Even as the startup ecosystem in India is witnessing consolidation and a ‘slowdown’ in attracting funds, some startups, on Friday, came up with positive reports about raising funding and healthy turnovers.

NOIDA-based edu-tech firm ConveGenius, offering mobile solution since 2013, has raised an equity investment worth Rs 6 crore from the US-headquartered Michael & Susan Dell Foundation 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 and an IIT-Hyderabad alumnus.

The firm curates content from multiple companies like Mexus Education (Iken), StoryWeaver from Pratham Books and Chipper Sage. 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 school-going children by making learning interactive, result-oriented and fun. It is the first platform in the K-12 space in India offering learning programs that enhance grade level competencies for primary school children. It has been backed by Ashish Gupta, Founder and Trustee of Ashoka University and ex-COO and Global Head of Evalueserve in their Seed and Angel rounds apart from other angels fromSingapore, Malaysia and Australia.

The solution’s disruptive price of about Rs. 4,500 per annum has enabled its widespread adoption by NGOs across India as well as high-end learning centres in Singapore. This year, their flagship tablet-based product -- ConveGenius Slate will impact nearly 90,000 children across the country. In June 2016, ConveGenius partnered with Lenovo to launch the first learning tablet mapped to NCERT for classes KG to 5 which is currently available for parents to purchase online on Flipkart.

Similarly, 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 ex-Snapdeal CPO Anand Chandrasekaran have invested undisclosed amounts into Crownit, underlining its growing stature within the country’s entrepreneurial community, 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, Founder, FreeCharge, said that Crownit has built a sustainable marketing program for offline merchants. At scale across 25 cities and 50,000 merchants it will work beautifully. Crownit is clearly turning into the Meituan of India, he added.

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

In another case, Gurugram-based Houssup, the end-to-end interior décor platform that has gained a foothold in Tier II and III geographies, said the app-based startup has clocked a turnover of Rs. One crore since its launch in March 2016. The technology-backed startup, founded by a group of IIT-Bombay and 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 festive season as it bridges the gap between design inspiration and its implementation for home owners.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW