[Funding roundup] Menlo Micro, Metasky, Mentor Match, Nutrify Today raise capital

Menlo Micro Announces $150M in Series C Funding

Menlo Micro, a California-based technology company, has raised $150 million Series C funding led by Vertical Venture Partners and Tony Fadell’s Future Shape. This brings Menlo Micro’s total cumulative funding to over $225 million.

Using its ideal switch technology, Menlo Micro aims to create an energy efficient and sustainable world, with its new category of electronic switches. The company was spun off in 2016 from GE Ventures, the venture capital subsidiary of General Electric. 

The switches help reduce size and weight and eliminate tradeoffs of power, precision and costs. 

“Today’s funding milestone underscores the confidence our investors have in Menlo Micro’s transformative technology to fuel the electrification of everything and modernise the $100+ billion market for RF communications, power switching and protection devices in the 21 st century,” said Russ Garcia, Menlo Micro CEO.

“It will enable us to expand our manufacturing in the US and accelerate the development of our power roadmap to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” he added.

Metasky raises $1.8M led by Sequoia Capital India, Woodstock Fund

Metasky, a platform aimed at the intersection of Web3 and the creator economy, has raised $1.8 million in a pre-seed token sale round led by Sequoia Capital India and Woodstock Fund. 

Founded in 2021 by Ankit Arora and Prakhar Sharma, Metasky works with influencers, creators, and brands to form a Web3 strategy for their followers with the help of its user-friendly tools for buying, storing, and using NFTs (non-fungible tokens). It aims to elevate NFTs from just images into objects that are alive and packed with exclusive benefits.

The company said it is launching a user-friendly Web3 Wallet that makes it easy for anybody to buy and securely hold Crypto Assets (NFTs and crypto tokens).

Ankit Arora co-founder, said, “Concepts like NFTs only make sense if they are accompanied with a strong set of utilities, a passionate community, and real governance rights. We are building Web3 tools to serve this purpose.”

Mentor Match raises $1M in pre-seed round

Edtech startup Mentor Match has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding from Sapient Fund, a US-based seed-stage venture fund led by Karthik Sundaram.

Founded by recent architecture graduates Rohit Raheja , Sachit Dugar, and Rayhaan Shaik, Mentor Match is a self-study platform that helps students of classes 8 - 12 connect directly with expert tutors instantly through a 1 on 1 live video call. 

“True learning happens during self-study for most students and if they get stuck with a concept or a problem, it leads to frustration, anxiety, procrastination and demotivation," said Rayhaan Shaik.

"This problem affects more than 200 million students every year in India. We have currently beta tested this service with over 1500+ students and have achieved a 4.73/5 average rating across all our micro sessions."

Mentor Match said the service is currently live on our website and can be accessed by students preparing for JEE, NEET and school exams all across the country for free.

Nutrify Today raises seed funding to fortify product technology

Nutrify Today, a Nutraceutical industry supply chain technology platform, has raised $500,000 in seed funding from Anand Swaroop.

Founded by Amit Srivastava, the startup enables small company/startup/ innovators to commercialise their work in any of the critical nutraceutical markets of the world without having to travel and invest in business development with its hybrid solutions.

With the funding, the company plans to strengthen the product technology, fully automate the platform and cover 20 countries for new product development, commercialisation, and supply chain solutions to small to mid-sized companies in the nutraceutical industry. 

"Through Nutrify Today, we plan to create supply chain highways enabling faster growth of small to mid-sized innovators in other parts of the world," said Amit. 

The startup will be going in for the next round of funding of USD 10 million by year-end.

Clover Infotech picks 25 pc stake in AI startup Data Science Wizards

AI Startup Data Science Wizards(DSW) has raised undisclosed amount of funding for 25 percent stake from Clover Infotech, an IT Managed Services, Digital Transformation, and Consulting firm.

Founded in Oct 2019, DSW offers AI and data analytics solutions and consulting services to help enterprises with data-driven decisions. The Mumbai-headquartered company offers platform as a solution (PaaS) and helps organisations with ML processes and in building an end-to-end journey and scale their AI-enabled use cases.

“Our niche expertise and positioning at the confluence of AI, data science, and open-source technologies helps us to empower customers with seamless and informed decision-making capabilities," Sandeep Khuperkar, Co-founder and CEO, DSW, said.

"With Clover Infotech as a strategic investor, DSW can scale and replicate its AI-backed solutions across a huge customer base in India and focused global markets such as Middle East, Europe, US, and Singapore,” he added.

Ecommerce aggregator SustainKart raises funds from actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu

SustainKart, an ecommerce marketplace for sustainable products, has raised seed fund from actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu, who made her debut in Bollywood with Family Man-2.

Launched in January 2021 by Shilpa Reddy and Kanthi Dutt, the startup offers a range of eco-friendly, green and clean products across all lifestyle categories — from fashion to decor, food and nutrition, furniture to home care.

It already claims to be having over 1,000 brands and 85,000 stock keeping units on its platform.

The company said it also has plans to launch its first retail franchise model.

“We are scheduling SustainKart’s first offline store launch in April. We have started partnering with enthusiastic entrepreneurs who believe in sustainability to launch our franchise experience stores across India. We aim to launch 30 stores in the first year and a total of 100 stores in two years from now," said Shilpa Reddy.

HooLiv raises non-dilutive growth capital by trading subscriptions on Recur Club

HooLiv, New Delhi based Co-living startup, has raised non-dilutive growth capital by trading subscriptions on Recur Club, a subscription-based financing platform. It had previously raised a seed round in 2020.

Founded in 2019 by serial entrepreneurs Chinmoy Mishra, Gaurav Vij, and Abhishek Verma, HooLiv intends to provide students with hassle-free affordable housing options. They are present in cities including Delhi, Pune, Meerut, Jaipur.

The funds raised are under an alternative financing method through Recur's platform, where organisations connect with institutional investors to trade their subscriptions or future revenue for upfront capital, reducing the need to dilute equity.

The funds have helped HooLiv to not only tide over the tough 2nd wave but also put to action its asset (bed) acquisition plans.

"With the funding environment improving considerably now and with the scale that we have been able to achieve by financing through Recur Club, we stand a much better chance to raise the next round at a much better valuation," said Chinmoy.