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Leap Club launches ‘the table’ early-stage fund for women-led businesses
— a community-led professional network for women — start ‘the table‘, an early-stage fund exclusively for women-led businesses.
Leap Club has partnered with AngelList to launch the syndicate, which includes Ghazal Alag (Co-founder and CEO, ), Ankur Variku (founder, nearbuy), Lizzie Chapman (CEO, ), Ankita Vashishta (Founder, Saha Fund), Radhika Ghai (Co-Founder, ), Mega Chawla (Partner at Bain & Company), Nandini Maheshwari (Director General, ), Ahana Gautam (founder, ), Amit Damani (founder, ), and Sandeep Jetwani (Co-Founder, ).
Leap Club will lead the investment as a major investor in early-stage women-led companies. Over the next 12 months, Leap Club will work with 10-15 early-stage businesses and invest between $50,000 and $500,000.
Enzia Ventures, Whiteboard Capital and Titan Capital have also joined as venture partners and will fast track the valuation of selected companies for independent investment.
“Venture funding broke all records in 2021. But there’s one statistic that hasn’t changed at all — female founders raise only 2 percent of venture capital money… We have 800+ female founders as members and through our interactions with them, we learned that access to capital and networks is the big blocker. We realized we were able to make a difference and that’s how ‘the table’ was born,” said Ragini Das and Anand Sinha, co-founders of Leap Club.
Mela Ventures closes its first fund at Rs 320 Cr
Mela Ventures has announced the final close of its maiden fund MV Core Tech Fund – I — a SEBI-approved Category 2 AIF for early-stage companies — at Rs 320 crore. Government institutions, techies and family offices including Nippon India Digital Innovation AIF (NIDIA) and SIDBI Fund of Funds for Startups also invested in the funding round.
The fund, which was oversubscribed 1.6 times, aims to make 16-18 investments in early-stage startups.
Krishnakumar Natarajan, Managing Partner, Mela Ventures said,
“We have made great progress towards our mission to build the next generation of entrepreneurs from India. Over the past 18 months, we have invested in four forward-looking organizations, onboarded a coveted team of advisors, and established strong governance mechanisms. This is the main reason we have received a tremendous response to the fund even in these challenging times. We continue to focus on our strategy of investing in B2B startups to take advantage of our extensive experience in various markets.”
MediBuddy founders donate Rs 14 Cr to IIT Madras incubator
Healthtech startup donated 14 crore rupees for the growth of the incubation cell of IIT Madras.
Founded in 2013 as a deep technology incubator, MediBuddy’s co-founders — Satish Kannan and Enbasekar — were among the first incubators of the incubator. They started their startup journey in 2013 with a modest funding of Rs 5 lakh.
Currently, IIT-M Incubation Cell has paved the way for over 250 startups to create an environment for budding entrepreneurs. It also provides them with the necessary support to survive and grow in a competitive market.
Satish Kannan, Co-Founder and CEO of MediBuddy said, “When all we had was an idea, IIT-M recognized the power nestled within it. The initial Rs 5 lakh given by IIT Madras really helped us get started. Today, we are happy that we, at MediBuddy, are helping many patients across the country and can also express our gratitude to IIT with Rs 14 crores.”
He added: “I believe this capital will help at least 250 more startups like us realize their dreams. All of them will also get the resources and guidance to build great companies. We are delighted to be able to pay it off today!”
Headquartered in Bengaluru and offices in over 20 cities across India, MediBuddy is an on-demand digital healthcare platform that helps patients access multiple healthcare services. It recently raised $125 million in Series C funding.
Simpl to hire over 250 employees in 2022
Fintech startup will hire over 250 employees this year across verticals. Leading Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) platform plans to significantly expand its engineering team.
As part of its commitment to gender diversity, Simpl proactively strives to address the gender ratio in its engineering department. With female leaders already heading key functions such as partner success, data science and engineering teams, Simpl aims to create a gender-balanced organization in the coming years.
Nithya Sharma, co-founder of Simpl said, “At Simpl, we are constantly hiring talent with similar values, diverse backgrounds and a passion to make a meaningful impact in changing the world for the better. We believe a strong technology and engineering team will help us scale the business and ensure continued operational excellence.”
Founded in 2015 by Nitya Sharma, Simpl is on a mission to empower merchants to build trusted relationships with customers, one transaction at a time. There are over 10,000 merchants available and more than 25 million users across India.
Unicommerce, Udaan partner to enhance post purchase experience
SaaS startup has partnered with B2B e-commerce startup Udaan to empower lifestyle sellers with technology to manage their inventory and orders from multiple marketplaces on Unicommerce’s centralized platform.
