✍️ A Note from Ankita Vashistha

The most important technology companies are not always the most visible ones.

Some of the most meaningful businesses are being built quietly, deep within the infrastructure that allows industries to scale with confidence. They sit behind the transaction, the identity check, the compliance workflow, the data system, or the decision engine. When they work well, most people never notice them. When they fail, everything built on top of them becomes vulnerable.

As digital systems become faster, more connected, and increasingly AI-driven, trust can no longer be treated as an afterthought. It has to be designed into the architecture from the beginning.

This is a theme we have been spending more time on at Arise.

We are meeting founders building fraud intelligence, identity infrastructure, behavioral risk systems, privacy-first data platforms, and compliance tools that help institutions make better and more explainable decisions.

These may not always be the loudest categories in technology, but we believe they are among the most important.

Every major thesis around financial inclusion, embedded finance, digital commerce, healthcare AI, and enterprise automation ultimately depends on the same foundation: people and institutions must trust the systems they are being asked to adopt.

This edition looks at how that trust layer is evolving and why the founders building it may shape the next decade of digital infrastructure.

Thank you for reading and, as always, for building alongside us.

Warmly,
Ankita Vashistha

🔍 The Arise View: The UPI Trust Tax

Securing the World’s Largest Real-Time Payments Rail with AI

India has built the world’s largest real-time payments network.

The next challenge is building a trust and security infrastructure capable of operating at the same scale.

UPI did not simply compete with existing payment systems. It changed how an entire country moves money.

In 2025 alone, UPI processed approximately 228 billion transactions worth nearly ₹300 trillion. Monthly transaction volumes have crossed 21 billion, and the system is now used by more than 500 million people.

It took India less than a decade to build this level of adoption.

But scale and safety do not automatically move together.

The faster money moves, the smaller the window becomes to identify, stop, and reverse fraudulent transactions. Once funds move through a network of mule accounts, recovery becomes considerably more difficult.

In 2025, Indians filed approximately 2.81 million cyber-fraud complaints, representing a 24% increase over the previous year. Reported losses reached nearly ₹22,500 crore.

Digital-payment fraud has increased almost 41 times over the past five years and now represents more than half of all reported banking-fraud cases in India.

This is not simply an unfortunate side effect of UPI’s success.

It is the trust tax that comes with building a financial system capable of moving money instantly, at population scale, before the surrounding fraud-prevention infrastructure has fully caught up.

As a result, financial security can no longer remain a back-office or compliance function.

It is becoming part of the product itself.

The Numbers Behind UPI’s Trust Gap

A few numbers illustrate the scale of the challenge:

• UPI processed more than 228 billion transactions worth approximately ₹300 trillion in 2025.

• Digital-payment fraud losses have reportedly increased from approximately ₹551 crore in 2021 to nearly ₹23,000 crore in 2025.

• Almost 92% of fraud losses by value occur in transactions above ₹10,000, making higher-value transfers an important regulatory focus.

• During 2025, authorities reportedly deactivated 1.2 million SIM cards, froze 1.33 million mule accounts, and recovered approximately ₹5,489 crore.

• The global AI-in-fintech market is estimated at approximately $18 billion to $21 billion in 2026, with fraud detection representing one of its largest applications.

The underlying pattern is clear.

As a payments network becomes faster and more widely adopted, it also becomes more attractive to increasingly sophisticated fraud networks.

UPI reached that point earlier, and at a scale that very few financial systems have encountered.

Portfolio Spotlight: Streamingo

Trust infrastructure is not limited to payments and financial data.

It also matters in video, one of the largest and most difficult forms of enterprise data to organise, analyse and use responsibly. Organisations across consumer research, healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, sports and other regulated environments generate extensive video footage, much of which remains difficult to search or convert into usable intelligence.

Streamingo is building an AI platform for human-activity analysis. Its technology converts unstructured video into structured behavioural data, allowing enterprises to identify actions and patterns without relying on teams to review footage manually.

According to the company’s latest reported figures, Streamingo has processed more than 7 million videos, producing approximately 7.5 billion activity data points and 1.5 billion activity detections.

What Streamingo Is Building

At the centre of the platform is FizzStream, Streamingo’s spatio-temporal inference engine. It analyses activity across video frames and converts the results into what the company calls an Activity Map: a structured and searchable representation of the actions captured within the footage.

The platform can work with existing video sources and camera infrastructure, reducing the need for organisations to introduce an entirely new hardware layer. The resulting data can be viewed through Streamingo’s dashboards or integrated into existing business-intelligence systems.

This gives enterprises a more scalable way to use video for applications such as consumer-behaviour research, operational analysis, safety and compliance, sports intelligence and activity detection.

Privacy by Design

Streamingo has also developed Anonymize, a product designed to remove or obscure personally identifiable information from video content.

The platform can redact faces and sensitive speech while preserving the analytical utility and behavioral context of the footage for downstream analytics, research, and AI development. It supports public cloud, private-cloud, and edge deployment, allowing organizations with stricter data-residency requirements to process sensitive footage within their own environments.

It also produces time-stamped audit logs and includes human-in-the-loop review controls, helping organizations verify and refine anonymization before the video is used downstream.

Why It Matters

Streamingo is not a payment-fraud or financial-crime company, and it should not be positioned as one.

Its relevance to the wider trust-infrastructure thesis lies in a shared design principle: sensitive data should be protected at the point where it is collected and processed, rather than through controls added only after deployment.

As enterprises use AI to extract more intelligence from video, privacy, traceability and responsible data handling will become increasingly important.

Streamingo represents this broader shift. It is building technology not only to make previously unstructured video useful, but also to help organisations use that data with greater control and accountability.

Portfolio News

It has been an encouraging period across the Arise portfolio, with our founders earning global recognition, entering new markets, and building the next generation of consumer businesses.

🌍 P•TAL Takes Indian Craftsmanship to Good Morning America

P•TAL became the first Indian home and kitchen brand to be featured on Good Morning America, bringing handcrafted Indian copper and brass products to one of America’s most recognised television platforms.

✨ Why it matters: What began as a college project working with a small group of Thathera artisans in Punjab is now introducing Indian craftsmanship to consumers across the world.

The recognition reflects more than an appreciation for heritage. It demonstrates that products rooted in traditional materials and techniques can remain relevant when combined with strong design, quality, functionality, and a clear understanding of the modern consumer.

For P•TAL, it is another important step towards building a globally recognised Indian home and kitchen brand, while ensuring that the artisans behind these products remain central to its growth story.

📈 Gladful Builds Towards Its ₹100 Crore Ambition

Read Article

Gladful was recently featured by BW Retail World, where co-founder Parul Sharma discussed the company’s evolution from a personal nutrition challenge into a fast-growing clean-label food brand.

🚀 Growth highlights:

• Revenue grew 3.5x over the past year

• Quick-commerce business scaled nearly fivefold within five months

• More than 1.5 lakh units are now sold every month

• The brand has reached between six and seven lakh families

What began with nutritious breakfast products for children is expanding into spreads, sauces, health drinks, and other everyday food categories.

Gladful is not asking families to completely change how they eat. It is improving familiar products by making them cleaner, more nutritious, and easier to adopt.

The company is now working towards becoming a ₹100 crore brand over the next two to three years, with digital commerce and quick commerce expected to remain important growth engines.

🏆 Assiduus and Somdutta Singh Receive Global Recognition

Read Article

Somdutta Singh, Founder and CEO of Assiduus Global, received an EY Entrepreneur of the Year award, recognising her journey as a first-generation entrepreneur building a global cross-border commerce company.

She was also featured among the ET NOW Impactful Women Leaders of India 2025, recognising women shaping business, innovation, and leadership in India.

🌐 What Assiduus is solving: The company helps brands manage the operational complexity of selling across multiple international markets.

By bringing marketplace listings, regulatory compliance, warehousing, distribution, and fulfilment into a more connected system, Assiduus is challenging a fragmented model of global commerce and making international expansion more manageable for consumer brands.

These recognitions celebrate Somdutta’s leadership, while also acknowledging the team building the infrastructure behind Assiduus’ global ambitions.

🤖 Meolaa Builds for the Future of AI-led FMCG

Read More

Ishita Sawant, Founder of Meolaa, was recognised by Forbes as part of its Under 30 community, highlighting her work at the intersection of AI, consumer products, and digital commerce.

💡 The larger shift: Meolaa is building an AI-powered consumer company designed to identify, create, and scale digital-first brands more quickly and intelligently.

Traditional FMCG companies have historically relied on long product-development cycles, broad consumer assumptions, and large distribution investments.

Meolaa is approaching the category differently, using technology, consumer data, and cultural signals to understand emerging demand and build products around it.

Ishita’s recognition is an important personal milestone, but it also validates a larger shift already underway: AI will not only change how consumer products are marketed. It will reshape how they are identified, developed, launched, and scaled.

We are proud to have partnered with Ishita early in Meolaa’s journey and look forward to seeing the company continue building for the future of consumer brands.

✍️ A Note from Ankita Vashistha

The first half of the year has been a period of momentum, recognition, and renewed conviction.

At Arise Ventures and StrongHer, our work has always been rooted in one belief: capital becomes more powerful when it is paired with access, visibility, and long-term ecosystem building.

Over the past few months, that belief has shown up across our ecosystem in many ways.

The launch of the StrongHer 100 Women 2026 Report marked another important step in spotlighting women who are shaping industries across technology, healthcare, finance, consumer, venture capital, and beyond. Now in its fourth edition, the flagship report is not just about recognition. It is about visibility, representation, and building a stronger pipeline of women leaders who are actively shaping the future.

We also celebrated a major milestone from our portfolio. Assiduus Global raised $25 million in a Pre-Series B round led by Bajaj Finserv, reinforcing what disciplined execution, AI-led infrastructure, and global ambition can achieve. For us, Assiduus is a strong example of the kind of founder-led growth we believe in: scalable, profitable, and built for global markets.

At the same time, P-TAL’s presence in Times Square gave us another reminder of how Indian brands rooted in craft, culture, and quality can find global relevance when paired with strong storytelling and execution.

And personally, one theme that keeps standing out to me is wellness.

Wellness is no longer something we do occasionally. It has become everyday. It is showing up in how we eat, sleep, move, work, recover, parent, travel, and build our lives.

Many of us are challenging ourselves to become fitter, healthier, more intentional, and more aware of our bodies and habits. But as investors, we are also seeing a much bigger shift.

We are excited to meet founders building at the intersection of consumer and wellness, across wearables, clean ingredients, digital health, everyday habits, women’s health, longevity, preventive care, and tomorrow’s healthcare.

This is where consumer behaviour, technology, science, and culture are starting to meet in very powerful ways.

