AGILITY VENTURES
Betting on disruptors in India’s BFSI sector: Insights from Beams Fintech Fund, Sagar Agarvwal
The Fintech and Financial Services sector has grown exponentially in the last few years, and yet much more is to be achieved. In India, the sector contributes nearly one-third of the GDP and $1.3 trn in market cap. Additionally, disruptive products by fintech companies, aided by innovation-friendly policies have made India one of the fastest-growing financial services market in the world. As a result, there are ample opportunities for investments in this space.
How India's rising gaming ecosystem is bringing investment opportunities
With the advent of cutting-edge technologies such as Gen AI, cloud gaming, 5G, and XR, the gaming industry in India is growing rapidly.
Gamification of options trading! Gen Z investors are seeking tools that are fast & agile: Sivakumar Jayachandran
Sivakumar Jayachandran discusses creating a trading console catering to Gen Z investors' need for speed and agility, infusing gamification elements to make trading accessible and engaging, especially popular for options trading among retail investors in Surat. Jayachandran says: "Our aim is to redefine how traders interact with the market, fostering a community where learning, competition, and collaboration thrive."
Nexus Venture Partners leads $20 million funding at DevOps startup Orkes
Nexus Venture Partners leads a $25 million funding round in Orkes, a DevOps startup focused on orchestration. United Wholesale Mortgage, Foxtel, and Collective are among Orkes' clients. The funding will be used to build out offerings, including an AI orchestration platform. Orkes was founded by Viren Baraiya, Boney Sekh, and Dilip Lukose.
Udaan FMCG biz head Vinay Shrivastava quits; fourth senior exit since Sept’23
Udaan's FMCG business head, Vinay Shrivastava, has resigned amid a series of senior exits at the B2B e-commerce firm. Shrivastava, with nearly four years at Udaan, contributed to significant growth in market share and business. Udaan is restructuring its teams and business verticals, merging essentials with discretionary business. Shrivastava's departure follows the exits of the group CFO and other senior executives since September 2023. The company recently raised $340 million in Series E, but its valuation reportedly fell to around $1.8 billion in a down round.
- Go To Page 1
Clothing brand Kidbea raises $1 mn funding in pre-series A round led by Venture Catalysts
Kidbea, a bamboo-based children's fashion brand, has secured $1 million in funding in a pre-series A round led by Venture Catalysts, with participation from Agility Ventures, BestVantage Investments, and individual investors including Sandeep Agarwal and Upasana Agarwal, founders of Droom, Ashok Bahadur, and Japanese celebrity actor Hiro Mizushima.
New spin on a revolving door: Pentagon officials-turned-venture capitalists
Retiring generals and departing top Pentagon officials once migrated regularly to the big established weapons makers such as Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. Now, they are increasingly flocking to venture capital firms that have collectively pumped billions of dollars into Silicon Valley-style startups.
RBI grants payment aggregator licences to Razorpay, Cashfree, others; FirstCry’s IPO details
While the payment aggregator licence was thought to be routine initially, for the likes of Razorpay and Cashfree, it makes a big impact as they step out of the ban on bringing in new customers.
India needs a better class of early-stage investors: Rishabh Singh of Aeravti Ventures
Co-founder Singh describes Aeravti as a sector-specific investment fund focused on Bharat, typically investing $500k to $2 million in early-stage companies, often as the first institutional investor.
Agile and Beyond: Adapting to Change with Versatile Product Management Skills
Negotiation and influence are essential skills for achieving stakeholder alignment in business. Stakeholder alignment is important for strategic goals, operational efficiency, innovation, reputation management, and risk mitigation. Negotiation resolves conflicts, aligns interests, manages resource allocation, and manages expectations.
Technical Breakout: Paytm, Nykaa, 7 other mid cap stocks surpass 20-day SMA
These large-cap stocks, having crossed their 100-day SMA on September 5, 2023, stand as robust performers in the stock market.
ITC partners startups to stay 'agile and nimble'
Indian conglomerate ITC has partnered with around 45 startups in various sectors, including consumer space, social commerce, content creation, and agritech solutions. The company aims to foster agility and an entrepreneurial mindset among its employees and remain consumer-centric and resilient. ITC has invested in startups directly and through venture capital funds, and is focused on integrated opportunities rather than isolated ones.
