As India’s startup funding landscape strives to reach new heights every day, leading accelerator VC fund, 9Unicorns and its parent firm Venture Catalysts, have facilitated a $108 million fundraising for 32 portfolio startups in their first virtual demo day. By the end of the programme, 70% of the startups received interest and subscriptions from nearly 900 participating VCs from 18 countries in the two-day event.
A first cohort of 32 startups were mentored for the global demo day (D Day) of which about 45% of the startup founders were either serial entrepreneurs or have previously worked in a startup setting, have inferred that investor sentiment for entrepreneurs was twice as high.
The Demo Day, conducted on August 11-12, also witnessed massive participation from women founders. Women founders led about 30% of the D-Day startups. This is part of an attempt by 9Unicorns and VCats to reinforce support for female founders who often struggle to access capital even when there is massive liquidity in the startup ecosystem.
9Unicorns and its mission to champion startups
Co-founded by Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anil Jain, Anuj Golecha, and Gaurav Jain, the Mumbai-based $72 million sector-agnostic funds provide up to $100k per startup in the first round and up to $2 million in successive matches with its ecosystem of co-investors.
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“We are overwhelmed with the response from the global investor community on our first Demo Day. It speaks volumes about the positive sentiment in international VCs for Indian tech startups. A few of them individually raised over $20 million during the demo day. While a few of them have closed deals, a few others have received investment interests, and we hope to complete their respective rounds in the next few days and weeks. The idea is to conduct at least 3 demo days in a year,” said Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder and President of 9Unicorns.
Demo Day startups
The firm is on a mission to help strengthen early-stage investing and help create potential Unicorns. Let us look at the startups that participated in the D-Day.
- ByteLearn: This edtech startup is an AI assistant to create adaptive learning tools for kids learning math.
- Pariksha: A vernacular Edtech startup to provide affordable education to students in rural India.
- ImaginXP: It is a social impact higher education platform that provides embedded degrees, online work-integrated degrees, and subjects to universities in a B2B model.
- Tamasha: An ideal platform for content creators and social media influencers to interact with their fans.
- Rooter: Allows gamers to join popular streamers, upload gaming videos or images, and create content.
- Power Gummies: Power Gummies has created chewable vitamin gummies for healthy hair and nails.
- PeeSafe: is a female toilet hygiene company making hygiene products like sanitary pads, menstrual cups, and even personal wash products for both men and women.
- TruNativ: It is an environmentally conscious food brand founded by Pranav and Mamta Malhotra in 2019. Its F&B aims to tackle urban malnourishment.
- Raskik: A natural fusion fruit juice brand for millennials at just Rs 30.
- Coutloot: The largest social commerce platform to buy and sell online in under 30 seconds on a bargain.
- EvenFlow: Evenflow is India’s Thrasio. It offers to manage inventory, performance marketing, on-platform merchandising, cataloguing, and new product development to third-party brands that raise revenue through e-commerce.
- ExtraaEdge: This SaS based edtech is empowering admission teams across the globe to make intelligent, data-driven decisions.
- Eunimart: AI-powered SaaS platform for businesses to grow online by leveraging intelligence, reducing cost, and improving efficiency.
- Prescinto: AI-powered SaaS platform to collect clean energy plant data and apply data science models to identify causes for underperformance.
- GeoIQ: It assists some of India’s leading brands with live data insights for some of the most crucial business decisions involving consumers on a day-to-day basis.
- Gully Network: Gully Network is building India’s largest asset-light modern retail network of tech-enabled mid-sized grocery stores in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.
- Hesa: one-stop solution for corporates, banks, governments, and NGOs to explore and invest in rural India.
- BluSmart: India’s first and largest zero-emission ride service that operates a fleet of 400 cabs in the South Delhi-Gurugram region.
- Zypp Electric: EV-based last-mile delivery company with battery swapping infrastructure.
- Charge+ Zone: One-stop solution to locate charging points, booking slots for charging, and payment through QR code.
- Klub: A revenue-based finance firm that uses data analytics to provide capital to brands across sectors.
- Inai: It enables merchants to set up their payment stack with a single integration.
- Numadic: It revolutionizes India’s fleet management system using analytical data.
- Castler: It uses technology and innovation to digitize escrow accounts for safer transactions.
- Homeville: Is a fintech housing credit enablement network built on Open banking principles. It creates significant operating leverage with an in-house built technology stack.
- EnsuredIT: Empowers end customers and Insurance Intermediaries with AI-based product platform for transformational customer experience.
- OTO: OTO offers customers a convenient option to finance their vehicle by introducing two-wheeler leasing in India.
- Janani: Is an AI-based sexual dysfunction and infertility treatment provider.
- Alpha AI: Helps businesses design as well as redesign the AI system based on the prevalent business needs.
- Toch: An AI-driven platform can help broadcasters, OTT platforms, media platforms, and creators.
- Hoopr: Hoopr is India’s first AI-Powered Music Licensing Marketplace, built to soundtrack the world’s burgeoning video creator economy.
- Instoried: Helps large companies make their marketing and communications content more human with a data-driven, scalable, and repeatable approach using AI.
- ai: SaaS based employee service desk platform built for Microsoft Teams, designed to help address problems in terms of low self-service adoption, slow service, and long wait times.
- Rage: An innovative coffee brand targeted towards young millennials and small towns to create a cafe-like experience at home.
The future is bright
With this diverse and competitive pool of startups sparking the interest of some of the world’s leading VCs, the future is bright for India’s tech startup ecosystem. As 9Unicorns continues to power through its mission of championing local startups, they expect to attract more promising young startups from the country’s vibrant ecosystem.
Also read: foodpanda: Taking Asia’s food delivery ecosystem through the pandemic and beyond
For more information on 9Unicorns future cohorts, you may visit their official website at 9unicorns.in.
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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by 9unicorns.
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