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 19 startups raised $46 million; the numbers indicate a dip, but it just a temporary lull. This fire burns on burning coals and will not die out for a long, long time.
This week, 18 deals were in the early-stage rounds (compared to 23 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: QuickSell
Amount Raised: $2 million from InfoEdge Venture Fund and BEENEXT.
What does QuickSell do?
Edited from Tracxn: QuickSell provides catalog management solutions for retailers. It enables sellers to create product catalogs with photos, prices, and other details and share the catalogs on different social media, via mail and SMS. In addition, sellers can track the time spent by each customer on every product and forecast demand based on the analysis reports. Its app is available on Android and iOS platforms.
Why do I like QuickSell?
The frequent lockdowns and the internet's broad reach make it essential for any fashion boutique to have an online strategy. Instead of selling via websites that are often difficult and cumbersome to maintain, Quicksell allows these retailers to get online and start selling – asap.
Name: Refyne
Amount Raised: $16 million from partners of DST Global and RTP Global.
What does Refyne do?
Edited from Website: Refyne partners with organizations to help build their staff's financial resilience and nurture a productive and happy workforce. Refyne developed a mobile-first Earned Wage Access (EWA) platform that enables companies to allow their employees to acquire their real-time income any time before their monthly salary is due.
Why do I like Refyne?
I loved Refyne's idea of converting monthly wages into daily (or weekly) wages for employees to access before payday. Used responsibly, this could unlock a wealth of opportunities for the borrower and become a critical credit unlocking mechanism for the consumer ecosystem.
I'll be watching this one closely with excitement!
Name: Truemeds
Amount Raised: $5 million from InfoEdge Ventures, Asha Impact, and Indian Angel Network Fund.
What does Truemeds do?
Edited from Tracxn: Truemeds is a provider of the e-pharmacy store. It is an online pharmacy store offering medicines for senior care. The user can order medication from multiple brands and manufacturers. The company has developed the AI-based proprietary Triple Check (TC) flow to check the orders before delivery by the doctor or pharmacist.
Why do I like Truemeds?
Truemeds is expanding on pharmacy tech with its unique offering. The simple application and the ability to sell high-quality generics that could save thousands of rupees for the end consumer are valuable.
