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When you think of fantasy gaming, electric vehicle, a soonicorn, or an ecommerce major, you would think they would be based in India’s silicon valley Bengaluru, unicorn hub Gurugram, or financial capital Mumbai. 

Interestingly, Jaipur, the pink city of India, is emerging as a startup hub in the country due to its proximity to Delhi and a unique mix of urban and semi-urban infrastructure.

In terms of sectors, the city has an innovative mix of companies across sectors including tech, e-sports, ecommerce, and cleantech.

YS brings to you five startups from the pink city that are proving that ‘bharat’ can be a melting pot of innovation.

MyTeam11

Gaming has become a mainstream business nowadays. Just like Dream11 and Gamezop, Jaipur-based MyTeam11 is also rapidly growing. 

Started in 2016, co-founders Vinit Godara and Sanjit Sihag conceived the idea while watching the semi-final cricket match between India and Australia during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, where India lost. 

MyTeam11 allows users to create imaginary teams and earn real cash rewards based on the players’ on-field performances.

The startup claims to be having a user base of more than 15 million who are engaged in a variety of sports. MyTeam11 was the title sponsor for the Indian cricket team’s tour of West Indies in 2019.

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DealShare

Amidst Flipkart and Amazon, social commerce startup DealShare from Jaipur became a soonicorn. Started by Vineet Rao, Sankar Bora, and Sourjyendu Medda, DealShare was started in September 2018 in Jaipur, Rajasthan. 

The startup, which follows a social commerce model, mostly targets non-metro and middle-income customers in India with mass-market products. DealShare has also incorporated regional languages to draw non-metro users.

Since 2018, the Jaipur-based hyperlocal ecommerce company has grown leaps and bounds. In April, it raised  Rs 70 crore from venture debt firm Alteria Capital. The startup is focussed on the mid-income demographic of 500 million new Internet users and has raised total capital of $34 million. 

In December 2020, DealShare had raised $21 million in Series C funding led by WestBridge Capital. The round also saw participation from Alpha Wave Incubation – a venture fund managed by Falcon Edge Capital, Z3Partners, and existing investors Matrix Partners India and Omidyar Network India. Several independent investors too participated in this round of funding.

The team is now looking at the next phase of growth, which will include expanding to newer geographies, penetrating deeper into current markets, scaling operations, expanding local sourcing networks, and strengthening its technology platform across business verticals. 

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Kirana King

Another well-known startup, Kirana King Retail Network, is from Jaipur. Kirana King is a grocery retail startup founded in 2017 by Anup Kumar Khandelwal. It helps retailers or Kirana stores to join the organised retail platform with standardisation, digitisation, and centralisation of traditional Kirana system.

Kirana King focusses on empowering and enhancing the retailer’s quotient by ensuring seamless supply chain efficiencies at shelf management level. “We also help them connect the dots of the entire consumer journey for creating outreach to their end consumers with a mix of tech and Retail as a Service (RaaS)-based interventions,” says Anup. 

Anup says, Kirana King connects brands, retailers, and consumers in the grocery industry space as an aggregation platform covering a 360-degree loop. The platform covers major touchpoints of the entire experience, including the retailer and the end consumer. It works on the experience level in the store, convenient layout, improved merchandising, tech-related interventions for consumer’s ease, digital payment infrastructure, etc. The startup also helps build better margins with wider assortments on shelves, scale of economies, new monetisation opportunities, faster logistics solutions, etc. 

Since inception, the startup has a network of 200+ stores in Jaipur and nearby ancillary areas and aims to touch the 1,000-store mark by the end of 2021 in various parts of Rajasthan. The team has raised pre-Series A round from Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF). They plan to raise $3 million for the next stage of the growth journey. 

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Hop Electric

Jaipur-based EV startup Hop Electric Mobility, which is tapping into the growing electric two-wheeler market, was founded in 2019 by Ketan Mehta, Nikhil Bhatia, and Rahil Gupta. It launched two electric two-wheeler models named HOP LEO and HOP LYF in June this year.

Besides EV scooters, it also has an integrated network of battery charging cum swapping stations called ‘Hop Energy Network.’ The pink city Jaipur also hosts Hop Electric’s 40,000 square feet manufacturing unit, which is equipped to produce 50,000 vehicles per year.

The electric two-wheelers market has been slowly picking up in India. Apart from consumer adaptation, electric two-wheelers are also being used by delivery companies. Hop Electric Mobility competes with other notable players such as Ather Energy, Okinawa Scooters, Hero MotoCorp, and GoGreenBOV, among others.

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Gram Power

Power loss is a major concern in India. Jaipur-based Gram Power is looking to solve this problem by digitising the power distribution infrastructure in India.

Founded in 2012 by Yashraj Khaitan along with his then University of California batchmate Jacob Dickinson, the startup is building a smart electricity metering system to manage electricity consumption and avoid power losses. Jacob, however, exited the company in 2016 and is now working at SpaceX. 

Gram Power is a part of the fourth cohort of Google for Startups Accelerator India. The Jaipur-based startup is working in 25 cities across the country. It also manages power distribution for startups such as OYO Life and Stanza Living, among others. 

The Series A stage company has raised $2.6 million to date from Blum Capital and Vestergaard. It is now in the process of closing its Series B funding round. Other notable players such as Techno Meters, HPL India, and Itron India Pvt Ltd, among others, are also operating in the energy meter segment. 

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