Online hobby platform Yellow Class, lease model investment firm Grip raise capital

Ivypods Technology, which operates an online hobby platform for children Yellow Class, raised $1.3 million (Rs. 10 crore) in a funding round led by India Quotient. 

Other investors in the round included Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal from Snapdeal,  Alok Mittal from Indifi, Maninder Gulati and Abhinav Sinha from OYO, Vivekananda Hallekere from Bounce, Alwin Tse of Xiaomi, Dhruv Agarwala from PropTiger, Pallav Pandey from Knowlarity, Harpreet Singh Grover and Vibhore  Goyal from FirstCheque to name a few.

Arpit Mittal, co-founder, Yellow Class said the company plans to use the fresh capital to reach a community of 2 million members by 2021. The platform will also invest in technology and product.

“Also, we are working aggressively on machine learning to personalize the complete experience for kids,” Mittal added. 

Founded in June 2020 by Mittal and Anshul Gupta, Yellow Class offers digitally interactive hobby classes that kids can attend every day. The current offerings of the startup include hobby classes that cover dancing, drawing, painting, flameless cooking, yoga and storytelling for children between 3-12 years.

The startup claims that it currently has about 200,000 across 52 countries on its platform, with most customers in India and the Middle East. Yellow classes aims to expand its presence to tier 2 and 3 cities in India in the next six months. 

Lease model investment platform Grip raises undisclosed capital from Anicut Angel Fund

Grip Invest Advisors, which runs the Gurugram-based eponymous digital platform for facilitating investments, on Tuesday said it has raised an undisclosed amount in its first round of equity funding led by Anicut Angel Fund, which is run by Anicut Capital.

Gemba Capital along with angel investors Anupam Mittal, Sunjay Kapur and Maninder Gulati also participated in the round. 

“We now have the capital to scale our platform and leverage our investors’ deep understanding of fintech business models, credit processes and network of potential users,”  Nikhil Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Grip said in a statement.

Started in June 2020 by Aggarwal and Vivek Gulati, the startup provides a lease finance platform where investors can purchase and lease assets to companies. 

“We continue to see over 15% week on week growth in new investing users, close to 50% repeat investment rate as well as great traction for leasing opportunities, including with large ventures like Bounce, Rentomojo and Furlenco. It is also rewarding to see companies being able to leverage our platform to scale their business faster without worrying about equity dilution and at a cost that meets their unit economic targets,” Aggarwal added.