Participated · Equity · Oct 2025

Founded in 1990 by Maroti Gendaru Jawanjar, Berar Finance is one of Nagpur’s oldest vehicle-financing non-banking financial companies. The firm operates more than 160 branches in nine states, offering two-wheeler loans and, more recently, secured MSME loans aimed at small entrepreneurs, farmers and traders earning under $350 a month. Management, now led by second-generation promoter Sandeep Jawanjal, intends to turn Berar into a multi-product NBFC with a focus on growth, profitability and asset quality. As of FY24, Berar reported total assets of ₹1,316 crore, up from ₹1,141 crore the previous year, and net profit increased to ₹22 crore from ₹17 crore. A Crisil report shows FY25 total assets of ₹1,589 crore and net profit of ₹32 crore. The company’s assets under management stand at roughly ₹1,500 crore, with funding sourced 17% from public deposits and the rest from term loans, NCDs, cash credit and pass-through certificates. Previous capital infusions total ₹156 crore from family, promoters and investors such as Maj Invest and Amicus Capital Partners. Future plans include deepening two-wheeler financing and scaling the nascent secured MSME loan portfolio.

Led · Series B · Aug 2022

Awign, founded in 2016 and based in Bengaluru, provides outcome-based execution, payroll management, and deployment services. The company serves a wide client base, from Fortune 500 companies to startups. It has 201–500 employees and has raised $44.3M to date. In 2024 Awign secured $24.5M in a Series C from Mynavi Corporation, which acquired a 73% stake. The Series C proceeds are earmarked for working capital, improving operational efficiency, and funding expansion. Previously, in 2022 Awign raised $15M in a Series B led by Bertelsmann India Investments and Amicus Capital Partners, with additional support from Mynavi. Awign Enterprises operates a work-fulfillment platform dedicated to the gig workforce, matching contractual talent with enterprise needs across nine hyperlocal and digital service lines. Its service lines include auditing, diligence, proctoring, content and data operations, invigilation, last-mile delivery, new business development, telecalling and end-to-end management of high-skilled niche contractual profiles. The company serves enterprises across more than 500 cities in India. Founded in 2016 by IIT alumni Annanya Sarthak, Gurpreet Singh and Praveen Sah, Awign focuses on scaling digital and hyperlocal labor solutions. Following its latest financing, the company plans to enhance technological capabilities, expand its digital services into global markets and bolster supply- and demand-side acquisitions. The article reports a $15M Series B raise to support these strategic priorities. Awign Enterprises operates a work-fulfilment platform that connects businesses to a trained gig workforce. The company reports a registered workforce of 6.5 lakh gig workers across 450 cities and says it has completed over 50 lakh on-the-ground tasks. Awign bills clients based on successful outcomes rather than hours and serves 100+ clients including Swiggy, ITC, Bigbasket, Britannia, and Aditya Birla Capital. Its client base spans FMCG, BFSI, ecommerce, fintech, edtech, assessments, and logistics. Founded in 2016 by IIT alumni Annanya Sarthak, Gurpreet Singh, and Praveen Sah and based in Bengaluru, Awign says it provides work and skilling opportunities to students, graduates, and women returning to work. The company will use the fresh funding for working capital requirements and business expansion. Awign operates a technology-enabled work-fulfilment platform and workforce-facing app that matches and manages gig workers to execute ground-level tasks for enterprises across sectors such as FMCG, CPG, retail, BFSI, telecom, ecommerce and mobility. The platform bills customers for outcomes rather than man-hours and supports enterprise-facing workflows for auditing, diligence and new business development. The company says it has over half a million gig workers on the platform and has fulfilled more than three million micro-jobs across 200 cities in India, serving clients including Swiggy, OYO, Accenture, BCG, Raymond, Wipro and Udaan. Awign plans to use the new investment to strengthen its workforce app and enterprise platform, develop sales and marketing channels, pursue strategic acquisitions and target 10x growth in the next financial year. Founded in 2016 by IIT alumni Annanya Sarthak, Gurpreet Singh and Praveen Sah, the company is Bengaluru-based and recently completed a Series A funding round. Awign, founded in 2016 by IIT Ropar alumni including Sarthak, Gurpreet Singh and Praveen Sah, offers a platform for companies to outsource business functions to a distributed, time-bound workforce drawn largely from student communities. The company converts location-dependent tasks into project-based internship programs for UG/PG students and supplies manpower on demand for tasks such as e-KYC, merchant onboarding, customer acquisition, audits and data gathering. It is operational in 130 cities across India and serves clients in e-commerce, IT, banking, consumer food products and logistics, including Paytm, Treebo Hotels, Oyo, Quikr and Kotak. Awign competes with other outsourcing and third-party payroll providers such as The Testament. The startup plans to use new funding to improve productivity, scale outreach, engage more corporates and students, and expand operations to additional locations. Financially, the company has previously raised about Rs 90 lakh from a clutch of angel investors in August 2017 and has now received a new institutional investment.

