ClaimBuddy, five others get early-stage funding; Dhoni bats for EMotorad

By K Amoghavarsha

  • 15 Apr 2024
ClaimBuddy Cofounders Khet Singh Rajpurohit and Ajit Patel

Health insurance platform ClaimBuddy, non-banking financial company FincFriends, revenue operations startup Clientell, background verification platform TraqCheck mobility startup Advance Mobility, renewables company Husk Power Systems secured early-stage funding, the companies said on Monday.  Also, EMotorad onboarded former India cricketer MS Dhoni as an equity investor and brand ambassador.

ClaimBuddy has raised $5 million (Rs 42 crore) in a Series A funding round led by Bharat Innovation Fund (BIF). The round also saw participation from Japanese fund CAC Capital and existing investors, including Chiratae Ventures and Rebright Partners.  

This investment will help the startup improve its technology, expand its team and sales network, and add new product lines for its network of hospitals.  

Founded by Khet Singh Rajpurohit and Ajit Patel, ClaimBuddy is a health insurance claim assistance platform. The startup claims to have processed claims for over 35,000 patients, valued at over Rs 500 crore and has established collaborations with 250 partner hospitals across India to date.  

"With this investment, we are well-positioned to introduce new financial tools and scale our operations,” said Rajpurohit, co-founder and chief executive officer, ClaimBuddy.  

Inkodop Technologies Pvt Ltd, which operates electric vehicle startup EMotorad, has onboarded former India cricketer MS Dhoni as an equity investor. Dhoni will also join the company as its brand ambassador, the company said in a statement.  

EMotorad was founded in 2020 by Rajib Gangopadhyay, Kunal Gupta, Aditya Oza and Sumedh Battewar. It designs and produces electric cycles.  

In November 2023, the Pune-based startup raised $20 million (Rs 164 crore) in a Series B funding round.   

The round comprised $17.5 million in equity investment and $2.5 million of debt infusion. It was led by Singapore-based Panthera Growth Partners. Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal’s startup scale-up platform xto10x, venture debt firm Alteria Capital, and existing investor Green Frontier Capital also joined the round.  

In 2022, the startup raised Rs 24 crore in a pre-Series A funding round from Green Frontier Capital, LetsVenture and Ivy Growth Associates. 

FincFriends, the captive non-banking financial company (NBFC) of the digital lending platform RupeeRedee recently closed its funding round at $5 million (Rs 42 crore). As part of the funding round, the company raised $2 million in equity from undisclosed investors and $3 million in debt from InCred Finance and Grow Money Capital.   

The firm also raised $ 2.8 million in the form of external commercial borrowings (ECB) from its existing shareholders APV Management Pte Ltd.  

The funds raised will be allocated towards the expansion of its current product offerings and simultaneously scale operations. The funds will also be utilized by the company to improve its customer base and its credit portfolio.  

To date, the company has raised $13.6 million in equity, $3.5 million in ECB and $4.3 million in debt.  

RupeeRedee is a fintech platform established in 2018 that collaborates with FincFriends to provide instant short-term personal digital loans to customers. The platform aims to use advanced technologies and data sciences to make lending safe, quick, and frictionless for underserved customers.  

Clientell has raised $2.5 million (Rs 21 crore) in a seed funding round led by Blume Ventures. The round also saw participation from Chiratae Ventures, Artha Venture Fund and SiliconValley-based Z5 Capital.  

The funds raised will be used for strengthening the product and expanding the team, the company said in a statement.  

The company had previously raised $600,000 from Chiratae Ventures’ sonic cohort at the end of 2021, co-led by Artha Venture Fund.  

Founded in 2021 by BITS Pilani alumni Saahil Dhaka and Neil Sarkar, Clientell is a revenue operations company that deploys custom forecasting processes and machine learning (ML) models for each customer rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach. 

Clientell’s users are primarily chief revenue officers and go-to-market leaders using their AI copilot to boost GTM execution and optimise pipeline governance and forecasting.   

The company is currently working with initial design partners and early adopters spanning growth-stage SaaS companies and large pharmaceutical companies.  

 TraqCheck  

TraqCheck has raised an undisclosed amount in an equity round of funding from Caret Capital, a sustainability fund that invests across mobility, distribution and employment spaces along with Peyush Bansal’s family office Culture Cap.   

The startup said in a statement that it has raised the funding at a $9 million valuation. 

It plans to expand to foreign geographies in the next 2-4 years.  

Founded in November 2020 by Armaan Mehta, Jaibir Nihal Singh and Rishabh Jain, TraqCheck is an AI-based platform for employee background verification. It enables enterprises to onboard employees faster and accurately at a lower cost than traditional methods.  

It currently facilitates background verifications for around 200 entities such as Bajaj Capital, Cholamandalam Finance, Reliance Retail, Samvardhana Motherson, Yatra, amongst others.  

Advance Mobility has raised an undisclosed amount in a funding round from early-stage venture capital firm GrowthCap Ventures.  

Advance Mobility is a ridesharing mobility startup specialising in scalable fleet operations on the Uber platform. It aims to address prevalent challenges in the mobility ecosystem, offering solutions that benefit market players, customers and drivers alike.  

GrowthCap Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm floated by former BharatPe chief business officer Pratekk Agarwaal. In February, the firm marked the first close of its maiden fund, nearly six months after launch at Rs 20 crore.     

The firm, which aims to invest in startups across sectors such as fintech, deeptech and software-as-a-service (SaaS) targets to raise a total corpus of Rs 50 crore (around $6 million).  

Husk Power Systems secured $4 million (33.3 crore) in a debt financing round from ElectriFI, the EU-funded impact investment facility managed by EDFI Management Company.  

Notably, this is the second investment by ElectriFI. In September 2022, the firm had invested $6 million in the renewables company. 

Husk Power Systems is an India- and Africa-focused renewable energy company that supplies electricity to rural areas through minigrids.  

In October 2023, the firm raised $103 million in equity and debt funding. The US-based company said it secured $43 million in a Series D round from new investors STOA Infra & Energy, the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and French development financier Proparco, as well as existing investors Shell Ventures, Swedfund and FMO.   

In addition, Husk also secured an additional $60 million in debt from several finance institutions, including the European Investment Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).