AI Startup Giga Secures $61M to Scale Emotionally Intelligent Support Agents

Giga, the AI company redefining how people interact with customer support, today announced it has raised a $61 million Series A round led by Redpoint Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator and Nexus Venture Partners.

The funding will accelerate Giga’s growth as it continues to outperform global incumbents and emerges as the product of choice for complex enterprise support automation. Giga will grow its technical team, accelerate go-to-market motion, and scale deployments with the world’s largest enterprises.

Founded by IIT Kharagpur graduates and Forbes 30 Under 30 honorees Varun Vummadi (CEO) and Esha Manideep (CTO), Giga is redefining how companies scale high quality support. The platform enables companies to deploy emotionally intelligent agents that can reason, act, and resolve issues — all in real time.

"What excites me most about Giga is that it's not just building a best-in-class support bot—it’s that the team is building a foundational AI infrastructure layer for customer voice,” said Satish Dharmaraj, Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures. “This is one of our largest early stage investments to date because we believe deeply in both the strength of the product to reshape the world of customer support and the pace of execution from the Giga team.”

Abhishek Sharma, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners, added,

Giga is leading a paradigm shift in enterprise support with AI. Their category‑leading platform helps the biggest enterprises in the world to achiecompanies move from human and outsourced support to scalable, software‑driven AI—boosting efficiency, quality, and compliance. Varun, Esha, and the team are building one of the most transformational AI companies of our time, and it’s been a privilege for Nexus to be part of their journey since the early days.

Rather than bolting together prebuilt scripts or APIs, Giga has engineered a unified platform for real-time automation — purpose-built for scale, precision, and emotional fluency. Giga’s AI agents are logical, perceptive, emotionally aware, and always improving. And their breakthrough is context — giving AI the memory to truly understand every situation. All of this comes in a platform that can be deployed across even the most complex enterprises, in just weeks, not months.

Key capabilities include - Highly Configurable Intelligence, Low Latency, High Empathy – Multi-intent understanding, emotional awareness, and multilingual fluency, Built for the Enterprise - Giga was designed to scale to the largest B2C companies in the world, with enterprise-grade security, compliance, and reliability built in from day one, Enterprise-Grade Security Powerful Platform – Out-of-the-box analytics, automated QA, and low-code tools to customize every part of the agent, Context as a Superpower – Every conversation is remembered, analyzed, and used to improve the next.

Giga’s system ingests a company’s entire support knowledge base and instantly generates high-accuracy agents. These agents handle real-time reasoning across complex policies and systems — without human handoff.

Organizations globally spend billions on call centers every year and yet the customer experience is still broken. ” said Varun Vummadi, co-founder and CEO. “We built Giga to change that. For the first time ever, machines are capable of understanding the nuances of customer voices and holding conversations with them, fundamentally changing the way the world interacts with devices.

Aniket Kamthe of Nexus Venture Partners, said, “We’re thrilled to be working with Giga at this inflection point for AI-powered customer experiences. They're setting new standards for deploying AI reliably at scale across complex enterprise environments."

Designed for high-compliance industries like ecommerce, financial services, healthcare, and telecommunications, Giga’s agents use retrieval-augmented generation and contextual reasoning to deliver policy-safe, emotionally intelligent conversations, without sacrificing speed or accuracy.

Giga’s voice systems already handle millions of customer calls every month for large-scale enterprises, dramatically reducing wait times.

At DoorDash, Giga’s deployment improved resolution speed, reduced escalations, and enhanced operational efficiency across teams.

At DoorDash, we operate at a massive scale across services, platforms, and languages,” said DoorDash co-founder Andy Fang. “Giga leveraged usage data to deliver measurable improvements, including fewer escalations, faster resolution paths, and more efficient workflows across our teams. As we continue to grow across more than 40 countries and serve nearly 50 million people each month, partnerships like this are critical to delivering better outcomes for consumers on a global scale.

To learn more, please visit https://giga.ai/.

About Giga

Giga is an AI platform that automates enterprise customer support with emotionally intelligent, real-time agents. Designed for high-compliance environments, Giga’s agents combine contextual reasoning, secure orchestration, and sub-second response times to deliver human-quality conversations at global scale and ease a variety of customer support issues, from call abandonment to customer wait times. To learn more, please visit https://giga.ai/ .

Aurva Emerges from Stealth With $2.2M led by Nexus Venture Partners

Aurva, the first unified platform for Access monitoring and AI observability, has launched out of stealth with $2.2 million in seed funding. The oversubscribed round was led by Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from DeVC, and industry leaders including former Meta executives Chris Bream, Rahul Sood, Karandeep Anand, Postman founders Ankit Sobti, Abhinav Asthana and Cyware founders Akshat Jain and Anuj Goel.

Aurva will use the funding to expand its sales & marketing, security team, deepen AI observability capabilities, and support growing demand from India, U.S. and other global enterprise customers.

Recently named India’s Most Innovative Cybersecurity Startup of 2024 by the Data Security Council of India (DSCI), Aurva is already serving dozens of enterprise customers in production environments across fintech, SaaS, and banking, including leading companies like Razorpay, Slice Bank, Yubi, PayTM and Meesho. Customer milestones include:

• 4B+ transactions per day monitored at one of the world’s largest financial institutions
• 1B+ queries per day analyzed at a leading digital bank and payments provider
• 2,000+ AI apps and agents auto-discovered and tracked at a large e-commerce provider

Aurva co-founders (l-r)_ Apurv Garg (CEO), Krishna Bagadia (CTO), and Akash Mandal (Chief Architect)

Aurva was founded by former Meta engineers Apurv Garg (CEO), Krishna Bagadia (CTO) and Akash Mandal (Architect). Bagadia previously helped design and scale Meta's internal data security systems, while Garg drove AI initiatives across business messaging units. Aurva's approach is inspired by Hipster, Meta's real-time data access control platform, and applies those lessons to high-scale enterprises now facing the security concerns from deploying AI-driven workloads.

From copilots embedded in tools to autonomous services operating in the background, AI-driven systems are accessing sensitive enterprise data in ways traditional tools can’t see or control.

Aurva gives enterprises end-to-end visibility into who is accessing sensitive data, how, and why, tying every query or data flow to a real identity, whether human, service, or AI agent.

“Existing tools were built for static environments. But AI is dynamic, it’s everywhere, and it just runs,” said Apurv Garg, founder and CEO of Aurva. “There are now countless ways data gets accessed, often without visibility. Enterprises need to rethink how they monitor sensitive data usage in real time; across humans, services, and AI agents. That’s why we built Aurva: to bring observability to AI usage and connect it directly to data access and flows.”

Legacy Database Activity Monitoring (DAM) tools were built for static environments, relying on delayed logs, generic alerts, and limited visibility into how data is actually used. In contrast, Aurva takes a fundamentally different approach, leveraging eBPF – a popular sandboxing approach at the kernel level used by Google, Netflix, Meta, and other enterprises to control software security – for real-time, low-overhead monitoring. The platform unifies Database Activity Monitoring (DAM), AI observability, and Data Security Posture Management (DSPM), enabling enterprises to protect sensitive data and meet compliance mandates from RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and DPDPA with confidence.

"Security teams urgently need a runtime-first approach to data security, especially as AI systems autonomously interact with sensitive enterprise data," said Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners. "Aurva's team has proven that they can build at scale, and they are bringing a robust enterprise-grade solution to market at the right time."

“Aurva gives us real time, identity aware visibility into data access, helping us prevent unauthorized use and privilege escalation while meeting regulatory guidelines,” said Ashwath Kumar, Head of Security at Razorpay. “As access becomes more agentic and ephemeral, we rely on Aurva to tie queries to identities and flag anomalies. It is a critical layer in keeping production safe at scale.”

“With the rapid growth of AI, understanding which identities, especially non-human ones, are accessing your data and how they are doing it has never been more important,” said Chris Bream, former Security Executive at Meta and an angel investor in the round. “Aurva is redefining what access monitoring should mean in an era of autonomous agents and service-based access by tying activity back to real identities. Their eBPF-based architecture offers a refreshing and modern approach, enabling flexible, low-overhead deployment. With their background in data systems and advanced threat actors, Apurv and Krishna have built a powerful platform that addresses real security problems.”

About Aurva

Aurva is redefining data security for the AI era with real-time, identity-aware access monitoring. By connecting every data access to a real identity across humans, services, and AI agents, Aurva enables enterprises to detect and stop misuse in real time. This strengthens security and ensures compliance with global Infosec guidelines in the BFSI sector.