Speed up your startup in 'Antarctica'
Speed is essential for startups to survive and thrive in the unforgiving conditions of the market. Startups operate in unknown and hostile environments where they must discover everything almost from scratch, including products, customers, go-to-market strategy, and more. Speed is the best way to derisk a startup.
Senior executives exit startups to the safe shores of big local business groups
Since September 2022, about 750 senior executives (CXOs and CXO-1) out of about 5,000 top professionals (with more than Rs 1 crore salary) exited unicorns and soonicorns.
Scouting out the next wave of robot workers
Automation might not be ready to over the Amazon warehouse yet but the robot revolution has certainly begun and accelerated by the pandemic.
The robots we were afraid of are already here
A humanoid warehouse worker, Digit walked upright on goatlike legs and grabbed bins off a shelf with muscular arms made from aerospace-grade aluminum. It then placed the boxes on an assembly line and walked back to the shelf to search for more.
The pursuit of beauty: What explains Damani's big bet on Health and Glow?
Rising income levels, urbanisation, Internet access, rise of social media influencers and a large share of the young population are factors leading to a beauty boom in India that is projected to reach $17.4 billion by 2025 from $15.6 billion in 2022. The market is increasingly seeing consolidation of brands or bigger conglomerates making an entry.
SEBI’s realty fractional ownership regulation to institutionalise asset class, attract more capital
The regulation will support in boosting the investors’ confidence and thereby help widen the acceptance to the newly emerging investment asset class. The move is also expected to support realty developers bringing in the much-needed liquidity as they can opt for one more channel to monetise their assets.
ETtech Deals Digest: Indian startups raised $58 million this week
Here’s a look at some of the key startups that raised funding this week.
EarKart raises funding from Agility Ventures, others
EarKart, a hearing aid technology firm, has raised an undisclosed amount of pre-Series A funding led by Agility Ventures.
Retail, consumer sector saw 55% decline in deal volumes during January-March 2023: Grant Thornton Bharat
Even compared to the sequential October-December quarter, the first three months of 2023 calendar year recorded a 24% decline in deal volumes while values dropped by 35% on back of absence of big-ticket investment and non-disclosure of around 75% of M&A deals. In fact, about 63 deals came from the e-commerce segment in Q1 2023.
Zyod raises $3.5 million in funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
Zyod plans to use the funds to improve technology and hire more people. From adding more manufacturers and suppliers to introducing new features, the company will continue to focus on building a larger network of MSMEs in the apparel sourcing and manufacturing segment.
Online beauty and personal care market expected to grow to $4.5 billion with 110 million online shoppers by 2025: Elara Securities
"Beard management is posting a growth of 20% per annum and is expected to do well. The beauty and personal care market in India is pegged at $25 billion in 2022 compared to the US at $86 billion and China at $60 billion. It is a profitable category as unit economics with gross margin on the higher side in the range of 55-65%," said the report.
Fixigo raises seed funding in a round led by Agility Ventures
Fixigo plans to use the funds in expanding its services in newer markets and brand building exercise.
Mobility startup BattRE raise seed fund from investors led by Agility Ventures and former Tata Motors executive
The startup currently offers three products: two low-speed scooters and a high-speed scooter and the company will add two more - a high-speed bike and a delivery scooter. One of the key features differentiating BattRE scooters is the connected feature enabled through Internet Of Things (IOT). Such connected scooters can provide insights to the users and enable operational efficiency, the statement said.
Beauty startup Vanity Wagon raises $2 million in funding
The Delhi-based startup will utilise the funds to strengthen its market position, invest in brand building, grow the private label portfolio, offline retail, technology, and marketing and sales-driven strategies. Launched in 2018 by Naina Ruhail, Prateek Ruhail, and Sahil Shrestha, Vanity Wagon claims to be an information-oriented clean beauty ecosystem in India.
Kidswear brand Kidbea raises undisclosed sum in funding led by Agility Ventures
Nandi Mehta, the CFO of Kaaf Funds, Tapas Sahu, the Chairman of the CII in Jharkhand, Divij Bajaj, the founder of Power Gummies, Abhishek Kocchar, founder of Diamond overseas, and Vivekananda Nareddula, the founder of Apaizer, also participated in the funding round.
Sleepsia secures $2 million funding from parent company Agile Ventures
Sleepsia will use the funding to expand its customer base in tier-II and tier-III cities, the company said in a statement.
Load More
