Starting with this newsletter, we will periodically share updates from our portfolio companies – or Challengineers as we call them – and look forward to your feedback, as always.
Twid, the millennials’ payment app that aggregates and joins multiple loyalty/reward points, was an early investment in Fund I (when it was branded Fashalot) with a crossover investment in Fund II. It has just closed a US$ 12 mn funding round led by Rakuten Capital, with participation from Google, JAFCO Asia, January Capital, ICMG Partners, Reddy Futures Fund and existing investors, BEENEXT and Sequoia India’s Surge, who join us as co-investors.
Miko3, the AI-powered intelligent robot for children, is making waves worldwide. Besides record sales in over 140 countries, the company has partnered with Paramount Pictures, USA, to bring the hugely popular animated stories featuring SpongeBob SquarePants, PAW Patrol and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Miko 3. Families can experience select stories for free or access the entire collection with a Miko Max subscription.
“We’re excited to welcome beloved Paramount stories and characters to Miko’s ever-expanding kids content platform,” said Miko Co-founder & CEO, Sneh Vaswani. “Now, kids will be able to experience even more of their favourite characters while interacting with their pal Miko3.”Kids all over the world have been using Miko and are giving it rave reviews. One of India’s youngest YouTube stars, Little Kyra on Kyrascope who reviews toys has also shared her review. With so many apps and content experiences to choose from, learning now takes a new dimension with the Miko 3.
Miko has also been recognised by the globally acclaimed Mom's Choice Awards® (MCA) and bagged the Gold spot in the Educational Products category.
Dozee: ISO Certification & International Profiling
Dozee, India's first contactless remote patient monitor and early warning system that automates and digitises patient monitoring and delivers timely alerts by sensing anomalies in trends using Artificial Intelligence, recently received the ISO 13485:2016 certification from Intertek for its Quality Management System (QMS).
"We are delighted to have been recognised with the ISO 13485:2016 certification… the most widely accepted certification in the medical devices industry for quality management systems. The certificate recognises and validates Dozee’s commitment to driving efficiency in the healthcare ecosystem by implementing contactless patient monitoring devices across public and private hospitals, further alleviating the burden on the healthcare workforce." said Mudit Dandwate, CEO & Co-founder - Dozee.
Dozee has also been participating in several events from Madurai to Glasgow, that are giving it global recognition.Read more updates on Dozeehere.
Thriwe has been curating, executing and managing value-driven consumer membership programs for by the leading global BFSI players and white good companies. It helps brands acquire, engage and retain customers, and has expanded over 70% in the past eight years on a compounded annual growth basis. But, growth accelerated to over 100% after it transitioned from just being a golf-oriented benefits organisation to a holistic lifestyle loyalty benefits provider.
The company now expects revenue to reach INR 230 cr this year, helped by increasing HNI services across sports, travel, digital offers, lifestyle, dining and wellness.
“We explored newer avenues of business and diversified into categories such as dining, travel and digital. We built on our foundation of operations excellence and a strong client base to upsell and cross sell new product lines to customers. This allowed for a huge revenue leap this year,” said Dhruv Verma, co-founder and CEO, Thriwe.
Thriwe, now plans to launch a platform where points can be redeemed for gold and cryptocurrency, in a wider attempt to offer differentiated incentives. The platform will come up with innovative ‘burn your points for gold’ and ‘burn your points for cryptocurrency features.
