My Funding Picks For Last Week (W29)

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. 

Last week 28 startups raised $547 million. The ecosystem is flying high now that it set a solid base of 100 deals per month. With things looking rosy on the COVID reopening front, I expect that we should be doing 35-40 deals a month by the end of the year – especially after the resounding response to the Zomato IPO. 

This week, an overwhelming number of deals were in the early-stage rounds, making my weekly analysis cut. After sifting through the news (aggregated from TracxnInc42, and YourStory), I picked three as my favorite funding news from last week! 

NameHyreo 

Amount RaisedUndisclosed amount from Callapina Capital with participation from Anas Rahman Junaid, Konglo Ventures, Raveendranath Kamath, Nat Natraj and angels 

What does Hyreo do? 

Edited from Tracxn: Hyreo is a cloud-based recruitment suite for employers. Features offered by the solution include an integrated ATS, automated recruitment marketplace, and chatbot-enabled candidate support experience. Other features offered by the solution include NLP-driven resume parsing, social data integration, and candidate sourcing performance analysis. Kelly, Omnix, Shopalyst, SunTec, Unisoft, UST Global, Xpetize, Zerone Consulting, Adecco, AHC Consulting, AppLexus, and Emvigo constitute their clientele. 

Why do I like Hyreo? 

My familial routes and close association with several entrepreneurs – funded and bootstrapped provides a unique perspective when looking at Hyreo-style startups. It provides an answer to the woes of 80% of the founders that I converse with regularly.  

Therefore such B2B startups get me excited. Not only are we customers for them, I personally know an army of founders that would find value in them.  

NameDozee 

Amount RaisedRs 44 crore from Prime Venture Partners, YourNest Venture Capital and 3one4 Capital. 

What does Dozee do? 

Edited from Tracxn: AI-based patient monitoring system for healthcare providers. The company has developed software that enables hospital administrators to track and monitor early warning symptoms. It has features for vitals monitoring, telecommunication, reminders, health trend analysis, software integration, and more. 

Why do I like Dozee? 

I believe that startups offering the most simple-looking solution have a ton of complexity at the backend – Dozee for me falls into that category. It is a simple solution of using AI to enhance the capacity of nurses and doctors seems so simple. I can assure that it isn’t as simple as it seems – but the genius is in simplicity after all!  

NameCaptain Fresh 

Amount Raised$3 million from Matrix Partners India, Ankur Capital, Incubate Fund, Jitendra Gupta, Amrish Rau and Asish Mohapatra. 

What does Captain Fresh do? 

Edited from Tracxn: Online B2B platform offering seafood products. The company offers the platform for the wholesale trade of seafood with integrated shipping, payment protection, and quality assurance services. It uses deep tech technology for offering the fastest harvest-to-retail solution. The application provided by the company is available on the Android platform. 

Why do I like Captain Fresh? 

HORECA is going to make a strong comeback in the next 3 quarters. If there is one thing that the locked down population has learned – it is that the root cause of their medical disposition is in the food. Therefore the customer, especially the middle-class customer demands better quality from their hospitality provider putting the onus on them to source better. Captain Fresh is an answer to this problem statement!