As we look ahead, our focus remains clear: backing bold founders, accelerating global access, and championing women leaders building the next generation of global companies.

And to the founders building in consumer, wellness, digital health, and everyday healthcare, we would love to hear from you.

Talk to us.

Warmly,
Ankita Vashistha

🌟 StrongHer 100 Women 2026 Report

Celebrating women shaping industries, capital, and the future of leadership

Read Report

View Interactive Report

This may, StrongHer launched the StrongHer 100 Women 2026 Report, now in its fourth edition. The report celebrates 100 global women leaders across business, venture capital, entrepreneurship, healthcare, technology, finance, and beyond.

The report arrives at an important moment. Women continue to represent a strong share of the global workforce and entry-level talent yet remain underrepresented in senior leadership. The StrongHer 100 Report highlights this gap not as a talent problem, but as a structural access problem.

Through this edition, we spotlight women who are building companies, allocating capital, transforming industries, and creating new pathways for the next generation of leaders.

The larger message is simple: visibility matters. When women leaders are seen, recognized, and connected to opportunity, ecosystems become stronger.

StrongHer is not just a platform for storytelling. It is a platform for access. Through reports, founder networks, investor engagement, and curated community initiatives, we are focused on building a more inclusive and globally connected entrepreneurial ecosystem.

📰 Arise & Portfolio in the News

Financial Express | Arise Ventures’ AI-first investment focus
Ankita Vashistha shared Arise Ventures’ thesis on backing AI-first businesses across enterprise SaaS, healthcare, consumer tech, and next-generation consumer brands, with a focus on companies where AI is core to the product and business model.

Read Article

Indian Retailer | kindlife brings Bioré to India
kindlife partnered with Japan’s Kao Group to bring Bioré to India, strengthening its position as a platform for international beauty and skincare brands entering the Indian market.

Read Article

Entrepreneur India | StrongHer 100 highlights the funding gap for women-led startups
Entrepreneur India featured insights from the Arise Ventures Diversity Report 2026, highlighting that women-led startups receive less than 2% of global VC funding despite strong performance indicators.

Read Article

DealStreetAsia | Arise Ventures Fund III
DealStreetAsia covered Arise Ventures’ women-focused investment strategy and its road to raising a $57 million Fund III.

Read Article

ET Edge Insights | VAMA launches Vama TV
VAMA.app launched Vama TV, an in-app spiritual micro-drama platform designed to bring mythology-led, mobile-first content to India’s digital faith audience.

Read Article

🚀 Portfolio Spotlight:

Assiduus Global

$25M raised to scale AI-powered global commerce infrastructure

One of our portfolio companies, Assiduus Global, announced a major milestone with a $25 million Pre-Series B round led by Bajaj Finserv, with participation from Uncorrelated Ventures, Aaruha Technology Fund, Vikash Agarwal of Rupa Family Office, and other institutional and family-office investors.

Founded by Somdutta Singh, Assiduus is an AI-powered global commerce infrastructure company helping brands scale across international marketplaces and quick commerce platforms. The company supports 150+ enterprise brands, operates across 20+ countries, and integrates with 18+ global marketplaces and quick commerce platforms.

The fresh capital will be used to deepen AI and data capabilities across predictive demand, pricing intelligence, and working capital optimization, while also expanding across the Middle East, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

What makes this milestone especially meaningful is that Assiduus has combined growth with discipline. Since its previous funding round, the company has delivered 4x growth across revenues, enterprise customers, and geographic footprint, while remaining PAT-positive for seven consecutive years.

For Arise Ventures, Assiduus represents exactly the kind of company we believe will define the next era of global commerce: AI-led, infrastructure-focused, execution-driven, and built with a global-first mindset.

P-TAL’s India-to-the-World Moment

Taking Indian craft to one of the world’s most visible stages

P-TAL marked a meaningful global visibility milestone with its presence in Times Square, New York.

For a brand built on the legacy of India’s traditional Thathera craft, this moment represents more than international exposure. It reflects a larger shift in how Indian heritage brands are being received globally: not as niche cultural products, but as design-led, quality-driven businesses with global relevance.

P-TAL continues to show how deeply rooted Indian craftsmanship can be reimagined for modern consumers without losing its authenticity. By connecting artisan-led production with contemporary branding, digital-first distribution, and global storytelling, the company is helping redefine what “Made in India” can represent on the world stage.

For Arise Ventures, this milestone is a reminder of why consumer brands rooted in culture and craft can become powerful global businesses when supported by strong execution, brand discipline, and founder conviction.

P-TAL’s journey reflects the kind of purposeful, globally relevant entrepreneurship we are proud to back.

🔍 The Arise View: Why AI-Led Infrastructure Is Becoming a Core Venture Theme

Why AI-Led Infrastructure Is Becoming a Core Venture Theme

The next wave of venture returns will come from companies that make complexity easier to manage.

Across sectors, we are seeing a clear pattern: some of the most compelling companies are no longer just building standalone products. They are building the infrastructure layers that help businesses operate faster, smarter, and more globally.

This shift is visible across categories.

In commerce, companies like Assiduus are building the operating layer for global digital commerce, helping brands manage marketplace integration, cross-border distribution, fulfillment, pricing intelligence, demand forecasting, and working capital optimization.

In financial services, platforms like Stripe have shown how payments can become infrastructure. What began as a better way for businesses to accept payments has evolved into a broader operating layer for online commerce, covering billing, fraud prevention, embedded finance, and global money movement.

In logistics, companies like Flexport are simplifying one of the world’s most complex systems: global trade. By bringing freight forwarding, customs, inventory visibility, and supply chain data into a more unified platform, they show how infrastructure companies can unlock speed and transparency in traditionally fragmented industries.

In enterprise software, companies like Databricks and Snowflake have become critical layers for how businesses store, manage, and use data. As AI adoption increases, companies that control the data infrastructure layer are becoming even more important because AI is only as useful as the quality, accessibility, and structure of the data behind it.

This matters because every major sector is now facing the same pressure.

Legacy systems are too slow. Global markets are more fragmented. Data is underused. Customers expect faster execution. AI is moving from “nice to have” to business critical.

That complexity is becoming one of the biggest venture opportunities of the decade.

Assiduus reflects this broader shift. The company recently raised $25 million in a Pre-Series B round, works with 150+ enterprise brands, operates across 20+ countries, and integrates with 18+ global marketplaces and quick commerce platforms. Its growth shows how infrastructure-led companies can sit behind the scenes while powering visible business outcomes.

For venture capital, the opportunity is clear. The next generation of category leaders will not only use AI as a feature. They will use AI to rebuild how businesses function.

At Arise Ventures, we believe AI-led infrastructure will become one of the most important investment themes of the decade. The companies that win will be the ones that reduce complexity, improve decision-making, and become deeply embedded in the daily operations of their customers.

That is where long-term venture value will be created.

Founder Lens

What we are hearing from founders this year

One thing we have noticed in our conversations with founders this year is that ambition has become much more global.

Founders are no longer thinking only about their first city, first customer segment, or first market. Many are already asking what it would take to build across geographies, work with international customers, create distributed teams, and design companies that can travel beyond their home market.

But interestingly, the ambition feels more grounded now.

The questions founders are asking have become sharper.

Which market should we enter first?
Which customer segment should we really focus on?
How do we grow without burning too fast?
How do we use AI in a way that actually improves the business, not just the pitch deck?
How do we build something that customers trust, investors understand, and teams can scale?

That shift feels important.

The last few years rewarded speed. The next few will likely reward clarity.

At Arise Ventures, we are seeing more founders move away from growth for the sake of growth and toward stronger fundamentals: better margins, deeper customer understanding, cleaner operations, and more thoughtful expansion.

It does not make the founder journey easier. If anything, it makes it more honest.

The founders who stand out today are not only the ones with bold visions. They are the ones who can stay close to the customer, learn quickly, make disciplined decisions, and keep building even when the market gets harder.

That is the kind of founder journey we are excited to support.

Coming Soon: StrongHer Socials Edition 2

Join the waitlist for the next edition

Following the response to our first StrongHer Socials gathering, we are excited to bring the community together again for Edition 2.

StrongHer Socials was created as an intimate space for women founders, investors, operators, and ecosystem leaders to connect beyond surface-level networking. The first edition reminded us how powerful intentional rooms can be when they are built around honest conversations, shared ambition, and meaningful access.

The next edition is now in the works.

If you are a founder, investor, operator, or ecosystem builder interested in being part of the next StrongHer Socials, join the waitlist for Edition 2.

Coming soon.

Join Waitlist

✍️ A Note from Ankita Vashistha

Reflecting on the Quarter: Community, Capital, and Conviction

This quarter at Arise Ventures and StrongHer has been defined by deep ecosystem engagement. A major highlight was our inaugural StrongHer Socials, an intimate gathering that reinforced our core belief: women don’t just need advice; they need access to capital, networks, and decision-making spaces. Alongside the continued growth of our StrongHer 100 women report, we remain committed to creating a living narrative of women shaping markets and redefining leadership.

Despite an increase in women starting companies, capital allocation remains disproportionately low. Bridging this structural gap requires intentional capital, stronger cross-border platforms, and more women writing checks.

From an investment perspective, we are tracking strong signals across our key sectors. In the consumer space, we are seeing a shift toward emotionally intelligent, community-led brands, with India moving toward omnichannel resilience and the US prioritizing profitability and brand longevity post the growth-at-all-costs cycle. In financial services, India continues to lead in infrastructure-driven innovation like embedded finance, while the US is focusing heavily on AI-driven workflows and verticalized platforms for enterprises and SMEs.

Heading into next quarter, our focus remains clear: backing bold founders, expanding access, and building an ecosystem where diverse leadership is the norm. Thank you for being part of this journey.

Warmly, Ankita

StrongHer Socials: An Evening of Intentional Connections

This month, we hosted the inaugural StrongHer Socials - an intimate evening that brought together a curated group of women founders, investors, operators, and ecosystem leaders.

The idea behind StrongHer Socials is simple: create spaces where meaningful relationships can form, conversations can go deeper, and shared journeys can be explored beyond surface-level networking.

The evening began with introductions that were honest, personal, and reflective. As the conversations unfolded, what stood out was the openness with which women spoke about building companies, navigating growth, managing uncertainty, and redefining leadership on their own terms.

Through the spotlight segment, we explored themes that resonate deeply with the StrongHer community - courage, reinvention, purpose, scale, and influence. The stories shared reminded us that leadership is not a straight path; it is shaped by choices, pivots, and conviction, especially when outcomes are not guaranteed.

Over dinner, discussions continued in smaller circles - moving naturally from capital and market opportunities to mental resilience, personal evolution, and the realities of balancing ambition with wellbeing.

