While running a garment manufacturing unit for six years, producing shirts for global fashion giants like Zara, S.Oliver UK, Mango, and Marks & Spencer Poland, Harsh Somaiya wasn’t thinking about launching a brand. But his wife, Tanvi, a NIFT graduate who managed the factory’s sampling department, sparked a turning point.

“She used to make samples for brands like Zara and Mango,” Harsh recalled. “When we presented those samples, they bought them. That’s where we got the Eureka moment. We thought, if global brands are buying what we’re creating, why can’t we build something of our own, in India, for the Indian market?”

That realisation led to the launch of The Bear House in 2017 — a menswear brand built not on marketing burn, but on deep operational insight. Harsh used his manufacturing experience to build what is today an INR 140 Cr apparel brand for men.

At the time, their factory was still operational, and the duo took a deliberate approach: identifying a market gap, defining the product’s identity, and testing designs before committing to scale. Harsh observed that while most brands were chasing bold prints and occasion wear, few were addressing the everyday essentials, the Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-9 wardrobe that forms the backbone of a man’s closet.

With shirts already being the factory’s strength, the Somaiyas decided to begin with flannel styles. They designed 50 shirts and listed them on marketplaces. “The response was mind-blowing. The whole lot was sold within two months,” Harsh said.

This initial success spurred them to experiment and expand in India’s $32.32 Bn menswear market, projected to grow at 3.35% annually through 2029. They soon launched wardrobe staples like Oxford checks and poplin shirts — all of which sold out quickly.

The founders noticed a 65% repeat purchase rate early on. By the time the brand turned one, three pillars of growth had crystallised: quality, brand identity, and pricing. And all of it was rooted in their original edge — operational control and product-first thinking.

How Operational Expertise Gave The Bear House Supply Chain Control

Unlike most brands these days, where the marketers become founders without any production knowledge, Harsh handled developing the brand differently. Backed by his experience in manufacturing and over six years of managing a factory, Harsh entered the domain with the required insight into production and supply chain management. 

While most brands stressed on marketing and outsourced production without truly realising the product complexities, Harsh chose to play a different game. He built the business around the product itself. “We didn’t invest much in marketing,” he said. “Instead, we reaffirmed our belief in the product we made.”

With a strong supply chain in place, Somaiyas were able to rein in costs, set up strict quality control, and dish out high-end products at competitive prices. In contrast to most brands that were suffering losses early on attempting to force sales through advertising, The Bear House was EBITDA positive (+25%) from day one, claimed the founder.

This operational edge helped the startup roll out designs rapidly, hedged it from frequent stockouts, and aided in attracting customers without heavy marketing burn. The company introduces more than 200 styles every month. 

While most brands flounder after their first product launch, failing to coordinate the second cycle of production, either due to cash flow squeezes or supply bottlenecks, The Bear House ensured end-to-end control over the supply chain. They had long-term fabric vendor contracts from across the country, factory alliances, and a seasoned in-house quality team. “All these were built during my initial years of the manufacturing business,” Harsh said.

The operational efficiency helped The Bear House price its shirts at INR 340 to INR 350, whereas the production cost for a typical trading-driven brand would be INR 600 to INR 700. “The affordable pricing and consistent quality helped us to not only survive but also grow into an INR 140 Cr D2C brand,” Harsh said. Since the company is yet to file its full financials for FY25, the founder only disclosed the revenue figure at INR 140 Cr. “We’re looking at an INR 1,000 Cr revenue by 2030.”

How The Bear House Learned A Lesson In Managing The Control

In the early days of business, The Bear House bit off more than it could chew. “We were tempted by the initial success. We got carried over,” Harsh said.  

In a desire to grow faster, the Somaiyas tried to aggressively ramp up production, taking on more orders, putting in more capacity, and expanding into domestic markets. “We had excess capacity and to utilise it, we began to take domestic orders, sometimes even making losses. Domestic players would not pay on time, and the cash-flow crisis struck us severely,” Harsh said.

What had begun as a successful export-oriented business soon fell into an eddy. In 2019, the founders were forced to close down the factory, weighed down under a INR 25 Cr loan. Harsh described the incident as the turning point in his entrepreneurial career. “We learned never to stretch ourselves too thin. We realised that every risk had to be measured and every expansion had to be rationalised.” 

After the setback, Harsh redirected his entire attention to venturing into India’s booming D2C market, driven by continued innovation and the emergence of new players. The expected growth of D2C fashion from $29 Bn to $112 Bn by 2030 reinforced Harsh’s decision to enter the market. 

The lessons learned helped Harsh in sharpening his focus on developing the D2C brand. “We decided that there would be no running after vanity metrics, no hasty expansion and no over-spending. Instead, the emphasis would be on creating a slow, steady, and sustainable brand, one that knew its customers inside out, delivered reliably, and remained profitable from day one,” he said. 

How A Marketplace-Focussed Approach Fostered An INR 140 Cr Business

Funding was a major challenge for the bootstrapped business when it entered the D2C market. And Harsh was hell-bent on not diluting equity prematurely or becoming overly dependent on marketing. “We wanted the product to do the talking,” he said. “We built a loyal customer base, step by step.”

The D2C brand stayed focussed on its vision and entered the first round of funding only after it had reached the growth stage. JM Financial Group’s investment arm JM Financial Private Equity led an infusion of INR 50 Cr (around $5.8 Mn) into the startup in a Series A round. 

According to the founder, the company’s operational efficiency kept the startup profitable despite being bootstrapped. In FY24, the D2C menswear brand posted INR 96 Cr revenue from operations and INR 11.1 Cr profit, as per filings with the Registrar of Companies. This was a sharp growth in its real metrics as the startup had closed FY23 with INR 53.6 Cr operating revenue and INR 1.21 Cr revenue. The startup closed FY25 at INR 140 Cr, Harsh claimed, adding that in terms of the net profit, it is at about 18% EBITDA. The company is now looking to reach INR 250 Cr revenue in FY26. 

What drove The Bear House’s sustained profitability? It stemmed from the brand’s early and strategic focus on online marketplaces. Starting with Jabong, The Bear House rapidly expanded across Flipkart, Myntra, Ajio, Nykaa, and Tata Cliq. From the outset, the plan was to scale quickly through these platforms while keeping operational costs in check.

“We were a marketplace-first brand. The business took off quickly, month-on-month, even though our team was still lean,” said Harsh.

For almost four years from 2018, The Bear House concentrated exclusively on marketplace development. It was only in March 2022 that the founders created their own D2C website, followed by rolling out retail stores in February 2024.

The brand’s income today is dominated by sales through marketplaces – about 85% – while 13–14% comes from the D2C platform and an increasing 1% from the retail outlets. In marketplaces, Myntra takes the lead, generating around 40% of the revenue, followed by Flipkart at 28%, and Ajio at 25%. The rest comes from the likes of Tata Cliq and Nykaa.

With two retail stores live and 12 more signed up, The Bear House is now homing in on the offline market, evolving from a marketplace-first brand to a true omnichannel business. “Our roots are in marketplaces, but now we’re ready to build a more balanced, multi-channel brand,” Harsh said.

How The Bear House Maps Its Way Forward To INR 1,000 Cr Revenue

After setting up a strong foundation in marketplaces and D2C channels, The Bear House has entered its next phase of growth, betting big on offline retail and overseas expansion. The Bear House plans to operate only through company-owned, company-operated (COCO) stores. “We’re ready to invest in customer satisfaction. By owning and operating the stores ourselves, we believe we can deliver better service, which should ultimately drive stronger sales,” Harsh said.

In 2024 alone, The Bear House plans to open 20 stores across India. After launching two stores each in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, the brand has signed up for locations in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, and Guwahati, while Gujarat and Jaipur are also on the radar.

On the global front, The Bear House has gone live across five online platforms in Dubai and is gearing up to roll out the brand in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar.

The company’s larger vision is clear: reaching INR 1,000 Cr in revenue by 2030 and then going public with the brand. “We have drawn up a five-year roadmap for the brand. Once we reach the target topline of INR 1,000 Cr, we will explore the option of a public float,” Harsh said.

[Edited By Kumar Chatterjee]

The post How This D2C Brand Stitched Together An INR 140 Cr Profitable Menswear Business appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Long before Travis Kalanick, cofounder and former chief executive of Uber, acquired a controlling stake in CloudKitchens in 2018, a Bengaluru-based startup was making waves, whipping up global cuisines, offering a new selection of dishes every day, booking orders via its website and app, providing sturdy packaging suitable for transit and delivering the freshly prepared food within 30 minutes. FreshMenu, founded by Rashmi Daga, positioned itself as a multi-cuisine cloud kitchen with an integrated ordering and delivery model, blending elements of restaurant operations and food delivery platforms.

Now, purists would complain that our analogy does not hold. After all, Kalanick’s venture is the ‘WeWork’ of ghost kitchens (another name for cloud kitchens), providing real estate and technology to companies keen to expand their food businesses, deliver without logistics hassles and minimise overheads for healthier margins. But we aim to emphasise the underlying value of the cloud kitchen concept, delivery-only commissary kitchens without the bells and whistles of dine-in facilities.

Closer home, foodtech heavyweights like Zomato, Swiggy and Ola Foods attempted to integrate ‘food production’ with their seamless delivery networks by partnering with cloud kitchen brands. But by the early 2020s, all three were forced to scale back or pivot, underscoring the challenges of sustaining such operations. Globally, Uber Eats also shut down thousands of cloud kitchens to ensure the food quality of partner brands and weed out spammy listings.

Although the cloud kitchen market in India is projected to soar from $1.13 Bn in 2024 to $2.84 Bn by 2030, it has encountered significant headwinds, given these business outcomes. The model has flourished in metro hubs like Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi NCR, which are driven by rising incomes and a growing working population with little time to cook at home.

However, its expansion beyond Tier I cities has been fraught with challenges. More than 33% of these businesses outside the urban centres closed their doors even before the pandemic, squeezed by razor-thin margins and an over-reliance on restaurant aggregator-cum-delivery platforms like Zomato and Swiggy, which often impose steep commissions on each order. Customer loyalty is a persistent issue for many operators, as few directly interact with end customers.

Amid this turmoil, few narratives could capture the highs and lows of the cloud kitchen space as vividly as FreshMenu. After a good start and steady growth, the trailblazer faced a cash crunch due to multiple factors (more on that later) and was out to raise its Series C round towards the end of 2018. A brutal battle for survival followed, marked by drastic cost-cutting and a concerted effort to build a leaner, more efficient business model, laying the groundwork for a gritty return.

It was a far cry from the frothy early years when VC dollars poured into cloud kitchens like Rebel Foods and FreshMenu or platforms like Zomato and Swiggy. Of course, they were making losses. However, cloud kitchens have already identified huge growth opportunities, allowing them to craft their signatory dishes using culinary expertise and aggregate other food brands. The goal was clear: Scale rapidly and dominate the market by pleasing the palate of all users.

Launched in 2014, FreshMenu built its USP around delivering chef-curated, freshly prepared and globally inspired meals adapted for the Indian palate. It initially operated via its dedicated website and app but later shifted to Swiggy and Zomato. Today, 90% of its sales are routed via these platforms.

Despite the financial woes in later years, the cloud kitchen secured $32 Mn from a clutch of investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Zodius Capital, InnoVen Capital and Florintree Advisors, among others. It currently runs more than 72 cloud kitchens across Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi NCR and Kolkata, claiming a customer base of 10 Mn+ and more than 500,000 monthly active users. With more than 300 SKUs in its kitty, the brand serves packed meals and snack boxes to corporate employees and aims to turn its direct-to-consumer website into a B2B2C sales hub.

Although the brand did not disclose its unaudited financials for FY25, the founder projected an annualised revenue run rate (ARR) of INR 150 Cr. With sights set on INR 200 Cr in revenue for FY26 and a target of 100+ cloud kitchens, FreshMenu is now gearing up for its next growth phase. It also targets malls, airports and other retail outlets to expand its business.

From Ecommerce To Foodtech: Daga’s Pivot Led To A Promising Start

FreshMenu’s genesis can be traced to Daga’s earlier startup, Afday, an ecommerce platform for handcrafted products set up in 2011. Despite strong engagement, her first venture struggled to convert browsers into buyers at scale, and Daga had to shut it down after two years. “Despite positive engagement, sales remained sluggish. It was clear that this category needed more time to mature online. So we took a tough call and moved on,” she said.

Another challenge plagued her at the time — balancing new motherhood with a hectic work schedule. She struggled to find reliable restaurants which could home-deliver fresh, good-quality meals in the Bengaluru suburbs.

Spotting a gap in the market, the IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus, who had honed her expertise in sales with startups such as Ola and Bluestone, decided to explore the food industry. Her research revealed a compelling insight. While quality restaurants were located in selected city pockets, food delivery options remained sparse. But what truly caught her attention was the surge of global foodtech startups and the growing presence of players like Zomato, which were experimenting with on-demand delivery, healthy meals and innovative menus.

After months of research into global food trends, market gaps and local palates, Daga started cooking from her home kitchen and leaned heavily on customer feedback to build her brand. The concept quickly found traction among young and busy professionals who loved a variety of cuisines from different parts of the world.

With smartphones and app-based ordering gaining momentum, the founder was confident she could deliver global food at affordable prices using technology. “We wanted to move away from traditional QSRs [quick service restaurants] and make global cuisines accessible to Indian consumers in a convenient, cost-effective way,” she added. She also decided to go ‘full stack’, handling logistics and delivery besides procurement, food preparation and setting up the menu.

FreshMenu was officially launched in September 2014, with its first cloud kitchen set up in under 30 days. Its hub-and-spoke model featured a central kitchen, supported by smaller satellite kitchens across the city, which were close to its customers. It also offered global food — from Asian delicacies to Korean bowls and Mexican burritos to continental delights — tailored for local palates and portion preferences to make every meal exciting.

The brand differentiated itself through frequent menu changes, new offerings, and experiments with meal formats, packaging and affordable pricing (on average, meals were priced at INR 150). It started with mini meals, moved to plated formats — a restaurant-style dining experience typically including a main course accompanied by ‘sides’ — and eventually found massive success with its now-signature bowl-based meals. Frequent variations in the menu also proved effective for marketing, keeping consumers engaged and frequently checking the website/app to see what was new.

FreshMenu expanded quickly, rolling out cuisine-driven sub-brands like Salsito, Donburi and Taaka Chinese, alongside meal-centric options like Bowl Soul and Green Cravings. Many of them were discontinued due to low traction. However, the company’s willingness to adapt to consumer preferences kept it nimble and focussed on the better-performing ones. Currently, all sub-brands collectively contribute around 10% of the total revenue.

Within four years of its launch, Foodvista India, which owns and operates FreshMenu, breached the INR 100 Cr revenue milestone for the first time, hitting a topline of INR 122.33 Cr in FY18.

Its revenue climbed to INR 138 Cr, and losses shrank by 31.28% to INR 30 Cr in FY19 (from INR 43.9 Cr in the previous fiscal year), its best performance to date.

Apparently, the brand was poised to emerge as a remarkable success story in India’s fast-growing foodtech ecosystem. However, the early momentum also masked its structural weaknesses and blocked its journey to sustainable growth.

What Went Awry With FreshMenu’s Success Recipe: Costs, Competition & Covid

Despite initial growth — revenues jumped from INR 84 Lakh in FY15 to INR 31.68 Cr in the next fiscal year, a 3,671.4% rise — its operational costs soared. Its losses ballooned by 1,353%, from INR 2.32 Cr to INR 33.76 Cr over the same period.

Things became tougher with the rise of well-funded food aggregators and delivery platforms like Swiggy and Zomato. Their aggressive discounting strategies quickly eroded FreshMenu’s direct sales and user base.

“Around 2018, 70% of our revenue came from our website and app,” said Daga. “But as Zomato and Swiggy undercut our direct-to-consumer business, we had no choice but to join their platforms, sacrificing a significant portion of our margins to commissions in exchange for visibility. On top of that, we were forced to compete with a flood of new, heavily subsidised brands like EatFit and the Bowl Company.”

The founder cited how cut-throat the discount war could get. When Ola (ANI Technologies) acquired Foodpanda (India) from its German parent Delivery Hero by the end of 2017, it committed a $200 Mn infusion in the food and grocery delivery platform and ran crazy deals to grab market share.

“It offered [dessert] at INR 9 and other food items at abysmally low pricing, eroding market share from players like us who wanted to build a sustainable business. We were selling a food bowl at INR 200 and didn’t have the cash to keep pumping into discounts. Foodpanda, too, was eating into our direct business,” she added.

Interestingly, ride-hailing service Uber (India) entered this market around the same time via Uber Eats but sold its India food delivery business to Zomato in 2020.

FreshMenu’s finances had been badly strained during 2018-2019, driven by sliding margins and high cash burn rates necessary to maintain its premium offerings. But cash burn issues continued to plague the business even at its peak. Its challenges compounded when the brand insisted on controlling every aspect of its fast-paced operations, especially running an in-house delivery fleet. According to the founder, the costs of building technology, running deliveries and huge marketing spend accounted for the early cash burn.

“A multi-cuisine kitchen cooking and delivering global meals was considered risky and impractical. Even experts warned us that continental food would neither thrive in India nor survive the delivery process. But we persisted, focusing on perfecting the menu, packaging and pricing to remain affordable without compromising quality,” she said.

Winning customer love in food delivery takes more than a compelling idea. It demands consistent execution, adaptability and relentless focus on experience. More importantly, there was no playbook for cloud kitchens. FreshMenu had to build the category almost from scratch, which required funds and effort.

“As for challenges, we faced it right after we launched. The only easy bit was setting up our website via Shopify so people could start ordering meals within a week,” the founder said. “I had no food background and was a female founder in a male-dominated space. It meant hiring chefs and a team was incredibly tough. People were sceptical, and many said they would only join if the business took off.”

To build an early team, she had to connect with people on LinkedIn, reach out to chefs and long hours of convincing.

Or take, for example, how packaging evolved at FreshMenu. The brand initially relied on platters split into three to five compartments, and bowls were introduced about 10 months after its launch. But one of the early challenges was securing spill-proof packaging to preserve food integrity during transit. Eventually, the team took matters into their own hands and custom-designed paper packages for sandwiches and burgers.

Meanwhile, FreshMenu grappled with a financial crunch due to fierce competition and an increasing burn rate fuelled by deep discounting. The aggressive funding across the foodtech ecosystem also pressured it to scale rapidly to stay ahead. To cope with the crisis, the brand used nearly all its earnings to cover its expenses as the window to secure new funding closed.

The capital never materialised. Instead of signing term sheets, cautious investors adopted a wait-and-watch approach, wary of how well-funded foodtech startups would deliver following Swiggy’s $1 Bn funding round in 2018. Again, existing investors were too keen to minimise their losses instead of bailing out the startup. Although the brand secured a modest bridge round of $500K ($494,575, to be exact) in late 2019, acquisition talks with Bhavish Aggarwal’s Ola Foods and IPO-bound Oyo ultimately fizzled out.

When the pandemic struck in 2020, it badly impacted FreshMenu’s already precarious position. As lockdowns decimated demand, revenue plummeted from INR 138 Cr in FY19 to INR 50 Cr in FY21. It marked a revenue decline of 63.7% in two years. But confronted with an existential crisis, the founder implemented a series of cost-cutting and restructuring measures in an effort to stabilise the business.

How A Lean Model, Focus On Efficiency, Helped FreshMenu’s Turnaround

In the fiscal year 2021, FreshMenu’s financials painted a bleak picture, marking a nadir for the cloud kitchen startup. But for Rashmi Daga, it was a turning point. “It was a moment of reckoning. After facing some of our toughest days, we began to reassess the business fundamentals and took decisive measures to bring the startup back on track. FreshMenu is quite special. If we can fix the financial side, this can become a major player in the food industry,” the founder said.

Daga embarked on a painful restructuring. She slashed operating costs by shuttering seven to eight unprofitable kitchens, simplified the menu and let go of premium packaging.

The workforce was downsized to 400 to run a leaner corporate team. It also skipped overstaffing during peak hours, prioritising operational efficiencies.

Abandoning the daily-changing menu was a bold move for a brand known for its food varieties. But this step simplified operations and reduced costs significantly. “We learnt frugality the hard way, and we are going to keep it up,” the founder said.

Additionally, the brand strengthened its presence in key existing markets — Bengaluru, Delhi NCR and Mumbai — instead of aggressive expansion across new cities, “The idea is to ensure 100% coverage in the cities we are already in so that customers can order FreshMenu from anywhere within those metros,” the founder explained.

However, the biggest push came in April 2022 (FY23), when FreshMenu raised INR 50 Cr ($6.5 Mn) from former Blackstone India MD Cyriac Mathew’s Florintree Advisors as part of its Series C funding. The capital infusion provided the lifeline and the critical runway needed to reset the business.

The brand had since cleared its past debts and expanded its operations, adding new kitchens at a fast clip. In FY24, it doubled its cloud kitchen count to drive a steady surge in revenue.

Daga attributed this rapid growth to a strategic overhaul: Simplifying the menu, refining execution and streamlining the supply chain — all aimed at scaling operations swiftly and maintaining consistency across a growing customer base. In FY25, it focussed more on enhancing its offerings and strengthening its supply chain. With kitchen expansion still on the rise, talent acquisition and training also emerged as core priorities.

“Efficiencies in ingredient planning, sourcing from high-quality suppliers and minimising waste through meticulous daily planning have helped us streamline backend costs,” explained Daga.

The brand’s proprietary tech stack, which was developed in-house over the last decade and purpose-built for cloud kitchen operations, was instrumental in its recovery. The system offers real-time monitoring of kitchen performance, order tracking, supply chain management, daily profit-and-loss assessments at the unit level and HR management. “I can view all kitchen metrics in real time on the dashboard, pinpoint issues quickly and resolve them efficiently,” the founder explained.

The turnaround yielded measurable results, with revenue rebounding to INR 65.31 Cr in FY22, narrowing losses to INR 5.26 Cr. By FY24, FreshMenu reported INR 120.95 Cr in revenue, a 72.2% YoY increase from INR 70.21 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Although losses persisted, these were limited to INR 8.06 Cr.

The company is still in the red, but Daga’s broader ambition is to transform FreshMenu into a food company that endures for decades, potentially moving beyond the cloud format into physical touchpoints like mall kiosks and airport outlets. “We understand consumers and their food choices well. The next decade will be about showing up wherever there is an opportunity, maybe even retail,” she said.

Reflecting on a decade of business lessons, Daga told Inc42 that “tough times teach you more than the good ones”. Her most significant personal learning from the tumultuous journey is to build resilience and focus on solving what’s within one’s control.

Following a challenging period, FreshMenu has stabilised its operations, but uncertainties remain in a highly competitive market. While Covid accelerated the shift towards online food ordering, the market has matured into a complex, high-stakes battleground in post-pandemic times.

While FreshMenu was among the early players shaping the category, the market has since evolved, with large, well-funded players like Rebel Foods, EatClub, and others now dominating the landscape, each managing multiple food brands under a single operational umbrella. In short, few companies go it alone anymore, as solving meals single-handedly has become a near-impossible challenge over the long term.

FreshMenu may assert its leadership in niche offerings like food bowls across its markets, but cloud kitchens have evolved into dynamic, tech-powered virtual food halls driven by culinary diversity. These kitchens present a far more intricate and competitive landscape than when FreshMenu first fired up its stoves. The brand’s next challenge will be sustaining its resurgence in a market increasingly defined by consolidation, well-funded competitors and shifting consumer tastes.

[Edited By Sanghamitra Mandal]

The post How FreshMenu Bounced Back From Near Collapse To Hit INR 150 Cr Revenue appeared first on Inc42 Media.

April was a turbulent month for India’s growing startup ecosystem, as rising geopolitical tensions and broader market volatility dampened investor sentiment and slowed VC activity.

After raising nearly $1 Bn by startups in March, Indian startup funding dwindled to a mere $551 Mn in April. The increased scrutiny on startups arose due to financial mismanagement and fraud allegations against companies like BluSmart and Medikabazar, damaging the reputation of the Indian startup ecosystem.

In addition, the month was rife with discussions over the innovation that Indian startups bring to the table, especially in the deeptech space. This debate was triggered by commerce minister Piyush Goyal’s remarks at the second edition of the Startup Mahakumbh.

From startups emerging from small villages to founders building electric flying taxis, the second edition of Startup Mahakumbh highlighted the innovation brewing within the Indian startup ecosystem.

As a result, a significant portion of the 58th edition of Inc42’s flagship series, 30 Startups To Watch, features several startups that were discovered at the Startup Mahakumbh.

Not just this, a majority of startups for this edition have been selected from the burgeoning AI space, while the list also includes new-age ventures from hot sectors like EV, biotechnology, gaming, and spiritual tech. The list also comprises startups working in high-octane sectors like ecommerce, fintech and healthtech.

So, without further ado, here are 30 promising Indian startups that caught our eyes in April 2025.

Editor’s Note | The list below is not a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.

Alienkind | Reinventing Juice Bars For The Instagram Age

When people step out to unwind, grabbing a refreshing pint of fruit juice is the last thing on the agenda. Many either head to coffee shops or restaurants. Alienkind aims to change this with its next-gen juice bars designed for Gen Z.

Founded by snacking brand 4700BC’s former executives Vikram Kakkireni and Abhishek Kumar, the D2C brand serves cold-pressed juices and functional blends in sleek, minimalistic spaces. With Alienkind, the founders aim to make fruit juice a lifestyle choice.

Since its inception in 2024, the startup has opened multiple quick service restaurants (QSRs) in its home turf, Bengaluru.

Besides its offline presence, Alienkind sells its fresh juices on foodtech platforms like Zomato and Swiggy. Recently, Alienkind raised its maiden funding round of $1.2 Mn.

AllMasters.ai | Fixing Shipping Hassles With The Power Of AI

Less than container load (LCL) shipping remains a logistical headache. Merchants with smaller cargo volumes struggle to get fair rates, while freight forwarders face the challenge of optimising container space and cost distribution. AllMasters.ai is tapping into this shift with a digital-first approach to a traditionally opaque system.

To streamline this process, shipping veterans Kathiresan Eswaramurthy and T N Seetharaman founded AllMasters.ai in 2023. The startup uses AI to simplify LCL exports. It also helps merchants identify the best prices for their export using a smart price comparison tool for shipping.

Its patented dynamic cost distribution tech ensures fair cost-sharing for freight forwarders.

Armed with industry pedigree, a tech-first solution, and early funding from Eaglewings Ventures, AllMasters.ai is on a mission to revolutionise the groupage industry by empowering freight forwarders to take complete control of their LCL exports.

Overall, AllMasters.ai operates in the Indian LCL shipping market, which is a significant part of the broader freight and logistics sector. This market is projected to grow from $349.4 Bn in 2025 to $545.6 Bn by 2030.

AskMyGuru | Building A New-Age Gateway To Spiritual Learning

In today’s fast-paced world, many young Indians are curious about spirituality but find traditional methods of devotion too arduous. This is where there’s a growing need for modern, personalised guidance rooted in ancient Indian wisdom.

Launched in October 2024 by Krishna Mohan Vedula and Vivek Sadamate, AskMyGuru provides interactive and personalisegamification, and deeply researched Indic knowledge systems.

The platform is focussed on creating a special online space where users can connect with spiritual teachers and learn about astrology and Vedic philosophy.

Backed by Lumikai Fund and armed with $1.2 Mn in seed funding, AskMyGuru operates in the Indian religious and spiritual market, expected to grow at a CAGR of 10% until 2032 from $65 Bn in 2025.

BeastLife | Cracking India’s Crowded, Low-Trust Fitness Market

While influencer-led brands are booming in India, most struggle to scale or gain credibility beyond the creator’s fan base. Fitness supplements, in particular, are crowded with low-trust products and unclear value propositions.

Founded in 2024 by fitness influencer Gaurav Taneja (aka The Flying Beast) and former mCaffeine general manager Raj Vikram Gupta, BeastLife offers high-quality protein powders, creatine, and mass gainers.

Leveraging Taneja’s influence, the startup sells concentrated whey protein powders, mass gainers, creatine and a range of other supplements via its website, and ecommerce and quick commerce platforms.

The startup claims to have crossed INR 50 Cr in annual GMV, recorded INR 35 Cr in gross sales, and achieved EBITDA profitability in its first year of operations (FY25).

BeastLife operates in India’s crowded health and nutrition space and competes with established players like Optimum Nutrition, MuscleBlaze, and Protinex.

Bhagva | Building A Modern Path To Ancient Traditions

After years of working across various brands and industries, communications professional Jagriti Motwani noticed a gap. She realised that while technology had transformed many aspects of Indian life — from shopping and education to health and finance — the spiritual space remained largely untouched by meaningful innovation.

This insight led her to launch Bhagva in 2022, a spiritual tech startup that is reimagining how Indians connect with religion in the digital age.

Bhagva’s app offers a modern, immersive way to engage with faith. From virtual darshans and live aartis to personalised bhakti playlists, the platform caters to anyone seeking a deeper spiritual connection, no matter where they are.

Its standout feature is the immersive VR Darshan, which lets users virtually visit temples and spiritual sites across India.

In India’s spiritual market, expected to breach the $135.1 Bn mark by 2033, Bhagwa locks horns with Astrotalk, VAMA, AppsForBharat, et al.

Cellarim Labs | Redefining Biomanufacturing With Eco-Friendly Innovation

Founded by Hitesh Rafalia in 2023, Cellarim Labs aims to revolutionise biomanufacturing in India by creating the country’s first cell-free biomanufacturing platform. The startup uses AI-engineered enzymes to produce high-value biochemicals for personal care, food and beverage, and speciality chemicals industries.

The startup uses these AI-engineered enzymes to transform sustainable feedstocks into high-value biochemicals. It claims to have in place a highly efficient, scalable, and eco-friendly process that helps the startup deliver superior-quality products with minimal environmental impact.

Unlike the traditional fermentation process, which yields just 10-30%, Cellarim’s approach delivers over 95% yield, with faster production and 90% lower water usage.

Focussed on removing key barriers from the traditional biomanufacturing space, such as scalability issues, high costs, low yields and environmental impact, Cellarim is banking on the $165.7 Bn bio-economy market.

Cura Care | Bringing Dental Care To Doorsteps

If you’ve been relying on toothpaste and mouthwash alone to maintain your dental hygiene, it may not be enough. This is where Cura Care steps in.

Launched in January 2025 by IIT Delhi alumni Abhinav Kumar and Chinmay Mittal, along with dental surgeon Dr Paminder Singh, Cura Care delivers dental care straight to your doorstep.

The startup sends qualified dentists to your home, accompanied by an assistant. They come equipped with a portable, lightweight dental chair, a teeth cleaning machine, and fully sterilised tool kits.

Think of it as a mobile dental clinic serving homes across Delhi NCR and Bengaluru. Services include cleaning, scaling, polishing, and teeth whitening.

Since its launch, Cura Care claims to have treated over 1,000 customers through home visits and oral wellness camps in Bengaluru alone.

DeCharge | Solving India’s EV Bottleneck With Portable Charging

India’s growing appetite for electric vehicles (EVs) has been fuelled by rapid innovation, strong government support, and improving affordability.

But while the EV market is picking up speed, charging infrastructure remains a major roadblock. Without reliable, accessible power solutions, India’s EV revolution risks hitting a bottleneck.

To solve this, Rama Krishna Kattekola, Mohan Kuldeep Ponnada and Prakash Kamaraj launched DeCharge Network in 2023 — a decentralised EV charging infrastructure startup positioned as a “power bank” for EVs.

Built on the Solana blockchain, its flagship product, The DeCharge Beast, is a portable 7 kW EV charger that can be deployed anywhere. What’s more, users can earn up to $100 a day by offering it for public charging.

The startup’s end-to-end offering includes a mobile app, charger hardware, power supply, and backend infrastructure — all tailored to simplify EV charging on the go.

Entvin AI | Fixing Pharma’s Regulatory Bottlenecks With AI

In the highly regulated world of pharmaceuticals, it is essential to follow the rulebook.

This is why regulatory teams at big pharma companies often spend weeks ensuring that they remain compliant with evolving global standards.

Recognising the complexity and inefficiencies in this process and to simplify it, Sanskar Jain, Hemant Phalak and Rishabh Arya founded Entvin in 2022.

Backed by Y Combinator, Entvin is building AI-powered agents to assist regulatory teams in the life sciences sector. These digital assistants help streamline workflows, automate time-consuming tasks, and improve overall efficiency while maintaining strict data security and confidentiality.

From verifying the accuracy of drug communication and building a library of approved claims to parsing FDA guidelines for the right information, Entvin supports critical steps in getting a drug to market.

Today, Entvin’s AI tools are helping companies comply with FDA regulations in the US and EMA standards in Europe. Its clients include major Indian pharma players like Zydus, Biocon, and Dr. Reddy’s.

FinRight | Simplifying Complex PF Withdrawals With AI

Founded in 2023 by former CRED executive Amey Kanekar, Mumbai-based fintech startup FinRight is simplifying the often complicated process of provident fund (PF) withdrawals.

At the heart of its offering is an AI-powered tool, CheckMyPF, which generates a detailed health report of a user’s PF account within minutes.

It flags blocked amounts, predicts potential withdrawals, and highlights issues before they become roadblocks, giving users greater transparency and control over their funds.

Beyond insights, FinRight also steps in when users face technical glitches or run into problems with the EPFO system. Acting as an intermediary, the startup manages the coordination and paperwork.

So far, FinRight claims to have processed over 15,000 PF claims worth more than INR 300 Cr, serving 8,000+ users from companies like Google, Netflix, Deloitte, and EY.

The startup is looking to gain traction with customers at a time when the contribution to the government employee provident fund is at an all-time high. For context, the number of EPFO subscribers grew by 7.6% to 73.7 Mn in FY24, with the total contributions rising 6.5% YoY to INR 2.6 Lakh Cr in FY24.

FurtherAI | Giving Insurance Workflows An AI-Powered Boost 

With rising regulatory demands, shrinking talent pools, and tighter margins, commercial insurance agencies are under too much operational strain.

To tackle this, IIT-Bombay alumni Sashank Gondala and Aman Gour launched FurtherAI in 2023 to transform insurance operations through automation.

The startup is building a workforce of AI teammates designed to take over repetitive, manual tasks such as unstructured data processing and data entry across fragmented systems.

Positioned as the ChatGPT for insurance, FurtherAI’s agents automate complex workflows like submissions processing, policy comparisons and underwriting audits.

The startup claims its tools have doubled underwriter productivity for managing general agents, while improving policy comparison speed by 95%.

Backed by Y Combinator, FurtherAI recently raised $5 Mn in a round led by Nexus Venture Partners.

Ginger Games | Building Global-Ready Games From India

Equipped with decades of experience in the extended reality (XR) space, school friends Sumit Batheja and Shrey Mishra identified a major gap in India’s gaming ecosystem — a lack of high-quality, engaging, and globally monetisable games built from India for the world.

In late 2024, the duo decided to leave behind their earlier ventures — Gamestack and XR Central — to launch Ginger Studio, a hybrid-casual gaming startup focussed on building immersive, monetisation-first casual games.

Ginger Studio is developing a portfolio of hybrid-casual titles with a focus on player engagement and strong monetisation mechanics.

It’s also leveraging applied AI across various production areas — from procedural content generation to creating dynamic, realistic non-player character (NPC) behaviours — to enhance game development at scale.

The studio’s debut title, Monkey Mayhem, is an auto-shooter mobile game in the action-adventure genre. The title is scheduled for a soft launch in February 2026. The startup recently secured its first investment from Krafton via the Krafton India Gaming Incubator (KIGI).

Ivory | Tackling Early Signs Of Brain Ageing With Precision Care 

Brain function declines with age, especially after the age of 35. This decline can lead to conditions like mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which significantly increases the risk of developing dementia.

To tackle this growing issue, former Discovery marketing head Issac John and Antler India resident Rahul Krishnan teamed up to float Ivory, a healthtech startup, in 2022.

The startup’s goal is to identify and mitigate early risks of neurodegenerative diseases, such as MCI and dementia. For this, it has roped in seasoned psychologists, neuroscientists and doctors as its advisors.

Their app offers neuroscience-backed assessments and engaging games designed to be daily brain workouts. They also provide personalised health solutions and cognitive health checkups, including consultations with experts.

All its services are available on the Ivory: Brain Games & Puzzles app, which is available on both the Google Play and App Store. The app has over 10K downloads on each platform.

Recently, the startup received $1 Mn to strengthen the technology for its clinical-grade assessments and scale distribution to reach more individuals across India.

Jewelbox | Lab-Grown Diamonds For Daily Wear

With lab-grown diamonds quickly gaining popularity in India’s jewellery market, a wave of new brands is rushing to tap into the trend.

Jewelbox, too,  wants to ride this wave by focussing on daily wear affordable jewellery backed by a customer-friendly buyback and exchange policy.

Founded in 2022 by siblings Vidita Kochar Jain and Nipun Kochar, Jewelbox aims to make diamonds more accessible to the average Indian consumer. It offers lab-grown diamonds that are physically and chemically identical to mined ones, but with the added benefits of sustainability and lower costs.

The brand rolls out nearly 300 new designs each month. It sells its rings, earrings, pendants and bracelets through both online and offline channels.

With growing traction, Jewelbox recently raised $3.2 Mn in a Pre-Series A round to expand its retail footprint. The startup is planning to open 30 stores by the end of 2025.

Strengthening its on-ground presence will help the startup build traction in India’s fast-growing lab-grown diamond jewellery market, which is expected to surpass the $1.1 Bn mark by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 14.8%.

LehLah | Helping Creators Monetise Better

In this era dominated by social media influencers, many mimic their favourite personalities in terms of what they wear, watch or want. Many people struggle to convert influence into income and may be missing out on potential earnings.

Spotting this disconnect while studying in New York, Ashna Ruia founded LehLah in 2022 — a platform that helps creators seamlessly tag and sell products within their content, unlocking a powerful new stream of affiliate revenue.

LehLah combines affiliate marketing with social media, allowing creators to share product recommendations and earn a portion of the revenue. Consumers, in turn, enjoy a seamless discovery-to-purchase experience, while brands benefit from influencer-led conversions and scalable sales.

