4 rising startups in India

Photo Credit: The Magic Tuba Pixie

Instant messaging service Hike drew cash from some of the world’s top tech brains while online retailer ShopClues snapped up a series E round from Singapore-based GIC today. An online fashion marketplace and a startup that facilitates conversational commerce were the other two that got lucky.

Here are the four startups that made it on our list today.

Wishup

Chat-based concierge service Wishup today announced seed funding from TracxnLabs, 500 Startups, Mato Peric, and a host of angel investors.

The fresh funds will be used by the Delhi-based startup for product development, scaling up the venture, and boosting technology.

“Conversational commerce” is becoming popular in India through startups like Lookup, Niki, JoeHukum, and SuperText. Wishup operators, for instance, do the searching, filtering, and choosing of standardized services from laundry to grocery for users.

“By aggregating essential services into one platform, Wishup aims to be a one-stop shop solution to cater to customers’ day-to-day requirements,” says Neha Singh, co-founder of Tracxn. Vivek Gupta and Neelesh Rangwani are the other co-founders.

Hike

Hike, India’s homegrown messaging app, today said it has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from top tech veterans like Quora founder Adam D’Angelo and WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg. Dropbox executives Aditya Agarwal and Ruchi Sanghvi also took part in the round.

They have invested in their personal capacities and will play advisors to Hike, the company said. “It’s great to have the world’s top brains in tech share Hike’s vision, and not just entrust us with their investment, but also advise us on our product and strategy,” Kavin Bharti Mittal, founder and CEO, Hike Messenger, said in a statement.

Over the last three years, Hike has acquired 70 million users and generates over 30 billion messages per month.

ShopClues

Online marketplace ShopClues has secured undisclosed funding in a series E round led by GIC, a Singapore-based sovereign wealth fund.

Existing investors, including Tiger Global and Nexus Venture Partners, also participated in the funding. ShopClues now claims it is valued at more than US$1.1 billion.

Fashionablyin