Founded by ex-Meta engineers in security and AI, Aurva is backed by Nexus Venture Partners, DeVC, and leading investors from the security and AI ecosystems. The company has offices in Bengaluru and Mumbai, with global operations based in California, US.. Learn more at www.aurva.io.

India’s First Full-Stack Cyber Resilience Platform Mitigata Raises $5.9 Mn Led By Nexus Venture Partners

• India’s only full-stack cyber resilience platform
• Already serving 500+ enterprises across 25+ industries

Mitigata, India’s only full-stack cyber resilience platform and the first IRDAI-regulated insurance broker fully focused on cyber insurance — has raised $5.9 million in Series A funding, led by Nexus Venture Partners, with continued backing from existing investors Titan Capital and WEH Ventures.

Mitigata is building the first line of defence for Digital India. As cyber threats grow in scale and complexity, Indian enterprises, critical infrastructure operators and regulated entities need a homegrown partner to secure the digital frontier. In an era of cyber warfare, self-reliance isn’t just aspirational — it’s essential. Mitigata addresses this need through an integrated approach to security, risk, compliance, and cyber insurance.

The funding will accelerate the development of Mitigata’s AI-powered security and risk management platform, enhance its suite of cyber resilience services, and scale operations across major Indian cities and international markets. This investment will strengthen Mitigata’s capabilities across the full cyber risk lifecycle — including prevention, mitigation, response, and risk transfer. Mitigata will also double down on hiring top-tier talent across security, insurance, and compliance — bringing in industry leaders to drive innovation and scale.

As part of its growth plans, Mitigata will establish three dedicated Global Security Operations Centers (SOCs) in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi to scale its AI-driven threat detection, incident response, and managed security services across the country.

What sets Mitigata apart is its holistic approach to unifying security, compliance, and insurance into a single, intelligent platform. Its AI-driven risk manager provides real-time visibility and actionable insights across the entire cyber risk spectrum. By eliminating the complexity of managing fragmented vendors, and aligning financial protection with actual risk data, Mitigata enables organizations to build strategic, scalable, and cost-effective cyber resilience.

Mitigata has rapidly built a full-stack cyber resilience ecosystem that combines cutting-edge technology with embedded services — positioning itself as a next-generation MSSP (Managed Security Services Provider) tailored for India’s cyber risk landscape. The company’s platform leverages AI-powered tools alongside deeply integrated services to deliver real-time, outcome-driven cyber protection. Core capabilities include RELIQ, its proprietary Cyber Risk Quantification model, Attack Surface Monitoring, Threat Intelligence, Dark Web & Brand Monitoring, Phishing Simulations, and GRC Automation. Mitigata’s AI-powered underwriting engine further streamlines the structuring and pricing of cyber and liability insurance, aligning financial protection with real-time risk intelligence.

Complementing its platform, Mitigata offers a robust suite of services including 24x7 SOC monitoring, VAPT, CERT-In empanelled audits, incident response, digital forensics, and deployment of cybersecurity tools. The company uniquely embeds Forward-Deployed Security Engineers (FDSEs) within client environments, enabling hands-on, real-time threat detection and response — ensuring organizations not only gain visibility but actionable, on-ground protection.

Mitigata partners with all major general and public-sector insurers — including HDFC ERGO, ICICI Lombard, TATA AIG, Bajaj Allianz, and New India Assurance — ensuring cyber coverage is tightly aligned with real-time risk posture, enabling smarter coverage, better claims outcomes, and faster response to cyber incidents.

The founders- Mohit Anand (IIT BHU), Sarthak Dubey (MIT Manipal), Mayank Morya (IIT BHU), and Akshit Kaushik (IIT Mandi) bring with them rich experience from leading organizations such as Meesho, Delhivery, Lenskart, Khosla Labs (Trustt-Novopay), and CGI. They are joined by Bhranti Shah, formerly with HDFC ERGO, who leads Mitigata’s insurance division, along with senior executives from WTW, Howden and Marsh. Strengthening its leadership in security, Mitigata has also onboarded senior experts from cybersecurity, insurance, national security, and risk domains, including an ex-Indian Navy Commander as CISO & head of security, to lead its mission of building India’s cyber resilience infrastructure.

Mohit Anand (Co-founder and CEO), said, “Most businesses still treat cyber insurance and security as separate cost centers, often relying on fragmented vendors and siloed solutions. At Mitigata, we’ve reimagined and Indianised the model — delivering integrated, high-impact cyber resilience that combines security and insurance into a single, cost-efficient solution tailored to the unique needs of Indian organizations.”

Anand Datta, Partner, Nexus Venture Partners, added, “We believe the future of cybersecurity and Insurance is an integrated, full-stack approach. Mitigata is pioneering a new AI led services approach to cyber resilience that covers the entire lifecycle—from prevention and mitigation to risk transfer via insurance. Their model is precisely what Indian enterprises need to thrive securely. We are proud to be partners with this mission-driven team from day zero.”

“In a short span of time, Mitigata has become the trusted partner for solutioning cybersecurity and insurance across enterprises as they face up to this mounting challenge. It has been a privilege to see their outstanding traction and we are extremely proud to back them again as they scale up and build out a true “Made in India” full-stack AI based offering which is the need of the hour”, Deepak Gupta, General Partner, WEH Ventures, mentioned.

“Our mission goes beyond traditional cybersecurity — we are building strategic resilience for India’s digital economy by driving cybersecurity innovation from within. This directly supports the vision of an Atma Nirbhar Digital India, particularly in the critical domains of cybersecurity and national security”, said Sarthak Dubey (Co-founder and COO).

Mitigata is actively shaping the future of cyber resilience - by bringing cybersecurity conversations into boardrooms, policy circles, and C-suites — not just IT departments. Mitigata is transforming how India prepares for and responds to cyber threats and is helping the nation become truly self-reliant in cybersecurity innovation, defence, and risk governance.

Olto Raises $5.1 Mn Co-Led By Nexus Venture Partners and The General Partnership

Olto, the AI demo engineer transforming how B2B teams demo and sell software, has raised $5.1 million in pre-seed funding. The round was co-led by Nexus Venture Partners and The General Partnership, with participation from Afore Capital, Recall Capital, Ligature, FirstHand and notable founders and executives.

Olto transforms every buyer interaction, whether a live demo call, an outbound touch, or an inbound visit, into a high-converting product experience by generating context-aware demo environments and interactive product tours for every opportunity in the CRM. Designed for the entire GTM motion, Olto operates as an always-on expert AI demo engineer.

The company was founded by seasoned Amazon executives Kintan Brahmbhatt and Jean-Baptiste Chaput, with veteran Amazon engineer Pranav Midha joining as founding engineer. Brahmbhatt co-founded Amazon Music, where he led its product team, and Amazon’s podcasting business, which he ran as general manager. He also co-invented Prime Video's X-Ray feature – the contextual information layer that transformed how millions of consumers discover and experience content.

“At Amazon, we pioneered just-in-time personalization to change the way consumers engage with media,” said Kintan Brahmbhatt, CEO and co-founder of Olto. “With Olto, we’re bringing that same magic to B2B software. Every seller gets an expert demo engineer that’s always on, always current, and always tailored to the buyer.”

B2B buyers increasingly expect consumer-grade, personalized experiences, while revenue leaders face mounting pressure to accelerate sales cycles and do more with smaller teams. Traditional product demos remain heavily manual, inconsistent, and dependent on scarce solutions engineering resources, creating bottlenecks that slow deal velocity. 

To solve this challenge, Olto’s AI-native platform integrates directly with a company’s CRM and live product, overlaying intelligent, prospect-specific data across real interfaces. Behind the scenes, Olto combines a custom entity resolution engine and a flexible orchestration layer that leverages multiple LLMs to personalize demos on the fly. It adapts seamlessly to ongoing changes to the underlying product, eliminating the delays and maintenance burden of legacy demo tools.

"AI is upending traditional approaches to B2B sales," said Abhishek Sharma, managing director at Nexus Venture Partners. "Sales teams spend countless hours on manual demo preparation, only to deliver generic experiences that don't resonate with prospects. Olto's AI-first approach eliminates this time drain and creates genuinely targeted experiences that lead to faster sales cycles. Kintan and JB’s unique background in building delightful ML-powered products at Amazon gives them a compelling advantage in solving this problem."

