threedots, community investing platform catering at millennials, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $4 Mn in a seed funding round led by Kalaari Capital. Apart from Kalaari, Better Capital, iSeed, Cloud capital and host of high-profile angel investors also participated in the round.

The high-profile investors who participated in the round includes Kunal Shah (Cred), Lalit Keshre (Groww), Jitendra Gupta (Jupiter), Amrish and Sweta Rau (Pine labs), Ramakant Sharma (Livspace), Rohit MA (cloud9), Giri Malpani (Malpani Family) and Mohit Daga.

threedots was founded in March 2021 by Rishu Garg, Prakhar Bhardwaj and Akul Agarwal who are BITS Pilani alumni and also ex-employees of Grow. The Tiger global backed Groww is also an investment platform that became unicorn last year. But unlike threedots, Groww is not an community driven investment platform.

The startup was founded on the premise that most of the millennials seeking to make stock market investment are clueless and confused. They often make investment mistakes owing to lack of access to institutional level experts and resources. threedots is seeking to bridge this gap by bringing the young millennial investors and investment experts under one platform.

Apart from bridging the gap between market experts and millennial investors through its finance centric community, the threedots app also offers daily dose of financial news to its users.

To sharpen its financial news and expert advice, threedots has joined hands with other platforms like Grow, Coindcx, and Finshots.

Rishu Garg, Co-founder, threedots, said, “Our vision is to make threedots the next-gen community investment platform where people can learn, discuss & invest all at one place. Our goal is to shape and empower the investment ecosystem in India.”

“We want to change the financial life of the next 100 mn users in India who will be using financial services for the first time and help them create wealth. At threedots, we always practice & believe in hyper trust – within our users & our team, which was missing in the industry for so long.”

According to a rough estimate, India had roughly 14 Mn demat account holders, which meanly only 3% Indians invest in the capital. But this figure is expected to reach 15% in 2030.

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Jumbotail, a online wholesale platform for grocery & vegetable products and new age retail platform, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $85 Mn in a Series C round. Artal Asia Pte Ltd, a company affiliated to U.S. based Invus Group, spearheaded the funding round. Ajax Capital, the family office of the veteran FMGC entrepreneur Ajay Gupta, also took part in the funding round.

The company did not comment about the valuation it commanded in the latest round.

The series C round had a secondary component, with early investors Nexus Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital making partial exit. The company did not disclose any details about the ROI or profit that both VC firms have made through this partial exit. According to VCCEdge, Kalaari held a 12.97% and Nexus Venture held a 26.56% stake in the Bengaluru based company.

Following the latest funding round, the company’s total fund raising amount has now reached to $125 Mn.

Commenting on the Series C round, Ashish Jhina, Co-founder & COO, Jumbotail, said, “We nearly quadrupled our scale in 2021 and are looking to further accelerate our growth trajectory in the coming year. We will continue to invest aggressively to make Jumbotail the pre-eminent destination for food and grocery brands to reach the overwhelming majority of India’s consumers through our pan-India network of kirana partners.”

Jumbotail was founded in 2015 by S.Karthik Venkateswaran and Ashish Jhina, both of whom were Stanford classmates. The six year old firm essentially operates a marketplace platform that connects thousands of mom & pop grocery retailers with brand and staple manufactures. The company further streamlines this retail and manufacturing networking through logistics and supply solution.     

Additionally, it helps in digitizing the mom and pop stores by providing POS and other solutions to the kirana stores.   

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Innovative sports brand Elevar said on Monday that it has raised INR 19 Cr in Series A round led by Kalaari Capital. Dream Capital (DreamCap), the Corporate Venture Capital and M&A arm of Dream Sports, also participated in the funding round. The company said that it will utilize the funds towards expanding its product portfolio, increasing its marketing efforts, and building out its team.   

Launched and founded in 2018, Elevar is essentially a direct-to-consumer sports brand that aims to provide consumers with high quality consumer brands. Sport shoe brand ARC RACER is company’s currently flagship product. ARC RACER – is a versatile sneaker that is rich in features and high on design.

Elevar also boosts unique line of cricket bats that the company claims are engineered to offer an enhanced batting experience.

The company is co-founded by Kunal Joshi & Aayush Taapuriah, both of whom are alumni from Cornell University.

Commenting on the Series A round, Kunal Joshi, Co-founder, Elevar, said, “We are thrilled to have Kalaari Capital and Dream Capital partner with us.  This gives us the platform to take our product portfolio to the next level, enabling us to build a millennial-first sports brand that addresses our customer’s performance requirements as well as their modern design sensibilities.”

Vani Kola, Kalaari Capital, added, “Aayush and Kunal’s passion for building an India-first sports brand was infectious. Their understanding of the market, commitment to product innovation & customer experience stood out for us. We are proud to be an early partner in their vision to build a disruptive sports company from India.”

If one takes into account only the sports footwear market in India, the market is estimated to be around $3.5 BN and the market is estimated to be around 15-20% p.a.

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No other VC firm or angel investor has participated in the funding round. Portl says that it is an innovation company that combines fitness, technology and media. The company has developed two flagship products: Portl Mirror and the Portl Pro.

Both devices use advanced AI to provide real-time exercise form analysis and correction feedback. This ensures that each exercise is performed with the correct technique and helps prevent injuries, the company added. Portl’s product also monitor a wide range of health metrics at home including ECG, Blood Pressure, Blood Glucose etc., and forms the basis for a highly personalized wellness programme.

To get an idea about Portl’s product, please refer to the above picture.

Portl said that the seed funding will be utilized to grow the team across hardware, engineering and AI domains and expand the sales and marketing efforts for the Portl range of products in India.

Portl was founded in March 2021 and is barely few year old startup. Indraneel Gupta and Vishal Chandapeta are co-founder of this startup.

Indraneel Gupta, Co-founder & CEO, Portl, said, “Our aim is to ultimately deliver simplicity and convenience for consumers by creating tangible, long-lasting value through the products we design. At Portl, we are reimagining the way people will access, manage and control their overall health. In many ways, the hardware and software that we are building will empower people to take charge of their own health and fitness, while we provide personalized and holistic services to support their efforts.”

Commenting on the seed funding round Vamshi Reddy, Partner at Kalaari Capital, added, “We at Kalaari strongly believe that Portl has the ability to shape the way customers manage fitness and well-being at home. Overall, the product will help customers adhere to workout routines, improve access to world-class fitness content, and help personalize each user experience. They also have the ability to go beyond fitness capabilities using hardware interface, computer vision, and audio functionality to deliver telehealth solutions. The device can tap into user data to deliver a wide range of digital healthcare solutions.  “

Portl believes that there is a significant gap in the market when it comes to Home Fitness & Wellness. From a consumer perspective, traditional fitness equipment is expensive, occupies a lot of space and usually requires multiple machines for a full-body workout. Moreover, consumers also require constant guidance and time-flexible fitness programmes, which aren’t addressed by the one-size-fits-all approach that is prevalent in most virtual fitness services.

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