Business briefs 3

Insane AI, an artificial intelligence AI-powered fitness training app, on Wednesday said it has raised USD 873,000 Rs 6.5 crore in seed funding round led by Pi Ventures.The funding round also saw participation from a clutch of angel investors including Anupam Mittal Founder and CEO, People Group, Sameer Pitalwalla ex-Culture Machine, Epic Games, Saumil Majumdar Founder, SportzVillage, Karan Tanna CEO, GhostKitchens, Arjun Jain Faculty at IISc and LetsVenture, according to a statement.Insane AI plans to utilise the funds towards product development and innovation, strengthening its tech team and accelerate growth in the international market, it added.

Insane AI, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered fitness training app, on Wednesday said it has raised USD 873,000 (Rs 6.5 crore) in seed funding round led by Pi Ventures.

The funding round also saw participation from a clutch of angel investors including Anupam Mittal (Founder and CEO, People Group), Sameer Pitalwalla (ex-Culture Machine, Epic Games), Saumil Majumdar (Founder, SportzVillage), Karan Tanna (CEO, GhostKitchens), Arjun Jain (Faculty at IISc) and LetsVenture, according to a statement.

Insane AI plans to utilise the funds towards product development and innovation, strengthening its tech team and accelerate growth in the international market, it added. Founded by Anurag Mundhada, Jayesh Hannurkar and Sourabh Agrawal, Insane AI uses computer vision and AI to create home workouts and personalised training plans. Insane AI co-founder Anurag Mundhada said, ''Our unique gamified workout format keeps users highly engaged and motivated to give their best during every session, allows them to monitor their progress, and keeps them committed to their fitness goals.'' Shubham Sandeep, principal at Pi Ventures, said the organisation likes companies that fundamentally reimagine sectors on the back of disruptive technology and that it looks forward to partnering with Insane AI to make gamified fitness central to people's lives.

* * * Otipy appoints Pranit Arora as senior vice-president for growth, marketing * Otipy, a group buying platform for fresh produce, on Wednesday said it has appointed Pranit Arora as its senior vice-president (growth and marketing).

Arora has close to a decade of experience in leadership roles across growth and marketing with companies like Reckitt Benckiser, OYO and GoMechanic. In his new role, Arora will be responsible for rapidly growing the network of community leaders, consumers and strengthening Otipy's growth/marketing playbook which will be implemented across multiple geographies within the country, a statement said.

''We are in a rapid scale up phase and plan to double up our community leader base within this year. With Pranit's rich leadership experience both in startups as well as MNCs we believe he is perfectly suited for driving this goal,'' Otipy founder and CEO Varun Khurana said. Recently, Otipy (operated by Crofarm Agriproducts) has raised a series A funding of USD 10.2 million (Rs 76 crore).

* * * L4o.in raises funding from IAN, others * Jaipur-based edtech start-up L4o.in on Wednesday said it has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Indian Angel Network.

The seed funding round also saw participation from other angel investors including Pawan Kumar Garg, Umesh Prasad, Mrinal Didige, Mohiddin Shaik, Charan Babu, and Aman Manoj Tekriwal, according to a statement. L4o.in is raising funds for further development of its tech product, courses and expand into newer markets, it added.

The platform is already offering content and training in Hindi (Hinglish) specific regions of India. These include Rajasthan, UP, MP, Uttarakhand, NCR, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, and Chandigarh.

''We believe that education should be outcome-based and that's what we aim to build through our platform. We are offering high-quality courses in every Indian language possible and skilling graduates, with a 100 per cent job guarantee. At L4o.in, we are creating an ecosystem which will ensure that everyone can earn their livelihood in this global economy,'' L4o.in co-founder Kamal Kant Gupta said.

* * * Streak raises funding from Inflection Point Ventures, others * Streak, an educational neo-bank for children, on Wednesday said it has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Inflection Point Ventures.

The funds from the seed round will be utilised for marketing, customer acquisition, strengthening the team, and making further investments in technology, enabling them to effectively launch Streak and initiate the growth journey as they plan to grow to 2 million users in the next 3 years, a statement said.

The teenage banking market stands at over USD 8 billion. Streak believes that the fundamentals of money should be taught early in life to improve the financial literacy amongst the next generation in India.

''Streak is tailor-made for the Indian audience keeping in mind Indian parenting styles and cultural values. We believe that Streak will capture the minds and hearts of parents and children. With IPV's support and expertise in the Edtech and Fintech space, we believe that we are positioned to create a significant impact in the 'ed-fintech' space,” Shiv Bidani, co-founder at Streak, said.