Fertility Startup Pluro Raises ₹125 Cr in Series A Funding Led by Bessemer Venture Partners at ₹ 1,000 Crore Valuation

Pluro Fertility and IVF, a healthcare partnership platform, today announced that it has raised Rs. 125 Crore in Series A funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners at a valuation of Rs. 1,000 Crores. The round marks a key milestone in Pluro's mission to partner with India's most accomplished fertility specialists and help millions of Indian women and men realize their dream of parenthood. Prominent angels such as Vikram Chatwal (MediAssist), Dharmil Sheth & Hardik Dedhia (PharmEasy/All Home), Salil Musale (Astarc Ventures), Shalibhadra Shah and Niket Shah (Motilal Oswal), Karan Kapur (K Hospitality), also participated in this round.

Founded in 2025 by Dr. Jaydeep Tank, Dr. Parikshit Tank, and Dr. Bhaskar Shah, Pluro partners with successful independent IVF specialists across India through a clinical partnership model that preserves doctor autonomy while offering centralized operational support. This enables clinicians to focus entirely on patient outcomes while scaling their practices sustainably. Pluro plans to have 25 fertility centers pan-India by March 2026, each in partnership with a leading fertility specialist with at-least a decade of exceptional clinical expertise.

Dr. Jaydeep Tank, co-founder & CEO of Pluro Fertility

“India’s most respected fertility specialists have spent decades building trusted patient relationships and delivering consistent clinical outcomes. Operational bottlenecks and bandwidth limit their ability to scale and invest in technology and infrastructure. Pluro solves for this and enables them to serve couples truly becoming partners in the journey to Parenthood enabled by Tech, research, great infrastructure and state of the art care” said Dr. Jaydeep Tank, co-founder & CEO of Pluro Fertility, on behalf of the Founders. Pluro supports everything outside the consultation room - so doctors can do what they do best: help create families.”

Pluro manages all non-clinical functions across partner clinics, including practice management, technology, compliance and marketing. The platform provides each partner doctor with equity participation, aligning incentives across the network and enabling wealth creation for doctors as Pluro grows.

Pluro plans to have a pan-India presence with the initial 25 fertility partners scaling up to 100+ clinics within 3 years. Pluro will use the fresh capital to expand its network presence, invest in technology, and deepen clinical capabilities in advanced reproductive science.

“India needs scalable, credible fertility care now more than ever,” said Nithin Kaimal, Partner and COO at Bessemer Venture Partners India. “Pluro brings together world-class medical leadership and a thoughtful partnership model for doctors, backed by strong execution. We are excited to partner with them to build India’s leading fertility platform.”

Pluro brings together three industry leaders with deep medical and operational expertise:

• Dr. Jaydeep Tank: Leading Gynaeocologist, amongst the earliest adopters of IVF in India; helped establish 20+ clinics, Immediate Past President of FOGSI.,
• Dr. Parikshit Tank: A Leading Gynaecologist and IVF specialist with over 80 peer-reviewed publications and author of four medical textbooks Deputy Secretary General of FOGSI.,
• Dr. Bhaskar Shah: Leading Cardiologist and Co-founder of Asian Heart Institute & Co-Founder, Board Member and Head of Dept. of Cardiology of Jupiter Hospitals (listed healthcare company)

Bessemer Venture Partners Unveils AI Services Roadmap - Projects IT Sector to Reach $400B by 2030

Bessemer Venture Partners revealed an AI services roadmap today - their thesis on how AI native companies will disrupt India’s $264 billion IT services sector.

India’s IT services exports form the backbone of global technology and is a powerhouse driving digital transformation worldwide. Today the industry stands at a generational crossroads. As large language models (LLMs) and AI disrupt traditional, people-heavy outsourcing methods, both global enterprises and nimble startups are disrupting traditional delivery models.

Before the current wave of AI-native disruption, India’s IT services giants had perfected a powerful operating playbook-built on three pillars:

• a vast and skilled talent pool,
• strong cost arbitrage, and
• the ‘follow-the-sun delivery’ model.

Despite fears of displacement after the rise of ChatGPT and other LLMs, Indian IT services revenues and margins remain resilient. Enterprises still rely on these firms for complex projects, where embedded engineers and subject matter experts provide business-specific context that AI alone can’t capture.

Yet, seamless transformation into an AI native world is hindered by billable-hour models, standardized entry-level workforces, and low R&D spend (under 2% versus over 20% for global product firms). In essence, the growth of large, traditional IT and outsourcing firms remains driven by headcount rather than productivity gains.

AI-first startups and platforms are already proving their ability to deliver outcomes that are better, faster, and more cost-efficient. They benefit from:Exceptionally skilled founding teams with deep domain expertise
AI-driven, product/platform-first mindsets
Rapid time-to-value and measurable ROI
Usage or outcome-based pricing. 

Bessemer has identified three fast-emerging categories of AI-first challengers poised to disrupt existing service models:

• Pure software plays: intelligent platforms that fully automate tasks end-to-end-delivering high-speed, scalable outputs with minimal human input. Eg: Graph AI , Leena AI
• AI enabled services - hybrid models blend AI automation with human‑in‑the‑loop (HITL) oversight. Example: Crescendo and Shopdeck
• Services for AI - These firms supply the data, model operations infrastructure, and evaluation capabilities needed to build net new AI solutions. Eg: Scale, Turing

Bessemer highlights seven key factors that determine a challenger’s ability to truly disrupt incumbents: team quality, platform stickiness, time-to-value, margins, distribution, pricing strategy, and market focus.

India’s IT services industry is projected to exceed $400B by 2030, as AI fundamentally reshapes how enterprises source and deliver technology. While AI-driven efficiencies will compress pricing in the short term, the exponential growth in AI capabilities will dramatically expand both the propensity and ability of global enterprises to outsource complex workflows. This next wave of outsourcing will fuel the sector’s growth, with AI-first products and startups poised to capture outsized value by delivering smarter, faster, and more adaptive solutions.

Graph AI Raises $3M to Automate Drug Safety with Context-Aware Intelligence

Graph AI, a California-based AI life sciences company focused on patient safety and pharmacovigilance, announced the close of its $3 million Seed round, led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The investment will enable Graph AI to accelerate product innovation, expand its engineering team, and drive global market adoption.

