The Centre projects India’s digital economy to grow almost twice as fast as the overall economy by the financial year 2029-30 (FY30).

In a report titled “Estimation and Measurement of India’s Digital”, the electronics and information technology ministry (MeitY) said that the country’s digital economy is expected to contribute nearly a fifth of the total national income by FY30.

The report, released on Wednesday (January 22), estimates the value addition and employment generated from the local digital economy.

Interestingly, the report also projected that the share of the digital economy in the overall economy will individually surpass that of agriculture or manufacturing in less than six years. The government sees digital intermediaries and platforms as the biggest enablers of the Indian digital economy in the short run. 

“Based on the projections in the report, India’s digital economy is expected to grow almost twice as fast as the overall economy, contributing to nearly one-fifth of national income by 2030… In the short run, the highest growth is likely to come from the growth of digital intermediaries and platforms, followed by higher digital diffusion and digitalisation of the rest of the economy,” the MeitY report said. 

Shedding light on the current size of India’s digital economy, the report estimated that the homegrown online landscape accounted for 11.74% of the national income in FY23. As per the report, this number is likely to rise to 13.42% by FY25. 

“In absolute numbers, the digital economy in 2022-23 was equivalent to INR 28.94 Lakh Cr ($368 Bn) in GVA (gross value added) and INR 31.64 Lakh Cr ($402 billion) in GDP,” added the report. 

It also noted that sectors such as information and communication services, telecom, manufacturing of electronics, computers and communication equipment led the digital economy charts in FY23 and accounted for 7.83% of the national GVA. The report also underlined that big tech giants, digital platforms and intermediaries contributed nearly 2% to the total national GVA during the fiscal. 

Another key highlight from the report is that the country’s digital economy employed 14.67 Mn workers in FY23, or 2.55% of India’s estimated workforce that fiscal.

It is pertinent to note that the then IT minister of state Rajeev Chandrasekhar last year said that the digital economy will contribute over 20% to India’s total gross domestic product (GDP) by 2026.

The post Digital Economy’s Growth To Be 2X Of National Economy By FY30: MeitY appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Perplexity AI cofounder and CEO Aravind Srinivas has said that the AI search engine has provided its premium subscription plan for free to students and faculty members of his alma mater IIT Madras. 

“We’ve given free Perplexity Pro to all students and faculty and staff of IIT Madras, where I did my undergrad. Super excited to start there as we begin our expansion for Indian campuses,” said Srinivas in a post on X. 

This aligns with Srinivas’ comments in December 2024, when he said he was open to “figuring out” an economic structure with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to offer Perplexity Pro to Indian students, faculty and researchers. 

Last month, he also met PM Modi in New Delhi and discussed the potential for AI adoption in India and across the world.

In a separate post on X on Wednesday (January 22), Srinivas said that he is ready to invest $1 Mn personally and 5 hours every week towards a “group of people” that would make India “great in the context of AI”. 

“I am ready to invest a $1mm (sic) personally and 5 hours/week of my time into the most qualified group of people that can do this right now for making India great again in the context of AI. Consider this as a commitment that cannot be backtracked. The team has to be cracked and obsessed like (the) DeepSeek team and has to open source the models with MIT license,” said Srinivas. 

The Perplexity cofounder also said that he will invest $10 Mn more in the Indian company than can beat DeepSeek R1 on all benchmarks with “rigour”. 

DeepSeek is a China-based AI company that has developed large language models (LLMs), and is being touted as a major competitor to giant OpenAI. With less than $4 Mn in funding, DeepSeek launched its latest reasoning models, DeepSeek-R1 and DeepSeek-R1-Zero, earlier this week to take on platforms like OpenAI-o1.

Reacting to the Perplexity cofounder’s post, Indic-focussed LLM maker SarvamAI cofounder Pratyush Kumar pitched his own startup. “Aravind, at @SarvamAI, we are building sovereign models that combine deep reasoning and Indic language skills. Would love to have you join this mission!” Kumar said. 

This comes a day after Srinivas stirred up a storm in the Indian AI ecosystem after he said that Indian companies should focus on training their models from scratch, rather than finetuning existing foundational models. 

While noting that “thinking models” are costly to train, Srinivas called on the Indian entrepreneurs to “show the world that it’s capable of ISRO-like feet (sic) for AI”. He was referring to the cost-effective and frugal approach of the Indian space agency. 

The post Perplexity Rolls Out Free Subscription To IIT Madras Students appeared first on Inc42 Media.

OpenAI has reportedly told the Delhi High Court (HC) that the Indian courts do not have the jurisdiction to hear a copyright infringement case against the artificial intelligence (AI) company. OpenAI cited its lack of presence in the country for the stance.

The submissions came in response to a copyright breach case filed by news agency ANI in the HC. As per filings seen by Reuters, the AI giant said that any order to remove training data powering its chatbot ChatGPT would be inconsistent with its legal obligations in the US.

The Sam Altman-led company reportedly told the HC that it is currently defending litigation in the US pertaining to the data on which its models have been trained. It added that the laws of the North American country require the companies to preserve the data while hearings are pending.

OpenAI “is therefore under a legal obligation, under the laws of the United States to preserve, and not delete, the said training data”, the AI major reportedly added. 

This comes nearly two months after ANI filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the AI company used the news agency’s published content to train ChatGPT without permission. ANI has sought the deletion of its data already stored by ChatGPT.

In response, OpenAI has now responded with an 86-page filing at the Delhi HC. In its submission, OpenAI also said that the relief sought by ANI is not subject to the processes of Indian courts and is beyond their jurisdiction.

Making its case, the AI major argued that it has “no office or permanent establishment in India … the servers on which (ChatGPT) stores its training data are similarly situated outside of India”.

The HC will next hear the matter on January 28.

Notably, OpenAI, during a hearing in November, reportedly told the Delhi HC that it would no longer use ANI’s content anymore. In response, ANI contended that its published works were still stored in ChatGPT’s memory and should be deleted.

In its petition, ANI has also raised concerns over unfair competition arising from OpenAI’s commercial partnerships with other news organisations. Making its case, the news agency also told the HC that ChatGPT “reproduced verbatim or substantially similar extracts” of ANI’s works in response to user prompts.

Rebutting the charge, OpenAI claimed that ANI “has sought to use verbatim extracts of its own article as a prompt, in an attempt to manipulate ChatGPT”.

The lawsuit reportedly alleges that OpenAI exploited ANI’s content for its commercial gain by using the new agency’s content to train its large language models (LLMs). This is the first time that an Indian publisher has dragged an AI platform to the court for violating its intellectual property rights. The lawsuit has been filed by Delhi-based Unum Law on behalf of ANI.

Notably, this is not the first time that a GenAI platform has landed in choppy regulatory waters in the country. In February 2024, Google ran into trouble with the IT ministry over some of the responses from its AI platform Gemini on questions about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The post OpenAI Vs ANI: AI Giant Says Indian Courts Can’t Hear Copyright Breach Cases appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Amid the ongoing sabre-rattling between restaurateurs and Zomato and Swiggy on “10-minute” food delivery service, Zomato cofounder and CEO Deepinder Goyal has now reached out to the foodtech giant’s restaurant partners to assuage their concerns. 

In a letter, Goyal said that Zomato will never compete with its own restaurant partners, adding that Bistro is neither a “private label” nor a “Zomato Kitchen”. 

“Bistro is not a “private label” or “Zomato kitchen”. In the past, I have expressed that Zomato as a restaurant-aggregator will never compete with its own restaurant partners, unlike players such as Amazon who sell their own private labels on Amazon. Zomato has fully backed this commitment by never opening a physical restaurant and will NOT use Zomato as a distribution channel for kitchens that we do,” read the letter.

Earlier in the day, Inc42 reported that the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI)) is mulling taking legal action against Zomato and Swiggy over their quick food delivery offerings. 

Sources said that both companies had transgressed into restaurant territory with their affordable meal delivery services Zomato Everyday and Swiggy Daily, both of which are cooked at company-owned private kitchens. 

Meanwhile, in his letter, the Zomato CEO told the restaurateurs that its 10-minute food delivery service, Bistro, is not an existential threat to the restaurant industry. Citing his rationale, he said that even with 1,000 outlets, Bistro would account for a mere 0.5% of the total “market”.

“Even at 1,000 outlets, Bistro would barely be 0.5% of the market. Also, scaling Bistro isn’t the goal of this experiment – it is to find a workable business model that the restaurant industry can replicate. India’s out-of-home food consumption has room to expand, and new service models like Bistro will help acquire new customers, benefiting the wider restaurant ecosystem,” read the letter. 

Noting that restaurateurs are the “best people” to do the job of running an eatery, Goyal said he believes that not everything will move to the 10-minute delivery segment. He also informed the industry stakeholders that Bistro would operate as a separate app, and would have no access to “data that would create an unfair playing field”.

The Rationale For Quick Deliveries

The letter also shed light on the reasoning within Zomato for launching the quick food delivery offerings. Goyal believes that bringing down delivery times increases demand for restaurant food.

While underscoring the need for further bringing down delivery times, Goyal said that the listed foodtech company’s internal data shows a 3X higher repeat rate from customers when delivery time is under 15 minutes versus when it is more than 30 minutes. 

“This means that reduction in delivery times will significantly expand the market. Most of this comes down to making sure our kitchen networks are more dense (more outlets per city) to cut down distance, and cut down kitchen preparation time (KPT) while still serving hot and fresh food that customers require. And doing this in a way where restaurants can make money is not an easy problem to solve,” added Goyal. 

The cofounder and CEO of Zomato also noted that Bistro is part of the company’s latest attempt to reduce delivery times. He reiterated that Bistro will target the demand of in-office workforce for quick access to snacks, meals, and beverages within 10 minutes. He added that the Bistro team is working with food researchers, producers, chefs, and restaurants to provide a proof of concept. 

“While we’re unsure about finding product-market fit and profitability, our hope is that this platform could be replicated by different restaurants and cuisine types where demand exists,” added Goyal. 

Talking about the roll out of Zomato’s 15-minute delivery experiment, Goyal said that the company has partnered with restaurants by curating their menu items and providing a dedicated delivery fleet to scale the offering. He added that the company is mulling reducing commissions for restaurants for short-distance orders to “encourage more outlet expansion”.

While noting that the service is currently available only in select locations, Goyal added that the quick food delivery offering will be scaled “as and when it gets to the desired outcomes”. 

Notably, he also said that the listed foodtech giant’s previous tryst with 10-minute food delivery via Zomato Instant in 2022 was cut short as it failed to find the right economic model for restaurants. Goyal, however, added that the offering then was “moderately successful” at reducing kitchen preparation time.

The development comes close on the heels of reports stating that restaurant bodies NRAI and FHRAI are likely to approach the Competition Commission of India (CCI) over alleged anti-competitive practices by Zomato and Swiggy and their respective 10-minute food delivery services Blinkit Bistro and SNACC. 

Earlier this month, NRAI representatives also met the managements of Zomato and Swiggy to address the issue, but the meeting is said to have ended in an impasse.

The post Zomato Will Never Compete With Restaurants: Deepinder Goyal appeared first on Inc42 Media.

D2C skincare brand Deconstruct has raised INR 65 Cr (about $7.5 Mn) from French cosmetics giant L’Oréal’s venture capital (VC) fund BOLD, V3 Ventures, and DSG Consumer Partners. 

The funding round also saw participation from existing investors Kalaari Capital and BEENEXT. 

Deconstruct will use the fresh capital to fuel product innovation, venture into new categories and bolster its existing portfolio of offerings. A chunk of the fresh proceeds will also be utilised to enhance its distribution network by expanding its presence on quick commerce platforms and the retail channel. 

Founded in 2020 by Malini Adapureddy, Deconstruct is a D2C brand that claims to sell evidence-based skincare products that are gentle and non-irritating. The startup sells serums, facewashes, shampoos, sunscreens, among others. 

Commenting on the fundraise, founder and CEO Adapureddy said, “This milestone is a proud moment for us and reflects the trust our consumers and investors have placed in our vision… This funding empowers us to singularly focus on building highly effective yet gentle products.”

The Bengaluru-based startup last raised $2 Mn in a funding round led by Kalaari Capital’s flagship program CXXO and BEENEXT in 2022. Including the latest fundraise, it has raised about $10 Mn to date. 

Deconstruct also featured on the 2023 edition of Inc42’s FAST42, which lists the biggest emerging D2C brands in the country. 

The D2C brand claims to have “helped” more than 2 Cr customers start their skincare journey in the past year. Deconstruct also claimed that it has clocked a 1,000% growth in the financial year 2024-25 (FY25) so far and has achieved an annualised net revenue of INR 200 Cr this fiscal so far.

The fundraise comes at a time when the rising penetration of the internet and smartphones has spurred India’s burgeoning digital economy. With more than 500 Mn online shoppers, the country has witnessed the rise of ecommerce giants as well as big-ticket D2C brands in the past decade. 

The overall Indian ecommerce sector is expected to become a $400 Bn market opportunity by 2030. Within this, D2C continues to make a mark for itself, and investors are bullish on the sector. For context, homegrown D2C brands raised $595 Mn across 115 deals in 2024. 

Just days ago, Mumbai-based D2C skincare brand Foxtale bagged $30 Mn in its Series C round led by KOSÉ Corporation. Earlier this month, D2C dinnerware brand BlackCarrot also bagged an undisclosed amount in its seed funding round led by We Founder Circle.

The post D2C Skincare Brand Deconstruct Raises INR 65 Cr appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Sachin Bansal-led fintech unicorn Navi Technologies was reportedly defrauded of INR 14.26 Cr last month. 

As per The Hindu, Bengaluru’s Whitefield Cyber Crime Police registered a case against the unidentified fraudsters on Saturday (January 18) and a probe has been launched into the matter.

The report noted that scammers posed as customers and exploited a bug in Navi’s tech system to allegedly carry out the fraud.

A vigilance officer at the company, Srinivas Gowda, in his complaint, said that the fintech platform provided an option for customers to make payments for mobile recharge, EMIs, and other services via a third-party application provider (TPAP) between December 10 and December 24.

However, the bug in the system allowed scammers to edit the payable amount after initiating the payment process. Misusing this, the fraudsters accessed the TPAP gateway, even after the payment was processed, and reduced the payable amount to INR 1. 

As a result, while Navi’s system incorrectly marked the transaction as successful for INR 1, the company was charged the original full amount. In total, the fintech unicorn was cheated of INR 14.26 Cr through this “modus operandi”.

Meanwhile, local law enforcement authorities have now sought more details of these financial transactions from the company. 

Founded in 2012 by Flipkart cofounder Bansal and Ankit Agarwal, Navi focuses on lending products such as personal, vehicle, and home loans. It also operates a non banking financial services company, Navi Finserv, which offers digital lending products for personal and housing finance.

It is pertinent to note that the Navi Group recently came under the radar of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for flouting certain norms. In October 2024, the central bank barred Navi Finserv from sanctioning and disbursing loans due to supervisory concerns. 

The RBI’s crackdown action came in response to excessive interest rates and non-compliance with its regulations and for pricing policies that violated the central bank’s guidelines. 

Eventually, Navi Finserv brought down the maximum interest rate on unsecured personal loans to 26% from around 35% in the past and took other corrective measures. Thereafter in December, the RBI allowed Navi to resume operations.

The post Scammers Defraud Navi Technologies Of INR 14.26 Cr: Report appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Non-banking financial company (NBFC) Namdev Finvest has raised $38 Mn in debt funding from US-based Developing World Markets (DWM), impact investor BlueOrchard, and asset management company Mirova. 

While DWM contributed $8.25 Mn to the round, BlueOrchard pumped in $13 Mn through its multiple funds (Microfinance Fund & COVID-19 Emerging and Frontier Markets MSME Support Fund). Mirova invested $10 Mn in the company, making its first investment in the country.

In a statement, Namdev said that the fresh proceeds will enable it to diversify its operations beyond traditional domestic bank and NBFC lending models, and focus more on underserved and unbanked borrowers in rural and semi-urban markets. The capital will also be utilised to back clean mobility and renewable energy projects.

Founded in 2014 by Jitendra Tanwar, Namdev offers financial solutions in rural India, with a primary focus on MSMEs and green finance. The Jaipur-based NBFC claims to have more than 112 branches spanning nine Indian states and has a loan portfolio of nearly INR 1,370 Cr

“We deeply value the commitment from Mirova Investments to provide dedicated resources for climate-efficient financing. This comes at the right time, as we at Namdev Finvest are increasing  our participation in climate-focused products,” said Namdev Finvest’s managing director and CEO Jitendra Tanwar.

Namdev claims to have more than 50,000 active customers. Backed by Maj Invest, Incofin India Progress Fund, BII, and LHC, Namdev diversifies its funding sources through collaborations with over 40 lenders, including public and private banks, small finance banks, international financial institutions, and domestic financial institutions.

In January last year, the NBFC raised $15 Mn in its Series B funding round from a host of institutional investors, including British International Investment. A few months later in April 2024, Namdev bagged $19 Mn in its pre-Series C round led by Danish asset management company Maj Invest.

This comes at a time when homegrown NBFCs are witnessing healthy traction from investors. In December, Bengaluru-based NBFC Avanti bagged $14.2 Mn in its Series B extension round from Dia Vikas Capital and others. Prior to that in October, Jaipur-based NBFC Finova Capital secured $135 Mn in its Series E funding round from Avataar Venture Partners and others.

The post Namdev Finvest Bags $38 Mn Debt Funding To Diversify Operations appeared first on Inc42 Media.

EV maker Ola Electric has kicked off the production of its ‘Roadster’ electric bike, which the company unveiled in August last year.

In an exchange filing, the company said, “… we would like to inform you that the company has started the assembly line of its upcoming bike today i.e. January 20, 2025.” 

A day later on Tuesday (January 21), Ola Electric founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal posted a video of him, on X, riding the new electric bike at the company’s facility. He captioned the video, “Exhilarated after riding the  @OlaElectric Roadster! Can’t wait for you all to experience!”

The video showed Aggarwal zooming through the corridors of the company’s plant along with a pillion rider.

Earlier this month, the company also showcased the electric bike, along with its other offerings – Ola Gig and Ola S1 Z, at the Bharat Mobility Expo 2025. 

The commencement of production comes over five months after the listed giant, during its annual event on Independence Day last year, unveiled ‘The Roadster Series’.

At the time, the company announced the launch of three new bikes under the series, Roadster X, Roadster, and Roadster Pro, starting from INR 74,999. The bike, in the video, is likely a Roadster, which will have a peak motor output of 13 kW and will come in 3.5 kWh, 4.5 kWh, and 6 kWh battery variants. The Roadster model will be priced between INR 1,04,999 and INR 1,39,999, and will have a top speed of 126 km/hour and a range of 248 kms. 

Ola Electric, while unveiling the ebike portfolio, said it would begin the deliveries of Roadster X and Roadster in Q4 FY25. 

The development comes at a time when the EV major has been trying to douse fires on multiple fronts for the past few months. Ola Electric is currently being probed by the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) over alleged delays in providing service and deliveries, defective vehicle sales, and other customer complaints.

Earlier this month, the Karnataka High Court (HC) rejected its petition to quash the notice issued by the CCPA. Not just this, the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) also received a rap from markets regulator SEBI earlier this month for violating disclosure norms. 

Owing to the negative press, Ola Electric’s stock has been on a downward spiral. The company’s stock is down more than 11% on a year-to-date (YTD) basis. 

The Bhavish Aggarwal-led company managed to narrow its consolidated net loss by 5.5% to INR 495 Cr in Q2 FY25 from INR 524 Cr in the year-ago quarter. Meanwhile, operating revenue zoomed almost 39% to INR 1,214 Cr during the quarter under review from INR 873 Cr posted in Q2 FY24. 

Shares of Ola Electric ended Tuesday’s trading session 0.2% lower at INR 76.24 on the BSE. 

The post Ola Electric Kicks Off Production Of Electric Bike ‘Roadster’ appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Jio Financial Services (JFS) and BlackRock have cumulatively infused INR 117 Cr in their mutual fund joint venture (JV), Jio BlackRock Asset Management.

In a filing with the exchanges on Tuesday (January 21), JFS said that 5.85 Cr shares each have been allotted to the two companies at INR 10 each. 

“The Company (JFS) and BlackRock have each, today further subscribed to and have been allotted 5.85 Cr equity shares of INR 10/- each of Jio BlackRock Asset Management Private Limited…, for cash at par, aggregating INR 117.00 Cr,” said JFS.

This comes nearly a year after JFS signed a 50:50 JV with US-based investment giant BlackRock to float its wealth management and brokerage ventures. At the time, the company said that the new vertical will incorporate a wealth management and brokerage company in India. 

In October last year, Jio Financial Services and BlackRock also received in-principle approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to set up their proposed mutual fund business.

Notably, the infusion came on the same day as Jio Financial Services also announced its foray into broking business. In a separate exchange filing on Tuesday, JFS said that its JV Jio BlackRock Investment Advisers has incorporated a new wholly-owned subsidiary, Jio BlackRock Broking Private Limited, to offer broking services. 

JFS added that the launch of the new broking vertical would be subject to regulatory approvals.

“Jio BlackRock Investment Advisers Private Limited, a joint venture company of the company has… informed that it has incorporated a wholly owned subsidiary named ‘Jio BlackRock Broking Private Limited’ on January 20, 2025 to carry on, inter alia, the business of broking subject to regulatory approvals,” said JFS. 

The developments come at a time when JFS has pushed the pedal on its fintech play. In December last year, Jio BlackRock Asset Management Company appointed George Heber Joseph as its first chief investment officer.

Earlier last year, reports also surfaced that BlackRock was in discussions with JFS to establish a private credit venture. JFS plans to disrupt the fintech sector in the country by leveraging technology and Reliance Jio’s wide customer base, along with BlackRock’s expertise in the financial services arena, to offer products such as digital lending, banking and insurance, among others.

On the financial front, JFS’ net profit stayed flat at INR 294.8 Cr in Q3 FY25. It had posted a profit of INR 293.82 Cr in the year-ago quarter. Operating revenue rose 5.7% to INR 438.35 Cr in Q3 FY25 from INR 414.33 Cr in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

The post Jio Financial Services, BlackRock Pump INR 117 Cr In Mutual Fund JV appeared first on Inc42 Media.

As part of shifting its base from Mumbai to Bengaluru, quick commerce unicorn Zepto has reportedly selected IPO-bound coworking startup Smartworks to manage its new head office in the startup hub. 

