6 startups scaling up in India

If you’ve been following our daily funding roundups, you might have noticed that Monday was an unusually packed news day. Today was no different. And, if you missed Monday, the fun didn’t stop there, as several of yesterday’s announcements came late and are listed for your perusal below. It’s the one time we’re happy that Monday’s lasted longer than usual.

Check out our 6 chosen startups for today:

Arya.ai

Artificial intelligence startup Arya.ai has raised pre-series A funding of US$750,000 from Your Next Angel Fund and Venture Nursery, marking the third time that VentureNursery has participated in a funding round for the company.

Founded by IIT Mumbai researchers Vinay Kumar Sankarapu and Deekshith Marla in 2013, Arya.ai offers intelligent AI systems to help out with activities that involve a lot of data crunching. It was recently named as one of Paris&Co’s 21 finalists in its international startup competition, the only finalist from Asia.

“Using AI, developers can build applications that can solve most complex problems,” says Vinay, who is also CEO of Arya.ai. “However, the biggest pain point in building reliable AI applications is solving multiple challenges they encounter in the process.”

The investment will be used to accelerate product development and to grow the AI ecosystem.

Shuttl

Gurgaon-based bus ticketing app Shuttl announced today that it has secured US$20 million in series A funding from Lightspeed, Sequoia India, and Times Internet.

Founded in April by IIT Delhi alum Amit Singh and IIT Kanpur alum Deepanshu Malviya, Shuttl currently operates in Delhi NCR. Available as an app for Android, iOS, and Windows, it attempts to alleviate the congestion and pollution problems in Delhi by providing an affordable, greener, and more convenient bus transportation system.

It claims to offer about 15,000 rides per day and is working to help along the Delhi government’s odd-even pollution-curbing initiative.

“We believe buses are the most space efficient way to commute, and we have added a technology layer onto them to build what could become a template for smart cities in India and abroad,” said Amit in a statement.

“What excites Lightspeed about Shuttl is the opportunity for the company to have massive positive social impact by helping address the problems of transportation, safety, and pollution,” added Bejul Smaia, managing director of Lightspeed.

Zapr

Mobile app Zapr, which allows users to earn reward points for watching TV commercials, has bagged an undisclosed amount of angel investment from Indiamart founder Dinesh Agarwal, reports VC Circle.

Zapr is owned by Gurgaon-based Red Brick Lane Marketing. The company was founded in February 2012 by IIT Madras alum Deepak Baid, Sandipan Mondal, and IIT Kharagpur alum Sajo Mathews. All three graduated from IIM-Ahmedabad.

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