More than anything, the evening reinforced why intentional communities matter. Women founders and leaders often navigate different access points to capital, networks, and decision-making spaces. Platforms like StrongHer are designed to bridge that gap - not just through funding, but through connection, community, and shared learning.

StrongHer Socials is just the beginning. As we continue to build this platform, our goal remains clear: to create trusted spaces where women can exchange ideas, challenge perspectives, and grow together.

We are deeply grateful to everyone who joined us and contributed to the energy and depth of the evening.

The next edition is already in the works. Sign up for the waitlist!

Click Here to Register

📰 Features & Highlights - Key Signals We’re Acting On

🌱 1. Fueling Future Leaders: Bridging Legacy and Innovation

As highlighted in Entrepreneur India, Ankita Vashistha’s Arise Ventures is actively equipping traditional family businesses with the capital and strategic guidance needed to overcome high legacy workloads and limited AI focus to evolve into globally competitive innovators.

Read Article

📊🚀 2. AI-First Businesses: From Trend to Core Investment Strategy

In a recent Financial Express Q&A, Ankita Vashistha detailed how Arise Ventures is deploying its ~₹55 crore fund to aggressively back AI-integrated startups, aiming to overcome the slow modernization and legacy workloads currently hindering enterprise innovation

.

Read Article

👩‍💼👩‍💼 3. Women Entrepreneurs & the Persistent Funding Gap

A recent feature in The Hindu underscores Arise's strategic stance on the persistent VC funding gap for women entrepreneurs: it is a systemic access problem, not a capability issue. By targeting these structural barriers, Arise aims to capitalize on what it views as one of venture capital's most lucrative, untapped opportunities.

Read Article

🚀 4. Arise Ventures Recognized in the 2026 ImpactAssets 50

Arise Ventures has been selected for the 2026 ImpactAssets 50 (IA 50), the definitive global guide to impact investing fund managers. This milestone highlights a sustained commitment to backing scalable, AI-first innovations that address systemic inefficiencies and drive measurable social and environmental outcomes. It proves that impactful, strategic capital allocation can directly counter the slow modernization and reduced agility of legacy financial systems.

🌱 A Growing Investment Area to Watch: AI in Fraud, Security & Financial Trust Infrastructure

As AI adoption accelerates across financial services, a parallel shift is occurring. Fraud, cyber risk, and financial threats are becoming equally AI-powered, creating a massive and urgent new category for venture capital: AI-driven financial security and trust infrastructure.

The Data Behind the Shift

The numbers highlight both the market opportunity and the escalating risk:

• Market Growth: The AI in FinTech market is projected to reach ~$36.6B by 2026 and scale toward ~$99B by 2031.

• Widespread Adoption: 88% of financial institutions now utilize AI, with 73% deploying it specifically for fraud detection.

• The Escalating Threat: 60% of fintechs report increased fraud activity. Furthermore, 83% of phishing attacks leverage AI-generated content, driving annual AI fraud losses to ~$70B.

• The Solution: Proper AI implementation reduces fraud losses by 20% to 30% and improves detection accuracy up to ~99%.

What’s Emerging

We are seeing strong momentum in startups building predictive and adaptive defense systems. These innovations represent a necessary shift from reactive to proactive security, including:

• Real-time AI fraud detection engines for payments and transactions.

• Behavioral risk and anomaly detection systems that go beyond traditional rule-based models.

• AI-powered identity verification and robust KYC infrastructure.

• Dedicated security layers designed to protect AI-driven financial systems, models, and data pipelines.

Why This Matters Now

As financial systems become fully digital, real-time, and cross-border, trust becomes the primary bottleneck to scale. This is especially true in emerging markets, where rapid fintech adoption increases exposure to systemic fraud risk.

Traditional incumbents are struggling to keep pace. Financial institutions are continually hindered by a high legacy workload, slow modernization, and reduced agility. A limited AI and data focus severely impacts innovation, a challenge compounded by the reality that cloud infrastructure maturity remains inconsistent. Because limited legacy infrastructure creates an opportunity to build AI-first security systems from the start, security is no longer just a backend function. It is becoming core financial infrastructure.

Arise’s Perspective

At Arise Ventures, we view AI-driven financial trust and security as one of the most critical layers in the next generation of fintech.

The most compelling companies in this space will:

• Build invisible but essential infrastructure.

• Operate seamlessly at the intersection of AI, regulation, and complex financial systems.

• Become deeply embedded in core transaction flows and decision-making.

In the next phase of fintech, the companies that win will not just move money faster. They will make our financial systems safer, smarter, and inherently more trustworthy.

Company Spotlight - Zoop Money

Zoop Money is a fully digital, transparent, and paperless lending platform making real estate financing more accessible. It tackles the core inefficiencies of traditional banks, which suffer from high legacy workloads, slow modernization, reduced agility, and a limited AI/data focus that impacts innovation, by streamlining the entire borrower journey.

Founding & Leadership Zoop Money was founded by four co-founders: Arunabh Parihar, Digvijay Chauhan, Nishant Mehra, and Shailendra.

Arunabh brings deep fintech and product scaling experience from his tenure at Razorpay and Super.money, where he led key innovations in full-stack financial services. Digvijay complements this with a strong background in tech entrepreneurship, computational systems, and digital transformation.

Nishant Mehra, a key strategic connector for us, plays an important role in driving partnerships and ecosystem engagement. Shailendra further strengthens the founding team with his contributions to building and scaling the company’s vision and operations.

Together, the team combines deep expertise in building digital-first platforms and is positioning Zoop to capitalize on India’s growing demand for embedded finance and API-led lending integrations.

What Zoop Does & Its Impact Zoop has developed an end-to-end digital mortgage marketplace featuring:

• Instant Matching: A 100% paperless application process with real-time credit analysis to match borrowers with over 33 major lenders.

• Streamlined Journey: A unified platform that eliminates heavy documentation, accelerating loan sanctions from weeks to instant approvals.

• Robust Security: RBI-compliant infrastructure that overcomes the inconsistent cloud infrastructure maturity often seen in legacy systems.

  Why It Matters Zoop aligns with Arise Ventures’ focus on backing scalable, digital-first fintechs that solve critical modernization delays and inefficiencies in massive sectors like real estate.

  ---

Recent Innovations and Investment Updates

Assiduus Global, an AI-powered e-commerce accelerator that has maintained profitability for seven consecutive years, secured $25 million in a Pre-Series B round led by Bajaj Finserv to combat slow modernization in global trade by deepening its predictive AI capabilities and expanding its cloud infrastructure across the Middle East, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

The startup ecosystem continues to see strong momentum as agile, digital-first companies redefine traditional industries. From consumer goods to clinical healthcare and faith-tech, founders are successfully securing capital to build solutions that bypass the operational friction of the past.

Meolaa’s AI-Driven FMCG Expansion

Founded by Ishita Sawant, Meolaa is an AI-enabled marketplace and FMCG house focused on sustainable consumer products and conscious living. The company recently secured $6 million in a Pre-Series A round led by General Catalyst. By leveraging AI to rapidly reverse-engineer product-market fit, Meolaa is directly combatting the slow modernization that typically dictates traditional 18-to-24-month product development cycles. Their digital-first infrastructure allows them to seamlessly bypass the high legacy workload of standard retail and scale efficiently.

Rootless Scales Sustainable Nutrition

Rootless, founded by Sachi Singh, is a whole-health nutrition startup offering sustainable, seaweed-powered daily supplements designed to support women’s hormonal and thyroid health. Continuing to scale its D2C offerings, Rootless provides a highly adaptable consumer alternative that sidesteps the rigid supply chains and reduced agility typical of traditional food manufacturing.

Vama Digitizes Traditional Spiritual Services

Vama, founded by Manu Jain, Aacharya Dev, and Himanshu Semwal, is an online faith-tech platform offering virtual spiritual and religious services, including e-pujas, e-darshans, and astrology consultations. Vama recently closed a $2.7 million Pre-Series A round led by Wavemaker Partners. By successfully digitizing access to over 250 temples, the platform demonstrates that even deeply historical sectors can innovate, modernize, and scale without suffering from reduced agility.

Heading into next quarter, our focus remains clear: backing bold founders, expanding access, and building an ecosystem where diverse leadership is the norm. Thank you for being part of this journey.

Warmly, Ankita

Apply Here

In a world where networking often feels transactional, we wanted to create something different.

Something slower, deeper, and more intentional. A space where women founders are not just meeting people but building relationships that matter.

That’s how StrongHer Socials was born.

StrongHer Socials is not just another event. It is a curated gathering designed to bring women founders together with investors, seasoned entrepreneurs, and ecosystem leaders for meaningful conversations and real connections. No loud pitches. No rushed handshakes. No surface-level small talk.

Instead, think of it as an evening built around honest conversations, shared experiences, and collective learning.

The format is simple but powerful.

We begin with curated speed networking, where founders connect with peers and mentors in structured yet natural interactions. This is not about collecting business cards, but about finding people who resonate with your journey.

The evening unfolds into a community dinner with founder-led conversations. We believe the best ideas, partnerships, and friendships are built over shared meals. This is where walls come down and the real dialogue happens: sharing the raw stories, challenges, and lessons that rarely make it to stages. It is an opportunity for women founders to discuss what worked, what did not, and what they wish they had known earlier, forming real bonds that shape how businesses are actually built.

StrongHer Socials is ultimately about creating a supportive ecosystem where women founders feel seen, heard, and supported. It is about building a network that lasts beyond one evening.

📍 Bangalore | March 2026

If this resonates with you, if you are a woman founder looking for a space that values connection over optics, we invite you to apply to be part of StrongHer Socials.

Apply Here

Because when women founders learn together, connect deeply, and support each other, they do not just grow, they arise.

Learn. Connect. Arise.

StrongHer Socials

Networking Edition I

StrongHer Socials is a curated networking platform designed to bring together women founders, operators, investors, and ecosystem leaders into one meaningful community.

This is not transactional networking.
It is about real conversations, thoughtful connections, and long-term ecosystem building.

Networking Edition I marks the beginning of this platform, focused on creating a trusted space where women can connect, collaborate, and grow together.

Participants can expect high-quality conversations, curated introductions, and a community designed for depth rather than volume.

StrongHer Socials is built on a simple belief:
when women connect meaningfully, ecosystems accelerate.

Stay tuned for updates and sign up with your interest to be part of the StrongHer Socials community and events in a city near you!

StrongHer Socials
learn. connect. arise.

Click here

📰 Features & Highlights - Key Signals We’re Acting On

🚀 1. Scaling Arise’s Third Fund with a Global AI & Cross-Border Focus

Arise Ventures is currently in its third venture fund. The fund prioritizes early-stage technology startups, particularly those building differentiated AI, deep tech, enterprise SaaS, and consumer tech with global market potential. Portfolio deployment maintains a strong India-to-US corridor, reflecting an intentional cross-border strategy where founders can scale beyond home markets into larger economies.