Sources told Livemint that Zepto held talks with platforms such as WeWork India, IndiQube and Awfis, before zeroing in on Smartworks for the deal. As per the report, the coworking startup will design, build, operate and manage Zepto’s new office premises, which was earlier a shopping centre called ‘Total Mall’. 

Smartworks will also reportedly manage a Zepto dark store (or a warehouse) on the ground floor of the building.

Zepto is reportedly looking to move into its new office by April. This follows reports in October last year that Zepto signed a lease agreement to convert Total Mall in Bengaluru’s Sarjapur into its office space “The management contract has a five-year tenure, including a two-year lock-in period,” a source said reportedly.

It is pertinent to note that Sarjapur Road is home to corporate giants such as Walmart, Adobe and Zepto’s rivals such Swiggy and Flipkart.

Flush with more than $1 Bn funding that it has raised in the past one year, Zepto reportedly plans to double its headcount this year from over 2,000 employees currently. Its new workspace can accommodate 3,500-4,000 seats.

On the other hand, the deal to manage Zepto’s new facility will help Smartworks increase its managed workspace portfolio and shore up revenues. This comes as the coworking startup is lining up plans to list on the bourses. 

Smartworks received Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) nod for an INR 550 Cr initial public offering (IPO) in December 2024. The public issue will comprise a fresh issue of shares worth INR 550 Cr and an offer for sale (OFS) component of 67.59 Lakh shares.

Zepto too has been gearing up for a potential public listing. In January this year, the quick commerce unicorn set up a new entity, which will potentially enable the company to pivot from its current B2B2C structure to a marketplace model. 

Thereafter, reports surfaced that the quick commerce major was looking to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) in March or April this year. The company is said to have already obtained the necessary permissions from Singaporean authorities to relocate its base to India ahead of the public listing.

The company is also said to have kicked off talks with domestic and global merchant bankers such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs for a potential listing on Indian bourses by August 2025. Zepto is reportedly looking to raise $450 Mn via a fresh issue of shares.

The post Zepto Ropes In Smartworks To Manage New HQ In Bengaluru appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Delhi High Court has reportedly appointed former Supreme Court (SC) Judge AK Sikri as a mediator to resolve the ongoing patent infringement case between National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and On4Off Trading. 

“Plaintiff (On4Off) says he is willing to take the possibility of pre-instituted mediation … it is deemed appropriate that parties are referred to mediation,” a single judge bench of Justice Amit Bansal said as per Economic Times. 

The matter reportedly pertains to On4Off Trading’s plea that seeks to bar NPCI, third-party application providers (TPAPs) such as Google Pay, AmazonPay, SamsungWallet, PhonePe as well as banking institutions like Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, ICICI Bank and others from infringing on its patent process.

On4Off Trading has also sought compensatory damages for “illegal use or facilitation” of its patented process. 

The petitioner claims that the payments body and others were “gaining illegal benefits through the unauthorised use” of its patented technology process for aggregating Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments using credit cards.

NPCI, via RuPay Credit Card on UPI, enables users to link their RuPay credit cards to UPI accounts to make transactions.

The petitioner has claimed that one of its directors and his two children filed an application for patenting the process for making a monetary transaction from a credit card after scanning a UPI code in January 2022.

On4Off Trading also contended that shortly afterwards in October 2022, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a circular allowing UPI transactions using RuPay credit cards after scanning a UPI QR Code. Arguing for the petitioner, counsel Ashutosh Ranjan stated that the circular allowed transaction to be facilitated using “only” RuPay credit cards after scanning a UPI code.

On4Off Trading also claimed that allowing the linkage of only RuPay credit cards with UPI impacted the “market of the other card manufacturers” and distorted the market adversely. 

“As per the data published also available on the website of NPCI in October 2023 total transaction(s) of INR 100 Cr have been facilitated through RuPay Credit Cards on UPI QR Code and during the weekends the figure reached up to INR 150-200 Cr,” read the petition.

Arguing for On4Off Trading, senior counsel CM Lall told the HC that the nodal payments body was using its patented process without any license or permission. 

“By facilitating transactions through RuPay Credit Cards with UPI QR Codes, NPCI has internalised the entire process developed by the inventor, in as much as both the RuPay and the UPI are the products of NPCI,” added the plea. 

The HC has posted the matter for next hearing on March 11.

The post UPI-Linked Credit Card Patent Infringement: HC Refers Matter To Mediation appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India is renowned for its rich culinary delights, with each state offering a diverse array of food and beverage (F&B) experiences. Despite this, the Indian palate craves more for fresh and exotic cuisines and flavours.

With over 140 Cr people having such affinity for a variety of food and beverages, Indian entrepreneurs have seemingly found a lucrative market, which, as per Inc42, is expected to grow to $68 Bn by 2030. Notably, startups have picked up this opportunity by catering to the requirements of people, through the D2C channels.

According to Inc42, the F&B industry is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 25% by 2030. This is why the space is receiving a lot of traction from investors. 

Last month, revenue-based financing platform Velocity launched an INR 200 Cr (around $23.5 Mn) fund for F&B brands. The fund has been floated to offer fast, scalable and flexible financing solutions to such brands.

From established brands like Pedigree Petfoods, Amul, Baskin Robbins, and McDonald’s to startups like iD Fresh Foods, Chaayos, Coolberg, and Paper Boat, there is no dearth of choices for Indian consumers, and still, there is enough headroom for both the existing and new players to flourish in the sector.

The above statement can be substantiated by the fact that several F&B startups, including Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters, Plix, Pluckk, and TagZ have been making waves in the industry, backed by investors’ trust.  

The influx of new startups with innovative product ranges has revitalised the sector, prompting Inc42 to compile a list of the F&B brands that are disrupting the Indian market.

With that said, here are the F&B D2C brands reshaping the Indian consumer market.

(Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the Indian F&B startups in alphabetical order.)

1. Beyond Snack

• Year Of Inception: 2018
• Founders: Manas Madhu, Jyoti Rajguru, Gautam Raghuraman
• Funding Raised To Date: $15.30 Mn
• Investors: NABVentures, 100X.VC
• Headquarters: Kerala

Beyond Snack was incorporated to commercialise the popular South Indian snack, banana chips. The startup claims its banana chips are healthy because the nutrients are preserved during the manufacturing process. 

The bananas are sourced directly from farmers and the chips are prepared in under two minutes to retain their natural nutrients, unlike the usual 15-20 minutes of frying. This ensures the products go from farm to plate in less than 24 hours.

To ensure availability across the country, the startup has opened warehouses in Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata. As an omnichannel brand, its products are available on ecommerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, BigBasket, and Zepto, as well as in over 10,000 retail outlets, including DMart and Reliance stores.

The F&B startup recently raised $8.3 Mn (about INR 71.3 Cr) in its Series A funding round led by consumer business-focussed fund 12 Flags Group.

Beyond Snack aims to become a leader in the banana chips market and reach INR 100 Cr in revenue by FY25.

2. Biryani By Kilo 

• Year Of Inception: 2015
• Founders: Kaushik Roy, Vishal Jindal 
• Funding Raised To Date: $ 53.24 Mn+
• Investors: Pulsar Capital, Falcon Edge Capital, IvyCap Ventures
• Headquarters: Gurugram

Founded by Kaushik Roy and Vishal Jindal in 2015, Biryani By Kilo sells biryanis, kebabs, kormas, and desserts. The Gurugram-based startup claims to have more than 100 outlets in more than 45 cities across India.

Biryani By Kilo, which competes with the likes of Rebel Foods’ Behrouz Biryani and Biryani Blue, acquired a majority stake in healthy dessert startup Get-A-Way in 2022.

It counts Alpha Wave Ventures, IvyCap Ventures and Pulsar Capital among its key investors. The startup has raised more than $50 Mn of funding to date.

In November 2024, Biryani By Kilo raised $2 Mn from Pulsar Capital at an estimated valuation of $100 Mn.

The startup also managed to cull its loss by 30% to INR 70.81 Cr in FY24 versus INR 100.7 Cr in FY23. Besides, revenue from operations jumped 23% to INR 268.30 Cr in the year under review from INR 218.10 Cr in FY23.

3. Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters

• Year Of Inception: 2013
• Founders: Matt Chitharanjan, Shivam Shahi, Namrata Asthana
• Funding Raised To Date: $72.09 Mn
• Investors: Verlinvest, Anicut Capital, A91 Partners.
• Headquarters: Gurugram

Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters operates four roasteries and over 80 physical outlets across Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, among others. The startup also claims to have an outlet in Tokyo, Japan.

The startup, which was founded by Matt Chitharanjan, Shivam Shahi and Namrata Asthana in 2013, counts Verlinvest, Anicut Capital, A91 Partners and Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone among its key investors. It claims to have raised more than $70 Mn amount of funding to date.

Blue Tokai received a lot of traction from investors last year. In April 2024, Rakesh Kapoor’s 12 Flags Group made its maiden investment in India by backing Blue Tokai. 

The startup also bagged $35 Mn  (about INR 293 Cr) in its Series C funding round led by Verlinvest to deepen its presence in existing metro cities and expand its footprint to new Tier I & II cities over the next three years.

Apart from its D2C outlet, the company offers B2B services by collaborating with different retail outlets, luxury hotels, restaurants, corporates, and coworking spaces. 

4. Boba Bhai

• Year Of Inception: 2023
• Founder: Dhruv Kohli
• Funding Raised To Date: $3.35 Mn+
• Investors: Titan Capital, Arjun Vaidya, Varun Alagh
• Headquarters: Bengaluru 

Launched as a passion project by Dhruv Kohli in late 2023, Boba Bhai has swiftly become a notable player in the bubble tea market, capitalising on the growing trend for this popular Taiwanese drink.

Offering a diverse range of products priced between INR 99 and INR 219, Boba Bhai sets itself apart with its broad product selection and user-centric approach, distinguishing itself from competitors like Chai Point and Cha Bar.

In just one year, the startup has built a substantial customer base of over 4 Lakh and achieved revenues of INR 8 Cr. With plans to significantly expand its presence, Boba Bhai aims to increase its offline footprint to 150 stores by the end of 2025. 

In January 2025, the startup secured INR 30 Cr (around $3.4 Mn) to expand into newer cities such as Pune and Ahmedabad, scale operations, roll out new Korean offerings and develop new sub-brands.

5. Burger Singh

• Year Of Inception: 2014
• Founders: Kabir Jeet Singh, Nitin Rana, Rahul Seth
• Funding Raised To Date: $5.10 Mn+
• Investors: RB Investments, Rukam Capital, KCT Family Office, and V.M. SALGAOCAR family office
• Headquarters: Gurugram

Established in 2014 by Kabir Jeet Singh, Nitin Rana, and Rahul Seth, Burger Singh is a Gurugram-based quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain.

In 2019, the company secured an undisclosed amount of funding from RB Investments, based in Singapore. Subsequently, in 2022, Burger Singh successfully raised INR 30 Cr in its Series A funding round. The round was led by Negen Capital, accompanied by LetsVenture, Mumbai Angels, Old World Hospitality, and musician Jasleen Royal.

Following the fundraising in 2022, the fast-food chain announced its plan to utilise the funds for opening 120 new food outlets by the end of FY23.

In December 2023, Burger Singh raised pre-Series B funding in a round led by trading company Turner Morrison, which increased its valuation to $52 Mn (approximately INR 433 Cr) from its last valuation of $23 Mn in July 2022. 

As of December 2023, Burger Singh boasted more than 150 exclusive food outlets across various cities in India.

In the competitive QSR industry, Burger Singh faces competition from well-known brands such as Burger King, McDonald’s, Subway, Domino’s, and KFC.

6. Chaayos 

• Year Of Inception: 2012
• Founders: Nitin Saluja, Raghav Verma 
• Funding Raised To Date: $98 Mn
• Investors: Alpha Wave Ventures, Elevation Capital, Think Investments, Tiger Global, Integrated Capital, SAIF Partners, InnoVen Capital, Pactolus, Sachin Shukla, Bhavish Aggarwal, Ankit Bhati
• Headquarters: Delhi

F&B brand Chaayos sells multiple types of teas and pre-packaged food products via offline and online marketplaces and uses new-age technologies like AI and IoT to run its operations efficiently.

Earlier, it had shared that its online tea deliveries account for 45% of its revenue. It operates 190 retail outlets across six Indian cities. In June 2022, it secured $53 Mn in its Series C funding to develop tech infrastructure and expand its presence.

Its cap table includes Alpha Wave Ventures, Elevation Capital, Think Investments, Tiger Global, SAIF Partners, InnoVen Capital, Pactolus, and Ola cofounders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, among others.

Chaayos’ narrowed its net loss by 50.59% to INR 54 Cr in FY24 from INR 109.3 Cr in FY23. 

7. Charcoal Eats

• Year Of Inception: 2015
• Founders:  Krishnakant Thakur, Anurag Mehrotra, Mohammed Bhol
• Funding Raised To Date: $9.8 Mn+
• Investors: Lokmat Media, Girish Patel, Anil Singhvi, Ajinkya Firodia
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Founded in 2015, Charcoal Eats is a quick-service restaurant chain that delivers “high quality, consistent, authentic, modern Indian flavours to its patrons across the country across snack and meal times at affordable prices” via its app. 

The company operates brands such as Charcoal Eats for Biryani and B Burger across Mumbai, Pune and Delhi NCR.

While the company started with six biryani variants, the company claims to be offering 50 different all-day food options across snack and meal times, including biryanis, starters, curries, rice bowls, and rolls among others.  

It has around 40 outlets, mostly cloud kitchens, across Mumbai, Pune and Delhi-NCR.

Through these outlets, customers can dine-in, take away or order for delivery, as per their convenience. Charcoal Eats is also available on leading food platforms, Zomato and Swiggy. It also recently launched a new product line under the brand name Khichdibaba.

Among QSR restaurants, Charcoal Eats competes with Wow! Momo Foods, Faasos and Hello Curry, among others. 

The startup recently raised $5.3 Mn to boost its brand operations and expand its footprint across India and overseas.

8. Coolberg 

• Year Of Inception: 2016
• Founders: Pankaj Aswani, Yashika Keswani
• Funding Raised To Date: $3.5 Mn
• Investors: RB Investments, India Quotient, Ashish Goenka, Indian Angel Network
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Coolberg is a non-alcoholic beer brand, which sells cranberry, peach, ginger, malt, strawberry, mint, and cranberry beverages via its website and offline distribution channels. Currently, it has a presence in India, Africa, Maldives, Bhutan, and Nepal. 

In 2019, Coolberg raised $3.5 Mn in its Series A funding round from RB Investments, India Quotient, Ashish Goenka from Suashish Diamonds, and Indian Angel Network. Prior to that, it bagged an undisclosed sum from India Quotient and Indian Angel Network’s maiden fund.

The beverage startup was acquired by Ghodawat Consumer in 2022 for an undisclosed amount. The startup said that this acquisition would help it develop a portfolio of new-age premium beverage brands as part of the deal. 

9. Desi Farms

• Year Of Inception: 2022
• Founders:  Sunil Sahi, Prateek Gupta
• Funding Raised To Date: $6 Mn
• Investors: NAV Capital Emerging Funds, Venture Catalysts, Cummins India’s founder and MD Ashwath Ram
• Headquarters: Pune

Founded in 2022 by Sunil Shahi, the Pune-based farm-to-table D2C brand offers fresh and chemical-free milk and dairy products.

Currently operational in Pune, the brand claims to offer milk within 12-24 hours of the milking process. Other than milk, its product category includes A2 milk, ghee, paneer and more, with each product passing through 20 quality checks. 

It has developed a tech-enabled in-house system, which takes care of production, delivery and franchise modules to ensure product provenance, tracking the entire journey from farms to customers.   

Desi Farms has an omnichannel presence. Its products are sold via its app and portal, on ecommerce marketplaces under the Manchar Farms brand and through 50+ Desi Farms outlets. 

Since inception, it has secured INR 50 Cr funding from investors like NAV Capital Emerging Funds, Venture Catalysts, Cummins India’s founder and MD Ashwath Ram, among others. 

The startup also made it to the list of Inc42’s 2024 edition of Fast42.

10. Dogsee Chew

• Year Of Inception: 2015
• Founders:  Bhupendra Khanal, Sneh Sharma
• Funding Raised To Date: $13.9 Mn  
• Investors: Mankind Pharma, Sixth Sense Ventures
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Dogsee Chew offers vegetarian dog treats that are natural, human-grade, and protein-rich. These treats are made from yak milk cheese by residents of villages in Nepal, Sikkim, and Darjeeling. 

In 2022, the startup secured $6.7 Mn in its Series A funding round from Mankind Pharma and Sixth Sense Ventures.

In November 2021, it raised $7 Mn in its Pre-Series A funding round from Sixth Sense Ventures. Currently, it has a presence in over 30 countries. 

11. DropKaffe

• Year Of Inception: 2019
• Founders: Rakshit Kejriwal, Lakshmi Dasaka, Chaitanya Chitta and Amar Yashlaha 
• Funding Raised To Date: $ 850 K
• Investors: Fireside Ventures, Brigade Group, GrowthStory, Sidharth Pansari, Nirupa Shankar, Hitesh Oberoi, Kanwaljit Singh, Apurva Salarpuria, Manish Singhal P39 Capital
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Beverage startup DropKaffe sells ready-to-drink cold coffee, fresh coffee beans, coffee powders, and gourmet foods under the brand SLAY Coffee through its website and cafe chains.

According to its LinkedIn page, the startup has a presence in over 160 locations across 19 Indian cities.

In 2016, its parent company raised $550K in a funding round led by Fireside Ventures’ Kanwaljit Singh, Srini Anumolu & Meena Ganesh of GrowthStory, Apurva Salarpuria from Salarpuria Group, Sidharth Pansari from Primac, Rahul Gidwani, Hitesh Oberoi from Naukri, Nirupa Shankar from Brigade Group, and Bhupen Shah also participated in the round. 

The venture claims to serve more than 500K customers across 20 cities across the country.

12. Eat Better

• Year Of Inception: 2020
• Founders: Mridula Kanoria, Shaurya Kanoria, Vidushi Kajaria
• Funding Raised To Date:  $725K
• Investors: Java Capital, Mumbai Angels, Shiprocket Ventures, CapierCapital, Plan B Capital, Harpreet Grover, Arjun Vaidya, Bhavik Vasa, Radhika Ghai, Vishesh Khurana, Bimal Kartheek Rebba, Ishank Joshi, Venus Dhuria, and Divij Bajaj
• Headquarters: Jaipur

Organic food startup Eat Better sells healthy snacks such as coffee and almond laddoos, hazelnut chocolate laddoos, and vanilla, and cacao laddoos, among others, through its website and other ecommerce platforms. 

The startup has a manufacturing facility in Jaipur and manages a base of over 50 female employees.

In March 2022, it secured INR 5.5 Cr seed funding to strengthen its team, expand offerings and develop marketing and distribution channels. 

A slew of investors, including Java Capital, Mumbai Angels, Shiprocket Ventures, CapierCapital and Plan B Capital, participated in the funding round.

Earlier, it claimed to have reported over 10x growth in revenues between October 2020 and March 2022.

13. Farmley

• Founded In: 2017
• Founders: Akash Sharma, Abhishek Agarwal
• Funding Raised To Date: $12 Mn+
• Investors: BC Jindal Group, Alkemi Partners, Omnivore, DSG Consumer Partners
• Headquarters: Delhi NCR

Farmley, a direct-to-consumer (D2C) snacking brand founded in 2017 by Akash Sharma and Abhishek, specializes in offering an array of flavoured dry fruits and nuts. Their product range includes enticing options such as roasted peri peri makhanas, Thai chili cashews, and date bites.

With a presence across various ecommerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart, and Big Basket, Farmley has established itself as an omnichannel brand. Additionally, it boasts a wide distribution network of over 10,000 retail outlets across India. 

It claims to have crossed an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of INR 300 Cr, growing by over 400% in the past two years. The startup also claims to have turned EBITDA positive.

In December 2023, the startup secured $6.7 Mn in a Pre-Series B funding round led by BC Jindal Group.

Since its inception, Farmley has raised more than $12 Mn from a number of investors, including DSG Consumer Partners, Omnivore, and Alkemi Partners. 

14. Good Flippin’ Burgers 

• Year Of Inception: 2019
• Founders: Viren D’silva, Sijo Mathew, Sid Marchant
• Funding Raised To Date: $8.69 Mn
• Investors:  Karan Bhagat, Yatin Shah, Nikhil Bhardwaj, Tanglin Venture Partners
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Burger chain Good Flippin’ Burgers has 23 outlets across Mumbai and Delhi, of which 16 are in Mumbai. The brand entered the Delhi market with seven new outlets earlier this year.

In 2023, the startup raised $4 Mn in its Series A round, which was led by Tanglin Venture Partners. It has also raised $1.1 Mn in a seed round led by Kerala Blasters Football Club’s director Nikhil Bharadwaj, IIFL Wealth’s Karan Bhagat and Yatin Shah.

With outlets in only two cities in India, the startup is aiming to expand its footprint in India. It is also in the process of adopting cloud, hybrid, and dine-in formats with a focus on malls and airports. 

15.  Go DESi

• Year Of Inception: 2018
• Founders: Vinay Kothari, Raksha Kothari
• Funding Raised To Date: $12.31 Mn
• Investors:  Aavishkaar Capital, Rukam Capital, DSG Consumer Partners, Roots Venture
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

The startup was founded by a brother-sister duo to commercialise traditional Indian treats and confectionery, all while empowering women in rural villages.

With an omnichannel presence, the startup’s products are available in over 40,000 stores nationwide, and it claims to have sold over 15 Mn units since inception.

In southern India, the products are available both online and offline. In cities like Mumbai and Delhi NCR, they are available only on quick commerce and online grocery apps.

The startup recently secured INR 41 Cr in funding led by Aavishkaar Capital. The round also saw participation from existing investors Rukam Capital, Roots Ventures and DSG Consumer.

16. Go Zero

• Year Of Inception: 2022
• Founders: Kiran Shah
• Funding Raised To Date: $2.5 Mn
• Investors: DSG Consumer Partners, Saama, V3 Ventures
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Founded in 2022 by Kiran Shah, Go Zero manufactures zero-sugar and low-calorie ice creams. The startup claims to offer high-protein choices to its health-conscious consumers as against traditional sugar-laden ice creams. 

The startup claims to have a presence in more than 16 Indian cities including Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad and Chennai among others. 

The startup has raised more than $2.5 Mn in funding to date and competes with players such as NIC, Get-A-Way and Amul. It is backed by names such as DSG Consumer Partners, Saama and V3 Ventures. 

