FX infra startup which has just come out of stealth. New payment rails and a last-mile liquidity model ensure that 90% of FX transactions are settled within 60 minutes rather than the typical 2-7 day norm. In less than a year, the startup claims to have processed >$10B in annualised transaction volume. $23M seed round. Other investors in the round: Castle Island Ventures, Flybridge, Hash3. Founder & CEO Prabhakar Reddy, BITS and HBS, is ex-Accel, the former co-founder of Falcon X (digital assets brokerage) and former CEO of Dramatize (acquired by BookMyShow).

Dinnerware brand with toxin-free alternatives, including bone china (animal bone ash)-free ceramics, lead-free glassware, and 304 food-grade stainless steel cutlery. Neha Dhupia is a brand ambassador. Seed round of an undisclosed amount. Other investors in the round: GX Ventures, Neha Dhupia, Agnello Dias (JWT), Suraj Nalin (PlaySimple). Founders: Yadupati spent a year each at Avendus and JP Morgan; Vishal was the Head of Marketing & Sales at Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting and Head of Sales at VIP.

CO2 removal company. Their tech locks away carbon for thousands of years through “enhanced rock weathering” on farmlands. This TechCrunch article explains the carbon removal process / the tech behind it well. Started out with a pilot on the founders own tea estate in Darjeeling, now scaling up across North Bengal. $12M seed round. Angels in the round: Jason Zhao, Amrendra Singh, Tanmay Bhat, Arjun Soin, Nakuul Mehta, Arjun Ramani, Advaith Vishwanath, Rahul Seth. Founders: CEO Shrey was Chief of Staff at SuperShare and Lead Product Manager at Seekho; Co-Founder & President Sparsh is also the Co-Founder of Dorje Teas. This TechCrunch article explains the carbon removal process at Alt Carbon well.

Creating a "Disney from the East". Building a production studio to bring Eastern mythology, history and folktales to a worldwide audience. "Mythik plans to modernise ancient narratives using immersive technology", for e.g. Ram v. Ravan and Buddha's First Sermon. $15M seed round. Other investors in the round: Jason Kothari himself, Visceral Capital, Shah Rukh Khan’s family office, the Patni family office and angels (Saif Saeed Ghobash, Jayanti Kannai, Pravin Jain, Marc Younan, Deepen Parikh, Samir Vora, Samarth Parekh, Anurag Goel, Nishant Aggarwal). Founder Jason Kothari was the CEO of Housing.com after Rahul Yadav, CEO of Freecharge and CSO at Snapdeal. Prior to all of this he was CEO and then Vice Chairman of Valiant Entertainment (which has right's to the third most popular universe of superhero characters after Marvel & DC Entertainment).

Agentic AI solutions for 7M+ local service businesses in the US. Helps small businesses like beauty salons, wellness studios, pet groomers get discovered, booked and re-booked - for e.g. by responding to leads 24/7. In a year the startup has driven 120K bookings for 1000 businesses, helping those businesses generate $10M in revenue. $6M seed round. Other investors in the round: Better Capital. The founders are IIT Kharagpur. The CEO Ashish had stints at Cognitio Education, WedMeGood, Able Jobs; Robin was a consultant at EXL.

Hobby-based offline community platform where club members, club leaders, and venues unite to form communities. Members build offline connections around shared interests - football matches, quiz nights, art, journaling, music jams. Club leaders curate meetups, venue partners get higher footfalls and a boost in revenue. 25,000K downloads and 3K social meetups since launch. ₹5CR seed round. Founders: all four are IIT Kanpur. The CEO was a PM at Delhivery; the CBO, ex-Unilever, was a PM at Urban Company; the COO was Assistant Manager - Strategy and Ops at Glance; the fourth co-founder & CTO, Shaswat Kar, not linked here, was a software engineer at Rippling.

D2C socks brand as the name suggests. Seed round by a strategic, of an undisclosed amount. Founders: Shobhit was Business Head at Madison World (advertising); Saurabh is also from Madison World and from Jubilant FoodWorks.

EV as a service fleet operator for Amazon, Flipkart, Blue Dart and Porter. Fleet of 1,000 two and three wheelers. Profitable in key markets - Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad. Expanding into Southeast Asia. $2.5M round, the company has raised seed rounds in the past, in 2019 and 2020. This round is funded by individuals - Vijay Kedia (public markets investor), Lloyd Balajadia (Lloyd Laboratories in the Philippines), Rahul Bothra (CFO at Swiggy). Visakh, the Founder & CEO, started this out of IIT Madras Research park almost 12 years ago as Pi Beam, an EV manufacturer, which then pivoted to the current model.

Capsule hotels come to India! Starting with one location in Noida, the startup will provide affordable, hygienic, tech-driven stays in IT hubs and near religious sites. 20 properties planned by FY27. The budget hotel market in India is $20B and growing 13-15% a year. ₹2CR pre-seed round from IPV, following on a $500K round by T9L Qube in March. Nitin was the founder of 247around (acquired by Servify), repair and maintenance for home appliances. Himanshu comes with a decade of experience as a customer experience manager.

Medical devices company. It's first product, NoWound, is a negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) device designed for controlled healing of complex wounds. NPWT is a treatment method that uses a device to create suction on a wound, promoting healing. ₹8.4CR pre-seed round towards expanding its product range and building distribution across hospitals, clinics and for home-care. Angels in the round: founders of Tata 1mg, NephroPlus, SafeExpress, Eye Q Hospital, Hexa Health, AstroTalk. Founders: The CEO comes from Tata 1mg, Pristyn Care and most recently, as CBO of Antara Senior Care; the COO is from Pristyn, Apollo Hospitals and E&Y.