Graph stands out as a prime example of the new wave of AI-native challengers reshaping the pharma and life sciences landscape, with a sharp focus on the $8 billion pharmacovigilance market. Pharmacovigilance, mandated by global drug regulatory authorities, requires pharmaceutical companies to continuously monitor, detect, and report adverse drug events (ADE) across a drug’s entire lifecycle, from clinical trials to post-market use, ensuring patient safety and regulatory compliance.

Pharmaceutical companies have traditionally relied on large service firms to manually extract and process data from a wide range of unstructured sources, call center transcripts, legal filings, medical literature, emails, and even social media posts. These firms employ vast teams of pharmacology graduates who sift through hundreds of thousands of documents to assess the causality of ADEs, prepare and submit regulatory reports across multiple jurisdictions, and recommend follow-up actions. The existing workflows are highly fragmented, labor-intensive, and reactive, resulting in operational silos that slow down case processing, signal detection, regulatory reporting, and overall compliance.

The company’s flagship platform, Graph Safety, is redefining pharmacovigilance through context-aware artificial intelligence and intelligent automation, delivering a truly end-to-end safety solution. Already deployed with leading enterprise customers, Graph Safety automates key processes including ADE case processing, signal detection, aggregate reporting, and regulatory compliance, while building a centralized safety intelligence database over time.

By keeping a human-in-the-loop only for select regulatory-mandated steps, Graph enables pharmaceutical companies to transition from manual, error-prone, and time-intensive workflows to highly automated, AI-driven systems that enhance the efficiency and accuracy of medical reviews while ensuring full regulatory compliance.

Founded in 2024, Graph AI is led by Raghav Parvataraju (CEO), Vijay Ponukumati (CTO), Mohan Konyala (CPO), and Ashutosh Bordekar (CFO), industry veterans with significant experience across leading global organizations including LTI Mindtree, Infosys, ServiceNow, Google and Cisco. Their deep expertise in technology, outsourcing, and enterprise operations has been instrumental in shaping Graph’s vision to transform pharmacovigilance through AI-driven innovation.

In just over a year since its inception, Graph AI has delivered remarkable traction and tangible results. Its proprietary AI models demonstrate exceptional accuracy, ensuring consistent classification and complete data extraction from both structured and unstructured sources. Enterprise customers have reported up to 70% efficiency gains, 90% faster regulatory reporting, and substantial cost savings all while maintaining end-to-end traceability and audit readiness. Today, Graph’s platform has built a strong pipeline across more than 7,000 marketed drugs, reflecting growing demand from enterprise customers and the expanding scope of pharmacovigilance modernization.

In a joint statement, the founders said: “The life sciences industry continues to grapple with outdated technology, fragmented point solutions, data silos, and manual handoffs that hinder decision-making and elevate compliance risks. At Graph AI, we’re addressing these challenges with a unified, AI-native safety platform that integrates context, compliance, and intelligence into a single seamless ecosystem. Our vision is to make patient safety smarter, faster, and more connected, empowering pharmaceutical and biotech enterprises to achieve safer outcomes, stronger regulatory confidence, and exponential efficiency across safety operations.”

Nithin Kaimal, Partner and COO at Bessemer Venture Partners India, said: “We’re excited to partner with Graph AI as they redefine labour intensive and inefficient pharmacovigilance workflows through AI-native solutions that prioritize both accuracy and scalability. At Bessemer, we’re deeply optimistic about the transformative potential of AI products to reimagine traditional services models as for the first time, delivery is shifting from labour arbitrage to intelligence arbitrage, empowering enterprises to work with firms that deliver faster, smarter, and more adaptive solutions. We look forward to supporting the Graph team as they continue to scale new heights.”

Bessemer Venture Partners leads $28 million Series B in Seekho

Seekho today announced that it has secured $28 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Goodwater Capital and existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Elevation Capital.

Seekho founders

Founded in 2020 by Rohit Choudhary, Keertay Agarwal and Yash Banwani, Seekho provides bite-sized, curated, vernacular learning content for Bharat. This content, delivered in 3-5 minute videos, focuses on practical knowledge for career and self-growth. Examples include guidance on availing digital services, growing an Instagram/YouTube presence, improving business operations, language learning, self-help, and many more.

The funds will be used to build new experiences through new content formats and to leverage AI-first solutions.

Seekho’s unique advantage comes from its customer centricity and from catering to the heterogenous needs of its users. Unlike a Youtube or Instagram, Seekho’s content is focused on uplifting its consumers - From a real estate agent scaling inbound leads for his business through Meta, to a sales executive remaining up to date on new technologies, to someone having facilitated proper Aadhar linkage for their entire extended family - Seekho is making a difference to Indians across geographies. While many content platforms provide entertainment, Seekho is the one of the few that educates and provides an avenue for personal and career growth in an effective and actionable manner.

Rohit Choudhary, Founder, said “At Seekho, our mission is to make learning fun and easy for everyone regardless of language, location or background. We believe learning should be relevant, bite-sized, and accessible in the palm of your hand. With Bessemer joining us on this journey, we’re excited to build a category-defining product that puts ‘Edutainment on Tap’ for the next 500 million Indians. This funding will accelerate our vision of making learning as seamless as scrolling a feed - but with impact that lasts a lifetime.”

Seekho currently has 25 million monthly active users, demonstrating a 60% quarter-over-quarter growth. The platform’s growth is further accelerated by two tailwinds. First, the willingness of Indian consumers to pay for content as disposable income increases as the economy grows. Second, the rise of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) autopay which has opened up 800M Indians to the subscription economy, which till only a few years ago was limited only to the 20-30 million credit card users in India. As a result, subscription revenues have gone from near-negligible levels 5 years ago to a $2.5 billion pool today. Seekho is still early in its journey and has the opportunity to capture a significant portion of this figure.

Anant Vidur Puri, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, said “The trifecta of 800 million+ smartphone users in India, each of them spending 7-8 hours a day, and frictionless online payments means that almost all aspects of life have moved to digital platforms - from buying groceries to financial transactions and now, with Seekho, education as well. The stellar team at Seekho is perfectly positioned to help all segments of India across Metros and tiers of cities lead fuller, better-informed lives. We wish them all the best.”