"What excited us about Olto is how naturally Kintan and JB are applying their consumer product instincts to one of the biggest bottlenecks in enterprise software sales–demo delivery," said Phin Barnes, co-founder at The General Partnership. "They've built an AI-native system that actually enhances how buyers experience a product beyond simply automating workflows.”

About Olto

Olto’s AI demo engineer agent enables sales, solutions, and marketing teams to deliver personalized demos that communicate the product’s highest and most relevant value to each buyer. Founded by veteran Amazon executives, Olto helps revenue teams accelerate sales cycles, reduce demo preparation time by up to 80%, and deliver consistent, tailor-made experiences that drive higher conversion rates. Headquartered in San Francisco, Olto is trusted by leading sales organizations at companies like Demandbase, Eightfold.ai, Qventus, and Jiminny. Learn more at olto.com.

Regulatory Compliance Startup Zango AI Raises $4.8 Mn Led by Nexus Venture Partners

Regulatory compliance startup Zango has raised $4.8 million, in a seed round led by Nexus Venture Partners with participation from South Park Commons - company’s first backer where Zango was incubated, Richard Davies, CEO of Allica Bank, Alan Morgan, Senior Partner Financial Services at McKinsey (EMEA) and Chairman Adfisco, Mark Ransford, Notion Capital, No Label Ventures and Start Ventures.

The funds raised will be used to expand teams in London & Bengaluru along with building out the other product modules for an AI-native Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC). Zango will expand into other verticals of financial services as well outside of banking to insurance and asset management

Traditional SaaS stops at KYC and AML, leaving the rest of compliance buried in spreadsheets and manual reviews. Zango changes that with their regulation-aware AI agents that continuously track regulatory updates (horizon scanning), identify compliance gaps in real time, and keep firms audit-ready — no operational drag, no surprises.

Zango is actively used by established banks such as Novobanco, the fourth-largest bank in Portugal, and is gaining traction with leading neo banks in the EU and UK, including Monzo and Juni.

Today, financial services regulations stretch across tens of thousands of pages, creating slow, manual workflows and significant costs for businesses striving to stay compliant. Zango addresses this critical challenge by transforming regulatory complexity into a clear list of requirements. Its innovative solution is training regulation-specific Large Language Models (LLMs) to make compliance as intuitive as a simple query, enabling businesses to launch new products and expand into new markets with unprecedented speed and confidence, helping compliance be a growth centre rather than just a cost centre.

Zango’s AI agents don’t just read and interpret regulations with a high degree of accuracy — they integrate into a company’s day-to-day operations. In one example, a workflow with one of the banks involving the regulator was reduced from 48 hours to under 4 hours, showcasing the power of AI in regulated environments. Compliance becomes a continuous, always-on process rather than a one-time checklist. Traditional consultants give you a green light at a moment in time. But fast-growing businesses change quickly. Six months later, that “green light” is irrelevant — and by the time a regulator shows up, you could be out of bounds.

"We don’t sell a platform — we sell a solution," said Ritesh Singhania, Co-founder of Zango. "Our AI agents are paired with humans-in-the-loop to ensure 100% accuracy. Peace of mind doesn’t come from a tool; it comes from a result. That’s why we win against consultants — because they don’t just sell software, and neither do we.”

Zango was co-founded by Ritesh Singhania and Shashank Agarwal, both second-time founders with deep experience in regulatory technology. Ritesh previously founded ClearGlass, a pension compliance platform, and served as Head of Technology at Simplitium (acquired by NASDAQ). Shashank co-founded Third Watch, an AI-powered fraud detection startup (acquired by Razorpay, valued at $7.5bn+), and led trust and compliance engineering at PhonePe, which is gearing up for India’s largest IPO.

"The global regulatory landscape is ripe for disruption," said Anand Datta, Partner at Nexus Venture Partners. "Ritesh and Shashank, with their firsthand, proven expertise, developed Zango's first-principles approach: uniquely marrying cutting-edge AI with human compliance expertise. Their AI-led solution is already augmenting the compliance team and increasing their efficiency at global financial institutions. We're incredibly excited to be part of their journey."

"We are thrilled with how Zango AI has transformed our regulatory screening processes, saving us hundreds of hours of manual repetitive work and allowing our team to focus on strategic initiatives," said Lara Reis, Head of regulatory affairs, Novobanco.

"For Horizon scanning, Zango is a game-changer. The platform’s current and future modules are set to revolutionize the second line of defense work in regulated industries like ours," Sabina Ausfelt, Head of compliance, Juni.

About Zango AI

Zango is a regulatory compliance solution that leverages AI alongside trusted subject-matter experts to automate horizon scanning, gap analysis, and controls testing for global financial institutions. Founded in 2024 by experts in AI and financial regulation, the company operates globally with offices in London, San Francisco and Bengaluru. Zango is trusted by enterprise customers navigating complex regulatory environments across the UK, EU, and beyond. The platform is SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certified, with security and scalability built in from the ground up. For more information, visit www.zango.ai.

About Nexus Venture Partners

Nexus Venture Partners is a leading early-stage venture capital firm partnering with extraordinary entrepreneurs building product-first companies. With $2.6 billion under management, Nexus operates as a unified team across the US and India. Nexus’s portfolio includes Apollo.io, Bolt, Postman, Observe.ai, Neuron7.ai, Daloopa, Fingerprint, Zepto, H2O.ai, Iambic, Infra Market, MinIO, Pubmatic, Rapido, Rancher, Turtlemint, Uniqus and Delhivery.

60-Minute Fashion Delivery Platform Slikk Raises $10 Mn in Series A Led by Nexus Venture Partners

Slikk, India’s first 60-minute fashion delivery platform, has raised $10 million in an all-equity Series A round led by Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Lightspeed. The funding will fuel Slikk’s next phase of growth, including the launch of new lifestyle categories, rollout of instant returns, and expansion into more urban pin codes, further reinforcing its promise of speed and convenience in Indian e-commerce.

Since its inception, Slikk has demonstrated strong traction among India’s young and impulse-driven shoppers. With high customer retention and repeat usage, Slikk is rapidly emerging as the go-to destination for fashion delivered at speed. Its unique model combines curated fashion, Try & Buy convenience, instant refunds and rapid delivery, all within 60 minutes.

“Slikk, since inception has delivered a high-quality customer experience through our 60-minute delivery model. Brands have been able to unlock new users at a hyperlocal level. With this new round, we intend to double down on that promise and offer a significantly wider range of products and experiences to our customers,” said Akshay Gulati, Co-Founder & CEO, Slikk.

As it scales, Slikk will diversify into categories such as beauty and personal care (BPC), footwear, accessories and wearables, while extending its presence across key metros. The introduction of instant returns will further enhance its seamless shopping experience and strengthen customer trust.

Pratik Poddar, Partner at Nexus Venture Partners, said, “Having watched quick commerce reshape India's consumer behavior, we firmly believe fashion is the definitive next frontier for digital disruption. The Slikk team's deep category insights and strategic execution are precisely what this moment demands. We're incredibly excited to be long-term partners in shaping this future."

"We backed Slikk at the seed stage because their take on fashion commerce was refreshingly ahead of its time. The team built a product that truly resonates with its customers, reflected in strong retention and engagement. We are happy to double down on our investment and support Akshay and the team's focus on newer categories and reaching a wider audience across India." added Rahul Taneja, Partner, Lightspeed.

Slikk currently serves a dynamic audience of college students, young professionals, and urban shoppers heavily influenced by social trends.

With India’s apparel market projected to reach US$109.45bn in 2025, and the beauty and personal care segment exceeding $34 billion, Slikk is well-positioned to address the rising demand for hyperlocal fast-fashion solutions.

About Slikk:

Slikk was founded by Akshay Gulati (CEO), Om Prakash Swami (CTO), and Bipin Singh (CPO), who bring extensive experience in building and scaling commerce platforms. Their expertise is now fueling innovation in fashion e-commerce. As India’s first quick-commerce fashion platform, Slikk delivers clothing and accessories within 60 minutes across Bangalore, eliminating long wait times and making shopping seamless. With its unique Try & Buy model, Slikk offers customers a hassle-free experience, redefining convenience in Indian e-commerce.

www.slikk.club

About Nexus Venture Partners:

Nexus Venture Partners is a leading early-stage venture capital firm partnering with extraordinary entrepreneurs building product-first companies. With over $2.6 billion funds under management, Nexus VP operates as one team across the U.S. and India. Nexus VP companies include Zepto, Rapido, IndiaShelter, Delhivery, Headout, Ultrahuman, Postman, Apollo.io, MinIO, Fingerprint, Neuron7.ai, Daloopa, Hasura, Observe.ai, Rancher, Pubmatic, Druva, H2O.ai and Turtlemint.

