Private equity platform Xponentia raises Rs 1,000-Cr in new fund

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September 13, 2023

A private equity platform, Xponentia, announced that it had raised Rs 1,000 crore in its second fund, almost entirely from domestic investors. According to a statement, the platform will invest funds in companies across various sectors, including consumer, healthcare, financial, and business services.

According to the statement, the target of raising Rs 750 crore was oversubscribed and exceeded.

Other than the investors in the first fund, new investors, such as High Net Worth Individuals (HNIs), family offices, insurance companies, and the “fund of funds” programme run by the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), have invested in or made financial commitments to the second fund.

Devinjit Singh, managing partner of the platform, claimed that a conviction that Indian institutions and family offices were under-invested in alternative assets led him to leave Carlyle and start the platform in 2018.

“Investor appetite for the asset class has increased faster than I imagined, and we have raised the fund almost exclusively from the domestic market,” Singh added.

It had announced the first close of the second fund at Rs 270 crore in July of last year, and it has since made four investments, including in commercial electric vehicle manufacturer Altigreen, new age fintech platform Zype, casual wear brand The Souled Store, and education financing company Auxilo.

Further, the statement said that Xponentia has fully invested the first fund, betting on eight companies in total.

Pee Safe raises $3mn in a Series B funding round

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September 12, 2023

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The hygiene and wellness brand Pee Safe has raised $3 million in a Series B funding round led by Rainmatter Health and Natco Pharma Limited. Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath, founders of Zerodha. Alkemi Growth Capital, an existing investor, also participated in the round.

“This funding will accelerate our expansion efforts and establish us as the leading brand in the rapidly growing intimate wellness sector, which boasts a remarkable CAGR of 16%,” Vikas Bagaria, founder and CEO of Pee Safe, added that over the past five years, the brand has achieved a growth rate of 100% CAGR, surpassing market expectations.

Pee Safe, a personal hygiene and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brand, was initially launched in 2013 with just one product, a toilet seat sanitizer by husband-wife duo Vikas and Srijana Bagaria, in response to a personal incident. Aiming to meet the needs of girls from puberty to menopause, the company has expanded its product line over the past six years to include personal hygiene categories. The portfolio comprises intimate hygiene products, including menstrual cups, reusable pads, and tampons.

Rithish Kumar, one of the early founders, was elevated to co-founder earlier this year by the company. According to the company, the recently acquired funds will increase retail presence in India, expand globally with an omnichannel strategy, and devote more resources to marketing and public awareness initiatives.

In addition to its online platforms, the company has an online presence on major e-commerce platforms and over 15,000 physical retail locations across 70 Indian cities. Additionally, it exports to 20 countries across five continents.

“The vast majority of Indian women don’t have access to safe menstrual and personal hygiene products. This is due to a lack of awareness and access, which causes preventable health issues like urinary tract infections (UTI) among millions of Indian women. Making these products widely available is the need of the hour,” said Dilip Kumar, Head of Investments, Rainmatter Health, backed by Zerodha.

Vertex Ventures makes final close of Fund V at $541 million

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September 12, 2023

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Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India (VVSEAI) has announced the final close of its fifth fund at $541 million.

According to Temasek Holdings, a Singapore-based investment firm, the latest fund is 80% larger than Fund IV, which closed at $305 million in 2019.

After seeing impressive cash-on-cash returns from its portfolio, Vertex raised funds for its new Fund V. The company said this includes highly successful exits from its investments in Grab, FirstCry, XpressBees, and Recko, among many other companies.

“Our earlier funds have had superior cash-on-cash returns and are outperforming benchmarks. This track record led most of our investors from VVSEAI Fund IV to return as investors in VVSEAI Fund V and increase their allocation. In addition, we expanded our total investor base significantly and are happy to welcome all our Limited Partners,” said Ben Mathias, managing partner, Vertex Ventures.

The latest fund is backed by existing and new limited partners (LPs), including family offices, corporates, sovereign wealth funds, and financial institutions from Asia and Europe.

New Limited Partners include Japan Investment Corporation (JIC), International Finance Corporation (IFC) and DEG (German Development Finance Institution).

The fund corpus includes a dedicated co-investment envelope of $50 million for co-investing alongside the primary fund in startups led by women founders.

