[Funding roundup] iSprout, Healthfab, Rage Coffee, Stage3, others raise capital

iSprout raises $4M in Pre-Series A funding from private investors

Co-working spaces startup iSprout has recently closed a Pre-Series A funding round of $4M from private investors.

A director of "one of India’s leading infrastructure company" has invested a substantial amount in the funding round, iSprout said in a statement without mentioning further details. Post the investment, 75 percent ownership of iSprout is with the four co-founders and the aforementioned investor.

iSprout is looking to raise a Series A funding round of $10 million to capitalise on the expansion of the managed office space market. The projected funding will be used for growth and expansion of their business assets and a big chunk of the amount will also be invested to build proprietary technology to automate critical processes.

Fem-tech D2C Startup Healthfab raises Rs 2.17 Cr in a seed round

Healthfab, the Bengaluru-based femtech D2C (direct-to-consumer) startup, has raised Rs 2.17 crores in a seed funding round led by Singapore-based BeyondSeed along with other angel investors, namely Goh Ee Fann and Abhijit Datta.

Healthfab was founded in 2019 with the mission to provide affordable solutions for a healthy and sustainable human life. The company’s flagship product is GoPadFree™, India’s first standalone reusable period panty, which aims to bring comfort to women and create a more plastic-free society. There is no need to wear additional menstrual products such as sanitary pads, tampons, or cups when using these panties.

In the last 12 months, its monthly revenue and overall customer base has grown by 5 times. 

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Healthfab is planning to use this fresh capital to create awareness about the benefits of reusable, standalone and eco-friendly period panties over unsustainable sanitary products. The company is also aiming to quadruple its sales in the coming financial year. 

Further, the company is eyeing expansion in gulf countries such as Oman and Saudi Arabia. 

Rage Coffee secures funding from Virat Kohli and onboards the cricketer as the brand ambassador

Rage Coffee, the Delhi-based FMCG Company that manufactures, markets, and distributes innovative packaged coffee products has onboarded Virat Kohli as an investor and brand ambassador. Previously Rage Coffee had raised $5 million of growth capital as part of its Series A funding round led by Sixth Sense Ventures in Aug 2021.

Athiya Shetty invests in social commerce platform Stage3

Stage3, a leading community-powered social commerce platform for fashion and lifestyle is now backed by Bollywood actor Athiya Shetty. Athiya will take on the role of Stage3’s creative director.  

“I have always expressed myself through fashion, and love being a part of the creator economy. I’d been looking for the right platform through which I could empower others to also begin their journey towards becoming a ‘creator’ and I found that with Stage3. I love the fact that they are building a new paradigm for fashion shopping. There’s such a wealth of untapped potential and Stage3 is leading the way to becoming a conduit of success for the upcoming generation of creators. I’m delighted to be working with them on this” said Athiya on her connection to Stage3’s vision.

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The startup recently raised Rs. 20 crores from notable investors such as Blume Ventures, Inflection Point Ventures, Nueva Ventures, Eragon Ventures, Let’s Venture, Stanford Angels, Ananth Narayanan (Founder, Mensa Brands), Dinesh Aggarwal (CEO, India Mart), and Sashwat Nakrani (Co-Founder, Bharat Pe),

Praan witnesses strong investor interest

Deep tech start-up Praan says it has received strong investor interest and extended round from global investors Aera VC, Angel investment syndication Climate Angels, Sequoia Scouts in an extension of its pre-seed round. Cool Climate Collective, film director Roshan Abbas and angel Akshat Rajan also participated in the round. The fresh funds will be focused on expanding Praan’s India team, expediting manufacturing, and stabilizing the supply chain. 

Founded in 2017 by Angad Daryani, Praan is mitigating urban air pollution through low-cost, filter-less, and artificial intelligence-based outdoor air purification systems.

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Polygon founder Jaynti Kanani backs Plutoverse

Plutoverse, a company operating in the tech-entertainment space, has officially closed their angel investment round and are now backed by one of India’s first crypto billionaires, Jaynti Kanani, CEO & Co-founder of Polygon.

With the amount secured, Plutoverse aims to build virtual identities that can coexist and socialise in the same shared universe and to tell stories inspired by and tailor-made for Gen Z and Millennials. The investment will also be used to further create the building blocks of the product and make it ready for launch.

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Fintech startup Credilio raises $4M

Credilio, has announced that it has raised $4 million (Rs 30 Crores) in a pre-series A funding round with a clutch of investors that include Cornerstone Venture Partners Fund (CSVP Fund), Exfinity Venture Partners and Param Capital founder Mukul Agarwal in his personal capacity.

The capital raised will power Credilio’s ambitious plans to meet an ARR of 100Cr by March 2023 and serve 25 million customers in the next 3 years.

The fresh round of funds will be deployed towards strengthening Credilio’s lending product penetration by enhancing technology capabilities and harnessing the potential of evolving API stacks of Banks / NBFCs. The capital will also be directed to kickstart the implementation of sophisticated analytical tools and credit bureau information to accurately find the best-suited product portfolio that meets the consumers’ requirements.

The startup also plans to scale its presence with a stronger focus on tier 2-3 cities and introducing platform access in 7 regional languages. The start-up has been committed to also upskill financial advisors to make them digitally equipped to serve their customers in a sharper environment and transform their experience of investing in personal finance products.

EduTech startup, Uppskill Raises $100,000 from Ok! Acquired

Edtech startup, Uppskill has announced raising Rs 1 crore from Bengaluru-based Investment Tech startup, Ok! Acquired and its investors. This is uppskill's first institutional round of seed funding.

Co-founded by entrepreneurs Arbab Usmani and Abhishek Kumar Gupta, Uppskill is a skill-based educational platform that changes the way people learn and develop skills required to acquire jobs or help them directly in their businesses.

The online educational platform intends to use these funds to build its tech platform further and expand in different training areas such as sales, operations, finances, and tech.

YourStory Tech50 startup KidEx raises $1 M led by Lead Angels Fund

Gurugram-based edtech startup KidEx raises a total of $1 Mn led by Lead Angels Fund. Other notable investors include top brass from BCG, PayU, 10Club etc.

A YourStory Tech50 company, KidEx started in 2020, by IIT Kharagpur alumni Kapish Saraf, Amritanshu Kumar, and Gaurav Sengar is an Experiential Learning Certification platform focused on children aged 5 to 14 years to help them develop real-life skills to address the $8.5 Trillion annual talent shortage problem, as estimated in 2030.

The funds would be used towards aggressive digital distribution of the company's products and services to achieve 10X growth over the next 12 months creating a network of over one million active children on the platform, the startup said.