Zaggle raises debt; Houseware, DocPlix raise early-stage deals

Craft beer maker Bira 91 raises $10M from MUFG Bank

Bira91, a premium beer company, has raised $10 million from Japan's largest bank MUFG Bank.

The company plans to use the capital to ramp up production, supply chain, and enhance innovation capabilities, the company said in a statement.

"We are eager to work with the Bira 91 team to further their growth story and enhance their footprint in India as well as across the globe," said Yasuhide Hayashi, Executive Officer, MUFG Bank.

In November, the Indian craft beer maker brand raised $70 million in Series-D funding round from Japanese beer company Kirin Holdings Co., to expand production capacity by commissioning new breweries and expanding its existing facilities

Vivitri Asset Management provides Rs 50 Cr in debt capital to Zaggle

Vivitri Asset Management has invested Rs 50 crore in Zaggle's first debenture issue, which will amortise over the next 40 months.

The interest payout will be quarterly, Vivitri added.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) fintech startup Zaggle was founded by serial entrepreneur Raj N in 2011 and provides expense management systems and employee rewards and recognition programme services to companies.

The Mumbai-based B2B company operates in three verticals—digital payments, cashback, and analytics, and serves startups, SMEs, and corporates.

Zaggle said it will use the capital raised from Vivitri to grow its newly launched products.

Vivitri Asset Management is a credit-focused asset manager that provides debt to mid-sized companies.

Healthtech startup DocPlix raises Rs 5 Cr

DocPlix, a startup that helps facilitate the exchange of data between patients and doctors, has raised Rs 5 crore in a pre-Series A round from Eris Lifesciences.

Other angel investors participated in the round as well. DocPlix, in February last year, had raised Rs 1.2 crore in a seed round.

The startup will use the funds to scale up, for research and development, and expand its operations across India.

Lucknow-based DocPlix was founded in 2021 by Dr Varun Garg, Aayush Garg, and Dr Ajay Shukla and is an electronic, on-demand healthcare record provider.

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IppoPay invests $500,000 in I-CampusBuddy

Chennai-based fintech startup IppoPay has made a strategic investment of $500,000 in I-CampusBuddy, an ERP software company.

I-CampusBuddy helps educational institutions automate processes and digitise themselves. It offers solutions for a variety of operations, including finance, academics, collaboration, communication, etc.

IppoPay says its investment in the startup will help it establish a distribution network for its financial products in schools and colleges.

"The education payments space is an area we are actively evaluating and seeking to enhance the capabilities of educational institutions by offering ERP and payments collection services to schools and colleges," said Ramprashanth Ganesan, CSO of IppoPay.

Houseware raises $2.1M in seed funding

SaaS startup Houseware said it has raised $2.1 million in seed funding led by Tanglin Venture Partners.

GTMfund, Better Capital, and investors from the SaaS community in India, including Snowflake, Stripe, Carta, Zendesk, and Superhuman, among others, also invested in the round.

The startup will use the funding to grow its customer base and expand its team.

Houseware, founded in 2021 by BITS Pilani Alumni Divyansh Saini and Shubhankar Srivastava, helps SaaS businesses to create CRMs built on cloud data warehouses.

"Houseware is building at the cusp of two really broad markets—the modern data stack and system of records like the CRM inside SaaS companies. Divyansh and Shubhankar are exceptional founders with deep product thinking," said Sankalp Gupta, Partner at Tanglin Venture Partners.

Inker Robotics raises $1.2M in funding

Thrissur-based startup Inker Robotics has raised $1.2 million in its pre-seed round from AHK Ventures.

Part of Kerala's Startup Mission programme, Inker Robotics is focused on creating educational tools to teach robotics and AI and R&D and product development in India, aiming to bridge the skill gap between existing skills and the current requirements of the broader industry.

"We are witnessing the future with the enormous technological changes happening daily. There is a need for creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the youth at a global scale, and we strongly believe Inker has the potential to make a significant impact," said AHK Ventures.

The investment will help Inker enhance its training platform, Inkerlearn, and deliver more engaging content in the field of robotics and emerging technologies.

Fire-Boltt spends $1M to expand into Vietnam

Smart wearables startup Fire-Boltt has invested $1 million to expand into Vietnam as part of its plan to capture Southeast Asia.

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"We see Vietnam as a high-potential market for us. The investment will boost our operations in Vietnam and help us to gain a strong foothold in the region," said Arnav Kishore, Founder and CEO at Fire-Boltt.

"Just like India, Vietnam is also a price-sensitive market, so our target is to provide the most affordable and feature-loaded products to our consumers without compromising on quality," he added.

The startup has partnered with SmartechSG to expand into Vietnam and Singapore. It has also set its sights on Indonesia and Malaysia.

GrayQuest raises $7M in Series A round

GrayQuest, a fintech startup focused on India’s education ecosystem, raised Rs 56 crore (approximately $7 million) in its Series A funding round.

The round was led by Pravega Ventures, with participation from family investors such as Weizmann Group, Telama Family Office, and Apurva Parekh (Pidilite Family Office). Existing investors—family offices of Ashok Wadhwa (Founder, Ambit Capital) and Yogesh Mahansaria also invested in the round.

Further, angel investors Kunal Shah and Miten Sampat (CRED), Anupam Mittal (Shaadi.Com), David Piexoto (Isaac), Sujeet Kumar (Udaan), Abhishek Goyal (Traxcn), Nitin Gupta (UNI), Pravin Jadhav (Raise Financial Services), Aakrit Vaish (Haptik), and Dhyanesh Shah and Revant Bhate (Mosaic Wellness) also participated in the round.

The startup offers educational institutions a unified payment platform to enable them to digitise and boost their fee collection. It enables institutions to offer their parents multiple tailor-made payment options, including a convenient monthly payment option to pay their annual education fees without bearing any extra costs.

GrayQuest will utilise the proceeds to further enhance its product offerings and scale distribution across the education ecosystem.

(Disclaimer: Corrects the name of DocPlix's investor from Eris Healthcare to Eris Lifesciences)