Companies Littlebox, Flexprice, and others receive funding; Vahan.ai purchases a learning platform for upskilling
In the world of entrepreneurship, early-stage funding can be a game-changer for startups, enabling them to scale operations, enhance product development, and forge strategic partnerships. Here's a roundup of how some Indian startups have leveraged this funding to propel their growth and expansion plans.
Vahan.ai
Vahan.ai, a recruitment platform focused on blue-collar workers, secured strategic investment from LemmaTree, an investment firm founded by Temasek. With this funding, Vahan.ai has been refining its AI and machine learning models to provide better data analytics and credit risk solutions for financial inclusion. The startup aims to expand its partnerships with fintech companies, banks, and NBFCs, and to offer more comprehensive financial analysis tools. Vahan.ai has already placed over 1 million workers across 920 cities and facilitates about 40,000 placements per month.
Wah! Puchka Wah! Litti
Wah! Puchka Wah! Litti, a quick service restaurant startup offering iconic Indian street foods, raised $230,000 in funding led by Sagar Daryani, Abhishek Rungta, and other angel investors. The funds have been utilised to expand their outlet network, improve supply chain efficiencies, and market their brand aggressively. Their growth strategy combines scaling physical outlets with an increased focus on cloud kitchen models and food delivery platforms. Wah! Puchka Wah! Litti currently operates 18 outlets in Kolkata, serving over 200,000 customers, and plans to open 19 more outlets in Kolkata and set up 100 outlets across six metro cities in the next two years.
Littlebox
Littlebox, a fast fashion brand based in Guwahati, raised Rs 17.5 crore in its maiden funding round. Founded in 2022 by Rimjim Deka and Partha Kakati, Littlebox offers trend-led fashion for Gen Z shoppers and operates on a real-time retail model with weekly product drops. The funds will be used to enhance the platform's capabilities, deepen industry integrations, and expand domestically and internationally. Littlebox's growth strategy emphasises forming partnerships with consumer goods companies to embed their NFC-enabled packaging at scale and investing in expanding their tech capabilities to offer richer consumer engagement analytics.
DesignX
DesignX, a digital transformation platform for factory operations, secured $2 million in a pre-Series A round. The funding was from Rockstud Capital, We Founder Circle, Piper Serica, and some of its clients. Founded in 2015 by brothers Rajat and Nishant Srivastava, DesignX digitizes operations for manufacturers through its flagship offering, Digital Factory Operating System (Df-OS). The startup will primarily deploy the capital to enhance its proprietary tech stack, including the development of advanced AI capabilities for large-scale, multilingual recruitment. DesignX plans to expand domestically and internationally, aiming to become the go-to platform for factory digitalisation.
Flexprice
Flexprice, a billing and metering platform, has raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding. Founded this year by Manish Choudhary, Koshima Satija, and Nikhil Mishra, Flexprice offers developers a modular billing layer, supporting usage-based and hybrid pricing. The funding will be used to expand its engineering team, accelerate integrations with popular payment gateways, and deepen its open-source offerings. With this funding, Flexprice aims to revolutionise the way businesses manage their billing processes, providing a flexible and scalable solution for businesses of all sizes.
- Vahan.ai aims to expand its partnerships with fintech companies, banks, and NBFCs, utilizing the funding to offer more comprehensive financial analysis tools and refine its AI and machine learning models for better data analytics and credit risk solutions, focusing on financial inclusion.
- Wah! Puchka Wah! Litti's growth strategy combines scaling physical outlets with an increased focus on cloud kitchen models and food delivery platforms, using their recent funding to expand their outlet network, improve supply chain efficiencies, and market their brand aggressively.
- Littlebox plans to enhance its platform's capabilities, deepen industry integrations, and expand domestically and internationally, emphasizing forming partnerships with consumer goods companies to embed their NFC-enabled packaging at scale and investing in expanding their tech capabilities to offer richer consumer engagement analytics.