Banking Infrastructure Platform TransBnk Raises $25 Mn in Series B Led By Bessemer Venture Partners

Banking infrastructure platform TransBnk today announced its $25 million Series B Fundraise led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from Arkam Ventures and Fundamentum Partnership, with participation from existing investors 8i Ventures, Accion Venture Labs, GMO Venture Partners. The funds will primarily be used for geographical expansion and bolstering tech & Product talent.

Founded in 2022 by Vaibhav Tambe, Lavin Kotian, Pulak Jain and Sachin Gupta, TransBnk is building a common operating system for fintechs and other institutions to access the banking ecosystem. Their ‘single-window’ offering allows clients to leverage API infrastructure from various banks for seamless onboarding, transactions and reconciliations.

Over the past decade, there has been much tech-first innovation on the retail banking side that has made consumer journeys nimble and seamless. Corporate & business banking, however, has long lagged behind the innovation seen in retail banking. There is a gaping void in how corporations and lenders manage their digital banking operations, especially when it comes to navigating a fragmented ecosystem of accounts, interfaces, and manual processes. While retail users enjoy seamless, mobile-first banking journeys, corporate customers often rely on spreadsheets, RM calls, and multiple portals just to get basic tasks done. This is the gap which TransBnk aims to plug, by embedding itself directly into the core infrastructure of banks, enabling companies to view, transact, and reconcile across their multiple banking relationships in one unified, programmable interface.

TransBnk aims to capitalise on a larger industry trend - banks are moving away from monolithic, capex-heavy software stacks. Legacy providers are costly and can take years to implement, often delivering clunky and fragmented solutions. TransBnk offers an opex-led, modular alternative, starting with payment and lending rails, and potentially evolving into a full customer engagement layer or even a next-gen core for corporate banking. TransBnk therefore delivers modern infrastructure that is highly technical and complex, while demonstrating strong capital efficiency and profitability at this early stage, aiming to be the backbone of India’s corporate banking future. This allows banks to also upgrade their tech-stack to remain relevant and competitive.

TransBnk’s unique value proposition has translated into robust business metrics. They have grown from seed to double digit million in annual dollar revenue in less than 24 months. They have also integrated with 40+ banks, which include leading private and public sector players, MNC Banks as well as Small Finance Banks. They have more than 220 clients accessing nearly 1500 APIs on a monthly basis.

What sets the founding team apart is their deep experience in the field of corporate banking as well as transaction banking - a niche, specialized, and highly relationship-driven space, and the founders bring over 7 decades of collective experience in this domain.

Vishal Gupta, Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners said “We are excited to partner with the Transbnk team. Their deep industry expertise makes them best placed to disrupt corporate banking and transaction banking in India, making it more seamless and reducing fragmentation. Corporate banking has lagged behind their retail counterparts, where over the past 10 years innovation in this space has allowed users to enjoy frictionless, mobile-first banking journeys. We are confident that Transbnk will bring the same transformative spirit and user delight to the corporate and transaction banking ecosystem”

Vikram Chachra of 8i ventures said “We’re thrilled to welcome Bessemer, Fundamentum, and Arkam to the TransBnk family. When we led the seed round, we believed TransBnk could become the new foundational layer for corporate banking in India. Just two years later, it has emerged as India’s fastest-growing fintech infrastructure platform, putting banks back at the centre of the fintech landscape and enabling them to serve a new generation of digital-first businesses.”

Vaibhav Tambe, CEO and co-founder, TransBnk commented that “Series B is a massive growth catalyst—fueling our roadmap to scale, innovate, and set new benchmarks in global transaction banking. Our proprietary tech Infra is already powering leading NBFCs, Fintech players, Banks, Corporates and we are now expanding this across BFSI, Mid-Corporate & SMEs. TransBnk is strategically placed to expand beyond India, with encouraging traction in SEA and Middle East markets, while at the same time focused on consolidating our strength in the domestic market as an emerging leader in banking infrastructure.”

India's Digital Economy on Verge of A Trillion-Dollar Boom - Bessemer Venture Partners

The India practice of Bessemer Venture Partners today released a report titled ‘Click, Watch, Shop: the consumer opportunity in India’. The report outlines the tech, demographic and policy tailwinds from the past decade that have fueled the rise of a $1 trillion digital opportunity and also talks about the user behaviours that will shape consumer offerings in the future.

A tailwind trifecta of internet penetration, evolving demographics, and policy changes are among the trends that have enabled the rise of new age consumer companies such as Swiggy, Urban Company, Boldfit, Vetic and more. Going forward, it is the evolution of commerce marketplaces, content platforms and changing consumer aspirations that will power newer companies to win in the Indian context.

Commerce will become quicker, better and more aspirational across channels

India's burgeoning online commerce sector has witnessed an extraordinary expansion in recent years. Starting from a base of $30 billion in 2020 and is expected to get to $300 billion by the end of the decade in 2030, contributing to a $1 trillion dollar digital opportunity. This demonstrates it is no longer a niche phenomenon catering to a small segment but has firmly established itself as a dominant force within the Indian retail landscape for a significant and growing share of the population.

In addition, the recent rise of quick commerce (q-commerce) has introduced a new dimension to the online retail ecosystem, further revolutionizing the way consumers access goods. Platforms such as BigBasket, Blinkit, Swiggy, and Zepto have spearheaded this movement, demonstrating the viability and consumer appeal of rapid delivery services. This segment is seeing the further trend of verticalised q-commerce emerging, with startups like Snabbit, Swish and Slikk catering to niche needs.

Lastly, D2C brands are increasingly catering to an aspirational mass-premium audience - an audience characterized by the demand for newer, better priced, higher quality products.

Content: Entertainment comes home

India is experiencing a content revolution driven by consumers' diverse appetites for entertainment, education, and gaming. Characterized by short attention spans and a multitude of accessible platforms across interests, languages, and budgets, user engagement is rapid, facilitated by frictionless microtransactions or autopay-led subscriptions.

