Building a house of brands in the architectural and interior design space - the company will partner with existing omnichannel brands - investing in them and supporting them with tech, "internet-led manufacturing" and distribution. The idea is to modernize fragmented segments in interiors - sanitaryware, furniture, kitchen, wardrobes, furnishings, lighting, hardware. The company has already partnered with four brands - FIAMARC (distributor for European brands), The House of W (bathroom fittings distributor), ColourCoats (surface coatings) and Metalia (metal building facades). Rumoured $20M seed round at a $120M valuation. Angels include Siddharth Shah (PharmEasy), Niket Shah (Motilal Oswal), Shalibhadra Shah (Motilal Oswal), Kabir Narang (B Capital). The three founders are co-founders of PharmEasy. Founded in Nov 2024.

Vertical short drama OTT, starting in Telegu. $5M seed round. The co-founders have built Chai Bisket over the past decade, a producer of web series (with 10M YouTube followers) and shows for OTTs in Telegu. Comps: Flick TV (also funded this week, see No. 10 below), Kuku TV, ShareChat’s QuickTV, Reel Saga, Reelies and global players, largely from China.

Vertical short drama OTT, planning to launch with 100 original titles. $2.3M seed round. The two co-founders were at BITS and IIM Bangalore together. CEO Kushal was VP, Content & Product at Eloelo and Associate Director, ShareChat; his co-founder Pratik was Senior Director, Growth at Pocket FM and Associate Director, Growth at Meesho.

AI driven shopping assistant for interiors. "No more hunting for products from Pinterest posts". ₹3CR pre-seed round. The three co-founders are architects from SMEF'S Brick Group of Institutes, an architectural college in Pune. Prior to this they ran SqFt51 together - a platform which combined a marketplace for home owners to find builders and vendors, along with a Gen AI platform for house plans and elevations.

Hyper personalised and effortless travel planning using AI. Launching a new app soon with one-click bookings and 24x7 concierge support. ₹13.5CR in GMV till date. ₹2CR pre-seed round. Founders: the CEO and CTO started the company six years ago during college. Comps: Holiday Tribe (GSF, Powerhouse), Rimigo (Reazon, SGgrow), 30Sundays (InfoEdge), GydeXP (Rukam Sitara, last week).

QSR chain bringing Mumbai's street food to the mass-premium segment. Started out with one store in JP Nagar (Bengaluru), with 15 more planned for this year across multiple formats - cloud kitchens and in malls, tech parks and on the high street. Pre-seed round of an undisclosed amount. Angels in the round: Karan Bhagat/Yatin Shah (360One), Mohit Gulati (ITI GO), Ankit Agarwal/Varun Limaye (Mesa School of Business) and more. The two founders started out after a postgraduate program at the Mesa School of Business, one of them is a professional chef.

Fresh farm produce and supply chain startup, which operates on a B2B2C model. Formerly known as Sorted, it was founded by the Milkbasket team. The company sources directly from local farmers, takes orders on its app and leverages a network of micro-entrepreneurs for last-mile delivery. ₹21.7CR extended seed round. Other investors in the round: Stargazer Ventures, Eximius Ventures, Sunrise Sunset Family Trust, Infinyte Club Angel Fund. Founders: Anant, CEO, was the Co-Founder & CEO of Milkbasket; CTO Nitin was the Head of Product and Engineering; and Sahil was the VP/Head of Growth over there. Comps: Otipy (recently shut shop a few weeks ago), Pluckk (Exponentia).

Connects travelers with passionate local guides. Tackling "three deep-rooted travel challenges: fragmented planning, superficial connections, and post-trip memory loss". Pre-seed round of an undisclosed amount at a ₹15CR valuation. The three founders started this out of IIT Delhi last year.

SportsTech startup with a mobile app that standardises sports assesments for young athletes and delivers data-based feedback to improve their athletic potential. Benchmarking tools are in line with globally accepted frameworks. It then connects these athletes with scouts from Indian and global leagues, along with sponsors. Coaches and parents get to track progress in real time. $1M round. Other investors in the round: M Pallonji, Jeena and Co., Ayaz Billawala, Nimesh Kampani, Jaimin Bhat (ex-Kotak). Founders: the CEO was Head of Engineering, GetMega; the CTO was an Android Engineer at the same startup; the third co-founder was a Managing Partner at Thermotech (transformer components). Comps: SportsSkill (Waimea Bay Investments); KIBI Sports (angels).

Marketplace for secondhand luxury fashion. The platform lists 10,000 products from global brands and provides authentication in-line with global comps (think Vestaire Collective) - every item comes with a authenticity certificate. Tata CLiQ Luxury collaborated with the company last year to offer a curated range of pre-owned handbags. Seed round of an undisclosed amount. The two co-founders, Ashri and Varun, started Ziniosa close to eight years ago. Comps: Confidential Couture, My Almari (neither are funded).