4 rising startups in India – Mar 25

Photo credit: Pixabay.

We’re winding down for the weekend but things aren’t all that slow in the startup scene in India. A transportation company from Pune gobbled up a taxi service to expand not just into 47 Indian cities but also to Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. A college research project which grew into a startup announced a big round of funding, and more. Read on.

Sedemac

Photo credit: Pixabay.

This is one unusual startup. It develops innovative control solutions for engines and powertrains. Sedemac was founded by technologists Shashikanth Suryanarayanan, Pushkaraj Panse, Amit Dixit, and Manish Sharma – who were part of a research group at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. The company now supplies products to some large OEMs and engine manufacturers like Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, and Mahindra.

Today, Sedemac announced a US$7.5 million funding round from IT bellwether Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and its existing investor Nexus Venture Partners. Nilekani led the round.

Horntell

Photo credit: Horntell.

Your smartphone has a notification center, where apps push notifications to engage and interact with you. Horntell works as a similar notification center for web apps. “If you make use of interactive notifications, we’ll push the actions taken in your notifications through webhooks, where you can take care of the action as per your business logic,” Horntell promises.

Today, the startup announced a US$150,000 round of angel funding led by CEO of 91mobiles Bharanidharan Viswanathan. Shobhit Shukla and Rahul Agarwal of Near.in, and CEO of NISG Sanjiv Mital participated in the round. It started as a Google Chrome extension and launched an Android application in March 2015. “Horntell is currently integrated with over 400 internet products, including ProductHunt, Shopify, Basecamp, Github, Trello, Mailchimp, Stripe, and Zapier,” says founder Mohit Mamoria.

Wheelstreet

Photo credit: Nagesh Jayaraman.

Two-wheeler rental startup Wheelstreet announced a funding round of US$500,000 from Broadbean Capital Services. It is currently operating in Delhi and Bangalore and claims to have rented out over 14,000 rides so far in Delhi alone. The funding will be used to build the tech capabilities and market expansion. The startup is planning to launch operations in Pune and Hyderabad next.

“Our vendor support, which lets vendors update inventory as and when bikes are available, has proved to be a unique selling proposition for us. Chances of having false listings has been eliminated now,” says Moksha Shrivastava, co-founder of Wheelstreet.

Wing Travels