4 rising startups in India – April 19

Photo credit: Pixabay.

India’s got the ticket to ride, with bike taxis and – for a bit of a change in pace – a chauffeur app raising funds today. Meanwhile, ecommerce marketing and an edtech startup that wants to get you into college see hefty chunks of funding. Here are our picks for startups that have received investments in India today.

Betaout

Ecommerce marketing software startup Betaout Inc. has bagged US$1.5 million in a pre-series A round of funding. The list of investors participating in the round includes Beenext, Stanford Angels, Letsventure, Chennai Angels, Hyderabad Angels, and Mumbai Angels.

Match Group CEO Sam Yagan also participated in the round. He had previously taken part in Betaout’s seed round of funding through Corazon Capital.

Founded in October 2014 by Ankit Maheshwari, Raghubir Thakur, Arjun Maheshwari, and Nandini Rathi, Betaout launched a software-as-a-service (SaaS) system for ecommerce companies that operate between businesses and consumers. It provides its users with real time big data, information about customers, and personalization with all of the good stuff in personalized marketing – push notifications, email, SMS, etc. It charges users monthly based on the number of addressable contacts and messages sent.

“Our plans for 2016 include growing our existing customer base in the Indian market and expanding to other Asian markets including Indonesia and Malaysia,” said CEO Ankit Maheshwari.

Betaout will use the investment for hiring and to expand within the Indian market as well as expansion to other parts of Asia. It will focus on developing its mobile aspects as well as machine learning and other features.

Rapido

Photo credit: Rajarshi MITRA.

Bike taxis continue to rage on in India. Bangalore-based Roppen Transportation Services, which runs bike taxi startup Rapido, has secured an undisclosed amount of funding from a group of investors that includes Hero MotoCorp Ltd chairman Pawan Munjal and Google India managing director Rajan Anandan.

People Group CEO Anupam Mittal, Smile Group founder Harish Bahl, former Flipkart chief business officer Ankit Nagori, and Carnation Auto co-founder Kunal Khattar also participated, along with AdvantEdge Partners, Astarc Ventures, and Tesellate Ventures.

Founded by IIT alumni Aravind Sanka, Rishikesh SR, and Pavan Guntupalli in November 2015, Rapido is a mobile app bike taxi booking portal. It launched operations in Gurgaon last month and claims to have 45,000 registered users in Gurgaon and Bangalore.

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