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Untap Health wants to help offices and care homes track risk from bugs like flu and COVID-19

TechCrunchTechCrunch · 1y ago
Untap Health wants to help offices and care homes track risk from bugs like flu and COVID-19
Medial

London-based startup Untap Health is using wastewater-based epidemiology to detect traces of diseases in collective sewage, thus providing real-time intelligence on the risk of infectious diseases within a community. Traditional sewage surveillance methods can take several days or even a week to deliver results, but Untap Health aims to provide continuous testing and stream insights to a digital dashboard, enabling building managers and health and safety leads to monitor infectious disease risk in real-time. The startup is developing a multi-pathogen detection capability and plans to automate PCR testing of collective sewage to prevent outbreaks and provide same-day infection data. So far, Untap Health has raised under $2 million and is looking to raise further funding to support manufacturing of its hardware.

Peter Thiel's 4 Rules For Creating A Great Business

InternetInternet · 5m ago
Peter Thiel's 4 Rules For Creating A Great Business
Medial

In Silicon Valley, the PayPal Mafia reins supreme. So much so that it is hard to think of any successful technology startup in the last ten years—from Facebook and LinkedIn to YouTube and Yelp—that hasn’t been touched by it in some way. The Don of the PayPal mafia, Peter Thiel, is one of the most intriguing characters in business today. He was a founder of PayPal, as well of data analysis firm Palantir, and is also a successful investor, creating both Clarium Capital and the Founders Fund. Yet it is not only Thiel’s enormous success that makes him interesting, but also his contrarian views, such as his libertarian politics and his program that pays kids to drop out of college. Tap on source to read it all.

Men’s sexual health brand Bold Care raises $5 Mn

EntrackrEntrackr · 5m ago
Men’s sexual health brand Bold Care raises $5 Mn
Medial

Men’s sexual health and wellness brand Bold Care has raised $5 million in a funding round co-led by Nithin Kamath’s Rainmatter, CaratLane co-founder Mithun and Siddhartha Sacheti, the Dhanani family, AVT Group, along with participation from Gruhas Collective Consumer Fund and NB Ventures. Entrackr exclusively reported on the deal in December. The proceeds will be used to strengthen research and development (R&D), scale the brand’s digital presence, and develop sexual health solutions for both men and women, Bold Care said in a press release. Co-founded in 2020 by Rajat Jadhav, Rahul Krishnan, Harsh Singh, Mohit Yadav, and actor Ranveer Singh, Bold Care provides solutions for issues such as premature ejaculation (PE) and erectile dysfunction (ED). It also offers condoms and lubricants and claims to have fulfilled over 30 lakh (3 million) orders so far. Bold Care has recently expanded into the women’s wellness sector with the launch of Bloom, offering solutions for women’s health concerns, including sexual health, personal hygiene, menopause, menstrual care, and pregnancy. The Mumbai-based startup currently sells its products through its own website, as well as on e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, and Meesho. It is also available on quick commerce platforms. According to market research, sexual health issues affect approximately 90-95 million men in India. For the fiscal year ending March 2024 (FY24), Bold Care’s revenue from operations increased by 6.67% to Rs 32.9 crore from Rs 30.90 crore in FY23. However, the company also reported a 21.46% increase in losses to Rs 19.3 crore in the last fiscal year. Bold Care competes with other D2C sexual and wellness brands, including Man Matters, Kindly, Sukham, Kapiva, and Sassiest, among others.