17. Happilo 

• Year Of Inception: 2016
• Founders: Vikas Nahar
• Funding Raised To Date: $38 Mn
• Bb Investors: Motilal Oswal Private Equity, A91 Partners
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Happilo is a healthy snack brand that offers nuts, dried fruits, seeds and dry roasted snacks. It has a manufacturing unit at Yeshwantpur, Bengaluru. It follows an omnichannel approach to selling its products across the country. 

Happilo’s products are non-GMO verified, gluten-free, vegan and fat-free. The startup offers EMI options to customers if they cannot pay for products at once. 

In February 2022, Happilo raised $25 Mn from Motilal Oswal Private Equity to expand its business and offerings and acquire other firms. Before this, it secured $13 Mn from A91 Partners.

18. Hocco

• Year Of Inception: 1944
• Founders: Satish Chona (Ankit Chona, Pradeep Chona)
• Funding Raised To Date: $ 23.95 Mn
• Investors: Sauce.vc, Chona family
• Headquarters: Ahmedabad 

Hocco, which began as an ice cream parlour in Karachi, was founded by Satish Chona in the pre-independence era. The first QSR was launched in Ahmedabad after Independence. Years after serving the country with its ice cream, the Chona family sold their legacy brand Havmor to South Korean conglomerate Lotte for INR 1,020 Cr.

In 2019, the family launched Hocco again, which today claims to have around 100  restaurants and eateries across India and one in the US. 

The company’s portfolio includes Hocco Eatery, 1944 The Hocco Kitchen, Hocco Ready-to-Eat, Huber & Holly, and Hocco Ice Cream.

In June 2024, the brand raised INR 100 Cr ($12 Mn) in a fresh funding round led by its promoter group Chona family and existing investor Sauce.vc. The round also saw participation from film producers Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar. With this round, Hocco’s valuation touched the INR 600 Cr valuation mark.

19. iD Fresh Food

• Year Of Inception: 2006
• Founders: PC Musthafa, Abdul Nazer, Shamsudeen TK, Jafar TK, Noushad TA
• Funding Raised To Date: $99.20 Mn
• Investors: NewQuest Capital Partner, Premji Invest, Peak XV Partners, Helion Ventures, Azim Premji
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

iD Fresh Food sells ready-to-make food such as dosa and idli batter, and rice rava idli batter, among others, in domestic and international markets. 

It has a presence in over 45 cities across the globe including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad and Dubai, among others.

In 2022, the Bengaluru-based D2C startup announced its seventh round of ESOPs worth INR 46 Cr for 27 employees.  

“In the coming months, we are excited to augment our 2,000+ workforce as we explore new markets and continue to create new opportunities for a diverse set of professionals, while actively creating a more inclusive workplace,” Musthafa said while announcing the ESOPs.

In January 2022, the startup secured $68 Mn in its Series D funding round from NewQuest Capital Partner and Premji Invest.

The F&B startup turned profitable in FY24 after posting a net profit of INR 1.84 Cr against a loss of INR 23.25 Cr in FY23. 

20. Jade Forest

• Year Of Inception: 2019
• Founders: Shuchir Suri, Punweet Singh
• Funding Raised To Date: $1.25 Mn
• Investors: Mumbai Angels Network, Gaurav Kapur, Rohan Abbas, Ashish Tulsian, AngelList India 
• Headquarters: Delhi 

Jade Forest offers a slew of non-alcoholic beverages to customers via its website, ecommerce marketplaces and last-mile delivery platforms. Its products are priced between INR 80 and INR 85.

In 2021, it secured $1 Mn from Mumbai Angels Network. Before this, it secured $250,000 in its seed funding round from angel investors such as Gaurav Kapur, Rohan Abbas, Ashish Tulsian, and AngelList India. 

Its products are certified by the US FDA. In the last two years, it has expanded to 23 Indian cities.

21. Jimmy’s Cocktails

• Year Of Inception: 2019
• Founders: Ankur Bhatia and Nitin Bhardwaj  
• Funding Raised To Date: $8.56 Mn
• Investors: Roots Ventures, 7Square Ventures, Vishesh Khurana, Varun Alagh, Keki Mistry, Vidur Talwar, Anirudh Somani, Vinay Agarwal, Ankur Bhatia, Mirza Baig, Ekcle Ventures, Angad Bhatia
• Headquarters: Gurugram

Jimmy’s Cocktails offers a slew of cocktail mixers including gin cherry sour, bloody mary, lime margarita, and mango chilli mojito, among others. 

In 2023, the startup raised $1.3 Mn as a part of its extended Pre-Series A round. 

In April 2022, Jimmy’s Cocktails secured $1.8 Mn in its Pre-Series A funding round from investors such as Roots Ventures, 7Square Ventures, Vishesh Khurana from Shiprocket, Varun Alagh from Mamaearth, Keki Mistry from HDFC, among others. 

The startup then said that it sold over 6 Mn cocktails in the first three months of 2022. 

In the financial year 2021-22, it posted a 3X revenue growth. About 40% of its revenue came from Tier II and III cities.

This year, Radiohead Brands, the beverage maker’s parent company, secured $1.3 Mn and announced the launch of its energy drink brand Hustle. 

22. Kapiva Ayurveda

• Year Of Inception: 2016
• Founders: Ameve Sharma, Shrey Badhani
• Funding Raised To Date:  $51.50 Mn
• Investors: Vertex Ventures, Fireside Ventures, 3one4 Capital
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Kapiva Ayurveda offers a slew of ayurvedic products for building immunity, improving digestion, strengthening the body and controlling diabetes, among others. 

The startup aims to raise an internal funding round of INR 300-330 Cr (around $40 Mn), which is to led by its existing investor, OrbiMed, to scale its operations and strengthen its market presence. 

In October 2021, it got an undisclosed amount of funding from Bollywood actor Malaika Arora.

Kapiva‘s loss widened 34% to INR 64.6 Cr in FY23 from INR 48.2 Cr in the previous fiscal year as the startup’s expenses shot up in line with its growing business. Its total revenue including interest income, stood at INR 116.5 Cr in FY23 as against INR 62.4 Cr in the previous year.

23. Lahori

• Year Of Inception: 2021
• Founders: Saurabh Munjal, Saurabh Bhutna, Nikhil Doda
• Funding Raised To Date: $15 Mn
• Investors: Verlinvest
• Headquarters: Mohali

Lahori offers traditional Indian beverages across the country. Currently, it offers Indian drinks in four flavours – jeera (cumin), nimboo (lemon), kacha aam (raw mango) and shikanji (lemonade). 

Lahori’s parent company, Archian Foods, manufactures nearly 1 Mn bottles in its fully automated manufacturing facility, which is spread across 1,50,000 sq ft. Its manufacturing unit is accredited by FSSAI, ISI, HACCP, RoHS and Make In India (offered by GeM). 

In January 2022, Belgium-based Verlinvest infused $15 Mn in Lahori in exchange for a minority stake.

24. Licious 

• Year Of Inception: 2015
• Founders: Abhay Hanjura, Vivek Gupta, Varun Sadana
• Funding Raised To Date: $ 554.22 Mn
• Investors: Amansa Capital, Kotak PE, Axis Growth Avenues AIF – I, Nithin Kamath, Nikhil Kamath, Aman Gupta, Haresh Chawla, Temasek, Brunei Investment Agency, 3one4 Capital, Bertelsmann India Investments, Vertex Growth Fund, and Vertex Ventures
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Licious offers a host of meat and seafood including prawns, kebabs and mutton, among others. Besides, it also offers an end-to-end supply chain of products that it sells to customers, right from their procurement to processing to delivery. 

In March 2022, the foodtech unicorn secured $150 Mn from Amansa Capital, Kotak PE, Axis Growth Avenues AIF – I, Nithin and Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha, boAt’s Aman Gupta and Haresh Chawla from True North. 

Before this, it raised $52 Mn in October 2021. In the financial year 2020-21, it had an annual revenue rate of INR 1,000 Cr and operations in 14 Indian cities. Its customer base stood at over 2 Mn in the fiscal year 2020-21.

Its loss declined 44% to INR 293.77 Cr in FY24 from INR 528.5 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Additionally, its revenue declined 8.4% to INR 685.05 Cr from INR 748 Cr in FY23. 

25. MasterChow

• Year Of Inception: 2020
• Founders: Vidur Kataria, Sidhanth Mada
• Funding Raised To Date: $.6 Mn
• Investors: Anicut Capital, WEH ventures, Fluid ventures 
• Headquarters: Delhi

D2C brand MasterChow offers ready-to-cook noodles, dipping sauces, and sticky rice, among others. 

In November 2024, MasterChow raised $6.5 Mn in its Series A round led by Singapore-based Tanglin Venture Partners.

In May 2022, MasterChow raised $1.2 Mn from Anicut Capital, WEH ventures and Fluid ventures.

Prior to this, it had raised around $462K in its seed funding round from WEH Ventures and some angel investors. The startup had then claimed that it had grown 10x over the previous 12 months and shipped products to over 17,000 pin codes across India.

26. Namhya Foods

• Year Of Inception: 2019
• Founders: Ridhima Arora
• Funding Raised To Date: Undisclosed
• Investors: Aman Gupta 
• Headquarters: Jammu

Headquartered in Jammu, Namhya Foods specialises in snacks and beverages made from Indian herbs and natural ingredients.

The startup was established in 2019 by Ridhima Arora. To secure funding, she participated in Shark India’s inaugural season and successfully secured INR 50 Lakh against a 10% equity. Additionally, she obtained an additional INR 50 Lakh in debt funding from Aman Gupta, the cofounder of boAt.

Namhya Foods positions itself as a provider of nourishing food products designed to assist individuals with various health conditions such as diabetes, heart issues, high blood pressure, cholesterol, thyroid problems, as well as chest congestion. The company offers a diverse range of products.

In addition to its presence in India, Namhya Foods operates in the United States and has plans to expand into the UAE, Australia, and Canada.

27. Nourish You

• Year Of Inception: 2015
• Founders: Rakesh Kilaru, Krishna Reddy, Brahma Teja Kilaru, Giridhar Kilaru, Prasad Kilaru
• Funding Raised To Date: $2 Mn
• Investors: Y Janardhana Rao, Rohit Chennamaneni, Nikhil Kamath, Abhijeet Pai, Abhinay Bollineni
• Headquarters: Hyderabad

Nourish You sells nutrient-rich breakfast food products and snacks to consumers via its website and ecommerce marketplaces, including Flipkart, BigBasket, and Amazon, among others. 

Besides selling products directly to consumers, the startup exports food items to countries like Singapore, Nepal, Kenya, Dubai, Mongolia and Maldives. Some of its products are quinoa flour, chocolate & banana muesli, and cranberry walnut mix. 

Earlier, the startup shared that it had 5,000 acres of quinoa and chia farms in Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Madhya Pradesh. 

In January 2023, it secured $2 Mn in seed funding for research and development activities, brand marketing and fortifying its distribution and market presence. As a part of this round, it also secured an undisclosed amount of funding from actress Samantha Prabhu. 

28. Oziva

• Year Of Inception: 2016
• Founders: Aarti Gill and Mihir Gadani
• Funding Raised To Date: $17 Mn
• Investors: HUL, Eight Roads Ventures, Z47, Stride Ventures
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Founded in 2016 by Aarti Gill and Mihir Gadani, OZiva is a D2C platform that sells plant-based products across categories such as women’s health, skin, hair, and general wellness, among others. 

The startup has raised more than $17 Mn in funding till date and is backed by the likes of Eight Roads Ventures, Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners India), Stride Ventures, among others. It competes with the likes of Origin Nutrition, GoodDot, among others. 

In December 2022, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) acquired a 51% stake in the plant-based supplement brand. The FMCG at the time said that it would completely buy out the startup in multiple tranches for a cumulative price of INR 264.28 Cr.

29. Paper Boat

• Year Of Inception: 2009
• Founders: Neeraj Kakkar, Niraj Biyani, Suhas Misra, James Nuttal
• Funding Raised To Date: $ 142.06 Mn
• Investors: Peak XV Partners, Hillhouse Capital Group, GIC, Advent International, Trifecta Capital, Sofina SA, A91 Partners, Catamaran, Footprint Ventures
• Headquarters: Gurugram

Paper Boat sells a slew of fruit-based drinks in Indian flavours including aam panna (raw mango), rose tamarind (tamarind juice), chilli guava (guava juice), ‘jaljeera’ (spicy, tangy lemonade), among others.

In August 2022, the startup raised $50.1 Mn in funding from GIC-owned sovereign fund Lathe Investment Pte Ltd.

At the time, it used to have a presence in the metro cities, Tier II towns and beyond. Paper Boat saw its net loss widened 71% to INR 90.6 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23) from INR 53 Cr in FY22 due to higher cash burn. However, its revenue from operations rose 56% to INR 504 Cr during the year under review from INR 324 Cr in FY22.

30. Plix

• Year Of Inception: 2018
• Founders: Rishubh Satiya, Akash Zaveri
• Funding Raised To Date: $5 Mn
• Investors: Guild Capital, RPSG Ventures
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Based in Mumbai, Plix specialises in plant-based nutrition supplements, offering a range that includes gummies, superfood powders, and effervescent tablets. Plix asserts that its products effectively address concerns related to weight loss, hair fall and skin, daily wellness, women’s health, and workout requirements.

In July 2023, FMCG giant Marico acquired a majority 58% stake in Plix for INR 369.01 Cr, marking its inaugural foray into the D2C arena. Under the terms of this deal, Marico assumed control over Plix’s board, and Plix became a subsidiary of Marico.

Competing alongside players like OZiva, Setu Nutrition, and Fast&Up, Plix boasts a customer base exceeding 1.5 Mn individuals. The omnichannel brand offers a diverse portfolio of 60 products spanning six categories. 

31. Pluckk

• Year Of Inception: 2017
• Founders: Pratik Gupta
• Funding Raised To Date: $5 Mn+
• Investors: Exponentia Ventures, Kareena Kapoor Khan
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Pluck is an ecommerce platform which aims to serve the growing demand for lifestyle-oriented fresh produce. It focusses on the global food trends ranging from vegan, carb alternatives, gut health and immunity to plant-forward eating to prevent diabetes and mental health. 

The startup has a 400+ product range across 15+ categories including essentials, exotics, hydroponics, cuts, and mixes. The startup claims that the products are chemical-free. Further, the products are customised following different food trends, suitable for gut and heart health, and diabetes. 

Pluckk’s products are available on its own D2C website along with partner ecommerce platforms, including Blinkit, Swiggy, Zepto, Dunzo, and Amazon. While it is currently operational in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Pune, it plans to expand to more geographies in the coming quarters.

In 2022, it secured its seed funding of $5 Mn from Exponentia Ventures to develop farm-to-fork infrastructure, customer acquisition and expansion into key metro cities. It also said that parts of the fund would go towards the acquisition of B2B and B2C company Indus Fresh. 

In 2023, it acquired DIY meal kit platform KOOK for $1.3 Mn in a combination of cash and equity.

Following this acquisition, it also secured an undisclosed amount of funding from actress Kareena Kapoor Khan and appointed her as a brand ambassador. 

In September last year, the startup acquired D2C nutrition brand Upnourish for $1.4 Mn. 

32. Samosa Singh

• Year Of Inception: 2016
• Founders: Nidhi Singh, Shikhar Veer Singh
• Funding Raised To Date: $2.7 Mn
• Investors: Fireside Ventures, AL Trust, AET Fund, She Capital, Equanimity Investments, ANME
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Food snack brand Samosa Singh sells Indian food snacks such as samosa, kachori, pani puri, and matar kulcha, among others, to its customers via cloud kitchens and kiosks.

It had earlier shared that its manufacturing unit holds the capacity to produce 25K food items daily.

In 2020, the startup secured $2.7 Mn (INR 17 Cr) in a Series A funding round to develop the capacity of its Bengaluru-based central kitchen. The round was led by She Capital.

As of March 2020, it had a presence in over 25 locations in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. It claims to have set up 100 cloud kitchens in prime cities of South India.

33. Skippi 

• Year Of Inception: 2021
• Founders: Ravi Kabra, Anuja Kabra
• Funding Raised To Date: $1.3 Mn
• Investors: Venture Catalysts, Hyderabad Angel Network
• Headquarters: Hyderabad

When the husband-wife duo of Ravi and Anuja Kabra returned to India after a seven-year-long stint in Australia, they sat down to start something of their own. While looking for ideas, Ravi remembered that his sister would pack ice popsicles from local Australian brands during her return back to India.

Looking to satiate the Indian craving for ice lollies, the duo founded Skippi in 2021. The D2C startup offers different flavour popsicles, cream rolls and cornsticks via an omnichannel retail business model. 

Skippi founders claim to provide ice popsicles that are 100% natural and free from artificial colours, flavours, and preservatives.

The startup event featured on the first season of the hit TV show Shark Tank and secured a deal from all five judges on the show for INR 1.2 Cr in exchange for a 5% equity.

Also backed by Venture Catalysts and Hyderabad Angel Network, Skippi raised INR 10 Cr ($1.2 Mn) in a Pre-Series A funding round in May 2024.

34. Slurrp Farm 

• Year Of Inception: 2016
• Founders: Meghana Narayan, Shauravi Malik, Umang Bhattacharya
• Funding Raised To Date: $17.18 Mn 
• Investors: Anushka Sharma, Investment Corporation of Dubai, Fireside Ventures
• Headquarters: Gurugram

Slurrp Farm is a children-focussed healthy snack brand. It offers a variety of cereals, milk mixes and snacks such as ready-to-mix pancakes, cakes, dosas, noodles and various kinds of pasta. For first-time users, it offers these products in trial packs. 

Slurrp Farm’s parent, Wholsum Foods, sells the products via its website and ecommerce marketplaces. Currently, it has a presence in India, the UAE, the US, and the UK. 

In the financial year 2021-22, it reported over INR 50 Cr annual revenue rate (ARR) and witnessed a 10X growth between June 2020 and December 2021. It further aims to achieve a revenue of INR 500 Cr by 2025.

In April 2022, Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma backed Slurrp Farm. Prior to this deal, the D2C brand raised $7 Mn from the Investment Corporation of Dubai and Fireside Ventures and also bagged $2 Mn in a Series A round from Fireside Ventures.

35. Smoor

• Year Of Inception: 2015
• Founders: Vimal Sharma
• Funding Raised To Date: Undisclosed
• Investors: Rebel Foods
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Smoor was incorporated to provide a premium range of products, including chocolates, desserts, lounges/cafes and corporate gifting across the country.

Founded by Vimal Sharma in 2015, Smoor bagged funding from foodtech unicorn Rebel Foods in 2022. With this investment, Rebel Foods bought the majority stake in the F&B startup. 

Back then, the startup aimed to build its omnichannel distribution strategy by expanding its physical centres across Tier I cities in India and accelerating its online presence across digital platforms. The chocolate brand is available in more than 50 cities in India.

It is looking to achieve a scale of $100 Mn in annual revenue by 2026.

36. Storia

• Year Of Inception: 2016
• Founders: Vishal Shah
• Funding Raised To Date: $6 Mn 
• Investors: Sixth Sense Ventures
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Storia offers a range of processed fruit juices, coconut water, and shakes to customers. 

In 2021, it raised $6 Mn in its Series A funding from Sixth Sense Ventures. It currently has a presence in 33 Indian cities via its 50K retail outlets.

At the time of the announcement of its Series A funding round, the startup said it planned to launch new offerings, expand its distribution network and foray into packaged food. 

37. Sweet Karam Coffee

• Year Of Inception: 2015
• Founders: Anand Bharadwaj, Nalini Parthiban, Srivatsan Sundararaman, Veera Raghavan
• Funding Raised To Date: $1.5 Mn 
• Investors: Fireside Ventures
• Headquarters: Chennai

Sweet Karam Coffee sells South-Indian delicacies, including filter coffee and ready meal mixes, which it claims to be free from palm oil and preservatives. 

In October 2023, the startup announced that it raised $1.5 Mn from Fireside Ventures to expand its offline play, enter new geographies, and strengthen its product portfolio. 

The startup also aims to address the problem of poor availability of well-packaged traditional South Indian sweets and snacks.  

The startup sells its products primarily through its website and app, and claims to deliver them to more than 30 nations. 

The Chennai-based startup has also partnered with Tamil Nadu farmers to offer a range of millet-based products.

38. TenderCuts

• Year Of Inception: 2016
• Founders: Nishanth Chandran, Sasikumar Kallanai, Varun Prasad Chandran, Venkkatesan R.
• Funding Raised To Date: $19 Mn
• Investors: Stride Ventures, Paragon Partners, Nabventures 
• Headquarters: Chennai 

D2C brand TenderCuts offers meat and seafood products including chicken, mutton, seafood, marinades, pickles, and eggs and ready-to-cook products such as cold cuts, sausages, kebabs, shawarmas, etc.

In 2021, it secured approximately $4 Mn in a debt funding round from Stride Ventures. Prior to this, it raised $15 Mn from Paragon Partners and Nabventures and closed a seed funding round worth $759K in 2017. 

It follows an omnichannel marketing strategy and has been serving customers across Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore via its 50 retail stores. 

In September 2023, omnichannel meat brand Good To Go was reported to be planning the acquisition of TenderCuts along with Happy Chops. 

39. The Divine Foods 

• Year Of Inception: 2019 
• Founders: Kiru Maikkapillai
• Funding Raised To Date: Undisclosed 
• Investors: Nayanthara, Vignesh Shivan
• Headquarters: Chennai

The Divine Foods is a D2C foodtech startup that specialises in manufacturing products from traditional Indian superfoods such as turmeric, moringa, millet, and others. 

Its portfolio includes products such as turmeric oil, turmeric golden milk, masks, turmeric drinks, turmeric powder, honey, among others. 

Under the flagship seed funding scheme of the Tamil Nadu government called TANSEED 4.0, the startup received a grant of an undisclosed amount. 

In 2023, the startup secured an undisclosed amount of funding from actress Nayanthara and her husband Vignesh Shivan. Back then, founder Maikkapillai told Inc42 that the funding would be used for scaling up the infrastructure, expanding the startup’s product line, creating brand awareness among the masses and encouraging other celebrities to support the growth of native businesses. 

40. The Filling Station

• Year Of Inception: 2021
• Founders: Mahua Ghosh, Suvankar Ghosh
• Funding Raised To Date: Undisclosed 
• Investors: NA (Not Available)
• Headquarters: Mumbai 

Healthy food snack startup The Filling Station sells nutrient-rich laddoos, oil-free snacks, and nutrient-rich spreads, among others, via its website and ecommerce marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart.

