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Country Delight Secures INR 200 Cr Debt Funding From Alteria Capital
- D2C brand Country Delight has secured INR 200 crore in venture debt from Alteria Capital.
- The funding will be used for brand marketing initiatives, capacity expansion, and overall growth.
- Country Delight delivers to 15 lakh users across 15 cities and has attracted $248 million in capital.
- The company plans to use various capital sources as it prepares for an IPO.
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Yourstory
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Shining bright: The rise of lab-grown diamonds in India
- Indian diamond market sees a significant transformation with the rise of lab-grown diamonds.
- The lab-grown diamond jewellery market in India is predicted to grow from $299.9m in 2023 to $1,192.3m by 2033.
- Lab-grown diamonds are physically and chemically identical to mined diamonds.
- Indian labs manufacture diamonds using Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) technique which keeps manufacturing costs low.
- Lab-grown diamonds are subject to market forces resulting in more competitive pricing, making them affordable.
- Lab-grown diamonds are sustainable, ethical, and environmentally friendly with no blood diamond tag.
- Lab-grown diamonds are almost 10 times cheaper compared to natural diamonds, attracting eco-conscious customers.
- Jewellery players in India are tapping the market such as Tata Group’s Trent and Senco Gold.
- The upcoming Indian lab-grown diamond industry is expected to create a significant advantage for brands with trusted brand positioning.
- The Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council has called for clear regulations requiring traders to indicate whether a diamond is natural or lab-grown in their marketing to eliminate confusion.
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Inc42
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Time For Liftoff? How The VC View On India’s Spacetech Startups Is Changing
- In 2022, Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace became the first private Indian space company to launch a rocket into space with its Vikram-S rocket series.
- There are currently more than 150 spacetech startups in India catered to by an active VC ecosystem comprising 50+ venture capital funds – both domestic and international.
- India's heritage in spacetech is more than six decades old, which has resulted in strong talent and advisory pools, educational institutes with relevant coursework among others.
- More than 150 spacetech startups have emerged across areas such as launch vehicles, satellite constellations, earth observation, satellite communication, space data analytics, and in-space technologies among others leading to a high degree of innovation.
- The Indian Space Policy 2023 gave further momentum to the spacetech sector, and the government established the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) to facilitate startup participation.
- VC funds are increasingly investing in the development of the Indian spacetech ecosystem with Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner at Speciale Invest, underscoring the importance of VC investments for the upstream technologies.
- Spacetech startups are offering innovative solutions at a much lower cost than their international counterparts and with faster execution, underscoring the innovation-first mindset in spacetech in India.
- Nearly 74% of investors have made only one deal within the ecosystem, and in 2024, no new fund specifically focused on spacetech startups has been launched so far, highlighting a challenge for the growth of Indian spacetech startups.
- The advent of AI is expected to accelerate the innovations in spacetech, and startups like GalaxEye are already building a sensor that fuses synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optical data providing earth observation (EO) data through any weather.
- For India’s spacetech ecosystem to thrive, it is imperative to drive adoption of space-centric applications by companies on the ground, and it's natural that venture capital funds and investors are also playing it safe and gauging the temperature of the ecosystem before deploying the big cheques.
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Yourstory
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Country Delight raises Rs 200 Cr in debt from Alteria Capital
- Country Delight, a direct-to-consumer food essential brand, has raised Rs 200 crore in debt from Alteria Capital.
- The funds will be used for expansion, marketing efforts, and capacity building.
- Country Delight previously raised $20 million in funding from Temasek and Venturi Partners.
- This debt transaction is the largest domestic venture debt transaction to date.
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Economic Times
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Country Delight raises Rs 200 crore in debt from Alteria Capital
- Direct-to-consumer (D2C) fresh foods brand Country Delight has raised Rs 200 crore in venture debt from Alteria Capital.
- This debt financing comes as companies increasingly turn to venture debt to finance expansion without diluting additional equity.
- The new funds will be used to fuel the company’s expansion, increase capacity, and drive brand marketing efforts.
- Earlier this year, it raised around Rs 164 crore in equity funding from Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek.
- Founded in 2015, Country Delight offers direct-to-home delivery of fresh food essentials under a daily subscription model.
- The company serves nearly 1.5 million users across 15 cities in India.
- Additionally, it provides other grocery items like pulses, flour, rice, and cereals.
- Alteria Capital manages a corpus of Rs 4,400 crore across three funds and its portfolio includes companies like Zepto, Ola Electric, and Rebel Foods.
- Recently, Bengaluru-based business-to-business ecommerce platform Udaan announced raising approximately Rs 300 crore in debt funding from investors.
- As we scale our operations and prepare for our initial public offering journey, it is important for us to use various capital sources to improve financial efficiency and also set us up for the next phase of growth,” said Chakradhar Gade, the CEO of Country Delight.
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TechCrunch
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NFL quarterback turned-founder Colin Kaepernick on the challenges facing disrupters
- Colin Kaepernick discusses the challenges faced by disrupters at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024.
- Resistance and difficulties are common when trying to disrupt something or pursue a passion.
- Kaepernick emphasizes the importance of having a support system during tough times.
- He advises founders to do their homework, pursue their passions, and bring people along to sustain long-term success.
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Inc42
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Ritesh Agarwal On Taking OYO To Profits, The Shark Tank Spotlight & More
- Ritesh Agarwal, the founder of OYO, has spearheaded the company's turnaround to profitability and its recent acquisitions overseas.
- OYO has posted its first full year of profitability in FY24 in its 11 years of existence, which Agarwal is credited with achieving.
- Agarwal became a judge on Shark Tank India Season 3, demonstrating his founder-first mindset when it comes to backing early startups.
