Audio-based conversational learning startup Mentza today announced it has raised $400,000 (about Rs 2.96 crore) in a seed funding round led by Inflection Point Ventures, a Gurgaon-based angel investment firm.

This is IPV’s 32nd investment for 2021 and is likely to invest Rs 155 crore this year across 60 plus startups. The firm had earlier invested in Endimension, Shadez, Neuropixel.ai, Streak, among several others.

According to a release, Mentza will utilize the raised funding in building a healthy base of experts and curious learners, building an efficient translation of conversations into content, and to broad base the platform regionally and across interest communities.

At present, The start-up has over 23,000 registered users and has already generated over 60,000 minutes of content on its platform.

Founded in 2020 by Anurag Vaish, Mumbai-based Mentza is a one of its kind audio-based conversational learning platform that enables users to engage through high-quality focused 20-minute conversations across diverse topics. The conversations are recorded with features like highlights, 40-second snippets, and curated content recommendations.

“Our mission is to get every growth-minded person to engage in at least one Mentza conversation every day, thus making learning effortless, continuous, and social. IPV’s investor community has CXOs who understand the need for continuous learning in today’s challenging growth environments. Thus, making them the ideal strategic partners in our vision,” Anurag Vaish, Founder of Mentza said.

The startup in a statement said that its team has a cumulative 80 years of work experience with deep expertise across tech, design, cognitive sciences, research, and marketing. 

The team is using its background and knowledge in data science to influence user engagement and retention. They have built the most robust & democratized short-form live audio platform with unique features like a live highlighter, audio portfolios, and creators’ studio.

It recently announced creator partnerships with Rolling Stones and Harper Collins and is in talks with MICA faculty & students to engage them on the platform.

Mentza is building both B2B and B2C use cases. Users can build a portfolio of recorded conversations with highlights and snippets.

Speaking on the investment, Ankur Mittal, Co-founder, Inflection Point Ventures, said:

“Mentza’s model of delivering curated content in 20 minutes capsules is a powerful idea. Audio is a powerful tool that allows you to learn and participate while multi-tasking. Mentza is looking to build an audio-focused conversational learning platform in a community setting, led by a team of strong second-time founders with diverse backgrounds and strengths.”

“Many funds we spoke with as part of our due diligence also showed keen interest in this space. While B2C is the immediate focus, Mentza is separately also working on a focused B2B strategy going after large untapped Enterprise Podcast space, he adds.

The startup claimed to be the first-ever organization in the world to build audio portfolios, recordings, and live highlights. Through its platform, Mentza promotes active learning where any participant can request to speak vs monologues/passive listening in other audio formats.

Apart from this, Mentza’s platform catalogues the content into an audio portfolio of eligible users and is testing AI-generated profiles of expertise and personality. The platform is also offered as an enterprise solution for internal use within organizations.

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Gurgaon-based healthtech startup ConnectedH today said it has raised $2.3 million in a seed funding round led by Kalaari Capital and Incubate Fund India.

The funding round also saw participation from Anicut Capital and marquee angel investors like Kunal Shah (Cred), Farid Ahsan (Sharechat), Roman Saini & Gaurav Munjal (Unacademy), Ashish Mohapatra, Ruchi Kalra (OfBusiness), Mars Shot Ventures, Varun Laul (Investcorp), Sweta Rao (White Cap Ventures), Raghavendra Prasad (Project StepOne & QikWell), Dr. Shuchin Bajaj (Cygnus Hospitals), and existing investors First Cheque and Point One Capital.

Founded in 2018 by IIT Kanpur alumni Shubham Gupta, Rahul Kumar, and Suresh Singh (IIM Bangalore alumni), with an aim to connect different sectors of the healthcare system and give the patients complete control over their information.

Cloud-based customer engagement platform Exotel today announced it has raised $35 million in a Series C funding round led by IIFL AMC, Sistema Asia Fund, CX Partners, Singularity Growth Opportunities Fund, and Arun Sarin (Ex-CEO of Vodafone) who joined the round as an angel investor and a mentor.

The round also saw participation from existing backers Blume Ventures and A91 Partner. While IndigoEdge, a Bangalore-based investment bank, acted as the exclusive banker for the transaction, according to a statement.

Exotel will primarily use the raised funding to boost its product offerings. The development comes after the startup got merged with Ameyo, a Gurgaon-based firm that offers call centre software solutions.

The startup in a statement said that both the entities will be focusing on building a full-stack customer engagement platform in the emerging markets to accelerate communication to the cloud and providing conversational AI capabilities for improved customer experience. 

Incorporated in 2011, Vijay Sharma, Shivakumar Ganesan, Ishwar Sridharan, and Siddharth Ramesh, launched Exotel to help businesses bring order and efficiency to customer communication.

The firm is currently working with some of the fastest-growing companies in the emerging markets (Ola, Flipkart, GoJek, HDFC Bank, Quikr, Redmart, etc.), Exotel with its voice, SMS infra, and Ameyo with its omnichannel contact center capabilities help manage their customer engagement over the cloud.

