IndiaQuotient

Kuku FM has raised $85 Mn in its Series C round led by Granite Asia! Big cheers to Lal Chand Bisu, Vinod Kumar Meena, Vikas Goyal, and the team. We partnered with Kuku back in 2018, leading their seed round and becoming their first institutional investors. Fast forward to 2025, it has grown to become one of India's biggest audio OTT & micro-drama entertainment platforms. Grateful to have been part of their journey since day zero 🙏 Learn more about their fundraise in the comments.

Together 2025 lands in Goa — November 13 & 14. 36 hours. 150 founders. 30 investors. One beach. 🌴 They back the bold, bet on conviction, and shape what India builds next. This year, 30 of the country’s top investors will join us at Together — from peak-stage VCs to new-age funds redefining the ecosystem. They’re not just funding the future — they’re here to meet it. Conversations. Collaborations. Capital. Together 2025 — where the ecosystem comes alive. ⚡ #Together2025 #IndianStartups #FoundersMeetInvestors #VentureCapital #BuildInIndia #StartupEcosystem

We're super happy to share that our seed portfolio company SpeakX.ai has raised $16 Mn (~₹142 Cr) in a pre-Series B round led by WestBridge Capital. Kudos to Arpit Mittal and the team! SpeakX.ai is an AI-native spoken English learning platform. It acts as a personal tutor, helping users improve fluency through interactive role plays, real time speech correction, and Hindi to English translation support. Already, over 10 lakh Indians are using the platform monthly to become more confident English speakers. Learn more about what SpeakX.ai is building below. Link in the comments.

India’s future belongs to the disruptors. Will your startup lead the way?   The HDFC Tech Innovators is back with its 4th edition. Building on the success of the 2024 edition, which received a phenomenal response from startups spread across 400+ cities of India, HDFC Capital Advisors Limited, HDFC Mutual Fund and HDFC Bank are now excited to announce the HDFC Tech Innovators 2025.   The platform continues with its mission of recognizing trailblazers driving India’s innovation story across Consumer Tech | Defense & Space Tech | Fintech | New Age Tech | PropTech | Sustainability Tech.   The 4th edition of HDFC Tech Innovators will also recognize emerging women founders driving transformative change.   If your startup is poised to drive India’s next wave of innovation, this is your chance to unlock the next level of growth.   Apply NOW! https://lnkd.in/de-dYrRm HDFC ERGO General Insurance, HDB Financial Services Ltd., HDFC Life, HDFC securities, MeitY Startup Hub, Startup India, IN-SPACe, IIMA Ventures, NSRCEL, IITM Incubation Cell, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship -SINE IIT Bombay, Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA), 3one4 Capital, Aavishkaar Capital, Anicut Capital, Athera Venture Partners (formerly Inventus India), Blume Ventures, Chiratae Ventures, Earth Fund, Elevation Capital, Fireside Ventures, Filter Capital, IAN Group, Inflexor Ventures, Inflection Point Ventures, IndiaQuotient, IvyCap Ventures, Kae Capital, Mudhal Partners, Speciale Invest, Tenacity Ventures, YourNest Venture Capital, CREDAI National, Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer, IIT Delhi, Pidilite Ventures   #HDFCTechInnovators #StartupChallenge #IndiaInnovates #HDFCCapital #HDFCMutualFund #HDFCBank #TechForIndia #WomenInTech #StartupIndia #InnovationAwards

Met my seed investor Madhukar Sinha today — someone who believed in us when everyone else was doubting. His trust, guidance, and constant motivation have been instrumental in helping us build a retail presence so early in our journey. Truly grateful to have such people in my corner. Every conversation with him reminds me that this is just the beginning — there’s a long way to go, and we’re only going to scale bigger and better from here. 🚀 Madhukar Sinha | Tanishq Jain | IndiaQuotient