While lifestyle sellers with Unicommerce can add Udaan as a marketplace to further expand their consumer reach, existing sellers of can integrate all their operations into the Unicommerce platform to streamline their operations and deliver products efficiently.
Unicommerce, an e-commerce focused supply chain SaaS platform, currently processes over one million items daily and works with some of the largest brands and e-commerce players in India.
Clever Harvey, partner at Multiply Ventures to launch an entrepreneurship course for teenagers
To give teenagers an early preview of future careers, and Multiply Ventures have partnered to launch ‘JuniorMBA Entrepreneurship’ specifically for high school students (Classes VIII to XII).
The 15-day program aims to give students hands-on exposure to what startup founders do while learning to create Shark Tank-style business pitches. Working in groups of two or three, students take a ‘behind the scenes’ tour of entrepreneurship, led by facilitator Clever Harvey.
Founded by Sriram Subramanian and Madhu Agrawal in 2020 as the D2C division of Callido Learning, Mumbai-based Clever Harvey is building India’s largest career accelerator for teenagers.
It offers programs for high school students in marketing, technology, entrepreneurship, data analysis, UX design, digital marketing and finance, in collaboration with leading companies such as Puma, Samsonite, Dominos, Kellogg’s, Cult.Fit and more.
India Accelerator includes 3 new core partners
India Accelerator has appointed three new core partners – Satyabrata Das, Harish Menon and Romil Kapadia – as part of its iAngels network to accelerate the company’s expansion strategy and strengthen global operations.
The emphasis of the partnership is on identifying startups, expanding the angel network, mentoring and global business expansion.
A renowned angel investor, Satyabrata Das has over 25 years of experience scaling multiple organizations in India and Kenya. He was previously the CFO of one of the largest multinational companies in Kenya and mentored over 20 growing startups worldwide.
Harish Menon is a respected Chartered Accountant with over 20 years of experience in financial markets and investment advisory. Registered with SEBI as an investment advisor, Harish has invested in over 20 nascent startups in the previous year alone.
Romil Kapadia has over 15 years of asset management experience and an extensive network of investor relationships. Serving as Managing Partner at Motilal Oswal Private Wealth Management, Romil has been honored with the title of ’40 Under Forty 2022′ by Equalifi and Edelweiss.
Mona Singh, co-founder of India Accelerator said, “I am delighted to welcome Satya, Harish and Romil to the IA team as Principal Partners. With their business acumen, leadership skills and vast experience, we hope to take India’s startup economy to unprecedented heights. Under their guidance and enlightenment, we also look forward to scaling our angel network and strengthening our global expansion plans.”
Gupshup rebrands amid product growth, global expansion
Chat app unveiled a new brand identity at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The new brand identity consists of new logo colors, a redesigned look and feel of the brand, an updated website and a new tagline: “One on One. With everyone”.
Gupshup claims that the pursuit of conversational engagement has led to triple-digit business growth with a total of 44,000 customers. The startup has raised $340 million in the past 12 months, made two key acquisitions in the past six months, and expanded to 30+ countries on five continents.
Gupshup continued product-focused innovation in cPaaS, cCaaS, CX and Conversational AI, with 5x growth in global headcount.
The new slogan “One on one. With Everyone” highlights the Gupshup brand promise to create AI-based, personalized, one-to-one messaging conversations and voice channels for businesses and their millions of users in marketing, commerce and support workflows.
Piaggio launches electric three-wheeler experience center in Bhopal
Piaggio Vehicles has launched its first-of-its-kind Electric Dealer Experience Center in Bhopal, which will give customers a platform to access a full range of newly launched FX (Fixed Battery) range of electric vehicles (EV) in both cargo and the passenger segment.
Saju Nair, Executive Vice President and Head of Light Commercial Vehicle Business, Piaggio India Pvt Ltd., said: “We are delighted to announce our first Electric Three Wheeler Experience Center in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. The lucrative opportunities shared by the Government of Madhya Pradesh with multiple incentives for electric vehicles are driving the adoption of electric vehicles. This also aims to achieve the target of 25 percent of all new vehicle registrations being electric by 2026. Such an initiative has created the right environment for players like us to enter the market.”
The new Apé E-Xtra FX is the most powerful electric cargo in the segment with an output power of 9.5 KW. It comes with a proven all-metal body architecture, equipped with a useful cargo deck length of 6 feet. It can also be customized for applications such as delivery van, garbage collector and more. The Apé E-City FX passenger vehicle is the highest-grossing three-wheeler.
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