Platforms are adapting to these shorter attention spans with quick and engaging content. Over the past five years, short-form video platforms in India have witnessed a 3.6X growth in daily active users, competing with mainstream digital platforms. Moreover, the rise of virtual tipping, UPI autopay and other micro-transactions is expected to reach $1.5 billion by 2029 and exemplifies the growth of UPI-enabled microtransactions which allows companies to experiment with diverse monetisation models beyond just ads.

The rise of new lifestyle and consumption habits

The modern Indian consumer’s choices increasingly prioritise what were previously seen as lifestyle spending. These include previously thought “non-essential” spending in areas such as physical and mental health, financial wellness, and pet care. This expenditure has moved from being a good-to-have to a must-have for Indian consumers.

For instance, there is increased spending on organic food, protein, fitness gadgets, preventive healthcare, and wellness services.) Health-focused food and beverage (F&B) as a category has expanded from ~11% to ~16% of F&B spend and is expected to continue to increase as brands have been quick to adapt to this trend.

Similar trends can be seen in segments such as financial services (eg: personal finance offering such as Groww) and petcare.

The report concludes with the metrics and numbers that Bessemer tracks to evaluate the robustness of a business. These metrics, pertaining to TAM, acquisition, usage and retention are important for founders to track the health of their business.

Anant Vidur Puri, Partner, said “India presents a $1 trillion dollar digital opportunity. The emergence of multiple consumer marketplaces, platforms and new-age brands in the past decade are a testament to the growing aspirations of an emergent India. This makes us exceptionally optimistic about the potential for many more consumer plays to emerge in the coming years.”

The full-length report can be found here.

Bessemer Venture Partners Raises $350 Mn India Fund to Back Next-Generation of Startups

• Second dedicated India fund builds on Bessemer’s nearly two-decade-long presence in the country and reinforces its commitment to supporting technology and innovation-driven businesses
• The fund will focus on early-stage startups and support them through subsequent growth stages
• Bessemer will focus on investments across AI, SaaS, fintech, digital health, consumer, and cybersecurity.

Bessemer Venture Partners today announced the close of $350 million in capital for its second dedicated India fund, reinforcing the firm’s long-standing commitment to backing founders in the region as they build enduring companies.

The new fund will enhance the firm’s focus on early-stage investments, across AI-enabled services and SaaS, fintech, digital health, direct-to-consumer brands, and cybersecurity. Bessemer has a long-standing history of partnering with companies early and supporting them through their growth. More than 80 percent of its investments in India over the last five years have been in early-stage companies.

Speaking on the fund raise, Vishal Gupta, Partner and Managing Director of the firm’s Bangalore office said, “This fund deepens our commitment to India’s startup ecosystem as we continue backing the next generation of entrepreneurs building technology-led businesses. We remain focused on identifying and investing in founders who are driving innovation, solving complex challenges, and building market-defining companies. Beyond providing capital, we bring deep sector expertise, a global network, and hands-on support to help founders navigate their growth journeys and scale sustainably.”

Bessemer Partner Anant Vidur Puri added, "India is at the forefront of the AI-driven transformation, with founders building domestic as well as globally-competitive businesses across enterprise software, fintech, and consumer technology. As AI adoption accelerates, we see immense opportunities for innovation, and this fund allows us to back entrepreneurs shaping the next phase of India’s digital economy."

Bessemer first established its India presence nearly two decades ago in 2006 and has since invested in more than 80 startups in the country. The partnership’s strategy centres around being patient, long-term partners to visionary founders from the early stages. The firm has a history of taking a roadmap-driven investment approach that enables its investors to build conviction in emerging areas across industries before they become obvious, and better help founders navigate evolving industry landscapes. This approach has led Bessemer to invest early in shifts in the market like the onset of the mobile revolution, India’s digital infrastructure, and its healthcare revolution, resulting in investments such as Urban Company, Perfios, and Medi Assist.

The firm’s first dedicated India fund backed notable startups including Boldfit, MoveInSync, Pepper Content, Shopdeck, Vetic, and Zopper, while its broader portfolio includes category leaders like BigBasket, Livspace, Perfios, Swiggy, and Urban Company. The firm has also seen nine IPOs within its India portfolio.

With investment teams positioned across five countries, Bessemer is a globally integrated platform that is committed to supporting innovative startups and fostering the next generation of industry leaders.

About Bessemer Venture Partners

Bessemer Venture Partners helps entrepreneurs lay strong foundations to build and forge long-standing companies. With more than 145 IPOs and 300 portfolio companies in the enterprise, consumer and healthcare spaces, Bessemer supports founders and CEOs from their early days through every stage of growth. Bessemer’s global portfolio has included ServiceTitan, Pinterest, Shopify, Twilio, Yelp, LinkedIn, PagerDuty, DocuSign, Wix, Fiverr, and Toast and has more than $18 billion of assets under management. Bessemer has teams of investors and partners located in Tel Aviv, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York, London, Hong Kong, Boston, and Bangalore. Born from innovations in steel more than a century ago, Bessemer’s storied history has afforded its partners the opportunity to celebrate and scrutinize its best investment decisions (see Memos) and also learn from its mistakes (see Anti-Portfolio).

Cloud Lending Platform Lentra Closes Series-B led by Bessemer Venture Partners, SIG and Citi Ventures, Transaction of $ 60 Mn

Funds to be used for product strengthening and international expansion

Lentra, the class leading Cloud lending platform, has closed its Series B funding round with a transaction value of USD 60 mn, led by existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and SIG Venture Capital with participation from Citi Ventures. Masterkey Capital were the Investment Bankers. The funding will be used for products+platform strengthening and also for International expansion, including the USA.

D Venkatesh, Founder & CEO, Lentra said “We see a massive opportunity for ourselves in the retail assets and business banking areas worldwide. At the same time, our clients see us as a source of competitive advantage for their business. Ten-fold revenue growth and some of the biggest retail banks as our clients now, act as markers of our solution architecture. I am excited that our investors see the same opportunity and are confident of our ability to execute.”

The four-year-old technology startup is one of the fastest growing enterprise SaaS companies in India, empowering banks to embrace fully digital processes. Lentra Lending Cloud offers ready-to-use 3rd party API connectors to various data sources that banks crave to hook into. Several types of pre-configured loan journeys for originations, Loan management system, cutting-edge customer intelligence and a no-code Business rules engine (BREx) constitute some significant modules for clients to use out of the box. Clients can choose to use all or some of these modules as per their requirements.