Decoding Groww’s $200 Mn pre-IPO funding round

EntrackrEntrackr · 1m ago
Decoding Groww’s $200 Mn pre-IPO funding round
Medial

Decoding Groww’s $200 Mn pre-IPO funding round The development comes just days after the company filed a confidential DRHP with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Groww is looking to raise $700 million to $1 billion through an IPO. Billionbrains Garage Ventures Limited, the parent firm of Groww, is raising Rs 1,735 crore (approximately $200 million) in a fresh round led by Singapore-based GIC and existing investor ICONIQ Capital. The development comes just days after the company filed a confidential DRHP with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Groww is looking to raise $700 million to $1 billion through an IPO. The board at Groww has passed a special resolution to issue 3.59 crore preference shares at an issue price of Rs 482.8 each to raise the aforesaid amount, its filing accessed from the Registrar of Companies shows. Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), through its affiliate Viggo Investment, will be injecting Rs 867.5 crore ($100 million) while ICQNIC Capital will contribute a similar amount through its entity ISP VII-B Blocker GW. According to the filing, the company will use these proceeds for the growth of its existing business and its subsidiaries. Following the fresh proceeds both ISP Blocker and Viggo Investment will hold 1.43% each. As per Entrackr’s estimates, Groww will be valued at $7 billion post-money. Groww has raised close to $600 million so far from investors including Peak XV, Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, and YC Continuity. The company was last valued at approximately $3 billion after securing $251 million in its Series E round in October 2021. According to a company internal document, Groww reported a 31% jump in its revenue to Rs 4,056 crore in FY25 whereas its profit jumped 3X jump to Rs 1819 crore in the same period. Groww reported revenue of Rs 3,145 crore and an operating profit of Rs 545 crore in FY24. However, it paid a one-time tax of Rs 1,340 crore for shifting domicile to India, leading to a net loss of Rs 805 crore in FY24. Its audited financial numbers for the fiscal year ending March 2025 has yet to be reported with the RoC.

Recur Club plans to deploy Rs 2,000 Cr in 2024: Interview with Eklavya Gupta

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
Recur Club plans to deploy Rs 2,000 Cr in 2024: Interview with Eklavya Gupta
Medial

Revenue-based financing as an alternative source of working capital is gradually receiving wide acceptability, especially among growth-stage startups. The relevance of such alternative funding sources is now far more pertinent considering the so-called funding winter wherein chances of startups scoring equity capital are slim. In recent years, several revenue-centered financing platforms have emerged with Getvantage, Velocity, and Klub being some of the notable names. Gurugram-based Recur Club has also emerged as a notable player in the space with an allocation of Rs 1,100 crore across 500 startups in 2023. The company is now looking to expand its reach in the startup ecosystem. The roadmap includes onboarding a higher number of startups as well as more investment deployment. To better understand Recur Club’s business, growth and projections, Entrackr caught up with its co-founder and chief executive officer Eklavya Gupta. Recur has backed startups like Ustraa, Rage Coffee, Moveinsync, Keka HR, Xoxodays, and others. In July last year, the platform launched a $10 million fund to back startups actively working towards a greener and more sustainable future. Recur Club isn’t looking to raise any fresh capital at the moment. “We are well capitalized and not looking to raise any money in the near future. Our priority is to onboard 500 – 700 startups this year and deploy Rs 2,000 crore through its platform,” Gupta said. Gupta disclosed that nearly half of the company’s deals are in SaaS and tech sectors, whereas the remaining is deployed towards commerce and logistics. The investment pattern is pretty similar to other revenue-based financing platforms’. Recur Club offers credit in the range of Rs 20 lakh to Rs 35 crore which yields an IRR (internal rate of return) of anywhere between 15% and 19%. While large borrowers typically pay back the loan amount in 12 to 18 months, short-term loans are required to be paid between 50-90 days. Recur Club connects startups with over 50 prominent lenders, including Tata Capital, HSBC, Aditya Birla Capital, INCRED, Ugro Capital, and various other NBFCs, banks, and institutional capital providers. According to Gupta, Recur Club assesses leads on three core premises: average revenue run rate (ARR) of at least Rs 1 crore, six months runway and positive revenue growth. Recur Club makes money by charging a small percentage from both ends: borrowers and lenders. “Depending on the type of investors and companies, we charge 0.5% to 3%,” added Gupta.

Return Prime aims to make return management seamless for brands

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
Return Prime aims to make return management seamless for brands
Medial