In snacks, it uses ingredients such as palm, oats, makhana, seeds, nuts, and date fruit. Its cofounder Mahua Ghosh holds 11 years of experience in the food industry. She has previously worked with many fast food joints, cloud kitchens and retail brands. The venture is recognised by the Centre’s Startup India Initiative, according to the website.

41. The Good Bug

• Year Of Inception: 2022
• Founders: Keshav Biyani, Prabhu Karthikeyan
• Funding Raised To Date: $ 7 Mn
• Investors: Fireside Ventures
• Headquarters: Mumbai

The Mumbai-based startup, The Good Bugs, offers a range of products that are designed to promote and maintain gut health for consumers. Its primary focus lies in addressing the health concerns of individuals aged 25-60 who may be grappling with the negative consequences of unhealthy dietary and lifestyle choices.

Currently, the startup operates as an omnichannel brand, with approximately 70% of its revenue coming from its website and the remaining 30% from various online marketplaces. Notably, the startup has recently initiated partnerships with pharmacies to expand its offline presence.

Since its inception, the brand claims to have catered to over 2 Lakh customers. It also proclaims to have strong repeat rates of 40-45%. To expand its product offerings, the startup is planning to introduce 20 new products to its portfolio over the next six to twelve months.

42. The Whole Truth

• Year Of Inception: 2019
• Founders:  Shashank Mehta
• Funding Raised To Date: $17 Mn
• Investors: Sequoia Capital India, Matrix Partners India, Sauce.vc, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Sujeet Kumar, Ashneer Grover, Shashvat Nakrani
• Headquarters: Mumbai 

The Whole Truth sells dark chocolate, muesli, protein bars, nut butter and energy bars via its website and other ecommerce marketplaces.

The F&B startup is looking to raise around $25 Mn in its Series C funding round at a valuation of INR 2,000 Cr (about $240 Mn).

In July 2021, the D2C snack brand secured $6 Mn in its Series A funding round from Sequoia Capital India, Matrix Partners India, Sauce.vc, Flipkart’s Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Udaan’s Sujeet Kumar, Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani.

The startup had then claimed that it had grown 12x in the last 18 months. Besides, The Whole Truth said it receives 50% of its sales via its website and the rest from ecommerce marketplaces. 

In 2023, the startup secured $15 Mn to boost its manufacturing capacity, hire talent, and expand its retail distribution. 

43. Troo Good

• Year Of Inception: 2018
• Founders: Raju Bhupati 
• Funding Raised To Date: $26.39 Mn
• Investors: OAKS Asset Management
• Headquarters: Hyderabad

Troo Good offers a slew of millet, peanut, chocolate, and dry fruit snack bars and mixtures. In the year of its inception, it clocked a revenue of INR 12 Cr, while in 2019, it posted a revenue of INR 24 Cr. 

In 2024, the startup raised $9 Mn (INR 75 Cr) in a fresh funding round led by Puro Wellness, along with participation from existing investors Oaks Asset Management and V Ocean Investments.

In November 2021, Troo Good secured $7.4 Mn from OAKS Asset Management to expand its business in the domestic market.

44. True Elements 

• Founded In: 2017
• Founders: Puru Gupta and Sreejith Moolayil
• Funding Raised To Date: $2 Mn
• Investors: Marico, Maharashtra State Social Venture Fund
• Headquarters: Bengaluru 

True Elements offers millet, grains, and seeds-based breakfast and snack foods. It follows an omnichannel marketing strategy, selling products via its website, ecommerce marketplaces and brick-and-mortar stores. 

In May 2022, consumer company Marico acquired a 53.98% stake in True Elements’ parent HW Wellness Solutions for an undisclosed sum. Prior to this, True Elements secured INR 10 Cr from the Maharashtra State Social Venture Fund last year. 

In the financial year 2021-22, it recorded sales of over INR 54.3 Cr as compared to INR 36.3 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Currently, it sells over 70 products and more than 200 stock-keeping units (SKUs) across 12,000 retail outlets in India. It claims to earn over 75% of its revenue from online distribution channels.

45. Twigly

• Year Of Inception: 2015
• Founders: Sonal Minhas, Rohan Dayal, Naresh Kumar Kachhi
• Funding Raised To Date: $800K 
• Investors: Tracxn Labs, Hyderabad Angels, Kunal Shah, Aditya Verma, Gaurav Bhalotia, Amit Gupta, Sahil Barua, Mukul Singhal 
• Headquarters: Gurugram 

Twigly provides freshly cooked food at consumers’ doorstep via its website and mobile app. It currently delivers orders in Delhi NCR. Some of its products are burgers, pasta, grill platters, desserts, and various types of beverages. 

According to its founders, the startup is modelled on San Francisco-based food delivery startup Sprig, which used to offer freshly cooked meals to its consumers. However, Sprig closed down its operations in 2017. 

In September 2018, Twigly was acquired by its competitor for an undisclosed amount.

46. Vahdam India

• Year Of Inception: 2015
• Founders: Bala Sarda
• Funding Raised To Date: $38.71 Mn
• Investors: Sixth Sense Ventures, IIFL Asset Management, Mankind Group Family Office, SAR Group Family Office, Kris Gopalakrishnan, White Whale Ventures, Urmin Group
• Headquarters: New Delhi 

Vahdam offers an assorted range of teas, including herbal, white, oolong and iced teas, among others in India and across the world. Its other offerings include teaware and instant lattes.  

In September 2021, the startup secured INR 174 Cr in its Series D Round led by IIFL AMC’s Private Equity Fund. Post the fundraising, it was valued at INR 700 Cr. 

As od 2022, the startup claims that it has a presence in more than 100 countries and also turned profitable in the fiscal year 2021 after clocking a net revenue of INR 160 Cr+.

47. Wellbeing Nutrition

• Year Of Inception: 2019
• Founders: Avnish Chhabria, Saurabh Kapoor 
• Funding Raised To Date: $12.20 Mn
• Investors: Rakulpreet Singh, Mira Kapoor, Fireside Ventures, HUL, etc.
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Founded in 2019, Wellbeing Nutrition is a direct-to-consumer (D2C) nutraceutical company based in Mumbai. Cofounded by Avnish Chhabria and Saurabh Kapoor, the startup specialises in offering healthy food products with a primary focus on women’s health.

Its product portfolio includes Melts, which are vitamin-based thin strips, Korean Marine for collagen, and Daily Fiber for plant-based prebiotic fibre.

In December 2022, Wellbeing Nutrition secured $10 Mn (INR 85 Cr) in its Series B funding round led by Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) and Fireside Ventures. HUL currently holds a 19.8% stake in the startup.

The company’s list of investors includes Bollywood actor Rakulpreet Singh, Mira Kapoor; Ashutosh Valani and Priyank Shah from RENEE Cosmetics, Nikhil Gandhi from MX Player, Harsh Vardhan Bhandari and Jeenendra Bhandari, among others.

Wellbeing Nutrition operates in the D2C segment and faces competition from brands such as Power Gummies and Fast&Up.

48. WickedGud

• Year Of Inception: 2021
• Founders: Bhuman Dani, Soumalya Biswas, Monish Debnath 
• Funding Raised To Date: $4.61 Mn
• Investors: Mumbai Angels, NB Ventures, Dholakia Ventures, Jalaj Dani Family Office, Ashutosh Valani, Priyank Shah, Ravi Shroff, Ravi Nigam, Ashwini Deshpande, Jorge Fernandez Vidal, Akshay Gurnani, Titan Capital, Archana Priyadarshini, Gaurav Ahuja, Amit Chaudhary, Aman Gupta, Sameer Mehta, Harsh Vakharia, Jorge Fernandez Vidal
• Headquarters: Mumbai 

WickedGud sells pasta, noodles, malted beverages and other snacks via its website and ecommerce marketplaces. According to its website, its products are wholly vegan and contain plant-based protein. 

In December 2024, the startup raised INR 20 Cr (around $2.3 Mn) in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Orios Venture Partners.

In April 2022, WickedGud secured $1 Mn from Mumbai Angels, NB Ventures, Dholakia Ventures, Jalaj Dani Family Office, Ashutosh Valani and Priyank Shah from Renee Cosmetics, Ravi Shroff from Excel Industries, Ravi Nigam from Tasty Bite, Ashwini Deshpande from Elephant Design, among others. 

Prior to this, it secured $340K in its pre-seed funding round from Titan Capital, Archana Priyadarshini from Point One Capital, Gaurav Ahuja from Chrys Capital, and Amit Chaudhary from Lenskart, among others. 

The startup targets customers aged 26 to 42 and claims to have an average order value of INR 450.

49. Wingreens Farms 

• Year Of Inception: 2011
• Founders: Anju Srivastava, Arun Srivastava
• Funding Raised To Date: $53.87 Mn
• Investors: Sequoia Capital, Investments AG, Investcorp, Omidyar Network
• Headquarters: Gurugram

The startup offers a diverse range of packaged food products spanning various categories such as healthy snacks, sauces, spreads, spice mixes, speciality bakery items, breakfast cereals, non-dairy milk, protein shakes, and a broad selection of organic products.

It faces competition from brands like Veeba Foods, while in the established FMCG brands segment, it competes with well-known names such as Nestle and Amul.

In July 2024, Wingreens Farms raised $4.3 Mn (INR 36.2 Cr) in debt funding from over a dozen investors. 

In 2022, the startup acquired a 100% stake in the Bengaluru-based snacks startup, Postcard. At the time, the startup stated that the acquisition would contribute to the expansion of its product portfolio under the ‘Wingreens World’ category. 

In an earlier acquisition in 2021, the startup acquired Raw Pressery during a distressed sale. The acquisition aimed to broaden its product portfolio and venture into the cold-pressed juices segment.

Last updated: January 20, 2025

The post From Slurrp Farm To Paper Boat: Here Are 49 F&B D2C Brands Reshaping The Indian Consumer Market appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Following PhonePe’s suit, payment aggregators Razorpay and Cashfree also plan to discontinue all third-party partnerships and integrations with payment orchestration platforms such as Juspay.

“We plan to transition away from integrations via third-party routers and orchestrators. By offering direct integration, we can accelerate the delivery of features and offer superior support and merchant experience,” a Cashfree Payments spokesperson said in a statement.

The development was first reported by The Head and Tale. 

Razorpay, in a statement, said it will pause all integrations with third-party payment orchestration platforms and will offer payment gateway services to its customers through direct integrations.

“Going forward, we will be pausing all integrations through third-party routing platforms. We will offer payment gateway services through our own, direct integrations to our customers… We believe only through direct integrations, we can ensure our latest innovations reach our customers swiftly and enhance their operations and experiences seamlessly,” a Razorpay spokesperson said. 

However, digital payments solutions provider Pine Labs appears to have stuck by Juspay’s side and said that it will continue to work with other orchestration service providers.

“In the world of technology, open architecture and collaboration are extremely important. At Pine Labs, we will continue to foster this and our online platform will continue to partner with other orchestration platforms to provide the best experience for merchants and consumers,” Pine Labs founder and CEO Amrish Rau told Economic Times.

Payment orchestration platforms enable online merchants to manage multiple bank partnerships via just one payment gateway. Simply put, these platforms allow a merchant to route transactions to the right payment aggregator based on their higher success rate at that time.

Meanwhile, Juspay cofounder and chief operating officer (COO) Sheetal Lalwani told Inc42 that the departure of the two platforms would have no impact on the company’s business. He asserted that the company earns its revenues from merchants, adding that certain payment aggregators are denying their customers the freedom of choice. 

The development comes a month after digital payments giant PhonePe reportedly discontinued all third-party partnerships and integrations with payment aggregators, including Juspay. At the time, PhonePe said that the move would enable it to own the entire value chain and trim dependence on other players.

Meanwhile, Razorpay and Cashfree, too, have built their own orchestration platform namely Optimiser and FlowWise, respectively, but they are still in early stages. 

Founded in 2012 by Vimal Kumar and Ramanathan RV, and later joined by Lalwani, Juspay offers a technology platform that unifies payment gateways to give merchants a seamless, secure, reliable, end-to-end, enterprise-grade payment stack. 

The post Razorpay, Cashfree To Discontinue Partnership With Juspay appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel and non-banking financial company (NBFC) Bajaj Finance have announced a strategic partnership to offer financial services digitally to their customers.

In a joint statement, the two companies claimed that the collaboration will pave the way for the creation of India’s largest digital platform for financial services.

Under the partnership, the telecom major will initially offer Bajaj Finance’s financial products on its Airtel Thanks App. Thereafter, the telco will also offer Bajaj Finance’s suite of 27 offerings at its retail stores.

The companies have already begun a pilot of the service. While two financial products are live on the Airtel Thanks app so far, they plan to roll out four new financial offerings on the app by March this year, including gold loans, business loans, personal loans and a co-branded “Insta EMI” card.

Thereafter, Airtel plans to offer nearly 10 financial products of Bajaj Finance by the end of 2025.

With this partnership, Airtel and Bajaj Finance will look to leverage their phygital presence to deepen penetration of financial products and services. The companies added that the deal will enable them to tap into new-to-credit customers and integrate new users with the formal financial system.

Both companies, as part of the partnership, are committed to strong regulatory compliance, data privacy and security, and seamless customer service, added the statement. The two will also leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to “enhance efficiencies and elevate customer experiences”.

“… The combined reach, scale and distribution strength of the two companies will serve as the cornerstone of this partnership and help us succeed in the marketplace. We are building Airtel Finance as a strategic asset for the group and will continue to invest in and grow the business…,” said Bharti Airtel’s vice chairman and managing director Gopal Vittal.

Commenting on the collaboration, Bajaj Finance MD Rajeev Jain said, “… Our partnership with Airtel not only leverages India’s digital infrastructure for inclusive growth but also brings together the expertise and reach of two of India’s leading and most-trusted brands. Together with Airtel, we seek to be the financier of choice to India and enable millions to access financial services, even in remote areas.”

The development comes at a time when more and more Indian conglomerates are jumping into the fintech fray to capitalise on the growing demand for online financial services. Reliance is also looking to grab a share of the fintech pie through Jio Financial Services.

Such has been the scale that fintech ventures bagged 21% of the total $12 Bn funding raised by Indian startups in 2024. In total, the sector secured $2.5 Bn last year across 162 deals.

As per an Inc42 report, the homegrown fintech ecosystem is slated to become a $2.1 Tn market opportunity by 2030.

The post Airtel Partners Bajaj Finance To Offer Financial Products appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India and the US have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance cooperation in cybercrime investigations.

In a statement, the external affairs ministry (MEA) said that the MoU will allow the two countries to “step up” cooperation and training with regards to using digital forensics and cyber threat intelligence for criminal investigations.

From the Indian side, Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) and the home ministry will be responsible for the execution of the MoU.

On the other hand, the Department of Homeland Security, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Homeland Security Investigations Cyber Crimes Center will be the nodal agencies on the US side.

“Cybercrime has intricate linkages with the common security challenges faced by India and the US, such as terrorism and violent extremism, terror financing, drug trafficking, organised crime, human trafficking, illegal migration, money laundering and transportation security. The MoU on cybercrime investigations will enable further strengthening of India-US security cooperation, as part of our comprehensive and global strategic partnership,” the MEA said.

The agreement was signed by Vinay Kwatra, the Indian ambassador to the US, and the acting US deputy secretary of homeland security Kristie Canegallo in Washington DC on Friday (January 17).

The move is expected to foster collaboration between the two nations in the area of cybersecurity, enable knowledge-sharing and pave the way for speedy investigation in such cases.

This comes days after the governments of the US, Japan, and South Korea, in a joint statement, attributed the $235 Mn hack last year at Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX to state-backed North Korean hackers.

The development also comes at a time when a growing number of Indian entities and institutions are witnessing a spate of cyberattacks. India emerged as the second most targeted nation in terms of cyberattacks in the world in 2024, only next to the US.

As per a report by non-profit Prahar, 500 Mn cyberattacks were recorded in the country in the first quarter of 2024. This was followed by another nearly 750 Mn attacks in the second quarter last year.

The cyber threats have exacerbated on the back of AI and ML tools, which train machines to automate and enhance cyberattacks and are harder to detect.

The major cyber breaches in India last year included those at state-run telco BSNL (278 GB of sensitive user data leaked), broking platform Angel One (personal information of 7.9 Mn customers leaked), and WazirX (which impacted 15 Mn users), among others.

The post India, US Sign MoU To Enhance Cybercrime Cooperation appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Flush with capital, mobility giant Rapido has announced plans to expand its footprint to 500 cities across the country from 120 currently. 

In a statement, the startup said that the expansion plan will be gradually rolled out in multiple phases, starting February, and will look to cater to the diverse transportation needs of its users. 

Initially, the startup will target states such as Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Rajasthan for the roll out. Thereafter, it will extend its services to states such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, among others. 

The announcement was made on the sidelines of the Bharat Mobility Expo 2025. However, there is no clarity on the timeline for executing the expansion plans. 

“… With over 1.3 Cr captains (riders) earning over INR 15,000 Cr on the platform, our expansion to 500 cities is a testament to our commitment to empowering individuals and building a more connected India…,” said Rapido cofounder Pavan Guntupalli.

The expansion plan comes six months after Rapido entered the unicorn club after raising $200 Mn in its Series E funding round, led by existing investor WestBridge Capital, which catapulted the ride-hailing startup’s valuation to $1.1 Bn. At the time, Rapido said that the investment would support the expansion of its operations across India.

Founded in 2015 by Guntupalli, Rishikesh SR and Aravind Sanka, Rapido primarily operates in the bike taxi and auto transportation segments. It forayed into the cab services space in December 2023 and introduced a subscription model. In addition, it also offers peer-to-peer delivery services via Rapido Local. 

The startup claims to have so far facilitated over 200 Cr rides in 120 cities and witness 3.6 Mn rides daily.

Rapido’s operating revenue rose 46% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 648 Cr in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24), while net loss declined 45% YoY to INR 371 Cr. 

The startup competes with the likes of Uber, Ola, as well as new players such as Google-backed Namma Yatri. 

The post Rapido To Expand Footprint To 500 Cities appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk met India’s top founders and business executives at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas. 

The attendees included OYO founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Raman, Essar Capital’s Prashant Ruia, Kotak811 co-head Jay Kotak, Aryaman Birla of Aditya Birla Management Corporation, author Amish Tripathi, Akshay Chatruvedi, founder and CEO of Leverage.biz. among others. 

Led by India Global Forum (IGF) founder Manoj Ladwa, the delegation engaged with Musk and toured the SpaceX facility. 

In a statement, the IGF said that the meeting saw the entrepreneurs discuss opportunities for collaboration in areas such as technology, space, AI and India’s growing role in the global innovation landscape.

During a moderated discussion, Musk emphasised the potential for deeper collaboration between India and the US and lowering trade barriers to increase commerce between the two countries. 

Speaking about India, Musk said, “India is one of the ancient civilizations and a very great and very complex one”.

Commenting on the event, Ladwa said, “This event underscores the growing importance of collaboration between India and global pioneers in shaping a sustainable and technology-driven future…. This moment underscores the need for collaboration, bold ideas, and shared purpose. I believe India’s rise presents limitless opportunities, and this meeting signifies the potential for powerful partnerships.” 

Attendees like Agarwal and Tripathi took to X to describe the meeting and the discussions that took place. 

“Had the opportunity to be among the Indian founders hosted by  @Elonmusk led by  @IGFupdates . Elon is by far doing the most to evolve human kind or as Peter Thiel says has us closest to getting flying cars,” said OYO’s Ritesh Agarwal. 

This comes nearly a year after Musk was supposed to meet founders of Indian startups during his visit to the country in April last year. The SpaceX founder later shelved the trip. 

The development comes at a time when Musk’s Starlink is looking to launch its services in India. However, the satellite broadband provider has been caught on the wrong foot in the country.

Recently, the Centre launched a high-level probe into how Starlink’s devices found their way into the hands of drug smugglers and insurgents. This came after Indian security forces last year seized Starlink devices from insurgency-torn Manipur. In a separate incident, smugglers brought drugs worth $4.5 Bn into the Indian waters via sea using Starlink devices.

The post Elon Musk Meets OYO’s Ritesh Agarwal, Other Indian Business Executives appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Amid escalating climate challenges and scarce resources, cleantech startups are emerging as key drivers of innovation and change. 

These ventures are developing solutions that balance economic growth with sustainability, paving the way for a greener future.

As global efforts intensify to combat climate change and achieve sustainability goals, cleantech has become a vital innovation hub. Startups in this sector are at the forefront, transforming resource management and promoting eco-friendly practices.

In India, a rising number of cleantech startups are addressing both domestic and global environmental challenges. Their innovative practices range from rooftop solar solutions to bio-methanation technology for organic waste management, and air and water purification systems. These efforts reflect a growing commitment to reducing the environmental impact of industrialisation and urbanisation.

Inc42 has identified 63 Indian cleantech startups that are making significant impact in this sector. While their long-term impact remains to be seen, their emergence signals a promising shift in India’s business landscape towards environmental consciousness.

These startups also highlight the vital role technological innovation plays in achieving India’s clean energy goals. 

With that said, here are India’s most innovative cleantech startups that are driving meaningful change and shaping a sustainable future for India.

Editor’s Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. The startups have been listed alphabetically.

List Of Cleantech Startups In India

75F

• Founded In: 2012
• Founders: Deepinder Singh, Pankaj Chawla
• Funding Raised To Date: $29.75 Mn
• Investors: Siemens AG, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Climate Initiative, Building Ventures, Revolution, Clean Energy Trust, WIND Ventures
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

75F offers smart building solutions such as wireless sensors, equipment controllers and cloud-based software, delivering predictive, and proactive building automation to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

75F’s products mainly predict, monitor and control hot and cold spots of a building and thus, avert damages to the edifice. In the beginning, the startup focused on the commercial real estate market but in 2015, it also started providing HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) solutions. 

It works along with facility management companies, systems integrators and energy service companies to add more properties within its umbrella. Besides, it also outsources manufacturing units in the US, India and China. 

In July 2021, it reportedly secured $5 Mn in a Series A funding round from Siemens AG. With this, the startup raised a total of $28 Mn in the Series A financing round.

Its cap table includes Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Climate Initiative, Clean Energy Trust and WIND Ventures, among others. 