Read Article

🧠 2. Venture Capital in 2026: Selective, Stronger, and Fundamentals-Led

Across India’s venture landscape, 2026 is shaping up to be a year of selective capital allocation and structural strength. A wave of IPO-led liquidity has unlocked capital for reinvestment, especially into artificial intelligence, deeptech, advanced manufacturing and semiconductors, sectors that can demonstrate clear scale, revenue trajectories, and meaningful product depth. Arise’s leadership emphasizes that funding will increasingly favour startups with solid unit economics and clear paths to profitability, rather than headline-chasing valuations

Read Article

👩‍💼 3. Women Founders & Inclusive Investing: Proving That Diversity Scales

Ankita Vashistha’s long-standing commitment to empowering women entrepreneurs has evolved from the Saha Fund, reportedly India’s first women-focused VC fund to her current work at Arise and StrongHer. Today, she manages close to $100 million in capital across AI, enterprise, consumer, health and climate tech, while backing hundreds of founders globally with equity, networks, and strategic support. Her investment journey began from a recognition of the funding gap and structural bias against women founders, growing into a mission-driven thesis that diversity is not charity, it’s smart capital allocation and higher ROI.

Read Article

🌍 4. Building Support Infrastructure for Entrepreneurs

Beyond cheque writing, Arise and its affiliated platforms such as StrongHer are building ecosystem infrastructure, from accelerator cohorts to mentorship, strategic partnerships, and go-to-market guidance. This approach intentionally supports founders through early-stage scaling challenges, especially in areas like enterprise sales, product-market fit and global deployment, rather than merely providing capital. The result is an integrated support system for tech ventures with durability and measurable impact.

Read Article

🌱 A Growing Investment Area to Watch

AI-Native FinTech Infrastructure for Trust, Risk & Scale

As financial systems digitize at unprecedented speed, FinTech is entering its next phase, one defined not by user acquisition alone, but by trust, resilience, and system-level intelligence.

AI is rapidly becoming embedded in the core of financial decision-making: credit underwriting, fraud prevention, compliance, treasury management, payments routing, and risk monitoring. In this environment, the winners will not be the loudest consumer apps, but the companies building AI-native financial infrastructure that institutions can rely on at scale.

We are seeing growing momentum in startups developing:

• AI-driven credit and risk assessment models that go beyond traditional bureau data to serve thin-file and underserved users

• Real-time fraud and anomaly detection systems operating across payments, lending, and cross-border transactions

• RegTech and compliance automation platforms that help institutions adapt to evolving regulatory frameworks efficiently

• Decision-support AI for financial institutions, augmenting human judgment in high-accountability environments rather than replacing it

This category matters because financial trust compounds. Once embedded into a bank, lender, insurer, or payment network, these systems become deeply integrated into operations, making switching costly and adoption durable.

Why This Matters for Emerging & Global Markets

In regions such as India and Africa, financial systems are modernizing in parallel with digital public infrastructure and mobile-first adoption. This creates a unique opportunity to build AI-first financial rails without the burden of deeply entrenched legacy systems.

AI-driven FinTech infrastructure can:

• Expand access to credit, insurance, and financial services

• Reduce fraud and systemic risk in rapidly growing digital economies

• Improve compliance and transparency across fragmented regulatory environments

• Enable cross-border trade and payments with greater efficiency and confidence

Crucially, many of these challenges are globally shared. Solutions built for emerging markets often prove highly relevant in developed economies facing rising fraud, regulatory complexity, and cost pressure.

Arise’s Perspective

At Arise Ventures, we view AI-enabled FinTech infrastructure as a structural investment theme, not a short-term cycle. We are particularly interested in founders who:

• Build deeply embedded financial systems rather than surface-level features

• Understand regulatory complexity and institutional buying cycles

• Design for cross-market scalability from day one

As financial services become increasingly automated and data-driven, the infrastructure that ensures trust, resilience, and intelligent decision-making will define the next generation of FinTech leaders, and this is where Arise continues to focus its attention.

🌍 Africa - The Next Frontier of Innovation & Collaboration

Africa’s startup ecosystem is gaining sustained global attention not as a future promise, but as a present-day growth engine. Across key markets, we are seeing rapid ecosystem maturation driven by a combination of expanding human capital, improving digital infrastructure, and a new generation of founders building solutions rooted in real economic demand. Investment activity across the continent has accelerated, supported by both strong local innovation and increasing international capital flows responding to clear market signals.

At Arise Ventures, we do not view Africa as an “untapped” or speculative market. We see it as a region where markets are forming quickly, customer needs are well-defined, and technology adoption can leapfrog legacy systems. This creates a compelling environment for scalable, defensible businesses, particularly those built with enterprise and infrastructure use cases at the core.

We are particularly interested in opportunities across:

• Enterprise technology, where businesses are actively seeking productivity, compliance, and operational intelligence solutions

• Digital and physical infrastructure, including data, logistics, energy, and industrial systems that underpin economic growth

• Fintech and payments, especially platforms enabling inclusion, cross-border trade, and SME growth

• Healthcare and AI-driven operational analytics, where efficiency, access, and quality improvements have immediate impact

We believe Africa also presents a strong opportunity for cross-market companies, founders building in Africa with relevance to India, the US, and other emerging or global markets. This includes startups leveraging AI, data, and platform models that can scale across similar structural environments.

As part of this thesis, Arise is actively exploring collaboration with African founders, ecosystem builders, accelerators, and local partners who bring deep on-the-ground insight and long-term market commitment. We are open to partnerships that combine local execution strength with global market access, strategic capital, and go-to-market support.

If you are building with global ambition and regional depth, we would welcome the opportunity to explore how Arise can partner in scaling your impact.

⭐ Portfolio Company Spotlight - Assiduus Global

Assiduus Global Inc. is redefining how brands scale in the digital age. As a leading AI-powered cross-border e-commerce accelerator, Assiduus enables D2C brands to launch, scale, and grow across global marketplaces with speed and operational precision, removing traditional barriers that have long limited international expansion.

What Assiduus Does

Assiduus provides end-to-end e-commerce solutions that support every stage of a brand’s global journey , from visibility and customer acquisition to inventory management and fulfillment. By combining AI-driven analytics, cross-border distribution infrastructure, and deep marketplace expertise, Assiduus simplifies complexity and accelerates growth for brands selling across multiple regions.

Growth & Impact

• Founded in 2018 by Somdutta Singh, Assiduus has built a technology-driven platform that empowers brands to compete on the global stage without needing heavy upfront investments in infrastructure.

• The company’s solutions cover 25+ marketplaces and 20+ countries, helping brands understand consumers, optimize inventory, and scale profitably across diverse regions.

• It has helped generate over $1 billion in revenue for client brands, managing tens of thousands of daily product sales across major global platforms.

Strategic Backing & Funding

Assiduus has attracted support from top investors across its growth journey, including StrongHer Ventures, as well as strategic participants like Carlos Cashman (founder of Thrasio) and Rajan Navani (JetLine Group). In its Series A round, the company raised $15 million to deepen its global footprint and advance its technology, a testament to the strength of its business model and international ambitions.

Expansion & Vision

Assiduus continues to expand into new regions, including recent moves into South America, where the e-commerce market is rapidly growing. This geographic diversification aligns with Assiduus’ mission to make global scaling more accessible for brands everywhere, especially those ready to tap high-potential markets beyond North America, Europe and Asia.

Why It Matters

Assiduus exemplifies the kind of global business infrastructure innovation Arise Ventures aims to support, combining technology, data intelligence, and operational excellence to unlock new markets for ambitious founders. Its success underscores the strategic potential of AI-enabled platforms that solve real pain points for today’s global brands.

✍️ A Note from Ankita Vashistha

Dear Arise community,

As we move into this next chapter of innovation, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: the future of venture is not about chasing momentum, but about building systems that last.

Across fintech, enterprise software, and AI, we are seeing a decisive shift. The most compelling companies are no longer focused solely on speed or scale, but on trust, resilience, and intelligent execution. In financial services especially, AI is moving from experimentation to the core, shaping how risk is assessed, how capital flows, and how institutions make decisions at scale.

At Arise Ventures, our focus remains disciplined and global. We back founders who understand the complexity of the markets they operate in and are willing to build through it founders who see regulation as a design constraint, not a barrier, and who approach AI as infrastructure rather than novelty.

We are equally excited by the opportunity emerging across markets like India and Africa, where financial systems are modernizing rapidly and innovation can leapfrog legacy constraints. These regions are not just consumers of financial technology they are becoming sources of globally relevant solutions.

As investors, our role goes beyond capital. We aim to be long-term partners to founders who are building with clarity, courage, and conviction. The work is not easy, but the impact is meaningful and enduring.

Thank you for being part of the Arise journey. We look forward to continuing to build, learn, and scale together.

Warm regards,
Ankita Vashistha
Founder & Managing Partner, Arise Ventures

As we close out 2025, we take a moment to reflect on the incredible journey we’ve had at Arise Ventures. This year has been one of growth, innovation, and momentum, not just for us, but for the entire ecosystem of founders, partners, and experts we’re proud to work with.

At a Glance: A Year of Impactful Milestones

1. Ankita Vashistha Featured by Air India

We are thrilled to share that Ankita Vashistha was featured in Air India’s special August issue, celebrating India’s global leaders on the occasion of India’s 78th Independence Day. The issue highlighted influential leaders who are shaping the nation’s future on the world stage, and Ankita was recognized for her pioneering work in venture capital and her passion for empowering women founders through StrongHer.

2. Arise Ventures Partners with SAP and Deloitte to Accelerate Founders

This year, Arise Ventures partnered with SAP and Deloitte to accelerate the growth of enterprise startups in consumer tech, enterprise infrastructure, healthcare, and climate. Through this collaboration, founders are connecting with global clients, refining their product-market fit, and driving enterprise adoption with the support of these global leaders. The cohort has already begun to make significant strides in scaling impactful solutions in the enterprise tech space.

3. Madhya Pradesh Global Investor Summit 2025

Ankita had the honor of speaking at the Madhya Pradesh Global Investor Summit 2025 during her first visit to Indore and Bhopal. She was deeply impressed by the scale and growth of the state. The summit highlighted Madhya Pradesh’s growing potential, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Dr. Mohan Yadav unveiling key policies focused on startups, semiconductors, drone technology, renewable energy, GCCs, and tourism. These developments are creating a strong foundation for future investment and innovation in the state.