LehLah operates on a performance-based revenue model, which means that the company earns a commission on net sales (after accounting for returns and cancellations) from its brand partners. A portion of the commission is then shared with creators.

LehLah claims to have crossed an INR 100 Cr GMV run rate in March, with over 50,000 active users monetising their content through the platform.

Mythik | Reviving Ancient Tales Through AI Power

Founded by former Housing.com CEO Jason Kothari, Mythik is an entertainment startup that uses AI to retell Eastern mythology, history, and folktales. Some of its popular titles are Ram vs Ravan, Buddha’s First Sermon, Bhishm’s Vow, just to name a few.

The startup recreates iconic Indian stories into short, high-quality videos, each lasting 10-12 minutes. The visuals and storytelling are tailored for a younger generation that may not typically engage with Indian literature.

Since its launch in April 2025, Mythik has gained over 160K YouTube subscribers and 25K Instagram followers.

The startup is working with a team of veterans from Disney, Netflix, Amazon Studios, Tencent, and Jio to help build a globally relevant entertainment brand.

Opptra | Simplifying Cross-Border Expansion For Local Brands

Expanding overseas is a major milestone for Indian consumer brands. However, it comes with a slew of challenges — from managing digital transactions and navigating regulatory hurdles to adapting to new consumer behaviour.

Having led Flipkart, veteran ecommerce entrepreneur Binny Bansal understood these pain points firsthand. Therefore, he launched Opptra in 2024 to help Indian ecommerce brands tap into international markets across Asia.

Opptra offers a full stack of services, including market research, go-to-market strategy, localised branding, distribution setup, tech integration and customer support.

Backed by a seasoned leadership team — including former Amazon director Ranjit Babu and ex-Lendingkart CTO Giridhar Yasa — Opptra helped two brands go global. While Ghaziabad-based D2C label Exporio has entered the GCC region, Kochi-based home appliance brand Terraspan is expanding into the GCC and Southeast Asian markets.

OrbitAID | Extending Satellite Lifespans With On-Orbit Refuelling

Founded in 2021 by Sakthikumar R, Nikhil Balasubramanian, and Mano Balaji K, OrbitAID is a Chennai-based spacetech startup developing on-orbit refuelling solutions for satellites.

The company aims to build a constellation of tanker satellites that will be placed in different orbits, each carrying a range of fuels — including monopropellants, bi-propellants, and electric propulsion fuels. The broader plan is to extend satellite lifespans and enable more sustainable space operations.

In this, the startup claims to have successfully tested its patented SIDRP on a zero-gravity flight in Florida. It has achieved Technology Readiness Level 7 (TRL) for docking and refuelling tests and secured significant partnerships and collaborations.

Its patented SIDRP is a key component of their technology, providing a standardised interface for docking and refuelling operations.

Besides its satellite fuelling solutions, OrbitAID plans on expanding to other on-orbit servicing operations like repairs, upgradation, de-orbiting and debris removal.

Prismix Studios | Merging Creativity And AI For Next-Gen Filmmaking

With AI reshaping nearly every industry, it is only a matter of time before it is seen taking over the creative world of filmmaking.

To bring this vision to life, Danish Devgn, actor Vatsal Sheth, and media veteran Sahil Nayar cofounded Prismix Studios earlier this year.

Actor Ajay Devgn chairs the startup’s board.

Prismix Studios harnesses AI and cutting-edge tech to enhance virtual production, VFX, and computer-generated imagery.

The startup aims to help creators produce visually rich and immersive content faster and cost-effectively.

The studio’s offerings range from short films and series to animated graphic novels, music videos, corporate content, and social media campaigns. Its early clientele includes Sodexo, Tata Motors, Being Human, and Spotlight Ad.

Qila Games | Building India-Centric Gaming Experiences

With India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi positioning the country as a leader in global gaming, the competition in the Indian gaming market has become fiercer than ever.

With numerous options available to Indian users, the key to success for a game in India lies in its ability to blend simple, accessible gameplay with more rewarding progression.

Recognising the popularity of casual games and the engagement of mid-core games, ex-Mayhem Studios’ executives Dhananjai Hari and Neeraj Mishra founded Qila Games to bring forth “hybrid-casual” games for Indian gamers.

The game development studio creates social multiplayer games that are easy to play, similar to casual games, but include strategic elements and long-term progression to keep players engaged.

Qila Games’ first game, Ludo Hero, blends the elements of classic Ludo with strategic conquests. The game features social interactions, global leaderboards, and daily rewards and events.

In March, the startup secured $1 Mn in its seed funding round to refine its game development processes and introduce new hybrid-casual game titles.

Risa Labs | Expediting Cancer Treatment With Smarter Workflows

According to The Lancet, around 35% of stage III and nearly one-third of stage I cancer patients in India face delays in starting treatment. One of the key reasons behind these delays is the manual, error-prone nature of administrative workflows, particularly when it comes to prior authorisations.

To tackle this problem, Kshitij Jaggi and Kumar Shivang cofounded RISA Labs in June 2024.

RISA’s AI-powered platform, BOSS, simplifies and automates complex oncology workflows by breaking them into smaller tasks handled by AI agents.

This has helped hospitals cut prior authorisation times from 30 minutes to under five and reduce admin costs by two-thirds.

Looking ahead, RISA Labs aims to become the AI orchestration layer for cancer care, connecting healthcare providers, life sciences companies, and other stakeholders through intelligent workflow automation.

Rollout AI | Automating Website Creation For Non-Technical Users

Imagine building a website like Airbnb or Paytm in just a few minutes. That’s exactly what Rollout AI is aiming to make possible.

Launched in late 2024 by Dukaan cofounder Subhash Choudhary and Dukaan’s former SEO head Piyush Shah, Rollout is an AI-powered landing page builder that lets anyone create sleek, professional websites in minutes using just text prompts.

Users simply describe the kind of website they want, and Rollout’s AI and advanced NLP models handle the rest, generating responsive layouts, tailored content, and design elements instantly.

The platform also supports multilingual websites and offers extensive customisation options.

Rollout AI offers three pricing tiers — $49 a month for five projects and basic web pages; $99 a month for 10 projects and advanced web apps, and $199 a month for 25 projects, including white-labelling.

With a focus on speed, simplicity and accessibility, Rollout aims to make website creation as easy as chatting with a friend.

ShopIQ | Helping Brands Centralise Ecommerce Data

For ecommerce businesses struggling with fragmented data across various platforms, it is often difficult to gain a holistic view of their performance and make informed decisions.

To address this, serial entrepreneur Rounak Chindalia established AI-powered SaaS platform ShopIQ in 2024.

The platform aims to provide ecommerce brands with a unified platform to centralise and analyse their data, enabling them to optimise their marketing, sales, and operations.

From technical account management, controlled feature releases and industry-leading service level agreements, the startup gives ecommerce brands and large distributed teams the tools and capabilities they need to scale compliant personalised experiences reliably, efficiently and securely.

ShopIQ’s AI commerce copilot simplifies how businesses build, launch, and scale their online presence. Through simple chat-based inputs, brands can instantly create an ecommerce website, generate graphics, optimise SEO, and manage their storefront – all without touching code or hiring a large team

Integrated with major platforms like Delhivery, Zoho, Razorpay, Shiprocket, PhonePe, Meta, and Google Ads, ShopIQ claims to have helped clients achieve a 20% increase in conversion rates on search.

smallest.ai | Bridging Human-AI Gaps With Advanced Voice Tech

Founded by Akshat Mandloi and Sudarshan Kamath in 2024, smallest.ai is an AI startup that is looking to transform human interactions with AI more efficiently and affordably.

It is building hyper-realistic voice agents and ultra-fast, high-quality text-to-speech (TTS) models for various applications. It claims to generate 10 seconds of speech in just 100 milliseconds, enabling ultra-realistic voicebots with sub-second responsiveness.

They offer two core products — Waves, an AI voice platform for TTS, voice cloning, and conversion for various users, and Atoms, a real-time AI voice agent platform that integrates with business systems for tasks like customer support and lead qualification.

Currently serving 5K+ small and medium businesses and enterprises across India and the US, Smallest.ai supports English, Hindi, and 30+ languages, making AI-driven voice experiences more scalable, efficient and cost-effective.

Backed by 3one4 Capital, Better Capital and Upsparks Capital, smallest.ai is now looking to raise $10-15 Mn to achieve the next phase of growth.

SmartU | Combining Data And Timing For Better Agri Outreach 

Coming from farming backgrounds, Sachin Farfad Patil, Nishant Burnase and Hemant Kond shared a common peeve — despite advancements in the field of agriculture, India’s farmers rely on outdated farming methods.

Identifying a key gap in how these innovations reach farmers, the trio founded SmartU, an agritech startup, in 2024.

SmartU claims to be India’s first precision agri-marketing platform that combines real-time, granular farmer insights with precision marketing and better ROI by leveraging real-time farming intelligence from a farmer base of over 5.4 Cr.

Its flagship product SmartU D2F is a data platform that enables hyper-local, personalised agri marketing with granular farmer insights (crop type, land size, harvesting stages) and pin-code level precision.

It delivers custom advertisement communication via WhatsApp, IVR, SMS, RCS, and mobile  apps, automated based on key events like rain, sowing, and harvesting, ensuring maximum impact and engagement.

Besides, SmartU operates three farmer-centric platforms — Krishi Khata, Krishi Clinic and Krishi Mahiti.

Further, its platform allows retailers to connect with farmers directly. It also helps them in tracking ROI, supply chain monitoring and buying inputs at affordable prices.

As of now, SmartU is live in the Hindi-speaking belt (Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan) and aims to scale to Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Goa in 2025.

Stance Health | Evidence-Backed Orthopaedic Rehab

Musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions, affecting muscles, bones, and joints, impact crores of lives in India. For instance, reports ascertain that over 210 Mn Indians have the most prevalent MSK condition called Arthritis.

After enduring a sports injury, former Antler resident Rohit Arora identified a key gap in the MSK treatment approach in India. He decided to move beyond just symptom relief to focus on long-term recovery and prevention.

Partnering with Ninad Karandikar, a former college mate, the duo set out to build a solution, combining medical expertise with technology. This resulted in the formation of healthtech startup Stance Health in 2024.

Stance Health offers a full-stack, technology-driven platform for MSK care.

This includes a network of physical centres combined with online engagement, providing a structured approach to diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation.

Their model incorporates AI-driven diagnostics, personalised therapy plans, and a three-phase recovery process (Reassess, Restore, Reignite) to ensure measurable outcomes.

The startup claims to have conducted over 12,000 sessions in eight months since launching its pilot center.

In April, Stance Health raised $1 Mn in pre-seed funding to expand their presence from Bengaluru to other key Indian cities, develop their technology platform, and scale their rehabilitation framework.

Tvaster Genkalp | Helping Detect Liver Anomalies Early

Early detection of liver cancer is challenging with existing methods like the Alpha-Fetoprotein (AFP) test. The AFP test has limited sensitivity, leading to delayed diagnosis and reduced survival rates.

With a mission to transform the liver cancer detection landscape, Dr Srikar Raman and K Sreedurgalakshmi founded Tvaster Genkalp in 2021. Recognising the inadequacy of current non-invasive detection methods, they aim to develop high-accuracy genetic solutions for early cancer detection.

Tvaster Genkalp is developing pioneering liquid biopsy tests for early cancer detection. Its flagship product, Episcreen Liver, is a methylation-based test for Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC), the most common form of liver cancer.

The startup is also advancing tests for other cancers like Cholangiocarcinoma (Episcreen Bile) and chemotherapy resistance in pediatric liver cancer (Episcreen HBResist).

In April, the healthtech startup secured $1.25 Mn in Pre-Series A funding led by Ideaspring Capital to expand pan-India and accelerate the commercialisation of Episcreen Liver. It is also forging partnerships with leading diagnostic companies to broaden the reach of its tests.

UnderNeat | Rivalling H&M In The Shapewear Market

While populated by several brands, the shapewear market in India lacks a widely recognised, affordable yet stylish option, particularly for younger consumers who often shop at brands like H&M, Zivame and Clovia.

Identifying this gap, influencer-turned-actor Kusha Kapila partnered with Vimarsh Razdan to launch UnderNeat.

The brand draws direct inspiration from the global success of Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand, SKIMS. Recognising how Kardashian’s stardom buoyed SKIMS’ market dominance, the brand’s strategy involves leveraging Kapila’s significant online presence (4 Mn on Instagram) and personal brand to drive awareness and sales.

By pricing its products 30-40% lower than SKIMS, UnderNeat aims to ensure greater accessibility and capture a significant share of the emerging shapewear category in India.

The D2C brand launched in March this year already has investors like Fireside Ventures and Mamaearth’s Ghazal Alagh on its side. The recently launched D2C brand is competing against the likes of Jockey, Butt-Chique, Dermawear, among others, in India’s burgeoning Indian shapewear market, which is expected to touch $131.2 Mn by 2028.

Visa2Fly | Simplifying Tedious Travel Processes For Customers

The process of applying for visas can be complex, time-consuming, and often confusing for travellers due to varying requirements, documentation, and procedures across different countries.

To address this, Vijayendra Bawa and Dhruv Kumar established their travel tech startup Visa2Fly in 2022. The startup helps simplify and streamline the visa application process for individuals.

The travel tech platform provides a user-friendly interface where individuals can input their travel details to understand specific requirements for their destination country.

This automation helps reduce errors, save time, and provide a more transparent and efficient visa application experience. The startup has partnered with travel companies, including ixigo, Acko, NiyoGlobal, SpiceJet and WeGo, embedding its visa solutions directly into their platforms.

Infused with fresh funds to the tune of $2 Mn, it is looking to automate key processes, integrate AI-driven verification mechanisms, and enhance the accessibility of its AI-driven platform.

ZenStatement | Helping MSMEs Gain Real-Time Financial Control

Small and medium enterprises, including startups, often face significant challenges in managing their finances effectively due to manual processes, scattered data and a lack of automated tools for financial reporting and analysis.

To remedy this, Sourabh Nolkha and Ankit Narsaria founded Zenstatement (erstwhile known as SimpliFin). Recognising the pain points associated with traditional financial processes, the startup aims to build a platform that leverages technology to streamline workflows, provide real-time visibility into financial data and empower businesses with actionable insights.

While the startup’s collection management tool enables faster and more accurate collections, its payout management system simplifies complex payouts through improved validation and automation.

Meanwhile, ZenStatement enhances cash flow management with real-time insights and accurate forecasting, enabling businesses to identify gaps and optimise their financial operations for better control and growth.

Operating in the Indian cash flow management market, projected to reach the $2.14 Bn revenue mark by 2030, ZenStatement takes on the likes of TallyPrime, Finastra, Trillium Cash.

[Edited by: Shishir Parasher]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eye In April 2025 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

One of the crucial yet oft-ignored human organs is the liver. Responsible for filtering blood, detoxifying harmful substances, producing bile for digestion, storing nutrients, and regulating blood sugar levels, the liver is the silent workhorse and the CEO of your body’s detox system.

Unfortunately, the Indian liver is in peril. 

According to a 2022 study, India contributed to 18.3% of the 2 Mn global liver disease-related deaths in 2015. Not to mention, the stats have only worsened with time. At the centre of this crisis is India’s youth, carrying the load of poor nutrition, a sedentary lifestyle, alcohol abuse, obesity, diabetes, and a rising level of bad cholesterol. The situation is worse in metro cities. 

As per a recent report, 35% of adults under 45 years of age showed signs of fatty liver in ultrasound scans. What’s even more concerning are studies from AIIMS, which indicate that the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in India is as high as 65.7% among adults and 12.4% among non-obese children. 

While NAFLD is curable with lifestyle changes, liver problems like hepatitis, cirrhosis, and drug-induced liver injury increase the chance of liver cancer. However, what’s more alarming is that most of these chronic liver diseases are silent killers. They continue to prevail in the human body until irreversible damage sets in. 

This is where Srikar Raman and K Sreedurgalakshmi decided to contribute by incorporating Tvaster Genkalp in 2021. The founders are obsessed with bringing innovative solutions for the early diagnosis of liver cancer. 

While still in its early stages, Tvaster Genkalp is working on early diagnosis and prevention of liver cancer with its non-invasive, highly sensitive liquid biopsy solution. 

Simply put: Tvaster Genkalp specialises in detecting critical genetic and epigenetic changes through a simple blood test. 

By analysing DNA from blood samples rather than relying on traditional, invasive tissue biopsies, Tvaster Genkalp is working to make cancer diagnostics more accessible, accurate, and affordable.

Its flagship product, Episcreen Liver, is a blood-based screening test designed to detect key genetic and epigenetic changes associated with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common type of primary liver cancer, typically occurring in patients with chronic liver diseases such as cirrhosis or hepatitis. HCC is also one of the most aggressive and difficult-to-diagnose cancers, making early detection crucial for improving survival rates.

The Chennai-based startup has served around 1,400 patients so far. It has raised over $1.25 Mn in a Pre-Series A round led by Ideaspring Capital. Existing investors Invigo Software and Prof. Mohamed Rela, a globally renowned liver transplant surgeon, also participated in the round.

How Tvaster’s Pieces Fit Together

Tvaster Genkalp is the brainchild of Raman, who brings over 15 years of experience in biotech, gene therapy, and molecular diagnostics. A first-time founder and scientist, Raman has been associated with cutting-edge oncology research both in India and the US. 

He has also served as the president and head of R&D at Levim Biotech, where he led gene therapy programmes using siRNA and CRISPR platforms and advanced several drug candidates to preclinical and clinical trials. 

He has also worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Missouri, where he co-developed Near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent agents for cancer detection and filed multiple patents on cancer diagnostics and gene therapies. The University of Illinois, Chicago alumnus has over 15+ patents and research publications to his name.

During his stint at Levim Biotech, he developed five to six biosimilars and one gene therapy technology, two of which are now in the market. This is also where he met his cofounder, Sreedurgalakshmi, who was his first hire in the R&D team. After working together on multiple biosimilars, tech platforms, and even filing patents, the two started thinking about building something of their own. 

With Sreedurgalakshmi’s strong background in genetic engineering and his expertise in gene therapy and biomaterials, they decided to explore cancer detection and molecular diagnostics.

Speaking with Inc42, Raman said that the trigger to incorporate Tvaster stems from his passion to build a real-world solution.  

After incorporating Tvaster in 2021, the duo spent the next one year engaging with physicians and clinicians to understand what gaps persisted in the diagnostics industry. 

“Coming from a middle-class background, we didn’t have enough personal wealth to support our cause. We knew we had to start with something that could be commercialised relatively quickly to ensure the startup’s survival,” said Raman.

Until 2023, the duo handled everything from research to experiments, validation and operations. The turning point came in early 2023 when, during their research, they identified several epigenetic markers that could outperform the current global standard, alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), in detecting liver cancer early.

Their findings caught the attention of Professor Rela, who decided to invest in their company. This investment came in August 2023. The angel round helped them kick off their venture commercially.

During the discovery phase, the founders worked with 40 patients — 20 with liver cancer (HCC) and 20 with chronic liver diseases. 

During this phase, the duo were involved in building the technology, taking samples, and conducting multiple iterations. They used a technique called droplet digital PCR, identifying a “sweet spot” that allowed them to differentiate between chronic liver disease and HCC patients.

Reimagining Cancer Diagnostics  

While India has some of the most advanced liver care centres, diagnostics still rely on old-school methods like AFP, PIVKA-II, LFT, imaging scans, and even invasive biopsies. 

For years, liver diseases have been detected through a mix of biochemical tests, ultrasound, and serum scores like FIB-4 and APRI, but these tools often miss early-stage cancer. 

According to the founders, these markers have poor sensitivity in detecting early stage HCC. “Imaging techniques such as ultrasound, CT scans, and MRI are important, but they often miss smaller or early stage tumours. Invasive biopsies, though accurate, come with risks like pain, bleeding, or infection, and are not always feasible for wide-scale screening,” the founders said.

They added that with their tech, they have been able to detect 92% of HCC cases missed by AFP. 

Currently, the brand’s technology is patented as “Sequencing-Independent Compositions for Detecting Carcinomas Using Methylation Markers”. 

This invention involves non-sequencing-based methods to detect cancer-specific methylation patterns, enabling early, cost-effective and scalable cancer diagnostics.

Under this method, the startup takes blood from patients with chronic liver disease, extracts cell-free DNA, and then performs methylation profiling on the same. This helps determine early on whether the person has HCC or not. 

Tvaster operates on a B2B model and has partnered with Dr Lal PathLabs and Dr Rela Institute & Medical Centre in Chennai to reach clinicians, who prescribe the test. 

“We’re not moving to B2C just yet. Our priority is to build clinical trust. If we can get hepatologists and gastroenterologists to adopt this as a first-line screening tool, we can save lives,” said Raman.

The founders added: unlike sequencing-based technologies, which require expensive infrastructure and technical expertise, Tvaster’s approach is non-invasive, affordable, and scalable.

Tvaster’s Road Forward

Although in its early stages, the startup harvested more than INR 60 Lakh (unaudited) in FY25 revenues and claims to have exceeded INR 1 Cr till date. Priced at INR 10,000, the test gives tough competition to advanced genomic testing to identify specific DNA alterations, such as a tumour. For context, standard genomic tests can cost north of INR 30,000.

The startup has also started working on a pilot technology to detect chemoresistance in paediatric patients with hepatoblastoma (the most common type of liver cancer in children younger than three years).

“We are developing Episcreen HBResist to identify chemotherapy resistance in pediatric patients with hepatoblastoma to enable more precise and personalised treatment decisions,” the founders said. 

This solution is aimed at minimising unnecessary chemo exposure and improving overall care for young patients. 

The startup is also working on a screening solution for bile duct cancer (a rare but aggressive cancer with limited early detection methods).

While the startup has been able to achieve satisfactory results on the accuracy and reliability front, the major challenge that currently stands in front of the founders is building the brand and awareness about its solutions. 

“Convincing doctors to shift from legacy diagnostic standards to novel tools requires clinical trust, awareness, and strong marketing muscle, which we are currently building. The idea is to show clinicians and doctors that spending INR 10,000 once or twice a year is a small price to pay for saving lives,” Raman said.

However, despite promising prospects, regulatory hurdles lie ahead. To scale nationwide and gain deeper clinical traction, the brand has initiated the process of obtaining in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) approval from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO). 

This involves in-house validation, manufacturing test kits, and partnering with an ICMR-certified lab. As per the founder, while all of this is in process, it could take some years to solidify.

The founders are targeting to serve 5K patients in the next few years. However, the bigger question is how patients will know that they need to take this test.

To address this gap, the startup plans to integrate Episcreen Liver into routine health checkups through partnerships with hospitals, diagnostic chains, and corporate wellness programmes. While expansion to major metro cities will likely help the Chennai-based Tvaster in this quest, the real challenge lies in building a recognisable and trusted brand in preventive diagnostics. Can it make the cut?

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post Can This Chennai Startup Solve India’s Silent Liver Cancer Crisis? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Before November 2022, OpenAI was a little-known artificial intelligence (AI) startup in the US. However, that very month, the company unveiled a chatbot, ChatGPT, which in just two months crossed 100 Mn monthly active users, making it the fastest-growing consumer platform in history. 

Its rapid adoption has since paved the way for newer large language models (LLM) from OpenAI’s kitty.

Thousands of miles away in India, the generative AI (GenAI) bug seems to have caught the fancy of Indian entrepreneurs and investors too. The homegrown AI ecosystem has made massive strides in this domain since 2022. 

Not only has the country been able to mint its first AI unicorn, Krutrim, but interesting use cases have emerged from the minds of Indian GenAI founders. From leveraging the technology for detection of diseases to building human-like conversational platforms, the world’s third largest startup ecosystem is witnessing it all. Moreover, the Indian government is currently deeply focussed on advancing the country’s AI initiatives. 

Last year, the Centre launched the IndiaAI mission which focusses on pushing the computing capacity, creating dataset platforms, building innovative centres, supporting startup financing and developing skills in the area. 

The electronics and information technology ministry has allocated INR 10,372 Cr for this ambitious project and is in the midst of acquiring 18,000 graphic processing units (GPUs) to support AI computing. The Centre will also fund startups who are on the quest to build domestic foundational models and has also established accelerator programmes to foster innovation.  

Consequently, India has spawned the rise of 140+ native AI startups that have raised more than $1.5 Bn since 2020.

Spearheading this AI revolution are names like SarvamAI and Krutrim, which are focussed on building Indic LLMs, while others like ObserveAI, having secured more than $214 Mn, are leveraging AI to offer customised customer and operational support to businesses. 

Not just this, a large number of startups today are using AI to streamline user experience and operations. On the back of this, Inc42 estimates the homegrown GenAI market to cross the $17 Bn mark by 2030. 

In line with the growing market opportunity in this space, we have endeavoured to collate a list of Indian startups that are causing a stir in the rapidly evolving Indian GenAI space. 

(Note: The startups below have been listed in the order of the amount of funding raised since their incorporation. This is not an exhaustive list, we will be updating it periodically. If you would like to refer a GenAI startup to be featured in this list, write to us @ editor@inc42.com. View our methodology and disclaimer here.)

Meet The GenAI Startups Putting India On The Global AI Map

1. Observe AI

Founded in 2017 by Sharath Keshava Narayana and Swapnil Jain, Observe AI is a conversational intelligence platform for contact centres. The startup claims to have trained its proprietary AI model on 40 Bn parameters. Its conversational AI platform helps companies automate customer service calls and inbound queries. Voice AI agents of the US-based startup also provide real time and post interaction insights to sellers and telecallers to improve their interactions with customers.

In 2025, the startup acquired text-to-speech AI startup Dubdub.ai to double down on its conversational AI playbook.

Observe.AI has raised a total of $214 Mn in funding over 6 rounds. It bagged 125 Mn in its last funding round in 2022.

The platform is supported by marquee investors such as Zoom, Bossanova Investimentos, Y Combinator, Menlo Ventures, and Nexus Venture Partners. It competes with the likes of companies like Noogata, TUNGEE, Osense Technology, Slang Labs, etc.

2. Pixis

Founded in 2020 by Harikrishna Valiyath, Shubham A Mishra, Vrushali Prasade, Pixis provides a codeless AI infrastructure platform for brands to monitor and orchestrate their marketing campaigns.

Since its inception, the startup has raised $209 Mn in capital. It raised $85 Mn in its last funding round in 2023.

Pixis is backed by startups like Grupo Carso, General Atlantic, Celesta Capital and Chiratae Ventures. It competes with the likes of Utilidata, HeadSpin, and Navikenz in the larger AI-powered technology space.

3. Ola Krutrim 

Founded in 2022 by Ola and Ola Electric founder Bhavish Aggarwal, Krutrim is experimenting with GenAI to develop an India-specific LLM. The startup’s family of LLMs is said to be capable of working with 10 Indian languages.

Unveiling future plans for Krutrim at its annual event in August 2024, Aggarwal announced plans to develop India’s first homegrown family of chips for AI, general compute and Edge. The unicorn has deployed DeepSeek’s R1 671B on Nvidia’s H100 graphics processing units in India and also hosted its AI models on its cloud platform. The startup has also joined forces with Lenovo to build a supercomputer.

The startup made headlines in January 2024 when it became the first pure-play AI startup in India to hit a unicorn valuation over its $50 Mn funding round. So far, it has secured $74 Mn in funding, becoming one of the most well-funded AI startups in the country, from backers such as Z47.

The startup competes with the likes of Sarvam AI, Mistral AI, and DeepMind.

4. InVideo

Founded in 2019 by Sanket Shah, and later joined by Anshul Khandelwal, InVideo initially operated a web-based video editing platform that allowed users to convert existing pieces of static content into videos.

However, it has come a long way since then. Currently, the startup operates a full-fledged AI-powered video editing platform that leverages GenAI to create videos with just text prompts. Users just have to input the topic and the platform generates a script, adds scenes and voiceovers, among other things.

The startup has raised capital to the tune of $52.5 Mn to date and is backed by marquee names such as Peak XV Partners, Tiger Global, Hummingbird, RTP Global and Base. It competes with the likes of Kapwing, Synthesia, Veed, and Rephrase.ai, among others.

5. SarvamAI

Founded in 2023 by AI4Bharat creators Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, SarvamAI aims to develop custom-made LLMs, specifically designed for India-centric use cases.

The Bengaluru-based GenAI startup launched its full-stack GenAI platform comprising multiple products — Sarvam Agents (AI agent), Sarvam 2B (small language model), Shuka 1.0 (voice language model), Sarvam Models, and A1 (AI agents for lawyers), in August 2024, with an eye on spurring AI accessibility and adoption across India’s diverse linguistic and socio-economic landscape.

In October 2024, Sarvam AI also rolled out its LLM, built specifically for 10 Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, and Telugu, besides English.

Backed by names such as Peak XV Partners and Khosla Ventures, the Bengaluru-based GenAI startup raised a Series A funding of $41 Mn (around INR 342 Cr) led by Lightspeed Venture Partners in December 2023.

Last month, the central government picked Sarvam AI to build India’s first homegrown sovereign LLM under the IndiaAI Mission.

6. Avaamo

Founded in 2014 by Ram Menon and Sriram Chakravarthy, Avaamo is a deep-learning software company that specialises in conversational interfaces to solve specific, high-impact problems in the enterprise tech realm.

Avaamo is building fundamental AI technology across a broad area of neural networks, speech synthesis and deep learning to make conversational computing for businesses a reality.

Over the years, Avaamo has raised more than $30 Mn from the likes of Intel Capital, Ericsson Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, WI Harper Group and Mahindra Partners. It raised 7 Mn in its last funding round in 2021.

Avaamo counts PolyAI, Zira, Odeza, and wrnchAI as its competitors.

7. Spyne

Founded in 2018 by Deepti Prasad and Sanjay Kumar, Spyne is helping businesses and marketplaces create and upgrade high-quality product images and videos at scale with AI.

The growth stage company has so far raised $23.6 Mn from Vertex Ventures, Accel Partners, Storm Ventures, and other investors. In its last funding round, it raised $16 Mn to develop a GenAI suite for automotive developers.

The Gurugram-based startup competes with companies like zapero.ai, Dresma, Ayna, Blend, and Orbo AI.

8. Contlo 

Founded in 2021 by Ishaan Bhola and Mukunda NS, Contlo is a GenAI-powered martech platform that helps businesses run and optimise end-to-end marketing campaigns.

The seed-stage SaaS platform claims to help brands build personalised campaigns and automate customer journeys across all major channels including email, SMS, as well as social media platforms.

The US-headquartered startup has raised $14.3 Mn in funding to date. It is backed by the likes of names such as Kae Capital, Better Capital and Titan Capital as well as angel investors such as Mamaearth’s Varun Alagh as well as Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar of Razorpay, among others.

9. Murf AI

Founded in 2020 by IIT-Kharagpur graduates Sneha Roy, Ankur Edkie, and Divyanshu Pandey, Murf AI uses AI to create high-quality voiceovers without recording equipment for its users in minutes.

The growth-stage startup has raised a total funding of $11.5 Mn. In its last funding round, it raised $10 Mn in 2022.

It is backed by investors like Matrix Partners, and Elevation Capital. It counts Imaginario AI, VideoDubber, and Rephrase AI as its competitors.

10. DhiWise

Founded in 2021 by Vishal Virani, DhiWise is an AI-enabled programming platform where developers can convert their designs into developer-friendly code for mobile and web apps.

It automates and fastens the application development lifecycle and instantly generates readable, modular, and reusable code.

The Accel Atoms-incubated startup has raised a total of 9 Mn since its inception. It raised 7 Mn in 2022. DhiWise is supported by marquee investors like Accel, AngelList India, Storm Ventures, Abhishek Deo, and Pentathlon Ventures. It competes with the likes of Observe AI, Pixis, QpiAI, and Kombai.

11. QpiAI

Founded in 2019 by Dr Nagendra Nagaraja, QpiAI is a Bengaluru-based AI startup working in the areas of both AI and quantum computing. The startup’s key product, QpiAI Pro, helps deploy AI solutions at the production stage.

The startup also manufactures hardware solutions for quantum computers, including compute architecture, quantum processors and cryogenic controllers, and also offers quantum computing as a service (QCaaS) software. In 2021, it tied up with IISc Bengaluru to offer certification courses in AI and quantum computing.

With subsidiaries in the US and Finland, QpiAI has so far raised $6.5 Mn in funding to date and is backed by the likes of Yournest and SIDBI Venture Capital.

12. Wokelo

Founded in 2022 by Siddhant Masson and Saswat Nanda, Wokelo leverages OpenAI’s GPT and open source models such as LLaMA to produce detailed due-diligence reports for enterprises in a matter of minutes from publicly available data.

Its proprietary “cognitive engine” sifts through the tonnes of data to build concise and customised reports and presentations without hallucinations.

Backed by investors such as KPMG Ventures, Untapped Capital, SeaChange Fund, Pack Ventures, Array Ventures, and Upsparks Capital, the Seattle-based startup has raised $5.5 Mn in funding since inception.

Its solutions cater to clients in private equity, venture capital, investment banking, and management consulting. It counts names such as Tata Group, Deloitte, Seven Seven Six, among others as its customers.

13. LimeChat

Founded in 2020 by Aniket Bajpai and Nikhil Gupta, LimeChat leverages AI to enable a brand to instantly respond to its customer queries throughout the buying journey across mediums such as WhatsApp, Meta Messenger and Instagram.

When it comes to WhatsApp commerce, it is working with 300+ brands like HUL, ITC, Mamaearth, Wow Skin Science, Neemans Shoes, and Snitch.

Backed by investors like Stellaris Venture Partners, Google, IFC, and Pi Ventures, the Faridabad-based company has raised a total funding of $4.9 Mn to date.

The seed-stage company competes with Noogata, TUNGEE, Osense Technology, Slang Labs,  etc.

14. Kombai

Founded in 2022 by Dipanjan Dey and Abhijit Bhole, Kombai is an AI model trained to understand and code UI designs like humans. It offers developer tools for web app developers, which helps them do away with mundane automatable tasks like writing and maintaining CSS and other boilerplate JS code.

It has so far raised a total of $4.5 Mn from Foundation Capital and Stellaris Venture Partners.

Kombai competes with Locofy.ai, Adobe XD, Figma and Relume, which have a similar approach towards web design.

15. Gnani AI

Founded in 2017 by Ganesh Gopalan and Ananth Nagaraj, Gnani.ai offers a full-stack conversational AI product suite to help businesses automate and enhance customer support across all digital and conventional communication channels.

It also caters to the fraud detection market with its voice biometrics product, which is largely centred on its clients in the BFSI sector. In October 2024 the GenAI startup announced its plans to launch a speech-to-speech LLM, which can handle over 10 Mn voice interactions daily and 14 languages.

The B2B platform claims to have a customer base of over 100 companies including multiple Indian lending companies such as TVS Credit, Muthoot Finance, and Fibe (formerly Early Salary). It also boasts more than 12 patents in its kitty.

The Bengaluru-based startup has raised $4 Mn in funding till date and counts the likes of names such as Info Edge, Samsung Ventures and angels such as Lakshmi Narayan, and BVR Mohan Reddy as its investors.

It competes with the likes of names such as Rezo.ai, Haptik and Verloop.io.

16. Phot.AI

Founded in 2022 by Venus Dhuria, Akshit Raja and Aneesh Rayancha, Phot.AI is a full-visual design platform that leverages GenAI to enable users and brands to generate images from just text.

Catering to both B2B and B2C users, Phot.AI allows customers to generate photos, create design concepts and visualise them with GenAI. It also leverages this emerging technology to help users enhance their images and turn their “PDF” documents into any format.

Another key product of the startup is its AI training module, which allows end-users to train their AI models. It caters to businesses operating in areas such as ecommerce, packaging and branding, advertising and marketing, media, and BFSI, among others.

Its clients include names such as Shiprocket, Fashinza, and Dukaan, among others. The two-year-old startup is bootstrapped and is yet to raise capital from external investors.

The startup has raised $3.7 Mn since its inception and is backed by the likes of Info Edge Ventures and AWS. It claims to offer its services to more than 30,000 researchers across 30 countries. As per its website, it has also catered to names such as Zoho, upGrad, Tesla, among others.

17.Highperformr.ai

Founded in 2023 by former Freshworks executives Ramesh Ravishankar and Srivatsan Venkatesan, Highperformr.ai taps into generative AI (GenAI) to offer a one-stop-shop social media management platform for businesses.

Its flagship offering, Highperformr for Teams, helps B2B companies streamline their social media workflows, manage social publishing at scale, enable team collaboration, drive social selling, and monitor performance with social AI-driven analytics and insights.

The martech SaaS startup has raised $3.5 Mn since its inception and is backed by Venture Highway, The Neon Fund, Matrix Partners-anchored DeVC and others. It competes with the likes of Hootsuit, Buffer and Sprout Social.

18. Nexstem

Founded in 2020 by BITS Pilani graduates Siddhant Dangi and Deepansh Goyal, Nexstem is an AI-powered neurotech startup building a full-stack brain-computer interface (BCI) platform to decode and digitise neural activity for real-world applications.

Its flagship product, Instinct, is an EEG-based headset embedded with AI and edge computing capabilities. Paired with proprietary software, SDKs, and APIs, it enables real-time brain signal processing for use cases such as adaptive gaming, emotion detection, and mental health diagnostics.

The Bengaluru-based startup is backed by Info Edge, Gruhas, Zupee, and Smile Group and has raised $3.5 Mn to date. The startup claims to have generated $850K in CY 2024 revenue.

With plans to launch EXG sensors and integrate tACS stimulation soon, Nexstem aims to standardise cognitive signal capture at scale. Its long-term goal is to embed its AI-driven BCI infrastructure into chips, positioning itself as an AI-native neurotech stack for researchers, developers, and enterprise innovators.

19. Scalenut 

A brainchild of Mayank Jain, Gaurav Goyal, and Saurabh Wadhawan, Scalenut was founded in 2020. The startup is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered SEO and content marketing platform.