Ace Green Recycling

• Founded In: 2019
• Founders: Nishchay Chadha, Vipin Tyagi
• Funding Raised To Date: $7 Mn
• Investors: Circulate Capital, Climate Angels, Newchip 
• Headquarters: Singapore

Ace Green Recycling is a battery recycling startup, which claims to have developed clean and efficient lead-acid battery recycling technology.

Its battery operates at room temperature, contains zero air emissions, and wastes and reduces heavy metal emissions, resulting in significantly lower environmental damage, the startup said. 

Further, the cleantech startup has said it is working on the commercialisation of lithium-ion battery recycling in an environmentally sustainable manner.

Battery recycling technology startup secured more than $7 Mn in a funding round led by Circulate Capital and Climate Angels in February 2022. 

Adding this round, the startup’s total fund raised stands at $10 Mn so far, according to the startup.

The startup is planning to develop its lithium reusable technology and expand the 30-member team to 50 in the coming months. The startup is also focusing on developing fossil fuel-free lithium battery recycling technology.

AirOk

• Founded In: 2015 
• Founders: Deekshith Vara Prasad, Pavan Reddy Yasa, Vanam Sravan Krishna
• Funding Raised To Date: Undisclosed
• Investors: Ncubate Capital Partners
• Headquarters: New Delhi

AirOk has developed a patented air filter called EGAPA that is capable of removing 99.7% of air pollutants from the environment. The filter is designed to target cancer cells and break down air pollutants such as viruses, VOCs, bacteria, and mold, as claimed by the company.

In addition to air filters, AirOk offers a range of products, including air purifiers, air purifier filters, face masks, purifying bags, data centre solutions, and pollution seizure solutions.

According to its financial report for FY21, the company generated operating revenue of INR 1.94 Lakh but also reported a loss of INR 2.25 Lakh.

AirOk has secured investment from Ncubate Capital Partners, a VC fund based in Gurugram.

altM

• Founded In: 2022
• Founders: Apoorv Garg, Yugal Raj Jain
• Funding Raised Till Date: $3.5 Mn
• Investors: Omnivore, Theia Ventures, Thai Wah Ventures, Sanjiv Rangrass, Neha Mudaliar, Maninder Gulati (OYO), Mirik Gogri (Spectrum Impact), Paula Mariwala (Aureolis Ventures)
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Founded in 2022 by ex-Tesla employees Apoorv Garg and Yugal Raj Jain, altM is on a mission to develop sustainable materials from agricultural residue and help companies reduce their carbon footprints and increase circularity in their supply chains.

altM uses lignocellulosic agricultural residues to produce advanced materials that offer sustainable alternatives to conventional products. Lignocellulosic residue refers to dry plant waste that is left during or after the processing of crops. It includes items such as barley straw, corn stover, sorghum stalks, coconut husks, sugarcane bagasse and banana leaves.

Last month, altM secured $3.5 Mn in a seed funding round led by Omnivore. It was also featured in the 40th edition of Inc42’s ‘30 Startups To Watch’ list.

Bambrew

• Founded In: 2018
• Founders: Vaibhav Anant
• Funding Raised To Date: $9.55 Mn
• Investors: Blue Ashva Capital, Supack Industries, Mumbai Angels
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Founded in 2018 by Vaibhav Anant, Bambrew offers sustainable alternatives for food packaging, pouches and foldable cartons, ecommerce mailer bags, and PVC. The startup uses bamboo to make its products and claims that all its products are plastic-free and made in-house.

The Bengaluru-based green packaging startup picked up $2.35 Mn in a Pre-Series A round in January 2022, which was led by Blue Ashva Capital and Supack Industries. The funding round also attracted investments from Mumbai Angels and other angel investors.

Since its funding round, Bambrew has expanded its product range to include offerings such as paper straws, cups and glasses, and wooden spoons and forks.

Bariflo Labs

• Founded In: 2018
• Founders: Mrityunjay Sahu, Anudhyan Mishra
• Funding Raised To Date: $10.00K
• Investors: CSIR, Startup Odisha, JSW, the Telangana AI Mission (T-AIM), and VIT Technology Business Incubator
• Headquarters: Bhubaneswar

Founded in 2018 by Mrityunjay Sahu and Anudhyan Mishra, and headquartered in Bhubaneswar, Bariflo Labs is a water body management and aquafarming startup. The startup has developed an Intelligent Aqua Bodies Management system using principles of fluid dynamics and deploying technologies like industrial internet of things (IIoT), AI and robotics.

The Aqua Bodies Management system works using Bariflo Labs’ India-patented sediment aeration device. This device diffuses air at the sediment level in a water body, maintaining dissolved oxygen at the sediment oxygen boundary layer. It reduces energy consumption by up to 75% and capital cost by 20%. 

The startup’s AI-based monitoring device can predict water quality parameters such as dissolved oxygen, un-ionised ammonia, phosphate, nitrite, nitrate, sulphide, pH and ORP. 

Bariflo Labs’ is backed by CSIR, Startup Odisha, JSW, the Telangana AI Mission (T-AIM), and VIT Technology Business Incubator, among others.

BatX Energies

• Founded In: 2020
• Founders: Utkarsh Singh, Vikrant Singh
• Funding Raised To Date: $6.66 Mn
• Investors: LetsVenture, JITO Angel Network, family offices of Mankind Pharma, Excel Industries and BluSmart
• Headquarters: Gurugram

Founded in 2020 by Utkarsh Singh and Vikrant Singh, Gurugram-headquartered BatX Energies is a Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery recycling startup. The startup works to provide battery-grade materials by recycling end-of-life batteries.

Using its proprietary process, BatX Energies extracts black mass of less than 1% impurities from used Li-ion cells. This process allows the startup to extract high-quality lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese from black mass. The startup also produces plastics, aluminium, copper and stainless steel from recycled batteries, which it sells to recyclers.

In December 2023, BatX Energies secured $5 Mn in its Pre-Series A funding round from Zephyr Peacock, with participation from LetsVenture and existing investors, including JITO Angel Network, family offices of Mankind Pharma, Excel Industries and BluSmart. The startup plans to deploy the fresh capital to scale up production of its recycled battery-grade lithium, nickel, and cobalt and establish a nationwide reverse logistics network for sourcing.

Buyofuel

• Founded In: 2020
• Founders: Kishan Karunakaran, Venkateswaran Selvan, Sumnath Kumar, Prasad Nair
• Funding Raised To Date: $2.18 Mn
• Investors: IPV, VCATS, Gruhas Proptech, LV, Lead Angels Fund
• Headquarters: Coimbatore

Coimbatore-based BuyOFuel aggregates, biofuel suppliers, consumers and waste generators (waste biomass is converted to biofuels).

It claims that 90% of its users are active and repeat customers, and the business has clocked a 2x increase in monthly revenue since May 2022. The cleantech platform saw transactions involving 30K million tonnes (MT) of waste and biofuels since May, substituting 10K MT of fossil fuels.

It has raised $2.18 Mn to date, from investors including IPV, VCATS, Gruhas Proptech, LV and Lead Angels Fund.

Chakr Innovation

• Founded In: 2016 
• Founders: Kushagra Srivastava, Arpit Dhupar, Bharti Singhla
• Funding Raised To Date: $5.44 Mn
• Investors: Neev Fund II, Indian Angel Network, ONGC, Parampara Capital, Globevestor
• Headquarters: Delhi NCR

Chakr Innovation offers an emission control device that checks pollution at the source and captures harmful particulate matter emissions. 

The cleantech startup claims its products are coupled with exhaust and absorb over 80% of the particulate matter emitted by diesel engines. 

Chakr Innovation’s device Chakr Shield claims to collect 90% of particulate matter emissions from the exhaust of diesel generators without causing any adverse impact on the diesel engine. The collected emissions are used to create the ink. 

According to the startup, the Chakr Shield can significantly reduce particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions after retrofitting the tailpipe of the DG set.

In 2021, Delhi’s upscale mall Select CityWalk installed Chakr Shield to reduce pollution from the DG sets by up to 80%. The shield would help reduce annually an estimated 378 kg of PM or black soot emissions which is equivalent to more than 174 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions or the carbon sequestered by 228 acres of forest in one year alone, said Chakr’s cofounder Bharti Singhla. 

Chakr Innovation raised an undisclosed amount in the Series B round from Neev Fund II in November 2021. 

The startup has raised multiple rounds of funding, including a Series A round of INR 19 Cr led by IAN Fund and ONGC. It had also raised seed capital from Parampara Capital and Globevestor. 

Chakr Innovation will be working on other technology solutions including Metal-Air battery technology. The startup plans to scale its production and expand its operations across more than 12 cities in future.

In FY23, Chakr Innovation reported an operating revenue of INR 22.7 Cr, a 148% increase from the last fiscal year. 

Clairco

• Founded In: 2018
• Founders: Aayush Jha
• Funding Raised To Date: $572.6K
• Investors: AngelList, Max Group, Sanjiv Bajaj, Anicut Angel Fund
• Headquarters: Bengaluru 

Clairco is an Internet of Things (IoT) startup which enables air quality monitoring and purification. It uses low-drag air filters which can be retrofitted to any type of air conditioning and turn them into air purifiers. 

According to Clairco, it has developed this patent-pending air purification system in-house. It analyses air quality data of a particular premise on a real-time basis and installs ultra-low resistance air filters in existing air conditioning units. This is then converted into a smart air purification system. 

It helps businesses ensure clean air affordably and measurably by adding air purification to existing AC systems. It offers filter technology for up to MERV-13 filtration with a low-pressure drop, monitors PM2.5, PM10, CO2, VOC, and other air quality parameters, and maintains optimal health of air filters and purifiers in any season.

For its monetisation plan, Clairco charges its customers a monthly subscription fee for businesses of all sizes and scales. 

Clairco raised INR 4.2 Cr in angel funding in March 2021. The round was led by Sanjiv Bajaj (Bajaj Capital) at Anicut Angel Fund. Investors including Max Group and Angel List also participated in the round. 

The cleantech startup is looking to expand its footprint to key cities across the country. It is also looking for product development and growth.

Clean Electric

• Founded In: 2020
• Founders: Akash Gupta, Abhinav Roy, Ankit Joshi
• Funding Raised To Date: $13.98 Mn
• Investors: Info Edge Ventures, pi Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Climate Angels, LetsVenture
• Headquarters: Pune

Clean Electric develops lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles that can be charged within 12 minutes. The startup is using nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells to develop 12-minute charging technology for two- and three-wheeler EVs.

Besides commercialisation of two wheelers, it is focussed on scaling the production of battery packs for three and four-wheelers. 

The battery maker currently works with 12 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), including Bounce Infinity and Omega Seiki mobility. It is also in advanced stages of discussions with eight OEMs for the use of its batteries. 

In September last year, Clean Electric raised $6 Mn (INR 50.3 Cr) in its Series A funding round co-led by Info Edge Ventures, pi Ventures, and existing investor Kalaari Capital.

In 2022, it raised around $2.2 Mn in a seed funding round led by Kalaari Capital. Its cap table includes institutional investors such as IIM Ahmedabad, Climate Angels, and LetsVenture.

Clean Electric competes with the likes of Exponent Energy and EMO Energy in the country’s burgeoning electric vehicle market.

CleanMax Enviro Energy Solutions

• Founded In: 2011
• Founders: Kuldeep Jain, Sushant Arora
• Funding Raised To Date: $188.2 Mn
• Investors:  IFU, Warburg Pincus, UKCI, International Finance Corporation 
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Rooftop solar startup CleanMax is a sustainability partner to corporations and develops solar and wind projects under the Build Own Operate model by providing renewable electricity under long-term agreements, creating significant savings for end-users.

The startup currently serves more than 150 customers, including Facebook, Adobe, Cargill Foods, Volvo, Tata Group, Mahindra Group, Grasim, MG Motors and others.

The Danish Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU) invested $34 Mn in the renewable energy startup in December 2021. 

The investment in CleanMax is IFU’s second within renewables in India, following the signing of the India-Danish Green Strategic Partnership in 2020 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

CleanMax signed a deal with social media giant Facebook last year to co-run a portfolio of wind and solar projects across India that will supply clean energy to the electrical grid. 

In India, the startup has new investments lined up in solar, wind and wind-solar hybrid projects in states, including Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, to serve the needs of corporate customers.

CleanMax is planning to accelerate its growth in the commercial and industrial renewable energy space in India, as well as in the Middle East and South East Asia. 

In December 2024, Godrej Industries as per multiple reports acquired a 26% stake in Clean Max Kaze Pvt., a subsidiary of Clean Max Enviro Energy Solutions Pvt. 

Devic Earth

• Founded In: 2018 
• Founders: Shaguna Sinha, Srikanth Sola, Shivani Sinha Sola
• Funding Raised To Date: $1.36 Mn
• Investors: Blue Ashva Sampada Fund
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Cleantech startup Devic Earth creates scalable solutions with ‘Pure Skies’, its air pollution control equipment for industries and large areas. Pure Skies improves air quality. 

The Pure Skies tech system reduces specific pollutants like particulate matter to less than 10 microns (both PM10 and PM2.5). The air quality index typically improves in heavily polluted areas in less than three months.

Pure Skies comes with an intelligent wifi-based technology to handle airborne gaseous and particle pollutants across industries, homes, and cities. A single push of a button can help remove 40-50% of nano-sized particles at <20µm.

Pure Skies has been installed with companies operating in sectors including steel, cement, hotels, mining, and manufacturing. It claims the product also addresses challenges arising out of polluting events such as crop burning, forest fires, and construction.

The green technology startup raised its first institutional funding of INR 10 Cr in 2021 from the Blue Ashva Sampada Fund.

Devic Earth is planning to expedite more growth and product roadmaps and expand its operational presence in the country and global markets.

DigitalPaani

• Founded In: 2020
• Founders: Mansi Jain and Rajesh Jain
• Funding Raised To Date: $1.2 Mn
• Investors: Enzia Ventures, Elemental Excelerator, Bharat Founders Fund, peercheque, Ashish Goel
• Headquarters: Gurugram

Founded in 2020 by the father-daughter duo of Rajesh and Mansi Jain, DigitalPaani helps resolve water asset management issues with its IoT-enabled integrated operations platform, driving operational excellence while significantly reducing costs.

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

The startup raised $1.2 Mn in December 2023 in a seed round led by Enzia Ventures, and was featured in the 43rd edition of Inc42’s ‘30 Startups To Watch’.

Ecozen

• Founded In: 2010
• Founders: Devendra Gupta, Vivek Pandey, Prateek Singhal
• Funding Raised To Date: $94.80 Mn
• Investors: Omnivore, Caspian Impact Investments, Nuveen, Triodos Investment Management, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Maanaveeya
• Headquarters: Pune

Ecozen offers solar-powered irrigation through Ecotron and cold chain storage systems through Ecofrost. The startup claims that these offerings have impacted over 1.8 Lakh farmers across India. It claims to leverage AI and IoT to improve agriculture income while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and food losses.

The startup claims that two of its products – Ecotron and Ecofrost – have transformed the agricultural irrigation and cold chain industries, respectively, and aided in improving the income of over 1 Lakh farmers. Ecozen also claims to have cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2 Mn tonnes and prevented more than 50,000 metric tonnes of food loss.

In its latest debt round, the company secured more than $23 Mn (INR 198.6 Cr) from responsAbility Investments AG.

Ecozen indirectly competes against the likes of Pune-based Khethworks, Inficold, and Stellapps, among others. 

EcoRatings

• Founded In: 2023
• Founders: Aditi Balbir, Aqeel Ahmed, Shruti Anand
• Funding Raised To Date: $1 Mn
• Investors: We Founder Circle, 888 VC, Vinners, Indigram Labs Foundation, Google
• Headquarters: New York

EcoRatings leverages artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and Big Data to quantify the environmental impact of products and services.

Built atop a large language model (LLM) with a RAG architecture, the startup’s unified knowledge platform helps companies achieve sustainability targets by analysing vast datasets to provide precise answers by processing contextually relevant data from internal and external sources.

It serves consultants, investment banks, large corporations, and aggregators.

The startup in May 2024 raised $1 Mn in a Pre-Seed funding round from multiple investors, including We Founder Circle, 888 VC, Vinners, Indigram Labs Foundation and Google, in a mix of equity and grants.

EcoRatings Fintech Solutions received a SEBI licence as a provider of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings in November last year as per multiple reports.

EdgeGrid

• Founded In: 2020
• Founders: Sunil Talla, Prasad Yerneni, Mushtaq Ahmed, Neeraj Sansanwal, Vamsi TP
• Funding Raised To Date: $6 Mn  
• Investors: Lightrock India, Theia Ventures
• Headquarters: Hyderabad

EdgeGrid is a B2B cleantech platform that transits energy to last-mile customers such as households, small businesses, commercial building owners and EV charging stations.

The startup mainly uses the Internet of Things (IoT), AI and industry innovation to resolve energy-related problems in various industries. It claims that it enables customers to consume energy efficiently and also works with energy distribution companies to save costs and expand renewable energy in the ecosystem.

In March 2023, it secured $6 Mn in a fundraising round led by Lightrock India. Theia Ventures and some angel investors also participated in the round. In July 2022, it reportedly partnered with Andhra Pradesh Central Power Distribution Co Ltd to help transmission and distribution companies in the state save power purchasing costs.

Electriq

• Founded In: 2021
• Founder: Anand Thakur
• Funding Raised To Date: Undisclosed  
• Investors: Moto Business Service India
• Headquarters: Hyderabad

Founded in 2021 by Anand Thakur, Electriq is an IT, web and app-based platform that tracks electric vehicles and their drivers. Under its B2B vertical, it sells EVs to aggregators such as Zepto and Swiggy and individual customers. 

The startup’s vehicles are installed with IoT devices that share the real-time location of vehicles and vehicle drivers. Electriq’s partnership with Vodafone Idea (VI) allows it to offer connectivity electric scooters.

The startup last raised funding in October 2022 when Yamaha Motors’ subsidiary Moto Business Service India (MBSI) infused an undisclosed amount in a corporate round. That was also the first funding round the startup had raised.

Freyr Energy

• Founded In: 2014
• Founders: Saurabh Marda, Radhika Choudary
• Funding Raised To Date: $10.87 Mn 
• Investors: Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures, Schneider Electric Energy Access Asia, and C4D Partners
• Headquarters: Hyderabad 

Freyr Energy is a rooftop solar expert for residential and commercial solar solutions. It also caters to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sectors, catering to customers across 22 states in India.

Freyr Energy is working to bring much-needed consolidation in the green energy sector. The cleantech startup has come with its app, SunPro+, through which it has made the process of owning a solar system simple and seamless. The entire process of owning the system including financing, execution, and after-sales service, has become easier with the app.

Freyr Energy raised INR 18 Cr as an equity investment in April 2021 from Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures, Schneider Electric Energy Access Asia, and C4D Partners. The cleantech startup is working towards mass-market adoption of solar energy, and looking to accelerate growth and enhance its customer experience.

Gegadyne Energy 

• Founded In: 2015 
• Founders: Jubin Varghese, Ameya Gadiwan
• Funding Raised To Date: $5 Mn
• Investors: V-Guard, Mumbai Angels 
• Headquarters: Mumbai 

Gegadyne Energy develops eco-friendly alternatives to conventional lithium-ion batteries. Its battery consists of nano-material composites and advanced battery architectures to enable quick charging with high energy density similar to lithium-ion batteries.

Gegadyne’s batteries charge from 0 to 100% in around 15 minutes; unlike lithium-ion batteries that take hours to recharge. The price range of the battery pack will be at par with lithium-ion batteries and will drop further as the economy of scale kicks in, as per the startup.

The batteries are aimed to be a direct replacement for existing use cases and will be available in cylindrical, pouch and prismatic forms, according to the startup.

Electric vehicles are the main focus of the startup. However, these batteries can be used in any other consumer devices, telecom towers, and stationary energy storage systems.

Gegadyne Energy raised $4.5 Mn from V-Guard Industries in a Series A round of investment in January 2021. It plans to build a pilot plant to service its contract with selected OEMs.

GPS Renewables

• Founded In: 2012 
• Founders: Mainak Chakraborty, Sreekrishna Sankar
• Funding Raised To Date: $73 Mn 
• Investors: Neev Fund II, Hivos-Triodos Fund, Caspian
• Headquarters: Bengaluru 

GPS Renewables focuses on biomethanation technology to solve the organic waste management challenge, accelerate the substitution of fossil fuel with bioenergy and mitigate climate change.

The startup has a captive biogas product called the ‘BioUrja’, and GPS renewables claim to have more than 100 BioUrja installations across South Asia. GPS Renewables commissioned a BioCNG plant based on Source Separated Organics (SSO) in Indore. The plant, which is Asia’s largest in its class, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February 2022 and is set up over 15 acres of land.

The biogas plant is expected to produce 17 tonnes of bio-CNG every day from 550 tonnes of organic household waste. GPS Renewables aims to power 400 city buses in Indore with the BioCNG generated from the plant. The cleantech startup closed undisclosed funding in a Series B round in March 2022 from Neev Fund II, managed by SBICap Ventures. The startup also recently bagged a debt of $50 Mn  from a clutch of banks and NBFCs to expand its footprint, fuel expansion, and build compressed biogas plants across India.

The cleantech startup is working to complete the world’s largest BioCNG plant in Hyderabad, in partnership with development partners from Japan. It aims to accelerate the substitution of fossil fuels with bio-energy. The startup aims to expand its research and development centres and support its next phase of growth and expansion.

As per multiple reports, GPS Renewables in November last year announced its plans to form a joint venture (JV) with Oil India Ltd (OIL) to establish eight compressed biogas (CBG) plants across India. 

In October last year, GPS Renewables’ project development arm Arya raised INR 100 Cr in mezzanine financing from InCred Opportunities Fund and Spark Capital.

Greenjoules 

• Founded In: 2018
• Founders: V Radhika, VS Shridhar, S Viraraghavan, R Sethunath
• Funding Raised To Date: $4.5 Mn
• Investors:  Blue Ashva Capital 
• Headquarters: Pune

Greenjoules specialises in making renewable biofuels, which are curated entirely from agri-residue and renewable waste from agro-processing industries. 

The biofuel can be used for industrial applications (to power boilers, and gensets) and commercial applications (diesel vehicles). Greenjoules claims to utilise non-food and non-feed wastes to manufacture biofuels. The manufactured biofuel meets the same IS1460 standards that petroleum and diesel also follow.

According to Greenjoules, its biofuel can be used without any modification with the current diesel engines, gensets or boilers in use. This makes its product a direct replacement for petroleum or diesel.

