Fintech that offers micro surety bonds to MSMEs, providing collateral-free alternatives to traditional bank guarantees. ₹22CR (~$2.6M) seed round. Other investors in this round: AngelList. Aditya and Rajeev were co-founders of Numberz (receivables management, acquired by Chargebee); Mukand is from Aon, Tata AIG.

EV charging network with a dual approach - high-speed DC chargers for highways; along with a decentralized network of chargers in urban hubs. Any electric vehicle owner can purchase the DeCharge charger, install it and start earning as a host while saving on their own charging costs. Built on the Solana blockchain. $2.5M seed round. Other investors in this round: EV3 Labs, Chainyoda Jedis, Levitate Labs. Two of the three founders built a startup offering Metaverse-as-a-Service to brands; the third was Head of Blockchain at Chingari. Comps: Greenie Energy, funded last December. Greenie is focused on the India market, DeCharge seems to be building for a global market.

Remittances platform focused on NRIs in the US for now. Claims 500K monthly transacting users and $110-120M in remittances processing in the last 12 months. The app goes beyond remittances - users can earn rewards and get cash back on various services, including live sports (cricket) streaming, grocery shopping and OTT subscriptions. $14M seed round. Nishkaam was Head of Mobile Strategy and Growth at Hulu before joining Times Internet to create Times Club, a super app in 2019, which was spun off as Abound in 2023. Lots of activity in cross border payments in recent months: HiWiPay, Dodo Payments, Rupeeflo, Infinity.

OSSO = One Stop Solution for Orthopaedics. Omnichannel orthopaedics platform, with it's first centre in Gurgaon. $250K pre-seed round by Blume Founders Fund and angels including Sahil Jindal (DS Jindal Group), Akash Gupta (Zypp Electric), Varun Sheth / Zaheer Adenwala (Ketto), Brijraj Bhuptani (SPRY), Umesh Agarwal (Haldiram’s Family Office). Kunal was the founder of Navia Life Care (healthcare CRM), ex-Dr Reddy's, Fresenius. Avani is also a former founder with degrees in Molecular Biology. Comps: GSF/IvyCap funded FlexifyMe; Endiya funded Nivaan Care. Everyone is going omnichannel.

Pre-launch (a prerequisite for this category?) beauty and personal care brand. ₹5CR pre-seed round. Founder Aparna was Partner at Good Capital. Complex routines are now making way for simpler, all-in-one products - "I identified a critical gap in India's personal care market. Women were overwhelmed by complex routines and multiple products marketed as "essential," yet they struggled to find solutions that delivered meaningful results. I want Indian women to feel less burdened by endless routines and get more value for their investments in personal care products". Recent funding in the BPC space - Indē Wild, Sammmm.

Aerospace startup developing advanced propulsion and power systems. Its first three engine prototypes will undergo trials with local UAV manufacturers, reducing India's dependence on imported propulsion systems. Its small gas turbines also have uses cases for decentralised power generation for the oil & gas and manufacturing industries. $3M seed round. All three founders are ex Rolls Royce and GE.

Lab grown diamonds. Going from 4 to 20 stores in the next two years, currently in Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad. $3M seed round. Two brothers - Adit is from WestBridge and BCG; Aayush worked at family business Prism Jewellery, a manufacturer of traditional diamond jewellery. Comps: COLUXE, Fiona Diamonds, Limelight Lab Grown Diamonds, Jewelbox.

AI driven audit and compliance automation. $1M seed round. The three founders worked together at Spyne (AI to improve visuals for used car retailing), in sales, product and AI roles.

One-stop-shop to help students answer all their questions regarding colleges, courses and exams - covering 6,000 institutions across 500 cities. Content on the platform is a funnel to drive 1-1 counselling sessions. Seed round of an undisclosed amount. Sanjay was CBO at Collegedunia.

Ride-hailing platform operating on zero commission, fixed monthly subscriptions fees for drivers. Claims to be the only platform with an LOI to operate auto services in Chennai; 45,000 drivers; 75,000 passengers (monthly or till date, unknown). Operates in Chennai, Salem, Tiruppur, Erode, Coimbatore. ₹1.5CR seed round. The founder Pinku was CTO and then CEO of Remote Backup Services. Comps: Rapido, Namma Yatri - Uber itself has moved to the zero subscription model for autos this February.