“Our desire to enable enterprises with the best in customer engagement is one step closer to reality. We’re building the market’s first cloud-based full-stack engagement suite by bringing in Ameyo’s contact center capabilities on top of Exotel’s cloud communication infrastructure.” Shivakumar Ganesan (Shivku), CEO & Co-founder of Exotel said.

Commenting on how the product suite enables enterprises, Shivku said “The platform will offer an easy way for businesses to communicate with customers over voice, chat, SMS, WhatsApp, and video without losing context.”

At present, Exotel is growing 70% YoY and is at an ARR of $45 million.

Sumit Jain, Senior Partner, Sistema Asia Fund said: “CPaaS is a $6Bn market in India and SEA and one of the fastest-growing technology areas in the post-covid world. Exotel has quietly emerged as the CPaaS platform of choice in India through its market-best reliability and comprehensive product suite. We are delighted to partner with them and expect them to become a globally relevant platform in the years to come.”

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Gurugram-based PumPumPum, a used car leasing startup, today announced it has raised an undisclosed amount of new bridge funding round led by LC Nueva AIF, an India domiciled Category II AIF Fund, where LC Nueva Investment Partners LLP is the Investment Manager.

According to a statement, PumPumPum will utilize the raised capital for consumer awareness, technology development, and expansion in over 15 cities across the country. 

Prior to this round, the startup had raised $735K as part of its pre-Series A round in April 2021, led by Inflection Point Ventures.

Founded in 2018 by Tarun Lawadia and Sameer Kalra, Dream Road Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which owns and operates PumPumPum, an online used car leasing startup that provides IoT-enabled pre-owned cars at an affordable and flexible subscription for short to long-term durations without any hassles of service and maintenance.

The startup currently offers its services in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, and plans to expand its reach to 15 cities in the next 12 months.

“Used car leasing and subscription is now fast catching pace in the country as employees are avoiding public transport for safety reasons and corporates are seeking an affordable car leasing model as an end-to-end employee mobility solution,” Tarun Lawadia, Founder and CEO, PumPumPum said.

“A pre-owned car leasing policy is one of the latest trends driving the HR rule book of a majority of corporates and startups in the country. The funding will be used to deepen PumPumPum’s presence in its current markets and expand into new ones,” he adds.

Sohil Chand, Chief Investment Officer, LC Nueva AIF, said: “Driven by millennials’ quest for an asset-light lifestyle and unique experiences, PumPumPum is radically changing the way the world looks at mobility and subscriptions. Subscriptions hold immense potential as they provide hassle-free car ownership and also help save a significant amount of tax, resulting in a much cheaper mode of commuting.”

“We are confident that this investment and partnership will make an impactful contribution to the fintech mobility space and drive adoption for used car leasing in India,” he added.

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Gurugram-based EV ride-hailing startup BluSmart today said it has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round led by BP Ventures. The round also saw participation from Mayfield India Fund, 9Unicorns, Survam Partners, and other existing investors. 

Earlier this month, BluSmart had partnered with BP to build a network of commercial large-scale EV charging stations. According to BP, this is its first direct investment in India and tenth in the mobility space.

Founded in 2019 by Anmol Jaggi and Punit K Goyal, BluSmart provides integrated electric vehicle ride-hailing and charging network services, aiming to deliver safer, cleaner, and more sustainable mobility.

With this round of funding, BluSmart plans to expand its fleet of electric vehicles and charging stations from Delhi to five additional Indian cities in the next two years. On the other side, the investment will help BP move towards becoming a leader in India’s mobility market, and to provide integrated energy and mobility solutions to help customers reduce their emissions across the world, the statement said.

“We believe that electric mobility has huge growth potential, driven in part by the increasingly favourable economics behind electric vehicles,” Anmol Singh Jaggi, co-founder of BluSmart, said. “With that in mind we want to redefine ride-hailing with electric vehicles, and our consumer focus has helped us to already establish a strong brand presence in our core market; to date, our vehicles have traveled over 21 million kilometers, he adds.

Richard Bartlett, SVP future mobility & solutions, said: “The electric mobility revolution will have a huge impact in reducing vehicle emissions in cities, which in India are growing quickly. BluSmart’s business model solves a number of key barriers to urban EV ride-hailing take-up, from the cost for drivers to the quality of customer experience.”

“Our partnership is underpinned by shared values; caring for customers, colleagues, and the environment, and with safety at the core of everything we do. We are excited to have made our first direct investment in India, to grow alongside the BluSmart business,” he adds.

Following the deal, Sophia Nadur, Managing Partner at BP Ventures, will be joining BluSmart’s board. BP Ventures so far has invested almost $800 million in more than 60 companies across seven geographies. 