For more information, visit www.nexusvp.com or follow @nexusvp on X.

About Lightspeed:

Lightspeed is a global multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise, Consumer, Health, and Fintech sectors. Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed hundreds of entrepreneurs and helped build more than 500 companies globally including Affirm, Acceldata, Carta, Cato Networks, Darwinbox, Epic Games, Faire, Guardant Health, Mulesoft, Navan, Netskope, Nutanix, Physics Wallah, Razorpay, Rubrik, Sharechat, Snap, OYO Rooms, Ultima Genomics, Zepto and more. Lightspeed and its global team currently manage $25B in AUM across the Lightspeed platform, with investment professionals and advisors in the U.S., Europe, India, Israel, and Southeast Asia. For more information, visit: www.lsip.com

Uniqus Consultech Raises $20 Mn in Series C Led By Nexus Venture Partners

Uniqus Consultech, a tech-enabled global platform that offers consulting solutions in the accounting & reporting, finance operations, governance, risk, ESG, and technology domains, today announced that it has secured $20 million in Series C funding.

The round was led by Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from Sorin Investments. Nexus and Sorin are existing investors in Uniqus. The funds will be used to accelerate the company’s rapid growth trajectory, launch adjacent services, and expand its geographical footprint across the globe. Uniqus also plans substantial R&D investments in AI-driven solutions for the reporting and risk management challenges faced by its clients.

The funding comes amid exceptional growth as Uniqus satisfies the strong market need for modern consulting solutions. Companies now seek consulting services that blend deep domain expertise with cutting-edge technology and access to a global talent pool. Uniqus has emerged as a leader, providing specialized, and scalable technology-driven solutions that disrupt traditional consulting models.

Since launching two years ago, Uniqus has established offices in 11 cities across India, US, and the Middle East, employing more than 550 high-performing professionals led by 60 Partners and Directors, serving more than 250 clients. During this period, Uniqus has also launched several tech assets:
UniQuest: GenAI-powered platform transforming search, summarization and analysis across industries including regulatory filings to deliver dynamic conversations and precise answers to reporting queries

• Risk UniVerse: Proprietary platform designed specifically to streamline internal controls over financial reporting, SOX compliance, and internal financial controls
• Reporting UniVerse: Comprehensive technology solution for financial reporting and data management
• ESG UniVerse: Advanced data management and reporting tool tailored for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics.

Uniqus also enhances its offerings through strategic technology partnerships with companies like Cranium AI to enhance AI Risk Management Solutions for its clients.

"Uniqus represents the future of consulting,” said Anup Gupta, Managing Director of Nexus Venture Partners. "While traditional consulting firms struggle to adapt to changing market needs, Uniqus takes a fundamentally different approach that delivers superior results. The company's strategic use of technology and AI, coupled with its global cloud delivery model, unlocks an enormous opportunity to transform client outcomes and redefine consulting economics. We are thrilled to reinforce our partnership with Team Uniqus in this exciting journey."

“Our vision has always been to build a consulting platform that leverages global talent and technology to deliver exceptional client outcomes,” said Jamil Khatri, Co-Founder & CEO of Uniqus. “With a $100 billion+ addressable market before us, this is just the beginning. Our latest round of funding positions us to expand our capabilities and geographical presence as we tap into this market. The funding will also help us to build Uniqus AI, leveraging our deep domain skills and new GenAI models to transform how consulting services are delivered.”

"Uniqus continues to execute remarkably well as it builds a differentiated, global consulting company,” said Sanjay Nayar of Sorin Investments. “The company has anticipated and capitalized on the growing need for tech-enabled consulting services, positioning itself well ahead of competitors. With its proven execution prowess and the significant opportunities that lie ahead, we are excited to partner with Uniqus on the next phase of its growth journey.”

The Series C funding saw significant investor interest and marks another milestone in Uniqus’ journey, affirming investor confidence in its vision, team, and potential for long-term success.

Nexus Venture Partners is an India-US venture fund started by successful entrepreneurs, with a focus on enterprise technology and Digital India spaces. Sorin Investments is an early-stage tech fund founded by private equity veteran, Sanjay Nayar.

Further AI Raises $5 Mn Led By Nexus Venture Partners

Led by Nexus Venture Partners, the new investment will help the AI company advance its commercial insurance AI, add more enterprise integrations, and grow its team.

FurtherAI, the company behind AI assistants that master complex insurance workflows, has raised $5 million in a seed round of funding led by Nexus Venture Partners (through their latest $700 million AI-dedicated fund), with participation from Pioneer AI Fund, South Park Commons, Y Combinator, ConvergeVC and strategic investors such as Xceedance, along with several insurtech angel investors. This brings the total funds raised by the company to over $5 million. FurtherAI is also expanding into the UK, where insurers are accelerating AI adoption to modernize underwriting, compliance, and claims processing.

The funding will be used by the tech firm to grow its AI team, drive strategic industry engagement, and expand and enhance the product’s capabilities.

Purpose-built for the insurance industry, FurtherAI’s AI automates complex document processing and integrates disjointed systems to revolutionize underwriting, compliance, and claims processing at scale. This investment marks a significant milestone as the company continues to drive efficiency and innovation in commercial insurance.

FurtherAI’s innovative technology is already trusted by leading insurers and carriers worldwide, with customers writing more than $15 billion in premiums.

Commercial insurers have long struggled with increasing expense ratios and loss ratios, and a shrinking talent pool. FurtherAI addresses these challenges with a platform that delivers superior accuracy, achieving 95-97% accuracy compared to 70-77% accuracy with manual processing. It also seamlessly integrates into existing systems. Key benefits include:

• Modular Adaptability: A “LEGO block” design that quickly adapts to current workflows.
• Enhanced Accuracy: Achieving 95-97% accuracy for reliable outcomes.
• Seamless Integration & Scalability: Designed to integrate with legacy systems and scale across diverse use cases – from underwriting to claims processing.

Aman Gour, co-founder and CEO of FurtherAI, said, “When we first partnered with the insurance industry, many claimed it was slow to innovate and held back by repetitive tasks. We saw it differently: insurance isn’t inherently sluggish or mundane—it just needed more advanced technology. Now, with large language models, we’re unlocking the industry’s true potential. I’m thrilled that top investors recognize this opportunity, enabling us to drive real change in the industry.”

Sashank Gondala, co-founder and CTO of FurtherAI, said, “We’ve seen a lot of untapped potential because traditional models don’t fully meet the unique needs of specialized insurance. At FurtherAI, we’re committed to building far better and more accurate solutions while upholding the strict privacy and compliance standards that the industry demands."

Commenting on the investment, Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners said, “FurtherAI’s autonomous AI Agents are set to transform the commercial insurance industry: their solution’s accuracy and adaptability not only boost efficiency and competitiveness but also address what has been a long-enduring talent shortage in the industry. By automating tedious tasks, existing teams can focus on high-value, strategic work that not only eases the strain on current teams, but also makes the industry more appealing to the next generation of talent. We are thrilled to back Aman, Shashank and team as they bring advanced AI to change traditional industries for the better”.

FurtherAI’s technology is already making a big impact for many insurers and carriers in several key areas, including:

• A large managing general agent (MGA) handling over $1.5 billion in premiums doubled its underwriter productivity by streamlining submission processes.
• A risk exchange estimates doubling the number of policies audited while cutting compliance audit times by 20%+ in the first year.
• A regional insurer boosted its policy comparison process by over 95%, leading to quicker and more accurate insights.

About FurtherAI - FurtherAI is a San Francisco-based AI company transforming the insurance industry through intelligent automation. Its advanced AI solutions streamline complex workflows by processing vast amounts of insurance data, navigating internal systems, and automating critical tasks such as submission intake, policy comparison, loss runs processing, and underwriting audits. By reducing manual effort, FurtherAI empowers insurers and MGAs to improve accuracy, efficiency, and decision-making at scale. FurtherAI meets the highest security and compliance standards, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR.