“We’re excited to partner with Lentra to help establish their footprint globally. Lentra is empowering lenders to fuel the dreams of millions with effective financial inclusion and credit decisioning” said Vishal Gupta, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. "We were really impressed with the combination of their technology prowess and the commercial advantage that Lentra is delivering to their clients. We look forward to helping them continue to achieve their vision of becoming the most trusted and sought after cloud-native digital lending platform, empowering clients in democratizing credit through accurate decisioning and rapid processing."

Bhavanipratap Rana, Investment Advisor to SIG said, “Banking lending software is an area where innovation has not kept pace with product releases, due to monolithic legacy software. Lentra through its modular lending cloud architecture has helped some of the largest banks in India democratize credit access by expanding into newer retail assets through instant configurable lending journeys."

We are excited to support Lentra which was SIG’s first Indian VC investment in 2019. Since SIG’s investment, Lentra has demonstrated superior metrics on revenue retention and grown 20x, while exhibiting strong capital efficiency. SIG is excited for Lentra’s next phase of growth as it embarks on serving global customers.”

Everett Leonidas, Director & APAC Lead Investor for Citi Ventures, added, “Lentra is our first fintech investment in India, and we are very excited about the team’s ability to develop and scale low-friction software solutions for lenders. As a global bank, we look forward to Lentra scaling their products and platform internationally.”

Lentra has been at the forefront of digital lending transformation since 2019. It has more than 50 clients in India and will be using the funding to expand overseas in Asia and the USA

About Lentra

Founded in 2018 by D Venkatesh and Ankur Handa, Lentra is a lending platform designed and developed to empower banks with a fully digital ecosystem. The Lentra lending cloud services more than 40 banks and processes over 3 million applications monthly. It has processed over 13 billion transactions and $21Bn worth of Loans on its platform so far.

In One of the Largest Funding Rounds in InsurTech Space, Zopper Raises $75 Mn in Series C Funding

Plans to utilize funds for investing in cutting-edge technology, business development initiatives, inorganic growth through M&A, and international expansion

Zopper, one of the leading insurtech startups, today announced that it has raised $75 million in Series C funding, led by Creaegis with participation from ICICI Venture* and Bessemer Venture Partners. Existing investor, Blume Ventures also participated in the round. Tiger Global, currently invested in the company, will continue to extend its support for future growth. The investment in Zopper, is one of the largest funding rounds in the insurtech space in Asia till date.

The fresh capital will allow Zopper to further bolster its SaaS platform and data analytics capabilities, build a next generation data engineering team, fuel business development initiatives, undertake inorganic growth and explore opportunities in the international market. The company aims to achieve an annualized Gross Written Premium (GWP) of USD 500 million by March 2024.

Zopper, established in 2011, is India’s largest embedded insurtech platform that aims to revolutionize insurance distribution via its SaaS platform, deep integration layer and data analytics capabilities. With 150+ partners and presence in over 1200+ cities, Zopper helps B2B and B2C organizations to offer various insurance products and provides end-to-end technology and service offerings to insurers.

Surjendu Kuila

Commenting on the announcement, Mr. Surjendu Kuila, Co-Founder and CEO, Zopper said, “Our deep understanding of Technology, Data and Insurance Products have given rise to the next generation SaaS enabled distribution platform. The Insurance industry is yet to witness usage of such tech-enabled products. Through this platform, Zopper is bringing the partners and insurers together and spearheading a profound transformation in the realm of insurance distribution. We have exponentially grown in the last 4-years, and will continue to grow at a significant pace in the years to come"

Mayank Gupta

"Zopper has the advantage of experience, scale, and efficiency. We partner with our distribution channels throughout the entire lifecycle of their insurance strategy – right from Product Solutioning and API-driven SaaS integrations to Sales Enablement and Claims Management. Our investors share a common vision, which is to build businesses on solid fundamentals, which aligns with the way we have built the company so far. This funding will support the company to fortify its position as a leader in the insurtech industry.” added Mr. Mayank Gupta, Co-Founder and COO, Zopper.

Commenting on funding, Mr. Prakash Parthasarathy, Managing Partner, Creaegis, said “We truly believe in Zopper’s vision of transforming and automating the insurance distribution model in India. Over the years, they have demonstrated their tech and product innovation value to their ecosystem partners and insurers. All this has been achieved in a very capital efficient manner and our investment will help its accomplished management team led by Surjendu and Mayank to scale and improve access to a wider customer base. We are privileged to be their partner and we are committed to support their journey given our experience in this space.”

Mr. Gagandeep S Chhina, Director - Private Equity, ICICI Venture said “We believe that technology will play an important role in improving distribution efficiency and increasing penetration of insurance and assurance products. Given ICICI Venture’s successful investment track record in the Insurance sector, we think Zopper is well positioned to capture this long-term growth opportunity. We are excited to support the management team’s vision to establish Zopper as a leading Insurtech player with its scalable technology, multiple insurer tie-ups and partnerships with distribution channels across sectors”

Mr. Vishal Gupta, Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners, said “We are excited to back Surjendu and Mayank, in what we think will become the default API-led, SaaS distribution infrastructure platform for insurance companies to cross-sell relevant insurance products at the point-of-sale to the captive consumer base of the large and medium companies both online and offline. We have known this team for a decade and have been really impressed by their tenacity and what they have achieved in a relative short period over the last two years”

Haitong Securities was the investment banker for the transaction.

About Zopper: Zopper, established in 2011, is India’s largest embedded insurtech platform that aims to democratize access to insurance distribution via its SaaS platform. With a presence in over 1200+ cities, Zopper helps B2B and B2C organizations adopt various insurance products and provides end-to-end technology and service offerings to Insurers. Zopper has over 150 ecosystem partners, which include some of India's largest brands such as Amazon, Ola, Xiaomi, Croma, Hitachi, Equitas Small Finance Bank, Chaitanya, and many more. For more details, please visit: Zopper

E-Commerce Fraud Prevention Firm Forter Raises $125 Mn in Series E at Valuation to More than $1.3 Bn

Forter, the leader in e-commerce fraud prevention, today announced it has raised $125 million in Series E funding. Led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Felix Capital and Itai Tsiddon, with participation from Sequoia Capital, NewView Capital, Scale Venture Partners, March Capital Partners and Commerce Ventures, the round propels Forter’s valuation to over $1.3 billion.

