[Funding roundup] Cubyts, Baaz, Convin, and TeaMonk raise capital

Cubyts raises $1.8M from Better Capital

Cubyts, a design tech SaaS startup, has raised $1.8 million in seed round funding from Better Capital. The startup aims to utilise the funding for product research and development, brand building, and sales.

Founded by Aurobinda Pradhan, Shashank Deshpande, and Raghunandan S, Cubyts has developed a DesignOps platform for designers, designOps managers, and product owners to manage and scale the design function. It helps codify design culture by efficiently managing the design processes and activities, improving collaboration, and measuring impact on business.

“At Cubyts, it’s our mission to empower and inspire every product team to scale their design operations and deliver sustainable impact on the business through design maturity,” said Aurobinda Pradhan, Co-founder and CEO, Cubyts.

Baaz raises $700K from Lead Angels, RISO Capital, and HNIs

Baaz, a video ecommerce startup, has raised $700k from Lead Angels and RISO Capital along with several HNIs. It aims to utilise this capital to enhance its product and technology along with growing its as well as customer base.

Founded in March 2020 by Chitresh Parihar and Ruben Gregory, Baaz enables independent entrepreneurs to sell online using videos in an engaging and profitable manner.

On the funding raised, Chitresh, Co-founder and CEO, Baaz, said, “The invested capital will provide more fuel to our exponentially growing rocket ship, provide more value to our customers and expand our team of rockstars. We are well on our way to grow by 2500 percent in terms of GMV, achieve 50 million minutes of video watch time and 500k products sold by the end of 2022.”

According to Baaz, since coming out of beta in January 2021, it has been growing entrepreneurs’ business by 90 per cent month on month and the video watch times have shown an increment by 500 percent.

Convin raises Rs 16 Cr in seed round led by Kalaari Capital

Convin, an AI tech startup that enables virtual assisted selling for businesses, has raised Rs 16 crore in seed round of funding led by Kalaari Capital with participation from Good Capital, Plan B Innovations, Bharat Founders Fund, and Digital Sparrow.

Founded in 2021 by Ashish Santhalia, Bharat Patidar, Atul Shree and Durgesh Choudary, Convin provides tools which help increase in conversion rates, sales process observability, conversational intelligence, and enhanced customer experience among others.

Convin said it will utilise the funds to further hone its end-to-end assisted selling platform and expand product & GTM teams.

Convin.ai co-founder Durgesh Choudhary said, “Assisted selling will stay and become even more crucial for enabling better conversions and great customer experiences. This validation from leading investors is a huge vote of confidence in our goal of transforming the entire model of assisted selling for businesses & their customers through an all-in-one platform.”

Eduvanz raises Rs 50 Cr in debt round

Eduvanz, a fintech startup that provides education loans, has raised Rs 50 crore in a debt round of funding with participation from MAS, Vivriti, Oxyzo, and Unifi AIF.

Eduvanz co-founder & CEO Varun Chopra said, “Our loan disbursements have close to doubled in FY22 at Rs 337 crore as against Rs 195 crore in FY21. This is a clear sign for us to continue our efforts towards making education across levels in India, far more accessible and affordable. Our in-house tech expertise has helped curate customised products for the learner-institute combination, ultimately resulting in flexibility for the user.”

Eduvanz was recently rated as BBB-/Stable by CRISIL reflecting its adequate capitalisation metrics for the current scale of operations and its first-mover advantage in a niche segment like education financing.

The company had total assets under management (AUM) of Rs 288.4 crore as of December 2021 and going forward, intends to have 70 percent of the AUM on an off-balance sheet, as against the current 62 percent.

TeaMonk raises Rs 3.5 Cr led by Inflection Point Ventures

Premium Tea brand Teamonk has raised Rs 3.5 crore in a pre-series A round of funding led by Inflection Point Ventures. The funds raised will be utilised for market expansion across the domestic and overseas market.

Founded by Ashok Mittal and Amit Dutta in 2017, TeaMonk is a D2C startup that offers more than 50 variants of premium tea. It has presence in countries like the US, UK, UAE, Canada, Germany, Australia, and India.

Ashok Mittal, Managing Director, TeaMonk said, “Covid has further heightened the need for wellness and immunity across socio-economic groups globally. We are delighted to fulfill this need through our range of 100% pure and natural, delicious tasting teas”.

The global specialty tea market is estimated at $5.8 billion and in India it is about $500 million growing at a CAGR 30 percent. The specialty teas account for 3 percent of tea consumption in India by volume, but about 18 percent by revenue.

Vinay Bansal, Founder & CEO, Inflection Point Ventures said, “TeaMonk, with their excellent product curation and innovation abilities, has over 64 specialty tea variants and has created exactly what is needed in the market. The brand is all set to emerge as a leader in the specialty tea segment.”

French Crown raises Rs 2 Cr from Velocity

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) startup French Crown, a premium menswear brand, has raised Rs 2 crore from Velocity.in, a revenue based financier.

Launched in 2017 by Bhavdip Ghevariya and Ilesh Ghevariya, French Crown claims to be selling over 3,000 SKU ranging from suits and shirts to boxers via its website. The brand today has its presence in 84 countries worldwide and generates over 60 percent of its revenues from outside India.

“The reason most brands only launch fresh stock twice a year is because of deadstock. In the apparel industry, the deadstock ratio is typically around 30 percent. However, at French Crown, we have negligible deadstock given our investments in the supply chain over the years. Further, we have identified niches like customizable products and plus-sized clothing, where competition is low and margins are high,” said Ilesh Ghevariya, Co-founder of French Crown.

This startup claimed that is annual run rate is Rs 72 crore with profit margin of 20 percent.

WiJungle raises seed capital from SOSV

Cybersecurity startup WiJungle has raised an undisclosed seed round of funding from US based venture capital firm SOSV. The startup plans to use this capital for enhancing its technical capabilities and sales expansion.

Founded by Karmesh Gupta ad Praveen Gupta, WiJungle claims it enables organisations to secure and strengthen their entire network through a single window. The AI and ML-driven security platform offers a security stack encompassing multiple standalone solutions.

WiJungle Co-founder & CEO Karmesh Gupta said,

“We decided to be a part of the SOSV program from the point of global scalability and the mentorship to co-work on our expansion plans. The cohort program proved to be an invaluable learning curve for us.”

According to this startup, it is currently serving the government and private sector across industry verticals like hospitality, healthcare, education, defence, transportation, retail, BFSI and ITES, among others.