More than 35% of the startups in the company’s previous fund have at least one female founder, and this envelope will be used to further the fund’s objective of supporting more women entrepreneurs, according to the company.

VVSEAI invests in high-growth startups in Southeast Asia and India looking for institutional venture capital funding in their early stages. The company has invested in over 80 industries, including consumer internet, financial technology, and enterprise technology.

The Vertex-backed ventures in India include Licious, KukuFM, Kissht, Ace Turtle, Kapiva, BeepKart, Certa, Signzy and Ayu Health.

“The macro opportunity is palpable, but what excites us more is the continuing maturity of the ecosystem and the quality of founders we are working with in building category-defining companies. Especially in India, we are working with founders tackling very interesting problems across socioeconomic strata in India and building great products for the world,” said Piyush Kharbanda, general partner, Vertex Ventures.

Oracle sees revenue below estimates as cloud spending sputters

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September 12, 2023

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Oracle’s shares dropped 9% in extended trading as it reported current-quarter revenue projections that fell short of Wall Street targets and narrowly missed first-quarter expectations due to a challenging economic climate that restricted businesses’ cloud spending.

Businesses are rethinking their digital transformation plans after a spike in cloud demand during the pandemic, hurting Oracle as it tries to catch up in a market dominated by larger rivals like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft.

However, because of advancements in its networking technology, analysts have suggested that the increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) applications may benefit Oracle’s cloud infrastructure business.

“As of today, AI development companies have signed contracts to purchase more than $4 billion of capacity in Oracle’s Gen2 Cloud. That’s twice as much as we had booked at the end of Q4,” Oracle Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison said.

Ellison, a self-described close friend of Elon Musk, announced that the Tesla CEO’s AI startup xAI had signed a contract to train AI models in Oracle’s Gen2 Cloud.

Furthermore, he stated that all nine of Berkshire Hathaway’s utility companies would use Oracle’s Fusion Cloud applications to replace their existing enterprise resource planning systems.

So far this year, Oracle stock has gained about 55%.

According to LSEG data, the company projected revenue growth for the second quarter of between 5% and 7%, below analysts’ 8.2% average estimate. Additionally, compared to expectations of $1.33, it expects an adjusted profit per share of between $1.30 and $1.34.

The first quarter’s revenue was $12.45 billion, slightly less than the $12.47 billion estimate.

It earned $1.19 per share, excluding items, compared to estimates of $1.15.

TCS partners with Dassault Systems for digital heart models

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September 11, 2023

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Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced its collaboration with Dassault Systems through its Living Heart Project to drive Digital Transformation in Cardiovascular Science through Bio-Physical Simulation. To develop and validate realistic digital simulations of the human heart, the project brings together an ecosystem of cardiovascular researchers, educators, medical device developers, regulatory agencies, including the US FDA, and practising cardiologists.

According to a TCS press release, the project will create ground-breaking medical solutions, such as using heart simulation as digital evidence to approve new cardiovascular devices. The release added that the project includes in-silico clinical trials that could supplement the data obtained from clinical subjects while minimizing the demand for animal testing and human enrollment in clinical trials.

“Their deep expertise in research and technology development will bring invaluable insights to our mission and to others in the field. This collaboration demonstrates our shared commitment to leveraging the virtual world for the advancement of medical science and patient care. By joining forces, we believe we can accelerate the pace of innovation and make significant strides towards our goal of creating and delivering personalized in-silico medical solutions,” said Steve Levine, Sr. Director, Virtual Human Modeling, Dassault Systèmes and founder of The Living Heart Project.

“TCS is excited to be a part of the Living Heart initiative, and to collaborate in creating a pathbreaking digital simulation of the human heart that can enrich our understanding of the cardiac function and provide insights for novel cardiac treatments and new product development for the med-tech and pharma sectors. We believe that our extensive expertise in building digital bio-twins for other organs and body parts positions us well to contribute significantly to this collaborative initiative,” said Vikram Karakoti, Global Head of Life Sciences Business, TCS.

TCS stated that it will use its domain and technological expertise and research on the Digital BioTwin of the Heart to help with model refinement, simulation, and technological implementation when developing and validating highly accurate, personalized digital human heart models.

TCS researchers developed a biophysics-based, high-fidelity computational model called TCS Digital BioTwin to enable the study of the particular human organ’s function remotely and non-invasively.

