Exotel raises funds and provides an 18x exit to Mumbai Angels

 

Exotel raises funds and provides an 18x exit to Mumbai Angels

Bengaluru-based Exotel, Cloud telephony service provider, co-founded by Shivakumar Ganeshan, Ishwar Sridharan, Siddharth Ramesh, Vijay Sharma, has closed growth capital INR 40 crore funding round led by venture capital firm A91 Partners.  Founded in 2011, the startup had raised a seed round from Mumbai Angels in 2012, co-invested by Blume. This is their first fund raise after the seed round in 2012 and some of the early MA investors have exited in this round, realising over 40% IRR, ~18x multiple.  Exotel offers a number to a company on which they can receive and make calls and SMSes — all at the same time, without having to invest in any infrastructure. The product is a dashboard with sales tools, marketing tools, customer support tools, business intelligence, analytics etc.

Shivakumar Ganesan, Founder, Exotel said, “Mumbai Angels investors had supported us when we were building the platform. I am happy that I was able to deliver and provide a good exit to them. It is a matter of pride for us at Exotel that we have grown organically after the first fundraise from Mumbai Angels. Exotel has helped enterprises migrate to cloud-based customer communication and build personalized and timely customer engagement across customer support, marketing, operations and sales.”

Gautam Shewakramani, Investor Board Member at Exotel representing Mumbai Angels shareholders said "Since our investment in 2012 Exotel has shown remarkable growth in a sustainable and capital efficient manner. We are thrilled to have A91 partner with the company for its next stage of growth."

Nandini Mansinghka, Co-promoter & CEO, Mumbai Angels Network commented, "Exotel through its cloud technologies has helped more than 4000+ customers across Asia Pacific. It is very rewarding to see Exotel’s journey from seed round investment to a phenomenal 18x exit to our Investors and we acknowledge the effort of Shivku and his team. We are excited that Exotel is an MA Portfolio company and wish Shivku and the team continued success.”

MA Portfolio Gegadyne raises ~$5 Mn in Series A from V-Guard

MA Portfolio Gegadyne raises ~$5 Mn in Series A from V-Guard

Mumbai Angels (MA) Network backed energy startup Gegadyne which provides game changing energy-efficient and eco-friendly alternatives to conventional lithium-ion batteries, has received a strategic investment of approximately USD 5 million from electrical appliances giant V-Guard. Gegadyne was founded in 2015 by Jubin Varghese and Ameya Gadiwan and in 2017, they raised an angel round from Mumbai Angels Network.   The Mumbai-based startup has developed a technology which allows batteries to charge from 0 to 100% in around 15 minutes; unlike lithium ion batteries that charge at longer intervals. Their batteries are developed from supercapacitors having an energy density similar to that of lithium ion batteries. This innovative approach is a landmark development, as according to research data, the market for batteries is slated to grow globally at a CAGR of 15% over the next seven years.   This investment will enable Gegadyne to scale up its operations and further enhance research and development. Vishamitra Hariharan, Mumbai Angels Deal Lead Gegadyne, said, "We have great expectations from Gegadyne to become the leader in the world of sustainable technologies and look forward to the company playing a pivotal role in transforming EVs, as well as sustainable energy products as a whole. Gegadyne has onboarded the right investor in this journey of revolutionizing battery technology". Jubin Varghese and Ameya Gadiwan, Co-founders, Gegadyne commented "We are elated to have V-Guard Industries as an Investor  on our mission to build the next generation of Battery Technology that will revolutionize the field of Energy storage and catapult India to be self-reliant in advance battery chemistry. We also would like to acknowledge the tremendous faith demonstrated by our seed investors – Mumbai Angels Network in our capabilities & enabling us to get to where we are today".

Nandini Mansinghka, Co-promoter and CEO Mumbai Angels Network, commented, "Worldover, there is a steady rise in the demand for energy-efficient solutions like the one Gegadyne provides. It's great to see how products like these are helping us move towards a sustainable lifestyle with the same level of convenience. We are thrilled to see that our portfolio company is now raising additional funds in their Series A Round, validating our faith in them".

MA Portfolio Company Exotel raises INR 40 Cr from A91 Partners

 

MA Portfolio Company Exotel raises INR 40 Cr from A91 Partners

Mumbai Angels Network’s portfolio company Exotel Techcom Pvt Ltd has raised fresh funding from venture capital firm A91 Partners. The Company was launched in 2011 by Shivakumar Ganesan, who teamed up with Ishwar Sridharan, Siddharth Ramesh and Vijay Sharma to start the venture. In early 2012, it raised seed funding from Mumbai Angels and Blume Ventures. Exotel plans to use these funds to capitalise on the enterprise digital adoption wave in the aftermath of the pandemic and invest in new-age technologies to power chatbots, voice translation services, caller sentiment analysis, automatic call quality assessment and more. In addition, the Company plans to deploy the funds raised to accelerate the product development and enter new markets overseas. In particular, they are looking at the growing revenue contribution from markets such as Southeast Asia to plot its expansion in the coming years.