4. United Nations @AI for Good Innovation Factory Pitching Session

On November 11, Ankita Vashistha took part as a speaker at the United Nations @AI for Good Innovation Factory pitching session, a leading platform showcasing startups using AI to address global challenges. Alongside fellow judges Joseph K. Hopkins, Aleix Valls, Moojan Asghari, and Jürgen Galler, Ankita helped evaluate bold, scalable ideas with the potential to make a real global impact.

Arise Ventures: A Year of Change and Consolidation

The Arise Ventures Rebrand

The 2025 rebrand of Arise Ventures was not about redefining who we are. It was about expressing, with greater precision, what has always guided our work.

From the beginning, our approach has been anchored in backing serious builders solving real problems. The rebrand simply brought greater clarity and consistency to how that conviction shows up across our platform - Arise Ventures and StrongHer.

2025 Impact Snapshot

A data-led view of Arise Ventures impact this year, capturing our growing founder network, portfolio companies, and ecosystem-wide outcomes.

Portfolio Milestones

This year also delivered defining moments across our portfolio.

• JoulestoWatts achieved a landmark 40x exit, a defining outcome for the Indian tech ecosystem and a powerful validation of women-led innovation under founder Priti Sawant.

  

• We made a strategic investment in P-TAL, aligning with our conviction in manufacturing-led, globally competitive Indian brands built on quality, depth, and execution.

• Assiduus Global has had a defining growth journey, partnering with industry leaders like Nike, Timex, and Dabur, while powering more than 180 brands worldwide. The momentum culminated in being ranked #57 on the Financial Times America’s Fastest-Growing Companies 2025 and a moment of pride with Assiduus featured on the Nasdaq Times Square tower.

  

• Meolaa successfully raised $6 million in its pre-series A round, to fuel its next phase of aggressive growth. This strategic funding will be utilized to scale its core operations and further strengthen its competitive position in the rapidly expanding consumer tech market. The capital injection also enables the brand to enhance its platform capabilities as it seeks to capture a larger share of the global consumption pull.

These milestones represent not just financial outcomes, but proof that disciplined building compounds.

The Arise Bulletin

This archive curates key media features, thought leadership pieces, and market-shaping milestones that demonstrate how Arise Ventures is redefining the cross-border investment landscape. Witness the evolution of our thesis, from early insights to headline-making impact.

Read Article

• Arise Ventures celebrates a record 40x exit with JoulestoWatts and founder Priti Sawant, a defining win for India’s tech sector that proves the massive potential of women-led innovation.

Read Here

• In Financial Express – Brand Wagon, Ankita reflects on what truly drives venture success in India, highlighting the critical role of founder resilience.

• In Entrepreneur India, Ankita reflects on the rising importance of family offices in India’s startup ecosystem and their role in enabling sustainable, long-term venture growth.

Reports: Key Insights and Impactful Milestones

2025 has been a year of insightful reporting and thought leadership at Arise Ventures. As part of our commitment to transparency and knowledge-sharing, we are proud to present the following key reports that reflect our progress, impact, and vision for the future:

StrongHer 100 Report 2025: 3rd Edition

Read Here

In our third edition of the StrongHer 100 Report, we spotlight 100 women who are changing the world across sectors. These women leaders are shaping industries from technology and finance to healthcare and climate change, and this report serves as a testament to the power of women in leadership. Through their innovation and dedication, they are driving real change in their communities and beyond.

Our Impact Report

Read Here

Our Impact Report 2025 highlights the tangible outcomes from our investments and initiatives over the year. This report emphasizes the positive social, economic, and environmental impact created by Arise Ventures and our portfolio companies. From creating high-quality jobs to empowering women founders, this report demonstrates how we are actively contributing to a more inclusive and sustainable future.

Deep Tech Report

Read Here

The Report provides an in-depth analysis of the DeepTech landscape and our approach to investing in next-gen technologies. This report explores the growth drivers, challenges, and opportunities in industries such as AI, semiconductors, space tech, and biotech. We share insights into the transformational shifts happening within the sector and how Arise Ventures is uniquely positioned to back breakthrough innovations that have the potential to shape entire industries and redefine global economies.

Arise X: Accelerating Bold Founders Through Curated, Expert-Led Cohorts

2025 was a landmark year for our accelerator and community programs:

Climate Change Innovators Cohort (CCIC)

We successfully closed the CCIC Cohort, supporting 15 climate-first startups, half of which are women-led. This cohort helped founders refine their solutions, accelerate go-to-market strategies, and build proof points for climate impact and scalable business models.

Arise Ventures x SAP x Deloitte Cohort

Our current cohort with SAP and Deloitte is active, focusing on B2B enterprise startups in enterprise infrastructure, healthcare, consumer tech and climate. With this strategic enterprise partnership, this cohort is enabling founders to connect with global clients, refine product market fit, and accelerate enterprise adoption.

Enterprise AI Cohort 2026

We are launching the Enterprise AI Cohort 2026, a 12-week hybrid accelerator for startups building the next generation of AI-powered solutions, data, infrastructure, DevOps, and security solutions for enterprise users. This program will empower founders to scale their AI solutions and build strong partnerships with key industry players globally.

Last chance to Apply for the cohort, Interested? Click Below

Apply Now

🔮 A Look Ahead: Before the Noise Catches Up

The quiet signals already in motion, and how they point to a 2026 defined by discipline, applied technology, and companies built to last.

Where Growth Will Concentrate

Growth in 2026 will favour areas tied closely to real operational needs, as enterprises prioritise technologies that strengthen core workflows, reduce execution risk, and deliver sustained, measurable value over time.

• Enterprise infrastructure and workflow systems embedded at the core of daily operations

• Applied AI focused on decision support, cost reduction, and reliability

• Compliance, risk, and data-governance platforms driven by regulatory and enterprise pressure

• Climate-linked technologies centred on efficiency, measurement, and optimisation rather than narrative

🔮 Our Thesis Ahead

We believe the next generation of enduring companies will be built by bold founders, those who combine conviction with the ability to scale real products that matter.

Our focus is deliberate and forward-looking.

Backing Bold Founders, Built to Scale

We back founders building scalable solutions and products with clear paths to sustainable growth.

• Product-led businesses designed to scale globally

• Strong execution, unit economics, and operational depth

• Founders who balance ambition with discipline

Deeptech That Powers the Next Era

We are going deeper into deeptech that underpins the real economy - foundational technologies that enable scale, efficiency, and resilience across industries.

• Enterprise infrastructure & AI driving automation, intelligence, and reliability

• Semiconductors and hardware-led innovation powering next-gen compute and systems

• Applied AI platforms built for real-world deployment, trust, and performance

• Healthcare as a core application area, enabling access, efficiency, and improved outcomes at scale

This is deeptech designed not just to impress - but to operate, endure, and compound value.

Consumer × Wellness: Everyday Health, Built with Trust

We actively back brands at the intersection of consumer, wellness, and health, where daily habits shape long-term outcomes.

• Women’s health across life stages, built with empathy and science

• Wellness brands grounded in data, efficacy, and credibility

• Products that integrate seamlessly into everyday life

• Businesses where trust compounds alongside growth

StrongHer: Building the Women-Led Ecosystem

StrongHer is a core pillar of our ecosystem strategy and Arise Ventures.

• Growing a strong women founder community through focused programs, cohorts, and events

• Increasing our focus on women’s health innovation across technology, care, and consumer products

• Creating a global network of women leaders - founders, operators, investors, and partners - who scale together

Our View Going Forward

As these shifts take hold, our focus remains on backing founders and technologies built for longevity, operational relevance, and real-world impact across cycles.

• Backing founders solving real problems with conviction

• Supporting ideas as they mature into operational capability

• Enabling enterprises to adopt technology that delivers real, operating value

The future rarely announces itself early.
It shows up first as a pattern.

We’re paying attention.

As the year comes to a close, Christmas offers us a rare and meaningful pause, a moment to reflect on why we build, invest, and show up every day.

This year reaffirmed something quietly powerful: progress doesn’t always arrive with fanfare. More often, it is steady, intentional, and built over time. It lives in thoughtful decisions, courageous pivots, and founders who stayed the course even when outcomes were uncertain.

At Arise Ventures, we’ve been deeply inspired by the builders we work alongside. Founders who are not chasing noise but solving real problems. Teams who are choosing long-term value over short-term validation. We’ve seen a renewed focus on fundamentals like trust, resilience, execution, and real-world impact, and that gives us immense optimism.

Because the future will be shaped not by the loudest ideas, but by the most enduring ones. By companies that understand technology’s true power lies in its ability to work in the real world, under real constraints, for real people.

Christmas is also a time for gratitude. We are grateful to the founders who placed their trust in us early. To the partners who pushed our thinking and sharpened our perspective. To mentors, operators, and ecosystem builders who showed up with generosity, honesty, and intent. And to a broader community that continues to believe in building things that truly last.

As we look ahead, our commitment remains clear and energised: backing founders with conviction, helping ideas evolve from concept to capability, and enabling enterprises to adopt technology that delivers real, operating value.

We hope this season gives you the space to rest, reflect, and step into the year ahead with renewed clarity and purpose.

From all of us at Arise Ventures,

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a bright, thoughtful start to the year ahead 🎄✨

Welcome to this month’s edition of the Arise Ventures newsletter! As we move into the final month of the year, we are thrilled to share incredible stories, key updates, and breakthroughs from our growing ecosystem of innovative entrepreneurs. From milestone exits to prestigious partnerships, Arise Ventures continues to back bold founders on their journey to global success.

Arise Ventures Impact Report 2025: Driving Inclusive Innovation and Global Change

At Arise Ventures, our mission is to fuel transformative businesses that create lasting impact. Our Impact Report 2025 captures the tangible outcomes from our investments, highlighting how we continue to drive positive social, environmental, and economic change.

Read Impact Report

Key Takeaways:

• Our Vision & Mission: We back bold founders who are pushing boundaries in Healthcare, Enterprise AI, Consumer, and Climate sectors, with a focus on inclusive, sustainable growth.

• Women Empowerment: Through StrongHer, we aim to empower 1 million women by 2030. Our portfolio is 75% women-led, and we provide access to capital, mentorship, and global networks to help women founders succeed.

• Global Impact: With operations in North America, Asia, and Europe, we support startups that address systemic gaps and create equitable opportunities worldwide.

• Job Creation & Economic Growth: Our portfolio companies have created over 350,000 jobs, expanding economic opportunities in underserved regions.

• Sustainability Focus: We prioritize investments in clean tech, renewable energy, and circular economy models, helping to drive decarbonization and create a sustainable future.

Our Future Goals:

• Build a leading AI-first portfolio by backing category-defining startups across enterprise, health, climate, and consumer tech.

• Support 100+ early-stage startups with capital, hands-on mentorship, global expert networks, and programs like AriseX, creating a strong global platform and community.

