32 startups collectively raise around $108M at 9Unicorns-VCats’ maiden global demo day

Leading accelerator VC fund, 9Unicorns and its parent firm Venture Catalysts facilitated a $108 million fundraise for 32 portfolio startups in their first virtual demo day. 70 percent of the presenting startups received interest and subscriptions from nearly 900 participating VCs from 18 countries in the two-day event. 

45 percent of the startup founders of the 32 startups at the global demo day were either serial entrepreneurs or had previously worked in a startup setup, indicating that investor sentiment for 2x entrepreneurs is high.

The premier edition of the global demo day, conducted on August 11 and 12, 2021 also witnessed massive participation from women founders. Women founders led about 30 percent of the demo day startups. It is an attempt by 9Unicorns and VCats to support female founders who often find it challenging to access capital - even with massive liquidity in the startup ecosystem.

Co-founded by Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anil Jain, Anuj Golecha, and Gaurav Jain, the Mumbai-based $72 million sector-agnostic fund provides up to $100k per startup in the first round and up to $2 million in successive matches with its ecosystem of co-investors.

"We are overwhelmed with the response from the global investor community on our first demo-day. It speaks volumes about the positive sentiment in international VCs for Indian tech startups.”

“A few of them individually raised over $20 million during the demo day. While a few of them have closed deals, a few have received investment interests, and we hope to complete their respective rounds in the next few days or weeks. The idea is to conduct at least three such demo days in a year," said Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder and President of 9Unicorns.

9Unicorns is on a mission to help strengthen early-stage investing and help create potential Unicorns. Here are the startups that participated in the D-Day.

1. ByteLearn: This edtech startup uses an AI assistant to create adaptive learning tools for kids learning math. 
2. Pariksha:  A vernacular edtech startup to provide affordable education to students in rural India. 
3. ImaginXP: A social impact higher education platform that provides embedded degrees, online work-integrated degrees, and subjects to universities with a B2B model. 
4. Tamasha:  A platform for content creators and social media influencers to interact with their fans. 
5. Rooter:  Allows gamers to join popular streamers, upload gaming videos or images, and create content. 
6. Power Gummies:  A health and wellness brand with chewable vitamin gummies for a variety of health conditions.
7. PeeSafe: A female toilet hygiene company making hygiene products like sanitary pads, menstrual cups, and even personal wash products for both men and women.
8. TruNativ: An environmentally conscious food brand founded to tackle urban malnourishment. 
9. Raskik:  A natural fusion fruit juice brand for millennials at just Rs 30. 
10. Coutloot: The largest social commerce platform to buy and sell online in under 30 seconds on a bargain. 
11. EvenFlow: A digital consumer goods company that offers to manage inventory, performance marketing, on-platform merchandising, cataloging, and new product development to third-party brands that raise revenue through e-commerce. 
12. ExtraaEdge: A SaaS-based edtech that is empowering admission teams across the globe to make intelligent, data-driven decisions.
13. Eunimart: An AI-powered SaaS platform for businesses to grow online by leveraging intelligence, reducing cost, and improving efficiency. 
14. Prescinto: An AI-powered SaaS platform that collects clean energy plant data and apply data science models to identify causes for underperformance. 
15. GeoIQ: A locational intelligence platform that assists some of India's leading brands with live data insights for some of the most crucial business decisions involving consumers on a day-to-day basis.
16. Gully Network: A startup that is building India's largest asset-light modern retail network of tech-enabled mid-sized grocery stores in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. 
17. Hesa: A one-stop solution for corporates, banks, governments, and NGOs to explore and invest in rural India. 
18. BluSmart: India's first and largest zero-emission ride service that operates a fleet of 400 cabs in the South Delhi-Gurugram region.
19. Zypp Electric:  An EV-based last-mile delivery company with battery swapping infrastructure. 
20. Charge+ Zone:  A one-stop solution to locate charging points, booking slots for charging, and payment through QR codes. 
21. Klub: A revenue-based finance firm that uses data analytics to provide capital to brands across sectors. 
22. Inai: A fintech startup that enables merchants to set up their payment stack with a single integration. 
23. Numadic : A vehicular-interface platform that revolutionises fleet management system using analytical data.
24. Castler:  A digital escrow services startup that uses technology and innovation to digitize escrow accounts for safer transactions. 
25. Homeville:  A fintech housing credit enablement network built on open banking principles, creating significant operating leverage with an in-house built technology stack.
26. EnsuredIT:  An insurtech startup that empowers end customers and insurance intermediaries with an AI-based product platform for transformational customer experience.
27. OTO: An automotive leasing fintech startup that offers customers a convenient option to finance their vehicle with two-wheeler leasing in India. 
28. Janani: An AI-based sexual dysfunction and infertility treatment provider. 
29. Alpha AI: The world's first and only. NLP driven analytics platform that helps businesses design as well as redesign the AI system based on the prevalent business needs. 
30. Toch: An AI-driven platform that uses cloud-agnostic and deep learning algorithms for the automatic interpretation of content featured in videos.
31. Hoopr: India’s first AI-powered music licensing marketplace, built to soundtrack the world’s burgeoning video creator economy. 
32. Instoried: An augmented writing platform that helps large companies make their marketing and communications content more human with a data-driven, scalable, and repeatable approach using AI.
33. Rezolve.ai: A SaaS based employee service desk platform built for Microsoft Teams, designed to help address problems in terms of low self-service adoption, slow service, and long wait times.
34. Rage: An innovative coffee brand targeted towards young millenials and small towns to create a cafe like experience at home.