4 rising startups in India – April 20

The Indian edtech bloom of 2016 is continuing, with another test-prep startup getting new backers today. And why not, when the country has around 600 million millennials looking to ace exams, bag snowy jobs, and get a good life. Health tech, fashion, and a cleaning service complete the cohort of rising startups for the day.

1mg

Photo credit: Pixabay.

Don’t you just hate it when you’re sick, alone, and can barely crawl out of the bed covers for a trip to the pharmacist, doctor, or diagnostics lab? I do! And each time, I fervently wish someone would knock on my window, tell me what’s wrong with me, and give me the medicine for it.

Something along those lines is what 1mg does. It lets people look up information about medicine, find cheaper substitutes, and order what suits them online. Today, it announced a series B round of US$15 million, led by Maverick Capital Ventures. Its earlier investors Sequoia Capital and Omidyar Ventures too pumped in some fresh capital. The startup’s founders – Gaurav Agarwal and Prashant Tandon – were classmates at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. Earlier, they had launched a ‘Wikipedia for medicine’ app to educate consumers on some 2,000 drugs made by around 200,000 brands, and their pricing discrepancies. This prompted them to start 1mg.

See: Why Maverick, Sequoia India inject $15m in e-pharmacy startup

Fashalot

Photo credit: Pixabay.

Hard to have enough of fashion. Youngsters and fashionistas definitely think so, and investors seem to agree with them. Young O2O (online to offline) startup Fashalot, which has an app that tells you about discounts at retail stores near you, announced its pre-series A funding. This round was led by YourNest Angel Fund and Rajul Garg.

The startup promises to help shoppers discover fashion stores, latest collections, in-store offers, and get cash-back each time they shop. On the other hand, it offers retailers a marketing tool to increase footfalls. Fashalot’s app, available on iOS and Android is still in beta, but it’s currently operational in Bangalore, Delhi, and National Capital Region (NCR).

See: A tale of two startups and their different outlooks on what India’s shoppers want

Broomberg

Photo credit: Pixabay.

If not anything else, Broomberg definitely scores with its name. It’s a Delhi-based home cleaner. Bathroom, kitchen, sofa, home, car, office, carpet, mattress … it will clean them all for you.

Founded by consultants Samrat Goyal and Ishan Baisoya, Broomberg has an active blog which gives tips on everything related to cleaning, from how to remove a stubborn stain to how to clean up after Holi, the Indian festival of colors. Today, the startup announced its pre-series A round of funding from a group of angel investors and high net-worth individuals (HNIs). The amount of capital raised wasn’t disclosed.

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