3 rising startups in India – Mar 9

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Artificial intelligence and virtual reality startups both make an appearance, while a meal delivery startup makes a two-for-one acquisition move to venture into mobile kitchens. The future is here. Check out these startup picks of ours for Wednesday.

vPhrase

Mumbai-based artificial intelligence (AI) data analytics firm vPhrase has received an investment from Ryerson Futures Inc. and the Chokhani Family Office. The startup was incubated at the Zone Startups India accelerator program, and the Zone Startups India fund also contributed to the funding, marking its first investment. Mumbai-based Venture Catalysts also participated. The amount of the investment was undisclosed.

Founded by Neerav Parekh in April 2015, vPhrase helps businesses make their reports more easy to comprehend using AI. Its patent-pending software, called Phrazor, analyzes data and then communicates its findings in multiple languages.

“Technologies like these will be a game changer, and set an example of sustainable startups where growth would be achieved based on pure technology and not by marketing or incurring other customer acquisition costs,” said Krishna Chokhani of Zone Startups India Fund in a statement.

vPhrase is also collaborating with banks and other companies to seek out solutions in the insurance, brokerage, consumer internet and engineering space. It has previously received funding from the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. It also recently was a winner of the ET Power of Ideas competition.

See: 150k Facebook users cried out for scholarships. This edtech startup delivered

Innerchef

Gurgaon-based Innerchef, a startup that delivers ready-to-cook meals, has not one but two acquisitions to show today – Bangalore-based on-demand food delivery startup EatOnGo and food truck company Flavour Labs, also based in Gurgaon.

Innerchef will use the acquisitions to widen its offerings in the NCR and Bangalore. It plans to add a mobile kitchen network to its delivery services.

The startup was launched in April 2015 by Rajesh Sawhney, Bal DiGhent, Heena Karia Thakkar, Uday Bansal, and Rahul Samat. Of the founders, Rajesh remains, while the other three quit a few months ago in what the company deemed a restructuring exercise.

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