Its AI co-pilot handhelds businesses through the entire content lifecycle, from keyword planning and content creation to SEO optimisation and competitive analysis.

The California-based startup has raised $3.5 Mn in funding till date and is backed by the likes of names such as Titan Capital, First Principles VC, AngelList, among others.

It claims to have so far catered to more than 200 businesses including homegrown startups such as PharmEasy and LeapScholar.

20. Blend 

Founded in 2021 by Vaibhav Prakash, Vishwanath Kollapudi and Jamsheed Kamardeen, Blend is a GenAI-powered design tool that helps ecommerce sellers create social media graphics, product photos and SEO-optimised content.

Incubated by Peak XV Surge and Google For Startups, the Bengaluru-based SaaS platform has raised $3.14 Mn in funding till date. Catering largely to ecommerce sellers, Blend is backed by names such as 3one4 Capital, Blume Ventures, PointOne Capital, among others.

The startup boasts of 15 proprietary AI models that have been trained on more than 80 Mn visuals and keywords.

21. Zocket

Founded in 2021 by serial  entrepreneurs – Karthik Venkateswaran, Nandha Kumar Ravi, Sundar Natesan, and Mukund Srivathsan — Zocket, with Gen AI, helps businesses launch their digital ads in less than 30 seconds.

The startup was part of the maiden cohort of Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Global Generative AI Accelerator programme in September 2024. Prior to that in December 2023, the company was also one among the 20 AI-first startups chosen for the eighth batch of Google’s startup accelerator initiative in India.

It has secured 3.1 Mn in its overall funding with support from investors like Kalaari Capital, PointOne Capital, Kettleborough VC, among others.

It competes with the likes of Hexo, Metabrix, Predis.ai, and PostifyAI in the digital ads space.

22. KOGO AI

KOGO began in 2018 as an AI stack developer catering specifically to the travel tech industry. However, the Covid-19 pandemic severely impacted travel and tourism, prompting founders Raj K Gopalakrishnan and Praveer Kochhar to pivot towards developing their AI operating system, KOGO OS.

Built on Large Action Models (LAMs), KOGO OS enables companies across industries, including travel, mobility, retail, and manufacturing, to create their own AI agents. Clients can customise and integrate KOGO OS with their existing CRM systems and workflow applications. Additionally, its KOGOMEASURE tool helps users track cost savings for each task.

In November 2023, the Bengaluru-based startup launched its AI Store, providing developers, SMEs, and large system integrators with advanced AI agents, tools, and plugins to build, deploy, and manage their own AI solutions. Last month, KOGO partnered with MapmyIndia to develop a universal voice assistant for the automotive sector.

In 2022, MapmyIndia invested INR 10 Cr in KOGO for a 26.37% stake. The startup has also secured backing from angel investors, raising $3 Mn since its inception.

23. Orbo AI

Orbo leverages AI and augmented reality (AR) to help consumers virtually try-on products in real-time without stepping foot outside their homes.

Catering to the ecommerce and retail sectors, the startup’s flagship product, Beauty GPT, offers immersive solutions such as makeup try-ons, deep skin analysis, embedded hairstyle, hair colour augmentation, among others.

Founded in 2015 by Manoj Shinde, Abhit Sinha and Danish Jamil, Orbo AI also featured on the third season of the popular TV show Shark Tank India and went home with an INR 1 Cr deal from SUGAR Cosmetics cofounder Vineeta Singh.

The startup has raised more than $2.6 Mn since its inception and counts names such as Venture Catalysts, YourNest Venture as investors.

24. NeuralGarage (VisualDub) 

Founded in 2021 as NeuralGarage, VisualDub is the brainchild of IIT Kanpur alumni Mandar Natekar, Subhabrata Debnath, Anjan Banerjee and Subhashish Saha. The GenAI startup has developed a proprietary tool, VisualDub, which syncs recorded voice overs with lip movement and visual cues.

It claims to provide visual lip-sync delivered at 2K to 4K resolution with zero artefacts. VisualDub claims to transform the face under the eyes, including jaws, mouth, chin, smile lines and micro muscles in the cheeks and upper neck to offer a glitch-free video.

Apart from lip synchronisation, the product also offers voice cloning technology where the voice of the dubbing artist can be matched with the original actor maintaining its distinct tone, timbre, and style.

VisualDub claims to cater big-ticket clients such as Amazon, Coca-Cola, Britannia, Microsoft, GSK, and Ultratech Cement.

Backed by Exfinity Venture Partners, RAAY Investments, Full Circle Africa,  angel investors and other family offices, it has raised $2.5 Mn in funding to date.

25. Alltius 

Founded in 2022 by Vibhanshu Abhishek and Siddhant Mishra, Alltius’ no-.code platform enables businesses to seamlessly create, train and deploy AI assistants within a day. These AI assistants can then be leveraged by enterprises to transform sales and support journeys.

The company claims that these AI assistants can be trained on a slew of company resources, including documents, images, and PDFs, among others. Subsequently, these assistants can be deployed to answer queries, create pitches, compare insurance plans, create tickets, draft emails, among other things.

In May 2024, the company launched an AI assistant for the financial services sector. The Bengaluru-based horizontal AI startup has raised $2.4 Mn to date and is backed by the likes of names such as Stellaris Venture Partner, Blume Ventures, Gemba Capital, peercheque, among others.

26. Beatoven.AI 

Founded In 2021 by Mansoor Rahimat Khan and Siddharth Bhardwaj, Beatoven.ai’s genesis lay in the vast demand for original, royalty-free music suitable for commercial use.

Beatoven.AI addressed this issue by simply leveraging GenAI to create background music for video, podcast, and game creators. Riding on the AI wave, the startup now boasts close to 1 Mn registered users worldwide, majority of them outside India.

Backed by the likes of Capital2B (Info Edge), IvyCap ventures, Upsparks Capital, the Bengaluru-based startup has raised more than $2.4 Mn in funding to date.

27. Vodex

Founded in 2022 by Anshul Shrivastava and Kumar Saurav, Vodex enables companies to deploy AI-powered sales agents, which can engage in human-like conversations and automate sales processes.

The company claims to eliminate the need for traditional call centres and allows businesses to streamline operations and improve efficiency while interacting with end customers.

The startup has raised $2.2 Mn in funding to date and is backed by the likes of Unicorn India Ventures, Pentathlon Ventures and 100X.VC. It competes with names such as Drift, SquadStack and Homebot among others.

28. Slang Labs

Founded in 2017 by Satish Chandra Gupta, Giridhar Murthy, and Kumar Rangarajan, Slang Labs allows brands to deploy voice assistants within their apps.

Its flagship in-app voice assistant platform (CONVA.ai) allows businesses to enable multilingual, voice-based interactions on their respective platforms. It can understand user queries in a number of languages, including Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

Backed by the likes of Google, Endiya Partner, 100X Entrepreneur, the startup has raised $2.39 Mn in funding till date. It competes with the likes of major players such as Observe.AI, Senseforth.ai, Yellow.ai, and ConveGenius.

29. GoodMeetings

A brainchild of Srinivasan Narayan and Abhijeet Sahoo, GoodMeetings is a remote sales platform that leverages video, AI and analytics to help teams sell effectively.

The startup’s proprietary platform helps users automate processes, generate human-level summaries and derive insights and actionable pointers from a real-time video. It also nudges the sales person about what to say and when during the video call itself.

Founded in 2020, GoodMeetings has raised $1.7 Mn in funding till date. It is backed by marquee names such as Chiratae Ventures, FortyTwo.VC, First Check, Adept Ventures, 100X Entrepreneurs, among others.

30. jhana.ai

Founded in 2022 by Em McGlone, Hemanth Bharatha Chakravarthy and Benjamin Hoffner-Brodsky, Bengaluru-based jhana.ai offers an AI-powered legal research and drafting tool for Indian lawyers and law firms.

The startup’s AI Paralegal product leverages AI to read files and produce output such as citations, advisories, and memos for lawyers and law firms. Its another offering, called Document Intelligence, has been built to review documents to flag risks, suggest edits, identify deviations from standard practice, among others actions.

The platform claims to leverage its proprietary 15 Mn+ dataset of case laws and web sources to offer cohesive legal research solutions for its clients. The startup has raised close to $1.6 Mn since its inception and is backed by the likes of Together Fund and JioGenext.

31. Floworks

Founded in 2022 by Sudipta Biswas and Sarthak Shrivastava, Floworks offers an AI assistant that helps sales personnel effectively utilise Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software from the confines of their Slack accounts.

Sales teams can just instruct the AI assistant in plain natural language to send CRM updates, send emails, raise escalations and get reports, without having to go through multiple applications.

Incubated by Y Combinator, the startup raised $1.5 Mn in seed funding in August 2023. The US-based GenAI startup also counts names such as Sense AI, Gaingels, Entrepreneur First and ThinKuvate as investors.

32. Unscript.ai

Founded in 2021 by Ritwika Chowdhury and Apurv Jain, Unscript.ai’s AI-powered platform allows businesses to create personalised marketing videos at scale without expensive equipment or time-consuming editing.

The platform claims to remove technical barriers and streamline the video creation process for its clients. Its flagship offering also includes creating AI presenters and automating dubbing and translation to create videos in more than 140 languages.

The startup claims to have so far worked with more than 10,000 companies including the likes of Mahindra, Kapiva, Unilever, CEAT, Max Life Insurance, among others.

The startup is backed by VC firms such as Exfinity Venture Partners, Stellaris Venture Partners, Endurance Capital and other angel investors such as Mamaearth cofounder Ghazal Alagh, among others. Unscript.ai has raised nearly $1.3 Mn in funding to date.

33. Expertia AI

Founded in 2020 by Akshay Gugnani and Kanishk Shukla, Expertia AI is an AI-powered HR Tech platform that offers end-to-end hiring solutions from talent discovery to decision.

The B2B platform’s AI tool goes beyond the resume and understands the skills, personality and background of the candidate to offer a certain Expertia score. Not just this, it also identifies skill gaps in an applicant and actively engages with candidates on various fronts and makes them offer-ready.

It claims to cater to 10K+ companies such as Cognizant, Decathlon, Tech Mahindra, Reliance Jio, Justdial, among others.

Incubated by Google For Startups, Expertia AI is backed by Chiratae Ventures and Endiya Partners. It has raised more than $1.2 Mn in funding till date.

34. OnFinance AI

Founded in 2022 by BITS Pilani alumnus Anuj Srivastava, OnFinance is a GenAI SaaS startup building vertical AI copilots for financial institutions. The Bengaluru-based startup’s proprietary LLM NeoGPT powers functions like sales, wealth management and client servicing.

OnFinance offers on-premise copilots fine-tuned on financial datasets to ensure privacy, speed and relevance.

NeoGPT is trained using open-source LLMs like Llama and is customised for financial workflows. Its copilots reduce turnaround time and boost employee productivity by up to 7.5X, according to the company.

OnFinance currently serves clients like EY, Oister Global, LetsVenture, and Motilal Oswal. Its copilots are priced at $499 a month (1TB plan). To date, it has raised $1.1 Mn in seed funding from Silver Needle Ventures, Indian Angel Network, Swadharma Source Ventures, LetsVenture, and Cred’s Kunal Shah.

While most of its current user base is in the US, the startup plans to expand in India by the end of 2025.

35. Hypergro.ai 

Founded in 2022 by Rituraj Biswas, Neha Soman, Abhijeet Kumar and Arijit Mukhopadhyay, Hypergro.ai leverages AI to help brands conceptualise and create compelling video ads using user-generated content (UGC).

The startup’s proprietary AI platform helps its clients in understanding market trends and behaviour of their target customers, thereby optimising campaign performance. The platform then connects brands with creators who can craft videos that resonate with their target audience.

The SaaS startup’s platform also offers its clients visibility into the entire video creation process and to monitor campaign results.

Backed by the likes of Silverneedle Ventures, Huddle, TDV Partners, HME Ventures, Dholakia Ventures, among others, the martech startup has raised more than $875K in funding since its inception.

36. Dubpro.ai

There is a huge demand for vernacular language content in the country. While many feature film producers are banking on dubbing their films in multiple languages for higher reach, even marketers and internet content creators aim to reach a wider audience with multi-language content.

While big film studios have the resources and capital, local content creators still lag behind in dubbing their videos in vernacular languages. To solve this, Ishan Sharma and Rishikesh founded Dubpro.ai in 2020.

The AI-powered startup helps content creators dub their videos in multiple languages such as Hindi, English and Tamil. The startup leverages the power of LLMs to deliver quality output. Thereafter, the startup’s human experts verify the quality of the output, thereby ensuring accurate and in-sync audio dubbing.

The startup is backed by the likes of Venture Catalysts, Anicut Angel Fund, First Cheque and has raised $800K since inception.

37. Dubverse.ai

Founded in 2021 by Varshul Gupta and Anuja Dhawan, Dubverse.ai harnesses the power of GenAI to help brands and video producers dub their video content. The platform helps its clients convert text into “natural-sounding” voiceovers in multiple languages and generate subtitles.

It currently claims to offer the functionality in 60 Indian and other global languages. Dubverse.ai’s text-to-speech engine also offers a broad range of AI voices as per the tone and style needs of its customers.

The SaaS platform claims to have so far worked with 5 Lakh brands including the likes of Mahindra FInance, Zupee, BluSmart, Ullu, among others.

The startup last raised $800K in seed funding from Kalaari Capital in June 2022.

38. Quash

In today’s dynamic world, backend maintenance and customisation has become a necessity for product-based SaaS platforms. From building a product to rolling it out for clients requires thorough testing. Manual testing takes time and often becomes a tedious task for quality assurance teams.

To steadfast this process, Ayush Shrivastava, Ameer Hamza, and Prakhar Shakya founded agentic AI Quash in 2023 to streamline the quality testing process for mobile applications.

With its AI-powered technology, the startup helps testers detect bugs which cause malfunctions in SaaS products. The company uses a blend of proprietary and industry-standard AI and ML models for code analysis, test generation, and bug detection.

Backed by Arali Ventures, Java Capital, PeerCheque, DeVC by Matrix Partners, among others, the Bengaluru-based startup has raised $650K since its inception.

39. Vitra.ai

A brainchild of Satvik Jagannath and Akash Nidhi PS, Vitra is an AI-powered startup that helps creators and businesses leverage the emerging technology to translate videos, images, podcasts and text to 75+ languages in just one click.

Founded in 2020, Vitra.ai was incubated by Google India and was part of the tech major’s seventh cohort of Google for Startups Accelerator. The startup can be integrated with 250+ apps and services including Adobe Photoshop, Figma, Shopify, HubSpot, Google Drive, among others to offer a seamless experience to the end users.

The startup has raised more than $537K in funding till date and is backed by the likes of 100X.VC, IIFL Fintech Fund and Inflexor Ventures.

40. Intellemo

Founded in 2018 by Saurabh Gupta, Tusha Agrawal and Shivam Gupta, Intellemo is a martech platform that claims to be building AI Agents to automate manual workflow of creative, marketing and sales teams within enterprises.

Its AI-powered products enable businesses to launch marketing campaigns on the fly, generate product images and publish the campaign on multiple online advertising platforms.

Additionally, brands can also gather insights and seek recommendations from its AI Agent to fine tune their media campaigns.

The company claims to have so far worked with names such as UrbanCompany, Virohan, Neetprep, Footprints, among others.

Backed by the likes of Inflection Point Ventures, CRED founder Kunal Shah, among others, Intellemo has raised more than $350K in funding till date.

41. Eubrics

Managing and retaining talent can be a tricky task for enterprises. It is fraught with issues such as aligning performance with values, ensuring best practices, identifying skill gaps within teams, and flagging attrition risks before they become a major issue.

Realising that there is a big whitespace in the segment, Nikita Jain and Maxim Dsouza founded Eubrics in 2021. The SaaS platform claims to leverage AI and behavioural science to help companies drive employee performance through action nudges and GenAI-powered coaching.

Its proprietary platform helps businesses derive actionable analytics, build tailored assessment profiles of their workforce, and spur engagement levels. From streamlining onboarding for new hires to enhancing workforce competence, Eubrics caters to employees at all levels.

The startup also offers AI-powered sales tools such as customer bots to help teams build sales skills and improve call quality. Eubrics can also be integrated with existing CRM and cloud telephony platforms to analyse calls to streamline call tracking and lead analysis.

The startup last raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding in March 2023. Eubrics claims to cater to the likes of Royal Enfield, Gulf, Airtel, ITC, Jindal Steel Limited, among others.

The GenAI startup has raised $325K in funding from the likes of Iterative Accelerator and IT industry body NASSCOM’s startup incubator 10,000 Startups.

42. AuraML

Acquiring and labelling high-quality training datasets for machine learning tasks can be a cumbersome task. However, this issue becomes even more time consuming, costly and complicated when it comes to sourcing data for self-driving cars and robotics.

Realising that manual efforts to collect and label thousands of images require extensive fieldwork and laborious processing, Ayush Sharma and Arjun Gupta founded AuraML in 2023 to deal with this problem.

The startup solves the problem of training datasets for computer vision using synthetic data. Its cloud platform allows users to generate varied synthetic datasets for their AI model training.

Users can simulate real-world scenarios easily with all the different variations in lighting, objects and backgrounds, set up virtual cameras with similar parameters to their real camera and record synthetic datasets with perfect labels.

AuraML monetises its platform via a monthly subscription plan and supports diverse use cases in the areas such as warehouse automation, drone inspection, agritech, manufacturing and autonomous vehicles.

In May 2023, AuraML raised $230K in a pre-seed funding round from Indian Angel Network (IAN).

Going forward, the startup plans to expand to the US market and release its synthetic data GenAI model to fuel its next stage of growth and unlock additional revenue opportunities.

43. Boltzmann

Founded in 2019 by Sarath Kolli, Boltzmann harnesses the power of GenAI for drug discovery and enhances the success rates of clinical trials.

The Bengaluru-based startup uses both open-source and proprietary models to design novel drugs and optimise R&D processes for Indian drug manufacturers. Alongside this, Boltzmann’s technology stack includes four platforms that aid in clinical trials, disease diagnosis, and the design and discovery of vaccines and antibodies.

Backed by AngeLlist India, the startup has raised $100K in funding since inception. Boltzmann currently competes with global companies such as Insilico Medicine, Recursion AI, and Exscientia.

44. Kroop AI

Founded in early 2021 by Jyoti Joshi, Kroop offers a suite of AI tools that enable users to detect whether an image, video, or voice is AI-fabricated, AI-generated or real. The startup’s proprietary platform is trained on high-quality synthetic data with a diverse set of identities to help decipher what content is fake.

Kroop also operates a platform to enable users to animate avatars and create videos in various languages simply by inputting text. The video generation platform supports over 25 languages, including English, French, Korean, Arabic, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam.

So far, it caters to clients in the ecommerce and pharma industries as well as the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector. Backed by the likes of 100X.VC and LetsVenture, the startup has raised $34K since its inception.

45. Babblebots

Hiring the best people remains a big challenge for HR professionals and business heads alike as it is a time-consuming and tedious process. To address this problem, Roli Gupta floated Babblebots in 2022.

Babblebots is an AI-driven recruitment platform which helps companies automate tasks like scheduling interviews, providing feedback, CV screening and AI co-pilots for conducting job interviews and assessments.

The B2B SaaS startup counts more than 100 clients on its rolls including Alkem Laboratories, Welspun Enterprises, MJ Biopharm, Ajmera Realty, IPS Staffing Indus Towers, and IIT Bombay’s Development and Relations Foundation (DRF), among others.

Backed by Anchorage Capital Partners, BonBilo, z21 Ventures and Ahead VC the Mumbai-based startup competes with the likes of Keka, Erekrut and Darwinbox.

46. Jarvislabs.ai

Founded in 2019 by Vishnu Subramanian, Jarvislabs is a Coimbatore-based AI infrastructure startup that offers GPU compute solutions to data scientists, businesses and researchers.

It offers GPUs on rent for training, fine-tuning, and deploying AI models. Jarvislabs claims to keep its costs down by not pursuing expensive GPUs like NVIDIA’s H100s, but, instead, provide alternatives that offer similar capabilities.

As per its website, it uses GPUs such as Nvidia’s RTX5000, A5000, RTX6000 Ada, among others, to offer competitive rates to small startups looking to fine-tune their AI models.

47. Superjoin.ai

Founded in 2023 by Vinayak Jhunjhunwala and Abhinav Das, Superjoin.ai is a codeless SaaS platform that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to help users import live data into spreadsheets and perform actions on top of this data.

Users can create complex formulas and generate charts with simple text commands on the platform to accelerate data analysis.

Backed by Better Capital, the Bengaluru-based startup counts names such as Truecaller, CallHippo among others as its clients.

Updated on: May 10, 2025

[This is not an exhaustive list, we will be updating it periodically. If you would like to refer a GenAI startup to be featured in this list, write to us @ editor@inc42.com]

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

The post Indian GenAI Startup Tracker: 140+ Startups Putting India On The Global AI Map appeared first on Inc42 Media.

By the time his Indian D2C company started trending on Instagram, Akash Sharma, the cofounder and CEO of Farmley, had already made the hardest decision of his entrepreneurial life: walking away from a INR 350 Cr B2B business, betting everything on a brand the market didn’t even know yet.

However, let’s go back to where it started, because Farmley didn’t begin as the consumer brand that we know; it started as a solution to a supply chain problem “We were not trying to be a brand. We were trying to fix a broken system,” cofounder Sharma told Inc42. 

Back in 2017, Sharma, an IIT Delhi graduate, was clear about one thing: Indian farmers, especially those in the dry fruits and nuts ecosystem, were getting a raw deal. 

Coming from an agriculture background, he knew the key pain points of farmers i.e. middlemen ate into margins, quality was patchy, and buyers didn’t know where their almonds or cashews were really coming from. There was no traceability, no trust.

As a result, Sharma ditched his job to start Farmley as a B2B venture. At the time, he and his team traded in bulk, primarily with ecommerce firms and modern retail, sourcing dry fruits from growers in India and importers abroad.

But almost right away, they noticed something odd.

“We were dealing in volume,” the Farmley CEO recalled, “but the quality gap was obvious. If you wanted good almonds or cashews, you had to control the post-harvest processing. And that’s where most of the market was broken.”

So the startup decided to fix it. Over the next few years, Farmley built five processing units, each one placed near a sourcing zone or an import hub. If almonds were coming in from California or Afghanistan, the startup built close to the port. If cashews were grown in Maharashtra, you went close to the fields.

As the startup established its own processing units near the farm gates, it was able to source the best quality of bread, food, and nuts directly from local growers, or import them directly from international producers for products typically brought into India. 

“Most of the imported items in India require a certain level of processing before they can be consumed. To address this, we set up processing sites such as for almonds, cashews, etc, in strategically chosen locations based on proximity to either cultivation areas or import hubs,” Sharma said.

This was followed by the startup offering a layer of value-added services for the same set of wholesale clients it had been supplying to.

It gave Farmley a major edge: tight control over quality and inventory.

For a while, this B2B setup worked well. By 2019, the company raised $2 Mn to double down on the model. The revenues were also strong, about INR 350 Cr of GMV in FY20, Sharma claimed.

But the unit economics were always fragile. “In B2B, customers change suppliers for a 0.5% price difference. There’s no loyalty. No pricing power. You’re just another manufacturer.”

That was a major problem for the startup, as even with all the infrastructure they’d built, Farmley was still a replaceable vendor in someone else’s supply chain.

In FY21, the company was generating INR 194.8 Cr, and this grew to INR 203.8 Cr in the following year, but before falling to INR 169.8 Cr in FY23, as Farmley transitioned from B2B to  D2C. 

The startup had booked a revenue of INR 230.6 Cr in FY24 as a completely D2C brand, while posting a net loss of INR 26.5 Cr. 

Farmley’s All-Or-Nothing Pivot 

In 2019, the Covid pandemic swept across India and the world. Suddenly, there was also a broader shift in eating habits. More people were snacking between meals, and health-focused consumers were moving from fried foods to nuts, seeds and flavoured makhana.

At the same time, Farmley also decided to pivot. 

Sharma said that the startup already had built strong backend capabilities and a reliable supply chain over the past four and a half years. The main focus shifted to disrupting existing brands and building our own customer base.

“For us, the challenge was more on the branding and consumer-facing side, as the supply infrastructure was already well-established,” he further said. 

In early 2021, the startup pivoted D2C, while shutting down its B2B channel completely. In the D2C space, Farmley initially started as an ecommerce-first brand and then gradually ventured into quick commerce. However, the pivot wasn’t easy.

“We had to ask ourselves—are we ready to give up a INR 350 Cr B2B business and bet on something new?” Sharma said. 

At the time, Farmley restarted small, just an ecommerce site with a few SKUs, along with the presence on ecommerce marketplaces.

However, the rise of quick commerce platforms like Zepto, Blinkit, and Swiggy Instamart, gave the startup an additional push. “Snacking is an impulse category. So quick commerce was tailor-made for us.”

According to Sharma, quick commerce was a boost, as when it comes to snacking, quick commerce is the most accurate format. 

“Once our presence in quick commerce was reasonably established across major platforms, we began shifting focus toward developing our offline presence,” he added. 

Today, the startup is present in over 15,000 retail counters across India.

Alongside its domestic expansion, it also entered select international markets like the US, Canada, and Australia, particularly regions with a significant Indian diaspora and strong demand for the categories we operate in.

Behind The Scenes: Factories, SKUs And No Burn

What makes Farmley stand out isn’t just how the product looks or tastes, says Sharma. It’s the way everything works behind the scenes.

Each Farmley factory focuses on a specific group of products. Their supply chain is spread out, raw materials are sorted, stored, and processed in different units based on what’s needed where. This setup helps them stay efficient and flexible.

They also track every product closely. Farmley constantly runs data checks to see what’s selling fast. Their 15 best-selling products are always available across all platforms. If something isn’t selling well, they stop making it quickly instead of holding on to slow-moving stock.

According to Sharma, what makes them different is its ability to consistently prepare high-quality dry fruits across seasons and the focus on recipes and innovation.

“But majorly, our distribution is strong. We’re already present across all major channels — offline, online, government networks, and international markets. Our distribution is well-established, and for any peer to replicate that reach would require significant capital and time investment,” says Sharma.

This focus on discipline and smart operations is what, according to Sharma, helps them stay profitable. 

“We always work with safety around profitability,” says Akash. “We don’t overspend on marketing. We keep control over pricing. Even on quick commerce platforms, we decide our own MRP.”

Notably, Farmley now claims to have clocked a revenue of INR 370 Cr in FY25, and is claiming to be EBITDA positive. 

Farmley has raised about $55 Mn since it started. Including a $2 Mn seed round in 2020 from Omnivore and Insitor, a $6 Mn Series A in August 2022 led by DSG Consumer Partners and Alkemi Growth Capital, and a $6.7 Mn pre-Series B in December 2023 led by the BC Jindal Group.

Most recently, it raised $40 Mn in a Series C funding round led by L Catterton.

But there’s growing competition from large FMCG players as well as those of Farmley’s ilk i.e new-age disruptors. Startups like Happilo, Ministry of Nuts, and even Paper Boat Foods are direct rivals in the healthy snacking segment.

As Sharma explains, the company encounters different competitors across its various product categories. Yet, in the broader startup space, Farmley has not faced direct, one-to-one competition, at least not yet.

That said, established FMCG players such as Haldiram’s, Britannia, HUL, and ITC have recently made strategic moves into this space. Farmley’s existing supply chain moat, built through its B2B experience, is being tested against the scale and distribution muscle of these incumbents.

Notably, HUL’s recent D2C push, marked by its acquisition of a 51% stake in OZiva and another 51% in Wellbeing Nutrition, adds a new layer of competition, further intensifying the race in this evolving market. 

All in all, after India, the US is the startup’s key overseas market for now. The hero product being flavoured makhana. For now, the startup sells through ecommerce in the country; retail will come later. Other markets include Canada, Australia and Singapore.

As for Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, etc, Sharma says while it’s on the radar. But not immediately.

Back home, the startup continues working with about 5,000 farmers for now. “We’re not chasing new categories for the sake of it,” Sharma claimed. “We listen to consumers, watch trends, but also look for long-term formats that make sense.”

Edited By Nikhil Subramaniam

Correction Note: May 17, 2025 | 23:00

• An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that Farmley was featured on Shark Tank India. The error has been rectified

The post How Farmley’s B2B Pedigree Helped Build An INR 350 Cr D2C Snack Brand appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In the post mortem of the brief but tense clashes between India and Pakistan in the first half of May, we are getting a peek into the technology that’s part of India’s defence arsenal and the drone warfare strategy.  

A detailed breakdown of India’s military and air force action released by the government shows increased reliance on drones and unmanned aerial vehicles. It shows that IG Drones was one of the partners for the Indian government in supplying drones and offering drones-related services such as surveying, mapping and reconnaissance.   

Besides the Noida-based startup, Indian army deployed homegrown Swarm drones as well as other foreign-origin loitering munitions also known as kamikaze drones and armed drones. But Operation Sindoor’s high-profile coverage around the globe has thrust IG Drones into the spotlight. 

Founded by Bodhisattwa Sanghapriya, Om Prakash, Ashish Kumar Jena and Shuvam Dash in 2018, IG Drones began as an engineering college project when the founders were studying in Odisha. Over the course of its seven year journey till now, the startup has built a portfolio of four drones, three of which are focussed on surveillance, data collection and monitoring. 

IG Drones bagged a “significant contract” from the Indian Army in January to deliver domestically built VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) and FPV (first-person view) drones within a month. 

“These advanced drone systems, tailored for high-altitude and tactical operations, will play a pivotal role in ensuring reliable surveillance, precise intelligence gathering, and enhanced border security,” RC Padhi, senior vice president (R&D), told Inc42. 

In particular, the startup takes on the likes of listed majors such as ideaForge and DroneAcharya, both of which provide drones as a service (DaaS) to their customers. So how did IG Drones outcompete these two companies in bagging the government contracts? 

The College Project That Inspired IG Drones

In 2014, Sanghapriya and his classmates, then first year students, were given a problem to solve: sediment accumulation in the Hirakud reservoir. This is a common occurrence in India where local government bodies work with colleges on infrastructure issues or engineering problems. 

In this case, to survey the sediment accumulation, the group decided to undertake a cumbersome project, build a satellite for this situation.  “The satellite was the easy part. Building a launch vehicle? That’s where we hit a wall,” the founder recalled.

The project, which was named VSLV Rocket Program, got support from ISRO and was billed as India’s first student body of engineering undergraduates that built a sounding rocket launch vehicle .

After getting acknowledgement for the project during the course, Sanghapriya began doubting the financial credibility of the project in the long term. “We realised rockets weren’t going to solve industry problems. They were too expensive and overengineered for what people actually needed,” he said.

The founder and his team began exploring drones as a low-cost, effective solution for land surveying. As engineers, they were well familiar with the technical aspects of drones, but incorporating a company was alien to the founders, Sanghapriya jokes. 

IG Drones was officially incorporated in April 2018, operating at first from a modest home office, the founder said. 

Navigating The Regulatory Skies

Of course, building a drone company in India isn’t just a technical or an incorporation challenge — it continues to be a regulatory maze today, and was even more complicated when IG Drones began. 

Sanghapriya recalls that IG Drones had to operate in an environment of stringent restrictions and bureaucratic bottlenecks from the very beginning. 

“Before 2021, even something as basic as conducting a survey required manual DGCA approval. Testing, assembling — every step was entangled in red tape. You couldn’t move fast even if you had the tech,” he added.

The early years were particularly stifling. Back in 2014, drones were effectively banned for civilian use, effectively derailing India’s drone industry at the time. 

The regulatory framework only began to evolve years later. A series of policy shifts between 2021 and 2023 finally brought clarity to the ecosystem. In particular, the Drone Rules of 2021 were a turning point in easing the licensing requirements and introducing more liberalised norms.

The focus was on homegrown and indigenous drones, so IG Drones invested more in developing its in-house capabilities, building its own drone components and assembly unit in Odisha. In 2024, it established a larger manufacturing unit in Gujarat’s Vadodara, which can produce 1,000 drones per year.

The startup’s focus on indigenisation played a major role in its bid to win defence contracts, the CEO said. 

What It Takes To Bag Defence Contracts

While IG Drones has previously had contracts for surveillance from private enterprises like HCL, Reliance Power, Adani Group, there’s one big fish in the drone industry that everyone wants: government contracts. 

The startup has also worked with the government of Odisha in the past, but becoming a supplier to the central armed forces is a major step up. How did IG Drones prepare itself for this? 

“From 2022 onward, we stopped thinking like a startup and started thinking like a defence OEM,” Sanghapriya said, adding that this meant focussing only on specifications.

While many firms retrofitted existing drone designs to meet government needs, the startup started by decoding what the Indian defence ecosystem needs — from altitude ranges and endurance metrics to EMI shielding and payload versatility. 

This helped it tailor its design and hardware, particularly the VTOL Skyhawk drone, for actual combat zones, disaster corridors, and remote-border ops. “We knew our drone would be put through extreme testing by PSUs, defence labs, or even directly on the field. There was no room for fluff,” the CEO added.

Skyhawk is a 5G-enabled drone with an endurance of three hours and can climb as high as 400 ft above ground level. It can travel as far as 15 km beyond the pilot’s direct line of sight. 

The other key facet was high engagement with the customers to customise the product and the service delivery. Sanghapriya maintains that the startup approaches every order as a full-cycle relationship: from pitch and prototype, to on-site demos, field trials, live feedback loops, and final deployment. 

“When issues arise, we respond quickly. It’s not about claiming we have a perfect product, but about providing proactive service and support when things go wrong,” he claimed. 

Beating India’s Deeptech Problem

India’s deeptech industry is a hard place to flourish, even if one manages to bag major defence contracts and be deployed in India’s largest drone-based military action. IG Drones has been in the market talking to investors for months to raise funding. 

Over the seven years of its operation, the startup has managed to raise a mere $1.4 Mn till date. And the startup claims it’s close to raising another $10 Mn from its existing investors, including India Accelerator and unnamed investors.

In India’s deeptech sector, the lack of patient capital is a sore point, and this debate has come to the forefront in recent months. As per Inc42 data, deeptech startups raised about $2 Bn between 2014 and 2024, but this pales in comparison to app-based sectors such as food delivery or ecommerce.  

Speaking on the deeptech funding issue, Sanghapriya agrees there’s some hesitation from investors, with many VCs saying the scaling up journey is slower compared to other sectors. 

“It’s not as easy to scale the business. But deeptech has its place. The industry is definitely growing. Drones are no longer just used for fun or events. These are practical, impactful use cases,” he opined.

IG Drones claims that its operating revenue for the entire fiscal year FY25 zoomed 330% to INR 22.4 Cr from INR 5.2 Cr in FY24 because of the new defence contracts. Inc42 has not seen these financials and the company has not filed its numbers for the last fiscal year.  

But there’s a lot of room for growth. Listed drone company ideaForge’s operating revenue for Q4 FY25 slumped 80% YoY to INR 20.3 Cr as revenue from defence contracts shrunk to just 4% of the company’s total revenue pie. The company reported a loss greater than about INR 5 Cr from its revenue for the quarter. 

Another listed drone company DroneAcharya’s consolidated PAT plunged to INR 1.50 Cr as of September 2024 from INR 3.96 Cr a year ago. For the first half of FY25 i.e. from April to September 2024, DroneAcharya reported INR 26.90 Cr in revenue. 

IG Drones is not far behind, but it has to scale up quickly to compete more consistently with these listed companies or outpace them in the future. 

Indeed, both ideaForge and DroneAcharya are struggling to grow their topline because of a decline in revenue from defence contracts. So there could be some headwinds in the future for IG Drones and other drone companies that rely heavily on defence contracts. 

“We’ve closed several big deals, both in the private and government sectors. For instance, we closed an order with one of India’s leading power companies, where they’ve asked for their own fleet of drones, which is valued at over INR 2 Cr. There are also multiple state governments buying drones for policing and surveillance,” he said. 

Besides drones for defence uses, IG Drones has launched a commercial drone named Kisaan for agricultural applications, and it also offers drone pilot training modules in its educational wing. 

However, as evidenced in the government’s disclosure, there is greater reliance on foreign contractors and defence manufacturers as they have the scale to meet India’s demand. 

So even as Operation Sindoor has opened one door for IG Drones, the startup has no option but to diversify well beyond government contracts, and potentially even work with aerospace and spacetech companies to bring its drone technology into play within their applications.

(Edited by: Nikhil Subramaniam)

The post IG Drones: Meet The Indian Startup That Was Key To Operation Sindoor appeared first on Inc42 Media.

While India’s real estate market surges toward $1 Tn by 2030, its proptech sector has undergone a remarkable transformation. Just a decade ago, the landscape was notably fragmented and disorganised, with siloed technologies failing to address the industry’s complex challenges. 

Tanuj Shori and his wife Kanika Gupta Shori decided to come up with a cohesive and comprehensive platform that seamlessly integrates search, transactions, financing, and post-sales services in real estate. 

Square Yards was born in 2014 to bridge the gaps caused by deep-rooted inefficiencies in the real estate sector that no piecemeal technology could solve. Their timing proved impeccable, as the industry has since witnessed significant digital acceleration, with the proptech market now projected to reach $4 Bn. 

The company has reached a turnover of INR 1,417 Cr in FY25 maintaining a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 55% for the past four years, according to the company’s internal estimates. 

Eleven years of continuous disruption and recalibration with emerging technology has kept the proptech player on a steady growth path. It earns from brokerages, transaction fees, loan disbursement commissions, and fees charged for services like home interiors and property management.  

“We created Square Yards to simplify and digitise the entire real estate value chain, including property purchase, financing, legal documentation and home services. Global best practices inspired the model, but we tailored it according to the challenges of Indian and emerging markets, especially to solve for the lack of transparency and developer-buyer disconnect,” said Tanuj Shori. 

The IIM Lucknow graduate had left the job of an executive director at Nomura to partner Kanika Gupta Shori, a Wharton graduate with over a decade spent in banking and entertainment, to give shape to the vision they shared. 

