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https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/funding/the-ayurveda-co-raises-rs-100-crore-in-funding-led-by-sixth-sense-ventures/articleshow/98609088.cms?from=mdr The Ayurveda Co raises Rs 100 crore in funding led by Sixth Sense Ventures. Direct-to-consumer Ayurveda brand The Ayurveda Co has raised Rs 100 crore in Series A funding round for expanding offline presence, improving product manufacturing, expanding research and development and accelerating digital awareness around the company. The funding round was led by venture capital fund Sixth Sense Ventures. The round also saw participation from actress Kajal Agarwal, a few notable startup founders and venture debt funds, the company said in a statement. “This Series A funding is a significant milestone for TAC and will enable the company to further its mission of bringing Ayurvedic wellness to a wider audience, especially millennials and the Gen Z to make Ayurveda mainstream,” said Shreedha Singh, co-founder & CEO. The company claims to have grown over 300% over the past 10 months, driven by a portfolio of 100 unique products backed by an omnichannel distributor network across over 20 exclusive brand outlets and over 5,000 retail touch points. It also has a strong online presence. The firm said it has also recently forayed into global markets, starting with the Middle Eastern region with its Dubai launch. TAC was founded by Singh and Param Bhargava in 2021. It has products for skincare, haircare, natural makeup, as well as for wellness. The startup said in the statement that it is also planning to integrate and automate ‘dosha’ consultation-based personalised skin, hair and wellness routines.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/sme-sector/b2b-procurement-marketplace-procmart-raises-10-million-in-series-a-funding-round/articleshow/95651534.cms B2B procurement marketplace ProcMart has raised $10 million in series A funding round led by Sixth Sense Ventures. In order to secure these funds, Sequitur Advocates provided ProcMart with legal counsel while keeping in mind the company's growth strategy. The latest round of funding will be deployed towards international expansion, strengthening vendor partnerships and upgrading technological and warehousing capabilities. Founded in 2015 by Anish Popli, a first-generation entrepreneur and an IIM Lucknow and NIT-Trichy Alumnus with experience in procurement and project management from BHEL and Energo Engineering; ProcMart is an enterprise-focused MRO aggregator with a tech-enabled digital platform. Within a few years, it has been able to onboard, retain and deepen business with tier-1 global MNCs and domestic enterprises such as Colgate, Mondelez, Harman, Dana, Vedanta while expanding, across industry verticals, and product categories. Popli stated, “With consistent growth and profitability over the past few years, ProcMart has emerged as a strong player providing an end-to-end digital ecosystem for indirect procurement to leading MNCs and domestic enterprises. This financing will be crucial to increasing our geographic reach, forming effective vendor alliances, and improving our technological and warehousing capabilities. Sixth Sense have a strong track record of partnering with B2B enablers and helping them scale leveraging their ecosystem connect.” Nikhil Vora, Founder & CEO, Sixth Sense Ventures commented, “We have seen global players like Grainger & Fastenal achieve tremendous scale and growth, especially in US and Europe. The Indian market is relatively nascent but poised for massive disruption given the strong manufacturing potential and growing focus on organising non-core spends. We see ProcMart as a great opportunity to leverage this disruption in the otherwise unorganised and fragmented MRO industry in India. Super stoked to have Anish and ProcMart on board with this investment.” Maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) is a $650 billion industry globally with growth outpacing that of the manufacturing sector. While the US & Europe are the largest markets at $300 billlion, with multi- billion-dollar MRO aggregators, India is still a nascent market at $18 billion with under 3% penetration and small, fragmented players. However, with a $300B manufacturing sector growing strongly, emergence of centralised procurement and increasing focus on optimising non-core spends, the Indian MRO industry is at the cusp of a disruption.

https://inc42.com/buzz/d2c-brand-acefour-accessories-raises-7-mn-dollar-to-disrupt-indias-luggage-market/ The startup plans to use the fresh funds for its working capital, brand and product building Acefour, through its soon-to-be-launched brand Uppercase, is targeting to establish itself as a fresh, contemporary, sustainable brand Acefour, founded in 2021 by Sudip Ghose, Uday Sodhi and Arnob Mondal, raised $1.5 Mn in its seed funding round led by Enam Holdings in March this year Travel accessories startup Acefour Accessories has raised $7 Mn in its pre-Series A funding round led by Sixth Sense Ventures’s current fund, Sixth Sense India Opportunities III. The round also saw participation from Acefour’s existing investor Volrado Venture Partners. The fundraise comes just before the launch of Acefour’s product range. The startup plans to use the fresh funds for its working capital, brand and product building. The D2C startup, through its brand Uppercase, is targeting to establish itself as a fresh, contemporary, sustainable brand that would witness a sync of both fashion and function, Acefour said in a statement. Acefour, founded in 2021 by Sudip Ghose, Uday Sodhi and Arnob Mondal, aims to disrupt India’s $3.5 Bn luggage market with the new-age brand, which, the startup says, is highly fragmented. Ghose has about 20 years of leadership experience in the travel gear industry. He was former CEO & MD of VIP Industries and former executive director of Samsonite India.

