[Funding roundup] Ecozen, Rooba Finance, Innovist, Yatrikart, TESSOL, MicroGO, Kytchens raise capital

Climate-smart deeptech startup Ecozen raises first tranche of Series C funding led by Dare Ventures

Climate-smart deeptech startup Ecozen has raised Rs 54 crore of additional funding as part of the first tranche of a planned Rs 200 crore Series C round. The new funding round was led by Dare Ventures, the venture capital arm of Coromandel International, with participation from existing investors Caspian and Hivos-Triodos Fonds (managed by Triodos Investment Management) through equity.

Northern Arc, UC Inclusive Credit, Maanaveeya, and Samunnati also participated with debt funding. Early investors in Ecozen include IFA and Omnivore.

Ecozen develops climate-smart deeptech solutions and core technology stacks to deliver a sustainable future, including motor controls, IoT, and energy storage. Applying these technology stacks to the agricultural sector, Ecozen claims to have revolutionised cold chains (Ecofrost) and the irrigation industry (Ecotron), substantially improving the income of 100,000+ farmers and enabling the generation of over 1 billion units of clean energy (kWh). Headquartered in Pune, Ecozen was founded on-campus by three IIT Kharagpur alumni Devendra Gupta, Prateek Singhal, and Vivek Pandey. 

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Institutional Crypto & Digital Asset Management Platform Rooba Finance raises $1.3 M in Seed round led by IPV

Institutional Crypto and Digital Asset Management Platform Rooba Finance has raised $1.3 million in a seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures. The round also saw participation from LetsVenture, Endurance Capital, KubeVC, and Other prominent angel investors. The funds raised will be utilised towards platform development, setting up a licenced platform overseas, and to enable a global GTM.

Rooba’s self custodial full stack digital asset management platform helps institutions, family offices, HNI’s, hedge funds, and others to securely custody their digital assets through a Threshold Multi Party Computation based custody network, and create trade strategies with a wide range of Defi apps, Layer 1 protocols, derivatives, etc., all from the convenience of a single dashboard.

Innovist raises $3.5M in Pre-Series A round led by Accel Partners and 72 Ventures

Onesto Labs, rebranded as Innovist, the parent company of Gurugram-based D2C hair brand Bare Anatomy, Chemist at Play (India’s first ceramide-based skincare brand), and SunScoop (a sunscreen-only brand) has raised $3.5 million. The Pre-Series A funding round was led by existing investors Accel Partners and 72 Ventures.

Other existing investors Sauce (Manu Chandra) and Arihant Patni (Patni Family Office) and new investors Jani Ventures Inc, Nihir Parikh, Rashmi Kwatra (Sixteen Street Capital), Kunal Shah (Cred), Alok Mittal, and Shripad Nadkarni (Maverix Platforms & Fingerlix) also participated.

Innovist said it will use the freshly infused capital to further strengthen the company’s R&D capabilities, marketing, hiring, and distribution channels.

Rohit Chawla, Founder and CEO of Innovist, said, “The name Innovist was coined after we decided to rebrand from Onesto because we are a science and innovation-led platform, and we wanted the name to reflect that. The journey so far has been incredible. We are grateful to our investors for their renewed faith in us and for always staying aligned with our vision. Their unrelenting support has helped lay a strong foundation upon which our success is built. With the new capital, we are confident that we can bolster our infrastructure substantially and grow further.”

Tech-enabled transit retail chain Yatrikart raises $450K in seed round

Calling themselves Bharat ka WH-Smith, Yatrikart has raised $450K in a seed round from Shuru-Up's Digital Platform and Artha Venture Fund.

Yatrikart is a tech-enabled transit retail chain, enabling micro-entrepreneurship by empowering hawkers and retailers at transit stations and creating a new retail format--Retailing on the go. Yatrikart aims to open 100+ new formats by 2023 and will utilise this investment to expand its infrastructure, improve technology, and hire talent.

