Privacy management and fraud prevention. Its products mask sensitive data, and also detect and prevent synthetic identity fraud. Compliant with India's Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act. Seed round, amount undisclosed. Founder Sudhir led the Banking and Financial Services practice at Vaco (recruitment firm) for 10 years.

B2B auto spare parts marketplace for independent workshops. Currently in Gurgaon with an "on-demand retail" model, i.e. quick delivery. $1M seed round. Other investors in the round: 1947 Rise, a dozen angels. The founder, Vivek, was the Head of Business at Spinny for four years, prior to which he was Co-Founder at Stichio, a social network. Comps: SparesHub (Anthill), Boodmo, Koovers (acquired by Schaeffler), TyrePlex (PeerCapital).

Dashcams for retail customers and fleet operators. Dashcams now come with ADAS and driver monitoring (for fatigue etc.). Fleet customers include Shoffr, Euro Cars, Namma Yatri, Cityflo. ₹11CR seed round. Other investors in the round: Infinyte Club; MeitY through PIEDS-BITS Pilani; Gajendra Jangid and Vikram Chopra (CARS24). Founders: Ankit is from Bounce and Bounce Infinity; Pranjal was an EIR at Antler and a coder at Dream11, Urban Company. Comps: Safe Cams and NEXDIGITRON (not funded).

D2C fast fashion brand, focused on western and party wear for women aged 17 to 27. Launched this Feb through D2C and marketplaces, sourcing from ~30 factories in India and abroad. "Quick react" model - launches styles with low MOQs and scales those which show high adoption. ₹30CR (~$3.5M) seed round. Eight angels participated including Ramakant Sharma (Livspace), Ghazal Alagh (Mamaearth). Founders: Nikhil, ex-Myntra, was the CEO of Styli, a fast fashion brand in the Middle East by Landmark Group; Mani is from Max Fashion (also Landmark Group), Myntra; Justin led supply chain at Styli. Comps: Berrylush.

AI-led DevOps platform. Devs can deploy code and infrastructure autonomously across multi-cloud platforms, reducing dependency on DevOps teams. ₹1.4CR pre-seed round. Founders: Kalpesh was the first salesperson at ZoomInfo acquired Insent.ai (the founders of which are investing in this round); Vedant is from BrowserStack.

AI tutor for every student - personalised, affordable. AI tutors for India (PadhAI for UPSC aspirants) and the US (EverTutor for GRE prep). Now launching EverTutor Live, an 1:1 AI Tutor that thinks, listens, talks, draws and teaches on a video call. $9.5M seed. Other investors in the round: General Catalyst, Peak XV, Calibrate Ventures, Courtyard. CEO Karttikeya (IIT-B, PhD in AI from UC Berkeley), was a Visiting Research Scientist at DeepMind and Meta during his PhD. Co-Founder and Advisor Kurt Keutzer is an AI researcher at Berkeley. Comps: Arivihan (GSF, Accel).

Nanomaterials for energy storage. Has developed ion-selective membranes that serve as critical components for electrolysers used in green hydrogen production and for redox flow batteries in long duration energy storage (LDES) systems. Existing membranes fall short in durability, efficiency or cost-effectiveness - solving these is critical for the clean energy transition. ₹25CR seed round - Ankur Capital's first deal from Fund III. The startup is Philadelphia and BLR based. The founders are material scientists. Murari has been working on this for the last six years, almost straight out of U-Penn; Nagesh spent 10 years at Thermax and was Founder in Residence at Entrepreneur First.

AI-integrated medical device for early disease detection - scans a person's health in 60 seconds without the need for a doctor. 700 biomarkers are monitored with patents in India (US pending). ₹6.6CR (~$770K) seed round. Other investors in the round: Sanchi Connect. Both founders are engineers: Saniya started almost straight out of the Symbiosis University of Applied Sciences; Lokant out of IIM-Lucknow. (BTech at IET DAVV Indore). Comps: Prantae Solutions (IAN); Neuranics (IPV) - much more specific use cases.

Homegrown watch brand - precision mechanical watches - ₹8-20K price points ($100-250). Sold only through its website - a D2C brand that earns its label. ₹25CR (~$3M) FY25 revenue, wants to double this FY. India's luxury watch market is ₹10K CR (~$1.1B) - this is not luxury but you can understand the aspirational positioning. ₹6.5CR (~$750K) angel round (investors undisclosed) at a ₹45CR ($5.2M) valuation. Co-Founder Mustafa's only profession: watchmaking. Comps: here is a nice user review comparing Argos and the classic Indian brand - HMT - https://www.watchcrunch.com/siddharthb/posts/a-tale-of-two-indian-watch-brands-one-old-and-one-new-389530

QSR chain of fresh fruit juice bars, starting with one location in Indiranagar, ₹99+ price points. This is India, so the juice bar also does burgers. "Drinking juice from a place you can trust for transparency, value and quality, all at an unbelievable price point.” $1.2M seed round from Prakash Sikaria (Super.money), Ravi Iyer (Flipkart), Arpan Sheth (Bain) and others. Abhishek and Vikram were Head of Marketing and Head of Business Strategy & Growth respectively at 4700BC, the popcorn brand. That brand, incidentially, is at ₹125CR of revenue for FY25.