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Stack raises $4.5M from Y Combinator, Harvard Management 

Stack, an automated investing app for millennials, has raised $4.5 million in a seed round led by global marquee investors such as Y Combinator, Harvard Management, Goodwater Capital, Soma Capital, Uncommon Capital, and Earlsfield Capital.

Founded in 2021 by Smriti Tomar and Tushar Vyas along with founding team Vidit Varshney and Yashwarshan Puranik, Stack automates investing for everyday retail investors. It will use the funds to expand the current team and enable more features to help users grow their money better.

Other investors that participated in the current round include Magic Fund, Side Door Ventures, Dragon Capital, Emles Ventures, Grand Park Ventures, Chandaria Capital, Cleo Capital, AngelList, West Quad, and Olive Tree Capital. 

“Stack sets out to finally give the best investing experience to everyone, with a transparent approach while educating our users on how to make their money work instead of being a black box.” stated Smriti Tomar, Cofounder and CEO at Stack.

PropReturns raises $1.2M 

PropReturns, an Indian real estate investment startup, has raised $1.2 million from a group of marquee investors including US-based Y Combinator, Goodwater Capital, and Soma Capital.

Launched in 2021, the startup is a real estate investment platform that enables investors to purchase rent-yielding commercial properties across India. It was founded by BITS Pilani graduates Kenish Shah, Jayant Panwar and Somit Mathur. It is being used by over 4,000 investors, wealth managers, and real estate funds to invest in rent-generating commercial properties across India.

“We aim to solve an aspect of the real estate market that has not been addressed yet. Property investors are prone to making decisions based on speculation, gut instincts, and emotions. This problem is compounded by the lack of trust, reliable data and transparency that plagues the Indian real estate business,” said Kenish Shah, Co-founder, PropReturns. 

WeSkill raises over $400K from premier angel investors as a part of its pre-seed round of funding

WeSkill (JAP Edutainment Private Limited), an online extracurricular learning platform for children, has raised more than $400,000 in a pre-seed round from syndicates and angels. 

The startup, founded in November 2020, by three IIM Ahmedabad alumni, Shaurya Joshi, Shashank Patidar, and Praneet Agarwal, aims to solve the problem of inadequate access and infrastructure to extracurricular activities for children.

The investment was led by Shrishti Sahu from Swadharma Source Ventures, supported by Umang Vohra of Cipla, Arpan Sheth of Bain & Company, Renu Satti of Paytm and other angels. 

“Right from the beginning, we were clear that building a scalable tech-based learning solution will be a key imperative for us to solve the access problem while ensuring an interactive and engaging learning experience,” said  Praneet.

“The incumbent learning solutions for activities like dance are either through ‘massive, but passive’ channels like Youtube or ‘intimate, but sub-scale’ channels like offline classes and thus we built our product strategy to solve this problem.”

Fitpage raises funding of $300,000 in fresh funding

Fitpage, an endurance-first fitness tech platform, has raised $300,000 in an angel round led by Gaurav Jaitly of Goldman Sachs India and Maj. Manoj Verma and  Jaguar Security. 

The startup is a subscription-based platform founded in April 2020. It focuses on improving cardiovascular health through deep tech-based personalised training, nutrition, and content recommendations. The app is still in the works and is due to be launched at the end of January. 

The company had previously raised  $3.5 million in a seed round from Astra Ventures at the beginning of 2021.

“At fitpage, our goal is to democratise fitness for people. The issue of fitness has remained a tall issue to address even with the exponential growth in physical fitness facilities in the country.  It needs a much larger push and a much more personalised approach to create an impact,” said Vikas Singh, Founder & CEO, Fitpage, “Fitpage, through its understanding of the cardiovascular system, designs plans that are curated for each individual and can be replicated at scale.”

Digital platform ShopMyLooks raised $200K from Capital A and Collective Artists Network 

Shopmylooks, a digital platform for automating the monetisation efforts for influencers, raised $200,000 co-led by Capital A and Collective Artists Network. 

The startup aims to help fashion influencers on Instagram and automate their monetising efforts on Instagram. The platform’s AI tools take care of aspects such as creating, managing and updating the influencers’ IG shops.

“The influencer economy is such that only the leading names with millions of followers are able to effectively monetise their content. About 90 percent of Instagrammers with great content, but lesser reach, remain uncertain about their monetisation and lose out on potential earnings,” said Rohit Jaiswal, Founder, and CEO, ShopMyLooks.