Seventeen early-stage startups raised about $166.8 million, like mPokket, Ema, Hunch and Rozana, among others….reports Asian Lite News
At least 27 startups in India raised about $307.8 million this week, which includes 17 early-stage and seven growth-stage companies.
Nearly 32 early and growth-stage startups raised more than $384 million last week, startup news portal Entrackr reported on Saturday.
Seventeen early-stage startups raised about $166.8 million, like mPokket, Ema, Hunch and Rozana, among others.
Startups based in Delhi-NCR led the funding with 10 deals, followed by Bengaluru at 9 deals.
Digital lending platform mPokket raised up to Rs 500 crore (around $60 million) in debt capital from BPEA Credit’s private credit platform.
mPokket said that the funds will be used to meet the growing credit demand from its 24 million registered customer base while accelerating product development in the career accelerator and insurance verticals.
Rural e-commerce startup Rozana received $22.5 million in the latest funding round. The round was led by the investment firm Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) with participation from the VC firm Fireside Ventures and existing investors.
“With this funding, we will continue building out our logistics and supply chain infrastructure to reach new districts and empower rural communities with access to essential products,” Ankur Dahiya, CEO and Co-founder of Rozana, said in a statement.
Generative AI solutions provider Ema announced a $25 million funding round and the launch of a novel “universal AI employee.”
More than 1.14 lakh startups in India have created over 12 lakh jobs so far, the Finance Ministry said in its latest review of the Indian economy.
IndiaAI Mission Boosts Innovation in Startup Ecosystem
The industry leaders on Friday hailed the government’s IndiaAI Mission initiative, the country’s first artificial intelligence (AI) mission that was approved with an outlay of Rs 10,371.92 crore.
The IndiaAI Mission will establish a comprehensive ecosystem catalysing AI innovation through strategic programmes and partnerships across the public and private sectors.
“The focus on funding deep tech AI startups, developing open source databases, as well as domain-specific large language models will play an instrumental role in fueling AI innovation in the country, making India a global leader in harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence,” said Tilakraj Parmar, Co-Founder & CEO, QX Lab AI.
He also mentioned that the government’s move to provide financial support and a strategic roadmap for AI integration will act as a catalyst for economic growth and innovation.
Prashanth Kaddi, Partner, Consulting, Deloitte India, said that this move gives a fillip to the startup ecosystem “to drive innovation helping India leapfrog into areas such as text summarisation, video/image generation, and next-gen chatbots etc., including enablement across Indian languages”.
The Mission will be implemented by ‘IndiaAI’ Independent Business Division (IBD) under Digital India Corporation (DIC).
According to an official, the approved IndiaAI Mission will propel innovation and build domestic capacities to ensure the tech sovereignty of the country.
It will also create highly skilled employment opportunities to harness the demographic dividend of the country.
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