Founded by AI and insurance experts with backgrounds at Microsoft, Apple, and leading insurance companies and insurtech startups, FurtherAI combines deep technical innovation with real-world industry expertise. Co-Founders Aman Gour and Sashank Gondola bring extensive experience in AI-driven workflow automation, while insurance veteran Ben Grosser has built and scaled underwriting models for top insurance firms. Together, its team is building AI-powered teammates that help insurers eliminate operational bottlenecks, enhance risk assessment, and drive profitable growth. For more information, visit FurtherAI at https://www.furtherai.com

Cognida Secures $15 Mn Series A from Nexus Venture Partners

With proven success across 30+ enterprises, Cognida.ai’s practical approach reduces AI implementation time from 8 months to just 12 weeks, making AI adoption predictable and profitable

Cognida Team

Cognida.ai, a leader in practical AI solutions for enterprises, today announced the successful close of its $15 million Series A funding round, led by Nexus Venture Partners. This investment validates Cognida.ai's unique approach to making AI implementation practical and financially impactful for enterprises, demonstrated through successful deployments at over 30 leading organizations.

While 87% of enterprises invest in AI, only 20% successfully deploy solutions into production. We are uniquely positioned to close the divide between ambition and practically integrating AI into everyday business processes. -Feroze Mohammed, Cognida CEO.

In a market where 80% of AI projects fail and implementation typically takes 6-8 months, Cognida.ai has cracked the code on enterprise AI adoption through its innovative Zunō accelerator platform and industry-specific solutions, consistently delivering implementations in 10-12 weeks with measurable ROI.

Transforming Enterprise AI Implementation

Cognida.ai’s practical AI approach has delivered measurable results across industries. Examples include:

• 70% faster invoice processing with 99% accuracy, streamlining operational efficiency for a leading manufacturing client.
• 45% improvement in inventory forecasting, optimizing SKU level accuracy enabled by advanced ML models for a video surveillance equipment manufacturer.
• 5x faster quote generation in response to RFQs, generating $10M+ in new revenue with Generative AI.
• 1% customer churn reduction, saving millions in annual revenue with ML-powered predictive customer insights.

“Enterprise AI adoption has reached its tipping point,” said Feroze Mohammed, Founder and CEO of Cognida.ai. "While 87% of enterprises are investing in AI, only 20% successfully deploy solutions into production. We are uniquely positioned to close the divide between ambition and achievement in integrating AI into everyday business processes. We’ve honed the expertise, tools, and delivery model needed to navigate the complexities of AI adoption. This investment validates our approach of delivering measurable ROI through practical AI solutions, leading the next wave of AI services companies."

“AI’s mainstream adoption requires specialized service providers who can bridge the gap between cutting-edge capabilities and practical applications," said Anup Gupta, Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners. "We are impressed with Cognida.ai’s strong traction and innovative approach with a clear focus on practical AI solutions. Their success with enterprise clients showcases an ability to deliver real impact, and we’re excited to partner with Feroze and the team as they scale in this dynamic space.”

Successful enterprise AI needs a hybrid model combining specialized services, software, and a co-creation approach to tackle real-world integration and compliance challenges. “When we considered our ambitious slate of projects, we needed a partner with a deep commitment to excellence, strong engineering expertise, and the ability to bring top-tier talent to our AI, digital engineering, and data initiatives,” said Joe Montalto, COO and CIO of The Phia Group. “Partnering with Cognida.ai has been a smart and productive decision. Their Zunō platform and co-creation approach have enabled us to innovate and deliver transformative AI solutions, driving measurable success across multiple initiatives."

“Clopay's digital transformation journey has significantly enhanced customer experience in our industry. As we continue to harness AI solutions to transform our products and services, Cognida.ai has proven to be our trusted partner with their practical approach to AI implementation,” said A. Vinod, CIO of Clopay. "They bring not only deep AI expertise but also a strong understanding of manufacturing operations, data integration, and business processes."

Strategic Investment to scale Cognida.ai’s proven model to Practical AI for the Enterprise

The $15 million investment from Nexus Venture Partners, a globally recognized venture capital firm with a track record of backing transformative startups, reflects strong confidence in Cognida.ai’s vision and execution. The funding will accelerate Cognida.ai's proven implementation model through:

• Expanded AI solution library across key industries.
• Advanced development of its innovative Zunō agentic AI platform, delivering greater efficiency and scalability.
• Growth of AI implementation teams to meet increasing demand from enterprises worldwide.
• Accelerated go-to-market strategies in target enterprise segments to broaden its customer base.About Cognida.ai

Cognida.ai specializes in practical AI solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes. Through its innovative Zunō platform and industry-specific foundational solutions, Cognida.ai empowers enterprises to adopt AI seamlessly, and achieve real results without disruptive overhauls. Headquartered in Chicago with offices in Silicon Valley and Hyderabad, Cognida.ai serves clients across manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and technology sectors. For more information, visit www.cognida.ai.

About Nexus Venture Partners

Nexus Venture Partners is a leading early-stage venture capital firm partnering with extraordinary entrepreneurs building product-first companies. With $2.6 billion under management, Nexus operates as a unified team across the US and India. Nexus’s portfolio includes Apollo.io, Delhivery, Fingerprint, H2O.ai, Iambic, Infra Market, MinIO, Neuron7.ai, Observe.ai, Postman, Pubmatic, Rapido, Rancher, Turtlemint, Uniqus, and Zepto.

Snabbit, India’s First Quick-Service App, raises $5.5 Million from Elevation Capital and Nexus Venture Partners

Snabbit, a Quick-Service App providing on-demand home services, has raised $5.5 million in a Series A round of funding, led by Elevation Capital, with participation from Nexus Venture Partners. The round also saw participation from prominent angels including Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, Gaurav Munjal and Niraj Singh. This round follows an earlier $1 million seed investment by Nexus Venture Partners in early 2024.

Snabbit is on a mission to simplify urban living by connecting households with trusted and trained experts for everyday home tasks, available on-demand. These professionals can be booked by the hour and arrive within 15 minutes, equipped to handle multiple tasks such as general cleaning, dishwashing, and laundry. Snabbit provides a quick, reliable, and high-quality solution to a common challenge faced by countless Indian households.

Snabbit was Founded in 2024 by Aayush Agarwal who previously served as Chief of Staff at Zepto, driving their fundraising efforts and leading strategic projects at the Quick-Commerce startup. Already active across select locations in Mumbai, the funding will be used to expand to more locations and build a strong team.

"India is an incredible market with immense untapped potential for high-frequency home services," said Aayush Agarwal, Founder & CEO of Snabbit. "Over the past few months, we’ve been extremely focused on understanding customer pain points and building a model that is not only scalable but truly game-changing. The response so far has been highly encouraging—we’ve acquired thousands of customers within just a few kilometers of serviceable radius, driven primarily by strong word-of-mouth. This is just the beginning of what we see as a massive opportunity. We’re not merely building a business; we’re leading the creation of a new category poised for significant innovation and growth in the years to come," he added.

Talking about the investment, Manish Advani, Vice President, Elevation Capital, said:

Snabbit's platform which provides quick, on-demand and affordable home services through a hyperlocal network of professionals is a game-changer. Leveraging a unique model to deliver reliable and high-quality services swiftly, they stand out in the home services sector. We are excited to partner with them on this journey as they grow from select micro markets in Mumbai to pan-India, transforming everyday convenience.

Suvir Sujan, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners, mentioned, “Snabbit is disrupting the home services industry at the hyperlocal level. We have been impressed by the vision and execution of the team.”

With a hyperlocal network operating in dense residential clusters, Snabbit has launched a unique business model that focuses on quality as well as speed. By adopting a full-stack approach to sourcing, training, and managing its experts, Snabbit ensures stable income and essential benefits like health and accident insurance for its supply cohort, thus empowering a workforce that has long been fragmented and unorganized. Snabbit’s dual focus on customer convenience and welfare for its experts creates a win-win ecosystem, redefining the on-demand home services industry.

Founded in 2024 by Aayush Agarwal, Snabbit is India’s first Quick-Service App offering on-demand home services. With a hyperlocal network operating in dense residential clusters, Snabbit guarantees quality and speed, providing trusted and trained experts that arrive within minutes. Backed by Nexus Venture Partners and Elevation Capital, Snabbit takes a full-stack approach to sourcing, training, and managing experts. Combined with an innovative time-based pricing model, Snabbit simplifies daily life for urban families while creating respectable, well-paying opportunities for a workforce that has long been fragmented and unorganized.

