Meet the eight startups picked by Axilor for its first pre-seed cohort

Bengaluru-based early stage investment firm Axilor Ventures has selected eight startups for its first cohort of the pre-seed programme.

The company, which has so far invested in 20 startups this year, is looking to enter 2021 with five new deals in various stages of completion, it said in a statement. 

Axilor made 11 new and nine follow-on investments in 2020. Last month, Axilor announced a successful exit in Scapic, an AR/VR (augmented reality/virtual reality) platform that was acquired by Flipkart to enhance its shopping experience capabilities. 

According to the statement, Axilor’s portfolio companies in supply chain, SMB commerce and healthcare registered accelerated growth due to rapid adoption of digital technologies in the wake of Covid-19. The company has also taken early bets in agri-tech with investments in vertical and agri-input supply chains.

Through this programme, the company offers an investment of up to $200,000 for each startup.

"Finding access to early, founder-friendly institutional capital with minimal dilution and strong follow-on commitment, is a huge challenge for startup founders. We have launched the new program that offers up to $200k (Rs.1.5 crores) in funding. Combined with all the benefits of our top rated programme, the funding helps them achieve customer validation and business momentum required to raise their next VC rounds quickly," Ganapathy Venugopal, co-founder and CEO of Axilor said.

The eight startups are:

BizzTM: Founded by Siddharth Biyani (who was with Meesho, Snapdeal) and Amit Sharma (Credr, Bluejack), the company brings the variety and range of e-commerce categories to the tier 2 cities. BizzTM has a model of experiential commerce involving a local network of 'Biz Owners' who bring innovative categories of products through an aggregated delivery model at 1/10th the cost of traditional e-commerce. The startup is live in 1 district, with over 500 biz owners. 

Clergo: Founded in March 2020 by Augustus D'Souza (ex-Vtiger, FusionCharts), Clergo is a remote collaboration startup which is on a mission to eliminate work meetings. With Clergo, teams replace most meetings and ad-hoc discussions with contextual threads that drive outcomes and quicker decisions. The startup has 500 plus teams signed up for its beta. 

Doctor’s Bazaar: Founded by supply chain professional Sandeep Naik and product professional Vishal Naik, Kochi based Doctor's Bazaar is helping digitise the med-tech supply chain. With their storefront technology, they are helping manufacturers globally digitise their entire med-tech supply chain by linking the distributors and enabling distributor driven e-commerce. It is live with over 10 leading med-tech manufacturers with pilots in India and APAC markets. 

Emitrr: Founded in January this year by Anmol Oberoi (ex Tracxn, Wingify) and Pulkit Gambhir (ex Heymojo, Anaek), New Jersey based Emitrr helps small businesses address their missed calls. The company automatically sends text messages to the number a call is missed from. It is live with over 20 customers in 100 locations in the US.

eShipz: Founded by tech and logistics professionals Shashi Tripathi, Shiva Mahadi and Ajay Rajakumar, wShipz helps enterprises and SMBs automate their entire logistics and shipping processes. It is live with over 175 customers, and claims to have processed over 2.5 million packages in the last six months.

Helicrofter: Helicrofter was founded in May 2020 by agri-tech professional Siddhartha Choudhary. The ecommerce platform helps farmers to access the best brands using mobile phones. The platform is built on a micro-entrepreneurship model involving locals who bring the much needed advice and trust. It is live with over 500 retailers and 50 brands, clocking $1.5m in annual GMV. 

Peer Robotics: Founding by a team of IIT-Delhi graduates Rishabh Agarwal, Tanya Raghuvanshi and Alok Kumar, Gurgaon based Peer Robotics is building out a suite of Collaborative Mobile Robots (CMR) which provides an easier, flexible and cost efficient way to integrate and deploy mobile robots. With use-cases in manufacturing, warehousing and healthcare sectors, the platform is currently live with paid PoCs (Proof of Concepts) 

SuperBeings: Superbeings was founded in November 2019 by Yasharth Mishra (ex-Amazon, Blackbuck), Gaurav Bhawnani (ex-Licious, ClearTax) and Kunal Mishra (ex-Yahoo, ComScore). Through its platform, the company helps managers get continuous feedback from their team members on themselves and the teams’ work environment while closing the loop with personalised learning and action plans. SuperBeings is live with 4 organisations and 300 users.