• Accelerate 1 million women by 2030 through our investments and portfolio companies, powered by our global platform, fund, and community for women – StrongHer.

• Champion climate-positive and gender-smart ventures that collectively create 100,000+ high-quality jobs and drive inclusive, sustainable growth.

Ankita Vashistha at E2E Gala Dinner, London

Ankita’s reflections from the E2E Gala Dinner in London were filled with energy and inspiration. The event brought together a dynamic mix of entrepreneurs, investors, and thought leaders from diverse industries across the UK. Ankita’s conversations with industry veterans reaffirmed the power of networks in driving business success. The evening also featured a fireside chat with the founder of CityFibre and founder of E2E - Shalini Khemka, who shared his journey of turning a distressed company into a billion-dollar success.

Google Accelerator AI Demo Day: Transforming Industries

Arise Ventures had the opportunity to attend the Google Accelerator AI Demo Day, where 20 startups presented their cutting-edge AI-driven solutions, across healthcare, fintech, enterprise tech, and more. From groundbreaking tools improving patient outcomes to intelligent platforms reshaping financial services and workflow automation, the demos highlighted how rapidly AI is moving from experimentation to real-world impact. The event underlined Google’s role in nurturing this ecosystem and the tremendous potential of AI-driven innovation to transform industries at global scale.

Empowering Startups at the United Nations AI for Good Innovation Factory

Ankita served as a speaker and judge at the AI for Good Innovation Factory pitching session. The AI for Good Innovation Factory is the United Nations’ leading platform that showcases promising startups using AI to solve global challenges. Alongside experts like Joseph K. Hopkins, Aleix Valls, Moojan Asghari, and Jürgen Galler, Ankita supported bold ideas that have the potential to scale and create a global impact. Arise Ventures continues to focus on AI as a transformative force for good, backing startups that leverage technology to drive meaningful social and environmental change.

📰 Features & Highlights: Ankita’s Thought Leadership

This month brought a powerful set of milestones for Arise Ventures, with global recognition, industry thought leadership, and groundbreaking founder achievements taking center stage. From major exits to international platforms, these highlights capture the momentum, vision, and influence shaping our work across the venture ecosystem. Below is a roundup of the key moments that defined the month.

• Record 40x Exit: Saha Fund & JoulestoWatts- A major highlight this month was the announcement of a 40x exit from JoulestoWatts Business Solutions, a portfolio company of our second fund. This milestone underscores the strength of backing exceptional women founders and validates Arise Ventures’ long-standing thesis that women-led companies deliver measurable, outsized value. The journey with founder Priti Sawant reflects disciplined execution, deep sector expertise, and the power of conviction-led investing. The exit stands as one of the most significant outcomes in India’s GCC and technology landscape.

Read Article

• Arise Ventures Profiled by Entrepreneur Media India- Arise Ventures and our founder, Ankita Vashistha were featured by Entrepreneur Media India, highlighting the fund’s thesis of backing early-stage, bold founders across Enterprise AI, Healthtech, and ConsumerTech. The feature emphasized Arise Ventures’ focus on shaping strategy and driving product-market fit at the seed to Series A stages. With a target fund size of INR 500 Crore and a portfolio of more than 50 companies across three funds, Arise Ventures continues to position itself at the forefront of AI infrastructure and digital innovation

  

  Read Article

• Entrepreneur India Feature on Family Offices- Ankita was featured in Entrepreneur India for her insights on the evolving role of family offices in India’s venture landscape. The discussion highlighted how family offices are increasingly supporting high-impact, technology-driven ventures and are emerging as influential players in shaping India’s startup ecosystem. Their long-term capital orientation and commitment to sustainable innovation make them essential partners in the growth of early-stage startups.

  

  ---

  🌸 A High-Conviction Sector to Watch

  

  For decades, women’s health sat at the margins of healthcare innovation. Not because the problems were small, but because the industry was never designed with women’s bodies, experiences, or clinical pathways at its center. That imbalance is finally shifting. Around the world, FemTech is emerging as one of the most meaningful, under-penetrated, and high-impact healthcare opportunities.

  What makes this moment different is that the innovation is no longer limited to wellness products or cycle trackers. FemTech today spans clinical diagnostics, metabolic and hormonal health, menopause care, fertility optimization, AI-led health monitoring, and evidence-backed therapeutics. In other words, it is becoming a full-stack healthcare category built around longitudinal outcomes rather than point solutions.

  Why FemTech is Reaching an Inflection Point

  

  Several forces are converging to make women’s health a high-conviction investment area:

  • Women drive a majority of household healthcare decisions and spending.

  • Key areas like PCOS, thyroid disorders, perimenopause, reproductive health, and hormonal imbalance have seen minimal innovation for decades.

  • Digital health adoption has streamlined diagnostics, remote monitoring, and personalized care pathways.

  • AI and wearable tech are enabling more accurate, earlier detection and individualized treatment.

  These forces create a market where unmet needs are large, adoption is fast, and solutions have a direct measurable impact on quality of life, productivity, and long-term health outcomes.

  What the Strongest FemTech Companies Are Building

  The next generation of FemTech companies is tackling systemic issues, not surface-level symptoms. They are creating:

  • AI-driven diagnostic pathways for hormonal and metabolic disorders.

  • Continuous biomarker monitoring through wearables and at-home devices.

  • Evidence-led menopause and reproductive health therapeutics.

  • Integrated care models combining telemedicine, lab testing, coaching, and long-term treatment plans.

  These solutions are not “nice to have.” They directly improve clinical markers, reduce healthcare costs, and close long-standing diagnostic gaps. That combination of medical relevance and scalable delivery creates exceptional long-term defensibility.

  Why India Is Uniquely Positioned to Lead This Wave

  India’s FemTech opportunity is not simply driven by market size. It is driven by deep structural need. The country faces one of the world’s highest rates of PCOS and thyroid disorders, rising infertility challenges, widespread iron deficiency, and limited access to specialized women’s health diagnostics. At the same time, digital-health adoption is soaring, making India one of the most fertile environments for rapid, scalable FemTech deployment.

  Unlike past technology waves where India primarily adopted global innovation, FemTech is a domain where India can build, lead, and export expertise.

  Where the Real Opportunity Lies: Women’s Health Data

  The most valuable shift in FemTech will come from better data. Women’s clinical data has historically been incomplete, under-researched, or generalized from male-centric studies. The companies that succeed long term will be those that build:

  • Rich longitudinal datasets specific to women’s physiology

  • AI models that detect patterns traditional healthcare has long missed

  • Preventive algorithms that intervene early

  • Personalized care journeys with measurable outcomes

  This is where massive enterprise value will be created, and where global healthcare systems are already starting to pay attention.

  What This Means for Investors

  FemTech is not a niche category or a wellness trend. It is a structural healthcare correction. The companies emerging today are creating durable, compounding value at the intersection of digital health, AI, community-driven adoption, and preventive care. They are solving the needs of the most underserved demographic in healthcare while tapping into one of the fastest-growing global markets.

  
  This is also why companies like Rootless stand out. They are not simply offering a nutritional product. They are addressing core issues like iron deficiency, hormonal imbalance, and gut health through an integrated scientific and behavioural framework. It reflects the direction in which this entire sector is moving deeper, more systemic, and far more clinically relevant.

  
  For Arise Ventures, FemTech is not just a sector to watch. It is a category where conviction pays off. As women-led innovation accelerates and global awareness expands, FemTech is set to become one of the most meaningful and scalable fronts in modern healthcare.

  ---

  As we wrap up this month, we are energised by the momentum across our ecosystem and the clarity of the opportunities ahead. From global recognition to breakthrough founder achievements and emerging sectors like FemTech, it’s clear that innovation is accelerating across every front. At Arise Ventures, we remain committed to backing bold ideas, supporting transformative leaders, and shaping the future of technology and inclusive growth. Here’s to another month of building, learning, and investing with purpose.

  ---

  Building in Enterprise AI and gearing up for global expansion? We’re partnering with founders to fine-tune product strategy, accelerate go-to-market efforts, and connect with key enterprise clients. Let’s Connect.

  Know More

  ---

  Thanks for reading Arise Threads by Arise Ventures! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

💡 Our Investment in P-TAL: Heritage Meets Global Scale

We are delighted to announce our investment in P-TAL (Punjab Thathera Art Legacy), a purpose-driven brand that is successfully reviving the traditional craft of the Thathera community - India’s only UNESCO-listed craft form. P-TAL produces premium, health-aware copper, brass, and bronze kitchenware, combining centuries-old artisan skills with modern design and global positioning.

• A Mission-Driven Brand: P-TAL works directly with artisan communities to revive a fading craft and significantly improve their livelihoods.

• Meaningful Scale: The company has achieved impressive growth, backed by recent funding rounds.

• Global Ambition: Global expansion is now fully underway, with a growing share of customers and exports in overseas markets.

Our investment aligns with our strategy at Arise Ventures to back founders who can marry mission, craftsmanship, and global market-scale execution. We believe that brands embedding heritage, sustainability, and quality are destined to become global category leaders. We will support P-TAL in its expansion, brand building, supply chain scaling, and international go-to-market execution.

📰 Features & Highlights: Ankita’s Thought Leadership

Ankita Vashistha, Founder & Managing Partner, continues to contribute bold thinking and insight across the global startup ecosystem this month. We encourage you to read or revisit these key signals we are acting on at Arise:

• Founder Resilience: In Financial Express - Brand Wagon, Ankita shares her reflections on what differentiates venture success in India and the importance of founder resilience.

Read Article

• Capital Market Shifts: In LiveMint, she discusses the shifting behaviour of family offices and early-stage VCs, analyzing how this impacts current deal dynamics across the market.

  

Read Article

• Promoter Mindset: In The Hindu Business Line, she addresses the strategic move by startup founders who are reclaiming the promoter tag ahead of IPOs to signal long-term commitment and governance maturity.

  

Read Article

• Endurance of “Sweat Tech”: In Outlook Business, Ankita explores how India’s fitness-tech sector is evolving despite the broader capital freeze - a compelling case study in market endurance.

  

  Read Article

• HealthTech Pivot: In a separate LiveMint piece, she examines how VCs are focusing on AI-specialty startups as the next wave of value creation in the health-tech sector.

  

  Read Article

• Materials Innovation & Strategic Independence: In The Hindu Business Line (Emerging Entrepreneurs), Ankita highlights the rise of deep-tech ventures developing rare-earth-free magnets, a critical step toward reducing India’s reliance on foreign supply chains. The piece underscores how material science startups are pushing from research labs into commercial scale, opening the door for industrial innovation and self-reliance in advanced manufacturing.

  

  Read Article

Ankita’s commentary continues to elevate the discourse around India’s deep-tech and enterprise opportunity, spanning macro capital flows, founder mindset shifts, and category creation.

