[Funding roundup] Unravel Data, Cheelizza, Chumbak at different stages of fundraising

Unravel Data raises $50M in Series D funding

Unravel Data, a data observability platform, said it has raised $50 million in Series D funding led by Third Point Ventures, with participation from Bridge Bank and existing investors that include Menlo Ventures, Point 72, GGV Capital, and Harmony Capital. With this, Unravel Data has raised a total of $107 million.

The company, which recently announced the opening of its second office in Hyderabad (the first is in Bengaluru), is looking to triple its employee count, especially in functions such as artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud development operations.

Unravel Data will use the funds to enhance its platform and make better sense of data stacks within and across popular data ecosystems such as Databricks, Snowflake, Amazon EMR, BigQuery, and Dataproc.

USAID selects 8 social enterprises for first cohort of Yash Entrepreneurs Programme

Eight social enterprises have been selected as part of the first cohort of the Yash Entrepreneurs Programme, anchored by the US Agency for International Development, and led by Jhpiego, a nonprofit global health leader, and Villgro, a leading social enterprise incubator in India. Each of them will receive funding up to Rs 10 lakh.

In addition, the social enterprises will receive technical assistance, mentoring and incubation support from Villgro. The enterprises will make use of the network and resources of both Villgro and Jhpiego to scale their businesses and get follow-on funding from investors.

The eight social enterprises are: Curapy Health Private Limited, Kamacore Media Private Limited, StandWeSpeak, Green Delight Innovations Private Limited, Padcare Labs Private Limited, Pinky Promise Private Limited, Shivtensity Private Limited, and Thinkpods Education Services Private Limited.

Pizza chain Cheelizza raises Rs 4.11 Cr in a seed round led by IAN

Mumbai-based pure vegetarian pizza chain, Cheelizza, has raised Rs 4.11 crore in a seed round led by Indian Angel Network investors, Hari Balasubramanian, Uday Chatterjee, Deval Tibrewal, and Rajeev Sarda. Co-investors Sagar Daryani, Founder of Wow! Momo; Karan Tanna, Founder of Ghost Kitchens; and Rahul Surana, Principal at an international fund, also participated in the round.

Cheelizza, which was bootstrapped so far, has ten stores across Mumbai and Gujarat. The pizza chain will utilise the funds to expand its presence in Mumbai by opening 20 stores over the next one year. It plans to open 100 stores by 2025. Cheelizza is already in the process of hiring talent across senior leadership roles in business, operations, HR, marketing in addition to over 100 employees for their frontline store operations.

The pizza chain has increased its monthly recurring revenue from Rs 30 lakh to over Rs 1.4 crore.

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Chumbak raises Rs 3 Cr through Klub

Klub, a revenue-based financing platform, announced that Bengaluru-based gifting firm, Chumbak, has raised Rs 3 crore through its platform. Chumbak will use the funds to expand its brand presence by placing orders for new merchandise and drive discovery of its online platforms as the long festival season begins in India.

A couple of years ago, Chumbak had reportedly raised over Rs 7 crore in a Pre-Series E Round from Gaja Capital Fund. Klub provides fast and flexible capital to digital businesses without them having to dilute their equity. In a release shared with YourStory, Anurakt Jain, Co-Founder and CEO at Klub, observed that there has been an increase in the adoption of revenue-based financing by not just young startups but also by late-stage businesses.

Carbon Masters India raises undisclosed Pre-Series A funding

Bengaluru-based Carbon Masters India said in a release that it has raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Series A funding led by Schneider Electric Energy Access Asia (SEEAA). The funding round also saw participation from existing and new investors including Bharat Founders Fund, Sangam Ventures, Indian Angel Network, Nativelead Foundation, and Avalok Consultancy.

The startup is a tech-enabled platform sales platform for bio-CNG (compressed natural gas) and bio-enriched organic manure. These are sold under its brand name 'Carbonlites', which are produced from organic waste portion of Municipal Solid Waste and agriculture waste across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

We Founder Circle leads an undisclosed pre-seed round in Uma Robotics

Early-stage startup investment platform, We Founder Circle (WFC), and a few others have invested an undisclosed amount in Uma Robotics, a startup that makes customised robots for small and mid-sized factories. The startup will use the funds to expand its engineering team, build infrastructure, hardware/software for research and development, and for business development.

Founded by Suchit Sharma, who has over a decade's experience in the robotics industry, the startup provides sustainable logistics, automation and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to help warehouses and manufacturing companies to optimise costs by performing robotic-led heavy box and tote handling tasks that were typically performed by humans until now.

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Spiritual goods startup Poojai raises $1M from Billionaire Venture Capital

Poojai, a startup that sells products for worship, said that it has raised from a group of investors led by Billionaire Venture Capital, an investment firm that focuses on early-stage startups. The Chennai-based startup is planning to use the funds for developing its platform, hiring talent and increasing its customer base.

A brand of Rudra Retail Private Limited, Poojai focuses on what it terms the "spiritual essentials market". The startup says this market is estimated to be around $44 billion in India and that it is expected to grow at 10% CAGR. The startup says all its products are made by rural women at their homes. Poojai was founded by one of India's youngest entrepreneurs in India, Sresht Kalanjiam.

Artfine’s NBFC Factoring arm raises undisclosed funding in pre-seed round

Artfine's non-banking financial company (NBFC) factoring arm, Arth Padarth Factors and Finance Private Limited (AP Factors), has raised an undisclosed amount in its pre-seed funding round. The investors include the Family office of Manish Choksi and Jaspal Bindra (Chairman, Centrum Group), Ketan Gaikwad (MD & CEO, RXIL), Nitin Gupta (Founder, Unicards) and Vivek Vishwas Patel (Co-Founder, Go Payments).

AP Factors will use the funds to strengthen its technology stack, expand its team and operations across the country. It is the seventh factoring NBFC in India that is trying to bridge the cash crunch gap for the small and medium enterprises and micro, small and medium enterprises. AP Factors expects to cross the Rs 100-crore-mark in assets under management next year.

KinderPass raises $500k in pre-seed round

KinderPass, a behavioural health platform for children, said it has raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding from Goodwater Capital, Momentum VC, Better Capital, SuperMorpheus and Rebalance Angel Community. The startup is the country's first multilingual app that aims to transform paediatric behavioural health by offering online therapy and personalised support for developmental delays, learning difficulties and behaviour issues.

The app, which has a network of over 50 child experts, was launched in early 2020 and has crossed over 1.2 million downloads. The app is available in Hindi and English and will be launched in six other Indian languages soon. According to a release shared by the company, India ranks highest on the list of kids with developmental disabilities and the years lived with disabilities.