The Shoris soon created a team of 20 cofounders, which has been one of the largest cofounding teams in the Indian startup ecosystem, to build a full-stack proptech ecosystem of services, providing an end-to-end journey to more than 8 Mn homebuyers and 80,000+ real estate and mortgage agents. 

Blueprint For Financial Growth, Business Expansion 

“During our initial phase, we had to deal with unpaid dues, unreliable partners, gaps in our sales processes and difficulty in hiring talent, as stereotypes against real estate as a profession were pretty negative. We also faced challenges in figuring out the tech, but this initial scuffle helped us to build a ‘change-ready’ DNA,” Shori told Inc42.

To square away the hurdles on its way into the proptech segment, the Shoris and the cofounders devised a strategic service profile with four categories. 

#1 Proptech / Core Real Estate Service: Square Yards operates a full-stack real estate platform, facilitating the sale of both new (primary) and resale properties with a transaction-based monetisation model. Through their in-house agents, they handle $1.5 Bn+ in annual property sales and charge a 5%+ average brokerage fee as a percentage of the unit sales value. Their technology platform enhances the process with features like property investment scores, automated valuations, real-time inventory blocking, and digital transaction tools.

#2 Fintech Services: Through its fintech arm Urban Money, the company facilitates home loans, LAPs, personal and business loans, and insurance products, earning a percentage-based commission from financial institutions. Urban Money has witnessed phenomenal growth in the last few years and has emerged as one of the largest digital mortgage origination players in the country. It facilitated loan disbursal of INR 61,000 Cr in FY25.

#3 Interior Design And Home Furnishing: Square Yards also runs Interior Company, a tech-led platform for interior design and home renovation. It offers 3D visualisation, real-time cost estimation, and end-to-end project tracking. The platform has delivered over 5,000 homes to date.

#4: Digital Services and Products: The company offers a range of digital products and services including: 

• PropVR: An AI-based VR platform that enables immersive digital property experiences. 
• Azuro: A property management platform for online rent collections, house inspections and e-tracking of maintenance requests. 
• Square Connect: A mobile-only aggregation platform for real estate brokers, financial institutions and online firms. 
• PropsAMC:  Capital Markets and Services vertical brings rent-yielding commercial and residential assets to investors. It also helps developers raise debt and mezzanine capital, including land transaction services for landowners and societies.

In FY25, the company’s revenue grew 40% from INR 1,009 Cr to INR 1,417 Cr as the company doubled down on its primary real estate transactions, especially in the mid-segment market,Even the Gross Transaction Value (GTV) stood at INR 59,093 Cr in FY25, a 45% increase from INR 40,825 Cr in FY24. 

It is important to note that the proptech platform has been maintaining a consistent growth rate of over 55% CAGR (between FY22-FY25). During this period, the company has also significantly improved its financial health by reducing EBITDA losses and achieving profitability. 

Instead of focussing on the luxury or high-end market, Square Yards focussed on a more populated market of first-time buyers, which was not only a larger pool but also had the potential of monetising the leads for multi-product sales. 

Another enabler for Square Yards growth has been its bet on building effective relationships with Grade-A developers. The proptech company contributes up to 5-10%of the total sales of its partner developers through its platform, and this compels them to return to Square Yards. As a matter of fact, these returning partner developers bring in 85% of the company’s total business.

An estimated 2.17% annual increase in India’s urban population, a nearly 14.5% rise in disposable incomes in FY23, a consequent improvement in the standard of living, and a steady growth of the aspirational middle class that will account for 38% of country’s population by 2031 have been enabling proptech players like Square Yards to leverage the opportunities.

An Insight Into The Evolving Tech Stack

The supply-side real estate portal lists a million properties and more than 1,00,000 projects sourced from more than 2,000 developers. These listings serve over 8 Mn property seekers on its official website. The company has sharpened its architectural finesse to support its digital dexterity.

Square Yards runs a suite of data intelligence tools based on its large pool of property registration data to assist in price discovery and negotiation strategies in property deals. The tech stack also facilitates digital transactions both before and after the deal. 

The native technology developed by the company offers real-time data on available properties for sale, e-escrow services, secure payment gateways, digital signatures for the documentation and on-the-fly loan approvals for those buyers who want banking assistance to complete the purchase. These tech tools ease the procedural bottlenecks common in India’s traditional real estate transactions. 

Square Yards has also integrated itself within the frameworks of the credit bureaus and the banking systems. Instead of relying on traditional methods involving paperwork and manual checking of credit histories, Square Yards can fetch the credit records data directly. This accelerates loan approvals, reduces the operational costs, improves risk assessments and enables real-time updates for faster loan disbursals. 

With the help of three-dimensional (3D) visualisations and geospatial intelligence, Square Yards is developing a real-world meta experience by creating ‘digital twins’ for prominent cities of India and the Middle East. Within these digital twins, the users can hunt for properties, click on any property to know more and get key insights such as distances and routes from key landmarks. This makes exploring properties more interactive and helps customers understand the aesthetic nuances which are difficult to sense in two-dimensional photographs. 

The company also deploys machine learning models to personalise these virtual experiences based on customer behaviour data and preferences. The tech stack enables its 3,000+ sales professionals and 2,000+ mortgage agents with tools that support virtual meetings, instant collateral sharing, and comparative market analysis (CMA). 

Shori shared that to deliver these ambitious technologies to the end user, Square Yards has joined hands with global technology leaders and fortified its intellectual property portfolio. It has filed over 16 patents in the field of virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI), and five of them have been granted so far.

Chalking Out The Roadmap For The Future

Shori described to Inc42 a clear-headed approach towards expansion, “The future roadmap for Square Yards is rooted in a simple but powerful philosophy: ‘Be better at what we’re already doing’. Growth will come from continuously improving the core, rather than chasing distractions.” 

The proptech firm’s founder suggested that over the next 1–2 years, the focus will be on profitability, targeting sustainable EBITDA margins, deepening relations with developers and banks, and further innovating its tech stack. It is aiming at stable corporate EBITDA margins within the next 2–3 years, while also scaling its AI-led tools like Sales Copilot to improve productivity and sales outcomes. 

Currently, Square Yards operates across 100 cities in nine countries with a full-stack platform offering comprehensive property services. 

Now, Square Yards is also actively evaluating entry into secondary property transactions, signalling a cautious but strategic growth approach. “For the longer term, Square Yards aims to become India’s most integrated, tech-forward real estate and financial services platform,” the founder shared the vision. 

The post How Square Yards Built A INR 1,400 Cr+ Business By Owning The Entire Real Estate Lifecycle appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India is decidedly a two-wheeler market when it comes to electric vehicles. A McKinsey report projects that electric two-wheelers will make up 60-70% of new vehicle sales by 2030, but global EV brands remain out of reach for most consumers due to astronomical prices. The shift to green mobility is taking place, nonetheless, driven by homegrown startups, electric 2Ws that combine affordability with reliable technology.

The journey could have been smoother, but for technological setbacks and compliance conflicts amid a regulatory landscape shaped by FAME India and its incentive schemes. Besides early movers like Ather Energy and Ola Electric, the likes of Ultraviolette, Oben Electric and River Mobility are redefining EV consumer segments and niche markets. 

While Ola Electric, Ather Energy and legacy giants such as Hero MotoCorp, TVS and Bajaj Auto continue to rule in terms of market share, the new breed of EV makers is rapidly gaining traction through focussed positioning and strong brand narrative, primarily targeting urban millennials, performance enthusiasts and design-first buyers.

Among these, Bengaluru-based River has emerged as a notable outlier, posting solid numbers in the past few months, and outpacing many older peers. 

Set up in 2021 by former Ultraviolette executives Aravind Mani and Vipin George, River claims that it took just 27 months to bring its flagship model Indie from the drawing board to the market, with just $25 Mn invested in its development.

As per Vahan data, the startup sold 4,246 EVs in FY25, which jumped 11X from 386 units of EVs sold the previous fiscal. However, the company said that its escooters sales crossed 6,100 in FY25, and this difference is due to the accounting of Telangana sales numbers.

River’s EV Origin

When most hardware startups in India struggled to raise funding, River bucked the trend, utilised minimum capital and built a brand that stands out in the not-so-glamorous escooter market. Till date, the company has raised $65 Mn (around INR 555 Cr) across four funding rounds.

So, what exactly did River do differently? According to founder and CEO Mani, the answer is: people, process and culture.

For cofounder George, starting an automobile company had long been a personal ambition. This is what took him to Ultraviolette where he was the design lead till 2020. At the same time, Mani was the VP of business operations and strategy at the company.

The idea of River took shape during the Covid-19 pandemic. Amid the nationwide lockdowns, both founders left their jobs at EV maker Ultraviolette, and began exploring opportunities to start up. But investor sentiment was anything but favourable at the time.

“We got very negative responses from all over India. No one was prepared to fund a hardware startup,” recalled Mani.

The duo gave themselves a deadline. They would go ahead with the startup if they could raise $2 Mn within a year. If not, they would return to a job.

Their patience paid off. In 2021, River secured its first $2 Mn in seed funding from Israel’s Maniv Mobility and US-based Trucks VC, both making their maiden investments in India. And by the time River closed its $11 Mn Series A round in 2022, led by the US-based Lowercarbon Capital and Toyota Ventures, it had already built 15 prototypes.

Funds from the Series A went towards setting up a manufacturing unit in Hoskote on the outskirts of Bengaluru. By the time River was preparing to raise $40 Mn in Series B, this factory was nearing completion. This round brought another marquee investor to its cap table: Japan’s automotive Yamaha Motors.

By early 2024, with its manufacturing plant readying full capacity, River had already sold 100+ vehicles.

Today, it boasts a 70K sq ft R&D facility and a vehicle assembly plant capable of producing 8K escooters every month. However, River currently operates at 25% manufacturing capacity.

“One of the most important aspects of building an automotive company is understanding how to raise capital. Many investors are not familiar with the space. So, you need to translate your progress into clear, tangible milestones. Although we adopted industry best practices, the biggest challenge was proving progress in a way investors could grasp. That’s where many startups falter,” said Mani.

According to Mani, River sold its first escooter 27 months after the venture was set up and opened its first retail store three months later. Since then, it has scaled rapidly, but the growth is not random.

Recognising the challenges of introducing a new product, River ensured that it launched a dedicated service centre in each city before starting sales. Consequently, in its inaugural year, EVs were sold in three southern Indian cities — Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad.  

Building The ‘SUV Of Scooters’

Getting an electric scooter out of the factory is no easy task, especially one that is being made from scratch and not just being put together in India.

For River, which has invested heavily in R&D and proprietary technology, product differentiation was essential. The startup’s edge lay in George’s extensive experience at Honda and his background as an EV designer. The startup also had a team of seasoned automotive engineers whose industry expertise would help define the value proposition. River also claims it has 16 approved patents in its kitty.

It also helped that River focussed on a largely overlooked segment — utility-focussed electric scooters, branded the ‘SUV of scooters’ by the company.

“When we began ideating, no one was building EV two-wheelers for the utility market,” said the CEO. “Hero catered to rural commuters, Honda to urban ones, and TVS was a family scooter brand — all of them rooted in their ICE lineages. But no one had dared to build a stylish, utility-first escooter in India. People were repurposing standard models for utility needs. So, we decided to make utility our core value proposition and built Indie.”

The idea was to build a two-wheeler equivalent of the pickup trucks in the US so that India’s growing cohort of solo entrepreneurs, from carpenters and builders to small business owners, can carry their tools of trade in a single vehicle. Indie has an underseat storage of 43 litres, more than most rivals in the market. By comparison, Ola Electric offers up to 32 litres, Ather 22 litres and TVS 34 litres.

River claims to have designed all key components in-house, including the battery pack and the battery management system (BMS), vehicle control unit, connectivity module, electrical architecture and drivetrain. It also holds intellectual property rights for its mechanical and electrical architecture. Although the startup sources NMC cells from China and procures its motor and controller from the German manufacturer MAHLE, all other major components are developed internally.

River Joins India’s EV Ocean

The EV sector in India experienced turbulence in recent years. After investigations revealed that many companies had violated domestic sourcing norms, the government slashed subsidies under the FAME-II scheme. The crackdown and subsequent subsidy cuts wreaked havoc as EV prices soared, sales slumped, and several startups failed to scale or shut shop entirely.

River managed to escape much of this turmoil. It began commercial operations when the subsidy shake-up had already taken its toll, leaving little scope for new players to lean on government incentives. 

Moreover, it did not qualify for the government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, which mandates a minimum investment threshold of INR 2K Cr, well above the startup’s capital expenditure.

Mani considers this a blessing in disguise. “We have been able to scale our business with far less, which has made us more disciplined and efficient,” he said.

But the road ahead is far from smooth. One of the biggest hurdles, for example, to widespread EV adoption is inadequate charging infrastructure in India. 

This particularly impacts electric two-wheelers without standardised charging systems. For now, most users rely on home charging, but broader uptake will hinge on the availability of public infrastructure. 

Ola Electric and Ather Energy have invested in their proprietary charging networks. River, by contrast, is taking a more frugal route. Rather than building the infrastructure from scratch, it is developing universal adapters to enable plug-and-charge at any public charging point.

More importantly, product improvement remains a work in progress. Although Indie, now in its second iteration, has gained traction as evidenced by the numbers, customers have voiced concerns about the quality of headlights, switches, and the overall charging experience. 

Mani acknowledges these gaps but believes the startup’s sole focus on its flagship will help it fix these issues without delay. “Currently, we are concentrating on just one vehicle. So, we can channel all our resources into getting it right,” he said.

The Way Forward For River

The company kicked off sales in October 2023 and closed its first full financial year (FY25) with INR 104 Cr in revenue. This marked a nearly 21X jump from INR 5 Cr recorded in FY24 when it had just six months of sales.  The Indie remains the sole product from River’s stables, but a new model is likely to hit the market by 2026.

The startup is still in the red, and losses are mounting due to retail expansion. River’s losses more than doubled in FY25 to INR 176.6 Cr from INR 82.9 Cr in the previous fiscal year. However, the founders strongly believe in its growth prospects, emphasising that a rise in production and aggressive sales and marketing will help it hit the profitability button.

River is targeting 30K escooter sales in the current financial year (FY26), a nearly fivefold increase from FY25.

At peak production capacity, it expects to manufacture 100K escooters annually and projects INR 1,400 Cr in revenue. It is planning to expand its retail network to 120 stores across all the major Indian cities by March 2026 to support this scale, with more than half (64) concentrated in South India. 

“We are quite bullish on breaking into the sixth or seventh spot nationally. Going further will take time as the top EV players today have at least 200 stores. Then again, we sold 1K units with only 16 stores. Plus, we are priced higher. Indie costs around INR 1.5 Lakh, but many players in the sixth to ninth spots sell products below INR 1 Lakh. So, our achievement in that market has been phenomenal,” Mani added.

River is already among the top 10 EV two-wheeler brands in Karnataka and Kerala. But staying competitive will be increasingly challenging as more players crowd the segment.

Will its retail expansion and production ramp-up reverse the current losses?

“Human resources are our single biggest expense today,” said Mani. “It is because when selling 1,000 EVs, we are staffing up for 3,000. It is about building the pipeline and investing in workforce and infrastructure.”

In fact, the headcount at River doubled YoY, reaching 839 in FY25, with costs ballooning to INR 90 Cr from INR 26 Cr a year ago.

In a sector hit by regulatory volatility and adoption challenges, River is steering towards greater self-reliance. “We have not burnt much cash to get here. There’s a lot of headroom, and we can become one of the top 10 players, if not the top five, and achieve profitability, even if we are not gunning for an IPO right now,” he said. 

The company has no immediate plans for fundraising but wants to delve deeper into the utility-lifestyle spectrum while rolling out its second escooter model.

Having come this far through careful execution and capital discipline, River now faces a tougher challenge: scaling without excessive dilution or a forced acquisition while claiming a distinct space in India’s crowded EV landscape. It is still uncertain whether its leaner model and measured bets can yield long-term sustainability. For now, though, the current appears to be running in its favour.

[Edited By Sanghamitra Mandal]

The post Can River’s Frugal Route Rival Ather, Ola Electric In India’s Tight EV Scooter Market? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

If you are 35 or above, your body could be under too much stress due to hormonal (endocrine) changes, and you may not know. These changes can impact everything from your energy levels and sleep quality to your mood, weight, and overall well-being. However, the tricky part is that the signs often creep in without raising major alarms.  

Now, before we get into the “hows” and “whys” of the subject, let’s pause and ask a few important questions:

A: Do you feel as agile and energetic as you did in your twenties or early thirties? 

B: Do you gain weight easily now viz a viz five years ago when you would eat almost double of what you can ingest today? 

C: Are you experiencing changes in your mood or sleep patterns, leading to increased stress?  

D: Do you struggle to stay focussed or feel mentally foggy during the day?

E: Have you become more sensitive to emotional triggers?

If you have answered “no” to question A and “yes” to others, it is a clear sign your body and mind need attention. While it is quite easy to take care of your body by leading a healthy lifestyle — eating healthy or exercising at least three times a week — cognitive health tends to be overlooked. 

Cognitive health, which refers to an individual’s ability to think, learn and remember clearly, can decline over time. While cognitive decline is a natural part of ageing, it can signal deeper concerns like dementia or Alzheimer’s in some cases. 

In India alone, nearly 30 Mn people are estimated to have mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition that can gradually progress to dementia in about 15% of cases. However, the bigger issue at hand is that cognitive health often goes unnoticed until it starts to impact one’s daily life. 

This is precisely what Issac John (cofounder and CEO) and Rahul Krishnan (cofounder and CPO) are solving — early detection of cognitive issues. 

“Cognitive science and brain health are largely underrated in India. If you look at your own family, people prioritise health checkups for the heart, liver, lungs, and kidneys, but rarely for the brain until cognitive decline becomes severe,” said the founders, who founded Ivory in October 2024.

Ivory is a Bengaluru-based healthtech startup that uses neuroscience-based assessments and interactive games to enable early detection and intervention in cognitive health. The startup primarily targets users in their 40s and 50s, enabling them to screen for cognitive issues long before they become critical. 

According to the founders, while the space is already flush with global players like Braincheck, Crayons Health and Cogstate, Ivory stands out as one of the few homegrown companies that uses tech to track cognitive health. A majority of Indian companies in this line of business still use traditional pen and paper tests like Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination (ACE) or Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) or the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE).

“Ivory offers assessments that tell you whether your cognitive score is below or above average, or if you need attention. Alongside, it provides a companion app, which combines games and lifestyle interventions to continuously monitor and enhance your cognitive health,” the CEO said.

Having raised a total of $1.5 Mn since inception, Ivory’s cognitive assessments are currently accessed through a diverse group of clinicians, including clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, general physicians and geriatric specialists. The startup claims to have completed over 15,000 cognitive profiles so far and enjoys a user base of more than 40K individuals.

A Connection That Changed It All

In 2022, both John and Krishnan were at pivotal points in their careers, looking to start something of their own.

John, who had helped scale Discovery+ from scratch into a multi-million-subscriber OTT platform across India and the APAC region, was exploring ideas in the space of family engagement and memory preservation. 

Meanwhile, Krishnan had just wrapped up his first startup journey with YAYSHOP, a conversational commerce venture that was acquired by Infra.Market. 

The two strangers met at Antler India’s VC Residency Programme — an initiative designed to bring together experienced operators and second-time founders to build from zero. 

While their professional worlds were vastly different, it was their personal stories and emotional drivers that brought them together to build something that can change the lives of the old for good.

Both were small-town boys from Kerala, raised by single parents and had experienced the emotional toll of neurodegenerative illness in their families. 

It is due to this that the duo wanted to develop something meaningful for people like their parents. This became the foundation of what eventually grew into Ivory.

Ivory’s Building Blocks

Initially, the idea was to build something that would help keep parents engaged. The duo thought of building tools around memory, storytelling and even wellness programmes in different languages. 

However, after many more experiments and research, they realised that they needed something more impactful. 

Therefore, as part of one of their early experiments, the cofounders would conduct online sessions to help individuals understand the difference between healthcare, wellness, yoga and fitness. 

During one such session, participants flooded a guest neurologist with questions. Witnessing the success of the session, the founders organised another one. This time, they invited a neurologist and a neurophysiologist. The response was overwhelming.

“People signed up, turned up, and stayed engaged. That’s when we realised that cognitive health was the real deal. People wanted to know how to keep their brains healthy as they age,” John said.

This led them to dive into the world of cognitive science. Coming from non-healthcare backgrounds, their first step was to build a strong team of clinicians. 

Within a year, they studied models from the West, where cognitive screenings were far more mainstream. Realising that India lacked the technology to detect early signs of cognitive decline, they partnered with leading neurologists, neuropsychologists, and researchers to adapt globally standardised tests, tailor them for Indian users, and develop clinically validated tools based on these tests. 

Therefore, they spent months iterating, testing, refining assessments and observing user behaviour across. The real product-market fit came from the brain teaser product, which they launched in April, 2024. 

The product helped the founders build their first network of more than 2K daily users. Witnessing that there was enough market demand waiting to be unlocked, they launched Ivory in October 2024 to make cognitive health as mainstream as annual health checkups. But the journey ahead was not going to be easy.

Ivory’s Initial Battle

According to the founders, the biggest challenge was creating awareness and making people understand that their cognitive abilities are at risk of slowing down due to age and other factors. 

“In India, most people get a cognitive assessment only when it’s already too late, like when a person goes missing or doesn’t return home after a walk. That’s when families rush to a doctor,” Krishnan said.

Another reason for the lack of awareness, per the founders, is that cognitive health is still widely misunderstood. People often link it to mental illness, but the concept of cognitive health goes beyond. Cognitive health is deeply connected to sleep patterns, diet, cardiovascular health and overall well-being. However, this understanding hasn’t yet reached the average Indian consumer.

This is exactly what Ivory is trying to bridge — timely bringing to the fore cases of cognitive impairment, which go unnoticed in 90% of cases among people in their 40s and 50s. 

“By this age, serious symptoms appear and conditions like dementia may already be irreversible,” the founders said. 

Ivory’s core offering is a cognitive screening assessment. Available via a mobile app, the 30-40 minute FDA-registered delivers a comprehensive cognitive profile, including a cognitive score, cognitive age and a detailed analysis of 22 cognitive skills.

Along with this, Ivory’s app provides personalised daily brain workouts combining cognitive games, mindfulness, and physical activity nudges to help users maintain and improve cognitive function. 

Ivory operates on a B2B2C model. On the B2C front, the Ivory app offers a range of tools, which include a free cognitive age test, seven days of personalised brain workouts based on the user’s cognitive age, a mix of free and premium cognitive games. 

Beyond the app, its cognitive assessments are used in clinical settings and provide users with a detailed cognitive profile based on factors like speed, accuracy, and executive function. 

Ivory’s Early Wins & Tryst With Shark Tank

While still in its pre-revenue stage, Ivory has already made significant strides in building both product and traction. 

In the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2024, Ivory is said to have crossed the 10,000 user mark on the app. In Q1 2025, Ivory started monetising three of its products  — cognitive assessment, cognitive health checkup, and its subscription product. 

It also sealed its first hospital partnership with Marengo Asia and closed corporate orders from Ather Energy, Ritewater Solutions and PUMA.

Ivory also received a major visibility boost after its appearance on Shark Tank India in March, 2025.

“When we filmed the episode in December, we only had around 5,000 users. Today, we’ve grown nearly 10X,” said John.

He added that their appearance on TV helped them penetrate deeper into Indian towns and cities. Until their appearance, most of Ivory’s users were from metros. 

But after their Shark Tank appearance, the startup saw demand from tier II and tier III cities like Ludhiana, Bhatinda and Coimbatore. 

“We were surprised to witness that it wasn’t just an urban issue… people across India were looking for our solutions,” said Krishnan.

What’s Next For Ivory?

Over the next 12 to 18 months, Ivory’s expansion plans are centred around deepening its clinical footprint and enhancing its assessment capabilities. 

The brand also aims to expand its B2C focus and strengthen its B2B2C presence by expanding its network of hospitals and diagnostic chains. 

Ivory is also in advanced talks with insurance players and diagnostic networks to embed its cognitive health offering into preventive health checkups. 

“The broader goal is to be present across 40,000 to 50,000 clinician touchpoints in India, including general physicians, neurologists, geriatric specialists, and neuropsychologists,” John said.

On the product side, the founders are focussed on evolving the startup’s assessment layer and investing heavily in neuroscience and clinical research to add more accuracy to its FDA-registered test. 

“With this, the upcoming version of the app will move beyond games to a more holistic, cognitive lifestyle companion. It will blend brain workouts with daily prompts for mindfulness, movement, and behaviour change,” the cofounders said.

Despite their big plans, Ivory is poised for an uphill battle. This is because brain health takes a back seat in India and is often addressed only after severe symptoms. 

For Ivory to succeed in this market, it must focus on scaling its tech and clinical partnerships, all while building trust in a population that rarely prioritises preventive cognitive care. 

If things go as planned, Ivory is looking at a juicy chunk of the Indian cognitive assessment and training market, expected to reach $704.92 Mn by 2032.

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post This Startup Is Turning Cognitive Health Into A New-Age Wellness Habit appeared first on Inc42 Media.

From the vogue dominating the runways of Paris to the streetwear of Seoul, global fashion trends have long inspired Indians, so much so that what catches on abroad often finds its way into the Indian wardrobe.

Brands like Zara and H&M have long shaped how Indians dress.

Something is changing. The brands that would command the obsession of millennials for fashion are now seemingly losing their influence, thanks to hyper-online Gen Z consumers who are driven by social media trends and expect fashion to arrive faster, cost less, and be delivered straight to their doorsteps.

Now, with rising Gen Z spending, brands have started to shift their focus to Gen Z demands. This has brought the spotlight on fast fashion, an industry expected to breach the $50 Bn mark by FY31. According to Redseer, while India’s overall fashion market grew at a modest 6% YoY in FY24, fast fashion surged by 30–40%. 

Spotting a massive whitespace, Sumit Jasoria, the founder of three-year-old startup NEWME, saw an opportunity to build a brand that could rival the likes of Zara and H&M. But, there was one condition — Jasoria wanted his brand to outdo everyone in the race to be faster, trendier and affordable.

“Gen Z customers want trend-first designs, but they can’t afford Zara as many are still students in the early stages of their careers. So, the idea was, how do we bring trends faster than Zara, at one-third the price? There were brands on Myntra, too, but not a separate platform for all fast fashion needs. Finding something that really clicked with this audience had yet to be figured out,” Jasoria told Inc42.

He thought that launching such a platform just for Gen Z women was the need of the hour, leading to the birth of NEWME.

Launched in June 2022 by Jasoria, along with Vinod Naik, Shivam Tripathi and Himanshu Chaudhary, Bengaluru-based NEWME is a fashion brand focussed on Gen Z consumers. 

The startup releases 500+ fresh, trend-led designs every week and currently has 12,000+ styles live on its platform. It launches new collections every Friday. The platform enjoys a user base of 7 Mn+ customers.

Backed by investors like Accel Partners and Fireside Ventures, NEWME has raised $25 Mn to date. The brand has over 14 retail stores, which are spread across Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Indore, Delhi NCR, Pune, Mumbai and Chandigarh. 

Just seven months ago, the startup entered the quick commerce space with 90-minute deliveries in Delhi. The startup has recently also launched NEWME Zip to offer over 1,500 styles in under 60 minutes across Bengaluru. 

NEWME Zip is supported by a network of dark stores, zonal hubs and a real-time inventory engine to keep the right styles stocked near high-demand areas. In early trials, the founders claim to have consistently delivered in under 30 minutes, even during peak traffic hours.

This Gen Z-focussed brand claims to have crossed the INR 180 Cr mark in just three years and is well on its way to writing its next growth chapter. But its zero-to-one journey hasn’t been easy in a space cluttered with fashion brands.

So, what has been its growth playbook? Before we answer this, let’s understand how it all started.

How NEWME Found Its Footing

The spark for NEWME came during the pandemic, when Jasoria observed changes among the Indian youth. With the explosion of streaming platforms, Korean dramas especially became popular among teens.

To his surprise, his nieces (10 and 12 years old) were completely hooked on Korean dramas, which made him curious about the popularity of such shows. He discovered that K-dramas were among the most-watched content by the Gen Z audience on Netflix.

Was he looking at a disruption, given that India had yet to explore what had already caught up around the globe? Indeed. 

When he started to watch K-dramas with the girls, a revelation dawned upon him. He discovered that the Gen Z audience wanted something it could closely associate with, including fashion. So, he started focussing his energy on this very market. 

While the space was already filled with names like Zara, H&M and Myntra, there was nothing truly in sync with the fast-changing trends across the globe. This realisation motivated him to move ahead with his plans.

Building a tech-driven business was a natural fit for him, given his decade-long experience in scaling technology-led ventures across India and Southeast Asia.

Before founding NEWME, he was the managing director of Meero India, an AI-based photo editing tool and marketplace for photographers. Here, he was responsible for expanding the French AI-powered digital imaging company into India and the APAC region.

Earlier in his career, Jasoria was also associated with Rocket Internet, where he was responsible for managing operations for Daraz — a leading ecommerce platform in South Asia, now acquired by Alibaba. 

Stars aligned, and his close friend Tripathi moved back to India in 2020, around the same time when he was exploring this prospect. 

When the two friends met, Jasoria told him what was going on in his mind. The discussion continued over the next few meetings and with his two other friends, Chaudhary and Naik.

The next thing Jasoria remembers is that the quartet of friends came to the drawing board, tracing the blueprint of their Gen Z-focussed fashion brand. 

However, everything finally came together in 2022, with the launch of NEWME.  

NEWME’s Early Hiccups

Soon after launch, the founders had plenty to tackle — inventory challenges, faltering delivery time and data management issues. However, every little step towards addressing inefficiencies or making amends meant only one thing — their vision to defeat the Zara and H&M of the world was coming to fruition. To achieve this, they decided to keep inventory light and designs fresh.

“If you look at traditional fashion companies, they usually have just four collection drops in a year. And they carry inventory that lasts 3 to 5 months. However, for NEWME, we wanted to drop 100s of styles every single week. For this, we knew we would have to keep our inventory cycle as low as a month,” Jasoria told Inc42.

According to him, the biggest reason for the collapse of any fashion company is inventory. “Brands that manage to keep inventory low not only survive tough times but also offer more varieties and fresh designs to consumers.”

However, for this, they had to build a business that could run on a low MoQ (minimum order quantity) model, which is difficult to sustain due to factors like:

• Thin Margins: Indian consumers are price-sensitive. Therefore, selling small quantities makes it hard to achieve economies of scale, which are essential to keep costs and prices low.
• High Fulfilment Costs: Delivering small orders increases logistics and packaging costs per unit, making the unit economics unviable.
• Cash Flow Pressure: With smaller orders, businesses need to work harder and faster to hit revenue targets, putting pressure on cash flow.
• Operational Complexity: Managing inventory, warehousing, and returns for smaller orders can be operationally cumbersome and expensive.

So the founding team dug deeper to understand what the suppliers were struggling with. 

“As a result, we had to create tech solutions that ensured they didn’t lose revenue just because they were producing in low volumes,” Jasoria said. 

The next challenge was to convince factories and suppliers to work with an early stage startup. This was tough because the founders had not set up a brand yet. The only thing they had was a vision.

On the other hand, if there is one thing that the NEWME founders are still endeavouring to iron out is challenges on the operational side. According to Jasoria, although NEWME has enjoyed strong brand love from day one, it has struggled with delayed deliveries. Yet, the challenges weren’t strong enough to stand in its way.

NEWME’s INR 180 Cr Top Line Leap 

The brand clocked a revenue of INR 3.42 Cr in FY23 (April 2022 to March 2023), its first year of operations. Just a year later, the top line jumped nearly 18X to INR 61.1 Cr in FY24. For FY25, it claims to have already crossed INR 180 Cr in revenues (unaudited).

However, the growth has come at a cost. The startup’s losses have surged in parallel. NEWME’s net loss grew from INR 10.5 Cr in FY23 to INR 49.4 Cr in FY24 due to an increase in operational and growth-related costs. Total expenses grew more than 8X during the same period from INR 14 Cr in FY23 to INR 112 Cr in FY24.

In FY24, employee benefit expenses also more than doubled, reflecting aggressive hiring and team scale-up. A major contributor to the rising burn was the cost of inventory and the supply chain. The brand scaled logistics, packaging, warehousing and other backend operations to support its rapid growth.

While the company is still operating at a loss, the deficit has reduced significantly. “The primary focus for this year is to achieve breakeven,” the founder said, who is betting big on the strategy to run a light inventory model. 

For context, the founders have built everything in-house — the supply chain ERP, demand planning systems, quality control processes, and even tech that ensures the supplier’s profit is not dented due to the MoQ model. 

“Our model allows suppliers to remain profitable even when producing smaller, trend-driven batches, making it a perfect fit for the fast fashion playbook,” Jasoria said. 

Currently, the brand drops 500 new styles every single week and still manages to keep inventory as light (up to 30 days). 

What’s NEWME’s Play?

Interestingly, according to the founders, they have always envisioned building a consumer tech startup, which NEWME currently is, along with a fashion brand. 

From trend forecasting and AI-powered search on the app to a hyper-personalised demand prediction tool, the NEWME platform has it all.

“Today, 99% of what we produce is backed by data,” the founders said, adding that their tech-first approach has helped them move faster than many and understand their user base better.

Taking an omnichannel approach was another key strategy in building NEWME’s growth playbook. 

In 2024 alone, the startup sharpened its arsenal with 10+ stores. It aims to open another 10 stores this year. Currently, the brand operates over 14 retail stores across metros. 

“The strategy is very clear — to expand offline first. If we add ten more stores, we can almost double our revenue. At the same time, we will continue to dominate online,” the founders said.

Currently, the brand generates 23% of revenue from its offline stores and the rest from its app and website. 

One of the most game-changing strategies for the brand has been its foray into quick commerce and solving the delivery experience. To make the brand what it is today, the founders knew they had to fix the delivery issues. Therefore, they built their own delivery fleet to avoid delays during peak hours. 

Moving on, the company operates on a hybrid model, utilising both proprietary dark stores and those managed by external vendors. Each dark store spans around 1,500 sq ft and stocks the full live inventory of 12,000+ styles, enabling customers to shop the latest drops in under an hour.

Just eight months ago, it launched 90-minute deliveries in Delhi. Now, it has rolled out 30-60 minute delivery in Bengaluru across three hubs — HSR (covering South Bengaluru), Marathahalli, and Yelahanka. 

Each of these hubs has around 10 to 12 delivery partners and extra support from external partners. When third-party services get overburdened during peak hours, the internal fleet takes charge. There’s currently no delivery fee, as the service is still in early stages.

Its inventory is powered by in-house demand planning tools, data science models, and a proprietary tech stack that ensures real-time inventory sync and rapid fulfilment.

NEWME’s Next Drop?

Going forward, the brand has set its sights on becoming an INR 1,000 Cr+ brand in the next five years. The brand’s prime focus this year is to break even. For this, the founders are working on increasing gross margins and reining in operational costs.

As a first step towards this goal, it has entered the quick commerce space. The brand has already run pilots in Bengaluru and Delhi. “In Delhi, quick commerce orders now account for around 20% of total daily orders. Bengaluru’s pilot is currently around 5-6%, with plans to scale it up to 20-25% soon,” the founders said.

For the next fiscal, the founder expects a jump of 3X and aims to add 10 more offline stores this year and keep on growing the quick commerce segment in all major cities.

The brand is also looking to expand its offerings from clothes to press-on nails and perfumes for Gen Z women.

So far, the brand has made significant progress in addressing key issues like delivery delays and inventory management. However, as it scales, several challenges remain.

As of now, managing supply chain and inventory in a fast-moving, trend-driven market remains one constant challenge, which the founders are laser-focussed on addressing. 

“Fabrics run out fast and the company has to secure more on short notice. Besides, factory operations can be unpredictable due to issues like labour shortages or people not showing up. These are also day-to-day operational problems that require ongoing investment and close collaboration with factory partners as the company scales,” the founders said.

Meanwhile, the brand is investing heavily in building a strong leadership team and boosting its tech capabilities. It is developing proprietary technology that supports a lean inventory model. This requires top engineering, design, and data science talent, which is costly but critical to keep pace with their fast fashion, tech-first approach. 

Another critical challenge for the brand will be to lock horns with names like Shein, which has now re-entered India after five years and has Reliance Retail by its side. With this, NEWME will have to tread very carefully to win in the realm of fast fashion, all while balancing rapid growth with sustainability. 

In a market that is increasingly driven by Gen Z preferences, NEWME is trying to blend fashion with tech to stand out, a playbook not unique. In addition, growing losses put it in a tight spot, even though top-line expansion plans seem solid. Can it rein in its losses to become the Zara or Shein of India?

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post How NEWME Hit Gen Z’s Fashion Nerve To Clock INR 180 Cr In 3 Years appeared first on Inc42 Media.

How surprised would you be if you were told that the gaming platform WinZO, which commands a network of 250 Mn users in India and Brazil, might never have existed if it were not for Netflix’s India entry in 2016 — as we learnt while speaking with the founder of WinZO, Paavan Nanda, about how it crossed the INR 1,000 Cr revenue mark in 5-6 years.

However, before he made inspiring revelations about the RMG giant’s journey since its inception in 2018, he said something a bit more interesting that stuck with us, and we thought of beginning our version of the WinZO story with just that.

Well, Nanda, the founder of Zostel and ZO Rooms, wasn’t specifically looking to build something in the gaming sector. It was only after his mind was boggled by the number of gamers the country was adding to its kitty every month that he decided to enter the uncharted territories of gaming in the world’s second most populous nation back then.

However, Nanda was sure about one thing — that his next product would be a consumer internet company only, as the country was experiencing a renaissance in the realm of the World Wide Web, but this time over smartphones and free internet.

A Quick Recap Of The Free Internet Era: Around 2016-17, content consumption in India began to surge at an exceptional pace, driven by Jio’s game-changing move to provide free internet access to a country of over 1.4 Bn people.

This was truly transformative, and people who previously did not have a computer or even a television were finally democratised by the internet, especially in tier II to tier V cities and towns. 

