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(Photo Credit: Ewan Munro)

You could say hot and Yumist! India’s much maligned food tech sector got a thumbs up today. There was action in analytics too, as Jigsaw Academy made news. Here are the four startups that made it to our list.

BlackBuck

Bangalore based business-to-business (B2B) logistics startup BlackBuck has raised series B funding of US$25 million from Accel Partners, Flipkart, Tiger Global, and Apoletto Asia backed by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner.

BlackBuck was founded in January by two Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur graduates and former employees at tobacco firm ITC – Rajesh Yabaji, 27, and Chanakya Hridaya, 26. The third cofounder – Rama Subramaniam, 42 – was a former executive at MieBach Consulting. The company acts as a marketplace of truck owners.

Yumist

Food tech startup Yumist has bitten off US$2 million in a pre-series A round led by entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala’s fund Unilazer Ventures. Existing investor Orios Venture Partners and Valley-based investor Steven Lurie also took part in the funding.

Yumist was dished out a year ago by by Alok Jain and Abhimanyu Maheshwari in Gurgaon and has quickly expanded to Delhi and Bangalore. It serves home-style daily meals priced at INR 65 (around US$1) and above, and these can be ordered via app or website.

The funding comes as a silver lining for the food-tech sector which has seen several firms shutting shop or slimming down in India.

“While everyone was writing off food-tech in India, we kept our heads down and focused on building a profitable, scalable business while staying true to the customer problem. This approach helped us grow organically and maintain a low cash burn,” says Abhimanyu, founder and COO at Yumist.

The fresh funds will be used to build the team, expand its footprint and create a brand.

“Yumist is solving a core problem in one of the largest food and beverages markets in India. They come with the right skill sets and have demonstrated a good understanding of the market and solid execution capabilities,” said Ronnie.

Jigsaw Academy

Jigsaw Academy, which offers online courses in analytics, has received INR 200 million (US$3 million) in funding from Manipal Global Education Services (MaGE), the company said in a press release.

The Bangalore-based company will use the fresh funds to expand its offerings and penetrate new markets, say Gaurav Vohra and Sarita Digumarti who co-founded Jigsaw in 2011.

“We believe there is great potential in the analytics and big data training market in India and abroad. This funding will help us take bigger steps in the global market while opening up more corporate training opportunities,” Gaurav said.

Jigsaw Academy aims to provide the best in class analytics and big data skills to students and professionals. It has trained over 40,000 students from over 30 countries and more than 100 corporate and IT giants across different verticals in the last five years. It offers courses across industries and functions like retail, ecommerce, finance, and HR.

HeyBiz

Ecommerce marketplace ShopClues has pumped in an undisclosed amount in mobile app HeyBiz that enables companies to chat with customers.

Delhi-based Techlites Solution, which runs the app, will use the money for product development and expanding into cities like Chandigarh, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Lucknow, and Jaipur.

Bhartesh Chhibbar, who launched HeyBiz in January this year, said it would take the app closer to becoming the one-stop mobile shop for its. He had earlier co-founded mobile social network app RockeTalk.

The app is available on both Android and iOS platforms.

“In this digital era, we are glad that someone is there to bridge the chasm between customers and local businesses,” said Sanjay Sethi, CEO and co-founder, ShopClues.

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Photo credit: Mariusz Kluzniak

Bangalore based business-to-business (B2B) logistics startup BlackBuck has raised series B funding of US$25 million from Accel Partners, Flipkart, Tiger Global, and Apoletto Asia backed by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner.

Flipkart’s fresh investment in Zinka Logistics, the holding company of BlackBuck, comes just two months after its rival Snapdeal invested US$20 million in Gurgaon based GoJavas, an ecommerce logistics firm.

Flipkart’s investment in the company indicates plans of BlackBuck entering the express shipments space in India. Flipkart currently fulfills its logistics needs through its own company eKart logistics. Amazon also has its own logistics arm in India, Amazon Transportation Services.

India’s growing logistics market will grow at a compounded annual rate of 12 percent, reaching US$300 billion by 2020, according to a report by Novonous.

BlackBuck was founded in January by two IIT Kharagpur graduates and former employees at tobacco firm ITC – Rajesh Yabaji, 27, and Chanakya Hridaya, 26. The third cofounder – Rama Subramaniam, 42 – was a former executive at MieBach Consulting.

The company acts as a marketplace of truck owners and received US$5 million earlier this year in series A funding from Accel Partners and Flipkart. It facilitates full truck load buying and selling between providers and businesses.

The company has about 200 employees and serves the logistics needs of clients such as Asian Paints, Unilever, Britannia, Godrej, and Marico for their logistics needs.

With growing demand for transportation of goods between businesses and consumers, India has seen a slew of logistics startups come up in the last 3-4 years. Venture capital firms such as Saif Partners, Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, and even Singapore Post have placed their bets on this sector.

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The Chinese startup behind this Ghost Drone had a huge hit on Indiegogo.

Indiegogo is set to reveal a program to help Chinese hardware startups launch in the US. The pilot program – the first of its kind for the crowdfunding site – will see 10 to 15 Chinese teams selected, explains Indiegogo’s Ben Bateman to Tech in Asia.

“The goal of this program is to meet the unique challenges of Chinese companies launching into the US market,” says Joanna Wei, Indiegogo’s “China evangelist” in Beijing.

The final list of Chinese gadget startups accepted into the program will likely be revealed during the course of CES 2016, which is on January 6 to 9 in Las Vegas. The first batch will be teams preparing to launch during the first three months of the new year. The second phase will focus on products coming out during Q2. “The pilot will focus on a small number of companies to begin with, but we hope to expand the program later in 2016,” Joanna explains.

Indiegogo will be aiding the young teams with “increased level of support to help coordinate these launches,” she adds, including things like campaign design, marketing tips, and ad buying. While some of the assistance comes for free, other aspects will require a fee and be performed either by Indiegogo itself or third-party firms that the site connects the startups to. Indiegogo hasn’t yet finalized what will be free or paid within the China pilot program, Ben says.

Indie gadgets boom

“We’ve seen an increase in the number of Chinese companies using Indiegogo to launch to the US market, and we think that by better supporting these launches both sides will be able to benefit,” says Ben, who’s the director of design and technology categories at Indiegogo. He’s usually based in San Francisco but is now traveling China as the first phase of the program nears its launch.

Chinese startups such as Ghost Drone, TheOne smart piano, and the Crazybaby levitating wireless speaker have this year used Indiegogo to reach a global audience. The site is battling Kickstarter, which saw some big crowdfunding successes for Chinese startups in 2015, such as the Remix Mini Android PC.

Not all Chinese hardware startups go global, with many settling for the sizeable home audience, instead using sites like Demohour or ecommerce titan JD, which has a crowdfunding platform. Indeed, the team behind the Ghost Drone, Ehang, raised US$55,800 within China before blasting to US$850,000 on Indiegogo.

Ben sees that Chinese startups often struggle with “marketing products effectively, navigating an unfamiliar ecosystem of partners, managing customers and orders, [and] product-market fit” when they come to the US, though he acknowledges that American hardware startups also face similar challenges.

To show that the selected Chinese startups are serious about their expansion, Indiegogo is asking them to commit US$50,000 to a marketing budget and to either recruit some US staff or contract with a US-based agency.

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