Every Monday, I sit with my team to review the funding activity of the previous week. Then, I pick out a few companies that I would have loved to invest in or find founders doing similar things from that list. Here is my rationale behind this weekly exercise.
After a week of recuperating from COVID19, I am back with the weekly picks!
Last 2 weeks, 73 startups raised $843 million year-to-date, the month of January has seen a steady funding momentum as Indian startups have raised more than $1.50 billion in total capital.
The third week of January witnessed Indian startups raising a total funding amount of $433 million, cutting across 35 deals. In the previous week, they had raised $410 million.
After sifting through the news (aggregated from Tracxn, Inc42, and YourStory), I picked three as my favorite funding news from last week!
Name: Threedots
Amount Raised: Raised $4 million in a seed round led by Kalaari Capital.
What does Threedots do?
Edited from Traxcn: Online investment platform for the stock market trading. It enables users to buy, sell, and trade in multiple stocks. It helps users to make decisions based on financial advice. It features a forum for stock market discussion and news updates, real-time analysis, and more. The application is available on Android and iOS platforms.
Why do I like Threedots?
Investments are social, and Threedots capitalizes on that belief through its app.
It will be interesting to see how much of the live discussions turn into trades and (most importantly) into profitable LTVs for the platform.
Name: Trainn
Amount Raised: Raised $700K (around Rs 5 crore) in a seed round of funding led by Speciale Invest.
What does Trainn do?
Edited from Traxcn: Providing a platform for user onboarding through video tutorials. The platform offers video-based training tools that let customer success teams build and personalize customer experiences via video tutorials. It increases the conversion rates, eases the onboarding process, etc. Also, it provides options for screen recording, voice-over typing, etc. It works on a subscription plan.
Why do I like Trainn?
I have been a Trainn promoter to our founders much before this funding round after Vishesh introduced me to their offering when we caught up in Chennai. The number of digital offerings, especially B2B SaaS platforms, has gone up exponentially in a relatively short amount of time.
A platform like Trainn eases the pressure on the customer support & success departments by providing short “how-to” videos for frequently solved problems. Our founders love it, and I am sure Trainn’s investors will love it too!
Name: Qarmatek
Amount Raised: Raised $3 million in a funding round led by GVFL and Caspian Debt.
What does Qarmatek do?
Edited from Qarmatek.com: Two technocrats who identified a massive gap in the organized repair market assumed the role of an after-sales support partner for repairs and refurbishment for major electronic appliances and mobile phone brands.
Why do I like Qarmatek?
Any Indian brand will quickly lose its appeal and luster if a customer faces issues with its after-sales service. Therefore, any major electronic brand will tell you that a significant portion of its expenses is creating and maintaining its after-sales service network.
Qarmatek wants to aggregate the issues of multiple Indian electronic brands by creating a super hub for repairs, maintenance, and even refurbishment of electronic items. It is an idea that I have invested in twice in my startup investing career. If the execution is kept lean, the promise’s payoff will be huge!