The funding will allow Forter to accelerate its vision of establishing an ecosystem of trust across online merchants, banks and payment providers to block fraud and give consumers the trust and convenience to shop freely. The company will continue to expand its suite of solutions and global data network, which has doubled in size over the last 12 months to exceed $200 billion in annual online transactions protecting over 800 million shoppers.

“We set out to create a global coalition of merchants, banks and payment providers that fight fraud together. We continue on our mission to expand the online network of trust and will continue investing in our platform in collaboration with our customers and partners,” said Michael Reitblat, CEO and Co-founder, Forter. “This year we have doubled our team across eight global offices, doubled our revenue and enjoyed our first cash flow positive quarter. The market traction we have experienced allows us to invest even more into our platform and drive more significant impact for our customers and partners. We will remain an independent company as we continue to grow our footprint across the commerce ecosystem.”

Forter’s real-time, fully automated fraud prevention platform is trusted by numerous top merchants from all commerce verticals including Sephora, OnePlus, Suning, ASOS, Hugo Boss and Adobe. The company’s global network provides a comprehensive view of both fraudulent and legitimate customer behaviors, allowing incredibly accurate fraud decisions with enhanced customer experience.

Over the past year, Forter has driven product innovation and extended its partner ecosystem to protect merchants and consumers across the entire e-commerce experience, including: 

• Loyalty Program Fraud Protection that secures against account takeover (ATO), new account fraud, transactional fraud and policy abuse; Returns Abuse Protection to identify and stop returns abusers; and Smart Routing, which provides automated payment routing decisions to eliminate false declines and reduce lost revenue by 50%.
• Fraud Prevention Platform for Payment Service Providers (PSPs), enabling PSPs including FreedomPay, FIS Worldpay, Global Payments and Checkout.com to provide the best fraud prevention to their merchants.
• Partnerships and integrations with leaders in the broader e-commerce ecosystem including Mastercard, SAP, Salesforce and Adobe to increase approval rates and eliminate fraud throughout the entire consumer journey.

“Companies that can allow global organizations to safely embrace and accelerate their digital transformation and increase the lifetime value of their online consumers are invaluable as e-commerce continues to climb,” said Elliott Robinson, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. “Forter has turned fraud prevention into a business enabler by uniting the entire digital economy ecosystem to fight fraud together and let people shop safely."

The impact customers experience with Forter includes:

• 75% reduction in false positives
• 60% reduction in fraud
• Fully automated, real-time decisions across the entire consumer journey

"Working with Forter has changed our approach to fraud management, drastically improving our approval rate, and helping build greater trust in our fraud capabilities,” said Kristina Blahnik, CEO, Manolo Blahnik. “We can now provide a more positive, seamless experience for our clients as well as strengthening our e-commerce; priorities which are paramount for Manolo Blahnik."

About Forter 

Forter is the leader in e-commerce fraud prevention, processing over $200 billion in online commerce transactions and protecting over 800 million consumers globally from credit card fraud, account takeover, identity theft, and more. The company’s identity-based fraud prevention solution detects fraudulent activity in real-time, throughout all online consumer experiences.

Forter’s integrated fraud prevention platform is powered by its rapidly growing Global Data Network, underpinned by predictive fraud research and modelling, and the ability for customers to tailor the platform for their specific needs. As a result, Forter is trusted by Fortune 500 companies to deliver exceptional accuracy, a smoother user experience, and elevated sales at a much lower cost. Forter was recently named the Leader in e-Commerce Fraud Prevention by Frost & Sullivan.  

Swiggy Raises Series D Funding of $15M from Bessemer Venture Partners

Swiggy, Indian food ordering and delivery platform, has raised $15 million in a Series D funding from Bessemer Venture Partners. Existing investors also participated in this round. This is close on the heels of the Series C funding of $35 million raised in January 2016, from existing and new investors, including New York-based investors Harmony Partners and Singapore-based RB. This investment takes the total funds raised by India’s largest food ordering platform to $75.5 million. The freshly raised funds will fuel Swiggy’s next growth phase, with an improved customer experience at its core. This will include technology upgrades, a wider spread of restaurants to choose from and better delivery efficiency.

To spearhead the next phase of growth, Swiggy has recently ramped up its senior leadership by hiring vice presidents across the following functions - marketing, product, HR, design and Finance. These leaders have in the past nurtured high-growth companies and have driven organisation-wide efficiencies. Their expertise will be instrumental in shaping the strategy and maintaining Swiggy’s leadership position in a fast growing category.

Innovation is core to Swiggy and it is undertaking new initiatives as it constantly strives to address the growing needs of different consumer segments. In the months to follow, Swiggy will continue to focus on consolidation and capturing a larger share of the market under the guidance of the new VPs.

Since its inception in 2015, Swiggy has rapidly grown to become the leader in the Indian food delivery sector by consistently reducing delivery times and improving customer experience. The fastest food delivery service in the country, Swiggy’s average delivery time is an industry benchmark of 37 minutes.

“We are excited to partner with Swiggy. Swiggy's full stack approach coupled with great execution has resulted in unparalleled customer experience, retention and business economics. We look forward to working with Sriharsha and the management team as they further cement Swiggy's leadership position in the India market.” quotes Vishal Gupta, Managing Director at Bessemer Venture Partners.

Speaking on the Series D fund raise, Sriharsha Majety, Co-founder and CEO, Swiggy, said, “We are excited about the funding as this is a validation of our performance and recognition of our leadership, in addition to being testament to the tremendous potential of the food tech sector. Our strong growth in the last few months shows that our customers are increasingly becoming accustomed to a new behaviour of ordering food for the experience, rather than only for convenience. Our vision is to change the way India eats and we want to be the top of mind recall for the users for all their four meals a day.”