To mine the metaphorical golden goose of the new internet users being baptised by pocket-friendly, China-made, India-branded smartphones loaded with 3G and 4G data packs, big techs, including Google, Meta and TikTok, upped the ante to dominate the realms of video, short video, chat, and social media.

This was also the time when Netflix launched its streaming service in India on January 6, 2016. Close on the heels, Amazon launched Prime Video in July 2016.

Taking Cues From Netflix

While the content market was getting dense by the hour, Nanda saw a huge white space in gaming, despite the presence of thousands of games on Google Play and App Store.

“What was missing from the market was a gaming super app… and we were quick to figure it out. Think of it like how Netflix is for movies or how there are consolidated apps for videos or music. That kind of centralised platform didn’t exist for games or gamers back then. Therefore, we thought about creating a gaming super app just for that,” Nanda said.

Without any ado, the founder and his team started working on the concept, and, after countless brainstorming sessions, envisioned a platform where game developers could integrate their games. 

“Initially, our idea was as simple as requesting game studios to integrate with WinZO and let the company take care of the user acquisition and monetisation on their part. Simply put: we wanted the studios to focus on building games, while we wanted to handle distribution and revenue. From the user’s perspective, the goal was to make WinZO the go-to gaming platform, the Netflix of gaming.”

WinZO’s Early Originals

Like any other startup, WinZO had its share of learnings and pivots. The first few months were all about learning which direction to take until the team zeroed in on going ahead with a trivia app.

“I, along with my team, decided to create the mobile version of Kaun Banega Crorepati. The rules were simple — pay to get into the hot seat, and win money upon winning,” Nanda said.

The team gradually expanded to include more titles. As the game library grew, so did user feedback and the number of requests. This user engagement eventually led to how we know WinZO today.

For context: Unlike rummy or fantasy sports companies — models that were already well-established by 2017 or 2018, with players like Dream11 and RummyCircle, WinZo took the road less travelled with casual titles to cater to the mass-market users.

To resonate with its audience, the team focussed on making the users’ experience of crushing candies or shooting bubbles rewarding, to say the least.

“To each his own… Some are interested in card games, while others may like board games. Similarly, there is a particular group of audience that gets a high from racing cars or playing snooker or golf. So, we built a platform with 50+ games, most of them casual,” the founder said. 

In the beta phase, WinZO even tested a subscription model. Under this, users would pay a certain amount monthly or annually in anticipation of winning cash rewards. At one point, WinZO founders doled out TVs, washing machines and even sofa sets to winners.

However, it is always better to age like a fine wine. Hence, the founding team at WinZO took its time to evolve steadily and sustainably rather than moving impulsively to conquer multiple forts at once. 

Its thesis is directly in sync with how the team has refined its monetisation model over the years to become more accessible to a large group of users. Users can join by pooling in as little as INR 2 to play and win. “Players are matched with opponents, which can be either an individual or teams in the case of a large tournament. If they do well, they win some cash. That’s essentially the business.”

WinZO’s Test Of Trust

Once the team decided to make the platform a hub for casual gaming, the next task was to achieve the product-market fit, which, as per Nanda, is a journey and one doesn’t just stumble upon.  

“You just can’t walk into your office one day and expect one of your team members to shout ‘Eureka, we have found the product-market fit’,” Nanda said, adding that it’s more about identifying key metrics relevant to the product. 

The founder knew that WinZo had found its product-market fit by observing the most important metrics for gaming — stickiness and retention. Other crucial indicators were engagement, how much time players spent and how many games they played.

“We built thresholds unique to us. In gaming, typically only about 0.01% to 0.001% of users purchase virtual assets. But when we launched the first version of WinZO, the number was already around 3–4%. That was a huge signal. It meant we were at least a thousand times better than the industry benchmarks,” Nanda recalled.

However, reaching this milestone was not easy. One of its biggest challenges was convincing game developers to integrate with the platform. This was difficult because many developers were wary of working with an unknown player, especially one that is not on Google Play or Apple’s App Store.

In a market dominated by Android, skipping Google’s app marketplace could have been a death knell, but it forced WinZO to get creative with distribution. 

Growth was driven organically through word-of-mouth, referrals, and community engagement. Instead of burning cash on marketing, the team focussed on product stickiness and user experience to boost retention.

In fact, at one point, it got difficult for the Zostel founder to convince investors. “The first couple of years were marked by cold shoulders and rejections. But steady traction and metrics that bucked the industry norms began to turn heads.” 

So, what worked for Winzo? Well, to resonate with the new wave of internet users, the founder decided to go hyperlocal with a vernacular-first approach. 

At a time when almost every gaming company was offering their products only in English, WinZo decided to cater to the Hindi-speaking belt and started adding more local languages within the first year of its operations.

“When people seek entertainment, they don’t really want to strain themselves. Reading or understanding something in a non-native language becomes a barrier. So, native language became our moat,” Nanda said.

The second critical piece of the puzzle in the WinZo equation proved to be trust. This was because money was involved, and people wanted to be sure that the company would not fly by night with their money. 

“To build trust, we decided to remove the entry threshold. Money as little as INR 2-3 was enough to enter a game and win the prize pool,” Nanda said.    

WinZO’s 10X Top Line Leap

The idea of reducing the entry barrier to as low as INR 2 worked wonders for the WinZO team, and combined with the word-of-mouth, the popularity of the platform grew by the day. 

In addition, what helped the platform cross the first INR 100 Cr revenue mark was the Covid-19 pandemic. When people were confined to their homes and had nothing much to do, the adoption of the platform grew significantly. This was also the point when Nanda realised that WinZO was there to stay for a long, long time.  

Besides the app’s performance in terms of the increasing number of users, a widening prize pool and retention, what proved the viability of the business was its FY21 top-line numbers, which stood at INR 103 Cr.  

Interestingly, unlike the pandemic-bloated revenues of many internet startups that could not be sustained, WinZO’s revenues have grown more than 10X since the pandemic.

In 2022, Winzo brought cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni to its board and as its brand ambassador. Dhoni’s endorsements helped the company acquire more users.

A growing number of users keep the founder on his toes — adding new games and improving the quality of the existing ones.

How WinZO Creates Loyalists

Around 100 users join the WinZO platform daily. About 70 return the following day. Over the next few months, as many as 50% continue to use the platform. 

“These 50 become loyalists. They stick around as long as WinZO keeps delivering value in the form of entertainment. Much like how Netflix claims a spot in a user’s monthly entertainment budget, WinZO has become a part of their daily routine,” Nanda said. 

WinZO’s growth hinges on building cohorts. Every day, 100 people join and around 50 become loyal users. The process repeats daily, and the stack of loyalists keeps on growing.

Over the years, this growth has helped WinZO become an INR 1,000 Cr brand name. The company’s revenues stood at INR 234 Cr in FY22, INR 673.94 Cr in FY23 and breached the INR 1,055.20 Cr mark in FY24. Nanda, however, refrained from shedding any light on the company’s FY25 revenue growth due to ongoing audits at the company. 

WinZO Braces For GST Impact

WinZO’s adjusted profit after tax more than doubled to INR 315 Cr in FY24, up from INR 125 Cr in FY23. However, the company may not see a similar growth in FY25, according to Nanda. 

This is because, just like its peers in the RMG realm, WinZO, too, has been burnt by the revised 28% GST regime on RMG companies, which came into force in October 2023. 

He noted that the entire industry is under pressure. Notably, the GST Council’s decision to impose a flat 28% tax on the full value of transactions (regardless of whether a game is skill-based or chance-based) has significantly altered the unit economics of real-money gaming companies. Previously, an 18% GST was applied only on the platform fee for skill games.

Several major gaming companies have challenged these GST notices in the Supreme Court, but they’re being asked to comply in the meantime. 

“We are now paying nearly four times more in GST. This has led to a massive erosion of margins,” Nanda said. He added that FY25 will be the first full year under the revised tax framework.

WinZO is currently recalibrating to adapt to this new reality. The founder said that it will take a couple of years for the company to reach its full potential and aggressively grow its market share.

One way the company is toiling to offset these domestic headwinds is by accelerating its international expansion. “We’re already live in Brazil, and it’s been about seven to eight months now,” he said. 

“However, the global push wasn’t a reaction to regulatory pressures, it was always the plan. The timing just coincided.”  

While we believe Nanda’s statement, the company’s plans to expand its geographies have come at a time when several Indian gaming startups are shifting focus to international markets,  following the 28% GST regime.

Not just this, a key investor in multiple leading firms has cautioned that the sector is expected to face financial strain for at least the next three years. Now, as the Indian online gaming sector endures a churn, can WinZO register a win on the global pulpit?

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

The post How Netflix Inspired Winzo’s INR 1K Cr+ Gaming Empire appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After a muted April, the Indian startup ecosystem staged a comeback in May, raising a total of $1.1 Bn in funding. This was more than double the amount raised in April.

This funding surge was backed by several key developments that boosted investor confidence. Ather Energy became the first startup to go public in 2025, while major players like Groww and Shiprocket filed their draft IPO papers via the confidential route.

Not to mention, investor optimism remained undeterred in artificial intelligence (AI). Moreover, the Indian government reinforced its commitment to homegrown innovation by shortlisting three domestic GenAI startups — Gnani.ai, GAN.ai, and Soket AI — to build India’s very own large language models (LLMs).

Against this backdrop, it’s no surprise that startups working on AI, deeptech and consumer services stood out in the 59th edition of Inc42’s flagship series, 30 Startups To Watch.

This curated list features the crème de la crème of the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem.

The month’s list shines a spotlight on breakthrough startups in fast-growing sectors such as spacetech, EV, climate tech, healthtech, and quick commerce, and we have barely scratched the surface.

So, without further ado, here are 30 of the hottest Indian startups that caught our eye in May.

Editor’s Note | The list below is not a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.

Adalat AI | Fast-Tracking Justice With AI

India’s judiciary is paralysed by a staggering backlog. While over 80,000 cases are pending before the Supreme Court and more than 60 Lakh remain unresolved in high courts, lower courts are burdened with a staggering backlog of over 5 Crore cases.

This only reminds one of what William Ewart Gladstone, a British prime minister, once said — “Justice delayed is justice denied”.

To make sure that justice is not delayed, lawyer Utkarsh Saxena and AI/ML engineer Arghya Bhattacharya founded Adalat AI in October 2023. Together, they are building AI-powered tools to digitise and streamline courtroom operations. 

Adalat AI‘s offerings include real-time transcription in 15 Indian languages, centralised caseflow management, and AI legal assistants that make proceedings more efficient and accessible.

Within a year, the founders claim that their tech is active in 10-15% of Indian courtrooms, assisting over 3,000 judges and cutting case timelines by up to 50%. If scaled effectively, their tech could help fast-track justice for millions.

Anahad Pharma | Fixing India’s Last-Mile Pharmaceutical Gap

Despite India’s status as a global pharmaceutical powerhouse, access to essential medicines in rural areas remains alarmingly inadequate. Not to mention, while 65% of Indians live in rural areas, only 30% of the country’s healthcare infrastructure reaches them. A major bottleneck lies in the fragmented and inefficient last-mile pharma supply chain.

To address this, Mumbai-based Anahad Pharma is developing an on-demand sourcing platform that directly connects pharmacies with pharmaceutical warehouses.

Founded in 2022 by IIT-Bombay alumnus Shikhar Agrawal, the startup streamlines procurement and speeds up delivery to underserved areas.

With over 2,000 pharmacies onboard and partnerships with 115+ pharmaceutical brands, including Cipla and Mankind, Anahad is building a critical logistics layer in India’s healthcare system. With its tech-led approach, it is bridging the rural-urban healthcare divide and unlocking a scalable solution for last-mile pharma access.

With strong early traction and a clear focus on a long-standing supply chain problem, Anahad Pharma is trying to drive meaningful change in the rural healthcare delivery market, expected to breach the $130 Bn+ mark by 2030. Anahad Pharma currently locks horns with names like Mahindra Logistics, Marken, and Kuehne + Nagel.

bbsAI | Powering India’s Multilingual Tech Future

A dearth of Indian AI tools catering to Indian languages is making it hard for people to access this tech. Besides, due to the limited availability of datasets to build Indic languages, it’s quite difficult to build reliable and localised AI solutions.

To solve this, Ganesh Arnaal and IIT Bombay professor Ganesh Ramakrishnan founded bbsAI in 2023. The startup is focussed on building India-focussed language AI infrastructure.

At its core is the Udaan Translation Engine, which has been developed with over a decade of research at IIT Bombay.

The engine powers enterprise-grade AI tools for multilingual translation and document processing in Indic languages.

By enabling businesses to operate seamlessly in India’s many languages, bbsAI is positioning itself at the heart of India’s digital transformation. Its solutions like ABAACU and bbsHindiOffice have been developed to support everything from government communication to enterprise workflows.

In the space, bbsAi directly locks horns with names like Synthesia.io, Lilt, and DeepL, among others. Notably, the Indian government is also facilitating the development of India’s own foundational LLM models. Under the IndiaAI Mission, Soket AI will be building India’s first open-source foundational model, while  Gnani.AI will build a voice AI foundational model to offer multilingual advanced reasoning and processing capabilities. 

Be Clinical: Filling India’s Anti-Ageing Skincare Gap

Following her six-year-long stint in the consulting industry, Hemangi Dhir realised that her true passion lay in skincare. After spending two years researching the Indian skincare market, she found a clear gap for effective, science-backed anti-ageing skincare solutions. 

Identifying the problem statement, Dhir launched Be Clinical, a D2C science-driven skincare brand. The startup is trying to build its niche within the Indian skincare market on the back of its anti-ageing solutions. 

It recently launched its first product, PlumpX Serum, an anti-ageing formulation, designed to plump the skin by boosting volume and hydration.

Operating within India’s medicated skincare market, which was valued at $1.52 Bn in 2024, Be Clinical competes with Indian luxury skincare and wellness brands like Plum Goodness, Dot & Key and Cetaphil, just to name a few. 

Contineu.ai | Digitising Construction From The Ground Up

Despite being one of India’s largest sectors, construction remains heavily manual and under-digitised. Paper-based workflows, fragmented communication and manual QA/QC processes often lead to project delays.

Founded in 2023 by Harshil Naik and Kanao Ramesh, Bengaluru-based Contineu.ai is building AI-powered vertical data infrastructure for the construction industry. 

Using helmet-mounted cameras and proprietary 3D computer vision models, the startup captures real-time site visuals and turns them into structured data.

Besides, its tech can automatically detect defects and track deviations with 30mm precision.

By bringing end-to-end visibility and automation to the construction industry, Contineu.ai is addressing a massive global market. With use cases spanning developers, general contractors, and project management consultants, the startup is tackling a core data challenge for every stakeholder in the construction ecosystem.

The startup has already run pilots with some of the largest construction companies in India and the US. Its long-term vision is to become the default data infrastructure layer for the global construction industry.

ContraVault AI | Solving Post-Tender Puzzles With AI 

Winning a tender is a cause for celebration until the challenges it brings along come to the fore. Managing inefficiencies, reliance on manual effort and inherent risks often lead to substantial delays, frequent inaccuracies in evaluation and ultimately missed opportunities in procurement.

SaaS startup ContraVault AI resolves such issues by declogging the supply chain, streamlining procurements, reducing manual labour and enhancing decision-making by leveraging natural language processing and machine learning for tender and contract management.

Sayan Sen, Isha Juneja and Tanmay Juneja set up ContraVault AI in 2024 with four modules – RiskFinder for spotting risks, AI Negotiator for clause edits, document summarisation and tender synopsis, and Go/No-Go Analyser for bid qualification.

ContraVault is now looking at emerging markets, addressing language, compliance, and scale needs through AI capabilities. It has its sights set on milking a juicy pie of the $2 Bn global market opportunity.

Dodo Payments | Gateway To Global Payments Simplified

For many Indian ecommerce, SaaS, and digital-first businesses, expanding globally is harder than it looks. Cross-border payments may present significant challenges, including setting up local entities, managing tax compliance, mitigating fraud risks, and integrating with multiple gateways. These hurdles often lead to failed transactions and lost revenue.

To make the process seamless, Ayush Agarwal and Rishabh Goel founded Dodo Payments in 2023. The startup offers a unified global payments platform that simplifies international expansion. Acting as a merchant of record (MoR), it handles local payment processing in 150+ countries across 25+ methods, while also automating billing, tax compliance, and fraud protection.

Dodo Payments’ platform is designed for solopreneurs and smaller SaaS founders.

It serves as a flexible MoR solution that streamlines billing, tax compliance, and global payments, with a primary focus on the Indian market.

As Indian businesses increasingly look to go global, the demand for streamlined, compliant and scalable payment infrastructure is growing rapidly. Dodo is aiming to be the go-to layer, powering global revenues for digital businesses, especially in sectors like SaaS and marketplaces.

Given the increasing globalisation, the global MoR software market size is estimated to become a $26.3 Bn market opportunity by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 14.59% from $13.2 Bn in 2025.

Dream Aerospace | Propelling India’s Satellite Dreams Sustainably

Space exploration is rapidly gaining momentum in India, but one critical roadblock is cost. Propulsion systems, especially those relying on traditional rocket fuels, are expensive, hazardous, and unsustainable. For India to truly realise its spacetech ambitions, the country needs low-cost, efficient, and eco-friendly propulsion solutions built for scale.

Kanpur-based Dream Aerospace is tackling this core challenge with its indigenous, high-performance satellite propulsion systems.

Its flagship product, the ATOM Thruster, runs on non-toxic green propellants, offering greater safety, lower operational costs, and improved environmental sustainability.

Founded in 2022 by Hari Krishnan KJ and Rogith S, the startup focusses on scalable propulsion tech for CubeSats and larger satellites.

With the global satellite propulsion market expected to hit $19.74 Bn by 2028, Dream Aerospace is positioning itself as a cost-effective, local alternative to foreign tech. 

The startup is targeting both commercial and defence sectors. Plans are underway to set up in-house thruster manufacturing.

EON Space Labs | Redefining Real-Time Earth Imaging With Mini Telescopes 

High-resolution Earth observation is crucial for defence, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring. However, most imaging payloads today are bulky, expensive, or platform-specific. This makes real-time, cross-platform surveillance across satellites, drones and ground vehicles difficult and inefficient.

Founded in 2021 by Sanjay Kumar, Punit Badeka and Manoj Kumar Gaddam, IIT Madras-incubated Eon Space Labs is building compact, interoperable optical hardware to enable precision Earth observation. 

The startup is developing satellite imaging payloads and has already integrated its flagship electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) solution with drones.

Its drone-mounted product, Lumira, functions like a miniature telescope for long-range surveillance. As of now, Eon Space Labs is working on new space imaging products, MIRA and ARGUS.

With Earth observation valued at over $3 Bn globally, along with a growing demand for real-time imaging across defence and civil sectors, Eon is positioning itself to lead India’s self-reliant optical payload ecosystem.

Armed with a war chest of $1.2 Mn, the startup plans to scale Lumira, develop more compact EO payloads, and launch satellite constellations with partners for full-stack observation capabilities.

Fitsol | ESG Co-Pilot For Enterprises

As industries face the growing pressure to meet environmental compliance and ESG targets, tracking and reducing carbon emissions, especially Scope 3 emissions (indirect greenhouse gas emissions that occur throughout a company’s value chain, remains a major challenge. 

These emissions, which fall outside direct control, often account for over 70% of a company’s total carbon footprint.

Founded in 2022, Gurugram-based Fitsol offers an AI-powered carbon management platform that helps organisations measure, report and reduce emissions across Scope 1, 2, and 3.

The platform helps companies with real-time ESG reporting, decarbonisation strategies and AI-driven recommendations to improve sustainability. It also offers a sustainability marketplace for carbon credits and eco-friendly alternatives.

Flush with $1 Mn in seed funding, Fitsol is strengthening its AI capabilities to help industries shift towards net-zero goals. It is crafting solutions that can simplify carbon tracking and reduction.

It achieves this by offering an integrated platform that combines emissions tracking, ESG compliance, and decarbonisation tools. By tackling Scope 3 emissions head-on, Fitsol addresses one of the biggest blind spots in corporate sustainability.

Flowatt Battery Science | Building Battery Stack For EV Logistics 

India’s EV logistics sector is growing rapidly, but high battery costs and inefficient fleet operations are slowing down mass adoption, especially for small and medium operators. Besides, traditional ownership models demand heavy upfront capital, and the lack of battery-level intelligence results in underutilisation, downtime, and poor ROI.

Founded in 2024 by Siddhartha Srivastava and Vikash Singh, Flowatt Batt offers a battery-as-a-service model that removes the burden of high upfront costs. Through a flexible, pay-per-use subscription, fleet operators can access advanced batteries that come bundled with IoT-enabled tracking, remote monitoring, and predictive analytics.

The startup’s solutions provide real-time insights into fleet and rider optimisation, which helps improve uptime, usage, and route efficiency.

By combining hardware innovation with software intelligence, Flowatt Batt makes it easier for logistics fleets to scale EV adoption.  

The opportunity for EV fleets in Indian logistics is projected to cross $5 Bn by 2030. To support the growth of this market, the battery-as-a-service model is expected to play a crucial role in overcoming existing barriers, addressing high battery costs and inefficient fleet operations to accelerate mass adoption.

Green Aero Propulsion | Building India’s First Hydrogen Jet Engine

Sectors like aviation and shipping are under pressure, with global carbon emissions touching a record 37.8 gigatonnes last year.

Imperative to mention that these industries together account for nearly 10% of total emissions. But their deep dependence on fossil fuels and legacy propulsion systems makes decarbonisation extremely challenging.

Founded in 2023 by Prithwish Kundu and Anushila Chatterjee, Green Aero Propulsion is addressing this challenge by developing hydrogen-based propulsion systems and advanced gas turbines.

The IIT Delhi-incubated startup aims to replace traditional fossil-fuel engines with cleaner, high-efficiency alternatives for both energy and defence applications.

In May 2025, the startup successfully demonstrated its first hydrogen-powered jet engine, The Blue Dragon.

Green Aero Propulsion is building for industries like defence and transportation, where the demand for low-emission, high-performance propulsion tech is rising fast. Its work aligns with global efforts to decarbonise aviation and strengthen India’s defence innovation roadmap.

The startup is also developing next-generation propulsion systems with long-term national security and sustainability implications.

Hunar.ai | Rethinking Blue-Collar Hiring

Despite India’s surplus labour pool, enterprises often struggle to fill frontline roles at scale. During their time at automation company Locus, Krishna Khandelwal and Shantanu Bhattacharyya noticed this gap. The issue wasn’t availability, it was the lack of a reliable, scalable system to hire efficiently in a low-trust, fragmented recruitment ecosystem.

In 2022, the duo launched Hunar.ai to fix hiring for frontline jobs using automation and AI. They built an AI-powered recruitment platform tailored for high-volume hiring across sectors such as logistics, retail and manufacturing.

The startup works on a services model with its enterprise clients, offering subscription plans (monthly/quarterly/yearly), per-hire charges for outcome-linked billing and custom contracts for large-volume recruitment.

The SaaS platform helps HR teams source, screen, assess, and onboard candidates without relying on third-party vendors.

Its AI voice bot “Neha” and multilingual chatbots manage candidate engagement across languages, regions, and roles.

With over 30 enterprise customers, the startup claims to have automated 50% of its frontline hiring processes. Despite India’s frontline workforce exceeding 60 Cr, tech adoption in this segment remains minimal, giving rise to a huge market for companies like Hunar.ai.

MedVital | Delivering Tech-First Care For Chronic Wounds

Chronic wounds caused by diabetes, ageing, obesity or trauma are a growing but often overlooked health crisis in India. Without proper care, these can lead to long-term disability, sepsis, or diabetic amputations. Yet, access to advanced wound care is limited, especially outside metro cities, due to a fragmented healthcare system and a lack of infrastructure.

To tackle the wound care gap with technology-led solutions, pharmacologist Dr Varun Gupta and former Pristyn Care VP Tarun Bansal founded MedVital in 2024

Their flagship product, NoWound, is a negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) device that enables precision-controlled healing of chronic wounds. It’s designed for use across hospitals, clinics and even home settings.

Besides, MedVital is building a full-stack platform that brings together medical devices, monitoring tools, and biomaterials to improve the way complex wounds are managed and treated.

The Indian wound care market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.4% to reach $1.8 Bn by 2033. In this growing market, MedVital competes with companies like Axio, FibroHeal, Serigen, Inochi Care, and Crimson Healthcare.

Misfits | Building Offline Clubs For Urban Loners

Sometimes, even with a wide social circle, you may still feel disconnected, especially when you do not have many people who share similar interests or hobbies. 

While platforms exist for events or dating, there’s no easy way to build real social connections around hobbies.

That’s where Misfits comes in. Founded in 2023 by IIT-Kanpur batchmates Shashwat Narhatiyar and Saurabh Sharma, the Delhi NCR-based startup is building a community-led hobby group marketplace that helps people find their tribe in a new city.

Misfits connects over 25,000 members in Gurugram across 15 hobby clubs, including basketball, dance, board games, music, and cricket. Each club is led by a dedicated organiser who hosts weekly meetups at pre-selected venues. So far, the startup has facilitated over 3,000 meetups.

With a strong base in Gurugram and INR 5 Cr in seed funding from Info Edge Ventures and Better Capital, Misfits is now expanding across Delhi NCR to become India’s go-to app for hobby-based connections.

NapTapGo | Disrupting India’s Budget Hospitality Market

India’s growing travel and gig economy continues to fuel demand for affordable, hygienic and flexible accommodations, especially in urban and transit-heavy zones. However, the hospitality market still lacks high-density, privacy-focussed lodging options at scale. This leaves budget-conscious travellers, students, solo workers, and pilgrims underserved.

In 2023, Nitin Malhotra and Himanshu Shukla founded NapTapGo to bring a new category to India’s hospitality space — capsule hotels, modelled after Japan’s pod hotels.

Their launch properties (30-bed setups on just 300 sq m) in Noida and Amritsar serve as proof-of-concept for high-repeat, low-CAPEX lodging.

With nightly rates starting as low as INR 500 and a strong focus on privacy, hygiene, and convenience, NapTapGo claims a 35% monthly repeat customer rate.

The startup earns through hourly and nightly stay revenue in its pods and pod rooms. Users can book their stays directly via NapTapGo’s website or through popular travel aggregators like Goibibo and Travelpedia.

Backed by strong early traction, NapTapGo plans to launch capsule hotels in Mumbai, Gurugram, Udaipur, and Banaras by the end of this year.

Outzidr | India’s Answer To Shein & Zara

India’s $28.8 Bn women’s apparel market is evolving fast, with Gen Z women driving a new wave of demand for affordable, trendy, and expressive fashion. This group now accounts for 20–25% of the online fashion segment and is shaping the next big opportunity in ecommerce.

Tapping into this trend, Nirmal Jain, Mani Kant Mani and Justin Mario launched Outzidr, a Gen Z-focussed D2C fashion brand in 2024. Inspired by fast-fashion giants like Shein and Zara, Outzidr follows a “test-and-react” model. The startup launches new styles in small batches, tracking demand in real time and scaling only the designs that resonate with its customers.

The brand offers stylish western wear tailored for young women seeking trend-driven yet affordable outfits.

Since its platform went live in February, Outzidr has seen early traction and aims to hit INR 100 Cr in ARR within 6-8 months.

Backed by a seed war chest of $3.5 Mn, the startup is now looking to scale fast in a growing market projected to reach $45.5 Bn by 2032.

ParvAI Labs | Transforming Human-Machine Interaction With Vision Intelligence

Founded in 2022, ParvAI Labs is an IIT Madras-incubated startup that is working at the intersection of precision hardware and customised software analytics through its patented, AI-powered eye-tracking and vision analytics technology.

Its proprietary eye-tracking mechanism enables highly accurate monitoring of eye movements, generating AI-based insights on fatigue, attention and engagement.

The startup was cofounded by Professor Rajagopalan Srinivasan of IIT Madras, who also leads the institute’s Data Analytics, Risk & Technology (DART) Lab.

ParvAI’s solutions are designed for critical, high-performance sectors such as aviation, defence, logistics, and industrial operations, where monitoring human focus and performance is essential for improving safety, efficiency and decision-making.

The startup’s tech is already being used by DRDO, Pfizer, BARC, FedEx, and ISRO. Its platform delivers real-time insights that help reduce operational errors and optimise workflows.

Pronto | 10-Minute On-Demand Home Services

With the rapid growth of quick commerce redefining consumer expectations, it was only a matter of time before the 10-minute delivery model expanded beyond groceries. Urban Company has already entered the space with Insta Help, offering on-demand house help within 15 minutes.

Riding this trend, ex-Bain Capital private equity investor Anjali Sardana founded Pronto, a 10-minute on-demand home services startup. Incorporated in October 2024, the app officially launched in April 2025.

Pronto allows users to book instant, scheduled, or recurring household services such as cleaning, laundry, or even vegetable chopping.

Since its launch, Pronto claims to have serviced over 500 homes in Gurugram, where it currently operates. 

Backed by $2 Mn in seed funding from Bain Capital, the startup plans to deepen its footprint in the city by setting up 10 local hubs and hiring 700 service professionals. Shortly after announcing its maiden fundraise, Inc42 learnt that the startup is now seeking to raise about $12 Mn in Series A funding. 

ReelSaga | Bite-Sized Soap Operas

With Indians spending hours watching 10-15 second reels, traditional long-form content like daily soaps has faded into the background. But there’s a new twist that might just bring back stories worth bingeing on.

Inspired by the microdrama boom in China, Shubh Bansal, Shanu Vivek and Ritesh Pandey founded ReelSaga in 2024 as one of India’s earliest mobile-first platforms for short-form, vertically shot dramas.

These microdramas, or bite-sized episodes of 20–30 seconds each, are designed for today’s audience. With a booming smartphone base of 700 M+ users and growing fatigue around long episodes, ReelSaga is betting on this mobile-first format to redefine storytelling.

The startup produces and distributes original microdramas across India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

Revenue experiments are underway across multiple channels, including ads, subscriptions, micro-transactions, brand integrations, and content licensing.

Rimigo | AI-Powered Travel Assistant 

Planning an international holiday can feel overwhelming due to the abundance of information and numerous choices. This is exactly what Bengaluru-based Rimigo is trying to fix.

Founded in 2024 by Sahil Sharma, Shubham Chintalwar and Aditya Shirole, Rimigo positions itself as a digital travel friend, offering an AI-powered platform that crafts personalised, end-to-end travel itineraries based on individual preferences.

Targeting India’s fast-growing online travel market, estimated at $19.1 Bn in 2025 and projected to reach $31.4 Bn by 2030, Rimigo is focussed on delivering a more seamless travel planning experience.

Along with customised itineraries, Rimigo also suggests flights, hotels, dining options and activities. The startup claims to be enjoying strong traction in the beta phase itself. Once fully launched, Rimigo plans to expand its product offerings, grow its travel tech team and strengthen AI capabilities to capture a meaningful share of the global travel planning space.

While Rimigo claims to differentiate itself from other OTAs on the back of the curated recommendations it provides to its users, its business model closely resembles Tripadvisor, Trip Planner AI and Pickyourtrail.

Salt Oral Care | Cleaning Up India’s Oral Care Market

Founded in 2022 by actor Karan Raj Kohli and producer Viraj Kapur, Salt Oral Care is carving a niche in India’s premium oral wellness market, expected to reach $3.2 Bn by 2033.

Most oral care products in India rely heavily on plastic, especially toothpaste tubes, which add to the growing landfill crisis. Salt Oral Care is tackling this by offering products packaged in eco-friendly materials like aluminium tubes and glass bottles.

Positioned as a luxury, science-led oral wellness brand, the Mumbai-based D2C brand offers a clean and conscious alternative for modern consumers. Its product line includes toothpastes, mouthwashes, electric brushes, and mouth sprays.  

It claims to be manufacturing its oral care portfolio by adhering to ethical sourcing, strict quality control protocols, high-quality ingredients, advanced machinery and ensuring implementation of safety protocols. 

Backed by strong customer retention and traction, the brand also claims to have clocked a 448% YoY revenue growth in FY25.

Sammmm | Making Self-Care Cool For Gen Z

For most teenagers, adopting a self-care routine can feel more like a chore than a choice.

This was obvious when ex-Nykaa VP Mantosh Roy was having a conversation with his daughter about how she perceives self-care. 

Understanding that there is a significant gap in teen-focussed skincare market, Roy partnered with ex-Nykaa VP Rishi Seth to float Sammmm in 2024 to offer a range of teen skincare and cosmetics products, including moisturisers, cleansers, and lip tints. 

A key differentiator for the startup is its radical transparency regarding ingredients, suppliers, and clinical studies.

Its products are non-irritant, clinically tested and cruelty-free. Beyond the co-created products, Sammm’s products are priced in a range of INR 500 to under INR 1,500.

The Mumbai-based D2C brand aims to diversify its product portfolio, amplify brand visibility and establish a multi-channel footprint, all with an eye set on capturing a significant share of the underserved teen personal care market in India.

SatLeo Labs | Thermal Imaging Satellites For Earth Intelligence

Founded in 2023 by Shravan Bhati, Urmil Bakhai and Ranendu Ghosh, SatLeo Labs is building a microsatellite constellation to capture thermal and optical imaging data from low Earth orbit.

The startup’s proprietary tech captures infrared radiation emitted by objects on Earth. This data is then used to monitor crop health, assess climate conditions, support disaster prevention and aid in defence surveillance.

SatLeo’s satellites are equipped with dual-band thermal and visible imaging systems that offer high-resolution temperature mapping, real-time data processing and AI-powered analytics to turn raw data into actionable insights

These capabilities enable applications across sectors such as agriculture, climate modelling, disaster management and urban planning.

The startup recently raised $3.3 Mn to develop its thermal imaging payload. SatLeo also claims to have secured over $25 Mn in letters of intent from prospective clients.

Stimuler | Voice-Led English Learning

With the fall of unicorns like BYJU’S, investor and user trust in the Indian edtech ecosystem has taken a hit. Yet, some early stage startups are regaining credibility by solving real problems. One such name is Stimuler, a voice-first AI edtech startup tackling a long-standing challenge: spoken English.

Founded in 2022 by Akshay Akash, Akshat Baranwal, Ankit Kumar Pandey and Anesh Srivastav, Stimuler offers an AI-powered English speaking tutor, which has been designed to help users improve pronunciation, vocabulary, fluency, and speech confidence.

At the heart of its platform is an AI bot, Sara, that engages users in spoken conversations and provides real-time feedback. The app is built for users with basic English proficiency.

The startup has found traction globally, with users in 150+ countries, including India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. To date, Stimuler has recorded over 4 Mn app downloads and more than 45,000 paid users.

SVASTEK | Fixing ICU Tech Gaps

Having spent over a decade working with hospitals, Aritra Abrol and Aprameya Rajput observed a significant gap in high-quality, India-made medical devices. They also found that clinicians face challenges due to inadequate solutions to meet the evolving needs of patients. 

To address this, the husband-wife duo launched SVASTEK in 2022. The startup aims to solve critical healthcare problems with its clinician-centred medical devices.

SVASTEK’s flagship product, ALLTIP NIV Mask, allows uninterrupted enteral nutrition delivery during non-invasive ventilation.

This product enhances patient comfort, supports continuous therapy and improves clinical outcomes by preventing complications associated with nutritional deprivation.

Beyond the mask, SVASTEK’s product pipeline includes solutions to optimise oxygen delivery, ventilation efficiency and a mask (patent awaited) for critically ill patients.

The startup aspires to rule the global non-invasive ventilation mask market, expected to become a $3.3 Bn opportunity by 2031.

Uni Seoul | Korean-Inspired Products For Modern India

From appliances to foods and beverages, and from media and entertainment to fashion, Korea has invaded Indian life in a big way. But a full-scale disruption is yet to unfold, believe Gaurav Karmani and Mohit Khurana, the brains behind the lifestyle brand Uni Seoul.  

The startup aims to bring Korean traditions to India through affordable products across categories like home and living, personal care, gifting, and fashion accessories.

What inspired the founders? It’s the street culture of Seoul where luxury transforms into accessibility. The startup launched an online store in 2023 and expanded with more retail stores across Pune, Nashik and Bengaluru. 

It recently clinched INR 5 Cr in a seed round and looks to expand across the country. Uni Seoul plans to roll out its private labels shortly.

Vaya | Astrology Gets An AI Makeover

With the Indian spiritual market expected to breach the $135 Bn mark by 2033, several startups have formed a beeline to tap into this growing demand. 

After noticing that much of the astrology market was informal, fragmented and largely offline, former Atlys executives Maahin Puri and Nitesh Kumar Niranjan set out to build Vaya, an AI-powered astrology platform that delivers on-demand Vedic consultations through a curated pool of expert astrologers.  

Vaya’s tech simplifies complex astrological calculations using AI, freeing astrologers to focus on interpretation and personalised guidance. One of its standout features is the ability to store detailed consultation history, helping astrologers develop long-term advisory relationships with users, much like a life coach or therapist.

By combining traditional astrology with modern tech, Vaya is reimagining how spiritual guidance is accessed in a digital-first world.

Zebu | Building The Future Of Military Drone Warfare

With recent India-Pakistan clashes highlighting how future warfare will be tech-driven, the case for a stronger homegrown defence tech ecosystem has never been clearer.

Amid this shift, Chennai-based Zebu, led by Santosh Balajee, is building next-gen counter-drone and unmanned aerial systems tailored for modern combat. Founded in 2021, the startup has developed four combat-ready UAV platforms.

Among its achievements, Zebu set a Guinness World Record in 2024 for the longest drone endurance under 5kg, solidifying its innovation edge in lightweight UAVs.

The Indian armed forces have already become a major client for Zebu. Its portfolio includes a drone-neutralising system (Net Drone) used by the Indian Air Force, a sea surface combat and rescue drone developed for the Coast Guard, a swarm-enabled offensive UAV for the Air Force, and a tethered surveillance drone designed for Army border patrols.

Overall, the Indian drone market is expected to breach the $1.4 Bn mark by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 17%.