Participated · Series C · Mar 2022

Launched in 2016 and operated by Pep Technologies Pvt. Ltd., mCaffeine is focused on millennial lifestyle personal care with mass-premium caffeine-infused offerings across face, hair, body and lip categories. The brand emphasizes vegan, cruelty-free, SLS- and paraben-free formulations and claims best-sellers on Amazon and Nykaa. It is present in more than 5,000 offline stores across India and has expanded globally to three countries. mCaffeine plans to expand into about 12 international markets including GCC countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait), parts of Europe and the United States, and to adapt formulations for regional needs. Management says the company will scale R&D, strengthen brand awareness, and fortify marketing and distribution (online and offline). The team also intends to pursue acquisitions of small beauty brands to broaden its footprint. mCaffeine is a digital-first, Mumbai-based personal-care brand built around caffeine as the primary ingredient across face, hair, and body care. The company currently offers about 20 products formulated after extensive R&D and clinical/dermatological testing and manufactures its products in India. Over four years it has sold more than 2.8 million products, amounting to Rs. 100 crores, and has bounced back from COVID-19 disruptions to surpass its pre-COVID revenue run rate. Products are available across 18,000 pin codes and on its own e-commerce site as well as Amazon, Nykaa, and Flipkart. The company plans to scale up R&D significantly, expand digital and offline distribution, grow operations and brand building, and launch 15–20 new products in the next year. mCaffeine is a Bombay-based personal care brand founded in 2016 by Vikas Lachhwani and Tarun Sharma that positions itself as India’s first caffeinated skin and hair care company. It currently sells close to 10 products and reports having served more than half a million customers. The startup distributes through its own e-commerce portal and major marketplaces including Amazon, Nykaa, and Flipkart, and is available across 18,000 pin codes. The company plans to use the new funding to grow its online and offline presence and to invest in research and product development. mCaffeine intends to expand its portfolio by about 30 products in the next 12 months and is targeting one million customers and a ₹100 crore annual revenue run rate by 2020. The brand emphasizes a mass-premium, customer-driven approach aimed at young millennials in India.

Participated · Series C · May 2015

YCharts provides a cloud-based investment research, visualization, and analytics platform focused on equity, mutual fund, and ETF data for wealth management professionals. The platform supports security research, portfolio construction, idea generation, and market monitoring and serves as a user-friendly alternative to terminal-based tools. YCharts reports more than 6,000 clients across RIAs, broker-dealers, and asset managers who use its comprehensive data and visualization tools. The company completed a growth recapitalization to support continued organic growth and increased investment in product and sales and marketing. Management also intends to pursue complementary acquisitions as part of its next-stage growth plan. The business emphasizes time savings for users and enhanced client communications through its analytics and presentation capabilities. YCharts offers a web-based financial terminal that provides sophisticated, easy-to-use analytics across asset classes and extensive datasets (20,000+ equities, 2,500 ETFs, 40,000 mutual funds, 400,000 economic indicators). The platform is positioned as a lower-cost alternative to established terminals and is used by RIAs, wealth managers, portfolio managers, hedge funds, VCs, private equity funds and consultants. YCharts reports roughly one million users per month and is on pace to deliver an end-2015 revenue run rate three times its 2014 level. The company has formed strategic distribution partnerships with Schwab, TD Ameritrade, Commonwealth and Dynasty to expand reach to investment advisors. YCharts says it will continue adding functions and features monthly and is focused on scaling its sales organization to capture professional-market share. The company was founded in 2010. YCharts computes more than 2,000 metrics for every listed stock and tracks over 350,000 global economic indicators, aggregating data from public sources and partnerships. It sources data through deals with other firms, including investor Morningstar, and offers an Excel plug-in to pull YCharts data into spreadsheets and financial models. The company provides a limited free plan and two paid plans for professionals: $49/month and a $199/month plan that includes data export, the Excel plug-in, and data verification. YCharts’ pro product is performing well ahead of expectations, and the team reports it is seeing larger deals than anticipated. The company says it has more than 1 million monthly users and is increasingly the choice of professionals seeking sophisticated financial information. Following the new funding, YCharts plans to scale more aggressively by investing in engineering and expanding its sales force to grow its institutional business. YCharts offers stock research tools, charts and analysis that let investors compare dividend yields, total returns and around 75 other metrics over time. It aggregates long-tail historical public data—P/E ratios, R&D spending, cash flows—and graphs these metrics to provide objective, non–opinion-based insights. The company offers three products: YCharts.com, YCharts Pro and a chart creator tool for third-party sites, journalists and bloggers; Pro users access quantitative analysis strategies for a monthly fee. The service has grown from 30,000 users to more than 400,000 users in slightly more than a year. YCharts emphasizes comprehensive long-term outlooks and comparisons (for example, total returns not offered by Yahoo Finance). The funding will be used to build out the team, scale infrastructure, increase marketing, and expand the scope of its financial research and analytics. YCharts is a Chicago, IL-based online fundamental stock research engine that provides individuals, business partners, and investment professionals with research on corporate performance. The company offers an online service for fundamental stock analysis and corporate-performance research. It has completed a Series A financing; the amount raised was undisclosed. Participants in the round included Hyde Park Angels, the Illinois Innovation Accelerator Fund (I2A), Amicus Capital and Social Leverage LLC. The investment will be used to expand marketing activities and accelerate development of the service. As part of the financing, Sam Guren (managing director of Hyde Park Angels), Kapil Chaudhary (partner of I2A Fund) and individual investor Brian Hand joined YCharts’ board of directors.