India Funding Roundup: A Personalised Insurance Seller, Enterprise IoT Player, and More

Our latest roundup mostly sees seed funding activity centred around sectors like online insurance, learning kits, and co-working spaces, with a couple of Series A rounds in areas like Industrial IoT and driver analytics.

Turtlemint
Personalised insurance platform Turtlemint has raised an undisclosed sum in an investment round led by Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from Blume Ventures. The Mumbai-based startup was launched four months ago by Dhirendra Mahyavanshi and Anand Prabhudesai. Turtlemint uses proprietary algorithms and data analytics to provide recommendations on insurance purchase and claims assistance to customers through a network of trusted offline facilitators. Its platform uses over 20 factors to recommend the apt amount of health insurance cover to the user. The funds will be used to further scale up its technology and operations, and expand to over a 100 cities in the next few months, the company said in an emailed statement.

Zendrive
Silicon Valley-based Zendrive, a driver analytics startup with an engineering base in Bengaluru announced Friday its fundraise of $13.5 million (roughly Rs. 91 crores) in its Series A round led by by Shervin Pishevar of Sherpa Capital with participation from Nyca Partners, Thomvest Ventures, and existing investors First Round Capital, BMW i Ventures, Fontinalis Partners, and Tad Montross. The funding will drive the company's focus on safety innovation, using mobile sensor data to provide actionable insights that improve safety for passengers and drivers, the company said in an emailed statement. The transportation and logistics sectors in India are undergoing rapid growth and modernisation, with road safety is becoming an increasing focus for regulators and communities," said Pankaj Risbood, Co-Founder of Zendrive.

Altizon
Pune-based Industrial IoT (Internet of Things) platform startup Altizon Systems has closed a $4 million (roughly Rs. 27 crores) round of series A funding led by Wipro Ventures, with support from Lumis Partners and current investors, The Hive and Infuse Ventures. The company plans to utilise the funds for scaling up its sales and marketing functions both in India and globally.

Magic Crate
Bengaluru-based Magic Crate, a provider of theme based activity kits for 4-8 year-old kids, has reportedly raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding in a round led by TV Mohandas Pai and Aarin Capital. Founded in 2014 by IIT-IIM alumnus Viswanathan R, the startup plans to use the funds to expand its product portfolio, team size, and manufacturing capabilities.

Gingercrush
Gingercrush, an on-demand platform for customising licensed products, has reportedly raised a pre-Series A round of $1 million (roughly Rs. 6.75 crores) led by Saha Fund. The Vadodara-based startup, founded in 2015, licenses intellecutal property from Disney, Mattel and Viacom18, and offers customised prints for t-shirts, mugs, and other merchandise.

Bhive
Bengaluru-based Bhive, a provider of coworking spaces for startups has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from a group of angel investors, including TaxiForSure founder Raghunandan G. The company reportedly plans to launch its fourth location in the HSR Sector 4 with the funds.