Zenergize | Supercharging India’s EV Dreams

With a consistent government push and OEMs picking up pace, the Indian EV dream is poised to be a promising story. However, infrastructure-related issues go unaddressed. Challenges like high ambient temperatures, frequent power cuts and grid instability make reliable EV charging and renewable energy solutions tough to scale. 

Energising India’s EV dream to make it a reality was a vision shared by IIT Bombay alumni Navneet Daga, Veer Karan Goyal and Himanshu Aggarwal when they founded Zenergize in 2024. 

Their mission was simple –  create a more readily available charging alternative that would resolve the nagging environmental and grid issues like high ambient temperatures, power fluctuations and frequent power cuts.

Zenergize offers AC/DC chargers and solar inverters. The hardware, software and manufacturing are done in-house from its Himachal Pradesh hub. 

In the EV charging infrastructure market, expected to exceed $3.7 Bn by 2030, the startup claims to engineer products for India’s unique conditions — the ones that could withstand high temperatures, handle power and grid fluctuations and frequent power cuts.  

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post 30 Startups To Watch: Startups That Caught Our Eyes In May 2025 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Fail often. Fail fast. Fail forward. 

While all leaders, whether in the corporate or startup world, are expected to fail to learn and move forward, for the 17-year-old Siddharth Dungarwal, this wasn’t a luxury he could afford, even if it meant being slapped with unforeseen risks. 

Toiling seven days a week to keep his clothing shop, tucked away in a Bengaluru alley, afloat demanded but one thing — a tryst with failure. 

However, it wasn’t until he failed to deliver a large order that proved to be a turning point in his journey, eventually leading to an INR 500 Cr revenue-generating legacy in the form of Snitch, a D2C menswear brand.

So, how did a 17-year-old grow up to become the founder of a clothing brand that today locks horns with names like H&M and ZARA, The House of Rare, et al?

Dungarwal’s Decade Before Snitch 

Unlike his many dreamy-eyed friends and acquaintances, Dungarwal never aspired to become the sounding board at a corporate house. His desire was rather linked to running his 300 sq ft clothing store in Bengaluru well.

At 20, he became adept at his trade, which largely revolved around getting hands on surplus factory stock and selling it. During this time, in 2012, he decided to expand his ambit, only to trigger a domino effect that would eventually pave the way for Snitch.

Brimming with valour in his prime, he chose to up the ante. Therefore, Dungarwal started collaborating with textiles to supply cloth to manufacturers, until an unexpected turn of events brought everything to a grinding halt. 

A buyer backed out, leaving Dungarwal under the load of unfinished inventory worth INR 25 Lakh and no place to store it.

A frantic Dungarwal began distributing samples of the fabric to find a new buyer, but to no avail, until he stumbled upon a Mumbai retailer, who rather wanted him to manufacture t-shirts of the same fabric. Well, not exactly his cup of tea. 

“I received an order for around 200-300 pieces, but it was of no use. I was only a supplier of cloth and not a manufacturer,” Dungarwal said.

This meant two things — either outsourcing the work to a manufacturer or setting up a manufacturing unit and hiring people who could make. Both had their pros and cons. While setting up a manufacturing unit was cost-intensive and an uncharted territory, outsourcing the consignment t-shirt production meant letting go of a large portion of the profit. Also,if Dungarwal failed to secure subsequent orders, the manufacturing unit would become a dead weight to carry, much like the INR 25 Lakh unsold inventory.

Therefore, as the logical next step, Dungarwal remained committed to finding a small manufacturing unit with little appetite for profits and held patience until his stars aligned perfectly. 

The next thing he recalled was spending the next few weeks in the factory, learning how to make t-shirts from scratch, quality checking the lot, and eventually delivering the consignment of t-shirts to the Mumbai retailer after two months.

This, Dungarwal recalled, fetched him INR 6.5 Lakh. However, more than that, it laid the foundation stone for what awaited Dungarwal next. 

With hands-on experience in the manufacturing of clothes, he eventually got rid of the INR 25 Lakh albatross around his neck. This experience helped him to float a buying house later that year. 

In the textile industry, a buying house acts as an intermediary between suppliers and buyers.

Between 2012 and 2019, he designed and manufactured garments for brands like Arvind Fashions, Madura Fashion & Lifestyle (acquired by Aditya Birla Group), and V-Mart.

Snitch Is Born

Dungarwal’s successful run with his buying house sparked a desire to launch his own brand. Each time he saw clothes he had manufactured being sold under someone else’s label, his ambition only grew stronger. 

However, it was not until he observed global fast-fashion giants like Mango, Marks & Spencer, H&M and ZARA were gaining ground in India by staying vertically integrated, something that was way up his alley but had yet to be executed. 

Dungarwal realised that he already had that operational backbone, and the only thing he needed was a commitment to the trend-first approach to stay ahead of the curve.

Armed with years of experience across retail, trading, manufacturing and a deep understanding of how India’s legacy fashion brands operated, Dungarwal launched Snitch in late 2019 as a B2B brand. 

Little did he know back then that his failure to deliver an order worth a mere INR 25 Lakh would trigger a butterfly effect so far-reaching that it would set him on the path to building an INR 500 Cr D2C brand.

Today, Snitch offers a wide range of apparel, including shirts, jackets, hoodies, co-ords, sweaters, and innerwear. The men-focussed fast-fashion brand sells through its own website, offline stores, and ecommerce marketplaces like Myntra and Ajio. 

The brand gained national recognition after appearing on Shark Tank India in 2023, where it secured an all-shark deal of INR 1.5 Cr from Aman Gupta, Namita Thapar, Anupam Mittal, Peyush Bansal and Vineeta Singh. 

So far, the startup has raised over $53.5 Mn. It counts 360 ONE Asset, SWC Global and IvyCap Ventures as its key investors.

Snitch’s O To 1: A Case Study

After spending years in the manufacturing and fashion business, Dungarwal had already become adept at designing for big brands and running a successful buying house. Having launched a B2B brand in 2019, there was only one direction to go forward.

“D2C was never a strategy, and neither was opening an offline store… I had to rethink my move, given how global giants were playing their cards in the country,” the founder said.

Notably, global giants like Marks & Spencer, H&M, ZARA and Uniqlo were disrupting the fashion space with rapid design-to-shelf cycles, and Indian brands weren’t innovating or evolving fast enough. 

“Every brand I had worked with for nearly a decade was following a traditional model, seasonal collections planned 12 to 18 months ahead, with bulk production based on forecasts,” Dungarwal said, adding that he was bestowed with yet another eureka moment. 

“What finally made me take the B2C plunge was recognising the gap in the market… I saw that the men’s fashion market in India was underserved when it came to quick, trend-driven styles at accessible prices.” 

Already involved in production, Dungarwal took the B2C leap. To make the brand’s name in the market, he ditched the traditional route of placing bulk orders months in advance, allowing retailers to order as few as 25 pieces, with even cash-on-delivery options. This flexible, low-risk model helped the brand scale rapidly, reaching a monthly recurring revenue of INR 2 Cr within just a few months.

The Pandemic Pivot

All hell broke loose when the Covid-19 pandemic dawned upon humanity and made the world come to its knees. Snitch was no exception.

Dungarwal found himself sitting on a large unsold inventory again, but this time the scale was much larger than INR 25 Lakh.

“We were forced to rethink everything. Pre-pandemic, we were also planning our offline foray, but everything changed overnight.”

One obvious option was to liquidate the stock through marketplaces. However, while that might have moved inventory, it would have been no less than committing death by suicide from the brand-building and profitability perspective. 

Therefore, the founder decided to take the D2C route amid disrupted supply chains, stuck inventories, and an uncertain consumer demand. 

Dungarwal recalled that during the peak of the pandemic, when offline retail was completely shut, most traditional brands didn’t even have functional websites. 

In the online space, only two or three players were catering to very different niches. Dungarwal found his edge in building a full-fledged men’s lifestyle brand with a smart pricing strategy, while in-house manufacturing helped the brand scale quickly.  

Behind the scenes, the founder was busy burning the midnight oil on realigning operations and ramping up digital marketing. 

“It was a rollercoaster ride because we were not just pivoting, we were trying to survive and build resilience simultaneously. That phase taught us the importance of being agile,” Dungarwal said. 

The brand finally found its place in India’s D2C realm in July 2020 with 35 SKUs, a four-member team and a modest office. With an initial 60 orders a day, the real journey for the founder had just begun. 

As Snitch settled into the D2C model, it quickly became clear that scaling required a sharp marketing engine and not just a competitive product or pricing. 

Therefore, the brand partnered with marketing automation platform Wigzo in 2022 to bring structure to its outreach efforts. 

With personalised nudges sent across SMS, WhatsApp and emails, Snitch saw a 15–20% boost in retention and monthly revenue growth. 

According to Dungarwal, having a website from day one gave Snitch a crucial edge as it allowed the brand to track what customers searched the most and build inventory based on that observation. 

“We just kept iterating and understanding how to upsell and cross-sell, how to get into someone’s wardrobe with one product, and then keep adding on to increase our share in that wardrobe.” 

Leveraging The Power Of Speed

What has worked for the brand since day one is its agility. The founder said that many brands underestimate the power of speed, which is hardly their trait. 

“If they (brands) think of something, we act on it quickly and keep refining it along the way, instead of waiting for a perfect version from day one. This mindset helped, whether it was offline or online expansion,” Dungarwal said. He added that Snitch started small, with low-risk inventory, and doubled down once the team was confident it could scale.

Dungarwal told Inc42 that he had always been focussed on creating a brand that would stand out for more than its price. Besides, he envisioned a brand like ZARA rather than an Allen Solly or a Louis Philippe, which are typically associated with formal wear. 

The founder’s second big focus was on ensuring that his product quality is on par with global standards. To achieve this, Snitch began selling boxers first and then forayed into shirts, paving the way for other everyday wardrobe essentials.  

Today, the brand has over 5,000+ SKUS, including perfumes, eye accessories, jewellery, and footwear.

Snitch’s INR 500 Cr+ Journey

Holding on to its core focus of being a trend-driven, customer-obsessed brand, Snitch grew its net sales from INR 11 Cr in the first year of its operations (FY21) to INR 243 Cr in FY24.

“This metric almost doubled to INR 520 Cr (unaudited) in FY25,” Dungarwal said, adding that Snitch’s EBITDA zoomed almost 5X YoY to about INR 30 Cr in FY25. 

The founder claims that Snitch has been profitable since its inception. The D2C brand posted a net profit of INR 4.4 Cr in FY24. Dungarwal, however, didn’t disclose the bottom-line numbers for the recently concluded fiscal year.

Dungarwal said the biggest expenses in FY25 went towards strengthening Snitch’s tech and digital infrastructure, building a strong team, ramping up marketing efforts and improving the supply chain to support its omnichannel model. 

He said that a 50% rationalisation of marketing costs helped scale profitability. 

However, what really helped Snitch cross the INR 500 Cr revenue mark was staying consistent with the basics and solving for the customer every single day.

According to Dangarwal, three core principles boosted Snitch’s scale and sustainability:

• Prioritising Speed: Whether design, production or getting products to hit the shelf, agility has helped the brand stay ahead of trends and respond quickly to consumer preferences.
• Staying Customer-Obsessed: Through personalised shopping experiences, loyalty programmes, like Snitch X, and constantly tuning in to customer feedback, the brand has built strong retention and repeat purchase behaviour. Snitch’s current repeat user rate stands at about 45%, while the overall retention rate exceeds 65%.
• Going Omnichannel: Initially, the founder was not keen on going omnichannel. However, in 2023, he took a leap of faith by taking a store on rent. To his surprise, the store became profitable in just a few months. This success gave him the confidence to tap into the offline market. Today, the brand has expanded to over 59 stores. 

Snitch earned about 40-45% of its revenue from its retail stores in FY25. The share stood at 30% in FY24. 

Currently, Snitch stores span across malls and high streets, with mall outlets averaging 1,800 to 2,000 sq ft and high-street stores ranging between 4,000-5,000 sq ft. 

“The capital expenditure to open a new store stands at approximately INR 3,000 per sq ft. At present, 60% of these outlets are franchise-run, while the remaining 40% are company-owned and operated.” However, the founder now plans to move towards a more balanced 50:50 mix.

Today, about 65% of Snitch’s revenue comes from online channels, while 35% is driven by offline stores. The brand enjoys a digital presence, with 18 Mn online sessions per month, and serves nearly 3 Lakh customers every month. So far, Snitch has served over 1.6 Mn consumers overall.

Snitch’s INR 1K Cr Revenue Dream

Looking ahead, the founder has set his sights on taking Snitch public by FY30. In the near term, he’s aiming to hit INR 1,000 Cr in revenue by the end of FY26. As of now, the brand claims to have already reached an annualised revenue run rate (ARR) of INR 700 Cr.

To meet this aggressive growth target, maintaining financial discipline is key. “We’ve always been very strict about keeping our P&L healthy.”

With a sharp focus on omnichannel, the founder plans to scale its 59-store count to 100+ by the end of 2025.

On the expansion front, Snitch is now testing the quick commerce route. “We’ll test it first in Bengaluru, gather learnings, and only then take it pan-India.” 

The brand has already set up dark stores within existing outlets in the city and plans to rely on third-party logistics for deliveries. As of now, the founder is not anticipating any major revenue stream from its quick commerce foray 

The brand is also doubling down on category expansion. Having already entered perfumes, footwear, jewellery and accessories, Snitch recently launched a segment for plus-size fashion, Snitch Plus. 

Overall, Snitch operates in a highly cluttered market. When it first launched, the space was relatively new, but the landscape has evolved. The market is experimental, with many emerging brands like Bonkers Corner, The Bear House, and The Souled Store finding a place in the GenZ closet. 

Not just this, Snitch faces strong competition from established global giants, who have an uncompromised base of brand evangelists. Amid this, how difficult or easy it is going to be for Snitch to beat legacy brands is anyone’s guess. Will it stitch a legacy or perish with the tide of time amid a growing competition?

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]

The post How Snitch Stitched An INR 500 Cr Revenue Run In 5 Years appeared first on Inc42 Media.

“Colour! What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams.” Paul Gauguin’s belief that colours express emotions as much as words or music does resonates in the eternal happiness that comes from beauty. 

And, beauty is on a makeover now, with colour setting the tone for the $33.08 Bn business of beauty and personal care products in India. Colour cosmetics, which are like the final brush strokes on a painting, see a raging demand across the world, with the market likely to surpass $128.11 Bn by 2032.

Beauty beckons everyone, but beauty products remain elusive for most. “Beauty is not about the wealthy alone. Affordability is the biggest hurdle for people to purchase beauty products. This is where we chose to venture,” said Saahil Nayar of Mila Beauté — a brand built around ‘Made for India, affordability, personalisation, and performance’

Nayar realised the potential of the omnichannel route to bring the products within the reach of a larger cross-section. The rise in omnichannel brands in the beauty products space has been in sync with the growing demand for colour cosmetics painting a $8 Bn opportunity by 2035. A steady growth in the Indian economy at 6.5% projected for FY26, a surging middle-class that is likely to reach 1 Bn in strength by 2047 with an annual household disposable income exceeding INR 3.19 Lakh, set the perfect backdrop for growth in beauty and personal care products. 

Nayar positioned his omnichannel brand of colour cosmetics at the gap where even the basic products fail to cater to a diverse consumer base in the country. Customers need products that suit them in tone, texture and transparency in terms of ingredients used. “This could be bridged only by a brand with which India’s young consumers could resonate, one that could embrace toxin-free, cruelty-free formulations and doesn’t cut corners on quality in the name of mass appeal,” he said.

Mila Beauté was designed to attract the early millennials and Gen Z segment. Whether it’s SPF-infused foundations or skin-friendly ingredient infused lipsticks, Mila Beauté creates cosmetics that are fine-tuned for India’s rainbow race of diverse skin tones, climate, and spending patterns, with a focus on ensuring that the price doesn’t sting.

“We aim to break the common notion that good quality equals high pricing. Consumers shouldn’t have to pay a premium to get high-quality makeup products that cater to their basic needs,” said Nayar, who cofounded Mila Beauté in 2024 with his long-time family Keshav and Sachin Chadha. From their base in Gurgaon, the trio began creating a label that caters to a generation long underserved by both legacy brands and indie upstarts.

“Most products from legacy brands are copied from those sold in the markets in Europe or the US. These are not customised for the climatic conditions in India. We focussed on this and created products tailored to the Indian conditions to make them skin-friendly,” he said. 

While Nayar was seasoned for over 15 years in leading consumer beauty brands such as Swiss Beauty, Bella Vita, The Moms Co, Revlon, and Kama Ayurveda, the Chadha brothers were the brains behind Milap Cosmetics, armed with retail expertise. Sachin steers the company’s offline retail operations and Keshav leads product development and operations. 

The founders built the business on four key pillars — Made for India, affordability, personalisation, and performance — and claim to have generated INR 59 Cr in revenue in FY25. Mila Beauté also raised $2.16 Mn from Rukam Capital in a Pre-series A round in March this year, to firm up its product portfolio and expand its offline presence across high-demand markets. The brand was valued at around INR 303 Cr (around $36.36 Mn). 

From ‘Formulations to Face’, Mila Beauté is a vertically integrated colour cosmetics brand that owns end-to-end ‘Production, Distribution and Consumer’ 

How Hyperpersonalisation Helps Win Discerning Buyers 

Early millennials & Gen Z, the target group for Mila Beauté, represents a $450 Bn spending power globally. The buying patterns are different from those of earlier generations. 

Nayar sensed this discerning nature of the target group and aligned itself with the hyper-personalisation trend. Mila Beauté takes into account the skin tones, skin types, climates and lifestyles of the customers based in the Indian subcontinent. “This is where global brands often miss the mark,” said the chief executive. 

Hyper-personalisation helped Mila Beauté create its market in lip shades and base product shades. The brand uses ingredients such as different types of peptides, hyaluronic acid, and mango seed butter that stand up to India’s tropical weather conditions. Segments like lip glosses, blushes, concealer and primer make up nearly half of the business for Mila Beauté, while the face cosmetics category is fast catching up with strong growth. 

“We want to be there for the consumer through every step of their makeup journey. Our packaging speaks the language of Gen Z and young millennials in India 2, and all our prices hit the sweet spot,” Nayar claimed.

While India 1 is an industry expression for the thriving urban centres characterised by high disposable income and purchasing capacity, India 2 refers to the emerging semi-urban markets exhibiting moderate purchasing power, and India 3 covers the expansive rural hinterlands marked by comparatively lower purchasing capacity.

Mila Beauté is available on all major ecommerce marketplaces such as Nykaa, Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra, Meesho, Q Comm such as Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart and Big Basket and other channels like the official online store of the company account for nearly 40% of the overall sales. The remaining 60% comes from the offline presence, with over 8,000 counters spread across India. 

By leaning into collaborations with organic content creators and user-generated content, the brand is also gaining some quick traction among its core audience.

“Instead of hiring celebrity influencers, we are collaborating with creators who truly represent India 2 and love our products. This creates an inclusive creator community for our brand. We have also started our Mila Beauté Ambassadors (MBA) programme to engage college students, allowing them to try our products and participate in fun challenges and eventually become early adopters,” Nayar explained. 

The Mila Beauté top executive shared that the company has partnered with IIT Kanpur, Symbiosis, IIM Ghaziabad and LPU Punjab for their ambassador programme. “We’re essentially taking a door-to-door selling approach, but in a modern way – meeting Gen Z where they are and letting them experience our products firsthand.” 

The Role Of A Founder-First VC in Mila Beauté’s Rise

For Rukam Capital, the hunt for high-potential consumer brands led to Mila Beauté. This omnichannel beauty products brand ticked all three boxes of its investment playbook: strong founders, relevant products, and the right pricing. The early-stage venture capital firm pumped in $2.16 Mn to support its objective of disrupting the market for an emerging buyer class.  

“When we met the founders of Mila Beauté, we knew we’d found a company that gets it. Unlike skincare, colour cosmetics function more like fashion accessories, led by trends, so you need founders who understand that both instinctively and strategically,” says Archana Jahagirdar, founder and managing partner, Rukam Capital.

Instead of interfering in the decisions of the founders, Rukam Capital tailors its assistance and guidance at crucial junctures. It also plays a critical role in future fundraising rounds, governance, and compliance. The VC firm serves consumer brands such as Go Desi, Burger Singh, Pilgrim, Upliance, Yoho, and The Indus Valley. 

Mila Beauté plans to use the funds to go deeper into the Tier-1 market and expand its base in Tier II cities. A part of it will also be spent on improving its R&D, in-house manufacturing capabilities, efficiency of operations and quality control checkpoints while cutting down dependence on third-party manufacturing. 

The funds will also allow the homegrown brand to firm up its retail footprint in high-demand markets like Punjab, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and South India.

“With Rukam Capital’s support, we’re not just scaling the business – we’re trying to redefine beauty standards in India, making high-performance cosmetics accessible to millions,” Nayar told Inc42. 

Drawing Up The Strategic Roadmap 

“Expansion is our foremost priority,” said Nayar. “This will be a year of strengthening our brand presence and doubling down on our omnichannel strategy.” 

The skincare infused colour cosmetic brand plans to roll out 44 SKUs in FY26 to broaden its product portfolio across face, lip and eye categories. 

On the offline front, Mila Beauté looks to grow its presence by 62.5%, taking the retail counter count from 8,000 to 13,000 this fiscal. This expansion, according to the company, will drive a near 100% jump in one year, rising from INR 59 Cr in FY25 to double the numbers over the next one year.

The leaders at the company are clear about their long-term vision of emerging as a brand that redefined the affordable colour cosmetics segment and coming up as the first in this segment to cross the INR 100 Cr revenue mark within this year of operation. 

“We want to be seen as the sole truly homegrown colour cosmetics brand made for India, with Indian skin and climate at its core. Since Mila means miracle, our vision is to create one in the beauty industry and change the way homegrown skincare-infused makeup brands are perceived,” concluded Nayar. 

The post Is Mila Beauté Redefining Affordable Beauty For India 2? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

What was the vision behind Uber? Its marquee founder, Travis Kalanick, once said the concept was a “cross between lifestyle and logistics”. Little did he know that three IITians — Pranav Goel, Vikas Chaudhary and Uttam Digga — would actually ‘uberise’ logistics and set up Porter to serve the on-demand, hyperlocal supply chain.

The year was 2014, when quick commerce was unheard of, and ecommerce giants like Flipkart, Myntra or Snapdeal did not promise time-bound deliveries at scale (read: 24-48 hour windows). But the seeds of change were already there. The country’s digital transformation was gaining momentum, with mobile internet becoming more affordable and accessible. Both end-users and service providers were becoming accustomed to mobile-first business models through apps, and advanced features like GPS tracking and automated route planning had begun to reshape the logistics industry.

The timing could not have been better. A decade ago, poor services and high costs continued to plague India’s road logistics. The market relied heavily on small fleet operators, local transporters and offline intermediaries, who manually connected demand and supply. But for the nation’s millions of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which form the backbone of India’s economy, as well as small retailers and digital commerce companies, the logistics ecosystem offered little in terms of streamlined services or operational transparency.

Porter was among the first movers seeking to bring the much-needed speed, scale, and technology-driven innovation to India’s hyperlocal delivery business, utilising multiple vehicle categories such as mini trucks, two-wheelers, electric vehicles (EVs) and more. It caters to both businesses (B2B) and individuals (B2C), providing a comprehensive range of services, including enterprise-level goods movements and management, packers-and-movers for relocation and intercity courier services, all on a single platform. In essence, it has accelerated goods movement through digitalisation and decentralisation, with a focus on agile and efficient Intracity deliveries.

It has reaped rich dividends in the process. Porter became India’s second unicorn in 2025 after raising a Series F round. It did not officially disclose the deal value, but Inc42 had earlier reported a funding round worth $200 Mn (a little over INR 1,700 Cr), valuing the startup between $1.1 Bn and $1.2 Bn. After a decade-long operation, it claims to work with 3 Lakh owner-drivers and a total of 30 Lakh customers. Additionally, the number of its SME customers has surpassed 20 Lakh.

The logistics startup currently covers 23 Indian cities and aims to add five or six more every year. Overall, the goal is to be present in the top 50 cities in India within the next five years and make a foray into five or six overseas markets where its tech-powered aggregation and supply chain management model will be effective.

Besides, it aims to expand its SME pool to 1 Cr+ by 2030, increase the number of driver-partners to 12 Lakh and push its sustainability goal by incorporating more electric vehicles (EVs) into its network. The founding team estimates an 80% rise in EV numbers among newly onboarded vehicles by 2030.

The business has a revenue-sharing arrangement in place, charging up to 30% of the billed amount depending on the location, with the remainder going to its driver-partners. It is still in the red but hopes to hit the profit button in the current financial year. Full audited results for FY25 are not yet available, but Goel (he is also the executive vice-chairman at Porter) projects a 50% year-over-year revenue growth and a steady reduction in losses. He also claimed that Porter had been EBITDA positive in the past few quarters, although Inc42 could not independently verify this.

A look at its earlier numbers reveals many interesting takeaways. Between FY20 and FY24, its operating revenue surged nearly tenfold, from INR 274 Cr to INR 2,733.7 Cr. However, the most notable jump occurred between FY21 and FY23, and Porter saw more than 100% YoY revenue growth in FY23 alone. In FY24, this growth rate slowed to 56%, but losses dropped sharply by 45%, falling to INR 95.7 Cr.

Goel attributed the company’s ability to scale efficiently to its tech-first model. “The advantage of tech-driven companies with lower operational intensity is that they can achieve rapid revenue growth without a corresponding rise in costs,” he explained. “For example, while we expect our revenue to grow by 50% YoY, our costs may only rise by 10-15%. This efficiency helped us reduce losses even as we increased revenue by more than 50% in FY24.”

Asset Utilisation Was The Core Thesis Behind Porter

In 2013, when the founders first sat down to explore startup ideas, they were not thinking about logistics. They were looking for large, broken markets where technology could bring about meaningful changes.

“Logistics, it turned out, was both massive in size, yet deeply inefficient and largely untouched by tech. And that’s what caught our attention,” said Goel. “Most large markets eventually fix themselves. There’s too much value on the line for inefficiencies to persist. But logistics in India defied that logic. It was too fragmented, disorganised and uninviting.”

It was definitely not a ‘cool’ sector. According to industry estimates, the logistics market size in India was nearly $160 Bn at the time. But costs soared to 13-14% of the country’s GDP, compared to 7-8% in developed markets like the US and Germany.

On the demand side, customers were unhappy with unpredictable pricing and unreliable services, a direct outcome of little or no tech integration that would ensure real-time vehicle tracking. On the supply side, driver-owners and small fleet operators faced challenges due to low vehicle utilisation — empty trucks during return trips. It was the norm in those days, as they lacked direct access to a tech-enabled customer network and could secure suitable bookings for their way back. Worse still, there could be significant idle time between trips or, in some instances, no trips at all during the day.

“Despite the chaos around us, we saw things differently. We believed that by digging deeper, we would find a niche where technology could genuinely solve a real-world problem at scale. Among all the service layers — long haul, warehousing, first-mile, last-mile — it was the on-demand intracity logistics that stood out,” said Goel.

Industry anomalies were especially evident in that sub-segment due to the absence of standard pricing within the city (long-distance rates were more stable) and infrequent bookings. It mirrored the challenges cab drivers faced before the Uber and Ola blitzkrieg, when there was no clarity about the next trip or one’s earnings.

The lack of asset utilisation was the worst scourge, though. Before entering this space, the founders did an in-depth market survey and met 500 vehicle owners across Mumbai. Later, they did similar deep dives in Delhi and Bengaluru. To their shock, the team discovered that drivers were only active for about three hours during a 10-hour workday. The rest of the time was wasted due to long idle periods, waiting for return loads, or simply because demand was inconsistent.

A typical vehicle owned by a small fleet operator or an individual driver could make five trips a day. But in reality, it was averaging only about 1.5 trips daily, a mere 30% utilisation (more on this later).

The trio also spoke with more than 100 businesses and identified several critical pain points. Among these were issues with service quality, friction with logistics vendors and limited access to a broader pool of vehicle owners. In intracity operations, vendors and customers often relied on a small group of driver-owners, resulting in delays, unpredictable services, and operational inefficiencies.

“In Mumbai, there was a saying: Get him to buy a small truck. It implied doom because it was such a broken industry,” recalled Goel. “When we chose intracity logistics, we saw an opportunity to streamline the space with a tech intervention that directly connects SMEs and retail customers with independent drivers and gig workers in real time. This has enabled businesses to access a bigger fleet for greater convenience and offered drivers consistent demand, thereby reducing idle time and increasing earnings. That focus continues to drive our mission of moving a billion dreams, one delivery at a time.”

There was another key reason to enter this space. Porter wanted to build a technology company, not one heavily dependent on operations. This is because tech companies do not scale linearly, and they are more capital-efficient during the growth phase. “Managing large operational teams is a challenge in itself, and we wanted to avoid that. With our tech background, it made perfect sense to build a technology-first company in the logistics space,” Goel told Inc42.

Porter’s Service Bouquet Was Not Built In A Day But In Four Key Phases

By improving asset utilisation and matching fragmented demand with supply, Porter has transformed intracity logistics. Nevertheless, competition was growing as an emerging market for intracity freight was developing. More than two dozen startups entered this space by 2015, fuelled by increasing demand, venture capital attention and a sense that this segment was ready for disruption. Startups like Blowhorn and LetsTransport soon followed suit, each attempting to address a different fragment of the Intracity puzzle, from mini-truck aggregation to enterprise-oriented logistics.

Porter’s journey was incremental, though, in an era of low mobile penetration and limited consumer know-how. Porter 1.0 relied on a call centre and Google Sheets to run its business. The team distributed pamphlets with Porter’s contPorter’sils and unique selling points while also visiting shops and local businesses, but their efforts saw limited success. Out of 100 people approached, only 10 listened and two or three placed orders.

However, word of mouth and good service gradually improved the conversion rate, fuelling organic growth. Initially, the entire process was manual. A customer’s cargo pickup and destination details were recorded at the call centre and manually entered into spreadsheets, while distances were calculated via Google Maps. Based on this data, an estimated fare was worked out and shared with the customer. If the deal came through, calls were made to available drivers closest to the pickup point (determined through SIM tracking via mobile towers). Porter used to provide these SIM cards to its registered driver-partners. This process took about 20 calls to fulfil just one order.

Porter 2.0 introduced a CRM system that moved its spreadsheet operations to a dashboard and automated customer relationship management. It marked the startup’s transition to a more robust system where everything, from costs, revenue and accounting, was recorded digitally.

By 2015, it had shifted from SIM-based tracking to smartphones, making the process more reliable, and rolled out a driver app. As soon as an order was punched into the CRM, the system automatically checked which driver-partners were near the pickup point, available online and free to accept the trip. If someone was available near the location and idle, the system would push the order directly to the app, and the trip could be accepted immediately.

Later that year, it launched its customer-facing app, finally ending orders taken over the phone. “With each product we introduced, the number of calls required to fulfil an order kept dropping,” explained Goel. “When we started, it took around 20 calls per order. After the driver app, that dropped to five and then to one as we rolled out our customer app. Today, the number of calls per order is less than 0.1.”

How Porter Has Deepened & Diversified Service Offerings

The logistics startup had initially struggled to counter investor scepticism, as niche logistics is challenging to handle in a country as vast as India with diverse demands. However, it managed to secure a $5.5 Mn Series A round in 2015 from Sequoia India and Southeast Asia (now known as Peak XV Partners), Kae Capital, and other storied investors. The early funding paved the path for its steady expansion as the startup entered new verticals and geographies.

In the beginning, Porter offered only two vehicle categories: 700 kg trucks (a notable example is the Tata Ace) and 1.4-1.5 tonne vehicles (such as the Bolero pickups). However, its core customer base includes MSMEs such as local furniture stores, hardware shops, ceramic and paint dealers, small-scale city manufacturers and more. These businesses account for 85% of Porter’s revenue, and given the diverse range of their products, their logistics requirements vary accordingly. 

Understandably, not all of them needed 700 kg or 1.5 tonne vehicles. Sometimes, they required larger trucks, and at other times, only a two-wheeler for deliveries as small as 2-5 kg, which are typically small items often delivered by florists or bookshops. Even a furniture store may want to transport flat-packed items or décor pieces that do not warrant a full truck. Therefore, Porter expanded its offerings to include two-wheelers, addressing the full spectrum of Intracity logistics.

Going forward, Porter will expand its vehicle offerings across categories. One interesting segment that Porter is developing is the e-loader, an electric cargo vehicle similar to the e-rickshaws but designed to carry 200-300 kg. The logistic unicorn aims to introduce this category in all cities.

“Currently, we offer payload options like 2.5 tonne and 3.5 tonne vehicles, although the latter is not available everywhere. We also have 4.5 tonne and 300 kg categories, many of which will be electric vehicles,” said Goel. “This is essential as we must become a one-stop shop for all on-demand Intracity logistics needs.”

The insight drove the startup to build a more nuanced range of vehicle categories and service offerings. Even its packers-and-movers vertical stemmed from this demand. People who were relocating approached Porter for vehicle support, but many of them also required packaging and loading-unloading services. It led to the creation of the B2C-focussed service category for a pan-India market.

Porter continued to listen to its customers and expanded its offerings to include intercity courier and parcel services. Customers who were using the platform for packers and movers often required it, and the business responded with tailored solutions.

“This is what we mean by going deeper,” chuckled Goel. “If a customer is already ordering from you 10 times a month, you need to think how to make that 20.”

Asset Utilisation Has Powered Porter’s Rise

When Porter was launched in mid-2014 with just one customer, it was in no rush to grow at any cost, a typical startup syndrome that industry experts often criticise. Instead, it built its tech stack cog by cog and made strategic decisions to validate its core business thesis, one that initially drove it to solve a critical logistics pain point — the problem of asset utilisation. 

Its early surveys revealed that most intracity trucks were making 1.5 trips a day instead of the optimum five. Therefore, Porter’s goal was to take that number to three trips a day, a jump in asset utilisation from 30% to 60%.

The startup took a couple of years to reach that point. But when data revealed that the top 10% of Porter drivers were hitting that target — and later, the top 20% — the founders knew they were on the right track. 

“As soon as the first few drivers hit three trips a day, we knew that our hypothesis was working. It is not enough to develop a business idea on paper or spreadsheet. The real test is whether it works in the real world. With paying customers and engaged driver-partners, we had solid proof that we were delivering on our promises,” observed Goel.

Of course, the journey was not a sprint. Moving from 1.5 to 3 trips per day meant growing gradually —from 1.5 to 1.7, then 2, 2.3, 2.5, and eventually 3. That upward trend gave them the confidence to persist.

“There were times in the first five years or so when equity investors did not find our business model very attractive. In fact, many of our competitors either changed their business models or pivoted. But Porter never did that. The data kept us grounded, and we stayed the course,” said Goel.

Its revenue and growth trajectory have been just as methodical and consistent as its product journey. The revenue model has been unchanged and straightforward since Day One, and the startup reached INR 100 Cr by FY18.

As a principal service provider, Porter maintains direct relationships with its customers rather than acting as an aggregator and bills them directly. It means if a customer books a trip from Porter for INR 100, the startup gets a revenue share, while the driver-partner receives the rest. Also, a driver is solely responsible for executing a trip.

As of now, driver compensation is Porter’s biggest expenditure. It also covers head office expenses, marketing, servicing costs, billing operations and other overheads. As Porter scales and its order volume grows, its business model continues to thrive steadily.

Of Challenges And The Journey Ahead

Porter competes with players like LetsTransport, a truck aggregator, and Borzo India, which focusses on intracity deliveries. But no other company has matched its diversification or scale until now. Interestingly, deep-pocketed competitors like Uber are now entering the B2B logistics space and planning to expand their partnerships with ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) to foray into food delivery, ecommerce delivery, groceries, pharmacy products and more. 

Goel is not overly alarmed. He had already seen the market getting flooded with new players, but soon, there was consolidation, giving Porter a relatively clear run. “That was partly because very few believed this market would scale. Now, our success and market evolution are drawing new competition,” he said.

Additionally, the Indian logistics market is expected to grow to $159.5 Bn by FY28 at a CAGR of 8-9%, according to a recent report by Motilal Oswal. The domestic express logistics segment is projected to grow even faster, at a 14% CAGR, driven primarily by the expansion of ecommerce and quick commerce. Porter and peers will be keen to stay ahead of this growth curve, and the former has already proved its mettle.     

But what matters most is Porter’s unwavering focus on the SME sector, and linking them to ecommerce and quick commerce platforms can result in a big revenue surge.

Despite an ambitious roadmap and a well-structured operational plan, Porter’s success hinges on overcoming some key obstacles. To begin with, scaling EV adoption across diverse geographies will require setting up reliable charging networks and providing cost-effective financing options for driver-partners, according to an early investor in Porter, who did not wish to be named. Convincing drivers — especially those from lower-income brackets — to transition to EVs could be a significant hurdle.

Competition in last-mile logistics will also intensify. As Porter expands its presence to multiple cities and its customer base of small and medium-sized enterprises, it will face pressure from deep-pocketed competitors and emerging hyperlocal startups. These rivals are targeting the same SMEs and EV-driven logistics opportunities, putting additional strain on the startup’s operational resilience.

Balancing service quality, driver satisfaction and profitability while scaling at pace will require a delicate balancing act.

“For the last five years, Porter was the only company formalising the logistics space in India. But as new entrants with substantial resources join the fray, it will likely face an evolving, competitive landscape. This will make Porter’s next five years crucial for disciplined execution and strategic vision,” he noted.

Conversely, it will help the industry mature more quickly and become more structured, where only the best can thrive. How Porter handles the new landscape will depend on how it navigates the new grind.

[Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal]

The post Porter’s 10-Year Grind: From Intracity To An INR 2.8K Cr Pan-India Logistics Business appeared first on Inc42 Media.

It says, intelligence wins wars, not brute force. The saying reaffirms the undeniable role played by defence technology ventures like Tonbo Imaging in using intelligence inputs for securing precision with the use of advanced technology.  

