6 rising startups in India – Nov 23, 2016

Photo credit: Rene Schwietzke.

A cloud communication startup, multilingual social network, microlender, and more make our list of funded startups.

Knowlarity

Cloud communication startup Knowlarity Communications has bagged US$20 million in a series C round of funding. Delta Partners, a Dubai-based private equity firm, led the round, with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Mayfield Fund.

The investment, which will go toward international expansion in Southeast Asia and west Asia, includes an undisclosed amount of venture debt provided by Blacksoil and Trifecta Capital. The funds will also be used to launch new analytics and artificial intelligence products for small businesses.

Founded by Ambarish Gupta, Knowlarity offers small and medium enterprises communication tools including a virtual contact center, a click-to-call feature for mobile apps, and automated text and voice messages.

The company shifted its headquarters to Singapore in 2013, and one of its 15 offices is in Gurgaon.

See: India’s Knowlarity bags $20m for international expansion

ShareChat

The dominant language of India differs from state to state – and that’s not including smaller dialects. Bangalore-based social networking app ShareChat wants to help people chat in all of them. It’s just raised US$4 million in series A funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners to help do so.

Existing investors Saif Partners and India Quotient also participated in the round, which closed a week ago. Venture Highway, advised by WhatsApp business head Neeraj Arora, also made a minority contribution.

Co-founded by Farid Ahsan, Bhanu Singh, and Ankush Sachdeva, ShareChat was originally designed as a content sharing tool for WhatsApp, then reimagined into a social network. The co-founders launched the app in October last year.

Available in six Indian languages – Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Telugu, Punjabi, and Oriya – ShareChat is testing two more – Tamil and Bengali – for launch soon. It’s also planning to launch services in Indian dialects, like Bhojpuri and Haryanvi.

ShareChat has 2 million active users, who can find information including horoscopes, entertainment, news, jokes, videos, and memes on the network.

See: ShareChat bags $4m to be the Indian social network that speaks everyone’s language

Aye Finance

VoLT

Vymo

Helpshift