The cleantech startup is serving various large enterprise customers from its biorefinery in Chakan, Pune. It now plans to significantly scale up production by setting up a large facility near Pune to cater to the increasing demand for green diesel. Greenjoules raised $4.5 Mn in its Series A funding round in June 2021 from Blue Ashva Capital. The funds raised are a combination of equity and debt.

Greenjoules will focus on growing its current product range but also on developing a portfolio of high-energy density liquid and gaseous biofuels. It will also focus on new research and development initiatives in future. 

Greenko Group

• Founded In: 2004
• Founders: Anil Chalamalasetty, Mahesh Kolli
• Funding Raised To Date: $6.7 Bn
• Investors: GIC, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, DBS Bank, Barclays  
• Headquarters: Hyderabad

Greenko is a cleantech startup that enables sustainable and affordable energy, with a net installed capacity of 7.5 GW across 15 states in India. It provides utility-scale, clean and affordable energy to customers. 

Greenko has been opting for the green bond route in the past to raise funds for developing sustainable energy projects. It is developing state-of-the-art three multi-gigawatts scale integrated renewable energy storage projects with national grid connectivity in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh. 

Greenko has raised funding from GIC, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, DBS Bank, and Barclays. These projects will harness the power of solar, and wind resources with digitally connected storage infrastructure to provide round-the-clock power to the grid.

In 2022, global steel and mining firm ArcelorMittal partnered with Greenko to develop a round-the-clock renewable energy project with 975 MW of nominal capacity. The project will be owned and funded by ArcelorMittal. Greenko will design, construct and operate the renewable energy facilities in Andhra Pradesh. The project commissioning is expected by mid-2024.

It was reported in October last year that Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte is discussing options for its 50% stake in India’s Greenko Energy Holdings, possibly a sale that could be worth around $5 Bn.

h2e Power Systems

• Founded In: 2011
• Founders: Siddharth R Mayur, Amar Chakradeo, Bhavana S Mayur
• Funding Raised To Date: $200K
• Investors: Poonawalla Group
• Headquarters: Pune

h2e is an end-to-end fuel cell and electrolyser company that offers clean energy solutions, including green hydrogen and alternate e-fuels. It also offers power solutions such as energy modules and power boxes. The startup claims to have built the country’s first green hydrogen production plant.

The startup follows the CRS (conserve, replace, sustainable and scalable) programme, which is central to the system. In 2020, it acquired Swiss company Hexis AG for an undisclosed amount.

With presence in four countries, the startup claims to cater to 182 clients and has more than 25 business partners. It competes with the likes of homegrown startups such as NewTrace, Ossus Biorenewables, Hydrogen Gentech, among others.

Hygenco

• Founded In: 2020
• Founders: Amit Bansal, Anshul Gupta, Aashish Gupta
• Funding Raised To Date: $25.4 Mn
• Investors: Neev II fund
• Headquarters: Gurugram

Hygenco develops green hydrogen and green ammonia production assets for commercial purposes. 

The startup’s LinkedIn profile says Hygenco’s team holds a combined experience of more than 30 years in construction, renewables, operations & maintenance, investment banking and private equity.

In 2022, the startup received $25.4 Mn in funding from the private equity fund Neev II fund. During that time, it said that it plans to invest more than $300 Mn in developing green hydrogen projects across the country in the coming three years.

Before that, it inked an offtake agreement with Indian steel company Jindal Stainless to build a multi-megawatt green hydrogen facility. With this plant, the startup would help Jindal reduce carbon emissions by nearly 2,700 metric tonnes annually.

Illumine-I

• Founded In: 2015
• Founders: Nithish Sairam, Sudarsan Krishnan
• Funding Raised To Date: ~$2.05 Mn (INR 17 Cr)
• Investors: Anicut Capital
• Headquarters: Austin, Texas, US

Illumine-I offers structural and electrical engineering expertise for power plants, energy storage systems and distribution components. It focuses on residential, commercial, and utility-scale solar PV (photovoltaics) and energy storage systems. 

Initially, the startup solely focused on residential, commercial, and utility-scale solar PV and energy storage systems. Within four year of inception, it entered into construction engineering, offering AS MEPF Modeling, Scan to BIM, City Modeling, VR-AR-MR, and Walkthrough animation support.

It claims to be the design partner to more than 300 solar installers, developers and EPCs across 46 states in the US.

Illumine-I secured an INR 17 Cr Series A round led by Anicut Capital in 2024 and plans to use the funding to scale up operations and expand into new markets.

Inficold

• Founded In: 2015
• Founders: Himanshu Pokharna, Nitin Goel
• Funding Raised To Date: $9 Mn
• Investors: RVCF, Shell Foundation 
• Headquarters: Delhi NCR 

Cleantech startup Inficold provides cold storage solutions to its customers. The current product portfolio consists of modular cold storage and instant and bulk milk coolers. It provides round-the-clock cooling with just seven hours of grid/solar power. 

Inficold claims to have developed a retrofittable thermal energy storage technology for storing cooling in a low-cost medium such as water to ice.

The technology is designed to use solar electric energy to make ice, and later use it for cooling purposes. Inficold’s products enable the application of thermal storage for virtually any cooling needs — be it milk, cold storage, air conditioning, or vaccine refrigeration — without making any major modifications to existing cooling hardware. 

The startup raised INR 6.5 Cr in a funding round in 2021 from RVCF and other undisclosed HNIs as a part of its Pre-Series A funding round. The startup has installations in more than 17 states of India with a strong presence in northeastern states, including Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura. Inficold claims that it is aggressively ramping up its production capacity by more than 10 times.

The increased capacity will allow it to cater to the demand with a minimised lead time for the customer, it said. 

The startup is planning to expand its overall manufacturing, sales, and servicing capabilities. It plans to penetrate dairy, horticulture, poultry, meat, cold logistics and air conditioning segments across India. 

ION Energy

• Founded In: 2016
• Founders: Akhil Aryan, Alexandre Collet
• Funding Raised To Date: $4.6 Mn
• Investors: YourNest Venture Capital, Riso Capital, Venture Catalysts, Climate Pledge Fund, Climate Capital
• Headquarters: Mumbai 

ION Energy builds advanced electronics and software platforms for new energy companies. The company’s flagship product so far has been its Battery Management System (BMS), which enables OEMs/Battery Pack Makers to deploy smart battery systems.

In 2019, the cleantech startup launched Altergo (previously called Edison Analytics), a digital twin platform for battery intelligence. Altergo now manages 700+ MWh of battery storage in the cloud.

ION currently supplies to 75+ OEMs across 15 countries including India, France, Spain and the US. Since its inception, ION Energy claims to have deployed more than 60,000 smart BMS in electric vehicles and stationary storage systems. 

The startup raised $3.6 Mn in Pre-Series A funding in July 2021 from the Climate Pledge Fund, joined by Silicon Valley-based Climate Capital, early-stage investor YourNest Venture Capital, Riso Capital, Venture Catalysts, and other angel investors. 

This startup is looking to expand its product development and software business in other countries. 

Log9 Materials 

• Founded In: 2015
• Founders: Akshay Singhal, Kartik Hajela, Pankaj Sharma
• Funding Raised To Date: $65 Mn
• Investors: Metaform Ventures, Exfinity Venture Partners, Surge Ahead, Petronas Ventures, Incred Financial, Unity Small Finance Bank, Oxyzo Financial Services, Western Capital Advisors, Amara Raja Batteries
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Battery technology startup Log9 Materials is a graphene research and development startup that accelerates the commercialization of graphene nanotechnology. Their first developed product of this technology is ‘smoke-safe’ which is a cigarette that reduces the risk of getting cancer by 90%.

Log9 Materials has developed technology for both stationary and automotive applications such as electric vehicles (EVs). Aluminium fuel cells are aluminium-air batteries (AI-air batteries) that produce electricity from oxygen and aluminium reactions. The technology used in the battery is similar to the hydrogen fuel cell but more economical, safer and scalable.

In 2023, it secured $40 Mn funding in its Series B round led by Amara Raja Batteries Ltd. Before this, it raised $3.5 Mn funding in a Series A round led by Exfinity Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital India’s accelerator programme Surge.

In 2022, it inaugurated its indigenously developed cell manufacturing facility at Jakkuru in Bengaluru. 

It has been working on unique cell chemistry for its RapidX battery packs powered by InstaCharge technology, which offers nine times faster charging, better performance, and battery life as compared to conventional lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries.

In October last year, Jupiter Wagon’s subsidiary Jupiter Electric Mobility announced acquisition of Log9’s technology and business assets for its Railway Battery and Electric Truck Battery Divisions. 

Lohum 

• Founded In: 2017
• Founders: Rajat Verma, Justin Lemmon and Gazanfar Safvi 
• Funding Raised To Date: $44.38 Mn
• Investors: Baring Private Equity Partners, Talbros 
• Headquarters: Delhi NCR

Lohum is a lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery pack manufacturer and battery materials (cobalt, lithium, nickel, etc) recycler. 

The cleantech startup addresses battery business across three cycles, first life with new batteries for two and three-wheeler original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and stationary applications including for UPS and telecom, second life, which enhances the life of existing batteries, and lastly, end-of-life management offering recycling solutions. 

Given the government’s focus on setting up giga factories in India, the startup sees a huge unfolding opportunity to provide the entire lifecycle management solutions.

The startup claims to generate 80% of its revenue from sales of EV batteries to solar plants, and electric two and three-wheeler companies, while 10% comes from the energy storage system (ESS) and 10% from its recycling business.   

The recycling startup Lohum raised $7 Mn in a fresh round of funding from institutional investors led by Baring Private Equity Partners in January 2021.

Lohum has plans to expand its manufacturing capacity of lithium-ion batteries from 300 MWh to 1000 MWh (1 GWh) and its recycling capacity 10 times, from 1,000 tonnes per annum to 10,000 tonnes per annum.

In November 2024, Lohum appointed Arun Mittal as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Lohum India. 

Loom Solar

• Founded In: 2018
• Founders: Amod Anand, Amol Anand 
• Funding Raised To Date: $2 Mn
• Investors: Social Investment Managers and Advisors
• Headquarters: Delhi NCR 

Loom is a B2C solar startup that offers solar panels, lithium batteries, solar inverters, solar wires, panel stands and charge controllers. It operates in both online and offline channels. 

Apart from offering solar solutions, the startup also provides a credit facility to consumers to procure products at a 0% interest rate. In January 2023, it secured $2 Mn in funding from Social Investment Managers and Advisors (SIMA) under the Energy Access Relief fund.

It operates one manufacturing unit and has a presence in 500 Indian districts. As per its website, the startup manages 100 employees. 

In FY2021, its revenue stood at INR 35 Cr and of this, 60% was accounted for solar panels. It aims to expand its energy storage solutions and grow its market share from 1% to 5% by 2025. 

It also claimed to have connected with 10,000 resellers and looks to partner with strategic investors in the future.

Metastable Materials

• Founded In: 2021
• Founders: Shubham Vishvakarma, Saurav Goyal Manikumar Uppala
• Funding Raised To Date: Undisclosed
• Investors: Sequoia Surge, Speciale Invest, Theia Ventures, Akshay Singhal, Archana Priyadershini
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Founded in October 2021, Metastable Materials claims to have developed the world’s first, chemical-free integrated carbothermal reduction process for recycling and extracting valuable materials, such as copper, aluminium, cobalt, nickel and lithium from Li-ion batteries.

The startup opened a 21,000 sq ft urban mining facility located on the outskirts of Bengaluru in October 2022. The facility can process 1,500 tonnes of material annually, which accounts for up to 6% of India’s recycling demand for Li-ion batteries.

It has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in 2023 from Sequoia’s Surge, as part of its Surge 08 cohort. 

MYNUSCo 

• Founded In: 2015
• Founders: Mahadev Chikkanna, Shruthi Ujjani Ramesh
• Funding Raised To Date: Bootstrapped
• Investors:NA
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

MYNUSCo manufactures biocomposites that are derived from renewable and recycled materials such as bamboo waste, rice waste, wood waste, and discarded or recycled plastics.

On the D2C side, the startup operates under the brand name Eha, which sells daily-use products such as cutleries, utensils, planters, and more on its website and online marketplaces such as Flipkart and Amazon.

MYNUSCo also supplies its products to multiple companies for corporate gifting and other purposes. It also supplies raw materials to several companies, which they then use to make their products. 

The bootstrapped startup competes with the likes of Green Dot Biopak and altM.

Going forward, MYNUSCo plans to expand globally to other countries and has set its eyes on setting up the world’s first biocomposite cluster. 

MYSUN

• Founded In: 2016
• Founders: Gagan Vermani, Gyan Prakash Tiwari, Ashit Maru
• Funding Raised To Date: $9 Mn
• Investors: Tata Cleantech Capital, General Catalyst 
• Headquarters: Delhi NCR

MYSUN is a technology-backed B2B2C rooftop solar platform providing hyperlocal end-to-end solar solutions and long-term maintenance services. It provides solar energy to industries, small and medium enterprises/medium small and micro enterprises, and homes.

The cleantech startup is creating a network of clients/buildings (residential, industrial and commercial customers) across 100 cities (Tier 1/2/3). In 2021, MYSUN bagged 140-megawatt  open-access solar power projects from Uttar Pradesh Power Transmission Corp Ltd. 

Under its new asset vehicle MYSUN+, it is expanding its presence across states such as Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Delhi NCR. The cleantech startup is already in early-stage development of more than 220 MW of projects under the captive/ open access mechanisms.

In July 2021, the firm raised INR 15 Cr from Tata Cleantech in debt funding to expand its pipeline of projects.

MYSUN is looking to improve its technology infrastructure, scale up its service offerings, and expand to newer geographies, both in India and globally, including parts of the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, and Africa.

Nepra

• Founded In: 2011
• Founders: Sandeep Patel, Dhrumin Patel, Ravi Patel
• Funding Raised To Date: $24.5 Mn 
• Investors: Aavishkaar Capital, Circulate Capital, Asha Impact 
• Headquarters: Ahmedabad 

Nepra offers an integrated, efficient and scalable waste management solution that connects all stakeholders along the value chain, from municipalities to informal waste pickers, as well as recyclers and brand owners.

The startup processes over 500 tonnes of dry waste every day across Ahmedabad, Indore and Pune with the help of 1,700 collectors. The cleantech startup claims to have positively impacted the lives of 5K people at the very bottom of the waste management industry over the last eight years.

The dry waste management startup raised $18 Mn in Series C funding from Aavishkaar Capital and Circulate Capital in 2020. The cleantech startup claims to bring transparency and scalability to the highly unorganised waste management sector in the country. 

Nepra plans to expand its capacity generation and manage dry waste across more cities in India. It plans to expand to 25 cities in India by 2025. 

NewTrace

• Founded In: 2021
• Founders: Prasanta Sarkar, Rochan Sinha
• Funding Raised To Date: $6.6 Mn
• Investors: Speciale Invest, Micelio Fund
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Newtrace develops batteries and electrolysers for producing green hydrogen for industries. Before founding the startup, both founders had completed PhD degrees in engineering disciplines. 

In 2022, the startup secured $1 Mn in a pre-seed funding round led by Speciale Invest and Micelio Fund. Angel investors also have participated in the funding round. In 2023, the startup picked up another $5.6 Mn in seed funding. 

During that time, it wanted to build electrolyzers offering 1 megawatt (MW) by 2025 and further increase the capacity of electrolyzers to 10MW by 2027. It further looks to help varied industries such as petrochemical, ammonia, mobility, energy and steel, among others reduce their carbon footprint. 

As per the startup’s website, it is currently pilot-testing its products. Back in 2021, it tested its prototype at IIT Madras and before that, it got shortlisted for a pre-incubation programme led by NSRCEL and Maruti Suzuki. 

Offgrid Energy

• Founded In: 2018
• Founders: Rishi Srivastava, Tejas Kusurkar, Brindan Tulachan, Ankur Agarwal
• Funding Raised To Date: $1.3 Mn
• Investors: Shell Ventures, Ankur Capital, APVC 
• Headquarters: Kanpur 

Energy tech startup Offgrid has developed a rechargeable zinc-carbon battery that outperforms available battery technologies in terms of power density, life and cost. 

Offgrid has more than 15 patents, designs and trademarks to its name, with a primary focus on renewable energy storage, microgrids, electric vehicle charging and grid applications in utilities.

The startup’s flagship product, ZincGel Battery technology has energy efficiency at par with a lithium-ion battery. It has twice the life cycle and negligible operational cost — thereby saving up to 30% cost for energy storage projects. Alternatively, existing lead-acid manufacturers can make ZincGel batteries easily with available equipment.

In February 2022, Offgrid raised undisclosed funds from energy solutions giant Shell, venture capitalists Ankur Capital and APVC to take its flagship product rechargeable zinc-based battery ZincGel to the market.

The startup has previously raised a small angel round from overseas investors and was seed-funded by Shell India.

The cleantech startup plans to cater to multiple industries such as renewables, microgrids, electric vehicles and utilities through its different variants of zinc-carbon batteries.

Oorjan Cleantech

• Founded In: 2014
• Founders: Roli Gupta, Das Gautam 
• Funding Raised To Date: $450K
• Investors: Aditya Sharma, Globevestor, Nisha Pillai, Mayur Bhat, Sayandev Chakravartti
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Solar energy startup Oorjan offers solar on-grid systems, ranging from 1kWp to 10kWp, to residential, commercial and industrial use cases. Besides this, it also operates three verticals–SolarSME, Greenstitute and Greenjobs. 

Under its SolarSME, the startup helps small and medium-sized enterprises to kick start as well as promote their solar businesses. It additionally provides credit facilities to individual consumers and PPA financing to commercial customers.

Under Greenstitute, it offers certified courses on solar energy and systems to students in association with academic institutions. On the other hand, Greenjobs acts as an online job portal connecting job seekers with companies. 

In 2017, it raised $450K in seed funding led by venture capital firm Globevestor. Chakravartti, Aditya Sharma, Nisha Pillai and Mayur Bhat also participated in the funding round.

The startup claims to have served more than 1,500 customers across 15+ states of India. 

Ossus Biorenewables

• Founded In: 2017
• Founders: Suruchi Rao, Shanta Rao and Kamar Suhail Basha
• Funding Raised To Date: $2.4 Mn
• Investors: Gruhas, Rainmatter Climate
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

Founded in 2017 by Suruchi Rao, Shanta Rao and Kamar Suhail Basha, Ossus’ AI-powered bioreactors absorb carbon from wastewater produced by industries and supply them with green hydrogen gas. 

The bioreactors mainly use microorganisms sourced directly from wastewater as catalysts for green hydrogen production. The startup currently works with steel, starch and energy companies and helps them produce hydrogen gas at a cost of less than $1 per kg. 

In May 2023, Ossus secured $2.4 Mn in funding in its pre-Series A round from Gruhas, cofounded by Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath with Puzzolana’s Abhijeet Pai, and Rainmatter Climate. The startup invested the fresh funds to accelerate the deployment of its bioreactor, OB HydraCel, across sectors like refining, foods, brewing, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Orb Energy 

• Founded In: 2006
• Founders: Damian Miller, NP Ramesh  
• Funding Raised To Date: $18.6 Mn   
• Investors: FMO, Bamboo Capital Partners, Rianta Capital, Acumen Capital Market Funds I, Pamiga SA
• Headquarters: Bengaluru 

Orb Energy offers solar energy solutions (solar electricity and solar water heating) to residential, commercial and industrial customers, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). 

To enable SMEs to afford solar energy, the cleantech startup has set up an in-house finance facility to provide extended payment terms to customers. Orb also provides credit to SMEs to invest in solar panel systems.

Since its inception in 2006, Orb has sold more than 160,000 solar systems, with cumulative installations of more than 110MW of rooftop solar systems.

Further, Orb Energy manufactures its solar panels and solar water heating systems in-house to control quality and cost. 

Orb Energy raised a $15 Mn debt fund in 2019 to augment its capital base. It raised an undisclosed amount from Shell’s New Energies business by divesting an almost 20% stake in the firm in a Series C round of funding in 2019. 

Shell’s New Energies business has acquired a 20% stake in solar firm Orb Energy in a funding round in 2019. It has so far received more than $13 Mn in equity and around $10 Mn debt in Series A and Series B rounds. 

Orb is based in Bengaluru, where it runs two factories, one producing solar photovoltaic panels and the other producing solar water heating systems. Orb is looking to help more Indian SMEs to benefit from lower-cost solar power in future.

OxyGarden

• Founded In: 2019
• Founders: Anshu Gupta, Abhishek Gupta
• Funding Raised To Date: $70K 
• Investors: NA
• Headquarters: Gurugram

OxyGarden has developed Forest, an automated vertical green wall designed to purify the air in homes and commercial spaces. The green wall uses a soil and root-based filtration system to naturally purify the air, creating a forest-like environment within living spaces.

In addition to air purification, Forest helps to regulate relative humidity levels with the help of controlled transpiration in plants. The product is designed to require minimal maintenance and does not require any human intervention once installed, according to the company.

To date, OxyGarden has raised $1.7 Mn in funding from investors to support the development and growth of its product line.

Pi Green Innovations

• Founded In: 2019
• Founders: Irfan Pathan and Rizwan Shaikh
• Funding Raised To Date: $4.8 Mn
• Investors: Opus Consulting Solutions, Harshal Morde (Morde Foods) 
• Headquarters: Pune 

Pi Green Innovations creates technology-driven solutions for the reduction of particulate matter emissions at source. The startup has a patented filterless technology that converts smoke to its powder form, soot.

Some of the startup’s solutions include carbon cutter machines, filterless retrofits for diesel generators and heavy vehicles; and RepAi, a filterless ambient air-purification tower that can be installed in public spaces. 

As per the founders, the cleantech startup has developed a retrofit solution for existing conventionally-fuelled heavy vehicles, diesel-fuelled generator sets and industrial boilers to reduce and capture hazardous particulate matter (PM) emissions and pollution caused every day. 

Pi Green’s retrofit device can capture 90% of the particulate matter emitted from the genset in real-time ranging from PM2.5 to PM10. The device works on the principle of electrostatic precipitator. 

The cleantech startup secured over $4.5 Mn in Series A funding in December 2021. The round was led by the Investment Fund of Opus Consulting with a total of $4.3 Mn. 

Its plans include working on after-treatment solutions for crematoriums. A pilot run is already underway at a crematorium in Bengaluru and a heavy vehicles retrofit pilot with the Bengaluru Municipal Corporation for two buses. 

