Humit, Doceree, Mobius raise equity rounds

Social music platform Humit said on Monday that it had raised an undisclosed sum in pre-seed funding. 

The round, a statement said, was led by Antler India, with participation from venture capital fund First Cheque and angels such as Bluejeans CTO Alagu Periyannan, Sierra Atlantic co-founder Sarath Sura, OYO Rooms CTO Ankit Mathuria, Exotel co-founder Shivakumar Ganesan, CARS24 co-founder Gajendra Jangid, and Pixxel co-founder Kshitij Khandelwal.

Humit said it plans to deploy the fresh capital towards hiring engineering and design talent, improving the platform’s offering, and activating select marketing channels. 

Founded in 2020 by BITS Pilani graduates Rohit Ganapathy, Prithvi Sankar and Ishaan Negi, the Bengaluru-based company makes engaging with music a social-first experience by letting users share powerful moments from their favorite songs, create micro-communities, and engage with fellow music lovers. Instead of using algorithms, the platform relies on a community-driven approach, where music is discovered and shared on user channels called stations.  

Humit currently hosts over 500 such stations created by users across 42 countries, including India and the US. 

“With Humit, we are decoding the nuances of sharing music recommendations with a friend, and what it means to be able to express yourself through your taste in music. This is a core desire, and what we believe will scale globally. A shared taste in music is known to be one of the best icebreakers and we are working on designing unique experiences around this,” Ganapathy said while commenting on the potential of the platform. 

Doceree closes pre-Series A round 

New Jersey headquartered Doceree, which runs an online marketing platform for pharma brands, said it has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding. 

The round, a statement said, was led by Joneja Steel chairman Ajay Joneja as well as returning investors Debasish Hota, the founder and CEO of Compugain, and East India Udyog CEO Harsh Gupta. Doceree said it will use the funding to expand its programmatic offerings and advance the efficiency and effectiveness of physician marketing. 

Founded in 2019 by Harshit Jain and Daleep Manhas, the startup allows pharmaceutical companies to market their products and services to physicians. This reduces the problem of high costs and time margins for pharmaceutical companies in healthcare marketing.  

Doceree uses its artificial intelligence-powered identity resolution software Espyian which narrows down the targeted doctor out of profiles from medical networking platforms, medical journals, telemedicine platforms or social networking sites. The company works with five of the top 10 pharmaceutical manufacturers and three global advertising agency networks and is already active in India and the US. It plans to expand to Europe later this year. 

“Being able to garner a positive cash flow within a year of our commencement in the first launch market validates the capabilities of our platform in elevating business outcomes in the pharma and healthcare sector,” Jain said.

“The additional monetary inflow reinforces the benefits of our platform and enables us to introduce new digital technologies to evolve the physician marketing category,” he added.

Gaming company Mobius secures undisclosed funding

Hyderabad-based Mobius Development Studio said it has raised an undisclosed amount from IREP Credit Capital CEO Naresh Naik, Astir IT Solutions CEO Kishore Ganji, and AOI Hyderabad vice chairman Rajesh Manthena.

Mobius develops mobile games, frameworks, and solutions with a focus on the real money gaming segment. In the first year of its business, the company’s RMG platform 777Games witnessed major demand and saw 500,000 registered users and 130,000+ monthly active users.

“We've made great progress over the past one year as evidenced by the platform's consistent growth,” Prashanth Joshua, the CEO of the company, said in a statement. 

“This round of financing will be instrumental as we continue to invest in our technology, people, products and customer acquisition in order to further fuel our growth,” he added.

In the next two years, the company expects to have 10 million users on its platform with multiple new real money games. 

Commenting on the engagement, IREP’s Naik, said, “Mobius' ability to leverage best-in-class technology processes and deep industry expertise has enabled it to rapidly grow revenues.” He added, “With its proven business model, Mobius has been able to scale better than its peers in the industry while being capital efficient.” 

Zetwerk closes $30 mn debt funding

Bengaluru-based manufacturing services marketplace Zetwerk Manufacturing has reportedly closed a $30 million debt financing agreement with Mars Growth Capital, a technology fund set up by Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and the Israel-based Liquidity Capital. 

Zetwerk, founded in 2018 by Amrit Acharya, Srinath Ramakkrushnan, Rahul Sharma, and Vishal Chaudhary, connects original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and engineering procurement construction (EPM) companies from India and Southeast Asia to small and medium enterprises (SME) for on-demand manufacturing services. 

According to a report in Bloomberg, it plans to deploy the fresh capital towards supporting growth in regions such as Southeast Asia, marketing in the US, and expanding aggressively in new business categories such as defense and aerospace.

Currently, the startup works across industries such as railways, water, transmission and distribution, oil and gas, apparel and electronics. It claims to work with over 2,000 suppliers with deliveries of over 1,000 projects across over 15 countries. 

The global smart manufacturing market is estimated to be valued at $214 billion.