Bengaluru: Online test preparation platform Toprankers has raised $4 million in a fresh funding round led by Sixth Sense Ventures.

The company will use the funds to introduce new categories in the test prep segment such as study abroad programmes, tutoring courses, career counselling programmes, and finance and commerce test preps. The startup is also looking at hiring around 160 teaching and non-teaching staff in the next 12 months. Founded in 2016 by Gaurav Goel, Karan Mehta, and Harsh Gagrani, Toprankers offer courses in the test prep segment focusing on law, judiciary services and state exams, management test prep exams like Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUET), and design, fashion, and architecture entrance tests such as the National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA).

Mumbai: Ras Luxury Oils, a direct to consumer (D2C) luxury skincare and personal care brand, has raised $2 million in a funding round from Sixth Sense Ventures, the company said.

It said it would use the funds to develop and launch new product categories, expand deeper into marketplaces, and establish an international presence. Founded in 2017 by three women -- Shubhika Jain, Suramya Jain and Sangeeta Jain -- Ras Luxury Oils claims it has seen 20x growth in the past two years. “There is a white space within luxury skincare as a category in India, and it is growing 2-3x faster than the personal care category because it is brand-starved. Furthermore, skincare brands from India are underrepresented globally. We believe that with such a dynamic, young and strong leadership team, Ras has the ability to create a strong niche for itself,” said Nikhil Vora, founder and CEO of Sixth Sense Ventures. Sixth Sense Ventures is currently investing out of its third fund, SSIO III, which has completed 24 investments, including bets on Parag Milk, Nobel Hygiene, Fraazo, Open Secret, Stylam, GoodDot, Neeman’s, Rage Coffee, Design Cafe and Bira 91. It said it is targeting the global clean beauty and skincare market, which is worth $54 billion and growing at a 13% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Currently, Ras’ website contributes 85-90% of its revenue. It also sells through online marketplaces such as Nykaa and Amazon, and has partnered with various high-end spas and salons.

Nikhil Vora from Sixth Sense Ventures commented, “Our investment in ADF FOODS LTD. is in sync with our investment philosophy of betting on first generation founders, disrupting large category ($450B Global RTE market) for the consumers of tomorrow (Ethnic food for Indian diaspora worldwide). ADF’s unique proposition of focusing on ethnic foods in growing western markets, coupled with distribution synergies by offering Unilever & Patanjali products in US unlocks immense opportunities. Our partnership with ADF underpins our belief over their strong business economics, execution capabilities & astute leadership. We are excited to partner with BIMAL THAKKAR & team as they create a niche for themselves in the global RTE market.” Swati Mehra, CFA Rishita Wadher, Nimisha Nagarsekar, Ketki Paranjpe, Kathan Shah, Saloni Ghatnekar, Siddhant Sanghvi, Sohail Manjiramani, Peyush Trehan, Rhea Vijoy

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/funding/alia-bhatt-backed-phool-co-raises-8-million-in-funding-from-sixth-sense-ventures/articleshow/90661414.cms Alia Bhatt-backed Phool raises $8 million in funding from Sixth Sense Ventures New Delhi: Direct-to-consumer (D2C) home fragrance and wellness brand Phool.co has raised $8 million in a funding round from consumer-focused venture fund, Sixth Sense Ventures. The round also saw participation from existing investors, Bollywood actor Alia Bhatt and IAN fund, a statement issued by the company said. The home fragrance category is estimated at $3.2 billion. Bhatt said in a statement: “I believe Phool will be an important global aromatherapy story to emerge from India.” Phool.co has previously raised seed rounding from IAN Fund, Social Alpha (FISE), Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (San Francisco), and IIT Kanpur. Company founder Ankit Agarwal said: “We plan to transform the global home fragrance market, and build a distinct brand with our product range.” The company said with the fundraise, Phool will scale up operations, and ramp up R&D efforts to make animal leather obsolete with Fleather - a vegan alternative to animal leather. Nikhil Vohra, founder and chief executive of Sixth Sense Ventures said: “The under-penetrated home fragrances industry presents a large, white space to be exploited. A clear shift to natural and sustainable alternatives is creating a strong demand for Phool’s products.” Bhatt’s other venture, Ed-a-Mamma clothing brand for children, will be scaled up offline with multi-brand outlets including Shoppers Stop and Lifestyle this year, and it will double its offline footprint, she said. So far, the brand has been operating on a D2C business model. Her other business interests include an investment in beauty platform Nykaa, and closet sharing initiative MiSu which deals with celebrities putting personal clothing for sale, the proceeds of which go to charity.

