Indian Startup Factory

Samantha Prabhu invests in wellness startup Secret Alchemist as co-founder

Aromatherapy-based wellness brand Secret Alchemist was founded in 2021 by Ankita Thadani and Akash Valia. The brand offers a range of products for holistic well-being

'My Tirth India' spiritual startup temporarily shuts down: What went wrong?

The decision comes months after the demise of Sahara India's Subrata Roy, who was the principal shareholder and investor in the firm

Byju's ex-director fined $10,000 per day over missing $533 million

The missing cash belongs to a bankrupt shell company, Byju's Alpha Inc., which is affiliated with Think & Learn and was taken over by the lenders after their loan defaulted

This pani-puri vending machine from Bengaluru is spicing up the internet

Bengaluru is trending on social media after the image of an automatic pani-puri vending machine located at its HSR layout road is going viral

Indian startup ecosystem mature, set to bolster economy: AWS' Raghavan

The Indian startup ecosystem is mature, with multiple tailwinds that are poised to escalate India to become the third largest economy in the world, said AWS' Kumara Raghavan. In a conversation with PTI, Raghavan, Head, Startups, Amazon Web Services (AWS) India, and South Asia, discussed the vibrant Indian startup scene, noting its strength and innovation potential. "We are the 5th largest economy, we are trending towards becoming the 3rd largest... factors that will contribute to it are labor addition, infrastructure growth, and efficiency improvements, where technologies like GenAI will play their part, a large developer ecosystem, the ability to build products in the country and serviced all over the world, then there are regulatory tailwinds like Make in India and Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme as well," he said. Raghavan lauded the maturity of the Indian startup ecosystem, noting the significant contributions of experienced founders who have embarked on multiple ...

Reloy's revenue up 65% to Rs 21 cr in FY24, referral sales hit Rs 1,450 cr

HDFC Capital-backed proptech startup Reloy, which helps builders in generating referral sales, has posted a 65 per cent growth in its revenue last fiscal to Rs 21 crore on strong housing demand. The company's revenue stood at Rs 12.7 crore in the 2022-23 fiscal. "Our growth is on account of higher referral sales and client acquisitions," Reloy founder and CEO Akhil Saraf told PTI. "We helped builders in generating Rs 1,450 crore worth of referral sales in the last fiscal," Saraf said. The company has set a target to generate Rs 3,500 crore worth of referral sales in the current fiscal. Founded in 2015, Reloy has been specialising in real estate loyalty and referrals. It is a B2B2C homeowner and broker management platform that helps builders manage their builders and brokers more efficiently. Reloy has so far raised Rs 13 crore from various investors, including HDFC Capital, which owns around 10 per cent stake in the startup. Last year, it raised Rs 7.2 crore from investors to ex

Startup Mahakumbh 2024: A rite of passage for India's innovators

Startup Mahakumbh is expected to host more than 1,000 startups, as many investors, 50 unicorns, 500 incubators and accelerators, 5,000 delegates from 23 countries, and 50,000 business visitors

Piyush Goyal to meet 40 unicorn startups including Zerodha, Boat, Lenskart

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will hold discussions with senior representatives of 40 unicorn startups like Lenskart, Zerodha, and Boat here on Wednesday, an official said. Issues which will figure in the deliberations include ways to further promote sustainable growth of the sector, risks, domestic capital mobilisation and position India on the global startup landscape, the official said. Startup firms valued over USD 1 billion are categorised as unicorns. "Unicorns from different sectors and cities will be there. The sectors which would see participation include fintech, e-commerce and logistics," the official added. The other firms who would attend the meeting include CarDekho, and EasyMy Trip. The government has taken a series of steps to promote the startup ecosystem in the country. Over 1.17 lakh startups are recognised by the government. They are eligible to seek certain tax incentives. The Startup India initiative was launched by the Prime Minister Narendra

Byju's puts Epic, Great Learning on sale to raise $800 million-$1 billion

Byju's is hoping to earn between $400-$500 million from the sale of Epic, which is a US-based kids' learning company

Indian debt collection startup raises $50 million from Accel, Westbridge

Lenders are looking for efficient ways to communicate with borrowers and collect payments, a task that becomes more onerous in countries such as India that are experiencing rising credit growth

Arkam Ventures launches second fund with a target corpus of $180 mn

Through the fund, the firm will make investments in Series A and Series B start-ups, with a focus on emerging sectors like electric vehicles and manufacturing technology

Physis Capital announces first close of $50 mn fund for start-ups

Fund aims to build a portfolio of 15-20 start-ups, with an average ticket size of $2.5 million

Indian consumer tech sees huge value creation with $250 bn in valuation

The last five years have seen 4,351 consumer tech deals and $54 billion in deal flows in India, a new report has shown, adding that the Indian consumer tech space

GoMechanic Business acquired by a consortium led by Lifelong Group

According to sources, there is no clarity on what happens to the founders

As cost of capital rises, VC funding for new-age firms drops to $26 bn

The global economic downturn has made investors reconsider their commitments towards the deployment of capital into new-age firms

Mahanaaryaman Scindia expects MyMandi to turn profitable by Dec 2023

Gwalior's royal family scion Mahanaaryaman Scindia, whose name speaks volumes, has shed his legacy and ventured into building his own empire from scratch through startup MyMandi, which he expects to turn profitable in about one-and-a-half years of its business commencement. By combining his lineage of public service, lessons of creating social impact by grandfather late Madhavrao Scindia and wisdom acquired during work at global firms Boston Consulting Group and Softbank Group, 27-year-old Scindia and his firm's co-founder Suryansh Rana, 25, zeroed in on a common passion of working in agriculture sector, cut down on waste of fresh produce and logistic costs. Founded in 2022, MyMandi began operations from Gwalior where Scindia himself goes into local mandis, with a covered face to conceal his identity, for procuring fresh produce and sell the inventory to the firm's last mile delivery partners -- street vendors and cart pushers community. The formula of their venture has led to a ...

RoC to check GoMechanic's books amid allegations of irregularities: Report

According to the Companies Act, Section 264 (4), the RoC has the authority to conduct an inquiry into the affairs of a company in line with directions from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA)

Business bites: How have winners of Shark Tank India 1 fared so far

A year later as season 2 begins, start-ups that 'sharks' invested in vouch for marketing gains from it but only a few have raised funds subsequently

58% of govt-recognised start-ups centred in 5 states; Maharashtra tops list

Nearly 58 per cent of the government-recognised start-ups are confined to just five states in the country

Waiting for a thaw: Four charts give a peek into the funding winter

The other trend was acquisitions. Many acquired to expand rather than invest to grow organically. Of course, this period did not see a single unicorn