Amid cash crunch, a few ventures still in funds

Even as the start-up ecosystem in India witnesses consolidation and a slowdown in attracting funds, some ventures came up with positive reports on fundraising and healthy turnovers.

Noida-based edu-tech firm ConveGenius, which has been offering mobile solutions since 2013, has raised an equity investment worth ₹6 crore from US-headquartered Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. It plans to leverage the invested amount in scaling up to reach out to 30 lakh children in India and other emerging markets by 2020, said Jairaj Bhattacharya, Co-Founder-CEO, who is an IIT-Hyderabad alumnus.

The firm curates content from multiple companies such as Mexus Education (Iken), StoryWeaver from Pratham Books, and Chippersage. Prachi Windlass, Director for the Foundation’s India Education portfolio, said: “Unlike most educational tech companies that are spending all their time and resources on creating more content, ConveGenius has taken a bold approach to be a platform leveraging already available content and focus its energies on effective delivery.”

ConveGenius aims to improve learning outcomes of schoolgoing children by making learning interactive, result-oriented and fun. It claims to be the first platform in the K-12 space in India offering learning programmes that enhance grade-level competencies for primary school children. It has been backed by Ashish Gupta, founder and Trustee of Ashoka University and former COO and Global Head of Evalueserve, in its seed and angel rounds, apart from other angels from Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.

The solution’s disruptive price of about ₹4,500 per annum has enabled its widespread adoption by NGOs across India as well as high-end learning centres in Singapore. This year, its flagship tablet-based product — ConveGenius Slate — will impact nearly 90,000 children across the country, the firm said. In June 2016, ConveGenius partnered with Lenovo to launch the first learning tablet mapped to NCERT for classes KG to V, which is currently available for parents to purchase online on Flipkart.

Crownit, a local merchant discovery and privileges platform, launched in 2014, has secured funding from the founders of some of the leading tech companies in India. FreeCharge founders Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon, Freshdesk founder Girish Mathrubootham and former Snapdeal CPO Anand Chandrasekaran have invested undisclosed amounts in the online-to-offline O2O platform, said Sameer Grover, founder and CEO.

“We are building India’s largest offline deals company using app-only, cost-efficient cash-back approach, replicating the success of Meituan (China’s largest offline deals company) in India.” Kunal Shah of FreeCharge said Crownit has built a sustainable marketing programme for offline merchants. At scale across 25 cities and 50,000 merchants, it will work beautifully, he added.

Crownit has a presence in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru with over 9 lakh users and 15,000 merchants listed on the O2O platform. It is targeting to have 2 crore users and drive $1.2 billion of annual GMV across 25 cities in India by 2019.

Gurugram-based, end-to-end interior décor platform Houssup, which has gained a foothold in Tier II and III geographies, said the app-based start-up has clocked a turnover of ₹1 crore since its launch in March 2016. The technology-backed firm, founded by a group of IIT-Bombay and IIT-Roorkee alumni, has also enrolled 100 premium interior designers and has over 50 ongoing projects in hand.

It has a global community of interior designers and architects who offer design ideas and implementation, said Hemant Singh, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer. The company is targeting a grand turnover of Rs₹10 crore by the end of this year’s festival season.

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