“The world’s high-tech entrepreneurs are choosing to stay in their home city or nation—a pattern that may accelerate if the U.S. government fails to create an entrepreneur visa or attempts to limit the immigration of highly-skilled individuals.”

The rise of the Global Startup City, Report by Centre of American Entrepreneurship

India is one of the fastest-growing sports for start-up activity, behind China and the U.K., according to this report. Today standing at the crossroads of the Digital Revolution in the world, India has succeeded to be one of the fastest growing hubs for start-ups. Government initiatives of Start-Up India and Stand Up India have further energized the ecosystem and propelled us to rank amongst the 4 most active start-up hubs in the world.

While Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru are known start-up ecosystems of the country, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata have also been recognized as growing hubs. But to revolutionize the Digital Impact, it’s important to realize the improvements in public services through theseFintech technologies, so that there can be made a difference to the economy by solving some of the grave problems of the country.

So let’s have a glimpse of such top 5 funding deals in 2019 :

1. FLEETX

FleetX is an intelligent data platform that makes your fleet & drivers safer, cheaper &operationally efficient. It employs AI, i.e. machine learning, sensors & predictive analysis to help fleet owners become efficient, safe, smart & better decision-makers.

Upgraded with features like vast data storage, advanced detailed driving scores, real-time tracking, real-time alerts via mail / SMS / call, next Gen dashboards, etc., FleetX is in all sense a promising venture. It’s a Pre-series funding deal powered byMumbai’s Venture Capital Company, India Quotient & a trusted angel investor, Let’s Venture.

 

FOUNDER(S): Vineet Sharma, Abhay Jeet Gupta, Udbhav Rai, Parveen Kataria, Vishal Mishra

VERTICAL: Artificial Intelligence (AI), sub-vertical: Logistics

VISION: Catering to 200+ clients at present, FleetX aims to build a data platform to enable & empower the fleet to make smart decisions in a cost-effective & secure way.

2. ZILINGO

A Series D Funding Collaboration between two market giants, India & SE Asia, Zilingo, headquartered in Singapore, has popularly emerged as SE Asia’s largest fashion & lifestyle online marketplace, that allows smaller merchants from Southeast Asia, without an online presence, to market their items directly to consumers. The investors include Sequoia Capita & Temasek, EDBI, Burd Principal Investments &Sofina.

It’s a one-of-a-kind product for over 10,000 merchants and private labels across Asia. Their businesses include B2C & B2B Marketplace, Private Label as a Service, E-POS & Inventory Management Service, Trend Forecasting and Fintech Services. Charging sellers a commission of 10-15% on each successful transaction, Zilingo also offers sellers features like payments, marketing, order management, inventory, cataloging, and pricing — complete with analytics and intelligence – free of charge.

 

Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Sequoia (India) Singapore, on his investment in Zilingo, says:

“The Zilingo investment is special for Sequoia because, Ankita and Dhruv have totally impressed us with the quality of team they have assembled, their innovative e-commerce strategy and playbook, and their speed and quality of execution, all of which resulted in more than 10x revenue growth in the last one year.”

FOUNDER(S): Ankita Bose & Dhruv Kapur

VERTICAL : E-commerce, sub-vertical : Fashion & Apparel

FUNDING RAISED : 226,000,000 USD

VISION: Zilingo aims to make suchsoftwares& services that are smart and accessible to all merchants and can enable their growth, by adding value across the entire fashion supply chain.

3. NANO CLEAN GLOBAL

WHO’s 2018 Report claims India to house 9 of the world’s 10 most polluted cities, including New Delhi. In light of these surveys, Nanoclean & its products offer a healthy respite. Nanoclean claims that its nanotechnology-based filters are capable of stopping particulate matter, which refers to the microscopic solid particles and liquid droplets floating in the atmosphere. Nanoclean’s flagship product ‘Nasofilters’ is a respiratory nasal filter that sticks to the nose and prevents the entry of harmful air pollutants.

It’s a Series A Funding, hosted by Let’s Venture, Pitch Right Venture, 91 SpringBoard, AL Nour International Holding & Mark V Investments.

FOUNDER(S): Prateek Sharma & his fellow IITians, Tushar Vyas & Jatin Kewlani

VERTICAL: Nanotechnology, sub-vertical: Anti-pollution

FUNDING RAISED: 600,000 USD

VISION: It aims to build and expand its expertise into manufacturing regenerative medicines, molecule filtration, performance textile, drug delivery methods, and other specialized medical products.

4. OYOROOMS

OYO Rooms, commonly known as OYO, is India’s largest hospitality company, that exclusively serves budget hotels.OYO Rooms stands for On Your Own Rooms. It’s an Equity Funding by Didi Chuxing. Expanding its roots since its inception, OYO ROOMS today has grown to over 8,500 hotels in 337 cities in India, Malaysia, UAE, Nepal, China, and Indonesia.
OYO rooms is a hotel aggregator, but unlike other aggregator business models (like uber, ola, etc.), OYO’s business model is unique. They hire an inventory of hotel rooms, give customers to the hotels and maintain their profit%. They facilitate their customers to book a room with good facilities at low fares, starting at 999 INR, at just a tap of a button. What’s even more alluring is that it provides the same amenities and the same awesome experience across all its rooms.

 

FOUNDER(S): Ritesh Agarwal

VERTICAL: Hospitality, sub-vertical: Budget Rooms

FUNDING RAISED :100,000,000 USD

VISION: OYO aims to become the world’s most preferred & trusted hotel brand.

5. CAR DEKHO

Car Dekho is undoubtedly India’s most loved & favorite auto destination, for both new & used cars. In January 2019, it recently joined hands with Sequoia India, Hill House Capital, Alphabet’s Growth Investment, Arm Capital G & Axis Bank in a Series C Funding.

India’s leading car search venture, Car Dekho, helps customers buy their dream car. Owing to a high-ranking & a high-ranking list of tie-ups with more than 4000 car dealers & diverse financial institutions, Car Dekho facilitates a go-to purchase for its customers, at deals like never before.

The company has expanded to Southeast Asia with the launch of Zigwheels.ph, Zigwheels.my and Oto.com. It also has a presence in UAE with Zigwheels.ae.

 

FOUNDER(S): The brother duo Amit Jain & Anurag Jain

VERTICAL: Automobiles, sub-vertical: Online Marketplace

FUNDING RAISED :110,000,000 USD

VISION : Their aim is to construct a complete ecosystem for consumers and car manufacturers, dealers and related businesses, to such competence that, consumers can have an easy and complete access to not only buying and selling cars but also manage their entire ownership experience, be it accessories, tires, batteries, insurance or roadside assistance.