Bengaluru-based Return Prime provides a customer return platform which includes a business dashboard for managing returns. The company aims to make it easier for brands, specially smaller ones, to use its services through a plug-and-play model. Beyond basic returns, brands can use the Return Prime platform for automating return logistics, refunds, replacements, and more. We spoke to founder and CEO Shashwat Swaroop to learn more about Return Prime, what distinguishes it from the competition and the roadmap ahead. Here are the edited excerpts: How did you come up with this idea? I have always been extremely passionate about creating something and solving problems, building my brand which helped other people solve their challenges was always something that I intended to do. Once an eCommerce brand came to me with their return management nightmare. They were doing everything manually and it was too cumbersome. It was not only time-consuming but was impacting their customer experience too. Customers were used to a certain speed, standards, and experience, and to ensure their shoppers wouldn’t leave them, they needed a solution to cater to this. But building a whole software program was just out of reach – both financially and in terms of time! I then began researching, and my study confirmed what I suspected – there was a massive gap in the market for managing returns. Existing solutions were few and far between, and mostly focused on the US. We saw a chance to empower brands worldwide to make return management extremely seamless, one that ensures their GMV losses are minimized while customer experience is maximized, that’s what led to the birth of Return Prime. Please help understand how you generate revenues. The pricing models are quite fair and simple. This was one of the most important things for us to simplify. When we started building Return Prime, we were simplifying the complicated experience of returns for both brands and their customers so keeping everything around Return Prime simple was important. The pricing model is just based on the scale of business which is how many returns they do in a given month. One can start with the Free Forever plan if they are a small brand and pay nothing forever. They only have to choose a paid plan when they start to grow. As you grow, you can choose one of our Grow plans which starts at $9.99 a month. What are the key challenges in the industry that have not been addressed yet? And how do you plan to address this? We are working to solve the way businesses see returns. The correct solution is not to focus on reducing the returns but on figuring out how you can turn your returns into a revenue-making opportunity. Returns are simply inevitable so the merit is not in reducing it by another few per cent but in converting the majority of it into additional revenue. We are constantly working on it and on average, our brands see an ROI of 183%+ with Return Prime, which is on the cost they pay for Return Prime every month. This is going up constantly with our focused effort to turn returns into revenue. How has your startup performed since its inception? Please share statistics. We have been growing from day 1, completely bootstrapped. We grew 150% YoY in the last 3 years and this is not just India, across the globe. We serve merchants in 100+ countries today and our market share across these countries continues to increase every year. In the last 3 years, we have processed over 12 million returns for brands and customers globally. What are your short-term and long-term goals in terms of product and business expansion and diversification? From a product expansion point of view, we are focused on increasing the ROI for our brands as we believe in keeping strong fundamentals. While we do this, we will continue to increase our market share across other regions as well along with India. As consumer behaviour evolves, we are also trying to help brands offer Omnichannel returns experiences to their customers making it super easy and delightful for them. This not only helps the customer but also increases the repeat purchase and LTV for brands as this customer will trust them even more. On the other hand, we are also trying to help bigger brands solve more complex operational problems and policies which now with Return Prime is just a matter of click. We will continue to simplify complexities as we grow along with brands. In terms of geographical expansion, we will go deeper into some of the regions and increase our market share while we continue to turn returns into revenue for the rest of the world.

Funding and acquisitions in Indian startups this week [5 - 10 Feb]

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
Funding and acquisitions in Indian startups this week [5 - 10 Feb]
Medial