Onsurity Secures $24 Mn in Funding from World Bank's IFC, Nexus Venture Partners, and Quona Capital

Yogesh Agarwal and Kulin Shah (L-R)

The company aims to serve 50,000 businesses and 5 million lives by 2026

Onsurity, India’s first SME-focused monthly subscription-led employee healthcare benefits provider, has raised $24 million in Series B funding. The round is led by International Finance Corporation (IFC), the largest global development institution. Additionally, existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Quona Capital also participated in the round.

The insurtech start-up will utilise this funding to work with its insurance partners to facilitate an unparalleled claims experience for its members by co-creating a technology solution to drive a seamless and transparent journey. This initiative is particularly geared towards eliminating prolonged waiting periods and uncertainties typically associated with claims. This will ensure that all members experience a fully digital, transparent, and efficient benefits utilisation journey that is powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Additionally, these funds will bolster the company's overarching vision to forge partnerships with 50,000+ companies and provide coverage to over 5 million lives by 2026. A portion of this funding will also be allocated towards the company's efforts to charting its path to profitability.

Speaking on the milestone, Yogesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, Onsurity said, “We are immensely proud of reaching this milestone. Our goal has always been to revolutionise employee healthcare benefits, making them accessible and user-friendly for India’s SMEs. With the strong support of IFC, Nexus Venture Partners, and Quona Capital, we will further intensify our efforts in scaling our tech-based platform which will enable us to extend insurance coverage to a larger spectrum of SMEs, ensuring a comprehensive safety net for their operations.”

Kulin Shah, Co-founder and COO, Onsurity said, “India's SMEs stand at the threshold of a transformative era. The fresh infusion of funds will supercharge our mission to broaden our product offerings by crafting one of the finest tech-led distribution stacks in the industry. It underscores our commitment to shaping innovative partnerships, exploring new geographies, and penetrating underserved customer segments.”

In August, Onsurity became the fastest new-age insurtech to serve a million lives. The company’s reach spans across 5,000+ businesses, leaving an impact on SMEs in 26 Indian states and 3 union territories. It's noteworthy that over 80% of businesses purchasing healthcare memberships from Onsurity have ventured into employee healthcare for the first time.

“The availability of insurance coverage is vital for economic risk management and bolstering social security. Our recent funding underscores our dedication to a technology platform that improves accessibility of employer-sponsored health insurance services," said Wendy Werner, IFC Country Head, India. "Out-of-pocket healthcare expenses can be a significant burden for employees of SMEs. Health insurance helps SMEs manage their expenses while supporting their employees."

With the mission of making healthcare benefits accessible to India’s 'missing middle', Onsurity has catered to a spectrum of companies, ranging from small teams of 3 to established businesses with over 1,000 employees. From covering business executives and start-up employees to gig workers and their dependents, the company boasts of a diverse and inclusive member base. More than half of Onsurity’s members are blue-collar workers, and close to 40% hail from tier II and tier III cities.

Anup Gupta and Anand Datta of Nexus Venture Partners have brought a wealth of experience and strategic acumen to Onsurity’s board. Ganesh Rengaswamy and Sheena Jain of Quona Capital have been an invaluable guiding force in this journey, given Quona’s deep expertise in fintech and having seen similar insurtech businesses in other emerging markets.

The company, through its subsidiary, offers an array of crucial business products, including Cyber insurance, D&O liability insurance, Commercial General Liability insurance, among others under Onsurity Plus. These offerings are designed to provide comprehensive coverage and support SMEs in navigating the complexities of modern risks and challenges.

Kiwi Raises $6 Mn in Pre-seed Funding, Disrupts Indian Credit Card Industry With Innovative 'Credit on UPI' Offering

Kiwi co-founders (L-R) Siddharth Mehta, Mohit Bedi and Anup Agrawal

Kiwi has raised $6 million in pre-seed funding led by Nexus Venture Partners, Stellaris Venture Partners

Certified by NPCI, Kiwi will partner with leading banks for issuing instant digital Rupay credit cards

Kiwi, a revolutionary credit card platform, has announced the launch of its all-in-one "Credit on UPI," solution for customers. Certified by the NPCI, Kiwi is the first app in India that will help customers experience “Credit on UPI” by issuing Rupay Cards in partnership with banks. With this launch, Kiwi aims to create one of the largest direct-to-consumer (D2C) models in the credit market through its cutting-edge mobile application, which offers users the ability to make payments using either a credit card or bank account directly through their phones in a secure manner.

The company has raised $6 million in pre-seed funding from marquee investors - Nexus Venture Partners, Stellaris Venture Partners, and a host of angel investors. Kiwi has been co-founded by senior fintech experts and banking industry veterans, Siddharth Mehta (ex-CEO, Freecharge), Mohit Bedi (ex-Axis Bank & PayU), and Anup Agrawal (ex-business head, LazyPay).

Speaking about the launch, Siddharth Mehta, co-founder, Kiwi, said, “UPI has become the most inclusive mode of payment in India, with over 30 crore unique users and 5 crore merchants onboarded on the platform. With the launch of Kiwi app, for the first time in India, users can now leverage the power of a (RuPay) credit card with the convenience and ease of UPI. Our vision is to enable access to credit on UPI for 1 million users over the next 18 months.”

RBI recently approved the linking of RuPay Credit Cards to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which will provide a seamless, digitally enabled credit card lifecycle experience for the users. Kiwi users will be issued a RuPay credit card, digitally and instantly. Post receiving the card, users will be able to link the card to UPI on the Kiwi app and will be able to use the “Credit on UPI” transactions facility at offline as well as online stores. The Kiwi app will also help users manage their cards with a host of facilities like blocking cards, increasing limits, and making card payments while rewarding them for every transaction. Starting today, users will be able to join the waitlist by signing up on the website. The Kiwi app (available on Android and iOS) is expected to go live by mid-May.

Praveena Rai, COO, NPCI said, “In our step towards attaining the goal of ‘Digital Payments for All’, Kiwi will be a game-changer in the Indian credit card industry. With the monthly expenditure on UPI P2M transactions amounting to approximately Rs. 3.2 lakh crore, which is almost 2.5x larger than the monthly credit card spends, Kiwi is set to capitalize on a significant untapped market. Moreover, the number of unique UPI users are more than 100 times the number of existing card users in India, and the acceptance points for 'Credit on UPI' are anticipated to be five times larger than regular credit card acceptance points. Looking at the whitespace that Kiwi is addressing, we’re confident that their model will support plenty of Indian credit card users on a daily basis.”

Anup Gupta, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners said, “Kiwi will offer consumers the best of credit cards and UPI i.e. convenience, rewards and flexible repayment experience of credit cards along with unmatched acceptance rail of UPI which is ubiquitous across India. We are excited to partner with Team Kiwi in their mission to accelerate credit card adoption in India.”

Ritesh Banglani, Stellaris Venture Partners said, “UPI is the world's second-largest payment network, and is truly world class both in scale and robustness. By enabling credit card usage over UPI, Kiwi will further deepen the consumer value provided by the network. We are thrilled to partner with Kiwi in their quest to revolutionise the Indian credit card market.”

About Kiwi:

GoKiwi, a recently launched fintech startup, is revolutionizing the credit card landscape in India by harnessing the power of "Credit on UPI", a recently introduced feature by NPCI. As a certified entity, GoKiwi is the first app in India to offer customers the opportunity to experience "Credit on UPI" through its partnership with banks to issue RuPay Cards. The company aims to disrupt the credit card industry by becoming the leading issuer of RuPay Credit Cards by 2026.

GoKiwi's unique selling proposition is its complete end-to-end lifecycle management of the credit product inside the app. GoKiwi plans to on-board 1 million customers in the first 18 months. Kiwi has raised $6 million in a pre-seed round from Nexus Venture Partners, Stellaris Venture Partners, and a host of angel investors. The company is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices across Delhi and Bengaluru. The company has a total staff strength of 20.

CapGrid, Automotive Sourcing Startup, Raises $ 7 Mn in Series A Round Led by Nexus Venture

CapGrid, a B2B cloud manufacturing start-up for precision parts & components, announced today that it has raised $ 7 million in its latest funding round, led by Nexus Venture Partners.

The round also saw participation from existing investors Axilor and Anicut Capital. Deepak Jain, a senior Partner at Bain and head of the automotive practice in India, also participated as angel investor in the round.