The role of defence tech in India’s military prowess became the focal point after Operation Sindoor. The four days of retaliation from May 7 by the Indian defence forces on terror hideouts in Pakistan until the ceasefire on May 10 showed how defence tech helped zero in on the targets while minimising the collateral damage. 

Sacrifices of soldiers on the battlefield are revered as the ultimate acts of valour. But, be it a soldier or a civilian, the loss of every single life weighs too heavy on the nation. There comes the dire need to minimise casualties. At least five soldiers and 15 civilians were killed in Pakistani air strikes on Indian soil during the war that followed the murder of 26 innocent civilians in Pahalgam by Pakistan-based terrorists on April 22. 

India averted a deeper setback in the war by using a smarter, more strategic approach with intelligence, technology, and precision as central to defending the nation as well as preserving lives.  

Arvind Lakshmikumar imagined this evolution in warfare when he set up Tonbo Imaging in 2012. “The mission is to help countries fight battles with intelligence and minimise the loss of lives and collateral damage to assets,” said the CEO of the IPO-bound defence tech startup.

India maintained that it ensured the safety of both military and civilian infrastructure across the border. While the multilayered air defence architecture and high-tech defence capabilities, such as counter-drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), helped it thwart airborne Pakistani attacks, defence tech startups like Tonbo Imaging provided crucial intelligence inputs for precision strikes on terror camps.

The startup has been providing a range of defence systems, including thermal imaging kits for air defence guns like Zu-23 and more. Be it during the Uri surgical strike or Operation Sindoor, Tonbo claims that its defence solutions helped the armed forces pull off the task at minimum cost in terms of casualties and collateral damage.

However, unlike most Indian defence tech companies, Tonbo did not initially start manufacturing in India for domestic use. It is one of the first few homegrown defence tech startups to start building from India for use in global markets. 

Over the last 13 years, Tonbo has emerged as a leader in strategic defence technologies. It designs, builds, and deploys advanced imaging and sensor systems, among many other critical components to facilitate modern-day warfare. It counts the likes of NATO, US Navy SEALs, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and the defence ministry of Armenia as its customers.

Even as it sells its product beyond the Indian borders, the founder said that the company maintains a strict protocol where it doesn’t deal with geopolitically sensitive countries. 

“When we sell to other countries, we undergo a SCOMET (Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment, and Technologies) approval process done by the Indian defence ministry. Besides, we ensure that the data captured from every sensor, whether in India or outside, is preserved in their respective geographies,” he said.  

The government’s Make-in-India initiative has come as a shot in the arm for more than 1,000 defence tech startups diving into deeptech innovation. Reducing the import of defence equipment and increasing the use of indigenous products on the battlefield have unlocked a flurry of orders. India’s defence production zoomed to a record INR 1.27 Lakh Cr in FY24, while exports hit an all-time high of INR 23,622 Cr in FY25. 

The FY26 Budget added further momentum with defence allocations exceeding INR 79,000 Cr and nearly 70% of it reserved for domestic procurement.

For Tonbo, India contributes 40% of the topline, while exports make up the rest. Its core revenue stood at close to INR 400 Cr in FY25, increasing 20% over the last year, with a profit of more than INR 70 Cr. The company did not share the exact financials for FY25. In FY24, its operating revenue jumped threefold to INR 428.2 Cr and the net profit surged 58 times to INR 68 Cr over the previous year, regulatory filings showed. 

Riding on soaring demand from the government and armed with a strong order book, the startup is buckling up to go public by the end of this year.

A Dream Blooms Into A Defence Tech Giant 

Lakshmikumar teamed up with Ankit Kumar and Cecilia D’Souza to found their defence tech startup in 2012, but the tale of Tonbo Imaging goes back almost another decade, when Lakshmikumar had set up his maiden venture, Serial Innovations, which worked in the UAV space.

The BITS-Pilani graduate left for his PhD at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in 2000, where he met top executives at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). That’s when the thought of building future technologies in imaging, computer vision, and robotics crossed his mind.

Lakshmikumar returned home in 2003 to head the Indian wing of the US-based Sarnoff Corporation, the research arm of Stanford Research Institute. But Sarnoff decided to wind up its India operations in 2006. Three years later, Lakshmikumar hired Sarnoff Corporation’s existing workforce and set up Serial Innovations in 2010. Both Kumar and D’Souza were employees at Sarnoff. They joined Lakshmikumar as cofounders. 

Serial Innovations eventually took off as a full-fledged defence tech startup with the name Tonbo Imaging.

Between 2010 and 2012, when the founders were still refining their ideas and go-to-market strategy, they raised INR 2.2 Cr in seed funding from Mumbai Angels and Blume Venture founders Karthik Reddy and Sanjay Nath. It gave them some time to support a seven-member team as they kept toying with ideas. Tonbo Imaging needed time to find a sustainable business model and a strong USP. 

“Finally, we doubled down on building autonomous technology for defence to minimise casualties,” Lakshmikumar said. “Our vision is to assist humans today, augment humans tomorrow, and essentially replace humans eventually, on the battlefields. And whatever is required to get there, we will be building all those technology components and end-products.”

Reaching For War Autonomy, Striking A Fiscal Balance

Use of technology to secure autonomy on the battlefield blipped on Tonbo’s radar when the founders realised India needed better armaments. But India has been the world’s largest importer of arms, reportedly accounting for 9.8% of the global imports between 2019 and 2023. Until very recently, all its high-tech defence products were sourced from Israel and Europe. 

“This was disturbing,” Lakshmikumar said. “India had enough capital and opportunity to build its indigenous technology with the likes of DRDO existing in the country.”

The founders not only spotted the gap, they also noted how defence companies relied heavily on government orders. “We didn’t want grants from the DRDO. We wanted to build IPs independently and for global markets,” said the CEO, adding that Tonbo wanted private investors who could trust its technology building process and infuse patient capital.

A simple whiteboard discussion made way for raising $6 Mn in the Series A round from Artiman Ventures in 2012, giving an exit to Mumbai Angels. With that, the startup began building its core technology in defence.

“The idea was to be able to achieve autonomy, and for that, we needed better data, better communication, and better control.” 

Night vision capabilities emerged as Tonbo began taking baby steps. Night vision enables soldiers to see even in the dark, and amid smoke and dust. The technology wasn’t new, but the imports were far too expensive. The founders believed that every soldier had to be equipped with a night vision capability. So, the cost of such products had to be brought down, which needed a change in core design.

Through the next four years, they tried to comprehend the technology, build prototypes, and work on multiple iterations to launch world-class night vision gear or thermal imagers. Around 2013, Tonbo sold a prototype to the US Navy SEALs.

That was the beginning. Tonbo’s next target was to build an entire tech stack for thermal weapon sights and a surveillance platform that could be fitted into a UAV.

In 2017, the startup got its $23 Mn Series B cheque from WRV Capital (now Celesta Capital), Qualcomm Ventures, and Edelweiss Private Equity. “Then we started building the products using that technology, or the eyes and brains of weapons and surveillance systems,” said the founder.

The need for a strategic partner was felt around 2021 after Tonbo started facing production and cash flow issues. Its revenue declined from INR 54.7 Cr in FY20 to INR 23.5 Cr in FY21, and dipped further to INR 20.8 Cr in FY22. 

The company, however, managed to retain its profitability by trimming down expenses and following an asset-light model. Since Tonbo develops, designs, and builds all its technology and products in-house, the founder said, the costs come down majorly, compared to many peers who depend largely on imports. It also doesn’t own its manufacturing facilities and has products manufactured by companies such as Keynes Technology and Avalon Technologies. 

By the time it was raising its next round of funds in 2023, Tonbo had started working with the Indian Army, along with several other partnerships in at least 25 countries.

A $10 Mn funding from the listed mission-critical electronics company HBL Engineering in 2023 gave the startup a major boost to go to the next stage of product development and manufacturing. 

“When HBL invested, our business took off. Amid all the funding crunch and cash flow issues, this investment brought in the much-needed discipline at Tonbo. Besides manufacturing support, we also got a chance to learn from their challenges and mistakes to give shape to our startup where it stands today,” the founder said.

With an INR 1,000 Cr public float in its pipeline, Tonbo recently raised INR 175 Cr (about $20 Mn) in its Series D pre-IPO funding round from Florintee Advisors and EXIM Bank at a post-money valuation of over INR 1,500 Cr ($175 Mn).

Autonomy On Warfront For World’s Fourth-Largest Military 

The 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War with Pakistan had snuffed out 3,800 Indians, making the deepest dent in India’s war history since Independence. The 1962 Chinese assault had killed 3,250, while 3,264 lives were lost in the 1965 war with Pakistan. The 1999 Kargil war had claimed more than 500 Indian soldiers. That was a glimpse of the cost India had to bear to secure its sovereignty and integrity. 

“Our only target is to save lives on the warfront,” reiterated the Tonbo chief executive. “We are building technology that will make the wars more and more autonomous and put fewer lives in the line of fire.” 

Starting with night vision gears, the company has expanded into making a range of products for air, water, and land. Its airborne gimbals, Hummingbird and Avenger Series, have multiple visible-light and infrared electro-optical sensors for helicopters as well as UAVs for enhanced surveillance capability in poor visibility. Its WolfPack system offers a multi-aperture and multispectral real-time panoramic imaging capability for land and marine surveillance. 

Tonbo’s range of optronic solutions include ATLAS, VARUNA, Skeye, and ELPEOS-N. Spartan-R, featuring an integrated Laser Range Finder (LRF) and real-time ballistic calculation device, is widely used by the army in multi-mission thermal imaging sight detection in close combat. 

Its other thermal weapon sight, Cobra, has an inbuilt wireless video interface that enables real-time video output, enhancing the safety of the soldiers. Its various helmet mounts also come with enhanced night vision capabilities.

With thousands of such thermal weapon sights in its product offering, this segment is the company’s biggest revenue generator. In fact, the electro-optical fire-control system in the Indian Army’s Arjun Mk 1A main battle tank is equipped with Tonbo’s Elpeos electro optic sight.

Tonbo’s offerings also include missile systems, where its edge AI capabilities can guide surgical precision of missiles and bombs, and see-through armour (STAR) solutions, which, together with WolfPack and head-mounted display, provide better situational awareness to armoured vehicles. Its range of pan/tilt units have championed securing precision for payloads like laser devices or antennas.

The Tonbo trio didn’t stop at hardware alone. They also developed HawkAI, an indigenously designed Computerised, Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence (C4I) system that integrates intelligence inputs on the battlefield with the hardware stack.

The AI software stack, available across mobile phones and tablets, at command control units, and inland and naval vehicles, integrates intelligence from multiple sources and distributes it to create a unified operational picture of the battlefield.

An Indian Deeptech Venture Builds A Global Playbook

When most Indian defence tech companies aspire to be suppliers to global giants like Lockheed Martin or Raytheon, Tonbo Imaging chose to be India’s very own Lockheed Martin or Raytheon. 

The startup always aimed to be an independent Indian defence company, owning its supply chain end-to-end and building IPs and products that are highly reliable for direct use by the armed forces around the world. 

This is also the reason why Tonbo adopted the global-first strategy. The companies that had been building for the Indian defence use cases were working on specifications that were inferior to the kind of sophisticated products used by countries like the US, according to the founders. Tonbo set a benchmark for technology capabilities after selling its products to the US Navy SEALs and NATO.

Tonbo has so far deployed over 25,000 defence systems across 30 countries. It also customises the software used for labelling and data classification, depending on the specific warfare requirements and military platforms of each country. 

While the startup did not disclose its current order volume, its competitors like Anduril and Shield AI, which are largely restricted to the US and Europe, have much higher revenues and order values. Anduril, which recently raised funding at a $30.5 Bn valuation, said it clocked almost $1 Bn in revenue in 2024 and secured $1.5 Bn of contracts. 

Tonbo’s topline is fed from three buckets. The first bucket has the armies of various countries where the startup provides its thermal weapon imagers, hand-held monoculars, hand-held targeting systems, and equipment for direct use by soldiers.

In the second bucket, Tonbo has a suite of products that can be integrated with other products. Its observation gimbal, for instance, is like a surveillance system that can be mounted on a high-altitude drone. The company provides the system to the likes of General Atomics. It also has a partnership with Bharat Dynamics to sell its missile seekers. In this segment, Tonbo has partnerships with top names like L&T, Rafael, and Israel Aerospace.

The third bucket comprises white-label, completely knocked down (CKD) components for defence product manufacturers. European gun maker Beretta, famed for its James Bond guns, is a Tonbo customer. It sources components of thermal weapon sights from the Indian startup to sell them under their brand name as Beretta Pistol Sights in the US.

Tonbo also licences its OEM subsystems, including video target tracking cards, video engines for cooled and uncooled thermal imaging sensors, and real-time AI processors, to the system integrators.

Although exports continue to remain a major focus for Tonbo, the founder said that as India’s requirements are growing, it would ramp up supply to the Indian armed forces. It is in talks with the Indian Navy to build the next set of capabilities in counter-drone space.

While Tonbo did not share its exact FY25 numbers or FY26 projections, more than 60% of its revenue came from exports last fiscal. 

Its MCA filings showed that 50% of its products were sold overseas in FY24. In the same year, the startup bagged its biggest order so far, amounting to $55 Mn, from a European customer. It also won multiple NATO procurement orders during the year. 

While building both hardware and software stacks in-house, Tonbo has so far obtained six patents, while four more are awaiting approval. “We hope to have 10 approved patents by the end of 2025,” Lakshmikumar said. 

From Battlefront To Bourses And Beyond

Tonbo Imaging is in the process of filing its draft IPO papers with SEBI by August, Inc42 exclusively reported on the company’s IPO plans. While the founder did not disclose whether the public float will have both fresh issues and an offer-for-sale component, sources told Inc42 that Tonbo is looking to give exits and good returns to many of its long-term investors. 

Lakshmikumar said the IPO would be an important step for the startup as it prepares to build its next set of technology and products. After investing all its past years in building autonomous defence equipment, Tonbo is now investing in building the end systems itself, but not the traditional weapons like guns or ammunition.

“New-age warfare to counter the advancing drone systems is not going to be ruled by guns or weapons. It will be Directed Energy Systems. So, we have started investing in building a directed energy weapon (DEW) platform, which is a high-power microwave (HPM) system,” he said.

Directed Energy Systems (DES) use focussed energy like lasers, microwaves, or particle beams, to achieve various tasks without relying on physical projectiles. DES sharpens the drone-combat capabilities to the defence forces. 

Powered by advancing AI and robotics capabilities, drones are replacing humans on the battlefield. The global drone warfare market is expected to surpass $30 Bn by 2028 from $20 Bn in 2023. The market for anti-drone devices such as radars and RF jammers, kinetic interceptors, and HPM systems, will consequently reach $7.05 Bn from $2.16 Bn. 

The HPM systems emit electromagnetic energy across a wide range of radio and microwave frequencies to either permanently damage target drones or temporarily disrupt their paths. While HPM weapons have existed for ages, these are now being upgraded to counter the advanced drones and missiles. In India, DRDO is also pushing for developing an HPM system as the country is yet to catch up in the game.

Tonbo is betting heavily on this gap. It has received a licence to develop the technology from CERN in Geneva. The company unveiled its HPM DEW at the Aero India 2025 show in Bengaluru earlier this year. It is expected to be installed on a surface vessel of the Indian Navy.

The startup is also investing in jet-powered systems that are immune to electromagnetic interference and GPS jamming. “The kind of drones and other systems India uses are of low speed. We need jet-powered systems that can evade jamming and spoofing and function at a speed of 500-600 km per hour,” the founder said.

Tonbo is playing in an increasingly lucrative market that’s set to unlock almost a $4 Tn defence opportunity by 2033, fuelled by deepening geopolitical crises. This has also set the defence tech turf on the boil with an increasing number of players. 

Most of Tonbo’s global peers such as Shield AI, Epirus, and Anduril, or legacy defence players like Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics, are augmenting their technology front. The competition intensifies as Tonbo’s new-age global peers sit on higher revenues and have many common customers.

Tonbo claims to have an advantage as it is not restricted by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and its ability to do free exports.

On the home front, it faces competition from the likes of Data Patterns, Tata Advanced Systems, Mahindra Defence Systems, and PSUs like BEL and HAL. “Our philosophy with respect to selling our products to the Indian customers is simple – buy the products because that’s the best one existing for that particular operation. It’s lives at stake; and don’t buy the products because they are Made In India or cheaper than many,” he said.

Tonbo’s public listing will be crucial in shaping its future and also building credibility for the defence tech ecosystem. With its long track record of building deeptech with patience and frugality from India, Tonbo Imaging hopes to set a precedent in the Indian defence market that’s well on course to reach $29.80 Bn by 2033, averaging a 5.60% growth led by deeptech startups. 

[Edited By Kumar Chatterjee]

The post Uri To Sindoor: How Tonbo Imaging Helped Forces With Warfront Intel appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Late-winter frost was in full spell when a sleepy Polish town woke up to mysterious fireballs lighting up the obsidian sky on a February night. 

Neither Helios was on an errand, nor a mythical dragon was on a recce of the Polish skies that night. Experts confirmed the next day that those were the wrecks of the upper stage of Falcon 9’s reusable launch vehicle that had failed to deorbit on time, malfunctioned, broke into pieces, and crashed down on earth like fireballs.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX grounded Falcon 9 rockets multiple times last year following anomalies in the recovery of their second stage or upper stage. From a liquid oxygen leak to a malfunction while grounding, the company has faced multiple failures while bringing the upper stage of its reusable rockets back to Earth.

As California-headquartered SpaceX tries to comprehend the rocket science behind the failures, Bengaluru-based spacetech startup EtherealX claims to have learned from the Falcon fallacies. Lessons that the startup is using to build medium-lift fully reusable launch vehicles or rockets. 

While deep-pocket giants like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Rocket Lab have cracked the code of recovering the first stage or the booster stage of their medium-lift launch vehicles, but failed to make their satellite launch vehicles (SLVs) fully reusable for various tech constraints, EtherealX claims to be a pioneer in the Indian spacetech system to make rockets that can be reused fully.

EtherealX says it has built advanced hardware and software stacks, and worked around with the existing laws of physics to build its flagship Razor Crest Mk-1 that can be brought back to the launch pad after it docked a satellite into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO), or following a trans-lunar injection (TLI).

With an eye on global markets, EtherealX plans its first commercial launch in 2027 to capture a major share of the Indian spacetech market that’s set to surpass $44 Bn by 2030.

The Making Of EtherealX: From Vedas To Falcon Fallacies 

As a child, Manu Nair was deeply inspired by the Vedas and was intrigued by celestial matters. He wanted to grow up to explore the mysteries of the cosmos. After his graduation in engineering from the BML Munjal University, he interned at the Human Space Flight Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in late 2019. He met Shubhayu Sardar there. 

Before the ISRO assignment, Nair had the opportunity to work closely with commercial space flight planning as a part of NASA-supported Project PoSSUM (Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere). By late 2020, he joined Indian spacetech startup Manastu Space’s executive team and met Prashanth Sharma, who was heading propulsions in the company.

Nair introduced Sharma to Sardar at a dinner a year later. That’s where the entire game changed for the trio. Sharma turned down an offer from the US-based Rocket Lab, Sardar quit ISRO, and Nair called off his plans to join an American company. 

The three space enthusiasts teamed up and the seed of EtherealX germinated in 2022. 

“That night at the dinner, the fundamental question we asked was why we still did not have resilient or multi-polar launch infrastructure. Even as launch costs had come down over the last few decades, mathematically, there should have been an oversupply of launch vehicles, but that was not the case. Launch was not a solved problem at all. It was an extremely polarised market where over 80% of all launches were being done by one vehicle, one company, and one demography,” Nair, the CEO of the spacetech startup, shared with Inc42.

They realised that most companies were not operating in the right segment of launch vehicles or did not follow the right approach, which was causing trouble for the satellite operators who had to wait long for launches. The idea was also to solve for unit economics.

The answer was reusability. That was the core idea of the spacetech startup. 

It wasn’t anything novel. The first reusable rocket, the Space Shuttle, was developed by NASA. Since 1981, the Space Shuttle fleet undertook 135 missions, inspiring generations of scientists.

The Space Shuttle comprised an external tank, two solid rocket boosters on the sides, and an orbiter. Only the external tank could not be recovered after launch. The solid rocket boosters landed in the ocean that NASA retrieved, inspected, refurbished, and reused, while the orbiter returned to Earth and landed like an airplane after completing its space mission.

SpaceX created history in 2015 when it became the world’s first to bring back its Falcon 9 rocket in a soft touchdown during an orbital launch. “SpaceX too has had multiple failures. The company goes public stating the cause of the failure, but never discloses how they fixed it. We spotted the errors and framed our strategy based on what not to do. At EtherealX, we started off with the mitigation strategies for the issues SpaceX was facing,” Nair said.

It was almost impossible to replicate the SpaceX model, given that the company has a vertically integrated business. The EtherealX founders started building proprietary technology from the ground up that could recover both the booster stage and upper stage of the rockets – going one step ahead of what SpaceX has achieved so far, according to the CEO.

EtherealX has so far carried out a few private tests of its launch vehicle engine, while its fully reusable launch vehicle is still under testing and designing. It has recently signed an agreement with In-Space for facilitating the testing of its engines with ISRO. Its first hot fire will be done at its own facility in November, when the engine will be fired up and operated in a controlled environment for its performance and safety checks. 

The company raised $5 Mn in a seed round last year from YourNest VC, BIG Global Investments, BlueHill Capital, and Golden Sparrow Ventures, to proceed with the final tests and qualification of the vehicle engine.

The Tech Edge: Spotting SpaceX Gaps

A two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) launch vehicle has two main parts – the first or the booster stage and the upper or the second stage. Whether it’s SpaceX’s Falcon 9 or Blue Origin’s New Glenn or EtherealX’s Razon Crest – all medium-lift rockets have the same architecture.

After a rocket blasts off, there is the main engine cut off (MECO) stage, which SpaceX typically performs at an altitude of 80 km above the ground. It provides the initial acceleration and lift for the rocket. After MECO, the upper stage engine does the firing, and with enough velocity already built in it, the stage reaches the desired orbit for a satellite launch.

Nair explained that the hardware capabilities can be reimagined in building these stages to achieve complete reusability. Technical challenges, however, stay on in bringing back the booster – a problem that lies in realigning the algorithm in flight software.

EtherealX has built its own re-entry algorithm, which is being tried out not only in its own test vehicles but also in test launches. “During every launch done by SpaceX, because it’s public information, we run our algorithm during relanding and predict before the launch when the booster is going to turn over, when it’s going to come back, when the boost back burn is going to happen,” Nair said.

He claimed that in the fourth run of its algorithm, its predictions reached a 100% perfection. The startup is collecting more data and polishing its existing algorithm each day.

Most vehicles face hardware issues due to the engine heat while re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, often causing damage to the rockets. EtherealX has built a rocket engine feed cycle that would use the heat generated by the vehicles during their re-entry to the Earth’s atmosphere as the source to again run the engines. 

The company will use a ‘source-sink mechanism’ to channel the re-entry heat for re-use. Nair did not elaborate on the mechanism further because the technology is proprietary and awaits patent approval.

Most companies are still struggling with the technology that can recover the upper stage. EtherealX claims that it has solved that problem with a ballistic plus skip atmospheric re-entry. “For the upper stage to come back, it will be a free fall with some controlled direction till a certain altitude, and then we will power the engines to perform a cross range manoeuvre for the last bit,” Nair said, without explaining it further.

He, however, accepted that this was only in theory so far. While EtherealX is confident of the safe recovery of its booster stage, the credibility of its biggest value proposition, the upper stage recovery, remains dicey until a few flights are successful.

This USP is also directly linked to its business model, and hence, revenue and profitability. In case of a failure to recover the upper stage its margins will be hit. “But it won’t stop us from making money, and we’re confident that even if by the third or fourth launch we can achieve a full recovery level, it’s going to be a win-win for us and the end user.”

Razon Crest can carry 24.8 tonnes of payload in the non-reusable configuration. As a fully reusable vehicle, it can carry 8 tonnes in LEO and 1.6 tonnes in GTO. In a partially reusable configuration, the rocket can carry 22.8 tonnes in LEO, 8.3 tonnes in GTO, and 4.2 tonnes during trans-lunar injection.

Mapping The Skies: From Stargazing To A $130 Mn Order Book

EtherealX has a $130 Mn order book in place from satellite operators in the US, Japan, and some European countries.

The startup plans to charge anywhere between $350 and $2,000 per kg, based on various configurations. If things pan out as planned, it is expected to see revenue coming in by early 2027 ahead of the planned launches.

From here on, the company is taking steady steps to reach its commercial launch target on time. To ensure the tests are done as planned, EtherealX is working towards the completion of its 16-acre test facility in Tamil Nadu within a few months. It is also aiming to carry out an upper stage cycle testing next year.

As the sky gets crowded with an increasing number of spacetech ventures vying for a slice of the $466.1 Bn global market, EtherealX is trying to stand out from US startup Stoke Space, which is also working on building fully reusable launch vehicles, or homegrown Agnikul, working in this broader domain of launch vehicles for small to medium satellite launches, with its technology edge that allows a much higher payload.

Dreaming it big – taking on giants like SpaceX and Blue Origin – EtherealX has reached a crucial point where its ability to raise more capital and succeed in on-ground tests will decide both the fate of the company as well as that of the country’s burgeoning spacetech ecosystem.

[Edited By Kumar Chatterjee]

The post Can EtherealX Become India’s SpaceX With Its Fully Reusable Rocket? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In the early 2020s, Aparna Saxena was at a crossroads in her career. An alumnus of Binghamton University, New York, her journey in Silicon Valley began in 2017 at CircleUp, an investment and fintech operator catering to early stage consumer brands. Working as a startup investment analyst, she watched the rise of transformative brands like Pop & Bottle, Youth to the People and Halo Top, businesses that turned minimalism, functionality and storytelling into full-fledged consumer movements and solved user pain points with precision and purpose.

Two years later, she moved to Good Capital, a Delhi-based VC firm investing in early stage tech startups. “When it started funding consumer brands in 2021, the parallels were clear. Breakout brands — whether in tech or consumer space — delve deep into critical problems and develop simplified but hard-to-replicate innovations,” she said. This product philosophy sparked the concept of AntiNorm, a minimalist and multifunctional beauty and personal care (BPC) brand set to be launched in June 2025.

But first things first. After returning to India, Saxena felt a sense of chaos in the BPC space. Her shelves were full of global brands, but few were suitable for the Indian context. “I was using products made for a different climate, a different pace of life. And my skin and hair were the first to rebel,” she recalled.

Even the glut of local beauty products often failed to deliver the miracle fixes they promised. But they usually left shoppers overwhelmed and uncertain about what to choose. It indicated a deep disconnect between what was feeding the beauty business and what made sense for Indian women. 

Meanwhile, Saxena was increasingly drawn towards the BPC industry, not as an investor but as a brand builder. For someone who had built her career spotting white spaces before they turned into trends, a $28 Bn Indian BPC market (by 2030) was a huge innovation scope.

“Urban Indian women, especially working women from Tier I and II cities need products that seamlessly integrate into their lifestyles — formulas that simplify care by doing the job of many products, deliver visible results quickly and offer protection from pollution and other environmental stressors,” she said.

Saxena built the brand around the same principles. However, it took the team nearly two years to refine formulations at a laboratory in Gurugram (they have a testing/formulation lab via a third party). Although the brand uses clean ingredients and discards certain chemicals and ingredients, the product line was verified with FSSAI, ISO and GMP to ensure it met industry standards.

AntiNorm will make its debut with just three multifunctional offerings: A no-fuss dry shampoo, an all-in-one hair cream for post-shower care and styling and nourishing lip treatment, with prices ranging between INR 899 and INR 1,599 (more on its products and product rationale later). 

AntiNorm raised INR 5 Cr in pre-seed funding even before its official launch. Half this amount came from Rukam Capital, a VC firm investing in early stage consumer and tech startups with high growth potential. 

Decluttering Beauty Care Through Activity Mapping & Tech Lens

In a consumer survey that the brand undertook, 46% of women aged 25 to 34 said they would willingly reduce their skincare and hair care regimens if new products could deliver similar or improved results. When asked to document their daily beauty routines, most participants listed eight to 10 steps. However, nearly 70% of those measures were discarded when people were pressed to identify what they could eliminate.

The data revealed what Saxena had long believed — the beauty industry was built to sell more instead of solve better. The new brand in the works wanted to challenge that foundation.

The team started by deconstructing existing products and analysing formulas for better efficacy until someone jokingly said: It’s a cream, not an app, you can’t keep adding to it. That chance remark triggered the realisation: True multifunctionality is possible if you research enough and club the right ingredients.

Coming from a background in tech and consumer investing, Saxena also approached product development like a SaaS roadmap, with user friction at the centre, and every decision, including business vision, direction and progress, flowed from there.  

“That product-first mindset, common in Silicon Valley but rare among BPC brands, became a guiding principle at AntiNorm. We started treating beauty like tech,” the founder said. 

A Deep Dive Into Products, Packaging And Sales

The brand is rolling out three beauty products formulated to multitask for Indian requirements and climate. Its dry shampoo powder, for instance, uses seven clean ingredients to absorb oil, boost hair volume and clean the scalp. This promises to replace five products in a typical haircare routine.

Another flagship is a multitasking lip treatment that hydrates, plumps and protects while delivering a glossy finish. Made with peptides, nourishing oils and UV filters, it smooths texture, softens fine lines and consolidates the benefits of six products in one. The inclusion of avocado oil, known for its low oxidative stress, makes it particularly suitable for the Indian climate.

The third is a non-greasy hair cream. Applied after a shower, it enables an air-dried look that mimics a salon blow dry and works across all Indian hair types, replacing 11 different hair care products from one’s routine.

Packaging things right was another critical challenge. An early attempt to unify packaging across SKUs quickly gave way to practicality. “We soon realised that functionality had to take precedence, and convenience could not be compromised for aesthetics. Therefore, packaging now aligns with the product it holds,” explained Saxena.

For now, AntiNorm will sell its products via its D2C website. This will allow the brand to own the discovery, delivery, and feedback loop, which is essential not only for customer acquisition but also for retention. “We want to be the brand that stays on the customer’s shelf, not the one she tries once and forgets.”

Of course, expansion is inevitable, but the founder wants it to happen selectively. “We will be present on curated marketplaces and offline touchpoints, but only where we can maintain our quality and customer intimacy. We will not compromise on that.”

Its marketing will be intentionally low-decibel. Its focus will be customer education, product simplification and beauty care myth-busting. 

Rukam Capital’s Bet On AntiNorm  

Rukam Capital, which usually steers clear of pre-revenue bets, backed AntiNorm even before its launch — a rare move driven by the sheer clutter in the BPC space and the need for focussed, innovation-led solutions.

“Beauty and personal care brands are only as strong as their founders, as it is critical to understand consumer psychology to develop star products. In Saxena, we have found someone who understands the data and product nuances. We intend to be a sounding board for her wherever it is required,” said Archana Jahagirdar, founder and managing partner, Rukam Capital.

For Saxena, the alignment was immediate. “When I first discussed AntiNorm with Rukam Capital, I half-expected to spend a lot of time explaining why the space needed a rethink. Instead, they immediately pushed the conversation into how to use data for product development. It felt less like pitching and more like building a brand together and co-designing a product roadmap,” she said.

How AntiNorm Plans To Build The Forward Momentum

Over the next year, it plans to launch 8–12 multifunctional SKUs that can substitute nearly 50 existing products. It will ramp up R&D and refine its products based on user feedback and real-world insights.

“The philosophy of our future products will remain the same: Solving real problems with fewer and better solutions without sacrificing efficacy or user experience,” said Saxena. Even as it grows, maintaining viable, healthy margins and optimising operations will remain key priorities.    

The founder envisions AntiNorm as a category-defining brand in the next five years. It will also expand into skincare, haircare, and, eventually, men’s personal care. 

She is making her case in a multi-billion-dollar industry where a gold rush is happening, with new brands coming out at a dizzying pace, and the landscape is conditioned to provide more. 

If it succeeds, it won’t be because it has been most vocal about its multifunctional product line. It will be because, in a world of excess, it has made a compelling case for providing just enough to meet its users’ requirements beautifully.

The post How AntiNorm Plans To Disrupt India’s Beauty Market With Multipurpose Products appeared first on Inc42 Media.

On a sweltering afternoon, an Indian farmer stares at his parched, cracked field. Months of effort have been undone due to an erratic monsoon. Elsewhere, relentless downpours trigger floods that wipe out crops before they can be harvested. Farmers today are aware of crop insurance against natural calamities and pestilence. But despite many such schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, few are fully prepared to fall back on those policies when disasters strike. 

In many cases, errors in claim filing and/or inadequate documents hinder the process. It is the same story for millions of farmers across rural India. This is not surprising.

Although India is projected to emerge as the third-largest economy by 2028, growing to $5.7 Tn, per a Morgan Stanley report, its insurance penetration dipped for a second consecutive year to 3.7% in FY24, about half the global average of 7%. However, insurance premiums rose 7.7% to INR 11.2 Lakh Cr, according to the Economic Survey 2024-25, indicating that the demand exists for the safety net of financial protection, but the ground-level distribution does not. The reasons: A fragmented market, low awareness and a glut of complex financial products failing to cater to the masses, especially rural consumers.

Founded in 2021 by three alumni of the Institute of Rural Management (IRMA) — Vinod Singh, Sandeep Katiyar and Navneet Srivastava — Mumbai-based fintech startup Finhaat aims to bridge that gap. The founding team, veterans who had earlier worked for storied companies such as Avendus, HSBC, Aditya Birla Insurance and Future Generali, quickly realised that the rural fintech story had so far been dominated by credit. Lending platforms and agri-fintechs stepped into the void left by traditional banks, using data and technology to extend loans. However, few addressed the other two legs of financial inclusion — insurance and wealth creation.

Finhaat began by distributing insurance products in 2022 to cater to India’s vast rural and semi-urban markets before expanding into wealth management and wellness services. The insurance broking platform has built a B2B SaaS model to work closely with individual agents (point-of-sale persons or PoSPs with knowledge of local communities) and rural-focussed institutions, microfinance firms, non-banking financial companies (including Nidhi companies), cooperative societies and farmer producer organisations (FPOs). 

The platform distributes life, health, general and parametric insurance products through a network of more than 200 insurers and 3K+ individual agents across 85% of India’s pin codes. Its proprietary tech delivers affordable financial products tailored to customer needs through digital channels. Since launch, the startup claims to have served 8 Mn customers, primarily via curated insurance distributed through institutions. Beyond distribution, Finhaat offers various services such as claim management and data-based trend analysis.

It also launched Finhaat Wealth in January, a tech-driven and advisor-assisted wealth management vertical offering tools for investments, retirement and long-term savings.

Finhaat earns revenue through platform fees and product-linked commissions while offering a zero-CAPEX model for its institutional and individual partners. The fintech reported more than 20% YoY revenue growth in FY25, reaching INR 30 Cr+ from INR 25 Cr in FY24.

Inside Finhaat’s Full Tech Stack For Bharat

“When we started, digital distribution in rural India was lagging and much of the workflow was manual. With Finhaat, we wanted to leverage the power of technology and build something scalable, sustainable and efficient,” said founder & CEO Vinod Singh. “The goal was to set up a fully digital distribution platform for insurance products, allowing us to streamline all operations and use data to customise products for our target audience.”

Accessing and managing one’s financial health should be simple in a digital-first economy. But for many Indians, insurance, or any other financial product, remained intimidating, often due to a lack of early exposure and trust. Therefore, Finhaat emphasises user education and technology integration to build a trust bridge for underserved communities. Its distribution platform is designed to offer clear, reliable financial solutions, while its agent partners are trained to demystify complex concepts and provide in-person advisory services.    

Given Finhaat’s multi-partner model, another critical challenge was designing a system that was intuitive for users, able to digitise curated insurance  and robust enough to scale. The outcome was a B2B SaaS platform integrating partners seamlessly to distribute and service low-cost, high-volume insurance products. The startup also built a proprietary claims management framework to ensure claim settlement in under a week, compared to the industry average of several weeks in rural areas.

“At first, only a few companies came on board, offering the right products and syncing with our tech platform to support rural India. But when we started delivering — our number of policies issued increased, ensured a higher persistency ratio (high rate of policy/Institution retention) and enabled faster claim cycles — they started approaching the startup,” the CEO said. 

How Finhaat Is Solving India’s Financial Pain Points

When asked about rural customisation, the founding team cited parametric and climate-based insurance solutions. Unlike traditional indemnity insurance, which reimburses losses based on assessed damage, parametric insurance pays out when a predefined occurrence (think of a natural disaster like a flood, a cyclone or a heatwave causing drought) takes place, irrespective of actual losses. This approach benefits cultivators or farmers investing in cattle, poultry, or other livestock. Additionally, microinsurance provides affordable coverage for various risks, both life and non-life.

Nevertheless, 70% of its insurance revenue comes from curated  products — tied to loans or agri services — while 15% comes from retail and the rest from niche agricultural offerings like parametric and livestock insurance.

As of now, Finhaat runs three verticals — insurance, wealth management and wellness (currently offers diagnostics and teleconsultations) — and has developed the following products:  

FinSAAS for institutional insurance partners: The startup’s flagship product works like a full-stack or plug-and-play format, allowing insurance companies (ICs) to offer curated products through their existing networks and manage customer support. A suite of custom-built APIs enables easy integration with institutional partners for instant policy issuance and rapid claim processing, driving greater insurance adoption at the grassroots. Additionally, institution partners can opt for specific services such as institutional dashboards and organisational mapping to display information for end users and track trends.  

FinPRO for PoSPs/retail agents: This SaaS module is for individual insurance partners to transform how insurance is sold and managed across India. The fully digital solution streamlines the entire process, from onboarding to claims, helping agents to serve end customers more efficiently. 

Finhaat Wealth: The wealth management app and website provide curated solutions spanning mutual funds, NPS and other SEBI-regulated products to aspirational but underserved consumers from Tier III and IV locations. Finhaat also trains and equips a new set of wealth distributors (essentially, micro-entrepreneurs) to assist India’s emerging investor class. 

