WiT-ACE, PumPumPum, Superpro.ai get early cheques; Mumbai Angels exits Toch

Gurugram-based Northcap Services, which operates women-focused skilling platform Women in Technology - Accelerated Career Experiences or WiT-ACE, said it has raised $1 million in a seed funding round. 

The round, a statement said, was led by Rizwan Koita and Jagdish Moorjani, founders of CitiusTech, with multiple other angels in participation. This includes CP Gurnani, CEO and managing director of Tech Mahindra; Flowering Tree founder Sumita Ambasta; Tata Communications’ independent director chairman Subodh Bhargava; Egon Zehnder partner and co-leader Sonny Iqbal; and Vikram Chachra, founding partner at 8i Ventures. 

WiT-ACE said it will use the funding to scale its technology platform, as well as for expansion and strategic partnerships. 

Launched less than a year ago by HR veteran Anuranjita Kumar, the platform works with more than 100 companies, government agencies, and academic partners to engage and employ women.  

“The 100+ clients engaged with over 200,000 women on the platform, in less than 11 months in one of the toughest years for business. (This) gives us a good grip of industry needs and the confidence to grow this organisation to the next phase of exponential growth,” Kumar said in the statement.  

“We are focused on progressive and measurable impact on bridging gender gaps, through skilling and employment that will lead the transformation. It is humbling to have partners who are mentors and industry torch bearers themselves; and we are confident their support will be the much-required springboard towards achieving our target of impacting 20 million women by 2025,” she added. 

Used car leasing startup PumPumPum gets $735,000 

Dream Road Technologies, which runs used car leasing platform PumPumPum, said it has raised $735,000 (Rs 5.5 crore) in a fresh round of funding, dubbed pre-Series A. 

The investment was led by Inflection Point Ventures, with participation from LetsVenture and Agility Ventures, a statement said. 

PumPumPum plans to deploy these funds towards creating consumer awareness, focusing on technology development, and building and expanding the brand, it added. 

The Gurugram-based company was founded in 2018 by Tarun Lawadia and Sameer Kalra. It allows users to own a used car at monthly leases, which are comparatively more affordable than buying a used car on EMI and maintaining it. 

“PumPumPum is committed to address and solve issues related to lack of trust on dealers, low penetration of financing in used car space, risk of repairs in a used car, non-transparent pricing (lack of standard price parameters), low resale value of the third hand used car resulting in high rate of depreciation,” Kalra, who is also the chief growth officer of PumPumPum, said. 

“Our unique business model offers an ownership aimed at effectively solving all consumer issues, right from pricing to quality and flexibility. We have aggressive plans to reach out to over 15 cities in the next 3 years as we are witnessing a huge demand for used car leasing from metros as well as non-metros markets,” he added. 

Superpro.ai raises $300,000 from IvyCap Ventures, others 

Bengaluru-based video communication workflows platform Superpro.ai said it has secured $300,000 as part of a seed round of funding. 

The investment was led by IvyCap Ventures, with Penthalon Ventures, ah! Ventures, and returning investor SOSV in participation. Angel investors Piyush Prahladka, a former Google and Uber executive; and Gopi Vikranth, associate principal at ZS and former Mu-sigma executive, also joined the round. 

The capital will be deployed towards accelerating product development, increasing the platform’s sales and marketing efforts to cater to more customers, and reaching product-market fit, the company, operating under Double Slit Media Technologies, said. 

Founded in 2019 by Gaurav Tripathi, Vijay Goel, Sagar Ramteke, and Vivek Kumar, Superpro.ai has been helping knowledge workers bring offline consultations online by providing them with video communication workflows, including group communications, webinars, virtual events, at a single place. 

The company has been working with startups across edtech, health-tech, HR-tech, and events businesses. 

“Superpro was founded with a vision to power a sustainable and fulfilling future of work. This future of work is going to be remote and video communication is at the core of it. Video communication has already become the default mechanism for delivering several services,” Tripathi, also the CEO of the firm, said. 

Findeed secures seed funding 

Bengaluru-based fintech company Findeed Solutions said it has raised an undisclosed sum in a seed round of funding.  

The investment was led by Venture Highway and Anicut Angel Fund, with participation from First Cheque. It will be utilised to hire fresh talent across profiles and build a strong team to fuel the growth of the business, the startup said. 

Founded in July 2019 by Srividhya Ramarathnam and Sriram Shankar, Findeed works with employers, NGOs, and financial institutions to offer simple and fair collateral-free loans to middle class Indians. 

“We leverage the strong social cooperation in this network to bring them credit access. This has impacted the lives of our customers by enabling them to pay off debt or take care of their family needs like education or home renovation expenses with formal credit. Our partnership with their employer means they do not have to worry about paying their EMI on time and makes it hassle-free,” Ramarathnam said about their technology, data and community-driven platform. 

Toch gives 2.5x exit to Mumbai Angels Network 

Mumbai Angels Network’s investors have received an exit from video meta-tagging platform Toch. 

The investors of the network had infused an undisclosed sum as part of the company’s pre-Series A round in 2019. Now, they have received the exit opportunity of more than 2.5x, with a 65%+ internal rate of return (IRR), a statement said. 

Neither Toch, which operates under Mumbai-based Vogueme Technologies, nor Mumbai Angels have disclosed the amount at which the exit was made or who has bought the investor’s stake. 

“Mumbai Angels investors have been exceptionally supportive throughout our journey and we are thrilled to be able to provide them with a good exit. Toch has always been focused on building robust services using novel technologies,” Vinayak Shrivastav, co-founder and CEO of Toch, said. “We look forward to continuing our work and becoming the global leader in the industry a few years down the line.” 

Shrivastav founded the startup in 2017 with Alok Patil and Saket Dandotia. Since then, the company has been leveraging AI-based tagging and deep learning to help online video creators, media companies, advertisers, and OTT platforms monetize their content and use meta-data for internal data collection.