Indian industrialist Ratan Tata today put his money in Tracxn, a firm that has earned a name by providing data on startups, while two parenting sites also snapped up funds. A mobile bitcoin startup also managed to secure investment even though bitcoin has yet to get the nod from India’s central bank.
Here are the startups that made it to our list today.
Tracxn
Bangalore-based Tracxn, which was founded in 2013 to track startups, has just found an investor in Indian industrialist Ratan Tata.
“To get an opportunity to build our startup under his mentorship is the best thing we could ask for [at the start of the new year],” says Abhishek Goyal, one of Tracxn’s founders.
Abhishek and co-founder Neha Singh were involved with startup discovery when they were with VC firms Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital. Today, they have 130 analysts tracking startups in 230 business segments globally.
Saif Partners had earlier invested US$3.5 million in Tracxn, which also got backing from Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal.
Mycity4kids
Mycity4kids, an online platform to help mothers multi-task, has raised US$3 million from SIDBI Venture Capital and YourNest Angel Fund, the company announced today.
Launched in October 2010, it is based in Gurgaon. It serves as a hyperlocal discovery platform for kids’ resources and events.
“Our expansion plans are geared towards becoming a daily-use product for every mum,” Vishal Gupta, CEO of Mycity4kids, said. “You will see several mobile-led initiatives in that direction, starting with the recent launch of the Mycity4kids Family Organizer app”.
Mycity4kids says a million parents visit the website every month, with 2.5 million page views, 700 bloggers and 75,000 service providers listed across nine cities. But it still sees plenty of room to grow, with over 50 million mums online.
“The size and value of the mum demographic is what made us invest in Mycity4kids three years back, and we’re excited by their plans to become indispensable for every mum,” said Sunil Goyal, CEO of YourNest Angel Fund.
Zebpay
Zebpay, an Ahmedabad-based mobile bitcoin startup, has raised close to US$1 million in a series A round. The funding was led by growth equity investor Arjun Handa and Amit Jindal, MD of Jindal worldwide.
The company was co-founded by Mahin Gupta, Saurabh Agrawal, and Sandeep Goenka. The fresh funds will be used to ramp up its services and talent acquisition in order to widen the reach of its bitcoin wallet in India.
Zebpay’s mobile bitcoin wallet allows over 25,000 users to buy, sell, store, and use bitcoins to buy ecommerce site vouchers as well as recharge mobile airtime across India.
My Child App
My Child App, a parenting app, has raised a seed round of US$100,000 led by 500 Startups, the company said in a statement.
Angel investors like Anisha Mittal, Amit Gupta, Ritesh Malik, Pallav Nadhani, Lalit Mangal, Arihant Patni, Deobrat Singh, Samir Bangara, and Saurab Paruthi, and the Singapore Angel Network also took part in the round.
The app helps track a child’s growth and his or her developmental disorders. My Child App was founded by three college dropouts – Harsh Songra, Aafreen Ansari, and Shreya Shrivastava, who are just 19 years old. Bhopal-based Harsh was diagnosed with dyspraxia, a developmental disorder, at the age of nine.
The company plans to use the funds for developing the application as a go-to guide for parenting and build a kickass team.
Pankaj Jain, a partner at 500 Startups, said, “Having information about learning disorders and who to speak with on a simple mobile app, where a parent answers simple questions about the child’s development is incredibly powerful in regions where mental health professionals aren’t readily available or parents don’t have access to the right medical professionals.”
Sensara
Sensara, an app that converts a smartphone into a remote, has raised INR 50 million (US$747,000) from Gana Yantrika Systems and Google India co-founder Lalitesh Katragadda,The Economic Times reported.
The funds will be used to help the company grow and add more products to its portfolio.
“Only a few investors in India can understand the kind of breakthroughs we’ve achieved at Sensara. We’ve started aggregating them,” company CEO Bharat Kumar Mohan was quoted as saying.
Through Sensara’s technology, TV viewers can directly key in terms like “English action movie” instead of having to remember and key in a channel number.
PlanMyMedicalTrip
Medical tourism startup PlanMyMedicalTrip was another one which snapped up funding today. Angel investors Bhanu Vikram Parsotam, Rohan Desai, and Paras Patel invested INR 125 million (close to US$2 million) in this Pune-based startup.
The funding will be used to build its tech muscle and also expand operations internationally, specifically to Brazil, Thailand, Egypt, Germany, and Dubai. Currently, the three-year-old startup has tie-ups with over 1,500 hospitals in India and Turkey.
Source : https://www.techinasia.com/6-rising-startups-india
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