“Wealth creation in rural India is still a novel concept for most,” said Singh. “Our goal is to make it accessible and relevant, using reliable human touchpoints powered by strong technology. All our products and verticals follow a unified philosophy centred on suvidha (convenience), suraksha (security) and samriddhi (prosperity).”

What Will Fuel The Next Phase Of Growth At Finhaat

Finhaat is eyeing expansion when India’s rural financial services market is transforming rapidly. Government-backed schemes have laid the groundwork for insurance awareness, and the country is estimated to become the fastest-growing insurance market among the G20 nations in the next five years.

More importantly, unlike its peers, which often try to retrofit urban solutions for rural India, the platform has designed its offerings solely for the local context. What sets it apart is this solution-first and infrastructure-driven mindset. Rather than becoming another direct-to-consumer (D2C) insurance seller, it aspires to be the digital backbone for rural financial services, much like what UPI became for digital payments.

Finhaat expects to close FY26 with INR 250 Cr in gross written premium (GWP) and clock around INR 50 Cr in revenue. It is also looking to scale the newly launched wealth management vertical, with plans to onboard more than 1K partners and surpass INR 100 Cr in assets under management within a year. 

Speaking to Inc42, Singh said that the insurance arm would soon be chasing a GWP of INR 350 Cr, with a strong focus on agriculture. “We have insured more than 8 Mn lives, and now we are focusing on building capabilities around cattle, parametric and climate-based solutions for rural customers.”

Although agri-focussed insurance products will continue to anchor Finhaat’s portfolio, it also plans to target micro, small and medium enterprises and life and health policies to drive revenue. However, the endgame lies in empowering rural communities with the tools to cover risks, build wealth and define their financial future — nurturing financial inclusion and dignity. 

Meanwhile, the rural financial market across India remains fragmented and underpenetrated, but its need is undeniable. If Finhaat can keep delivering context-driven, tech-enabled products with trusted human touchpoints, it could become a vital cog in India’s inclusive financial infrastructure.

The post How Finhaat Is Bringing Insurance And Wealth Creation To India’s Rural & Semi-Urban Markets appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The month was June. The year: 2023. It had already been a little over six months since the world had woken up to the new normal in the realm of AI and ChatGPT. However, June 7 was different. The man behind ChatGPT, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, had visited India. We welcomed Altman with open arms, but only to be told that it was “hopeless” to compete with them.

Something ticked off Abhishek Upperwal that day, and this ruffling of his feathers resulted in what India would come to know as SoketAI, a startup that will, in the not-so-distant future, help India make its very own LLM — India’s answer to the ChatGPTs of the world.

Cut to January 2025. Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that the country would endeavour to build a domestic large language model (LLM) as part of the INR 10,037 Cr IndiaAI Mission. 

Proposals were invited, and the stakeholders of the AI industry, including startups, formed a beeline to take part in the opportunity to build an AI-ready nation. 

Among the hundreds of Indian AI players seeking to make history was Bengaluru-based Soket AI, a relatively younger player that specialises in text-based LLMs.

Stars aligned, and the 2019-founded Soket AI is now one of the three startups, alongside Gnani.ai and Gan.ai, to have been selected by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to develop Indian LLMs. 

Two months before its selection, Inc42 stumbled upon the chance to speak with founder and CEO Upperwal, who shared that the startup was building an open-source foundational model under Project EKA. 

Back then, Soket AI was already collaborating with academic institutions, like IIT Gandhinagar and IIT Roorkee, under Project EKA to develop a 120 Bn-parameter foundational model. 

However, the only missing link in its endeavour to build a foundational AI model was the government’s support. This is because R&D was a major cost head for Upperwal, and with the Centre’s support, it has become easy to walk through one of the most difficult terrains of the AI building journey.  

Notably, the government is set to provide computational support for building the LLM.

With this, the Soket AI team is now ready to fast-track development. It is committed to delivering the first iteration of its Indic languages-focussed LLM within 12 months.

If not for Altman’s controversial statement, Upperwal would have remained stuck in the paradox of searching for a product or perhaps never finding one at all.

The Product Paradox

Destiny had something else planned for Upperwal. The founder, who positions Soket AI as one of the first Indian startups to build a globally competitive text-based LLM, had no idea what he was going to build until a few years ago. But one thing was certain — his drive to work in the area of AI.

Upperwal, a data scientist and a 2018 IISc graduate, incorporated Soket AI in February 2019, the venture did not see any activity for at least the next three years.

This is simply because problem-solving in the realm of AI requires access to large-scale datasets, and for Upperwal, a fresh graduate with zilch financial backing, it was next to impossible to gather resources to build something concrete.

Therefore, he focussed on getting access to datasets. As luck would have it, the Centre was building 100 smart cities back then. The aim was to integrate command and control centres, smart waste management, installation of more CCTV cameras in public places, and more.

Upperwal saw this as a great opportunity, given that smart signals, smart roads, and more technology enablement across cities generated huge amounts of unused data. 

His manifestation paved the way for him to work for the Smart Cities Mission, under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. It was during this time that an epiphany dawned upon him — connect all the smart cities and create a decentralised data exchange using peer-to-peer technology.

While this was just an idea, not much breakthrough was made by Upperwal.

Months passed, and the world woke up to a technological marvel in the form of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022.

Months passed again, but to no avail. He knew it was time for him to think in sync with the changing equations around the world, courtesy AI.

Finally, the day of Sam Altman’s reality check hit Upperwal hard. He found his true calling.

“A bunch of us from the IISc became determined to take a bet on building a base model from India. We started figuring out data sources, we wanted to do something different and built Indic models because English was already solved for,” said Upperwal.

Upperwal Sets The Indic LLM Wheel In Motion

Soon, Soket AI started building its first Indic language AI datasets for the development of AI models. Its ‘Bhasha’ series was launched in April 2024 with two datasets: ‘bhasha-wiki’ and ‘bhasha-wiki-indic’. Bhasha-wiki, an open source dataset, is built with 44.1 Mn Wikipedia articles translated into six major Indian languages from 6.3 Mn English articles.

While building these datasets, it was able to crack a few computational partnerships and started working on building its first language model, ‘Pragna’. 

Soket AI deemed Pragna-1B as India’s first open-source multilingual model. Also launched in April last year, it is available in four Indian languages – Hindi, Gujarati, Bangla and English. 

Pragna was a proof of concept (POC) model for the company and did not see much traction. However, it set the stage for the business and everything it would build going forward.

Then, Upperwal began collecting conversational data related to sales, services, and marketing, and started fine-tuning Pragna using this data. Soon, he was able to build a real-time speech API with a fine-tuned Pragna model at the centre.

Today, Soket AI’s main source of revenue is this API. Marketed as TensorStudio, the tech is a voice agent. The startup is now doubling down on its Project EKA for building a foundational LLM.

Having raised $150K in an angel round last year, Soket AI is now set to raise $15 Mn in a few months.

Soket AI is building two products — TensorStudio and the work-in-progress foundational AI model.

The Cost Conundrum

“Building foundational models is an expensive affair. The computational cost of the graphics processing units (GPUs) is often almost 90% of the total cost of building them,” Upperwal said. 

According to a 2025 Stanford Institute report, training GPT-4, which is almost a 1.8 Tn parameter model, cost OpenAI over $100 Mn, with compute cost estimated to be around $79 Mn. As per various reports, building the 175 Bn parameter model, GPT 3, cost the company more than $4 Bn.

This equation was challenged by DeepSeek earlier this year, when it built its foundational model (DeepSeek-R1) in just two months at a cost of less than $6 Mn. However, there have been multiple questions on the reality of the claims.

In fact, as per Epoch AI, the cost of training frontier AI models has grown by 2-3X per year since 2016. Meanwhile, the computing used to train recent models has grown 4-5X every year between 2010 and 2024.

An Inc42 report, too, finds that training frontier models might cost more than $1 Bn by 2027.

With cost being the biggest challenge for a small startup like Soket AI, building a foundational text model from the ground up is nothing if not pure grit. 

As a first step towards building its 120 Bn-parameter foundational model, Soket AI is building a smaller model with 7 Bn parameters — expected to be rolled out in six months. 

Following the success of this project, the company will start building the first interaction of its bigger LLM. 

“So, this part of the business will only start generating revenue in a few years,” Upperwal said.

To keep the cost conundrums at bay, Soket AI’s primary revenue stream is TensorStudio. The startup sells its API to system integrators, like contact centres, to automate audio conversations using AI agents. 

This real-time speech API, with Pragna’s capabilities at its centre, caters to conversational needs in banking. The company is now working to open up the API to more system integrators for usage across insurance, healthcare, telecom, and edtech.

While the founder did not share its revenue numbers, the charges for Soket AI’s speech API start from $0.012 per minute.

As far as the foundational model is concerned, there is no scope for an immediate revenue stream. However, computational support from the government will help it cull the building cost significantly. 

“The computing will be utilised to build the model. But even then, we will need some private backing where, once you build out the model with government support, we can ultimately create a commercial product out of it,” said Upperwal.

What’s Next In Line For Soket AI? 

With the government’s approval for its proposal, the company has started doubling down on the LLM building process. It is also increasing its team size, which currently stands at 10 employees.

The company is also in the process of onboarding two people, thoroughly involved with Project EKA since its inception, as its cofounders.

Besides, many students at various universities, like IIT Gandhinagar and IIT Roorkee, are also working under the project to build the country’s first frontier model.

Soket AI’s LLM will be heavily focussed on catering to requirements in defence, agriculture, legal, and education. It will be trained with six scripts that can process 20-22 languages.

“I want Soket AI to be a frontier lab from India. We’ll be driving innovation across various aspects of our existing and upcoming models. Over time, many of these innovations will evolve into revenue-generating products,” Upperwal said, adding that the revenue will keep the R&D wheel spinning.

Meanwhile, there is a dedicated team that is working on TensorStudio. Until now, it had relied on external services to synthesise the audio component of its real-time speech API, while the text was powered by Pragna. However, the founder noted that the quality of the synthesised audio often suffered when conveying different emotions.

To address the challenge, Soket AI is now training an internal text-to-speech model, using about 25,000 hours of audio data. As of now, this is available only in Hindi and English.

With the seeds of India’s foundational model now sown, Soket AI’s journey will be interesting to track from here on. Can it put India on the global AI map for good? 

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

The post Can Soket AI Power India’s Foundational LLM Dream? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India has pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070, and the country seems to be serious about its goal, at least from the looks of it. A prime example is Delhi which, under its recently announced Delhi Air Pollution Mitigation Plan 2025, has decided to prohibit the entry of end-of-life vehicles from July 2025 and encourage the plying of only BS-VI, CNG and electric commercial vehicles in the city, starting this November.

Besides, the Delhi government plans to deploy 1,000 water sprinklers, 140 anti-smog guns and 70 mechanical sweepers. Cloud-seeding pilots and the installation of mist sprayers are also being planned as measures to curb pollution.

However, is this enough to unclog the choked skies of regions like Delhi, infamous for an air quality index (AQI) that often exceeds 500 marks?

Indians continue to inhale poor-quality air, despite efforts by state governments to reduce pollution. Despite exhaustive endeavours and draining millions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money, the pollution puzzle remains unsolved.

It raises a serious question — Have we considered looking elsewhere? Maybe vehicles are just one piece of the puzzle, and the key to a pollution-free India lies in decarbonising some of the most emission-intensive sectors like agriculture, energy, waste management, iron and steel, cement and construction. And, let’s not get started on how stubble burning has become India’s biggest sorrow.

This is precisely what altM, a 2022-founded cleantech startup, is doing — looking elsewhere. Founded by Yugal Raj Jain, Apoorv Garg, and Harshad Velankar in 2022, altM develops and manufactures scalable bio-chemicals and bioenergy solutions to reduce carbon footprint across the industrial value chain. altM focusses on transforming agricultural residues and industrial bio-waste into high-value, bio-based materials.

Having raised $3.5 Mn since its inception, it enjoys the backing of investors like Omnivore, Theia Ventures, and Thai Wah Ventures.

Takes One To Be One

With business in their DNA, both Jain and Garg had an intense desire to build something on their own — something that could change the world for good. However, for that to happen, they had to find what they could disrupt.

Therefore, the duo of cofounders spent years gaining hands-on experience across industries and geographies. However, the founders hadn’t met each other. Their destinies crossed paths at Tesla, where Jain worked as a senior engineering programme manager and Garg was the team lead of the global supply chain management wing.

After returning to India, they spent about two years helping founders working in the climate tech and deeptech domains. During this time, they also worked closely with people building solutions in robotics, automotive, battery technology, and alternative materials.

Through this, they gained insights into how businesses were being built in India. In doing so, they discovered what it takes to be a founder. After all, it takes one to be one.

They also spoke extensively with founders in Europe and the US, and university researchers and professors across the world.

In addition, they engaged with multiple researchers from leading universities across the European Union, where significant grants have been awarded for biorefinery research. It was through this network that they connected with Velankar, now the chief scientific officer and cofounder of altM.

Before launching altM, the trio of founders came together to identify critical gaps in the sustainability and materials space. They discovered two sides of the problem — first, the abundance of agricultural residues in India that is readily and cheaply available but largely underutilised, and the second was the growing global concern over chemicals that are polluting the environment.

These insights shaped the foundation of altM.

The founders chose agricultural residue as their core raw material because it remains one of the most underutilised resources globally.

“Often misunderstood as mere waste, agricultural residue has immense potential. Its two primary components are cellulose and lignin, both biopolymers. Cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer on Earth, and lignin is the second. These molecules form a strong foundation for building scalable biochemical supply chains,” Garg said.

By tapping into this overlooked input, the founders saw an opportunity to create a sustainable, abundant, and economically viable pathway for producing green chemicals and materials.

Breaking Down The altM Innovation Stack

At the heart of altM’s innovation is its proprietary biorefinery platform, altMORPH, which operates in two key stages.

The first stage is deconstruction, where lignocellulosic biomass (a collective term for agricultural and industrial waste) is broken down into its fundamental components, namely cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and sometimes silica.

“We follow a proprietary thermochemical fractionation process that is both energy-efficient and scalable. It operates at sub-200°C, under no external pressure, and uses only mild chemicals — setting it apart in terms of sustainability and cost-effectiveness,” said cofounder Jain.

The second stage is upgradation, where these core components are converted into high-value bio-chemicals and bio-based materials through a series of novel, in-house processes.

These outputs can serve a wide range of industries — from beauty and personal care to textiles, industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and even bioenergy.

According to Jain, the resulting materials are not only industrial-grade and cost-competitive but also come with a significantly lower carbon footprint than traditional chemical alternatives.

The technology for altMORPH has been in development for more than two and a half years. As a result of this deep R&D, the company has filed three patents and holds three more provisional patents.

Moving on, altM has been deeply focussed on technology and material innovation for the last three years. The founding team has invested significant time and effort in developing a proprietary process that is not only capital-efficient but also operationally lean.

“A key distinction of altM’s technology lies in its biomass agnosticism. Unlike most bioprocessing technologies, which are committed to specific feedstocks such as corn or sugarcane and limited to producing fuels or plastics, altM’s platform allows for a multi-crop to multi-material mapping, making it far more adaptable and scalable,” Garg said.

Alongside process innovation, the company has also prioritised material innovation. While complete life cycle assessments will be finalised after the pilot plant becomes operational, preliminary calculations and model-based assessments suggest that altM’s molecules are carbon-negative.

“In addition, early testing with partner companies shows that these molecules match or exceed the performance of fossil-derived chemicals,” one of the founders said, adding that the altM team has engineered these materials to deliver on the three pillars of cost, performance, and scalability to ensure that they are truly market-competitive.

With the pilot plant nearing completion, altM is shifting focus to two additional areas of innovation — supply chain design and operational efficiency. On the supply chain front, the team is building a decentralised, modular processing system based on the hub-and-spoke model. It allows localised processing near crop residue sources, significantly reducing logistics costs.

“This decentralised approach not only optimises logistics but also leads to exceptional chemical yield efficiency of over 90%, compared to sub-40% yields in traditional petrochemical processes,” Garg added.

Avoiding The Deeptech Trap

For most deeptech startups, brilliant ideas aren’t enough and commercial readiness still remains the biggest hurdle. To avoid falling into this trap, altM has stuck with a customer-first approach since the very outset.

Rather than focussing solely on research, the team actively engaged with industry partners. In 2022, altM began working with its first customer, ensuring market relevance alongside scientific innovation.

“We do research for the sake of production — our focus is always on what can be scaled. We speak to customers very early, even when we’re just at a readiness level of one or two, with only a proof of concept in the lab,” Garg said. The company’s first customer was a cosmetic formulator.

The startup began by developing ingredients used in products like face washes, toothpastes, shampoos, and conditioners — where thickeners play a key role in determining the texture and stability.

Through its proprietary process, altM created a bio-based thickener, launching its first minimum viable product (MVP) in early 2023.

Since then, the company has scaled up to developing six bio-based molecules, each tailored to a specific industry and linked to a dedicated customer.

Beyond beauty and personal care, altM aims to partner with the textile industry with a sustainable pulp for manufacturing viscose, and the wood industry with low-VOC adhesives that offer a greener alternative to conventional chemical binders.

What’s On The Cards?

The startup is now in the process of finishing its pilot manufacturing facility, which will be a critical turning point for altM. When operational, altM will shift into the early revenue generation stage.

The pilot facility has been engineered to process between 20 and 50 tonnes of biomass per year. The modular design enables altM to iterate on its portfolio of six molecules and adjust production according to demand in the marketplace.

The second phase is the buildout of altM’s initial commercial production plant, which is to be completed during the first half of 2027. The facility will step up the processing capacity to 1,000 tonnes per year.

In the future, altM also intends to expand the processing capacity from 1,000 to 2,000 tonnes a year to 4,000 tonnes. Ultimately, it aims to process 10,000 tonnes of biomass annually across multiple plants.

As of now, the company is targeting Europe as its first overseas market, particularly for sales and R&D. This is because Europe boasts an advanced ecosystem and increasing awareness about biochemicals and biomaterials.

Europe makes for an ideal destination because it is difficult to scale deeptech in India due to inadequate risk capital and protracted technology validation periods.

“Scaling up from pilot to commercial sizes necessitates high levels of funding, operational excellence and regulatory approvals,” a senior scientist at an IIT Madras incubator said.

On the demand side, these startups can face challenges from incumbent chemical players, as they command strong distribution networks and a price advantage.

All in all, altM is engineering a cleantech revolution at an industrial scale. While challenges persist, altM’s seems to be well-positioned to lead India’s next wave of deeptech innovation by decarbonising industries.

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

The post Can altM Engineer A Cleantech Revolution In The Industrial Value Chain? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Ecommerce is surging worldwide, buoyed by its convenience (as witnessed during the Covid-19 pandemic) and the deep penetration of digital technologies across businesses and industries. India is no exception. The ecommerce market in India is the eighth largest globally and is projected to reach $400 Bn+ by 2030 from a $123 Bn market opportunity in 2024, per an Inc42 report.     

Consumer behaviour has evolved, with increasing demand for faster deliveries—whether within minutes through quick commerce or same-day fulfillment. The question is whether businesses can keep pace with the complexities of quick commerce and time-bound ecommerce deliveries ranging from minutes to a few hours. Given the change in consumer behaviour with a convenience-first approach and the way delivery is undergoing a rapid transformation, it is next to impossible for traditional logistics tools and practices to handle all aspects of this business. 

Take intracity B2C logistics, for instance. Given a widely varied customer base within a specific city, businesses need to work with multiple carriers at times, ship inventories from multiple storefronts/warehouses and ensure last-mile deliveries on time for a world-class experience.

“We need the right technology platform to overhaul logistics operations and meet the requirements of new-age businesses and customers,” Ratnesh Verma, founder and CEO of Pidge, a Gurugram-based logistics intelligence platform. By combining a powerful SaaS suite with a national delivery partner network, Pidge is helping businesses—large and small—adapt to the new rules of ecommerce.

“India’s logistics sector remains fragmented and largely undigitised, leading to revenue losses and high operational costs for businesses. On a macro level, inefficiencies are further exacerbated by demand surging at 2x every three years, making it critical to address supply constraints to sustain industry growth. Pidge is enabling businesses to do more with less through its innovative solutions, ensuring seamless scalability and unhindered growth in an evolving market,” adds Verma.

Pidge Powered Network & Pidge Titan: A Close Look At The Tools Of Excellence 

Launched in 2019, Pidge was built on a simple yet a  bold idea: delivery should be infrastructure—not an afterthought. Today, it offers a mobile-first, low-code SaaS platform that connects self-delivery (1PL or first-party logistics by sellers), third-party logistics players (3PLs are the fulfilment and delivery companies optimising end-to-end operations) and second-party logistics firms (2PLs provide transportation and storage services to 3PLs) on a single stack. This Pidge Powered Network, or PPN, includes more than 500 national and regional logistics partners and covers more than 100 cities to serve businesses of every size across diverse geographies. 

Tapping into this PPN, businesses get operational agility, reduced costs, and access to real-time, intelligent delivery routing—all without needing to build or manage fleets. “We’re building India’s first unified and interoperable logistics ecosystem,” says Verma. “Instead of scaling fleets internally, brands can tap into verified and diverse local partners via Pidge.”

For businesses, this kind of integrated resource-sharing ensures operational agility, greater control over workflow and the option to select the most cost-effective delivery partner for each order. It also reduces idle time for in-house riders and boosts productivity. More importantly, when businesses have access to a seamless logistics ecosystem for fulfilling daily orders, they can devote time to R&D for innovative ideas and methods for long-term growth. For consumers, the PPN model guarantees fast, reliable delivery with full visibility every time.      

To ensure PPN’s offerings, Pidge has introduced Pidge Titan, an AI-driven capacity management and resource allocation engine to maximise fill rates. With each successful order completion, this self-learning model refines its algorithms to predict successful delivery rates and boost efficiency accurately. The platform also performs big data analytics to develop prediction models and generate actionable insights. Its smart route optimisation and real-time delivery tracking streamline operations and provide visibility throughout the shipment workflow, minimising delivery times and reducing operational costs. 

Ask Verma, and he will say excellence lies in simplicity. The platform has built robust yet affordable technology solutions for micro, small and medium businesses and big enterprises. The mobile-first, transaction-based service suite does not require a bespoke tech backbone and helps companies run logistics operations with minimal overhead. Plus, the service suite is modular, and easily scalable and deployable, making it one of the most versatile choices in the market. 

Similarly, its self-serve SaaS product allows businesses to onboard within a few minutes and access its core functionalities. While working with businesses, Pidge offers them a seamless integration via APIs, mobile applications and dashboards, ensuring operational efficiency, better customer experiences and dynamic delivery management. 

The startup claims to serve more than 10K MSMEs and achieves a remarkable 2x quarter-over-quarter growth. Businesses using the Pidge platform report an average 25-30% rise in revenue due to improved fulfilment, which gives them the confidence to scale their operations in high-potential localities. Besides, they have reduced an average of 40% in delivery times and distances and seen up to 30% dip in costs due to optimised routing and rider management tools. Even offline stores can leverage these delivery services, giving customers a Blinkit/Zepto-like user experience.

How Pidge Fosters Small Logistics Firms For Inclusive Growth

Pidge empowers local logistics players across the country, via PPN, enabling them to be digitally at par with larger delivery firms. To realise this goal, Pidge is onboarding providers from the unorganised sector and digitalising offline legacy players, making a tangible impact on local communities. 

The platform’s inclusive model has helped smaller players contribute more to the broader ecommerce industry, create jobs within communities and improve earnings. Interestingly, success stories abound. Thanks to the logistics tech startup’s seamless technology and operational integration, vendors have grown from managing one rider to operating fleets of more than 100.

“Our proprietary technology allows businesses to aggregate demand from all channels and scale accordingly. Overall, Pidge aims to transform hyperlocal logistics into a seamless, integrated ecosystem. We focus on economic inclusion, digitalising the unorganised sector and driving operational efficiency for businesses across industries,” said Verma.

Taking Charge Of Last-Mile Challenges And Data Security

As Verma operated as a logistics provider long before transitioning to a tech-first startup, he knew the complexities of last-mile deliveries and wanted to create lasting impressions among customers with cutting-edge services. Therefore, the platform deals with several challenges such as address tracking in dense areas without proper street names, COD (cash on delivery) collections, remittances and fraud prevention. It also provides local language apps to drive adoption among delivery personnel.

Another critical area is privacy and data security, which is paramount in today’s digital landscape. Pidge claims it has adopted GDPR (the General Data Protection Regulation updates and unifies data privacy laws across the EU) and sticks to SOC2 compliance, a standard assessing security measures and practices to ascertain whether customer data remains safe. 

Further, the platform has a multi-layered security architecture and runs regular audits to reinforce user privacy. These stringent measures have built trust among businesses and cemented Pidge’s reputation as a compliance-first, reliable partner.          

Pidge’s Partnership With ONDC: A New Era For Logistics In India

When the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) had a soft launch in 2022, it was expected to be another game changer like the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). But this time, it was an open network seamlessly connecting buyers, sellers and logistics providers to democratise ecommerce and integrate MSMEs into India’s digital economy.

This is in sync with Pidge’s long-term vision and expansion goals. The platform joined the ONDC ecosystem in March 2024 to drive hyperlocal and same-city deliveries. 

Aligned with ONDC’s protocols, Pidge offers scalable, affordable, and accessible logistics infrastructure to sellers across the country. For government and nonprofit partners, the platform is offered at heavily subsidised rates to boost adoption in remote regions.

“ONDC needs execution partners to drive adoption. By using AI tools and digitalising the logistics value chain, Pidge empowers businesses of all sizes to scale their operations efficiently and wants them to thrive in a fast-evolving competitive landscape. We’re building the logistics rails for India’s open digital economy,” says Verma.

Delivery Logistics Is The Next Frontier; Is Pidge Ready To Scale?

User penetration in ecommerce is expected to hit 18.9% in 2025 and 25.5% by 2029, while the share of e-retail in the total retail market may rise to 13-15% by 2028 from 8% in 2023, according to a BCG-Retailers Association of India report published in 2024. Again, a 2023 Bain & Company report put online spending at a meagre 5-6% of total retail in India versus 23-24% in the US and more than 35% in China.  

Going ahead, this spells a mammoth opportunity for Pidge, Locus & Shiprocket, part of a growing wave of logistics tech providers set to power the future of retail delivery.

“By leveraging our unified and collaborating with ONDC, we will scale our network of [logistics] partners to 50,000 in the next five years. This aligns with the hyperlocal logistics market’s projected growth to $40 Bn at a 23% CAGR, driving accessibility and operational efficiency across underserved markets​​,” shared Verma. 

There lies the need for innovative logistics tech to bridge the gap. As the traditional supply chain struggles to serve India’s diverse and fast-expanding consumer markets, platforms like Pidge are stepping in as the critical enablers of an inclusive and efficient digital commerce ecosystem. 

“We’re not a logistics company—we’re a logistics enabler,” says Verma and adds, “By turning fragmented capacity into a connected, intelligent network, we’re laying the foundation for India’s next wave of digital commerce.”

Pidge has already lowered the growth barriers for small logistics firms and their MSME customer pools. Can it emerge as a key architect of this transformative logistics landscape?

The post How Pidge Is Powering India’s Ecommerce Boom With Next-Gen Logistics Tech appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Crisp, sleek, and vertical – the macro trend in the world of entertainment is unfolding in a jiffy – in the form of microdramas. 

It took off a little later than in China, where the concept of mobile soap operas was fostered and flourished, but India seems to be catching up fast with the fad. Inc42 recently covered this trend to understand what was fuelling India’s next OTT wave, only to be intrigued by the business model and content strategy of the players. 

Up until now, social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Facebook have been the breeding ground for such short-form videos, but as these videos evolved further into bite-sized nuggets of serialised storytelling, much seems to have changed on the horizon. An entire tide of professional content producers has swarmed in to make a living from this trend. 

Not to mention, these serials span from 60 to 100 episodes, each of 30 seconds to 120 seconds duration – perfectly suited for the vertical screen format. 

“The entire content consumption format has changed. The only form of content being consumed across all sections of society today is reels. From homemakers to drivers, security guards, and professionals like you and me – everyone is watching short-form videos,” Anshuman Misraa of Reelies told Inc42. A veteran in content creation for 20-25 years, Misraa founded the startup last year as a bootstrapped early-mover in the domain. 

True to what he said, Indian microdramas have generated over 5 Mn downloads on App Store and Google Play Store of around 50 series with 10 to 60 episodes each of 90 to 180 seconds across romance, fiction, drama and sitcom, according to an EY-FICCI report. 

Microdramas unfolded at a time when the uptake of traditional formats of entertainment began losing charm because of their spiralling costs and the need for long time commitments. “It takes half-a-day to watch a two-and-a-half-hour movie at a multiplex and you need to shell out something like INR 2,000-2,500. Watching a series on an OTT platform demands at least 10-15 hours, and you tend to lose track if you pause in the middle,” he pointed out, explaining the need for on-the-go entertainment that’s cheaper and shorter.   

Misraa spotted the trend shaping up in January last year and started working on it. The success of microdramas in China into a Yuan 68 Bn (approximately $9.3 Bn) industry, and their fast sweep in the West enthused the seasoned content creator. 

“What really excited us was that, unlike traditional OTT where you’re up against giants like Netflix, Prime Video, or Hotstar, or social platforms where you’re competing with user-generated content on Instagram or Twitter, this was a space we could carve out for ourselves,” Misraa said. “The world today is hooked on to reels. Even platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn have adapted to this format.” 

Misraa thought of Reelies when the vertical soap operas began shaping into a trend. He was joined by scriptwriter Anshumali Jha, who had been with him since 2017 when Misraa was running a production house of his own. They found a third cofounder in award-winning writer and director Madhu Toolsidas as Reelies was ready to be rolled out.  

Rage Of Romcoms: The Demographic Sweetspot 

Chinese brand consultancy Miaozhen Systems found the primary audience for microdramas is aged between 25 and 54, with a significant presence of Gen Z (18-24) and working age (25-40) consumers. Specifically, 75% of microdrama viewers are 25 to 54 years old, a LinkedIn post said on the findings. 

In China, the median age of the population is 38 years, as against 28 years in India, where a 377 Mn-strong Gen Z makes up almost 40% of the 1.45 Bn populace. Together with the millennials, they are expected to make up as much as 46%, or about $1.8 Tn, of consumer spending by 2035, according to a report by Boston Consulting Group and Snapchat.

“Romance is the best bet for such an audience where we are aiming at viewers aged between 18 and 24 years, and it plays up wonderfully in this format. Going forward, we hope to expand the target age group to 44 years,” Misraa said. 

“If you look at the Chinese app ReelShort or platforms like Pocket FM or Kuku FM, the standard tropes are common. For example, stories based on hidden identities, like a guy who’s secretly a billionaire and doesn’t even know it himself, until one day his life changes. Then there are contract marriage stories. And a vampire-type thriller series. But at the core, all of them are romance.” 

Then, what makes Reelies different from its league? 

Original stories. “We’re neither copying nor licensing content from Chinese platforms and dubbing it,” claimed the founder. Until now, it has been generating content primarily in Hindi, while it has dubbed a few shows in Marathi and Kannada, too. 

The platform puts up 10 episodes every week across different series. It typically breaks a 50-episode series into five or six parts and releases them in regular intervals, instead of putting up the entire show at once.

Since December, when it went online, the platform has onboarded about half-a-million registered users. While 95% of them are Android users, the rest are on iOS. In terms of engagement, it records close to 3,000 hours of cumulative watch time a day.

“We were surprised to see there wasn’t a dip even during the IPL. In fact, viewership has grown consistently. But Sunday is the best-performing day of the week, we consistently hit record viewership,” Misraa said.

Among the existing sub-genres, hidden identity stories have hooked the audience well on the platform. One of its shows, Main Hoon Millionaire, has clocked 5 Mn views in little over a month. To ramp up organic traffic, it casts its lead actors who are mega influencers from Instagram.

The app sees strong traction from the Hindi heartland as well as in Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Punjab. The platform plans to launch original content in some regional languages like Telugu, Marathi, Bengali and Gujarati.

Reelies has seen downloads in 176 countries, but 90–95% of its user base is Indian. It finds many takers in Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and a small but visible footprint in the US and Canada.

Dreaming of the long haul, the startup wants to eventually produce original content in English, Spanish and Arabic, opening up newer geographies.

Backstage Benefits: Lean Costs, High Quality, Growing Consumers

The macros behind microdramas are interesting. While their cost of production is a meagre fraction of that of a traditional soap opera for an OTT platform, the subscription, too, costs a dime a dozen for the user. 

The vertical format radically changes the production process and the economics. Only the part of the frame that can be seen needs to be styled and art-directed, limiting the number of sets and on-screen characters. 

“You can’t put more than three or four people in a frame. So, casting is tighter, and you only dress what the camera sees,” said the founder.

This lean production approach means enormous cost savings. Actually, the startup’s entire yearly content creation budget is less than the production cost for one single mainstream OTT show, which typically stands at INR 40 Cr to INR 50 Cr. 

But, Misraa was quick to claim that low cost doesn’t necessarily mean low quality. “Microdramas do not equate to cheap content. We don’t cut corners on quality. The viewer is intelligent and can immediately identify poor video – they’re consuming everything from Reels to big-budget movies,” he said. “It’s all about optimisation, not compromise. Low-cost, high-content is the game.”

Time overrun is also nearly ruled out in the making of microdramas. The script is written within seven days by a specialised team following a fixed episode structure, and filming takes around 10 days. Since background settings are less critical in vertical format, producers often select a single location that can be made to look like various places just by changing camera angles. 

Reelies started with a freemium model to monetise its content. Earlier, the user could either watch ads after every two episodes or subscribe to go ad-free. Now the platform has converted entirely into subscription-only offerings. After five episodes of free watch, the viewers need to subscribe to watch further.

One can buy a subscription for INR 10 for a day, INR 30 for a week and INR 60 for a month. Around 60% of users opt for the daily plan, 25% go for monthly and 15% choose the weekly tier. The platform has so far onboarded around 18,000 paying subscribers.

“Everyone is still trying things out – whether coin-based unlocks or subscriptions. But, within a year, the models will settle. What’s certain is that our audience is already paying. And that’s a fantastic place to be,” the founder said.

The platform aims to produce 50–60 original programmes in its first fully operational financial year, FY26, and ramp it up to 150–200 shows in the next three years. It has set an ambitious target of onboarding 2 Mn registered users, with at least 20% converting to paid subscribers, in the first year itself. To drive this growth, the platform is toying with a subscription-only model, expected to go live by the end of the week. But that’s just one part of their strategy.

Microdramas, in fact, have more in common with mobile gaming than Hollywood.

Taking a cue from mobile gaming apps, particularly those of Chinese origin, some creators like Reelies are testing a daily episode limit model. Under this, users can watch 10-12 episodes for free each day. Once they hit the cap, they either pay to continue or wait 24 hours for the next batch to unlock.

Cliffhangers are pivotal in user retention and monetisation in this format. For the Reelies team, micro-payments and content-led nudges are the key levers for building a sustainable and scalable monetisation engine, Misraa said.

But, will it be a game-changer? “It’s all about habit-building and engagement,” he said. “Microdramas are designed with tight climaxes that make you want to watch what happens next. That urge pushes people to pay, it’s a proven hook.”

From Playhouse To Playbook: A Showstopper In The Making?  

India had around 450 Mn short-form video users at the end of 2024. The number, according to the EY study, will surpass 600 Mn by 2027, throwing open a huge market for micro episodic content platforms. 

Over the next three years, at least 20 new or existing apps are likely to enter this space, eyeing both domestic and global audiences and, given India’s diverse linguistic landscape, platforms offering regional language content will have an edge over their peers. 

Reelies zeroes in on content, as it races against startups like ReelSaga and Kuku FM’s Kuku TV. “Users don’t come for tech, they come for what they can watch. Netflix, Prime, Hotstar – each one has a content identity. That’s what drives engagement and habit,” Misraa said.

Drawing a parallel with traditional television, he explained how Star Plus became a household staple because of its specific show formats. “Over time, viewers build habits. We want to replicate that – where opening our app becomes part of the user’s daily routine.”

Even over-the-top (OTT) platforms have begun adopting microdramas in their content to attract new audiences and retain them in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Reelies has thrashed out a roadmap that includes new formats and AI-powered creation and personalisation. While AI hasn’t yet been integrated, it’s a key part of their long-term vision. “In every new industry, there’s an initial flood of players. But eventually, only four or five remain. We’re building for that endgame, and we believe we’ll be one of the survivors,” said the founder.

Hogging The Limelight: Scripting Blueprint For Success

“R for Reimagining the world of storytelling. R for Redefining the way we consume content. R for Reelies.” That’s how the startup scripted its overview on social media app LinkedIn. The advent of microdrama has indeed revolutionised storytelling and redefined content consumption habits. 

“For Reelies, innovation and variations are the two most critical aspects for creating content that can outlast the rising competition,” said the founder, as his brainchild races to sign up 2 Mn users by the time it completes one year this December.  

The global market for microdramas is expected to average a 7.1% growth rate through 2024 to 2030, when 95% mobile users in India will be armed with smartphones, counting above 1.2 Bn, and the country’s per-capita GDP will surpass $4,000, significantly boosting discretionary spending. 

But the trick lies in the conversion of free viewers into subscribers. “We need to constantly rejig the subscription model for long-term sustainability and profitability,” Misraa said. “We are deeply focussed on creative content to avert any threat of market saturation, while our push for regional content will help us reach a wider demography.” 

Legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock had said drama was nothing but life with the dull bits cut out. That’s what makes it crisp and cracking. In a rapidly evolving world of shrinking attention span, Reelies will have to rely on its agility to adapt to the changing preferences of its viewers and recreate its content for an evolving global stage that’s expected to unleash a $12 Bn opportunity by 2030 from $6.5 Bn today. 

[Edited by Kumar Chatterjee]

The post How Reelies Is Serialising Reels To Win India’s OTT War appeared first on Inc42 Media.