Sawo Labs, KopyKitab raise funds; Tata invests in Grameen e-store

Within 60 days of incorporation, Sawolabs Technologies, which operates a startup offering password-less one-tap authentication services, has raised $746,149 (Rs 5.5 crore) in a seed funding round led by StartupXseed at a valuation of Rs 28 crore. 

Mumbai based SAWO Labs, which is an abbreviation Secure Authentication Without OTP, was one of the nine pre-seed stage startups that 100x.VC invested in September 2020 as a part of its Class 02 Portfolio. 

The company plans to use the funds to strengthen its product portfolio and develop next-gen OTP-less and password-less tools based out of India (including Robo identification and password-less consumer onboarding tools).

It will also invest in team-building initiatives and accelerate its marketing outreach. SAWO also aims to augment its cloud infrastructure to bring down its customer servicing cloud cost.

“The company roped in major corporates within 100 days of the product launch primarily because of security, ease of use, and cost advantage. Speaking about the market size, it is estimated that the global OTP market is worth $ 2 billion at present and is on track to reach 3.25 Billion USD by 2024,” the startup said in a statement.

Higher education edtech startup KopyKitab secures capital 

DigiBook Technologies, which runs Bengaluru-based online learning startup KopyKitab, has raised undisclosed funding from a clutch of investors including  Pacatolus Singapore, Stanford Angels (led by Paula Mariwala), and investors like Praveen Gandhi, Jeenendra Bhandari, Mohit Dubey and Manoj Mehta.

The startup had previously raised $2 million from CBA Capital, Pacatolus and a few other angel investors.

The funds raised will be used to develop technology for its tutorials along with building an ecosystem in the higher education vertical.

The platform caters to higher education needs. The startup claims to have witnessed over 200% growth with 5 million users and 6 million app downloads with additional presence in over 400 campuses in the last few months. Around 68% of its user base comes from tier-II and tier-III cities.

Tata Digital invests Rs. 10 crores in government’s Grameen e-Store

Tata Group’s digital arm Tata Digital invested Rs. 10 crores for an undisclosed stake in government’s rural e-commerce initiative and platform Grameen e-Store, Economic Times reported. 

Launched in April this year, the e-store is run by common service centres (CSC) under the ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY).

Currently, it is available in 120,000 locations across the country, and already has a turnover of Rs. 120 crores. The venture is also in talks with HDFC Bank for a possible stake sale.

The newspaper reported last month about the government’s ambitious plans to scale its rural e-commerce venture, which has brought on board big brands such as electronics retailer Tata Croma and HDFC Bank to scale up its operations. It already has partnerships with large multi-nationals such as Pepsi, Coca-Cola and home-grown oil and gas giant Bharat Petroleum.

Agritech startup Humus raises undisclosed funding from Venture Catalysts and We Founders Circle

Agri-tech startup Humus raises undisclosed investment in a round led by  Venture Catalysts,9Unicorns Accelerator Fund and WFC (We founder’s Circle). 

Founded in 2019 by Manjunatha T N and Shilpa Gopalaiah, Humus looks to solve supply chain problems involving logistics of fresh produce through technology. 

“Humus is a full stack supply chain solution by connecting the stages of production, procurement, processing and marketing of fresh produce. This will not only maintain a consistent and fair market price for both the farmers and the consumers but will also minimize everyday wastage of quality produce,” Dr Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, co-founder and president,  Venture Catalysts and 9Unicorns said in a statement.

By focusing on crop input for good yield and accurate procurement of the end product to the retailers, Humus aims to offer better prices, consistent demand, and reliable ways of selling produce for the farmers and fresh top-quality produce at fair market price for the customers.

With its new upcoming vegetables and fruits supermarket, the start-up is an inch closer to re-defining the shopping experience of end-consumers.