3 rising startups in India – May 11

Photo credit: umairadeeb.

A seed funding round that hits over US$1 million? The second acquisition in the on-demand chauffeur space in less than a month? Some epic sagas just beg to be told, so check them out right here. You won’t want to miss the latest installments in India’s exciting world of funding and acquisitions.

Zarget

Speaking of sagas, software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup Zarget, run by Osmnez Technologies, has bagged a US$1.5 million seed funding round led by Accel Partners and Matrix Partners. Freshdesk CEO Girish Mathrubootham also participated in the round.

If the amount isn’t enough to raise an eyebrow, consider that it was signed for in April last year – two months after Zarget’s founding.

Launched by Santhosh Kumar, Naveen Venkat, and Arvind Parthiban, Zarget deals in SaaS-based conversion rate optimization, which is tech-speak for “give this startup a regular fee, and it’ll take your website visitors and turn them into your customers.” It currently offers three products: A/B testing, funnel analysis, and heat mapping. A/B testing helps improve checkout pages and website tools while keeping security intact. Funnel analysis helps see what pages turn customers off, while heat mapping reports on where visitors click on the site.

The startup also offers a Chrome plug-in that helps measure engagement with interactive design elements and plans to introduce a fourth product by the end of the year.

Zenify

Bangalore-based online real estate startup Zenify has raised about US$1 million in pre-series A funding from high net worth individuals who hold a minor stake in the company. Zenify will use the funds to expand its services and team.

Founded in March 2012 by IIT-Madras alumni Sudarshan Purohit, Ankur Agarwal, and Kailash Rathi, Zenify lists properties for rent. Owners can manage their listings through the site. Zenify predicts the market value of each listing, aiming for value standardization for rentals. The value measurement is called ZRP (Zenify Rental Price) and takes into account the property’s locality, among other factors.

The startup claims to have 22,000 users with 1,700 property listings across Bangalore.

In an earlier round of angel funding, the company raised around US$600,000 from K12 Techno Service’s MSC Srikanth and M. Bharath, as well as Atul Jalan, founder and CEO of Mathan Software Service.

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