CapGrid is building a digital supply network with an advance technology infrastructure, partnering with hundreds of Tier 2 manufacturers to get precision parts & components sourced, manufactured and delivered to customer’s assembly line. CapGrid’s deep capabilities in illuminating and tapping into the available capacity of QC-certified Tier 2 suppliers enables it to become a cloud manufacturer and aggregate supplier to Automotive and EV OEMs and Tier 1s. To be able to cater to manufacturers across the country, CapGrid partners with warehousing and logistics players in an asset light model to be able to deliver to the customer’s assembly line.

CapGrid’s customer list has leading players from across 2W, 3W, 4W, Tractor, Construction equipment manufacturers and large automotive Tier 1s. For these customers, CapGrid through various offerings e.g. regular procurement consolidation, NPD (New Product Development), SPD (Spare Parts) sourcing and Electric Vehicle component sourcing, becomes an aggregate supplier. CapGrid has been able to reduce the supply chain complexity by ~90%, reduce procurement cost to zero and material cost by 3-5% for its customers.

CapGrid is currently getting 5,000+ different precision components manufactured through its supplier network of 300+ partners and fulfilling it to customer’s assembly line seamlessly owning delivery and quality in the process. Globally this segment is worth $1,000 Bn+ in the automotive space itself. CapGrid is committed to utilizing this fresh funding infusion to deepen its technology infrastructure, talent acquisition and scale up cloud manufacturing with its supply partners.

Speaking on the funding round, Cofounder & CEO, Dheeraj says “We have digitalized the entire Source-to-Deliver process. CapGrid is working closely with multiple automotive and industrial manufacturers as a strategic partner for the supply of precision parts & components. Our technology stack and supplier aggregation capability helps customers reduce operational complexity and focus on innovation. With our decentralized global supply network, we can cater to direct material needs to OEMs and Tier 1s across the globe.”

Himanshu, Cofounder and COO, who closely works with the supplier ecosystem says, “CapGrid has illuminated manufacturing capabilities of 30,000+ suppliers across 15 countries and identified thousands of suppliers operating at 50-60% capacity. We allow them to focus, utilize and innovate on their core manufacturing capabilities by bringing aggregated manufacturing demand.”

Sameer Brij Verma, Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners, expressed that “We at Nexus are very excited about partnering with CapGrid as they revolutionise precision components sourcing and procurement for the automotive manufacturing sector via their robust network of cloud manufacturers. They are already working with leading OEMs on strategic initiatives like indigenisation, light-weighting, EV transition, procurement consolidation and value engineering. We see India being a global leader in manufacturing in the years ahead and feel CapGrid will increasingly be a partner of choice for OEMs looking to build high quality and agile supply chain while improving margins and OTIF significantly.”

Vyom Agarwal, Sr. Vice President at ACE (Action Construction Equipment ltd.), says that “There is a need to reduce the operational complexity of automotive and industrial manufacturing. We have engaged CapGrid as a single window in place of a cluster of suppliers mainly in hardware category to reduce our inventory, consolidate our buying and bring down supply chain complexity. ”

Intequant advisors acted as exclusive Financial advisors while JSA Law and Sarvaank Associates was legal and secretarial advisor.

About CapGrid-

CapGrid is an end-to-end source-to-deliver company for the low complexity direct material spend focused on the automotive and industrial manufacturers. The company leverages an AI-enabled sourcing platform with more than 30,000 manufacturers and their deep capability intelligence to run sourcing 10X faster. They have been able to reduce the sourcing and procurement complexity significantly, reduce inventory by half and reduce material cost by 5% for leading manufacturers. The innovative idea of starting such a venture was incorporated in December 2019 and it became functional in January 2021.

Headquartered in Gurgaon, company also has office in Bangalore and warehouses in Hosur, Rajkot, Jaipur and Faridabad. CapGrid was founded by Dheeraj Kumar Tiwari and Himanshu Singh Raghuvanshi. The two founders have extensively worked with manufacturers in India, the US, and Japan for more than ten years. They are both former management consultants. The founders saw a gap in the market globally where manufacturers were carrying out intricate direct material procurement procedures manually and slowly and, based on their observation, they used their expertise to overcome this flaw. This is when CapGrid was incepted.

Signal-based Trading Platform Investmint Raises $2 Mn in Seed Funding Led by Nexus Venture Partners

Investmint Co-Founders - Left Mohit Chitlangia Co-Founder & COO,  Right Aakash Goel Co-Founder & CEO

New funding will be used to expand product, engineering & quantitative research teams

Investmint app, currently in beta, will be widely launched in next few weeks

Investmint, a signal-based do-it-yourself trading and investing platform for retail investors, announced that it has raised $2 Million in seed funding led by Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from other prominent angel investors. Investmint’s vision is to make stock markets simple and actionable for everyday investors by offering easy trading and investing products backed by a data and science driven investment approach. The company’s Investmint trading and investing app – which is currently in open Beta with early adopters – will be widely launched within the next few weeks. The new funding will be used to expand its product, engineering, and quantitative research teams to create a world-class retail investing product.

Today there are approximately 100 million demat accounts in India and the number has doubled in the last 3 years. The data and science driven investment approach has been successfully used by sophisticated institutional investors, but has not been available to retail or DIY investors. Investmint aims to democratize these techniques and be the de-facto platform where retail investors can take confident investing decisions and participate systematically to manage their own money with the help of data-backed signals, active investing tools, and an active community. The app currently has multiple quantitative models for investing in stocks using long term baskets, as well as models to trade actively on a weekly or daily basis. For advanced traders, it includes models to trade in the Futures & Options segment systematically and scientifically.

Investmint was founded in Feb 2022 by Aakash Goel (previously with Headout and Instamojo) and Mohit Chitlangia (previously with Jupiter Money and CommonFloor) who come with significant experience having founded previous start-ups. The core team also include Sandeep Rao (formerly with CapitalMind) who heads quantitative research at Investmint.

Commenting on the funding, Aakash Goel, Co-founder & CEO, Investmint, said, “At Investmint, we are building a game changing product for retail investors and traders who believe in managing their own funds themselves. We are grateful to Nexus Venture Partners as well as many other early believers and angels for backing our vision.”

Anup Gupta, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners, added, “The last two years have seen a substantial rise in equity investing in India by retail investors. However, high quality data models have not been easily accessible to retail and do-it-yourself investors. Investmint has a unique approach and product to make such data models accessible in a manner that are easy to understand and track, and we are excited to partner with them in this journey to catalyse retail participation in stock markets.”

About Investmint

Investmint aims to democratize data driven, do-it-yourself investing for retail investors across equity and other exchange traded asset-classes. The company offers easy-to-use investing and trading tools that allow investors to take confident investment decisions, participate systematically in the markets, and manage their money with the help of data-backed signals, active investing tools and an active community. Founded by Aakash Goel and Mohit Chitlangia, Investmint’s mission is to make stock markets simple, actionable and profitable for all types of retail investors, irrespective of their profile or preferred asset-classes. For more information, www.investmint.club

Workplace Productivity App Aerotime Raises $2 Mn in Seed Funding Led by Nexus Venture Partners

Aerotime has raised $2M in a seed round of funding from Nexus Venture Partners, Y Combinator, Sequoia Capital India, SOMA Capital, and angels like Akshay Kothari (COO, Notion), Nir Eyal (NYTimes Bestselling author of Hooked & Indistractable), and Damien Coullon (VP Product, LinkedIn). Aerotime is a calendar that solves for productivity losses due to fragmented meetings and constant workplace distractions, without changing anything in the user’s workflow.

Most companies run on a manager’s schedule because it is very hard to find time with them, leading to spaced-out meetings on the calendar for everyone else. This calendar fragmentation is terrible for deep work, making work-hours highly unproductive - no wonder the real work starts after 5 pm!

Aerotime Founders (Left - Piyush Narwani, Right - Dhruv Goel)

Aerotime maximizes uninterrupted free time for deep work for the whole team by recommending perfect time slots for new as well as existing meetings. More than 20 parameters go into these recommendations like preferred focus times, past meeting schedules, per-user time fragmentation, etc.

It also helps you kill distractions with focus music and a Slack integration that snoozes notifications while updating your status when you're focusing. The product is live across 70 teams from different companies and is now coming out of private beta. With the funds raised, Aerotime has growth plans to target mid to large sized companies where this problem is most apparent.

Aerotime was founded in 2021 by Piyush Narwani and Dhruv Goel who come with strong product and engineering experience having worked with Linkedin and AWS respectively.