How many startup pitches have you heard of happening on a bike ride? With the VC at the back, luggage in hand, and stuck in peak Bangalore traffic. That’s how our first meeting with Lokal went — a house of hyperlocal apps (content, classifieds, and services) now used by 100L+ people every month across Tier 2+ India. Back in 2018, though, Lokal was just an idea running on 8 WhatsApp groups with ~1,500 users. No app. No revenue. Local news was still offline. With Jio bringing Bharat online for the first time, founders Jani & Vipul set out to digitize it. Every day, they turned updates from a local stringer into short texts, images, and audio notes — and shared them on those groups. We got introduced through Nav Agrawal (one of our portfolio founders). Madhukar told them to skip the pitch deck and instead send a simple plan for how they’d go from 0 to 100K daily users. A week later, they met in person. As the meeting ended, Jani offered to drop Madhukar to his hotel on his bike. “Madhukar just wanted a Rapido before Rapido existed. I thought maybe this isn’t happening,” Jani recalls. But that ride turned into a 90 minute founder–investor chemistry check. They talked about personal values, why Lokal mattered, and insights on its users. Two weeks and two meetings later, we decided to invest ₹1.5 Cr in Lokal’s seed round. Jani remembers: “We were so broke we had to borrow money from a friend just to book flights to Mumbai for the IC with Anand & Madhukar. Within hours of pitching, two investors said yes. That night we walked Marine Drive and ate K. Rustom’s ice cream to celebrate… and then went straight back to building.” Why did we back them? In Madhukar’s words: “At that time, I was meeting many teams building products similar to Lokal. What stood out about Jani and Vipul was their willingness to admit what they didn’t know and experiment until they figured it out. Other teams were rigid and overconfident. I wanted founders who weren’t afraid to fail, were okay with being wrong, and were hungry to work on things till they got it right.” We’re sharing real behind the scenes stories of how our portfolio companies raised their seed rounds—straight from founders who lived it, and the investors who backed them. Read the full story below. Link in comments.

We’re super happy to share that we’ve participated in Reo.Dev’s $4 Mn seed round, led by Heavybit! Reo.Dev is an AI-powered revenue intelligence platform for DevTool GTM teams—helping them understand how developers discover, evaluate, and adopt their products and use those insights to drive revenue. Developers decide early—testing tools and forming opinions before Sales joins in. The platform helps GTM teams see those signals and act on them. Already used by 100+ developer first companies like LangChain, Chainguard, Datahub, and N8N, its changing how DevTools grow and sell. Cheers to Achintya Gupta, Piyush Agarwal, Gaurav Jain, and the team! 👉 Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gyzuHuNQ

I’m happy to share that we’ve raised $𝟭𝟱𝗠 seed round from  Salesforce Ventures and Accel in India, with participation from Together Fund. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗥𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿, 𝗽𝘂𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘀, 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝘆. Every line of code we ship, every architecture decision we make, is driven by a single, hard question: 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻-𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗮𝗽𝗽, 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲? This isn’t just about writing code faster. It’s about:  • Designing generation systems that are 𝗿𝗼𝗯𝘂𝘀𝘁, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲.  • Building infrastructure that can scale from a 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁’𝘀 𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝟭𝟬𝟬 𝗽𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘁.  • Creating guardrails so 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗽𝘀𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁𝘆.  • Ensuring 𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗺𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 with the tools developers already rely on.  • Enabling teams to 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗱𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘆 without fear of breaking things.  • Making software that 𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀, improving with every release. We’re still early, but our belief in solving these deep engineering challenges is what drives us every day. I’m deeply grateful to the incredible Rocket 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺—turning the impossible into the inevitable—and to our investors Salesforce Ventures, Accel in India, Together Fund and IndiaQuotient for believing in the 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗵 of what we’re building. With this funding, we now have the fuel to tackle more challenging problems, ship faster, and continue pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gjYEfarf #SeedRound #Engineering #Scalability #VibeCoding #VibeSolutioning

We’re pleased to share that our seed portfolio company Distil has raised $7.7 Mn (~₹68 Cr) in a Series A round co-led by Jungle Ventures and CE Ventures, with participation from us. Distil is building a next-gen platform for speciality chemicals supply, offering end to end solutions—from custom formulation and manufacturing to supply chain and compliance. They already work with 100+ enterprise customers across sectors such as aroma & food, beauty & personal care, CASE, & pharma. Kudos to Atanu Agarrwal, Viraj Shah, and the team! Learn more about what Distil is building here: https://www.distil.market/ Read more about their Series A round below.