Funding infusion in the startup ecosystem surged 2.4x this week compared to the previous seven days. Of 39 startups which scooped up $240 million cumulatively this week, 29 deals belonged to the early stage startups. Remaining eight deals went to growth stage startups. Two startups did not disclose the amount it raised. Last week, 13 early and growth stage startups collectively raised around $84.5 million, including two undisclosed deals. [Growth-stage deals] This week, eight growth startups raised nearly $140 million funding. Electric vehicle manufacturer River spearheaded the lot with $40 million fundraise followed by real estate consultancy firm Anarock and clean energy firm Lohum which raised $24 million and $23 million B funding, respectively. E-commerce roll-up firm GlobalBees and electric vehicle financing platform Mufin Green Finance also raised notable funding to make it to the top five deals. Agritech startup BigHaat, vernacular news aggregator DailyHunt’s parent Verse Innovation and D2C apparel brand Bombay Shirt Company also raised capital this week. [Early-stage deals] Among the early-stage startups, 29 startups secured funding worth $100 million. Smart home automation firm Keus is on top of the list with a $12 million fundraise followed by two-wheeler electric vehicle finance platform OTO, biotechnology startup Pandorum, creator-focused commerce startup Wishlink and office space provider DevX. The list further includes SaaS startup Attentive, EV firm Vidyut, cleantech company Metafin, healthtech entity Khyaal and home appliance firm Upliance.ai. During the week, the manufacturer of reusable rockets that bring both the stages of the rocket back into earth, EtherealX and digital infrastructure innovations startup PlanckDOT also raised capital but did not disclose the funding amount. For more information, visit TheKredible. [City and segment-wise deals] In terms of city-wise number of funding deals, Bengaluru-based startups again led the list with 12 deals. This was followed by Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, and Chennai. Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Vadodara, Navi Mumbai and Thane are next on the list. The complete breakdown of the city and segment can be found at TheKredible. [Series wise deals] This week, equivalent to 17 startups raised funding in their seed round followed by Series A (11) and Series B (4) deals. The list also counts debt, pre-Series A, Series C and pre-Series C funding deals. [Week-on-week funding trend] On a weekly basis, startup funding soared 184% to $240 million as compared to $84.5 million in the previous week. The average funding in the last eight weeks stands around $251 million with 24 deals per week. [Departures] The week also saw a few notable departures. Ather Energy’s CFO Deepak Jain is departing the company, with Sohil Parekh taking over his role. Swiggy’s independent director Mallika Srinivasan has resigned after a year, and Freshworks’ CRO Pradeep Rathinam is stepping down after almost four years, to be succeeded by Abe Smith as the new global field operations leader. Shinjini Kumar and Manju Agarwal have reportedly quit Paytm’s payments bank board. [Fund launches] Cactus Venture Partners (CVP) closed its first fund at over Rs 630 crore, while GrowthCap Ventures, led by former BharatPe executive Pratekk Agarwaal, has reached the first close of its debut fund at Rs 20 crore. Additionally, Orient Growth Ventures has closed its second fund for India and Southeast Asia (SEA) at $90 million. [Layoffs/Shutdown] This week, Licious and Blissclub laid off a part of their workforce, affecting 3% and 18% of employees respectively. Meanwhile, Muvin shut down operations due to RBI regulations on UPI co-branding. [Merger & Acquisition] The week also witnessed six M&A deals including the acquisition of Spartan Poker by OneVerse, Kuvera by CRED, LotusPay by Juspay, and Qdigi Services by Onesitego. Healthtech firm Thyrocare and logistics firm Deliver.sg also joined the list with the acquisitions of Think Health Diagnostics and BusyBee, respectively. Visit TheKredible to see series wise deals and amount breakup, complete details of fund launches, departures and more insights. [New launches] ▪️ Cleartrip launches Out of Office to foray into the corporate travel space ▪️ Meesho launches logistics marketplace Valmo ▪️ Flipkart introduces 3-hour fresh flower delivery service [Financial results this week] ▪️ Leverage Edu revenue spikes 3.2X to Rs 69 Cr in FY23 ▪️ Infra.Market posts Rs 11,846 Cr gross revenue in FY23; remains profitable ▪️ FabHotels reports Rs 219 Cr revenue and Rs 5 Cr loss in FY23 ▪️ Chingari crosses Rs 100 Cr revenue in FY23; losses decline 70% ▪️ Hike’s revenue soars 8X to Rs 150 Cr in FY23; losses up 24% ▪️ Zomato posts Rs 3,288 Cr revenue and Rs 138 Cr profit in Q3 FY24 [News flash this week] ▪️ Vanguard marks down Ola’s valuation to $1.88 Bn ▪️ Zoho, Juspay, Decentro get RBI nod for payment aggregator biz ▪️ Orios Venture gets 45X returns in a partial exit from Country Delight [Entrackr’s analysis] Evident from the numbers, weekly funding has made a strong comeback with investments worth nearly $240 million. The back-to-back startup focused fund announcements also hint at the optimism in the Indian startup ecosystem. Continuous layoffs and business closures, however, give a hard reality check to the sector, which is trying to recover from the so-called funding winter. US-based asset management company Vanguard has marked down Ola’s valuation, pegging it at less than $2 billion. This marks the third consecutive devaluation of Ola by Vanguard since February 2023. Meanwhile, several prominent players have secured payment aggregator licenses from the central bank. This includes SaaS unicorn Zoho and fintech firms Juspay and Decentro. Additionally, early-stage venture capital firm Orios Venture Partners took a partial exit from dairy startup Country Delight with a 45X return on the firm’s initial investment. In a positive development, publicly traded companies such as Zomato, MamaEarth, and Nykaa have persistently remained in green, indicating their steady progress towards evolving into sustainable enterprises.

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