🌱 A Growing Investment Area to Watch:

Enterprise AI in Industrial & Infrastructure Tech

The most meaningful transformation in technology right now is happening away from consumer screens. It is happening in places most people never see inside factories, power substations, chemical plants, ports, rail networks, logistics yards, data centers and aerospace assembly lines. These are environments that have historically run on legacy systems, manual processes, and institutional memory. Now they are finally entering a stage where data is standardized enough, infrastructure is stable enough, and leadership is ambitious enough to adopt AI at scale.

This is where Enterprise AI becomes a hard value driver.
Not entertainment. Not chatbots.
But efficiency, uptime, throughput, precision and safety.

We are witnessing:

• Predictive maintenance replacing reactive maintenance

• Vision systems improving quality control and reducing defect rates

• Sensor-driven monitoring reducing energy leaks and emissions

• Workflow optimization improving shift scheduling and cost per unit

These are not soft outcomes. They show up in P&L, output, and risk profiles. Which is why adoption here tends to be slow but irreversible. Once industrial AI works, it becomes the new baseline.

India sits in a uniquely advantageous position in this shift.

We have:

1. One of the largest industrial manufacturing footprints globally

2. A national mandate for infrastructure expansion and modernization

3. A deep bench of engineering and software talent

4. Cost structures that enable experimentation and iterative deployment

Unlike the consumer internet wave, where India mostly adopted global technologies, this is a wave where India can build and export expertise.

However, the truth is that Enterprise AI at industrial scale is not software alone.
It is software, hardware and process intelligence.

This brings us directly to the semiconductor and edge computing layer.

Industrial environments require:

• Low-power, high-reliability chips that can run inference at the edge

• Hardware tailored to harsh temperatures, vibration, and precision timing requirements

• Specialized accelerators that can operate without perfect connectivity or cloud dependence

Winning here is not about chasing the lowest nanometer process or trying to replicate Taiwan’s fabrication advantage. India’s edge is systems-level design, embedded intelligence, and architectural thinking. The value is in how silicon, sensing, data, and operational workflows are integrated into a unified system.

And here is the real bottleneck:
Talent.
Not generic software talent.
Deep industrial, semiconductor, and systems-engineering talent.

These skills require:

• Lab work, not just lecture notes

• Apprenticeship-style learning, not generic online courses

• Understanding of how factories actually run

• Comfort with messy real-world constraints rather than clean simulation environments

This is why we are closely aligned with companies like Lavorro.

Lavorro is building structured, industry-specific learning journeys for semiconductor, embedded systems, and industrial automation talent. It is not training for employment alone. It is developing technical leadership and hands-on capability that compounds.

If India wants to lead in the industrial-AI era, it must solve the talent equation first.
And Lavorro is one of the rare companies treating talent-building as infrastructure, not as a side service.

This is the kind of ecosystem capacity building that moves entire sectors.
And this is precisely where Arise is placing its attention and strategic investment focus.

Enterprise AI in industrial and infrastructure systems is not a trend.
It is a structural shift in how economies operate.
The opportunity here is durable, compounding and defensible.

✍️ A Note from Ankita Vashistha

Dear Arise community,

2025 has been a defining year for innovation and bold impact. We are moving from early experiments in technology to building systems that truly transform how industries operate. AI, digital infrastructure, and industrial technology are no longer side conversations. They are shaping how businesses grow, compete, and create value.

At Arise Ventures, our focus stays clear. We partner with founders who are building with purpose and precision, who understand their markets, and who are driven by long-term outcomes. We believe bold ideas matter, but execution is what turns them into lasting impact.

We are seeing incredible potential across enterprise software, industrial tech, consumer tech, healthcare, and deep hardware. These are sectors where India’s talent and global demand meet, and where innovation has the power to solve real problems at scale.

As we look ahead, our goal remains the same. To back founders who are shaping the future with courage, clarity, and commitment. Together with our LPs and partners, we will continue to build ventures that make bold ideas real and impactful.

Warm regards,

Ankita Vashistha
Founder & Managing Partner, Arise Ventures

Building in Enterprise AI and preparing to scale globally? We’re working with founders like you to refine product strategy, accelerate GTM, and connect with enterprise clients. Let’s Talk

Click here to know more

Arise Ventures is excited to announce Cohort V of AriseX – our Enterprise AI Go-To-Market Accelerator. We’re looking for AI-first startups building across infrastructure AI, DevOps, cybersecurity, workflow automation, conversational AI, and enterprise-grade automation.

This 12-week hybrid program is designed to help you sharpen your go-to-market strategy, access enterprise clients, and scale globally with speed and precision.

🎯 Program Focus
Go-to-market acceleration with global enterprise clients 🌏
Deep dives into next-gen enterprise AI:
▪ Infrastructure & DevOps
▪ Workflow Automation
▪ Cybersecurity & Threat Intelligence
▪ Conversational & Decision Intelligence

📚What You’ll Get
✅ Masterclasses by enterprise CXOs and AI leaders
✅ 1:1 strategy coaching with GTM experts
✅ Hands-on GTM playbook tailored to your ICP
✅ Curated connects for pilots and partnerships
✅ In-person sprints in India and the U.S.
✅ Access to VCs, global advisors, and channel partners

We’re seeking high-growth B2B startups with:
✅ $150K+ ARR or equivalent revenue
✅ Live product with enterprise traction
✅ Strong technical team solving critical CIO/CISO problems

Only the most innovative will be selected. 🚀

APPLY NOW

Across 12 dynamic weeks, startups will embark on a high-impact journey, blending cutting-edge GTM strategy with real-world execution. The program provides an insider's view into scaling with enterprise AI clients and a deep dive into global market sizing, TAM, and vision alignment. Targeted workshops will equip you with the tools for achieving product-market fit, developing robust pricing models, and mastering the art of fundraising, storytelling, all geared towards scaling up for international success.

Our Expert & Corporate Led Sessions provide exclusive insights from top industry leaders and experts. Participants will gain a deep understanding of the latest trends, innovative technologies, and market dynamics shaping the sector. These sessions offer valuable knowledge on future projections and potential disruptions, helping attendees stay ahead.

Don't miss out, Apply Now!
LAST DATE TO APPLY: 2OTH AUGUST

Apply Here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSehb5Ob59jD4nQdvasXygLMP_hhM6OQifEERhTo7XZwiri47A/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=114333277653852344934

“AI innovation is moving fast - but real impact comes when startups can scale with the right enterprise partners. At Arise, we’re bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI and global enterprise needs by giving startups not just capital, but focused go-to-market support, deep networks, and strategic guidance to land and expand with the right customers.”

~Ankita Vashistha
Founder & Managing Partner, Arise Ventures

Curious about the industry leaders and experts who will be guiding our startups? Subscribe to our updates for exclusive insights into our incredible mentor and speaker lineup!

For years, health insurance in India was a passive product. You bought it, filed it away, and forgot it until the day something went wrong.

That’s when the scramble began. Searching for hospital bills. Digging up policy numbers. Calling the TPA hotline. Hoping the fine print wouldn’t betray you.

It was a system built for risk. Not for relevance. But that is changing.

Today, your insurer wants to nudge you before the symptoms show up. They want to reward your morning walks, not just reimburse hospital stays. They are becoming a part of your health stack, one small prompt at a time.

This is not insurance trying to keep up with the times. This is healthcare evolving to behave like a modern product.

The Insurance Industry by the Numbers

To understand where this is headed, it helps to look at where we are:

• ₹1.1 lakh crore, or approximately 13.2 billion dollars, in health insurance premiums were collected in FY23 (IRDAI)

• Over 60 crore Indians are now covered under some form of health plan

• Health insurance is growing at 22 percent year-on-year, the fastest among all insurance verticals

But there is a catch:

• More than 80 percent of individual policies still only cover hospitalization

• Fewer than 7 percent include any form of preventive, outpatient, or wellness services

• Around 25 percent of policies see zero claims filed during their term

This is no longer just a penetration problem. It is a participation problem.

From Emergency Cover to Everyday Product

Health insurance today is still largely reactive. It steps in when things go wrong. It does not prevent or predict. It only pays out, and often with delay.

But three shifts are transforming the model:

• Policies now include wellness features such as fitness tracking, nutrition coaching, and mental health support

• Claims are moving online, with real-time, paperless processing becoming the norm

• Premiums are starting to reflect daily habits, from steps walked to sleep patterns

Health insurance is no longer a folder in your drawer. It is becoming a feedback loop.

Why This Shift Is Happening Now

This transformation is being driven by four powerful forces that are all compounding each other.

Healthcare costs are rising fast
With medical inflation around 14 percent, insurers are struggling to manage late-stage claims. Prevention is now not just good practice. It is financial necessity.

Data is finally actionable
With health IDs, wearable adoption, and diagnostics APIs, insurers are gaining context, not just claims history. They are seeing risk instead of guessing it.

The buyer has changed
Gen Z and millennial customers expect more than paperwork. They want insurance to be digital, proactive, and engaging. They want benefits before emergencies.

Infrastructure is maturing
India’s digital health backbone, through APIs, KYC frameworks, and regulatory sandboxes, makes it possible for insurers to plug into labs, pharmacies, and telehealth platforms.

This is no longer theoretical. This is execution time.

What Is Changing Across the System

This is not the work of a single disruptor. It is a coordinated shift across regulators, insurers, hospitals, and users. Here is how:

• Wellness is becoming standard
  Health checkups, virtual consults, and diagnostics are being built into plans not as perks but as base features.

• Digital claims are becoming the norm
  Paperless claims, hospital integrations, and faster approvals are reshaping expectations.

• Consumers are becoming savvier
  Mobile-first platforms and financial content are helping people compare, question, and understand what they are actually buying.

• Healthy behavior is being rewarded
  Whether it is steps walked, tests scheduled, or coaching completed, the ecosystem is quietly incentivizing better choices.

This is not a top-down overhaul. It is the industry adapting to how people already want to live.

What Health Insurance Looks Like Now

The product is being redesigned around participation, not just protection. A few key design shifts are defining this new era:

• Gamification
  Walk 8000 steps and get cashback. Log your meals and earn points.

• Preventive-first coverage
  Plans now include screenings, regular checkups, and personalized health nudges.

• Integrated health journeys
  Your insurance login becomes a hub where you can book labs, consult doctors, track wellness, and file claims.

• Dynamic underwriting
  Your habits, including movement, nutrition, and sleep, now influence your premium.

It is no longer just a promise to pay. It is a system that learns, adapts, and responds.

