above, the founders of the semiconductor startup have a cumulative experience of more than 100 years. They are adept at the entire life cycle of silicon development — from ideation of new product development to product delivery.

The startup is currently developing chips that are designed for X-band communication (eight to 12 gigahertz frequency range), which, as per Singh, is witnessing increased usage due to the demand in satcom, maritime surveillance, new-age weather forecasts, and more.

Besides, FermionIC has a portfolio of a few other chips, which include signal integrity chips and clock drivers. Though the RF segment remains the major focus of the company, other general-purpose chips help the startup cater to its customers who also want such auxiliary chips to be placed on top of the RF chips for different functions. 

Meanwhile, FermionIC is building IPs. Its SERDES IP claims to help speed up data transfer between devices, which is crucial for faster communication. However, the startup has no plans to give the licence of its IPs to other chip design companies. 

FermionIC recently raised $6 Mn in a funding round led by Lucky Investment Managers’ Ashish Kacholia and his associates.

Its chips are GaN-based as these wafers make RF chips more efficient. The startup is getting its chips manufactured by GlobalFoundries. 

FermionIC’s Revenue Plan

FermionIC is gearing up to generate revenue. It aims to bring to the market a full-stack IC-product portfolio superior to what the global giants have to offer. Notably, it faces stiff competition from global RF chipmakers like NXP Semiconductors, Qualcomm, and Analog Devices. 

In the four years of its existence, FermionIC dedicated a significant amount of time analysing the market requirements, gaps in existing products and building its beta customer base. The idea is to establish the market in advance so that it doesn’t struggle to sell its chips once its mass production begins.

“We have identified that the existing solutions from the large companies are more generic in nature. There are some performance gaps in these chips and I want to improvise those. The other thing is radars are a very complex system. So, we are trying to solve the performance of our customers – the original design manufacturers (ODMs) – while also bringing down the system design complexity,” Singh said.

FermionIC has started selling its chips in a small volume to its beta customers. Currently, it’s in discussion with its manufacturing partner and plans to begin large-volume production of the chips in three months.

“Our plan is to begin the production cycle by the end of the current fiscal year so that we can start shipping in the first half of next fiscal (FY26),” Singh said, adding the company already has several commitments from its customers.

However, the lead time in this industry is more than 36 weeks, he added. Once the purchase order is fully in place by the end of FY25, FermionIC aims to start generating revenue sometime in the next fiscal. The startup also plans to keep some inventory ready to cut this lead time by half.

The Road Ahead For FermionIC 

The semiconductor industry is not only challenging but also demands patience. So far, FermionIC has only been able to develop its base technology, product, and market. However, in the coming years, it plans to expand its product line to cater to a bigger customer base.

In the short term, they have a wholly-owned US subsidiary on the cards. The startup sees a huge market opportunity in the US, even though the Indian market is expected to be its largest contributor in terms of sales.

Besides the US market, FermionIC is also eyeing Australia and the EMEA region where it plans to expand via partnerships with other companies in the near future. The startup sees at least 10% of its revenue from the global markets. 

Moving on, the company plans to bolster its partnerships in India. For testing and packaging, it has partnered with outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing (OSAT) company, Kaynes Semicon.

FermionIC is also working closely with the Indian government. With its core technology in place, market opportunities largely gauged, and global go-to-market strategy also figured out, it remains to be seen if FermionIC would take up one of the key positions among other startups that are writing India’s semiconductor story.

As of now, the startup seems to have taken a significant step towards making India a semiconductor self-reliant nation, particularly in the critical RF chip segment.

With seasoned industry veterans at its helm, the startup appears well-positioned to make a mark in the competitive semiconductor market by addressing gaps in existing global solutions. 

However, the road ahead is not going to be easy, especially when the larger market is dominated by established players with robust supply chains and significant investments. 

To outdo giants like Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors, FermionIC will require sustained financial backing and the ability to scale rapidly. Additionally, the heavy reliance on third-party manufacturing partners, like GlobalFoundries, may pose delivery challenges every now and then. 

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post Can FermionIC Outperform Qualcomm, NXP With Its GaN-Based RF Chips? appeared first on Inc42 Media.