Daily Indian Funding Roundup & Key News - 16 July 2026: Naturis Bags ₹100 Cr, Vorflux Raises $15 Mn, Amazon's ₹60,000 Cr Telangana Bet
AI, hardware and manufacturing drew the bulk of capital on 16 July 2026, across ten disclosed rounds. Naturis Cosmetics led with ₹100 crore, while Rippling co-founder Prasanna Sankar's new AI venture Vorflux raised $15 million (~₹125 crore) in seed funding. In deals news, Aurum PropTech agreed to acquire Housing.com's parent for ₹458 crore, and Amazon committed ₹60,000 crore to a hyperscale data centre in Hyderabad.
Daily Indian Startup Funding Digest - 16 July 2026
| Startup | Sector | Funding | Round | Lead Investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Naturis Cosmetics | Beauty & Personal Care | ₹100 Cr (~$12 Mn) | Maiden Institutional | Sharrp Ventures |
| Vorflux | AI / DevTools | ~₹125 Cr ($15 Mn) | Seed | Y Combinator, Peak XV Partners |
| Quick Clean | Laundry Infrastructure | ~₹133 Cr ($14 Mn) | Series B | Stakeboat Capital |
| Reo.Dev | AI / SaaS | ~₹94 Cr ($11.3 Mn) | Series A | Elevation Capital |
| Groyyo | Fashion Manufacturing | ₹90 Cr (~$9.4 Mn) | Series B (First Close) | Cornerstone Ventures |
| SwitchOn | Physical AI | ~₹78 Cr ($8 Mn) | Pre-Series B | IvyCap Ventures |
| Aina | AI Hardware | ~₹53 Cr ($5.5 Mn) | Seed | Redstart Labs, 360 ONE Asset |
| Mandrake Bio | Biotech / AI | ₹16 Cr (~$1.9 Mn) | Pre-Seed | Activate, Antler |
| KuhlTherm | Data Centre Cooling | ~₹9 Cr ($1.1 Mn) | Seed | Arkam Ventures |
| NapTapGo | Hospitality | ₹8 Cr (~$0.9 Mn) | Seed | Inflection Point Ventures |
Naturis Cosmetics Raises ₹100 Crore in Maiden Institutional Round
Naturis Cosmetics is an R&D-led contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) for beauty and personal care brands. It works with over 50 brands including Nykaa, Pilgrim, Purplle, Colorbar, Kay Beauty and Asaya, and also partners with pharma firms such as Glenmark and Dr. Reddy's Laboratories.
The company raised ₹100 crore (~$12 million) in its first institutional round led by Sharrp Ventures, with participation from Mirabilis Investment Trust (the K. Dinesh family office), Anicut Capital, Niveshaay and several angel investors. Its operating revenue grew about 40% to ₹154 crore in FY25, with a profit of ₹12 crore.
The funds will be used to expand manufacturing and R&D, including a new facility in Vapi, an experience centre in NCR and an R&D hub in Mumbai. The company also plans to add new beauty, personal care and OTC categories.
Vorflux Raises $15 Million Seed Round
Vorflux is a new AI startup founded by Prasanna Sankar, co-founder and former CTO of HR software platform Rippling. It is building an AI-powered platform to automate the software development lifecycle, moving beyond coding assistants towards an 'autopilot' system.
The startup raised $15 million (~₹125 crore) in a seed round led by Y Combinator, Peak XV Partners, Powerset and Alliance, with angel backing from Parker Conrad, Immad Akhund and Balaji Srinivasan. Vorflux follows the shutdown of Sankar's previous venture, 0xPPL.
The platform aims to handle planning, coding, testing, code reviews and deployment while applying a company's engineering standards. It leverages third-party AI models to reduce manual oversight in development workflows.
Quick Clean Raises $14 Million in Series B
Founded in 2010 by brothers Anshul and Ankur Gupta, Quick Clean is an on-premise laundry infrastructure company. It runs a build-own-operate model for hotels and hospitals, with clients including Marriott, Taj, Hyatt, ITC Hotels, AIIMS and Lilavati Hospital.
The company raised $14 million (~₹133 crore) in a Series B round led by Stakeboat Capital, with existing investors Alkemi Growth Capital and Blue Ashva Capital participating. In February last year, it had raised ₹50 crore (~$5.7 million) in Series A.
The capital will fund expansion across India, investment in AI-led laundry operations and predictive maintenance, and international entry into Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Quick Clean currently runs over 140 facilities across 38 cities and plans to reach 500 within five years.
Reo.Dev Raises $11.3 Million in Series A
Founded in 2023 by Achintya Gupta, Gaurav Jain and Piyush Agarwal, Reo.Dev is an AI-native go-to-market platform for companies selling to engineering and technical teams. The Bengaluru and San Francisco-based firm captures signals from GitHub, package managers, Stack Overflow and other sources to identify technical buyers.
The company raised $11.3 million (~₹94 crore) in a Series A round led by Elevation Capital, with participation from Heavybit, India Quotient, Foster Ventures and new investor Uncorrelated Ventures. The round takes total funding to $15.3 million.
The capital will advance its AI capabilities and AI agent roadmap. Reo.Dev says its Developer Knowledge Graph now holds more than 100 million engineer profiles, supporting agents used by over 200 companies including NVIDIA, LangChain and ElevenLabs.
Groyyo Raises ₹90 Crore in First Close of Series B
Founded in 2021 by Pratik Tiwari and Subin Mitra, Groyyo is a Gurugram-based AI-driven B2B platform that connects global fashion brands with a network of manufacturing partners. It digitises the apparel production cycle from design and costing to quality checks and logistics.