Swiggy is Indian food-tech company having raised $ 75.5 Million from Bessemer Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, SAIF Partners and Accel Partners in 4 rounds of funding. The inception of this Bangalore based company was inspired by the thought of providing a complete food ordering and delivery solution to customers and the product is wholly dedicated to this cause. The idea was to get the most preferred food from the best restaurants in a neighbourhood delivered to customers, at their doorstep. Swiggy processes the orders on its platform via its own delivery fleet which is responsible for picking up and delivering food to its customers. Having its own delivery fleet enables them to offer their customers a variety of convenient features like faster deliveries, no minimum order and live tracking of their delivery. Currently present in 8 cities across the country and has over 9000 restaurant partners live on its platform.

Livspace Raises Rs 100 Cr Led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Jungle Ventures, and Helion

Livspace, Indian online home design company and the world’s first design automation platform, today announced that it has raised INR 100 crore from existing investors in its third round of funding. The round was led by Bessemer Ventures Partners with increased participation from Jungle Ventures and Helion. This round of funding comes within weeks of the launch of the world’s first ‘Home Design Automation Platform’. The funds will be used to expand operational footprint across metro cities (NOIDA, Gurgaon, Mumbai in 2016 and Pune, Hyderabad in 2017), set up new Livspace design studios with VR technology integration for the best home design experience, expand the design automation platform across thousands of freelance designers in the country, and strengthen the catalog depth, launch new modular products, and further optimize the backend technology.

Founded by Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma, Livspace is home to India’s biggest community of home design enthusiasts (over 600 thousand) and India’s largest community of home designers. Launched in December 2014, Livspace has raised $27.6M since inception. Livspace pioneered the end-to-end home design experience in India and, within the first year of its launch, Livspace made three acquisitions – DezignUp, Dwll.in, YoFloor and launched an exclusive line of Modular Kitchen and Wardrobe systems with deep eCommerce integration which now generates over 50% of Livspace’s business. Over the next year, Livspace aims to dramatically scale customer experience and make it rich, transparent, and predictable such that anyone can have a beautiful home in less than 12 weeks and modular installations in 8 weeks in India.

Anuj Srivastava, CEO and Co-founder of Livspace said, “We’ve built an enviable company which is truly a pioneer in its space worldwide. Ramakant and I want to create a truly innovative technology company out of India, with large scale revenue, and a commercially profitable footprint. By combining the principles of platform, technology and design, we have built Livspace into a technology-driven, consumer internet company that continues to make explosive growth across all business metrics”.

Speaking on the investment, Vishal Gupta, Managing Director, Bessemer Venture Partners, "We are very impressed with the pioneering approach, traction, and commercial scale achieved by Livspace, in a short period of time. Livspace is already India's largest online home design company and continues to see tremendous demand side scale due to the recently announced home design automation platform. Anuj and Ramakant are seasoned entrepreneurs and we are thrilled to partner with them and grow Livspace into one of India's most admired venture backed company.”

Amit Anand, Founding and Managing Partner, Jungle Ventures, added, “Anuj and Ramakant are top tier entrepreneurs who’ve created a truly pioneering idea out of India. It’s truly extensible across many cities across the world as the problem they’re solving is unique, pertinent, and fragmented the world over. I have only seen them go strength-to-strength and create an enviable team, a customer experience, and scale not seen before in the industry. We wish them well in the journey and are excited to build an exciting worldwide story.”

The home industry is estimated to be anywhere between $25-30B but over 95% of it is unorganized and serviced by turnkey contractors, small studios, freelance designers, and carpenters. Livspace sees a tremendous opportunity in adopting a platform driven approach which borrows from the principles of platforms like Uber, AirBnB, etc. to create design entrepreneurs and reduce fragmentation in the industry.  Livspace will also invest in technology, to streamline hundreds of contract manufacturers, modular furniture companies, home design services, decor marketplace, etc. and bring them under one platform. This will create supply side scale, creating huge benefits to customers.

Beauty Services Platform StayGlad Raises Series A Funding From Bessemer Venture Partners and former CEO of Lakme India

Bangalore-based on demand beauty services platform StayGlad has raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding from Silicon Valley-based VC firm Bessemer Venture Partners and Anil Chopra, former CEO of Lakme Lever, according to a statement.

Glow Prime Technologies Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates StayGlad will use the freshly raised funds to expand operations and strengthen its technology backend.

With this investment, Anil Chopra also joins the board of StayGlad.

StayGlad brings standardised beauty services by vetted professionals on demand. The startup also have an app to connect beauty, make up service professionals with customers instantly at anytime and anywhere. Till date, nearly 60 beauty service providers have signed up with the startup.

Earlier in June this year, the startup had received an undisclosed amount of angel investment from Tracxn Labs, Delhivery co-founder Sahil Barua and other investors.

The startup was founded in 2015 by three IIT Kharagpur graduates, Kavish Desai, Shashank Gupta and Prateek Jain, who were working with Flipkart, Adobe and Amazon respectively, before starting StayGlad.

"Demand for beauty services is at an inflection point in India. Add to this the convenience of the service being delivered at home and it creates a large market opportunity. The category is synonymous with high order values, high gross margins and predictable customer repeat behavior," said Raghav Bahl, vice president of Bessemer.

StayGlad faces direct competition with the likes of GetLook, YLG Salon and Spa, Vyomo, Belita and VanityCube. Belita had raised $375,000 (Rs 2.5 crore) in angel funding through LetsVenture and Lead Angels in August.

The beauty and wellness space in India is growing at a rate of over 20% per annum, and thus its fast catching the fancy of investors. Recently, beauty and wellness startup Stylofie raised $250,000 in seed funding from Hong Kong-based Swastika Company Ltd. Earlier this month, Info Edge Ltd, the owner of recruitment portal Naukri, acquired 25% stake in on-demand beauty services marketplace BigStylist for about $1 million.

UrbanClap Raises $25 Mn From Bessemer Venture, Saif & Accel

UrbanClap, a marketplace for home services, has raised $25 million (Rs.165 crore) in a Series B round of funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners with the participation of existing investors including Accel Partners and Saif Partners. Earlier this year, UrbanClap had raised $12 million over two rounds from Saif and Accel Partners.