Piyush Narwani, co-founder of Aerotime, says, "Time is one of the most valuable assets we have, yet we waste it without realizing it. Prioritization and context switching are two of the biggest reasons for this. Aerotime helps you be intentional about time and automates many workflows to save time. Our vision is to help humans live life in a flow state - together, let’s be effective and not busy!”

Sameer Brij Verma, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners, adds, "We, at Nexus, are super excited to partner with the Aerotime team to help build an industry-leading solution allowing people to radically streamline meetings, prioritize tasks and take back control of their most valuable resource - time. There have been lots of point calendaring solutions in the market but none have been able to get users into a flow state. A state that will lead to decluttering their lives and exponentially increase their productivity."
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Aerotime is targeting a massive market, a study compiled by Atlassian quotes $37 billion as salary cost of unnecessary meetings for U.S. businesses alone.

Aerotime - New Meeting Recommendations

Aerotime - Task Drag & Drop

Observe.AI Raises $125 Mn Series C to Usher in AI-Empowered Era for Contact Centers

Largest-ever Series C funding for Contact Center AI helps Observe.AI cement its leadership position and propel continued industry-leading growth

Observe.AI, an Intelligent Workforce Platform that transforms contact centers through AI, today announced it has raised $125M in Series C funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 with participation from Zoom.

The round also includes participation from Observe.AI’s existing investors such as Menlo Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, and Nexus Venture Partners, bringing the company’s total funding to date to $213M.

Solving the Customer Experience Paradox for the $400 Billion Contact Center Market

This new funding highlights increased confidence in Observe.AI’s market position at a critical moment for the contact center industry, in which consumer expectations and technology investments are at an all-time high, yet brands struggle to improve customer experience and business outcomes. While $24 billion has been poured into technology investments, contact centers remain woefully in the dark when it comes to customer conversations. At most, typical contact centers have just 3% visibility into these interactions, leaving their customer-facing teams with no option but to work reactively and inconsistently – and leading to an estimated $75 billion per year in lost revenue.

Observe.AI’s Intelligent Workforce Platform transforms how contact centers operate as AI-empowered systems of intelligence, with full conversation visibility, business-improving insights, and machine-driven workflows. By surfacing intelligence from every customer interaction, Observe.AI acts as a force multiplier, boosting performance of customer-facing teams and automating repeatable processes that exceed business goals. The net effect is stellar customer experiences, top performing teams, and unprecedented business results.

This latest investment will fuel development of the next generation of Observe.AI’s product innovations – including expansion into harmonizing real-time with post-interaction agent coaching – scale the company’s go-to-market motion and drive continued geographical expansion into international markets, and accelerate its timeframe to IPO readiness.“Observe.AI has a transformative vision to deliver actionable and trustworthy AI that empowers digital-first businesses to create exceptional customer experiences,” said Priya Saiprasad, Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “We believe the company has built an intelligent, flexible platform with endless use cases, from healthcare companies seeking to enhance patient experience through to financial institutions aiming to boost revenue. We are thrilled to partner with Swapnil and the team to help them accelerate a paradigm shift within the contact center industry.”Observe.AI’s Continuous Momentum Build, Growth Trajectory, and Milestones

The last two years have been packed with milestones and continued record growth for Observe.AI. In September 2020, the company raised $54M in a Series B Funding round led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from Next47 Ventures and NGP Capital. On the heels of announcing 300% year-over-year revenue growth, Observe.AI made its entry into the omnichannel market with its acquisition of Scope.AI in August 2021.

In March 2022, Observe.AI announced continued record growth for its fiscal year, including nearly 150% increased ARR and increased customer base of $100K or more by 125% year-over-year. This propelled a substantial uptick in usage of the Observe.AI platform, including 3X increase in volume of customer interactions analyzed with its AI engine, 426% increase in AI-powered agent evaluations, and 201% increase in AI-powered agent coaching sessions.

Swapnil Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of Observe.AI, said: "Observe.AI has risen to meet this unprecedented crossroads for the contact center industry, in which a massive market is undergoing once-in-a-generation transformation and investment in the right technologies will make or break business outcomes. This fresh round of funding is further validation that Observe.AI is uniquely positioned with our industry-leading product innovations and offerings, robust services expertise and partner ecosystem, and intimate understanding of and execution on the evolving needs at the intersection of AI and CX. We not only lead this category in tangible business metrics, but in our forward-thinking approach to developing empowering, trustworthy, and actionable AI that drives value expressly for contact centers."

For more information about Observe.AI, please visit www.observe.ai

About Observe.AI 

Observe.AI is an Intelligent Workforce Platform that transforms contact centers by embedding AI into customer conversations, optimizing agent performance, and automating repeatable processes that drive revenue and retention. With Observe.AI, contact centers can surface intelligence across every interaction, giving employees highly accurate, actionable feedback using baked-in coaching and evaluation workflows, and improve key business metrics across every customer touchpoint. 

Observe.AI is trusted by hundreds of customers and partners, including ResMed, Pearson, 23andMe, Accolade, Group 1 Automotive, and Southeast Trans. Backed by Softbank Vision Fund 2, Zoom, Menlo Ventures, Next47, NGP Capital, Emergent Ventures, Scale Ventures, Nexus Ventures, and Y-Combinator, Observe.AI is headquartered in San Francisco with an office in Bangalore, India.

Nexus backed Hasura Becomes 1st Open-Source-based Unicorn from India; Raises $100 Mn Series C at $1 Bn Valuation

(L-R) Tanmai & Rajoshi

Hasura Announces $100M in Series C Funding at a $1B Valuation to Make GraphQL Available to Everyone

Greenoaks-led round will be used to expand R&D and go-to-market activities for GraphQL innovation leader

GraphQL innovation leader Hasura today announced that it has secured $100M in funding in a round led by Greenoaks with participation from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Vertex Ventures. The Series C round brings the total capital raised by Hasura to $136.5 million and the company’s valuation to $1 billion. 

Hasura plans to use the funding to accelerate research and development and expand go-to-market activities globally for the company’s GraphQL Engine, which makes it fast and easy for even those with zero GraphQL expertise to compose a GraphQL API from existing APIs and databases. Hasura has been downloaded more than 400M times and has earned more than 25,000 GitHub stars since its introduction in 2018.

“There are few better signs of a powerful developer experience than enthusiastic adoption. And on this count, there aren’t many companies like Hasura,” said Neil Shah, partner at Greenoaks. “Since the launch of their GraphQL engine in 2018, Hasura has witnessed explosive uptake across countless organizations, from grassroots open source projects, to some of the largest companies in the world. The common thread is substantial improvements in developer productivity and decreased time to market for mission-critical applications. Now, Hasura Cloud has taken this a step further, truly democratizing GraphQL, and letting anyone access their data with speed and simplicity. We are thrilled to partner with Hasura as they become a core primitive for building cloud-native applications."

Hasura is designed to make web application development faster than ever before by eliminating bottlenecks to data access for frontend and fullstack developers. The platform cuts down the time and niche expertise required to build GraphQL APIs for data access by automating the repetitive work involved in mapping models to APIs with common access patterns like pagination, filtering, joining, setting up authorization rules, and optimizing performance.

With operational data increasingly distributed among multiple sources and developers consuming data in insecure and unauthorized compute environments, Hasura provides data APIs that are able to connect to multiple services and data sources, embed domain-specific authorization logic, and provide the necessary security and performance/concurrency.

“This funding enables Hasura to greatly increase our innovation velocity, which in turn allows our rapidly-expanding user base to deliver software even faster,” said Hasura CEO Tanmai Gopal. “Over the last few years, we’ve worked closely with our users and customers to address a massive gap in delivering and consuming data via an API standard that developers love – GraphQL. With this funding round, our investors and the Hasura team are doubling down on our vision to solve data access and unlock the next decade of developer productivity. We’re going to be addressing the needs of our users by adding support for their favorite data systems much faster. The Hasura GraphQL Engine lets developers of all types, regardless of their GraphQL experience, start building GraphQL APIs without delay. We look forward to seeing what amazing things they build next using Hasura!”

For more information about, and to connect more closely with Hasura, join the Hasura monthly community call here or register to attend HasuraCon’22, being held June 28-30, 2022.

About Hasura

Hasura is helping to build the modern world of globally relevant, data-driven applications and APIs. Hasura’s range of data access solutions helps organizations accelerate product delivery by instantly connecting data and services to applications with GraphQL APIs. For more information, go to: https://hasura.io or follow @HasuraHQ on Twitter.