https://www.vccircle.com/own-branded-certification-leader-upgrad-knowledgehut-to-cross-usd-45m-in-revenue-in-2022-aims-at-usd-100m-by-2023 Own-branded Certification Leader upGrad KnowledgeHut to Cross USD 45M in Revenue in 2022; Aims at USD 100M by 2023 Mumbai 11th April 2022: upGrad KnowledgeHut became a 100% subsidiary of upGrad in September 2021. In just 6 months, it witnessed meteoric growth—in its course offerings, revenue, and geographical spread of customers across the globe. upGrad KnowledgeHut is known as a specialised short-duration tech and skills provider. The own-branded certification leader upGrad KnowledgeHut includes courses such as AGILE, Data Science & Cloud, Business Analytics, Blockchain Development, and Design Thinking, along with UI/UX Bootcamps and digital marketing. upGrad has a team strength of 800 experts based around the world. Over 70% of upGrad KnowledgeHut's revenue comes from geographies like the USA, UAE, Germany, Singapore, South Africa, and the UK. And a significant 40% of its USD 45Mn revenue is from the US alone. "Short-term tech skills are witnessing a surge with strong demand from working professionals globally. As a leader in this space - upGrad KnowledgeHut is at the cusp of leveraging the opportunity to open up the market. And to create a world-class learning experience through their specialised courses, in the most relevant disciplines to build tomorrow's careers." commented Mayank Kumar, Co-Founder & MD, upGrad. Added Subramanyam Reddy - Founder & CEO upGrad KnowledgeHut, "Our focus is to build the best courses for a highly skilled talent pool across the globe. It's a rapidly evolving labour market. We want to equip learners with the best tech and other support skills to improve their employability options across multiple segments and career options."  About upGrad KnowledgeHut:  upGrad KnowledgeHut is a global ed-tech platform, equipping the world's workforce with the skills of the future via outcome-based immersive learning. A trusted skills transformation partner to over 250,000 professionals and 1200+ enterprises in over 100 countries. Organisations and individuals count on us to innovate faster and create progress. Leveraging a state-of-the-art immersive learning experience platform, UGKH is disrupting the way tech is learning and empowering enterprises; with scalable tech-driven solutions to align role-based skill requirements with desired business outcomes. Whether you're looking to develop capabilities in Software Development, IT Service Management, Cyber Security, Cloud Computing, Machine Learning / AI, or Data Science, upGrad KnowledgeHut is your learning partner of choice. About upGrad upGrad - started in 2015, is a pioneer in the online education revolution, focused on powering career success for a global workforce of over 1.3 billion. One of the few Integrated LifeLongLearning Tech Companies in the world - spanning the college learner to the working professional from the age group of 18-50 years and across Undergrad courses, Campus & Job Linked Programs, Studying Abroad, short form to executive programs to Degrees, Masters and Doctoral - with a learner base of over 2 million across 100+ countries and over 300 University partners and a robust enterprise business with a client base of 1000 companies worldwide. upGrad's Global Learning Engine rests on four pillars - (a) its large repository of original & owned content and IP, (b) its own best-in-class proprietary tech platform, (c) its high touch human-led delivery service backed by coaches & mentors, and (d) an 85% course completion track record, backed by a further 80% career outcomes guaranteed performance. Already termed Asia's higher EdTech leader, it has offices in the UK, USA, Middle East, India, Singapore & Vietnam, and many more countries. Brand Solutions: No VCCircle journalist was involved in the creation of this content.

