4 rising startups in India – April 9, 2017

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Real estate and food startups have seen a lot of turmoil lately. But they continue to attract funding, although investors have become choosier. A Paytm-backed health tech startup and an IoT product for tyres completes this set of rising startups.

FastFox

Real estate tech startup FastFox has raised INR 300 million (US$4.7 million) from Lightspeed India Partners, Blume Ventures, CyberAgent Ventures and others in series A funding. India has a number of real estate portals like Quikr Homes, Proptiger, and Magicbricks, but they are mostly just listings. FastFox takes the customer through the whole process of discovery, field visit, and rental agreement.

FastFox also owns BroEx, an information exchange for real estate agents. It leverages its network of agents to update information on rental properties.

See: Quikr and CommonFloor merge to kill Housing

QorQL

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India’s leading mobile payments company Paytm has invested an undisclosed amount in healthcare startup QorQL. The Delhi-based startup is building software products to improve the productivity and quality of healthcare providers. It helps doctors access patient health data and manage their clinics. “There is a need for real-time data collection and improving the overall care process with analytics and AI,” says Paytm VP Sudhanshu Gupta.

QorQL currently serves doctors around the Delhi national capital region and aims to use Paytm’s reach to enter tier-2 cities across the country. Several startups are tackling the problem of access to healthcare in India. The biggest of them is Practo which has both SaaS (software-as-a-service) products and a consumer-facing portal.

See: Tencent-backed Practo takes a leaf out of WeChat’s playbook

Fingerlix

Photo credit: Bessie and Kyle

Mumbai-based Fingerlix, a portal for ready-to-cook food, has raised series A funding of US$3 million from Zephyr Peacock. It aims to expand to 10 cities in the next 18 months.

Curries, dals (lentils), batters, and parathas (flatbread) form the staple of Fingerlix. A multi-grain idli batter and a biryani mix caught my eye. The latest offering is puran poli – a sweet stuffed paratha popular in western India. Food startups have struggled to raise funding of late, after a hype in 2015. Fingerlix’ investor believes the ready-to-cook ethnic food category has potential to grow fast in busy, urban India.

Tyre Express