Yatrikart started its business operations in October 2021 and has witnessed tremendous growth since then. Today, it has more than 25 stores and carts, serving millions of customers yearly at railway stations, bus and taxi stands, and highways. The stores and formats are tailored to meet the customers' travel needs as the startup has become the trusted source for travel essentials.

Commenting on the investment, Team Shuru-Up, said, "We believe that it is very difficult to find a startup which solves a problem faced by each and every individual in the world. After meeting the co-founders Gaurav Rana and Shivangee Sharma, it was a no-brainer to join them on their journey as they solve the problem of transit retail".

Cold Chain Solution provider, TESSOL raises Rs 7.5 Cr from Mela VenturesEx

TESSOL, a globally recognised Indian Cold Chain Solution provider that aims to solve the last-mile distribution problem, has raised Rs 7.5 crore from Mela Ventures. Existing Investors 1crowdAngels and 1Fund also participated in this round.

The funds raised will be utilised in geographical expansion, capacity building, team building, new products, and application development.

The journey of the Mumbai-based startup is intriguing as it pivoted the greatest pain point, which was the unfeasibility and unreliability of the last-mile cold chain in India, into a great opportunity for itself and associated partners.

Commenting on the funding, Rajat Gupta, Founder & CEO, TESSOL, said, “The pandemic has led to a sudden increase in the demand for food and pharmaceutical last-mile cold chain globally. Having proven our position as a market leader in India, this is the most opportune time to invest in scaling our solutions globally and planning our foray into new application areas. We shall be investing in further enhancing our internal R&D and application engineering capabilities and building the foundation to be a global category leader in this space.” 

Alumni Ventures joins Innoviti’s Series D fundraise

Alumni Ventures, one of the most active venture capital firms in the world with over 1,000 portfolio companies and over $1B in assets under management, has joined Innoviti’s Series D round, taking the funds raised in Series D to Rs 160 crore ($22M).

Alumni Ventures has funds from alumni of MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and other top US universities. Its network and community are the secret sauce for identifying top-notch opportunities around the world.

Innoviti had carried out a second close of Rs 75 crore from FMO N.V., a Development Finance Bank, from the Netherlands in May 2022. With Alumni joining the cap table, Innoviti has raised Rs 160 crore in Series D till date. The company will be raising another Rs 140 crore over the next few weeks towards the final closing of a Rs 300 crore Series D round.

Biotech firm MicroGO raises Pre-Series A funding of Rs 6 Cr from angel investors

Biotech firm MicroGO, a pioneer in providing smart and sustainable hygiene and infection control solutions, has raised Rs 6 crore in Pre-Series A funding from angel investors in Kolkata. The funds will be used primarily for strengthening MicroGO’s sales and marketing activities.

Aiming to solve the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) challenges through R&D-based manufacturing, MicroGO began it's journey of innovation in 2016, piloting its technologies with anchor customers in 2020, and product commercialisation in 2022. 

MicroGO aims to provide its customers with a 360° hygiene and infection control solutions by innovative technologies that deliver the correct science and provides profitability and environmental sustainability.  MicroGO holds patented platforms that have been granted patents in as low as 90 days--one of the fastest patent granted in India. 

Kytchens raises Rs 6.5 Cr equity from Anicut Capital, other marquee investors

Kytchens, a full-stack "Kitchen as a Service'' platform, raised Rs 6.5 crore in Pre-Series A round led by Anicut, supported by angel investors, including Anand Ladsariya, Bharat Jaisinghani, and Neeraj Goenka, among others.

Kytchens said the funding will empower it to build a robust and agile team with the right skill sets and capabilities to accelerate its growth in the Indian market. Additionally, the cloud kitchen service provider will aim towards expanding its footprints across Mumbai and nearby cities like Pune and Nashik in Maharashtra and across Tier II markets in South Gujarat.

Furthermore, Kytchens will allocate funds towards exemplifying its services as a strategic partner in enabling the growth of F&B brands with the strong managed cloud kitchen network consisting of strategically located Central and Delivery Kytchens to maximise reach.