- Recently, Agarwal spoke to Inc42 about OYO’s turn towards profitability, his approach to hiring for the leadership layer, his thesis as an angel investor, among other aspects of being a founder.
- Agarwal believes in a power of potential and looks for an individual’s skills, adaptability, and capacity for growth when considering candidates for promotion.
- He is particularly drawn to early-stage startups and founders who have truly immersed themselves in their business.
- Agarwal's investment philosophy is deeply rooted in his own entrepreneurial journey, perseverance is key, and attention to detail and self-awareness are equally important.
- Agarwal is driven by a single vision: to build the most impactful premium budget hotel and holiday homes company of our generation.
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TechCrunch
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And the winner of Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2024 is . . . Salva Health
- The winner of TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 2024 is Salva Health.
- Salva Health was created to address the gap in breast cancer survival rates in Latin America by developing a portable device for early detection.
- The runner-up of the competition was Gecko Materials, a startup that invented a super-strong dry adhesive inspired by gecko feet.
- Startup Battlefield has a strong legacy with past winners including Dropbox, Discord, Cloudflare, and Mint.
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Geek Wire
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Seattle home-inspection services startup Inspectify raises $5.3M
- Seattle-based home-inspection services startup Inspectify raised $5.3 million in new funding.
- The company provides inspection software and a booking platform for home, property, and rental inspections.
- Inspectify serves about 250 enterprise clients across various industries.
- The startup has raised $23 million to date and aims to achieve cash flow positivity next year.
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Gritdaily
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Can Web3 Adtech Solve the Paywall Problem That’s Driving Readers Away?
- CNN introduced a digital paywall asking users to pay $3.99 per month to access premium content, which is becoming increasingly common among news outlets looking to identify revenue-generating opportunities outside of advertising. Walled gardens, such as paywalls and Google and Facebook's curated experiences, dilute the content creators' value and offer an unsatisfactory user experience. Intermediaries in traditional ad exchanges take 43% of advertising spend, reducing revenue for publishers and inflating costs for brands. Decentralising ad tech with blockchains could enable a transparent and efficient ecosystem.
- As internet advertising revenues hit a staggering $225 billion in 2023, a 7.3% increase from the previous year, it’s clear that the digital advertising landscape is evolving rapidly.
- Walled gardens are often limiting transparency and fairness, and as a potential solution, adtech start-up Alkimi is proposing a long-term vision focused on decentralization.
- 43% of advertising spend is lost to intermediaries in traditional ad exchanges, leading to inflated costs for brands and diminished revenue for publishers.
- By utilizing a decentralized network of validators—over 1,200 of them—Alkimi significantly reduces the overhead costs and allows for lower costs per thousand impressions, which translates into more revenue for publishers.
- Interacting with some of the most popular sites today is far from seamless, and it appears as though the lack of revenue-generating opportunities for content creators of all forms is stifling creativity and ruining some of the most entertaining parts of the internet as we know it.
- The future of ad tech lies in dismantling the walled gardens that have dominated the landscape for too long.
- Decentralising adtech with blockchains could enable a transparent and efficient ecosystem, paving the way for a more user-friendly and equitable advertising model.
- It is time to distribute the dollars generated by online advertising to the parties creating value to guarantee the future of the ad-funded internet. An internet where all content is free and accessible to everyone at any time.
- The potential for more equitable advertising models starts to shine through as platforms like Adkimi develop blockchain-based ad tech solutions.
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StartupDaily
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Why we need a mindshift on AI and emotional data – and how startups will build a future of self-awareness
- inTruth Technologies is using technology to tackle the challenges of self-awareness and mental health through tracking emotions with clinical grade accuracy.
- The company's mission is to empower individuals to understand and manage their emotional health, placing data ownership in the hands of users.
- inTruth emphasizes decentralization and data sovereignty, challenging the misconception that only large institutions can effectively protect data.
- Startups like inTruth are at the forefront of pioneering solutions that prioritize user control and privacy safeguards in AI technology.
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Medium
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I Shut Down My Startup. Here’s the Honest Truth
- Creating a sustainable business requires more than a good idea.
- Clubhouse saw rapid traction initially but struggled with profitability.
- The user retention rate of about 30% made it difficult to justify ongoing costs.
- Revenue targets fell short, and monthly burn rates exceeded revenue consistently.
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StartupDaily
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Power grid digital twin startup charges up on $45 million Series C
- Energy sector digital twin startup Neara has raised $45 million in a Series C funding round.
- The round was led by Swedish private equity firm EQT and Swiss infrastructure business Partners Group.
- Neara uses AI and machine learning to create dynamic 'digital twins' of infrastructure networks, enabling utilities to optimize existing networks and integrate renewables more efficiently.
- The funding will be used for further expansion in the US and Europe.
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Pymnts
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Tiny Neural Networks Could Slash Computing Costs for Business AI
- A startup called Liquid AI has developed liquid neural networks that can match the capabilities of conventional AI systems using significantly fewer neurons.
- These liquid neural networks require only dozens of neurons compared to millions in traditional AI systems, which can reduce computing costs and energy consumption.
- The technology could democratize AI adoption by making it more accessible and affordable to businesses, leading to increased efficiency and innovation across industries.
- Liquid neural networks can continuously learn and adapt in real time, reducing the need for offline retraining and enabling personalized experiences for customers.
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Medium
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Cold Emailing for PhD Opportunities: 6 Steps to Find the Perfect Professor
- 1. Find professors whose research aligns with your interests by diving deep into their publications, previous work, and ongoing projects.
- 2. Tailor each email to highlight why their specific work resonates with you and how your background can contribute to their projects.
- 3. Focus on professors who are actively publishing and have openings for research assistants or PhD candidates.
- 4. Look for professors who collaborate with others in your area of interest for networking opportunities and highlight how your skills can add value.
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