Shivakumar Ganesan, Founder, Exotel said, “The pandemic has changed the way companies conduct business. People are now increasingly moving away from an office setup. This has made digital transformation and migration to the cloud a priority.  Exotel has helped enterprises migrate to cloud-based customer communication and build personalized and timely customer engagement across customer support, marketing, operations and sales.”

Gautam Shewakramani, Investor Board Member at Exotel representing Mumbai Angels shareholders said "Since our investment in 2012 Exotel has shown remarkable growth in a sustainable and capital efficient manner. We are thrilled to have A91 partner with the company for its next stage of growth."

Nandini Mansinghka, Co-promoter & CEO, Mumbai Angels Network commented, "Exotel through its cloud technologies has helped more than 4000+ customers across Asia Pacific. It is very rewarding to see Exotel’s journey from seed round investment to exit to our Investors.”

About Mumbai Angels Network:  Started in 2006, Mumbai Angels Network (MA Network) is India’s premier platform focused on new venture investing. The network is today 500+ members strong, across 9 chapters (Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Goa, Pune, Jaipur, Chennai) & 25+ cities across the globe. The network today has one of the strongest portfolios in the country with 150+ companies, 70+ exits plus next round investments.

CHARGE+ZONE; EV charging start-up raises INR 3.2 Cr from Mumbai Angels Network

 

CHARGE+ZONE; EV charging start-up raises INR 3.2 Cr from Mumbai Angels Network

The Company CHARGE+ZONE  has established electric vehicle charging technology based on IOT and using cloud services to provide anywhere-anytime charging solution by making it smart, open platform configurable & flexible. It uses technology which is powered by IOT, through over-the-air flow of data and use of cloud base solutions to give a smooth customer experience. The company aims to build software solutions which will have Unmanned charging stations providing quality charging services, with remote control and monitoring, thus making them 24x7 available to EV drivers. The company has proved its effectiveness by establishing over 108 charging stations across India, in a span of less than 1 year for billing clients like Ashok Leyland, Bajaj, Glyd (Mahindra Initiative), Blu Smart Mobility, Shuttl, amongst others.

Kartikey Hariyani, Founder & CEO, Charge+Zone said, “The investment by Mumbai Angels, as well as other family offices  represents the belief of investors in the promise of EMobility in India. We shall leverage the capital infusion to scale our operations towards early 2021 deployment plans and to keep us motivated as we work towards building 1 Mn unmanned charging points in the next ten years in India.”

Sanit Patel, Lead Investor at Charge+Zone said, "The team has been successful in forging strategic partnerships with the likes of Microsoft, iCreate, & EDF France to create its strong unique position in the industry while making sure to keep this an asset light business model. The proprietary in-house cloud based technology that can facilitate seamless connectivity between users, charging hubs and power grids has been instrumental in giving the company an edge over its competition by creating extremely strong unit economics, adding an extra revenue stream to cross sell this SaaS technology to other players in the market and a possibility to gather data for analytical".

Nandini Mansinghka, Co-promoter and CEO Mumbai Angels Network, commented, "As Electric Vehicle as a sector gains wider adoption over the next decade. Our Investors see a lot of long term potential throughout the entire EV space and the battery charging ecosystem plays a vital role . We welcome Charge+Zone in our diversified portfolio."

Instoried raises INR 3.2 Cr led by Mumbai Angels Network

Bangalore based start-up Instoried is the interception of deep-tech and content, which leverages deep-tech to augment content with emotional capabilities has raised INR 3.2 Crores led by Mumbai Angels Network and participated by other investors. Instoried provides end-to-end solutions to content marketers, helping them target a particular emotion based on its identification of the brand’s emotional quotient. The company has in-house developed, novel NLP models. It works in two content formats : text and video analysis. In text, Instoried supports two languages: English and Hindi. The company has launched a web app and sells licences of the tool for multiple language users. It is currently available in English and Hindi and will expand to cover a larger set of vernacular languages in the foreseeable future. Sharmin Ali, Founder & CEO, Instoried "We, at Instoried, are experiencing a phenomenal growth curve this year. We started selling only from March 2020 and have grown tremendously hence at a 60% MOM. With a very lean team, we did not expect to scale at this speed. With the MA investment, we want to hire more people and also expand our operations globally and invest on various marketing channels to be able to acquire more customers and diversify our portfolio of product offerings." Shantanu Bhowmick, Deal Lead, Mumbai Angels Network "The start-up certainly checks a few critical parameters in terms of tech, passionate founders and a large global marketplace for their services. With online global sales poised to touch $5 trillion, advertising rates going higher and digital noise getting louder, content efficacy is paramount - Instoried is well poised to capture this market." Nandini Mansinghka, Co-promoter & CEO, Mumbai Angels Network, commented “Instoried has built an AI platform which analysis emotion quotients in your content. It will offer brands, marketers and researchers content that appeals to readers or users by providing smart recommendations in real time which can influence consumer behaviour. We welcome Instoried to our expanding portfolio and are excited to see how this platform will help large companies.”

