Food-tech startup offering non-refrigerated plant-based protein products - mixes for samasos, momos, kebabs and so on. The impact angle - it aims to reduce protein deficiency in markets with limited cold chain infrastructure, while also reducing emissions compared to the farming, production and transport of non-vegetarian, cold-chain dependent products. The company has 30 B2B clients, including food manufacturers and HoReCa customers. The company is looking beyond India, to West Africa and other markets. Founders: the CEO co-founded Wok Hospitality (cloud kitchen with 20 locations).

AI-enabled astrology platform. AI is used to crunch astrological data while a network of vedic astrologers provide consultations. It has a registered user base of 30-40K, with 11 in-house astrologers. The model is pay per minute, with sessions starting at 5 minutes and going up to 20-40 minutes. $1.5M seed round. Angels in the round: Sumer Juneja and Sarthak Mishra (Softbank). Founders: the CEO founded bootstrapped Yeebo (Indian ethnic products marketplaced), before heading B2C Product at Atlys; the CTO had brief stints as tech lead at Atlys and Ripin, and co-founded Now&Me (mental health). Comps: Ask My Guru (Lumikai), Astrotalk (Elev8). India's "spiritual market" was ~$59B in 2023, of which 1.5% is online so far. The horoscope segment is $10B.

Privacy compliance and data governance startup. $400K pre-seed round. The founder is based in the Netherlands, started a dev firm there and was also the CIO of Mobinck (the incubation arm of AutoBinck Group).

Logistics startup providing last mile delivery for D2C brands and e-commerce sellers. It operates a network of dark stores, offering 4-hour, same day and next day delivery. It processes 15,000 orders a day, helping brands reduce RTOs and increase on-time delivery. ₹6.5CR seed round. Founders: the CEO managed procurement at Greaves Electric, Ola and Honda Motorycles; the COO was former COO at GO with DOT (last mile delivery).

SaaS product that enables live video eCommerce for brands as well as shoppable reels. It combines live video shopping, Agentic AI and conversational commerce to reduce bounce rates and drive engagement up by 2x, as well as increase sales by up to 30%. It has over 300 clients from Manyavar to Thomas Cook. $300K seed round. It had previously raised from 100x and Pentathlon Ventures. Founders: The CEO comes from Publicis Sapient (heading Cloud Managed Services) and Infosys; the CTO is from Publicis Sapient and Globallogic.

Chain of skincare clinics. "Korin": Korea+India, "Mi" = Beauty. ₹3CR pre-seed round led by angels including Vikas Agarwal (Kaya Skin Clinic UAE), Vivek Kumar (VentureGarage). Currently operates from two locations in NCR (Worldmark, Defence Colony), with 25 outlets planned over the next three years (entering Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad). The company is also launching its own skincare brand, sold D2C and via Nykaa etc. “We are formalising a new category in professional Korean skincare tailored for Indian consumers with a high-trust clinical approach". Founders: the CEO was a Senior Brand Manager at Mars (confectionary), the COO is a cosmetologist.

Gut-health D2C brand, as the name suggests. It offers at-home testing kits (a saliva-based pH test for acidity) along with clinically validated Ayurveda-inspired nutraceutical supplements. $360K raised in this extended seed round. It has previously raised $500K at seed. Founders: Mukul, ex-NestAway, was the Founder & COO of YoloBus. Mansi is ex-Honeywell and managed Customer Experience at YoloBus.

Lab grown diamond and polki jewellery brand. Targetting ₹60CR this FY, from ₹14CR in FY25. Current stores: Delhi, Noida, Mumbai, Surat, Nagpur - now opening in Chandigarh and Ahmedabad. However, IG+their own website contribute 60% of sales. ₹2CR seed round. Founder Ayushi Jindal is from Pearl Academy and was the founder of House of Her (fashion brand). Comps: Firefly Diamonds (WestBridge), True Diamond (Titan, Huddle, Zeropearl), COLUXE (angels), Fiona Diamonds (Venture Catalysts, AC Ventures), Limelight Lab Grown Diamonds, Jewelbox (V3)

Offline social networking platform from the founder of Aisle. Launched last September, the product is in its early days - focused on getting the number of jams (group hangouts offline) to 500 a week. Aiming at a weekly frequency use case - "we've consistently seen over 40% weekly activity from our core member base". The company is also testing a second unnamed product in beta mode - "a link-in-bio to turn visitors into friends, clients, teammates and more". Seed round, amount undisclosed. Founder Able Joseph built dating app Aisle over a decade and sold 76% of it for ₹91CR to InfoEdge in 2022. Aisle has ~1M MAU today, made ₹35CR for IndoEdge in FY24 and is now focused on getting to profitability.

AI-driven English learning platform. Offers a voice-first tutor for English as a second language. Users improve their spoken English - across fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. The app has 4M installs, ~500K MAUs and 45K paying users. Expansion will focus on Latin America (40% of revenue today) and South East Asia. The majority of users are already outside India. $3.75M Pre-Series A round. Other investors in the round: Rebright, Force Ventures, GradCapital, Operators Studio. The founders started building Stimuler midway through college - three are from IIT BHU, the fourth, CTO Akshat Baranwal (not linked below) is from IIIT Allahabad.