April Spotlight

 

CarterX partners with Indigo, Vistara for baggage transfer service IndiGo and Vistara in partnership with MA portfolio company, CarterX have launched luggage transfer service which will ensure customer baggage being delivered from the first to the last destination. IndiGo’s “6EBagPort” will be launched in Mumbai and Bangalore while Vistara will be operational in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Read More

ixamBee Onboards Dr Sanjeev Sharma As Senior Advisor  MA portfolio company ixamBee wishes to strengthen its leadership team and aims to leverage its position to groom 5 million students and hence has appointed Dr Sanjeev Sharma as Senior Advisor-Career Guidance. Dr Sharma was Ex-Regional Director at RBI and holds a PhD in English from IIT-Kanpur. Read More         BLive bringing childhood joy to eco-conscious travellers BLive, an e-bike startup company funded by MA, is a travel tech platform that provides experiential tours driven by the locals and powered by smart and savvy electric bikes . In a post-Covid world, the company aims to focus on sustainable tourism. Being an Airbnb Experiences Host, its tours can now be booked on the Airbnb platform. Read More AdOnMo surpasses 2000+ HD digital advertising screens  Breaking the shackles of innovation scarcity, MA backed AdOnMo with its Digital Taxi Toppers and Residential Lift Lobby Screens, has surpassed the count of 2000+ HD digital advertising screens across the cities of Hyderabad, Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru. Read More Hemp Horizon creating awareness about the ‘trillion dollar crop’ Regarded as a trillion dollar crop, hemp seeds from the cannabis plant is widely used as a pharmaceutical drug, fibre and healthcare in foreign countries. Creating waves in India, Hemp Horizon backed by MA, is the country’s first and leading hemp seed producers who are Ayurveda-licensed, GMP and ISO certified. Read More Job Openings

Gegadyne Sector - EV Business Analyst Apply Now Dr Sheths Sector - Consumer Social Media Executive Apply Now Blive Sector - Travel & Hospitality Business Manager Apply Now Leegality Sector - Legal Multiple Roles Apply Now

Cloud Kitchen platform ZFW Hospitality raises nearly USD 150,000 pre-seed funding from Mumbai Angels Network, Expert DOJO & other angels

 

The funds will be directed towards expanding the company’s footprint in the western region, hire top talent, and bolster its network to 300+ cloud-based restaurants.

19th April, 2021: Mumbai Angels Network, along with California-based accelerator Expert DOJO and 3 other marquee angel investors, has invested close to USD 150,000 in India’s first cloud kitchen platform and Huddle-backed ZFW Hospitality to add to the armour of early supporters and advisors. ZFW will be utilizing the funds to expand its presence in the western region, hire top talent, and increase its network to 300+ cloud-based restaurants before raising a larger amount of funds in the next round. ZFW also revealed that it will deploy a part of the proceeds to improve AI and Data Analytics Capabilities on the ZFW-OS platform that helps streamline operational efficiency and overhead costs.

Speaking on the freshly infused funds for his company, Madhav Kasturia, Founder of ZFW said, “Having witnessed the rapid shift towards delivery & asset-light models on the front lines over the past 6 years, we’re excited to play a key role in the consumer ecosystem. Humbled to receive the confidence of investors and strategic angels who’ve joined us early on in our exciting journey. As ZFW focuses on its next chapter, our team remains committed to our mission of helping partners drive attractive incremental unit economics.”

Commenting on the investment, Nandini Mansinghka, Co-Promoter, and CEO of Mumbai Angels Network said, “Cloud Kitchen and Fulfilment Network ZFW will help recognized F&B brands maximize utilization of kitchen space and enable their asset-light expansion. This will help them scale up rapidly to cater to the growing consumer demand across geographies. It will also help brands that are on the path to profitability and have already figured out their unit economics”.

“The F&B space is getting more competitive by the day due to daunting tasks, more players, and the rising costs of customer acquisition, new geography expansion, and operations. ZFW addresses that by not only scaling brands into newer markets but with 360-degree support to speed up learning curves without any cost. This pre-seed round is a testament to Madhav’s expertise and vision to build the gold-standard platform, needed by the industry in India,” added Sanil Sachar, Founding Partner at Huddle.

ZFW helps F&B & D2C brands grow sustainably through its vast network of cloud kitchens & fulfilment centers. The company has been in the news for its partnerships with notable brands like Baskin Robbins, Keventers, Tibbs Frankies, The Brooklyn Creamery, & Beijing Street to help boost profitability through its 50+ cloud restaurants across India.

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 550+ members strong, across 9 chapters (Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Goa, Pune, Jaipur, Chennai) & 40+ cities across the globe. The network today has one of the strongest portfolios in the country with 160+ companies, 70+ exits plus next round investments.