Founded in 2014, Gurgaon-based UrbanClap has raised a total of about $37 million in three rounds so far.

UrbanClap, a mobile marketplace for services, offers a range of services staff that includes plumbers, beauticians, yoga trainers and even wedding photographers. Under its model until now, UrbanClap charged 10-20% from the customer, but nothing from the service provider; going forward, however, it will reverse this existing model.

The freshly raised funds will be used by the startup to make strategic acquisitions, and to strengthen its leadership position in the space, including an expansion drive in other major cities. By next year, the company plans to have more than 100,000 professionals on the platform - it currently has 20,000 registered service providers - and serve over 100,000 customers daily, up from 5,000 currently.

The startup currently offers services in more than 75 categories across Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai and Pune and the company plans to extend its offering to 25 cities and 100 categories over the next one year.

The startup was founded by Raghav Chandra (ex-Twitter executive), Varun Khaitan (IIT-Kanpur alumnus) and Abhiraj Singh Bhal.

UrbanClap claims that its average ticket size of around Rs.3,000-4,000 and increasing demand will help the company break even by the end of 2016. It has generated $15 million in GMV (gross merchandise value) till date, according to Varun Khaitan, co-founder at UrbanClap.

Urbanclap faces direct competition from similar players in market like Zimmber, Housejoy, Helpi and likes.

Pinterest gain 150% users in India with in a year

Pinterest, the four year old social networking platform, which lets people make visual discoveries with the help of pictures, seems to have caught the curiosity of many Indians lately. The platform has recorded a 150 percent rise in Indian users in the last one year.

Pinterest is headquartered in San Francisco and has been successful in raising around $760 million till now through various rounds of funding. The online scrapbooking site is currently valued at $5 billion, all thanks to the recent $200 million capital raise that the platform received from Bessemer Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. The platform has plans of using some part of that money in expanding its services globally.  The company has formed separate teams for France, UK, Germany and Japan.  Seeing its popularity in India, the company is also investing in localizing contents for the market.

The United States forms the 70 percent part of the platform’s sixty million user base. What is interesting is that, in India the user base has a 50-50 gender split, which means equal number of men and women make use of the platform in the country.  This trend is quite different from what the platform experiences in other countries. Most of the Pinterest users in India make use of the platform on their Smartphones.

In order to cash in on the local languages, the platform is available in over 32 different languages all around the world. Hindi was recently added to the list so as to impress the Indian market.

“We are very excited about the way India is growing for us and, with the rapid adoption in smartphone usage, we expect to build a great business there in a few years,” said Matt Crystal, head of International business at Pinterest in an interview to the Times of India.

According to Crystal, one thing which differentiates Pinterest from Google is that Google makes use of algorithms to index search, while Pinterest has human who do the cataloging work and algorithms are only used to push the result when someone searches something specifically.

Pinterest has recently introduced a new analytics tool which will help the business keep a track on the number of Pinners (Pinterest users) who interact with their pins along with other information.

Pinterest gain 150% users in India with in a year

Pinterest, the four year old social networking platform, which lets people make visual discoveries with the help of pictures, seems to have caught the curiosity of many Indians lately. The platform has recorded a 150 percent rise in Indian users in the last one year.

Pinterest is headquartered in San Francisco and has been successful in raising around $760 million till now through various rounds of funding. The online scrapbooking site is currently valued at $5 billion, all thanks to the recent $200 million capital raise that the platform received from Bessemer Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. The platform has plans of using some part of that money in expanding its services globally.  The company has formed separate teams for France, UK, Germany and Japan.  Seeing its popularity in India, the company is also investing in localizing contents for the market.

The United States forms the 70 percent part of the platform’s sixty million user base. What is interesting is that, in India the user base has a 50-50 gender split, which means equal number of men and women make use of the platform in the country.  This trend is quite different from what the platform experiences in other countries. Most of the Pinterest users in India make use of the platform on their Smartphones.

In order to cash in on the local languages, the platform is available in over 32 different languages all around the world. Hindi was recently added to the list so as to impress the Indian market.

“We are very excited about the way India is growing for us and, with the rapid adoption in smartphone usage, we expect to build a great business there in a few years,” said Matt Crystal, head of International business at Pinterest in an interview to the Times of India.

According to Crystal, one thing which differentiates Pinterest from Google is that Google makes use of algorithms to index search, while Pinterest has human who do the cataloging work and algorithms are only used to push the result when someone searches something specifically.

Pinterest has recently introduced a new analytics tool which will help the business keep a track on the number of Pinners (Pinterest users) who interact with their pins along with other information.

Taxiforsure.com gets $10 million in funding

Online taxi booking service TaxiForSure.com got $10 million in a Series B round of funding, led by Bessemer Venture Partners along with existing partners Accel Partners, Helion Venture Partners and Blume Ventures. Bessemer Venture Partners has already invested in many Indian online services companies such as SnapDeal.com and Matrimony.com

TaxiForSure is an aggregator of cab and taxi services currently catering in cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi. The company claims to served 1,000,000+ taxi rides till date. The total investment raised by the firm has reached $14 million along with this round.

The latest acquired funds will used by the startup in expanding its operations to 10 new cities, including Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Mumbai, Indore, Bhopal, Baroda, Surat, Jaipur and Chandigarh. The company intends to expand to 15 locations by 2015.

Previously in June 2013 Taxiforsure has raised $4 million (about Rs 23 crore) in first round of institutional funding from its seed investors, Accel Partners, Helion Venture Partners and Blume Ventures.

TaxiForSure also has mobile apps for iPhone and Android.

The startup was founded in 2011 by its founders - Aprameya Radhakrishna and Raghunandan G both are passed outs of IIM Ahmedabad and hold engineering degrees from NITK Surathkal.

Online Cab service TaxiForSure is competing with Olacabs, Uber - a Google Venture-backed mobile-based on-demand car hire service and ZoomCar, a membership-based self-drive car rental service.

TaxiforSure have 1000s of cabs in each city and one can book airport taxis, city cabs, local hire/rental cabs as well as outstation cabs through its website, mobile apps (iPhone and Android) or by giving call to 60601010. One can even book premium cabs like BMW, Mercedes and Jaguar.