Every Monday, I sit with my team to review the funding activity of the previous week. 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.
Last week 16 startups raised $403 million, marking a trend of improving deals and amounts raised. The good news should continue, and we will have record numbers in amounts invested into India startups in FY22.
This week, 12 deals were in the early-stage rounds (compared to 15 last week), making my weekly analysis cut. After sifting through the news (aggregated from Tracxn, Inc42, and YourStory), I picked three as my favorite funding news from last week!
Name: Scenes
Amount Raised: Undisclosed amount from Tanglin Ventures, Better Capital, Whiteboard Capital, iSeed Ventures Blume Founders Fund, and angels.
What does Scenes do?
Edited from Tracxn: App-based messaging platform to connect with new people. Its platform allows users to meet new people with similar interests. The company leverages blockchain technology to reward users for making conversations. Its mobile app is available for Android devices.
Why do I like Scenes?
The resounding success of Clubhouse was going to replicate itself through a founding team in India. I am not a fan of copycat startups, but there were several places where Scenes trump Clubhouse when you start looking beyond the surface comparisons. I like the crypto-rewards of Avacoins to top engagers, but whether those coins will actually have value will remain to be seen.
Name: Kodo
Amount Raised: $8.75 million from Brex, Y-Combinator, Goat Capital, and others.
What does Kodo do?
Edited from Tracxn: Kodo offers credit cards for startups. It can be used for business expenses, money transfers, online/offline purchases, and more. It provides tools for monitoring transactions. The credit limit can be increased/decreased by the locks/unlocks on the card.
Why do I like Kodo?
Credit cards for startups and/or small businesses are a huge opportunity, and I am super excited that 3 well-funded startups are working on this massive opportunity. The banks have a gigantic blind spot for this opportunity, and it would take 5-8 well-scaled startups to fully address the demand for these corporate credit cards!
Name: Get My Parking
Amount Raised: $6 million from IvyCap Ventures and IAN Fund.
What does Get My Parking do?
Edited from Tracxn: Acts as a parking spot marketplace, with automobile owners on one end and parking lot managers on the other. Users can search for parking lots, obtain pricing, and book in advance. It offers services like cashless booking, event parking, valet parking, etc. It provides a mobile-based POS system for parking lot owners to manage their assets.
Why do I like Get My Parking?
Get My Parking pivoted from a B2C offering to a B2B SaaS offering, opening up a plethora of revenues for itself by solving the problems of parking lot owners. There is a large and growing market for this in India, but I believe that the ARPUs in overseas markets are severalfold of Indian ARPUs.
There is a bright future for managing a much-mismanaged asset!