About ZFW:  ZFW started as a takeout store - ‘Beijing Street’ in South Delhi back in 2015. Beijing Street’s first store at Vasant Kunj did well for ZFW & it was followed by the launch of it’s second store at Greater Kailash, New Delhi. Mid 2018 was when Madhav Kasturia (Founder @ ZFW) graduated from College & decided to scale up ZFW in the cloud kitchen space. By 2019, ZFW was successfully running 4 Pan-Asian Cloud Kitchens across the city & that’s when something as small in size as the Corona virus, hit the economy of 200+ Countries on this planet & ZFW was one of the millions of ventures that got affected by this pandemic. On March 22 2020, A nation-wide lockdown was declared, ZFW had to pause operations of all 4 Cloud Kitchens & that’s when Madhav came up with the ‘Kitchen-in-Kitchen’ model. Within 56 days of the commencement of the Lockdown, ZFW launched it’s first set of 8 Cloud Kitchens in the ‘KIK’ Format. Today, ZFW is running 50+ Internet Restaurants across 22+ Cloud Kitchens in NCR. ZFW OS platform was launched in December 2020 & ZFW has signed up with a couple of notable International & domestic brands such as Baskin Robbins, Keventers, The Brooklyn Creamery, Tibb’s Frankies, NOTO Ice-cream, Artinci, Only Bowl. etc.

Explore Partnerships and Investment Opportunities in Australia with MA!

MA Global Platforms is back with an exciting new country to explore in terms of investment and partnership opportunities! This time we will be bringing you Australia - the Land Down Under. Famed for its breathtaking beaches and unique wildlife, Australia is also fast emerging as a new hub for startups. Government policies have made a huge difference to the ease of doing business in Australia which has seen the nation rank in the top 10 in the list of nations friendliest to startups. 

The Land Down Under has also seen a spurt in the rise in the number of successful startups in recent years being home to Unicorns like graphic design startup Canva,  cross-border payments startup Airwallex and tech company Atlassian. Just this year, Canva raised a round of $71 million at a valuation of $15 billion. 

On the 22nd of May, MA in partnership with leading global accelerator inQ, will be showcasing 6 Australian startups who will be pitching to you for investment and partnership opportunities. This session will also feature a segment on Overseas Direct Investment (ODI) so that the investor can make an informed decision and fully grasp the tremendous opportunity that awaits them. 

About MA Global Platforms:

MA Global Platforms is an exciting new offering by Mumbai Angels Network, that brings you the best in startups from across the globe. Learn more about the process of investment and explore partnership opportunities that can help you grow your business! The startups that we bring to you are looking to demonstrate their technology, look for sales partners, business development, or investments. MA Network’s platform continues to introduce global companies to the Indian investor, to enable their India entry in the most efficient manner. Through this channel, MA plans to continuously introduce innovative and unique offerings from across the world to its investors as well as to the larger ecosystem in its role as a leading angel investing platform. MA is equipped to handhold through the entire investment and post-investment process.

For more information, please feel free to reach out to chandni@mumbaiangels.in

/ sonalisingh@mumbaiangels.in 

If you’d like to attend, please RSVP at this link: http://bit.ly/MA_AUS 

Video AI Platform - Toch gives a 2.5x Exit to MA Investors in 2 years

 

Mumbai Angels (MA) Network portfolio company Toch, a video meta-tagging platform co-founded by Vinayak Shrivastav, Saket Dandotia and Alok Patil provides 2.5x Exit to MA Investors in less than 2 years  The company helps online video creators, media companies, advertisers and OTT platforms to succeed in digital video across all platforms through its best in-class insights, achieved by using AI based tagging and Deep Learning. Toch is a go-to solution for multiple platforms helping them monetize content and use meta-data for multiple data collection internally.  MA Network invested in the company in May 2019 and the exit opportunity has been created in under 2 years at a multiple of over 2.5x with a 65%+ IRR. Vinayak Shrivatav, Co-Founder Toch “MA Investors has been very supportive throughout our journey and we are happy that we were able to provide a good exit to them. Toch is a video ai platform that automates meta data collection and usage of it in automating media processes. We are very excited about what lies ahead.” Tushar Lunkad MA Investor, Board Member and Advisor “Toch is building the next generation of automated video automation processes to increase media process efficiency. It is backed by an experienced team and a strong vision. We wish them good luck for their journey ahead." Nandini Mansinghka, Co-Promoter and CEO, Mumbai Angels Network commented "We are excited at this 65% IRR, 2.5x exit option that Toch has given MA Investors in a short frame of time. We have seen OTT platforms evolving with new age technology where players like Toch have a significant role in helping multiple media platforms monetize their content with the use of AI and Deep Learning. We wish the founders the very best in their journey ahead and at the same time continue to bring revolutionary startups to the MA Platform."