https://m.economictimes.com/industry/renewables/altigreen-raises-rs-300-cr-funding-led-by-sixth-sense-ventures-reliance-new-energy-others/articleshow/89500972.cms Altigreen raises Rs 300 cr funding led by Sixth Sense Ventures, Reliance New Energy, others Commercial electric vehicle maker Altigreen on Friday said it has raised Rs 300 crore (USD 40 million) in a funding round for capacity expansion, new products launch and to develop a pan-India network. The Series A investment is led by Sixth Sense Ventures, along with Reliance New Energy, Xponentia Capital, Accurant International, USA and Momentum Venture Capital, Singapore, the Bengaluru-based company said. Reliance Industries on Thursday had announced the acquisition of a stake in Altigreen Propulsion Labs Pvt Ltd for Rs 50.16 crore through its wholly-owned subsidiary Reliance New Energy. "This is the most opportune time to invest our efforts in boosting EV manufacturing to cater to the rising aspirations and demands of the customers. The future of India's automobile industry is electric and we have already laid out a roadmap to achieve fast-EV adoption, mainly in the commercial segment," said Amitabh Saran and Shalendra Gupta, Co-founders, Altigreen. The deeper ecommerce penetration and growth in last-mile delivery have catapulted the demand for commercial, road-ready EVs and this year will definitely be a transformative year for the company, they added. "We are elated to have marquee investors and believers like Sixth Sense, Reliance, Xponentia and others," the two Co-founders said. The freshly raised capital will be utilized to ramp up production capabilities, accelerate R&D, fast-paced EV adoption and develop a robust pan-India network to offer the best and cleanest last-mile transportation solutions in the country, it added. The company has already expanded its network across leading Indian markets including New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai. "We draw comfort with Altigreen's primary focus on the three-wheeler segment within the EV space - which fundamentally is less cluttered and under-penetrated, as well as benefits multiple stakeholders in the value chain (from Ecommerce players to consumers). "This coupled with a strong product-first approach and a credible team, Altigreen is well positioned to emerge as one of the leading players in the three-wheeler space," said Nikhil Vora, Founder-CEO, Sixth Sense. Altigreen's vehicles are more practical, more economical, ecologically beneficial and truly Made in India, Xponentia Capital Managing Director, P R Srinivasan said, adding, "we believe that Altigreen has a big role to play in accelerating the adoption of EVs which is enterin .. Altigreen, in the past, has received investment from Ajay Sarupria, Jupiter Capital, Sterling Tools, Phi Capital and HiTech Gears among others. This Series A fundraise was ably supported by boutique investment banking firm Four-S and Ostara Advisors, which is the country's first electric mobility focused investment bank, as per the release.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/funding/prozo-raises-rs-75-cr-from-sixth-sense-ventures-others/articleshow/89929960.cms Prozo raises Rs 76 crore from Sixth Sense Ventures, others Bengaluru: Supply chain and warehousing startup Prozo has raised Rs 76 crore from Sixth Sense Ventures, Jafco Asia, and high net-worth individuals, founder Ashvini Jakhar told ET. Prozo will use the fresh funds to expand into other regions, acquire customers, invest in technology and hire people, Jakhar said. Dexter Capital Advisors was the financial advisor for the round. Prozo sells its clients - mostly direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands - a supply chain service that helps them replicate Amazon Prime’s promise of same day or next day delivery The company offers a plug-and-play, pay-per-use model. “Many years back, the product was the differentiator, then branding became a differentiation, in the internet era ratings and reviews became a differentiation, then pricing became a differentiation. But private labels killed the pricing differentiation,” Jakhar told ET. “Today, the true differentiation is fast fulfillment. What started as good to have has become an important differentiation. Today, the supply chain has become a revenue enabler. Your distribution is your differentiation.” Amazon has become the chosen destination for the top 10 brands and small as well as big brands have found it difficult to compete with the ecommerce platform’s private labels, he said. This has made brands start their own ecommerce portals and invest in other supply chains, he added. Prozo will start providing one-day delivery to most regions in the country, he said. "…we are covering the country from the perspective of four zones - North, South, East, West," he said. "To cover the entire country from a one or two- day delivery standpoint, you need a minimum of 8 locations. We can do even better with 16 locations," he added. The company, founded in 2016, provides warehousing, freight, technology, and distribution services on over 20 online marketplaces on a pay-per-use model. Clients include Reliance JioMart, McGraw Hill, Lavie, WinMagic Toys and other D2C brands across more than 10 categories. "Between the product and the market, there is a lot of noise," he said, referring to the various channels that brands need to interact with for e-commerce. Brands usually have to go to separate platforms for freight, offline, B2B and B2C channels. Prozo claims to offer a multi-channel, end-to-end platform for its clients. The company’s technology stack includes a warehouse management system, unified order management system, freight recommendation, transport management system, intelligent inventory placement, and insight and analytics products. Prozo has a 250-member team and it has been growing 40% month on month. Prior to this round, Prozo had raised capital from Earlsfield Capital Partners LLP and other angel investors. “Prozo is solving a key problem in a very large market,” said Nikhil Vora, founder Sixth Sense Ventures. “By 2025, India’s e-commerce market is expected to cross $200 billion, and there would be nearly 340 million e-commerce customers. Hundreds of enterprises, thousands of D2C brands and over a million SMEs will compete to serve this humongous customer base.”