SaaS fintech startup Perfios secures $229 million in funding

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September 11, 2023

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Perfios, a B2B SaaS fintech company, announced on Monday that Kedaara Capital will invest $229 million in its Series-D funding round through the combination of a primary fund raise and a secondary sale.

Perfios says the funds will be used to facilitate the company’s ongoing plans for global expansion in Europe and North America. The company also plans to invest in advanced technologies to enhance its comprehensive stack of Decision Analytics SaaS products to handle the full end-to-end customer journey across banking, insurance, and embedded commerce.

Nishant Sharma, founder and managing partner, Kedaara Capital, said, “Led by one of the strongest teams in the space, Perfios has created truly the best-in-class fintech SaaS business that plays on the strong secular growth and increasing digitization levels in the financial services sector in India and globally. Their pioneering approach has led to a strong positive flywheel effect that will help the company maintain its market leading position, and we are excited to partner with them.”

“This investment will help us in strengthening the digital transformation journey of our partners, thereby powering financial inclusion and providing access to financial services to billions across the globe,” said Sabyasachi Goswami, chief executive officer of Perfios.

Amazon to require some authors to disclose the use of AI material

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September 9, 2023

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Amazon.com has started requiring writers who want to sell books through its e-book program to inform the company in advance that their work has artificial intelligence material after receiving complaints from the Authors Guild and other groups for several months.

The new regulations, posted on Wednesday, were praised by the Authors Guild as a “welcome first step” in the right direction towards preventing an excess of computer-generated books on the online retailer’s site. Numerous authors were concerned that computer-generated books might displace traditional works and be unfair to readers unaware they were buying AI content.

In a statement on its website, the Guild expressed gratitude toward “the Amazon team for taking our concerns into account and enacting this important step toward ensuring transparency and accountability for AI-generated content.”

This week’s passage on Amazon’s content guideline page said, “We define AI-generated content as text, images, or translations created by an AI-based tool.” Amazon differentiates between AI-assisted content from AI-generated content, which authors are not required to disclose.

However, the decision’s initial impact might be limited because Amazon will not publicly identify books with AI, a policy that a company spokesperson said may change.

Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger stated that since the beginning of this year, her company has been interacting with Amazon regarding AI content.

“Amazon never opposed requiring disclosure but just said they had to think it through, and we kept nudging them. We think and hope they will eventually require public disclosure when a work is AI-generated,” she told The Associated Press on Friday.

The Guild, representing thousands of published authors, helped put together an open letter in July urging AI firms not to use copyrighted material without permission. The authors who endorsed the letter are James Patterson, Margaret Atwood, and Suzanne Collins.

RatePing and STAAH’s upgraded integration to help hotels maximize revenue

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September 9, 2023

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The leading hospitality guest acquisition platform, STAAH, and RatePing Hotel Pricing Intelligence, a pricing intelligence and revenue management software provider, have expanded their long-standing partnership to cover the former’s Price Intelligence and Revenue Boost capabilities.

Rateping is an Android and web-based application developed to help hotel and vacation rental owners and operators track their room rates versus their competitors’ room rates while keeping an eye on rate parity and Online Travel Agency (OTA) discounting. RatePing is an easy-to-use competitive intelligence product that lets customers decide on pricing based on current market insights, maximizing revenue.

With the enhanced integration, RatePing customers can quickly adjust pricing or inventory based on market intelligence and access the platform’s robust features through their STAAH channel manager.

“We are thrilled to be taking our partnership with STAAH to the next level. STAAH is a company we have looked up to for their unmatched levels of service and our customer-centric approach is very much aligned with their DNA. The ultimate beneficiary of this partnership would be mutual customers who can now easily access RatePing’s product from within the STAAH channel manager,” said Jaideep Advani, Founder of RatePing.

Integrating revenue management software with channel management technology can help hotels and resorts generate more revenue, given the popularity of online booking sites among modern travelers. The partnership eliminates tedious, manual data entry. It enables hotels to more effectively distribute their rates — a necessary advantage given the competitive nature of the industry and the current economic climate.

“We at STAAH have an unwavering commitment to continuously provide our clients with new and exciting tools to increase revenue and make their lives easier. This partnership is a testament to that commitment,” said Rajesh Ghanshani, Director of Partnerships – STAAH. He added that the combined power of STAAH and RatePing will allow their mutual customers to focus on more strategic activities to drive business growth instead of repetitive administrative tasks.