Lattu Kids raises seed funding from Mumbai Angels Network

 

Mumbai, November, 2020: EdTech startup Lattu Media Pvt Ltd (“Lattu Kids”)  has raised seed funding from Mumbai Angels Network. This follows Airtel picking up a strategic stake in Lattu Kids in June 2020 as part of the Airtel Startup Accelerator Program.  Lattu Kids specializes in digital learning tools for children. Its popular Lattu Kids app focuses on improving English vocabulary, English reading and Maths foundation skills for children under the age of 10 years through entertaining, fun learning animated videos and games. With this latest round of investment, Lattu Kids plans to ramp up hiring of digital talent and scale up its product portfolio to serve the fast growing market for quality education content for kids. Airtel is already collaborating with Lattu Kids to take its content deeper and wider through its robust digital platforms that have over 160 Mn MAUs. Vivek Bhutyani, Co-founder and CEO, Lattu Kids said: "Today, early foundational learning  is the most overlooked category in education across India . It however sets the foundation of how well the child will perform in primary and higher secondary. One of the main reasons why parents love the Lattu Kids app is because of our unique approach to learning. Our fun led learning approach helps provide clarity of concepts leading to better learning retention amongst children. With Mumbai Angels investors partnering with us, Lattu Kids will invest in hiring talent around product, curriculum and technology. With Airtel Accelerator’s steadfast support, we are confident to succeed in this market.” Abhishek Mittal, Lead Investor, Mumbai Angels, added: “Widespread access to quality education at an early age will enable us to build a more inclusive progressive society over time. We believe that Vivek and his team at Lattu Kids have the solid background and deep domain expertise to connect the dots to deliver this efficiently in a fun learning format in the early learning education space. Their commendable digital distribution network such as the partnership with Airtel along with presence on YouTube, Ola Prime Play and the Xiaomi ecosystem, gives them access to rapid growth platforms which will help them scale.” Nandini Mansinghka, Co-promoter & CEO, Mumbai Angels Network, commented “We are excited to welcome Lattu Kids to our portfolio. They have built a strong English language foundation of listening, speaking, reading and comprehension skills with the help of fun learning animation videos for kids, which prepares the child for elementary schooling. Especially in the current COVID times, this app is all what parents need for their children.”

Svami raises INR 6.5 crore in bridge round led by Mumbai Angels Network

 

Svami, a non-alcoholic, aerated beverage brand has raised INR 6.5 crore in a bridge round, leading up to a Series A. The round, led by Mumbai Angels also has current investors participating which include Rukam Capital Trust; Niren Shah, Managing Director of Norwest Venture Partners and Ashish Chand’s Family Office - Yukti Securities. The consumer startup will use the newly raised funds to: Launch a ready to drink product line Penetrate deeper into existing geographies and grow into newer cities in India Apart from being the pioneer in launching premium products in the aerated category, Svami is the only brand in the country to have 100% R&D and manufacturing in house.  Svami’s beverage portfolio is available at select retail outlets, wine shops, and leading restaurants-bars and is now available in 8 states in India (including Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Goa and Pune) and 2 international markets with over 900 touchpoints.  Bouncing back from Covid-19 Svami took a number of measures to not only survive but make the most of the difficult conditions faced during the lockdown. Pre covid, 70% of revenues were from HoReCa (Hotel/Restaurant/Café)  and 30% from retail, whereas now the company is back to pre covid revenues only with retail sales. Svami also launched a 3 Calorie Tonic Water during the lockdown with a D2C approach which quickly became a success. Svami has also had the best online customer engagement during lockdown because of a host of consumer facing initiatives.  On the fundraise, Sahil Jatana, Co-Founder & CEO at Svami said, “We started Svami to create premium aerated beverages that did not exist in the country. Since launch, we have seen massive product acceptance across retail and HoReCa (Hotel/Restaurant/Café) and now we are doubling down on our first mover advantage with deeper retail presence and a new category launch. Fund raising in the time of covid and an era of zoom calls has had its own way of working and we are happy to have Mumbai Angels be a part of our journey. Nandini Mansinghka, Co-promoter & CEO, Mumbai Angels Network commented “Non-alcoholic beverage is relatively an uncovered space in India which allows companies to create innovation opportunities. Health conscious consumers are changing the narrative of this segment and companies have to adjust and accelerate their strategies in this fast-changing landscape.We are happy to have Svami, a progessive drinks company, is making non-alcoholic drinks on their premium platform as a part of our expanding portfolio in the food and beverage sector.”

About Mumbai Angels Network:  Started in 2006, Mumbai Angels Network (MA Network) is India’s premier platform focused on new venture investing. The network is today 500+ members strong, across 9 chapters (Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Goa, Pune, Jaipur, Chennai) & 25+ cities across the globe. The network today has one of the strongest portfolios in the country with 150+ companies, 70+ exits plus next round investments.