As India’s startup funding landscape continues to reach new heights, 9Unicorns—leading accelerator and VC fund (and its parent firm Venture Catalysts)—fundraised $108 million for 32 portfolio companies in their first ever virtual Demo Day. 9Unicorns is on a mission to strengthen early-stage investing and help create potential Unicorns.
70% of the startups received interest and subscriptions from nearly 900 participating VCs from 18 countries in the two-day event.
A first cohort of 32 startups were mentored those for the global demo day (D Day) of which about 45 % of the startup founders were either serial entrepreneurs or have previously worked in a startup setup, infers that investor sentiment for 2x entrepreneurs is high.
Demo Day, held August 11-12, witnessed sizable participation from women founders.
30% of the participating startups are led by women founders. 9Unicorns and Venture Catalysts are dedicated to reinforcing support for women founders who often struggle to access capital despite massive liquidity in the startup ecosystem.
Co-founded by Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anil Jain, Anuj Golecha, and Gaurav Jain, the Mumbai-based $72 million sector-agnostic funds provide up to $100k per startup in the first round and up to $2 million in successive matches with its ecosystem of co-investors.
“We are overwhelmed with the response from the global investor community on our first demo-day. It speaks volumes about the positive sentiment in international VCs for Indian tech startups. A few of them individually raised over $20 million during demo day. While a few of them have closed deals, a few have received investment interests, and we hope to complete their respective rounds in the next few weeks. The idea is to conduct at least threee such demo days in a year,” said Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma said, Co-founder and President of 9Unicorns.
Take a look at the startups that participated in Demo Day below:
ByteLearn: This edtech startup built an AI assistant to create adaptive learning tools for kids learning math.
Pariksha: A vernacular Edtech startup to provide affordable education to students in rural India.
ImaginXP: A social impact higher education platform that provides embedded degrees, online work-integrated degrees, and subjects to universities in a B2B model.
Tamasha: An ideal platform for content creators and social media influencers to interact with their fans.
Rooter: Allows gamers to join popular streamers, upload gaming videos or images, and create content.
Power Gummies: Power Gummies has created chewable vitamin gummies for healthy hair and nails.
PeeSafe: A female hygiene company making hygiene products like sanitary pads, menstrual cups, and even personal wash products for both men and women.
TruNativ: An environmentally conscious food brand founded by Pranav and Mamta Malhotra in 2019. Its F&B aims to tackle urban malnourishment.
Raskik: A natural fusion fruit juice brand for millennials at just Rs 30 !.
Coutloot is the largest social commerce platform to buy and sell online in under 30 seconds on a bargain.
EvenFlow: India’s Thrasio. It offers to manage inventory, performance marketing, on-platform merchandising, cataloging, and new product development to third-party brands that raise revenue through e-commerce.
ExtraaEdge: This SaS based edtech is empowering admission teams across the globe to make intelligent, data-driven decisions.
Eunimart: AI-powered SaaS platform for businesses to grow online by leveraging intelligence, reducing cost, and improving efficiency.
Prescinto: AI-powered SaaS platform to collect clean energy plant data and apply data science models to identify causes for underperformance.
GeoIQ: It assists some of India’s leading brands with live data insights for some of the most crucial business decisions involving consumers on a day-to-day basis.
Gully Network: |Building India’s largest asset-light modern retail network of tech-enabled mid-sized grocery stores in tier 1 and 2 cities.
Hesa: One-stop solution for corporates, banks, governments, and NGOs to explore and invest in rural India.
BluSmart: India’s first and largest zero-emission ride service that operates a fleet of 400 cabs in the South Delhi-Gurugram region.
Zypp Electric: EV-based last-mile delivery company with battery swapping infrastructure.
Charge+ Zone: One-stop solution to locate charging points, booking slots for charging, and payment through QR code.
Klub: A revenue-based finance firm that uses data analytics to provide capital to brands across sectors.
Inai: It enables merchants to set up their payment stack with a single integration .
Numadic : It revolutionizes India’s fleet management system using analytical data.
Castler: Uses technology and innovation to digitize escrow accounts for safer transactions.
Homeville: A fintech housing credit enablement network built on open banking principles, creating significant operating leverage with a technology stack built in-house.
EnsuredIT: Empowers end customers and insurance intermediaries with AI-based product platform for transformational customer experience.
OTO: Offers customers a convenient option to finance their vehicle by introducing two-wheeler leasing in India.
Janani : AI-based sexual dysfunction and infertility treatment provider.
Alpha AI: Helps businesses design as well as redesign the AI system based on the prevalent business needs.
Hoopr: India’s first AI-powered music licensing marketplace, built to soundtrack the world’s burgeoning video creator economy.
Instoried: Helps large companies humanize their marketing and communications content with a data-driven, scalable, and repeatable approaches using AI.
Rezolve.ai: SaaS based employee service desk platform built for Microsoft Teams, designed to help address problems in terms of low self-service adoption, slow service, and long wait times.