Several STAAH and RatePing customers have already embraced the integration, and participating properties have reported improved team productivity and revenue growth.

“RatePing’s solution is a robust one at a very affordable price,” says Dishant Nagpal, Director of Revenue at Amritara Hotels and Resorts. “The combination of their competitive tracking capabilities and STAAH’s channel manager allows us to easily make informed data-driven decisions to maximize online revenue. STAAH has allowed us to seamlessly distribute our rates and availability to countless OTA’s at the click of a button. Since we started using Rateping, the team has been able to save at least 4-5 hours a day in manually tracking competitor rates and identifying opportunities to increase revenue. The team is thrilled and I couldn’t have asked for a better-combined solution between STAAH and RatePing.”

Biomaterials startup altM bags $3.5mn in seed round

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September 8, 2023

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altM, a biomaterials startup, announced that it had raised $3.5 million in a seed round led by Omnivore. Other investors included Theia Ventures, Thai Wah Ventures, Maninder Gulati, the chief strategy officer of Oyo, Mirik Gogri, the corporate strategy head of Aarti Industries, and Paula Mariwala, the founding partner of Aureolis Ventures.

altM is Omnivore’s first investment from its third fund, which had its first close in June at $150 million. It is the company’s fourth investment under its OmniX Bio initiative, established in 2021 to back early-stage agrifood life science startups.

The Bengaluru-based startup wants to develop scalable biomaterials to help large enterprises reduce their carbon footprints across their supply chains. It produces advanced materials as an alternative to existing, non-sustainable materials using lignocellulosic agricultural residues as its raw material.

According to the company, lignocellulosic biomass offers a unique technological appeal to form a family of materials due to its potential for sustainability and functional qualities.

Apoorv Garg and Yugal Raj Jain, who met while working at Tesla in the US, founded the company in 2022.

“With Apoorv and Yugal’s background in manufacturing excellence, altM’s entry into industrial alternative materials will hasten the global shift towards sustainability and circularity. Omnivore is very excited to be a part of their journey as we kick off our new fund,” Mark Kahn, managing partner at Omnivore, said.

Garg, an alumnus of the University of California, Berkeley, and the Delhi College of Engineering, held supply chain and engineering leadership positions at Prometheus Fuels, Tesla, and Maruti Suzuki.

Before this, Jain held engineering leadership positions at Tesla and directed the launch of several factories and products. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology.

Harshad Velankar, who has more than 20 years of academic and professional experience across India, the US, and South Africa, is also a team member. Before leading bioprocess research at Hindustan Petroleum, Velankar worked for Praj Industries and Reliance Life Sciences.

“The scale-up of a technology from a laboratory bench to commercial production is not a trivial undertaking. Production scale-up is often the death valley for biotech startups. Our focus on go-to-market strategy, execution, and production scale-up will be the differentiator to most endeavors we see in the world of biomaterials today,” cofounder and CEO Garg said.

AI startup Imbue tops $1 billion valuation after funding from Nvidia

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September 8, 2023

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Imbue, the AI research lab formerly known as Generally Intelligent, has raised $200 million in a Series B funding round, valuing the business at over $1 billion. The Astera Institute, Nvidia, Kyle Vogt, CEO of Cruise, and Simon Last, co-founder of Notion, include a few participants.

Imbue has now raised $220 million, ranking it among the better-funded AI startups in recent months. It’s only slightly behind AI21 Labs ($283 million), the Tel Aviv-based firm developing a range of text-generating AI tools, as well as generative AI vendors like Cohere ($435 million) and Adept ($415 million).

“This latest funding will accelerate our development of AI systems that can reason and code, so they can help us accomplish larger goals in the world,” Imbue wrote in a blog post published this morning. “Our goal remains the same: to build practical AI agents that can accomplish larger goals and safely work for us in the real world.”

“We believe reasoning is the primary blocker to effective AI agents,” Imbue wrote in the blog post. “Robust reasoning is necessary for effective action. It involves the ability to deal with uncertainty, to know when to change our approach, to ask questions and gather new information, to play out scenarios and make decisions, to make and discard hypotheses and generally to deal with the complicated, hard-to-predict nature of the real world.”

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