4 rising startups in India – Dec. 19, 2016

Photo credit:lucato / 123RF.

Christmas is right around the corner, and these startups have met Santa a week early. Real estate, media, healthtech, and some bling, of course.

Nobroker

Akhil (left) and Amit, co-founders of NoBroker.Photo credit: NoBroker.

Bangalore-based online house-hunting startup NoBroker raised US$7 million as part of its series B round. As the name suggests, the startup wants to change the real estate market in India by offering house hunters and house owners a way to transact without the interference of, well, brokers.

The funding round was led by Korea’s KTB Network. Existing investors SAIF Partners, BEENEXT, and Digital Garage also participated in the funding.

Founded in 2014, NoBroker says it has served 1.5 million customers to date, adding more than 100,000 new registered customers each month. This results in savings of US$3 million in brokerage fees monthly.

“Our aim is to use these funds to expand rapidly and move towards becoming the number one online real estate player in India in terms of closed transactions in next 24 months” co-founder Akhil Gupta says. That means it has to overtake Commonfloor, Housing, Magicbricks, and a host of other rivals active in the market.

The difference? NoBroker says a typical rental transaction would cost two months brokerage and a resale transaction used to cost buyers and sellers a combined four to six per cent of the deal value as brokerage. NoBroker skips this transaction cost altogether.

The company even got attacked by local brokers last year over its business model.

VivoCarat

Ritesh Oza CEO & & Abhijith Shetty, COO , at VivoCarat. Photo credit: VivoCarat.

Bling is in the air as VivoCarat, an online jewellery marketplace, raised US$50,000 in seed funding from a group of investors. VivoCarat competes with Caratlane and Bluestone, but sells branded jewelry and doesn’t own inventory.

Founded in early 2016, it adds 100 to 150 new designs on the site every month. “VivoCarat has successfully managed to join hands with more than 30 reputed brands across Mumbai and other cities like Jaipur, Surat, Kolkata, and New Delhi.” says CEO Ritesh Oza.

“Since we don’t hold any inventory, it helps us revamp our product line and featured jewellers based on the time of the year and changing trends. Unlike retail jewellers, who try to sell an item to clear stocks, our focus remains on understanding and evolving as per the needs of the customer.”

The money will go towards launching a new lookbook and expanding.

ScoopWhoop

Entertainment website ScoopWhoop added some video power by buying Touchfone for its ad targeting and video streaming service Strmeasy for an undisclosed sum of money.

With Strmeasy, ScoopWhoop will focus on boosting advertising offerings with the help of targeted video ads. The streaming service will also allow customized reports for advertorial offerings with specific demographic details. This will help enable the brand to not only focus its video content at a targeted audience, but also better their quality.

“[Strmeasy’s] unique technology is going to define the publishing spaces of ScoopWhoop, VagaBomb, and Gazabpost both from user acquisition and revenue point of view,” said Sattvik Mishra, co-founder and CEO at ScoopWhoop.

Practo

Shashank ND, founder & CEO of Practo (middle) flanked by Enlightiks co-founders Vamsi Chandra Kasivajjala (left), and Venkatesh Pagidimarri. Photo credit: Practo.

This one’s from last week, but it still finds a spot here. On Friday, healthtech startup Practo closed its fifth acquisition in two years as it makes a massive push towards automation and enterprise clients.

Practo bought Bangalore-based analytics firm Enlightiks in a stock and cash deal (deal value not disclosed). The acquisition will let Practo provide hospitals with accurate predictions on profit and loss and user behavior, as well as billing systems, besides the day-to-day management tool it currently provides.

Including Enlightiks, three of Practo’s five acquisitions in the last two years offer tech solutions for healthcare institutions.

Practo says it aggregates over 200,000 doctors across a network of 10,000 hospitals, 8,000 diagnostic centers, and 4,000 wellness and fitness centers in India, Brazil, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore.

We’ve been bringing you cool Indian startups lately. Check them out here.

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