According to BP’s statement, India is now the third-largest startup market globally and its GDP is projected to be the world’s third-largest by 2030. Yet with 35 of the top 50 most polluted cities globally, there’s a huge need for low carbon technologies to help make that growth compatible with its climate ambitions.

Urbanization is also increasing rapidly, with the UN projecting that India’s urban population size will nearly double from 2018 to 2050, potentially creating further congestion and environmental challenges that electric ride-hailing can help play a part in improving. 

The industry is forecast to grow significantly, with mobility as a service projected to make up 15% of the 1.1 trillion kilometres to be traveled by passenger vehicles in India by 2030, compared to 5% of the 477 billion kilometres traveled today.

With the largest EV charging infrastructure in India and a growing fleet of electric vehicles, BluSmart aims to transform ride-hailing in the country. The business is growing quickly in Delhi NCR, which represents 20% of India’s mobility market, which BluSmart estimate has already saved over approximately 1,500 tonnes of CO₂, with more than 650,000 passenger trips completed to date. 

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US-based cloud surveillance company Eagle Eye Networks today announced it has acquired Bengaluru-based AI surveillance startup Uncanny Vision, accelerating its leadership in providing AI and analytics to make customers’ businesses more efficient and the world a safer place. 

With this, Eagle Eye Networks adds advanced AI technology to its cloud video surveillance platform, R&D capabilities, engineering talent, and a new regional office in Bengaluru, India.

Additionally, The US-based company will fold Uncanny Vision into its operations and will retain all its 60 employees to power its Indian operations. It also plans to expand the Bengaluru office, which primarily has employees with technical and engineering expertise, to include sales and administrative staff to support its India operations.

“After evaluating more than a dozen AI companies, we began working with Uncanny Vision in 2020. It didn’t take long for us to conclude that Uncanny Vision is the clear leader in surveillance AI,” said Dean Drako, Eagle Eye Networks CEO. “Their award-winning AI technology is deployed across thousands of locations, including Fortune 500 customers.” 

Founded in 2013 by Ranjith Parakkal (CEO) and Navanee Sundaramoorthy (CMO), Uncanny Vision’s deep learning algorithms enable recognition, identification, and prediction, improving business operations, customer service, and site safety. 

Currently, its services are being used in Smart parking, Retail analytics, Gate security, Toll automation, Smart cities, ATM monitoring, Worker Safety, and Perimeter security.

“Uncanny Vision’s tools for training, building, and optimizing models, and its infrastructure for managing and storing training data are superior. This is a key component we’re excited to add to the Eagle Eye Networks platform,” Drako adds.

“Eagle Eye is committed to supporting Uncanny Vision’s current customers and will continue to build its global infrastructure to provide the very best 24/7 support to its valued customers around the world,” the US-based company said in a statement.

Additionally, Uncanny Vision co-founders, Ranjith Parakkal and Navaneethan Sundaramoorthy have joined the Eagle Eye leadership team. Speaking on the development, Parakkal said, “We share the Eagle Eye team’s vision to deliver advanced, cyber-secure AI cloud video surveillance offerings that transform video surveillance for businesses around the globe.”

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Bengaluru-based fintech startup Rupifi, which provides flexible BNPL credit line to SMEs on B2B marketplaces, today said it has raised $1 million in a mix of debt and equity round led by Alteria Capital and Gokul Rajaram (Coinbase, TradeDesk, and Pinterest board member).

According to a statement, Rupifi will utilize the raised capital to scale the existing ‘Buy Now Pay Flexibly’ product offering for small businesses transacting on business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces.

The development comes two weeks after it announced its partnership with Retailio to enable credit for its pharma retailers. 

The startup previously had raised $4.1 million as part of a pre-Series A round from Quona Capital, Binny Bansal, and Ankur Capital.

Founded in 2020 by Anubhav Jain, Ankit Singh, and Jawaid Iqbal, Rupifi through its fintech platform offers embedded lending solutions to B2B marketplaces. The startup is currently offering its services to small businesses (SMEs) across sectors like food, pharmaceuticals, fashion, electronics, agriculture, and general merchandise.

The fintech startup claims to have witnessed a 2X increase during the last six months in spends from SMEs that have been using its platform to transact on B2B marketplaces.

“We are excited to have Alteria Capital working with us in our goal to empower small businesses in India through access to financial products. We plan to use the debt towards creating stronger partnerships with financial institutions and secure significant limits from banks and non-banking finance companies for our expansion,” said Anubhav Jain, Co-founder & CEO of Rupifi.

“We believe in a balanced mix of both equity and debt to manage our growth, product development, and expansion plans in the embedded finance domain,” he adds.

“Every company will eventually be a fintech company and offer financial services to its customers. Rupifi is building the definitive platform for B2B companies to embed financial products into their customer experience in a fast, easy-to-use, and seamless way. I’m excited to support Anubhav, Ankit, and Jawaid as they march towards fulfilling their mission of helping small businesses access financial products such as credit and lending at the point of transaction”, said Gokul Rajaram.