Prescinto

• Founded In: 2016
• Founders: Puneet Jaggi, Ram Menon, Sanjay Bhasin
• Funding Raised To Date: $10.10 Mn
• Investors: Mumbai Angels Network, Inflection Point Ventures, 9Unicorns Accelerator Fund, Lets Venture
• Headquarters: Bengaluru 

SaaS solar energy startup Prescinto uses Artificial Intelligence to identify the root causes of plants’ underperformance in real-time and suggest actions to improve generation in clean energy plants by 5 to 7%. It helps in reducing costs of operation and maintenance.

Prescinto has been deployed across 10,000+ MWs of solar and wind projects across 14 countries with marquee clients like SoftBank Energy, Macquarie and Radiance Renewables managing their solar and wind assets on Prescinto.

Prescinto IOT platform is designed for vendor-independent connectivity and provides insights for solar PV plants. Prescinto’s patent-pending technology buckets losses into downtime, soiling, and systemic loss and immediately converts each loss into actionable job tickets along with projected gains. 

It has customers such as Stride Climate Investments, Essel Infrastructure, and GMR, among others to achieve traction of 3X annual growth reaching over 9 Giga Watts of solar plants across more than 10 countries.

Prescinto raised $3.5 Mn in a Seed funding round in March 2021 led by Venture Catalysts. Inflexion Point Ventures, Mumbai Angels and LetsVenture also participated as part of this round.

The Bengaluru-based cleantech startup is looking to expand in international markets, primarily in the US market, and for Intellectual Property development. Prescinto aims to expand into wind and energy storage as well.

In October last year, tech giant IBM acquired Prescinto to expand its renewable energy business. 

The acquisition was aimed at enhancing the capabilities of IBM Maximo Application Suite (MAS), a solution for asset lifecycle management, and further strengthen its leadership in the energy and utility space.

Proklean

• Founded In: 2012
• Founders: Sivaram Pillai, Bala Chandrashekar, Vishwadeep Kuila
• Funding Raised To Date: $5.42 Mn
• Investors: Raintree Family Office
• Headquarters: Chennai

Founded in 2012 by Sivaram Pillai and Bala Chandrashekar, and later joined by Vishwadeep Kuila, Proklean offers non-toxic and biodegradable green chemistry solutions to clients across industries such as textiles, pulp and paper, water management and biosurfactants. 

Proklean also sells household cleaning products across online marketplaces and offline stores in Chennai. 

Proklean in 2023 raised $4 Mn as part of its strategic funding round from the Raintree Family Office in June this year. The startup claims to have turned EBITDA profitable in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23) with a revenue of INR 40 Cr.

ReCircle

• Founded In: 2015
• Founder: Rahul Nainani and Gurashish Singh Sahni
• Funding Raised To Date: Undisclosed
• Investors: Venture Catalysts, Mumbai Angels and 3i Partners 
• Headquarters: Mumbai

ReCircle is a plastic waste management startup that recycles and repurposes plastic to turn them into reusable products. The startup works as a waste collector for government bodies, global corporations, local business owners and general public. 

ReCircle has its waste recovery sites in more than 310 towns and cities with almost the same number of waste collection partners and 45 processors. 

In September last year, the startup as per multiple reports secured an undisclosed amount in a bridge funding round led by Venture Catalysts and Mumbai Angels. The funding was aimed at providing companies high-quality recycled plastic products. 

Recykal

• Founded In: 2016
• Founder: Abhishek Deshpande
• Funding Raised To Date: $44.5 Mn
• Investors: 360 ONE Asset Management, Morgan Stanley, Circulate Capital, Bank of Singapore, Triton Investment Advisors, Pidilite Industries, Vellayan Subbiah, Arun Venkatachalam
• Headquarters: Hyderabad

Founded in 2016 by Abhishek Deshpande, Hyderabad-based Recykal offers cloud-based solutions that enable transparent and traceable material flows in waste. 

The startup works with businesses to track and meet their EPR (extended producer responsibility) targets, dispose of e-waste responsibly, track their plastic footprint and offers a SaaS-based track and trace platform to monitor industrial waste and help report accurate ESG (Environment, Social and Governance)  and SDG (the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) metrics.

In April 2024, Recykal raised INR 110 Cr (around $13.5 Mn) in funding in its Series B round led by 360 ONE Asset Management. The startup reported a net loss of INR 25.7 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23) as against a net profit of INR 1.2 Cr in FY22.

ReNew Power

• Founded In: 2011
• Founders: Sumant Sinha
• Funding Raised To Date: $4.05 Bn
• Investors: Goldman Sachs, Franklin Templeton India, JP Morgan, L&T, Sylebra Capital, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board 
• Headquarters: Delhi NCR

ReNew Power is an independent power producer (IPP) of renewable energy using clean sources such as wind, hydro and solar power. The startup can generate more than 8 gigawatts of power assets across 16 states in India, including commissioned as well as under-development projects. 

Renew Power joined the startup unicorn club in 2017 after raising $300 Mn through a rights issue. Goldman Sachs, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board have subscribed to the issue, with each shareholder infusing $100 Mn, it said. According to its website, ReNew’s total capacity was 10.2 GW and its commissioned capacity was 7.3 GW, as of February 2022.

ReNew Energy raised $400 Mn in January 2022 at 4.5% by issuing green bonds. ReNew is setting up a joint venture (JV) with Fluence to boost the energy storage sector and meet the local needs of Indian customers. The startup has entered into a partnership agreement with Larsen & Toubro (L&T) to develop, own, execute and operate green hydrogen projects in India. 

To enable India’s decarbonisation push, Indian Oil Corporation, L&T, and ReNew Power signed a JV company on April 3, 2022. It is working to develop the green hydrogen sector in India. The cleantech startup intends to own 18 GW of renewable energy assets by FY25.

As per multiple reports, major investors in ReNew Energy are reportedly looking to acquire the publicly held shares of the company for an exit from its US listing.

rePurpose

• Founded In: 2019
• Founders: Svanika Balasubramanian, Peter Wang Hjemdahl, Aditya Siroya
• Funding Raised To Date: $142 K
• Investors: NA
• Headquarters: Bengaluru/New York City

Founded in 2019 by Svanika Balasubramanian, Peter Wang Hjemdahl and Aditya Siroya, rePurpose is a social enterprise, which also acts as a plastic credit platform. rePurpose enables individuals and businesses to become plastic-neutral and take responsibility for their plastic footprint by funding recycling the same amount of plastic waste they produce.

The startup allows companies to track their plastic footprint, offers advice on reducing their plastic footprint and works on projects related to recovering plastic waste. rePurpose claims to have recovered 22,369 tonnes of nature-bound plastic waste so far.

In its endeavour, the startup has received several accolades and has been recognised by the United Nations Environment Programme as one of the top 12 innovators in plastic recycling in the world.

Sea6 Energy 

• Founded In: 2010
• Founders: Nelson Vadassery, Shrikumar Suryanarayan, Sowmya Balendiran, Sri Sailaja Nori 
• Funding Raised To Date: $17.9 Mn
• Investors: Aqua-Spark, Silverstrand Capital, Tata Capital Innovation Fund
• Headquarters: Bengaluru 

Sea6 Energy develops technologies to convert biomass into biofuel, plant growth stimulants, plant defence products, animal feed ingredients, and other bio-renewable products to replace chemicals and plastics. 

The cleantech startup has also developed proprietary technologies to convert fresh seaweed into environmentally friendly products for a range of industries including agriculture, animal health, food ingredients, bioplastics and renewable chemicals.

Sea6 Energy exports its patented agriculture biostimulant product to countries including the USA, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

The seaweed farming and processing startup raised $9 Mn in Series B funding in July 2021 led by Aqua-Spark, the Netherlands-based investment fund. Singapore-based Silverstrand Capital is the co-investor in the round.

The startup will work on additional SeaCombine systems to increase the supply of seaweed raw material and expand its processing capacity with additional facilities to produce Sea6’s agricultural biostimulant and animal health products. 

SenseHawk

• Founded In: 2018 
• Founders: Rahul Sankhe and Swarup Mavanoor
• Funding Raised To Date: $7.1 Mn
• Investors: Alpha Wave Global, SAIF Partners, Elevation Capital
• Headquarters: Bengaluru  

Cloud-based cleantech startup SenseHawk enables owners, managers and developers of solar assets to gain new insights about their plants that enable maximisation of returns. 

The initial focus of the startup is on the rapidly growing solar industry with future expansion to other similar sectors.

Its solutions combine different kinds of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), sensors, data processing and planning chains to create decision-making tools that drive productivity in the energy and infrastructure industries. 

The startup claims that it has delivered data analytics for more than 28 GWs of solar assets across 15 countries worldwide, and has nearly 80 clients.

SenseHawk raised $5.1 Mn in a Series A funding round in 2020 led by Alpha Wave Incubation, backed by Abu Dhabi-based ADQ. Existing investor SAIF Partners also participated in the round.

The startup is looking to expand its presence in Abu Dhabi, and also build a team of data scientists, product managers and engineers in the region. 

It is planning to use Abu Dhabi as the global base for international expansion while targeting the Gulf Cooperation Council countries — the Middle East, North Africa and other global markets.

Skilancer Solar

• Founded In: 2017
• Founders: Manish Kumar Das, Neeraj Kumar
• Funding Raised To Date: $652K
• Investors: Boundary Holding, Venture Catalysts, IIML-Incubator, Neeraj Kumar, Dhianu Das, Alfa Ventures
• Headquarters: Noida

Skilancer Solar offers cleaning services for solar panels installed in commercial parks and other establishments. 

The startup was founded by Neeraj Kumar, who has three years of experience in the solar industry, and Manish Kumar Das, who brings ten years of experience in instrumentation engineering to the team.

Skilancer Solar’s client portfolio includes several prominent organisations such as Hindustan Petroleum, Adani, Ambit Energy, and Unilink Group. 

The startup has received over $652K in funding from a range of investors, including Boundary Holding, Venture Catalysts, IIML-Incubator, Neeraj Kumar, Dhianu Das, and Alfa Ventures.

Solar Ladder

• Founded In: 2021
• Founders: Manan Mehta, Abhishek Pillai, Farhan Ahmed
• Funding Raised To Date: $1.34 Mn
• Investors: Axilor Ventures, Titan Capital, DeVC, Stride Ventures, Varun Alagh
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Founded in 2021 by Manan Mehta, Abhishek Pillai and Farhan Ahmed, Solar Ladder is an EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) service provider in the rooftop solar energy space.

Having partnered with five NBFCs, the Mumbai-based startup offers collateral-free financing to both EPC installers and esnd users. 

Solar Ladder also offers a free SaaS tool, which integrates modules encompassing sales, marketing, installation, accounts and project management. It gives EPC installers more visibility into a business’s various functions such as ongoing projects, inventory and payments.

The cleantech startup last secured INR 11 Cr ($1.34 Mn) in funding in May 2023 to fuel its expansion plans.

SmartJoules

• Founded In: 2014
• Founders: Arjun P Gupta, Ujjal Majumdar, Sidhartha Gupta
• Funding Raised To Date: $16.99 Mn
• Investors: ADB Ventures, Sangam Ventures, Max Limited, cKinetics Accelerator, Dabur family’s Saket Burman 
• Headquarters: Delhi NCR

Energy-efficiency-as-a-service startup Smart Joules offers capital expenditure-free retrofits for commercial and industrial facilities by improving the overall design of energy-intensive systems like cooling, heating, compressed air and steam. 

The cleantech startup claims its DeJoule technology platform utilises various sensors and IoT controllers to track and control equipment and optimise overall facility performance in real-time using data. This tech platform allows SmartJoules to guarantee its clients 15% energy savings.

Its JoulePAYS service makes energy savings easy and profitable from day one with zero investment and zero risk for hospital/hotel owners under a single pay-as-you-save agreement.

Smart Joules has provided its full-stack solution for leading Indian hospital chains, including Apollo, Fortis, KIMS, Aster, and CARE, among others. 

In March 2021, Smart Joules raised $4.1 Mn in its Series A funding round from various investors, namely ADB Ventures, Sangam Ventures, and Max Limited, among others. It raised $4.9 Mn in a Series A funding round from various investors in April 2021.

SmartJoules’ plans include strengthening its energy management team, enhancing its digital technology platform, expanding its presence across hospitals and scaling its cooling-as-a-service offering for commercial buildings and industries with heavy air conditioning loads such as pharmaceuticals and data centres.

SolarSquare

• Founded In: 2015
• Founders:  Neeraj Subhash Jain, Nikhil Satejlal Nahar
• Funding Raised To Date: $60.25 Mn  
• Investors: Elevation Capital, Lowercarbon Capital, Good Capital, Rainmatter, Vidit Atrey, Sanjeev Barnwal, Maninder Gulati, Ashish Goel, Amit Kumar Agarwal, Akhil Gupta, Saurabh Garg 
• Headquarters: Mumbai

Cleantech startup SolarSquare offers rooftop solar panels for residential and commercial purposes. It also provides financing facilities to customers at a 0% interest rate. It currently has a presence in Bengaluru, Delhi, and Hyderabad as well as states including Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra

Initially, the startup only provided commercial rooftop solar solutions but in 2020, it started catering to the needs of residential consumers too. During the same year, it elevated Shreya Mishra, its CEO to the position of cofounder. 

In November 2022, it raised $12.08 Mn in a Series A funding round led by Elevation Capital and Lowercarbon Capital. Good Capital, Rainmatter, Meesho’s Vidit Atrey and Sanjeev Barnwal also participated in the round. 

SolarSquare secured $40 Mn in Series B funding round led by Lightspeed last month (December 2024). Lightrock, along with existing investors Elevation Capital, Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon, Nithin Kamath’s Rainmatter, and Gruhas Proptech also participated in the round.

Its cap table includes Lowercarbon Capital, Symphony Asia, OYO’s Maninder Gulati, Urban Ladder’s Ashish Goel and Nobroker founders Amit Kumar Agarwal, Akhil Gupta & Saurabh Garg, among others.

Earlier, it claimed to have served nearly 5,000 residential customers and also aimed to standardise its installation quality. 

SolarTown Energy  

• Founded In: 2012
• Founders: Vikram Dileepan, Dhanush Kuttuva 
• Funding Raised To Date: $200K
• Investors: GREX
• Headquarters: Chennai 

SolarTown Energy makes clean energy for homeowners, businesses, schools, non-profit and government organisations at low cost. 

The cleantech startup provides solutions and products for home-based systems, small and mid-size businesses, and buildings. 

SolarTown provides for the sale, lease and installation of solar rooftop systems from 1 kW to 300 kW for residential, commercial and industrial customers. SolarTown Energy claims to have installed more than 100 solar systems and counts Infosys and Renault-Nissan among its customers. 

The startup is looking for market expansion, investment in technology, international business development and working capital requirements.

Swajal 

• Founded In: 2015
• Founders: Advait Kumar, Vibha Tripathi
• Funding Raised To Date: $2.8 Mn
• Investors:  Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund, Pramod Agarwal (former CFO at Procter & Gamble), ACPL 
• Headquarters: Delhi NCR

Swajal is an artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled water purification solution that looks to enable access to clean drinking water across the socio-economic spectrum. 

The cleantech startup claims to have developed solar-energy-powered remote sensing water purification systems (also known as water ATMs) with user interfaces and payment mechanisms for airports, hotels, offices, schools and railway stations among others, where it essentially replaces the plastic, encouraging people to bring their utensils/bottles to fill water. 

Swajal also helps corporate customers move away from plastic bottles to glass bottles using its in-house water bottle washing, filling and monitoring plant (WaterCube). The startup earns revenue from consumers buying its systems or a per-litre price for the as-per-usage model.

Last year, Swajal raised $1.6 Mn in funding from the social impact fund Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund, alongside Pramod Agarwal (former CFO at Procter & Gamble), ACPL and other angel investors.

The startup is planning to further enhance its research and development capabilities, thereby making drinking water more accessible, sustainable and plastic-free in the country.

The Energy Company

• Founded In: 2021
• Founders: Prashant Rathee, Rahul Lamba, Pratik Somani
• Funding Raised To Date: Undisclosed
• Investors: LetsVenture, WeFounderCircle, SIA Angel Network, Monokeros Ventures
• Headquarters: Bengaluru

The Energy Company has developed a full-stack battery solution for EVs in India that helps B2B vehicle aggregators manage vehicle life cycles by giving them a longer-lasting battery pack via FlexiPack and better visibility on the battery life via its SaaS tool FlexiTwin.

The startup claims that its battery pack is scalable across electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers and buses and helps vehicles run for 50 km on just a 15-minute fast charge and 100 km after a 40-minute charge.

Meanwhile, The Energy company’s SaaS tool, FlexiTwin, takes inputs from the sensors installed on a battery to digitally record the battery performance, degradation and service history, with insights on battery health and ageing.

For now, the cleantech startup is in talks with five B2B clients, which have around 25,000 two-wheeler EVs. The startup also has letters of intent (LOIs) for around 2,000 electric two-wheelers.

Uravu Labs

• Founded In: 2019
• Founders: Pardeep Garg, Swapnil Shrivastav, Venkatesh R, Govinda Balaji
• Funding Raised To Date: $4.30 Mn
• Investors: Speciale Invest, Peter Yolles (EchoRiver Capital), Soren Schroder, Shigeru Sumimoto (Conselux Corporation), Tomoki Kaneko (Kaneko Cord)
• Headquarters: Bengaluru 

Watertech startup Uravu Labs builds atmospheric water generators that run on 100% renewable energy. It creates water from the air using only renewable energy sources like solar, waste heat, or biomass to produce renewable water.

Uravu’s working prototype can channel air into a chamber containing desiccants like Silica which absorb the water content in the air. Once the desiccant is fully saturated, heat is applied to it using solar energy to extract the water in liquid form, as claimed by the startup.  

The water-from-air concept is not new, as many startups already operate in the space. But unlike Uravu, most of them use refrigeration as a method to condense air in the atmosphere, which is an expensive process with high energy requirements. 

Uravu’s method uses a desiccant that is relatively less capital-intensive and energy-intensive and also requires much less maintenance. The desiccant used in the machine has a shelf life of around ten years, and the rest of the components are mostly conventional electronic components like fans and pipes, according to the startup. 

The water tech startup raised an undisclosed amount during a pre-seed funding round in December 2021 led by Speciale Invest. The startup plans to work with corporations on CSR efforts, and with government agencies like Jal Shakti, and MNRE, among others, to deliver clean drinking water to remote and rural areas in the country. 

Varaha

• Founded In: 2022
• Founders: Madhur Jain, Ankita Garg, Vishal Kuchanur
• Funding Raised To Date: $12.70 Mn
• Investors: Orios Venture Partners, Omnivore, RTP Global, Better Capital, Kunal Shah 
• Headquarters: Gurugram

Climatetech startup Varaha helps agricultural farmers adopt regenerative agricultural practices by producing carbon credits, which help grow revenue and decrease operating expenses. It has a presence in six Indian states. 

Explaining the modus operandi, the startup said it enrols agricultural farmers, quantifies greenhouse gases, verifies carbon credits, and then sells those credits to buyers. 

In December 2022, it secured $4 Mn in a seed funding round for expanding business in South Asia. The round was led by Orios Venture Partners along with participation from Omnivore, RTP Global, Better Capital and CRED founder Kunal Shah.

Earlier, it claimed to have covered an expanse of more than 1.32 Lakh acres under its agroforestry, forest conservation and reforestation activities, among others. As per its website, the cleantech startup cloistered over 3.5 Lakh tonnes of carbon emissions and saved 1.55 Lakh Mn litres of water so far.

WEGoT

• Founded In: 2015
• Founders: Abilash Haridass, Vijay Krishna, Mohideen Haja, Sundeep Donthamshetty
• Funding Raised To Date: $4.96 Mn
• Investors: GRUHAS Proptech, Rahul Talwar (DLF Family Office) Harshad Reddy (Apollo Hospitals Family), HDFC Capital Advisory Ltd, Prestige Group
• Headquarters: Chennai 

Internet of Things-based cleantech startup WEGoT Utility Solutions delivers water management solutions to clients from single houses to multi-unit apartments and commercial complexes.

The cleantech clients include Prestige Group, Godrej Properties, Brigade Group, Mahindra World City, and Brookfield among others. WEGoT’s Smart Water Meters manage water consumption and quality in real-time. Its app enables effective monitoring, control and modification of water consumption based on user insights. 

Since its inception, WEGoT has successfully implemented over 100,000 smart devices in over 30,000 homes and on over 40 Mn sq feet of commercial real estate. It has plans to scale up to one million devices in the coming months. The cleantech startup has effectively conserved over 3 Bn litres of water to date and pledges to further save 10 Bn litres in 2022, as claimed by the startup.

The startup that makes smart water meters, raised $1.5 Mn in a funding round in December 2021 led by Gruhas Proptech, a company backed by Abhijeet Pai of Puzzolana Group and Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha.

The startup plans to deploy more water management devices to houses and offices in 2022. WEGoT plans to deploy 10 lakh water management devices by the end of 2022.

WeVOIS

• Founded In: 2018
• Founders: Abhinav Shekhar Vashistha, Abhishek Gupta
• Funding Raised To Date: $4 Mn
• Investors: Innovana Thinklabs Ltd, Upaya Social Ventures, RecurClub, Sunil Kumar Singhvi, Rajendra Lora of Freshokartz
• Headquarters: Jaipur

WeVOIS is a Jaipur-based solid waste management startup offering end-to-end solutions to municipalities across the country for a circular economy and help them meet environmental development goals.

The startup offers IoT, AI and smart RFID/QR cards-based door-to-door waste collection, fleet management and user charge collection services. WeVOIS also piloted a materials recovery facility in Sikar, Rajasthan, in partnership with the town’s municipal council to enable efficient segregation.

It has also designed a route manager software that decides the optimum route for its helpers to reach customers’ doorstep and provide on time service. The route manager can be accessed by consumers via a mobile app with a well-defined alert management system that enables users to get notified every time before the scheduled pickup.

Zenatix 

• Founded In: 2013
• Founders: Amarjeet Singh, Vishal Bansal, Rahul Bhalla
• Funding Raised To Date: $1.4 Mn
• Investors: Blume Ventures, Microsoft Accelerator Bangalore, Pi Ventures,   
• Headquarters: Delhi NCR 

Energy-data startup Zenatix is a data-driven energy efficiency platform that works with banks and large retail chains. 

The cleantech startup helps organisations to save up to 10-30% on their electricity spend. The startup has deployed WattMan in over 500 retail outlets including bank branches and ATMs, across its clientele of 20 companies.