Strides Taken in 20-21

 

Dear Member, What a year this has been! Last March, none of us had imagined how the next few months will roll out, challenging so many of our beliefs on how differently life can be lived and business done! We at Mumbai Angels Network went through a similar journey both as an organization and as a team. I am happy to report that as we doubled down on our efforts and embraced innovation and technology; we delivered one of our best years ever. 1.Exits and Next round investments: The last year has been great for our portfolio. Around 36 of our 160+ strong portfolio, saw exits and next round investments. Some star exits/ next rounds were: Purplle, Exotel, One point Six Technologies, Gegadyne, Unocoin, Mcaffeine, Toch and Unlu. Our focus is simple: we are about exits not just investments. 2.Investments: We funded 35 innovative start-ups across industries and deal sizes. Some of the notable investments included Big Bang Boom Solutions (Defence Tech-INR 7.3 Crores), Chargezone (EV-INR 5.4 Crores), Svami (Consumer-INR 3.8 Crores), Blu Smart Mobility (Mobility / EV-INR 3.6 Crores) Dhruva (Space Tech-INR 2.7 Crores), and several others like Hemp Horizon and Prescinto. 3.Virtual Showcase: Once we switched the investor showcase format to virtual, we could increase the number of new start-ups being showcased from 8 to 12 a month. This enabled members from across the globe to invest in a wide variety of geography and sector agnostic start-ups. 4.Increased Deal flow: We are now evaluating 8,000-10,000 deals a year, shortlisting 100-120 of them for our members. This is a highly curated deal flow of 1-2% of startups that we see. 5.Trending Deals: Of the wide choice of Open Deals, our Trending Deals section enables investors to have more focused conversations on 6-7 trending start-ups and take informed decisions. 6.Sector focused conversations: We have started focusing on some key verticals, through a mix of knowledge sessions, virtual summits and sector focused showcases. We have started with Lifesciences, Flavors, EdTech and Online Gaming with more in the pipeline. 7.Knowledge and Academy sessions: We conducted several learning sessions, masterclasses and engaging conversations across topics including Angel Investing, Lifesciences, Horeca, Gaming and Cryptocurrency. We also launched our Global Start-ups Platform starting with South Korea. 8.Expanding Network: Our membership expanded to over 40 cities across the globe, and we are now a 550+ strong member network. 9.Family office Offering: We started engaging with Family Offices who are looking to deploy 4-5% of their overall portfolio to the early stage venture asset class. Our vision is to make MA the preferred destination for early stage venture investing, hence becoming an integral building block for the $5 trillion Indian economy. What we have achieved this year only reinforces my commitment for FY 2022 and forward. Thank you for being part of MA.

Do Your Thng (DYT) Raises USD 150,000 led by Mumbai Angels Network

 

Do Your Thng (DYT) Raises USD 150,000 led by Mumbai Angels Network

Do Your Thng, a branded content marketplace raises fresh funding of $150,000 led by Mumbai Angels Network.  Headquartered in Gurugram, DYT helps brands get high-quality, personalised branded content at scale with quick turn-around time, backed by data and an ROI-based approach. Leveraging the DYT app, content creators can access brand collaborations.  DYT will fuel the next growth phase in which the Company plans to accelerate the expansion of their influencer marketing tech platform with the funds raised.  Trusted by some of the biggest brands, including MasterCard, Nescafe, Lays, Havells, Marks & Spencer, Logitech, Hershey’s, Royal Sundaram, and Klairs, DYT is on the forefront of the rapidly rising influencer marketing industry. The Company has a 4x jump in revenue compared to the last financial year in the backdrop of the pandemic and are confident of maintaining this pace of growth.

Ankit Agarwal, Founder and CEO of Do Your Thng, said: “Mumbai Angels has a very successful track record of partnering with start-ups. In addition to the investment, it is their network and expertise in scaling companies and improving products that makes them a natural partner for us as we continue to be the technological bridge between brands and creators.”

Hemant Dua, Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer, Do Your Thng, said: “With this latest round of funding, we’ll accelerate the tech side of our platform, making it easier for content creators to pursue what they love and marketers to access unique digital content. The new funding round follows a year that saw a marked rise in demand for digital marketing and advertising. The funds will be injected into pushing a few key tech modules of DYT. It’ll strengthen the platform, reduce the amount of manual intervention required and make the process of getting branded content created as easy as ordering food online.”

Nandini Mansinghka, Co-Promoter and CEO, Mumbai Angels Network commented "Digital marketing is growing rapidly and influencer marketing is slowly taking center stage in the success of many brands. DYT platform is focussing on making the whole process of creating branded content easier through their tech platform connecting creators with brands, thereby increasing the digital footprint of brands. We are happy to welcome DYT in our diversified portfolio and look forward to the exciting plans they have on the anvil."