The startup raised ₹90 crore (~$9.4 million) in the first close of its ₹200 crore (~$20.8 million) Series B round led by Cornerstone Ventures, with existing investors participating. This follows a gap of over four years since its $40 million Series A led by Tiger Global in June 2022.
The funds will expand its manufacturing network across new hubs, strengthen its AI design and trend forecasting platform, and deepen its presence in North America, Europe and the Middle East. Groyyo is targeting a ₹500 crore annualised revenue run rate in FY26.
SwitchOn Raises $8 Million in Pre-Series B
Founded by Aniruddha Banerjee and Avra Banerjee, Bengaluru-based SwitchOn is a Physical AI startup that develops AI-powered quality inspection systems for manufacturers. Its flagship product, DeepInspect, uses edge-based computer vision to detect defects during production.
The company raised $8 million (~₹78 crore) in a pre-Series B round led by IvyCap Ventures, with participation from SIG Tattva and Trifecta Capital. This marks its third major round after $1.1 million in seed and $4.2 million in Series A.
The capital will fund international expansion, R&D and go-to-market operations across manufacturing sectors. SwitchOn serves customers including Unilever, Bosch and Maruti Suzuki, and claims deployment across more than 170 production lines in over 60 facilities.
Aina Raises $5.5 Million Seed to Build AI Hardware
Founded in 2025 by former Ultrahuman VP of hardware Apoorv Shankar, Aina is an AI hardware startup building context-aware interfaces for the AI era. It aims to move beyond apps, keyboards and touchscreens with hardware designed to understand context and simplify interactions.
The startup emerged from stealth with a $5.5 million (~₹53 crore) seed round co-led by Redstart Labs, the venture arm of Info Edge Ventures, and 360 ONE Asset. MIXI Global Investments, Antler and Blume Founders Fund also participated, alongside angels including Kunal Shah and Razorpay's Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar.
The capital will bring Aina's flagship interface to market and expand its engineering and product teams. The company has about 35 employees across Bengaluru and San Francisco and operates a manufacturing facility in Bengaluru.
Mandrake Bio Raises ₹16 Crore in Pre-Seed Round
Founded in March 2025 by Tanay Lohia and Kutubuddin Molla, Mandrake Bio is a foundational protein design startup. It develops programmable gene-editing enzymes using generative AI, biophysics and wet lab validation for use across agriculture and medicine.
The company raised around ₹16 crore (~$1.9 million) in a pre-seed round co-led by Activate and Antler, with participation from Spectrum Impact, DeVC and angels including Vijay Chandru and Paras Chopra.
The proceeds will advance its AI-based protein design platform, expand its research team and scale wet lab validation. Unlike CRISPR-based approaches, Mandrake designs custom enzymes from scratch and plans to license them to seed companies and therapeutic developers.
KuhlTherm Raises $1.1 Million Seed for Data Centre Cooling
Co-founded in 2025 by Vishant Gandhi and four others, Ahmedabad-based KuhlTherm develops precision liquid cooling technology for high-performance computing infrastructure. Its products include Direct-to-Chip cooling, Rear Door Heat Exchangers and immersion cooling systems.
The company raised $1.1 million (~₹9 crore) in a seed round led by Arkam Ventures. Its Direct-to-Chip cold plates use patented mesh-based cooling technology to address processor hotspots.
The funds will accelerate product development, strengthen R&D and testing infrastructure, and expand its engineering and business teams. KuhlTherm plans to scale its cooling solutions for AI data centres and hyperscale infrastructure.
NapTapGo Raises ₹8 Crore in Seed Round
NapTapGo is a budget hospitality startup known for its capsule-style pod stays. Founded by Nitin Malhotra and Himanshu Shukla, it operates in Noida, Amritsar and Katra, and featured on Shark Tank India Season 5.
NapTapGo raised ₹8 crore in a seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures. It currently runs three properties with over 130 pods, has hosted more than 10,000 guests, and sees occupancy of up to 80% at its mature sites.
The capital will support expansion through a capital-efficient co-investment model with local partners, while operations stay in-house. NapTapGo has also signed an MoU with HPCL to explore pod hotels at highway transit points.
Key Business News for 16 July 2026
Amazon Picks Telangana for ₹60,000 Crore India Data Centre
Amazon has chosen Hyderabad's Bharat Future City for its largest data centre investment in India, pledging ₹60,000 crore for a hyperscale facility. The foundation stone was laid on 15 July, with the first phase of operations expected within two years and the rest spaced over a decade. The state has allotted 220 acres in Bharat Future City and 98 acres in Chandanvelly, plus ₹125 crore in incentives. The project forms part of Amazon Web Services' $13 billion India investment.
Aurum PropTech to Acquire Housing.com Parent for ₹458 Crore
Listed real estate tech firm Aurum PropTech's board has approved acquiring 100% of Locon Solutions, which owns marketplace Housing.com, from Australia-based REA India. The share-swap deal issues nearly 1.98 crore new equity shares at ₹231.42 apiece, valuing Housing's parent at about ₹458.1 crore. Once complete, REA India's stake in Aurum will rise to 24.9% from 5.54%. Locon's FY26 standalone turnover was around ₹309.8 crore, less than half its ₹687.5 crore the previous year. The deal is expected to close before 30 September 2026.
Swiggy and HPCL Pilot Doorstep LPG Cylinder Delivery
Swiggy has signed a deal with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) to deliver LPG cylinders via Swiggy Instamart in Bengaluru, in what both call a first for India's quick-commerce space. The pilot, launched on 15 July, lets customers buy 5-kg metal and 10-kg composite cylinders without an existing HP Gas connection, with identity verification for first-time buyers. Deliveries will run through HPCL's licensed distributor network. Prices were not disclosed, and Bengaluru will serve as the test site before a wider rollout.
Muskaan Kapoor