The energy-data startup raised INR 8 Cr in a Pre-Series A round of funding in 2017 led by pi Ventures. 

Zenatix (part of the $11 Bn Hero Group) expanded its operations to the UAE and the Middle East in the April 2022 region to offer organisations a robust cloud-based energy and asset management solution. 

The cleantech startup plans to deploy 2,500 WattMan in the coming months, increasing its clientele to over 50-60 companies across India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Based on a subscription-based model of revenues, Zenatix aims to expand more in the international markets in future. 

ZunRoof 

• Founded In: 2016
• Founders: Pranesh Chaudhary, Sushant Sachan
• Funding Raised To Date: $6.74 Mn 
• Investors: Godrej Investment Office, Intellecap Impact Investment Network, Ramakant Sharma, (Livspace); Gaurav Gupta (Dalberg Advisors); Pradeep Tharakan (Asian Development Bank); Vismay Sharma (L’Oréal); Ajith Pai (Paipal Ventures); Arun Diaz (IntelleGrow)
• Headquarters: Delhi NCR

ZunRoof specialises in solar rooftop design, installation, and management using technologies such as computer vision, AI and VR. 

The cleantech startup helps reduce its electricity bills by using unutilised rooftops for solar power generation. It also offers IoT devices for power usage monitoring through a companion app.

ZunRoof offers projects with capacity in a range between 1 kilowatt (kW) and 70 kW for residential clients, small factories, schools, hospitals and hotels. Its total installed capacity has crossed 10 Megawatt since its inception in 2016. 

The cleantech startup assessed more than 250,000 homes, designed over 30,000 rooftop solar systems in 75+ cities in India, and installed 15 MW+ of rooftop solar and 50,000+ IoT devices, as of last year.

ZunRoof Tech raised $3 Mn in a Series A round of funding from Godrej Investment Office in 2020. Godrej had invested $1.2 Mn in the startup in a Pre-Series A round in 2019. The cleantech startup entered the solar rooftop market in Bengaluru a few years ago and is planning to enter cities like Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi in future. 

ZunRoof aims to resolve the affordability issue of solar rooftops in Indian homes. It will soon launch its service to improve the affordability of solar rooftops.

Last updated on January 18, 2025

The listicle has been updated to include two new startups – Clean Electric and ReCircle.

The post 63 Cleantech Startups Working Towards Making India’s Future Cleaner & Greener appeared first on Inc42 Media.

SoftBank-backed deeptech startup Netradyne has raised $90 Mn in its Series D funding round, led by existing backer Point72 Private Investments

The round also saw participation from Qualcomm Ventures and Pavilion Capital. 

In a statement, Netradyne said it plans to utilise the fresh capital to accelerate its growth trajectory through strategic investments in research and development (R&D) and go-to-market (GTM) strategies. A part of the capital will also be utilised for “aggressive” global expansion. 

Founded in 2015 by Avneesh Agrawal and David Julian, Netradyne offers AI-powered fleet safety and video telematics solutions. It sells AI-enabled dashcams that process vehicle data and video to improve driver safety. Netradyne also leverages edge computing to send real-time notifications to drivers if they are distracted or driving dangerously. 

The startup claims to have so far analysed 18 Bn driving miles and catered to fleet owners in countries across the US, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Australia, India, among others. 

“The successful completion of our Series D funding round is a significant milestone for Netradyne… This funding provides us with the resources to accelerate growth, expand our technology capabilities, and deliver even greater value to our customers worldwide…,” said Netradyne cofounder and CEO Agrawal.

Commenting on the fundraise, Sri Chandrasekar, managing partner at Point72 Private Investments, said, “… Since our initial investment in 2018, we’ve witnessed Netradyne’s impressive growth… We are excited to continue our partnership with Avneesh and the Netradyne team as they advance their mission to transform the global transportation industry.”

Netradyne currently claims to cater over 3,000 customers globally, including IndianOil Skytanking, GreenLine Mobility, Writer Safeguard, among others. It has over 4.5 Lakh active subscribers spanning sectors such as online retail, oil and gas, transportation, utilities, among others. 

The deeptech startup last raised $150 Mn in a funding round led by SoftBank in 2021 at a valuation of nearly a billion dollars. Including the current round, it has raised over $227 Mn in funding till date from investors such as Reliance, M12, among others. 

The development comes at a time when Indian deeptech startups are witnessing renewed interest from investors due to the growing number of patents and high quality talent available in the country. Despite hiccups such as long gestation periods and heavy capex needs, the Indian deeptech sector continues to witness the rise of new startups, catering to both domestic and global use cases. 

As a result, industry bodies and stakeholders have been pitching for more sops and incentives to scale up the deeptech sector. Earlier this month, Nasscom called for establishing an INR 10,000 Cr fund for early stage deeptech startups. 

Earlier this week, former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant also called for a fund of funds (FoF) for deeptech startups. 

The post SoftBank-Backed Netradyne Bags $90 Mn From Point72 Private Investments appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Digital payments solutions provider Innoviti seems to have extended its IPO timeline and is now looking to list on the stock exchanges in the next 12 months.

In a statement, founder and CEO Rajeev Agrawal said that Innoviti is targeting operating profitability in the next two quarters. “The company is planning for operating profitability within the next two quarters, and has initiated IPO planning with an aim to list in the next 12 months,” he added.

Notably, in August last year, Innoviti said that it was looking to make its market debut in the next 12 months. 

Meanwhile, in the run up to the IPO, the company has allotted additional ESOPs worth INR 25 Cr to 110 employees. With this, Innoviti’s total ESOP pool now stands at INR 106 Cr. 

In the statement, the company said that the new grants vary from INR 3 Cr to INR 1 Lakh. Innoviti also said that while half of the new ESOPs have been granted to employees that have spent more than a year at the company, the remaining 50% have been given to select employees for their “outstanding contributions”.

Agrawal said that the fintech SaaS company clocked a 67% revenue growth and 58% reduction in EBITDA loss in the “last few quarters”. He did not provide any further details on the matter, including which quarters did the data pertain to. 

However, the company said that it is currently operating at an annualised run rate (ARR) of INR 160 Cr and an annualised EBITDA loss of less than INR 8 Cr. Innoviti also added that its electronics merchants-focussed sales negotiation software “innoviti genie” grew at an annualised rate of 192% “last year”. 

Additionally, the company also said that its enterprise payments software “innoviti unipay” reported a 15% annualised growth over last year with 28% EBITDA.

Founded in 2002 by Agrawal, the company enables merchants to accept payments and integrate real-time sales data into critical business processes. It claims to process over INR 80,000 Cr of purchase volume annually from across 2,000 Indian cities and over 20,000 merchants. 

In March 2024, it secured an online payment aggregator (PA) licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate its PA ‘Innoviti Link’. 

In August 2024, the company announced the close of its Series E funding round at INR 70 Cr. 

Backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, FMO, Catamaran Ventures, among others, Innoviti has raised over $100 Mn in funding to date. It reported revenue from operations of INR 110.2 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23), while loss stood at INR 86.56 Cr. 

The post Innoviti Eyes IPO In 12 Months, Allots Fresh ESOPs Worth INR 25 Cr appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Ahead of National Startup Day, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has held discussions to spur foreign direct investments (FDI) into the country. 

As per news agency PTI, the meeting was attended by representatives of various pension funds, private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) firms. The two sides reportedly deliberated on various ways to increase foreign investment inflow into India. 

It is pertinent to note this is the second such meeting in recent weeks. Earlier this month, DPIIT officials also held discussions with various stakeholders, including law firms and industry chambers, on the matter of increasing foreign investments.

During the meeting last week, law firms urged the government to allow FDI in the inventory-based models of ecommerce platforms for online trade for export purposes only. This, the law firms, said 

Notably, the deliberations around FDI come barely two months after commerce minister Piyush Goyal directed ecommerce platforms to stick to the rule of the law on the matter of foreign direct investments. At the time, he also said that the country’s FDI norms were crystal clear for ecommerce players.

That said, foreign investments are key to India’s growth, especially the country’s burgeoning startup ecosystem. These investments help bring in much-needed capital for expansion, access to cutting-edge technologies, and opportunities to expand globally. 

On the flip side, global VC and PE firms are making a beeline to India to capitalise on the growing entrepreneurial wave in the country and acquire a pie of the growing Indian digital economy. As per reports, FDI accounted for nearly 36% of the total capital raised by Indian startups in the past decade. 

Overall, Indian startups continued to operate in the shadow of extended funding winter in 2024, although the situation was better compared to 2023. Homegrown new-age tech ventures raised $12 Bn across 993 deals last year, a 20% increase compared to the preceding year. 

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Zepto cofounder and CEO Aadit Palicha has claimed that the quick commerce startup clocked an annualised gross order value (GOV) of $3 Bn (nearly INR 24,500 Cr) in January 2025. 

In contrast, Zepto reported an annualised GOV of $1 Bn in April 2024, said Palicha in a post on networking platform LinkedIn. Effectively, the startup appears to have tripled the metric in a span of eight months. 

“This milestone is entirely due to the execution, rigour, and discipline of this team (that I am lucky to be a part of). With this team, I am confident we will continue growing with a clear path to PAT (profit after tax) profitability in the near term,” added Palicha.

A picture attached with his post also showed that the quick commerce platform clocked an annual GOV of $550 Mn in January 2023. For the uninitiated, GOV encompasses the total value of orders received over a certain period of time before any discounts, returns or cancellations.

Zepto’s GOV is witnessing an uptick at a time when the company has aggressively expanded its footprint and forayed into new segments in recent months. Compared to seven cities where it was operational in 2023, Zepto expanded its presence to 35 in 2024. Meanwhile, it also doubled its store count to 650 last year versus 300 in the preceding year. 

Amid the rising tide of competition in the quick delivery space, Zepto also spun off a new app called Zepto Cafe to deliver quick to prepare dishes such as tea, coffee, pastries and savoury snacks within 10-15 minutes. 

Founded in 2021 by Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, Zepto currently operates a quick commerce platform, which delivers groceries and other kitchen staples within 10 minutes. The company grabbed headlines last year after it raised a mammoth $1.3 Bn across multiple funding rounds last year. 

Earlier this month, Zepto floated a new entity to pivot to a marketplace model from the previous  B2B2C structure, following the suit of rivals Zomato-owned Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart. The pivot comes as the company is reportedly gearing up to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with market regulator SEBI in March or April this year.

To list on the Indian bourses, the quick commerce major is said to be in the process of redomiciling its base to India. As per reports, Zepto has already obtained the necessary permissions from Singapore authorities to relocate its base back to the home country. 

Meanwhile, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) is scheduled to hear the matter on January 17. In addition, the quick commerce platform has also called for a board meeting on January 19 to finalise the bankers and the size of IPO. 

The post Zepto Clocks $3 Bn In Annualised GOV In January 2025 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India is celebrating the National Startup Day today. An ode to the vibrant homegrown startup ecosystem, January 16 commemorates the day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in 2016, launched the Centre’s flagship ‘Startup India’ initiative. 

In nine years since then, the Indian startup landscape has grown to boast more than 1.59 Lakh startups, 118 unicorns, $158 Bn+ funding, and more than 35 publicly listed new-age tech companies. 

“The Indian startup ecosystem has undergone a remarkable transformation in the past decade… Access to funding has significantly improved, with the rise of domestic venture capital, angel investors, and global funds focussing on Indian startups. Additionally, incubation centres, accelerators, and skill development programmes have empowered young entrepreneurs across the country,” said Marut Drones cofounder and CEO Prem Kumar Vislawath.

Speaking with Inc42, Snapdeal cofounder and chairperson Kunal Bahl underscored the government’s role in building a supportive environment for startups through innovative infrastructure, favourable policies and financial support. 

While there is no dearth of statistics related to the meteoric rise of the Indian startups, what is generally left unsaid is how a multi-pronged government approach, from funding to regulatory push, under the Startup India scheme paved the way for the burgeoning startup ecosystem. 

One of the key pillars of the Startup India initiative is the funding and incentives doled out by both central and state governments to support budding ventures. A case in point are the Seed Fund Scheme and Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) launched by the Centre, which have catapulted many small startups into the big leagues.

As per the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), 213 incubators have been selected under the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme with a total corpus of INR 945 Cr. As of October 2024, these incubators had approved a total funding of INR 454.04 Cr for 2,490 startups.

Meanwhile, INR 11,148 Cr has been committed under the FFS scheme, which has translated to a total investment of INR 21,221.36 Cr in 1,165 startups as of 2024. On top of this, the Centre guaranteed loans worth INR 555.24 Cr to 235 startups under the credit guarantee scheme for startups, as of October 2024. 

Not stopping here, the Investor Connect Portal was also launched to bridge the gap between investors and budding entrepreneurs. The portal onboarded more than 7,132 startups and 126 investors as of October 2024. 

Another similar initiative and mentorship platform, MAARG (Mentorship, Advisory, Assistance, Resilience, and Growth), onboarded 1,749 mentors and 3,022 startups on its platform. As per the DPIIT, the platform has paved the way for 1456 “active mentorships”, translating into more than 16,187 hours of mentorship.

On top of this, there are multiple other steps taken by the Centre to streamline ease of doing business and reduce compliance burdens. The DPIIT estimates that 3,606 startups have so far availed tax holidays for three consecutive financial years within the first ten years of their incorporation.

Before the angel tax was scrapped last year, more than 9,187 DPIIT-recognised startups were exempted from paying taxes under Section 56(2) (viib) of the Income Tax Act. 

In total, the Centre claims to have undertaken 62 “reforms” under Startup India initiative to enhance the ease of doing business, raising capital, and reducing compliance burden. This includes enabling insurance agencies, non-government provident funds, and gratuity funds to invest in alternative investment funds (AIFs), thereby mobilising institutional domestic capital for the Indian startup ecosystem.

The post National Startup Day: How A Cohesive Policy Approach Fostered A Burgeoning Startup Ecosystem appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Three years after the first National Startup Day in 2022, there’s a totally different mood in the air.

Back in early 2022, we had just emerged from the peak of startup funding in 2021, which created 42 new unicorns in India. Naturally, startups grabbed the attention of everyone after that boom. The first National Startup Day then was a time to celebrate.

This period of optimism led to towering valuations but was followed by two years of correction, and many of those very startups that flourished in the easy money environment have since failed to live up to the investor faith.

So in 2023 and even in 2024, the National Startup Day was more about reflecting than celebrating.

But these difficult years have led to the startup ecosystem shedding many of its bad habits. In fact, today, there’s an acknowledgement that building profitable businesses is the only way to go and backed by positive momentum on the IPO side, startups have truly turned a corner.

Policy has played a significant role in this — measures such as allowing confidential pre-IPO filings, easing rules for promoters and investors for shareholding periods and lock-ins, and more recently discussing the possibility of easing promoter shareholding limits to allow diluted founders to also make the most of the IPO momentum.

Having said that, we must also acknowledge that this momentum has not only come because of policy. Startup founders and investors have had to change their mindset in the past two years to make the most of this opportunity.

So this National Startup Day — the fourth edition of the marquee day on the national calendar — government and policy action must recalibrate and realign with the needs of the startup ecosystem for 2025.

As in the past, Inc42 is once again playing the role of moderator, forming the bridge between startups and policymakers. The Indian startup ecosystem stands at a critical juncture where the right push can be the tailwind needed for India to become a bigger force in the global tech scene.

To do this, six major focus areas need to be addressed this National Startup Day:

Time To Fix Startup Insolvency Woes 

BYJU’S and Dunzo — two of India’s most prominent startups for very different reasons, but both caught in an insolvency crisis that is a sign of how badly India needs to fix the laws around the bankruptcy and insolvency process.

If the Jet Airways case which had dragged on for years is any indication, insolvency and liquidation of assets is not as simple as following the letter of the law, but involves many moving parts and can take several months if not years to be resolved.

Even months after investors have written off assets, startups and their employees continue to be in limbo, with no clarity on any possible solutions. Dunzo and BYJU’S are just two examples of startups where thousands of employees have gone unpaid and where vendors have been left holding dues.

While the government makes it a point to celebrate the job creation by startups, perhaps it needs to address the more severe situation around employees not being paid salaries.

Startups have always had a high rate of failure. This is true even for Silicon Valley, but jobless talent in the West gets absorbed back into the ecosystem at a much faster pace than in India. While government policy cannot hope to accelerate this, re-employment programmes can be put in place to prevent talent drain out of India.

The Idea Of An Index For Listed Tech Stocks 

Zomato made it to the BSE Sensex 30 in 2024, but the wave of new-age tech companies — with over 30 listed in the share markets today — calls for a dedicated index on the BSE or perhaps even the NSE for tech stocks.

After India’s IT services industry boom in the late 90s and early 2000s, the BSE IT Index became an analogue for the tech sector in the country. But now’s the time for the product economy to be represented as an index that spotlights the progress of Indian startups.

Overall, the market cap of listed new-age tech companies touched $84 Bn or roughly INR 7 Lakh Cr at the end of 2024. This groundswell needs a dedicated index which would add a huge measure of maturity to Indian tech and truly signal the dawn of the post-services era.

Adding An IPO Track To Startup India Arsenal

The DPIIT’s Startup India platform has been a real revelation in terms of highlighting the various startup-specific funds, grants, policies and exemptions. This was what the first decade of Startup India needed.

But the times have changed. Now, startups are on the cusp of maturity and need more support on softer but more critical aspects such as diligence and governance, financial responsibility, social responsibility, and other areas that publicly listed companies need to focus on.

This has thus far not been a big concern for Startup India — naturally, given that startups have only now reached this maturity stage. But going forward, DPIIT’s enablement needs to have a strong view on accelerating the maturity of startups to meet the expectations of the industry.

Snapdeal cofounder Kunal Bahl believes that India will have 2,500 listed startups by 2050. That’s a long way away, but it’s not a point India can reach without the right stimuli. The first stimulus needs to come today.

Channel The Reverse Flipping Sentiment

Regulatory hoops and taxes are the bane of startups looking to reverse flip to India, and we know that scores of unicorns would readily redomicile to India if some of these hurdles were cleared.

An increasing number of new-age tech companies domiciled abroad are now queuing up to return home as they look to capitalise on the boom in India’s economy, access to a bigger pool of investors, better initial public offering (IPO) prospects, and favourable government policies.

It is pertinent to mention that Walmart-backed PhonePe became the first major new-age tech company to shift its domicile back to India in 2022. However, the reverse flip cost a fortune as PhonePe’s investors had to pay INR 8,000 Cr to the Indian government.

Similarly, investors of Groww suffered a tax hit of INR 1,340 Cr in the US when the fintech unicorn returned home last year.

Amid the IPO boom, ecommerce giant Flipkart, fintech unicorn Razorpay, quick commerce unicorn Zepto and fintech company Pine Labs are eyeing redomiciling in 2025, ahead of their eventual public listings. Besides this, the list of hopefuls includes Mensa Brands, Udaan, Eruditus, CleverTap, and Freo, but many of these are considering all their options given the high tax implications and other compliance burdens.

To its credit, the Indian government removed some hurdles in the way, which has allowed companies to fast-track reverse flipping processes. But more can be done to ease the journey.

According to Inc42’s annual investor survey for 2024 “The Pulse Of Tech”, 78% of the over 75 surveyed investors said that access to the Indian public markets is the primary reason behind the ‘reverse flipping’ trend in the startup ecosystem.

Up to 33% of surveyed investors believe that lower operational costs are motivating startups to join the reverse flipping parade. While investors credited improvements in ease of doing business as a driving force, many believe that tax exemptions or deferrals could be brought in place to improve this further.

AI & Semiconductor: Focus On Homegrown Tech, Not Big Tech

Nvidia, TSMC, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft — the engines of the AI age are eerily similar to those that drove the age of the internet before that.

In the Indian context, stakeholders have called for a bigger spotlight on homegrown startups and innovation in AI — particularly on the infrastructure side — and semiconductor design and development. Many believe that India cannot let slip the opportunity to shape its own future in these critical areas that form the pillars of deeptech and frontier tech.

EaseMyTrip cofounder and CEO Rikant Pittie believes that while partnerships like Nvidia-Reliance will change the game, additional government push is a must to build India-first, AI-first infrastructure.

He also called for “grants, tax breaks, and procurement incentives” for startups to stay competitive at a global level. Promoting local manufacturing by incentivising design and research within the country, could reduce reliance on foreign tech, Pittie added in a recent interaction with Inc42.

Earlier, union minister for electronics & IT Ashwini Vaishnaw had said that a digital public infrastructure (DPI)-based approach for AI development in India would be the best way forward.  “For AI, we are taking the digital public infrastructure approach and will be investing in creating a public platform. Through this everyone will have access to high quality data sets, protocols, legal frameworks and compute power,” Vaishnaw said in July 2024, revealing plans to invest in AI computing infrastructure with 10,000 or more GPUs through a public-private partnership.

But this still does not answer the question of how India can play a more significant role in the global AI dynamics, where a lot more clarity is needed in terms of the planning and the execution. The IndiaAI Mission has a huge task ahead of it when it comes to answering these questions in the years to come, and no better time to start than now.

Clear The Backlog: Social Security Code, Ecommerce Policy

It’s hard to talk about policy without bringing in what’s been pending for years. Gig workers run some of the most prominent new-age tech giants, but the Social Security Code has been in cold storage ever since it was announced.

A similar fate has befallen the much-delayed ecommerce policy. Both these individual pieces of legislation will have deep implications on platform companies and the aggregator economy. The rise of quick commerce has complicated the situation further and muddled the lines between ecommerce marketplaces and retail businesses.

The first contours of the government’s policies for ecommerce and quick commerce in particular will likely be seen in 2025.

Then we have the much-awaited AI regulations, which will have deep ramifications for all companies in the near future. While the DPDP Act came into effect in 2023, everyone acknowledges that it will be a work in progress. The same can be said for AI regulations, and at the moment, the industry has sought a self-regulation environment to protect AI innovation.

The criticality of data in AI means that we have not even begun to scratch the surface of how AI regulations will intersect with the DPDP Act.

But before we get to these more complicated areas of policymaking, it’s pertinent to create the right framework for digital commerce and platform economy to cover the more fundamental aspects of businesses in this space.

Ecommerce policy has always been a bit of a chaos in India with Press Notes and disparate acts governing how businesses are run. For the past half a decade, stakeholders have asked for a unified policy governing the entire digital commerce value chain. Bringing this into play in 2025 will definitely be a gamechanger for ecommerce, which underpins several other sectors.

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