Why Investors Should Care

This category is entering its breakout phase, and the fundamentals are strong:

• Predictable and recurring revenue

• Data-rich and behavior-driven user profiles

• Natural expansion into pharmacy, diagnostics, credit, and fitness

• Strong exit potential through traditional insurers, healthtech platforms, and neobanks

• High defensibility once engagement loops and data are in place

Most importantly, this is category creation. The winners will not just offer the lowest premium. They will build the deepest relationships.

Where It Is Headed

We see three major directions defining the future of insurance in India:

• Embedded in daily life
  You will not buy insurance. It will be built into your fitness app, your digital wallet, or your workplace tools.

• Behavior-based pricing
  Premiums will reflect your real-life habits. Wellness will be rewarded in real financial terms.

• A health operating system
  Your insurer will become the layer that connects diagnostics, prescriptions, appointments, and cashless services across providers.

Insurance is no longer something you file away. It is becoming something you live with.

Coming Up Next

We will explore how real-time health scores could soon unlock new financial tools, from micro-credit to dynamic insurance-linked loans.

We will also feature the builders behind this shift, the founders working not on glossy apps but on deep integrations shaping the future of health and finance.

Stay tuned.

In the 1990s, health was what you did when things went wrong.

Today, health is something you check before you feel anything at all.

You wake up and glance at your recovery score.
You sip electrolytes before your body asks for them.
You track blood sugar not for diabetes—but for dopamine.
You scan your mood, your movement, your meals—daily.

India’s first device-native generation isn’t reacting to illness.
They’re managing wellbeing like a dashboard.
And that shift—subtle but seismic—is rewriting the business of care.

The Self-Tracking Boom: From Watches to Wearable Labs

This isn’t just about Fitbit anymore. It’s about frictionless, 24/7 biofeedback.

📉 India’s smartwatch shipments dipped ~30% in 2024.
📈 But premium players are surging—because health is the new luxury.

Global + Indian brands reshaping the market:

• Whoop: Originally built for elite athletes, now the quiet badge of burnout-aware CEOs. No screen, just data.

• Ultrahuman Ring: India’s answer to Oura—metabolic tracking, HRV, sleep, movement—all in one titanium ring.

• Gabit Ring: An emerging wellness wearable offering real-time tracking of vital metrics like heart rate, sleep quality, SpO2, and activity—designed for daily health optimization at an accessible price point.

• BoAt Smart Ring: Democratizing biometrics. Affordable, mass-market—and it still gives you SpO2, sleep, and HRV.

• Amazfit Balance, Samsung BioActive Sensors: Bringing ECG and body composition to the wrist—accessible and accurate.

Meanwhile, CGMs (Continuous Glucose Monitors) are escaping the diabetic niche.
Glucose is the new steps—used for biohacking mood, energy, even productivity.

From “Doctor Visit” to Daily Ritual

2000s–2010s: You visited the doctor twice a year. Health was episodic.
2020s: You “check in” with your body twice before breakfast.

From “What’s wrong with me?” to “What’s trending in my biomarkers?”
We’ve shifted from medicine to measurement, from prescriptions to participation.

What’s Fueling the Change?

Four quiet megatrends:

1. Data brings calm. Tracking HRV, cortisol, or glucose makes the invisible feel tangible—and manageable.

2. Curiosity > Crisis. PCOS test kits, testosterone panels, gut biome reports—driven by demand, not diagnosis.

3. Influencers > Institutions. You’ll hear about cycle syncing from an Instagram reel before your OB-GYN mentions it.

4. Micro-control in a macro-chaotic world. You can’t fix air quality, but you can tweak hydration and magnesium levels.

Health Pods: The Next Frontier in Global Micro-Care

As self-care goes spatial, health pods are cropping up around the world:

• Forward Health Pods (US): AI-powered rooms replacing general checkups. You walk in, scan, and walk out with data and insights—no human required.

• HUME Pod (Dubai, London): Biometric booths with instant readings on vitamin levels, stress, skin hydration—designed for gyms, offices, even yachts.

• iCliniq Pods (India, pilot phase): Self-check booths integrated with telehealth and diagnostics in Tier 2 cities—targeting Bharat, not just Bengaluru.

🌍 Expect airports, coworking spaces, and malls to become the next health centers.

How Startups Are Monetizing the Monitoring

New-age health isn’t treatment—it’s subscription to self:

• Wearable-first brands with CGMs, rings, and patches baked into apps

• Subscription diagnostics: Hormone, gut, metabolic panels monthly

• Smart supplements: Doses personalized to what you’re tracking

• Gamified apps: Hydration leaderboards, sleep streaks, breathing rewards

• Coaching-as-a-service: Nutrition and recovery plans bundled with the device

These aren’t just tools—they’re frameworks for continuous engagement.

Why Investors Should Pay Attention

This isn’t a wellness fad—it’s the architecture of next-gen healthcare.

Daily engagement > annual doctor visits
Pricing tolerance: ₹1.5–3K/month = massive margin headroom
Embedded habit loops = low CAC, high LTV
Easy expansion into: Coaching | Supplements | Diagnostics | Pharma APIs
Exit-ready: Strategic interest from hospitals, insurers, fitness giants, even consumer electronics players

We’re backing companies turning awareness into action, and action into architecture.

Up Next
Later this week, we’ll dive into why CGMs are the new status symbol—and why glucose might be the new calorie.

We’ll also feature founders reimagining healthcare access—not through apps or hospitals, but via intelligent pods placed inside offices, stations, and residential hubs.

A quiet revolution in how care is delivered, not just diagnosed.

Stay tuned.

For most of us, healthcare wasn’t a service. It was a reaction.

A fever meant a doctor.

A checkup meant a hospital visit.

And “health” only mattered when something was wrong.

But the world is shifting.

A smartwatch warns you before symptoms surface.

Your phone reminds you to hydrate, walk, sleep, and sometimes even breathe.

And in India’s Tier 2 towns, AI is now guiding doctors who once had only a stethoscope and their gut.

This isn’t just evolution. It’s reinvention.

Healthcare is becoming a continuous, invisible layer—predictive, accessible, and increasingly, personal.

The Old Model Is Breaking

India’s healthcare system was designed for episodic care.

But that model is collapsing under chronic burden and widening access gaps:

• 1 government doctor for every 10,189 people in rural areas (Rural Health Statistics, 2021)

• Significant concentration of specialists in urban India, leaving vast rural areas underserved

• 63% of Indian deaths are now due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, hypertension, and cancer (MoHFW, 2022)

• India ranks 193 out of 195 on the healthcare access sub-indicator of the Global Health Security Index (Lancet, 2021)

The result?

A nation treating symptoms instead of causes—and often too late.

The Silent Rise of India’s HealthTech Stack

What started as telemedicine during the pandemic has now grown into a multi-layered digital ecosystem.

Here’s how the new healthtech stack is taking shape:

1. AI for Clinical Decision Support

• Qure.ai – AI for radiology and TB screening, deployed in 90+ countries

• HealthPlix – EMR with built-in AI recommendations, adopted by thousands of doctors

• AarogyaAI – Genomic AI platform for rapid TB drug resistance diagnostics

2. Remote Monitoring & Preventive Diagnostics

• Dozee – Contactless vitals tracking, installed in 323+ hospitals (as of March 2022)

• Innovators like HealthifyMe – leveraging AI for chronic disease management and preventive health

• BeatO – Smart glucometers for diabetes care, reaching a significant user base

3. D2C Wellness & Mental Health

• Tata 1mg, PharmEasy – Diagnostics, e-pharmacy, e-consults in one place

• Wysa, Lissun – AI mental health platforms gaining substantial traction

• Curelink – WhatsApp-first chronic condition management

4. Government Infrastructure & Interoperability

• Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM)

  • 73 Crore+ (730M+) health IDs generated

  • Digital Health Records and Unified Health Interface (UHI) in rollout

  • Ambition: seamless, consent-based health data flow across providers

The HealthTech Boom by the Numbers

India’s HealthTech sector is not a trend—it’s an economic force.

• Market size: $37B+ by 2026 (Inc42, 2023), growing at 28.5% CAGR

• Over $4.5B VC funding raised by healthtech startups in 2021 and 2022 alone

• Diagnostics and chronic care management: fastest growing sub-sectors

• 500M+ smartphone users, enabling digital health at population scale

• Telemedicine usage has significantly increased since 2020, now a mainstream channel in Tier 2+

And yet, penetration remains early-stage.

This isn’t a crowded market—it’s an open frontier.

Why This Matters Now

India is home to:

• One of the youngest populations in the world

• Rising burden of chronic disease starting earlier in life

• Healthcare deserts in Tier 2/3 towns with minimal access to diagnostics

Simultaneously, we now have:

• Cloud-native health record systems

• AI engines trained on Indian clinical data

• Affordable remote devices priced for ₹500–₹2000, not $200 wearables

• Policy tailwinds like ABDM and incentives for digital infra-adoption

For the first time, we can build healthcare infrastructure that’s:

• Built for Bharat, not just metros

• Preventive, not reactive

• AI-augmented, not AI-dependent

• Connected and interoperable via the public health stack

What the Next Decade Looks Like

The future of Indian healthtech won’t be defined by flashy hospital tech.

It’ll be defined by invisible infrastructure that quietly enables better care, everywhere.

Expect to see:

• Plug-and-play AI modules embedded in OPDs

• Preventive health as a service—via WhatsApp, wearables, or schools

• Home diagnostics bundled with e-pharma and teleconsults

• Personalized care plans driven by consented, longitudinal health records

• Women- and child-specific platforms designed for culturally contextual care

This is not disruption for disruption’s sake.

This is healthtech bending to the needs of Indian realities—not the other way around.

The Opportunity Ahead

India’s next decade of health will be defined by:

• Accessibility-first design

• Population-scale AI tools

• Interoperable, privacy-respecting data infra

• Deep integration with commerce, insurance, and education

In short: a new operating system for Indian healthcare.

One that doesn’t just treat illness but enables health by default.

Because the future isn’t about replacing doctors.

It’s about equipping every caregiver—from urban hospitals to rural clinics—with the tools to see better, act faster, and save more lives.

Before convenience was coded into algorithms, it was coordinated by hand and heart.

In the 1890s, Mumbai’s dabbawalas were already solving for last-mile delivery long before logistics was a sector. Over 200,000 home-cooked meals moved daily, tracked not by GPS but by a color-coded tin and human trust. No tech stack. No CAC. No churn. Just the desire to deliver “maa ke haath ka khana” to hungry office-goers.

It wasn’t food-on-demand.
It was food with meaning.

The Massification Era: Speed > Soul

By the 1980s–1990s, India’s food landscape began industrializing at scale.
Brands like Amul, Nestlé, Britannia, and Maggi ushered in a new era of pantry efficiency shelf-stable products that were cheap, scalable, and available across kirana shelves.

Between 1985 and 2000, processed and packaged food sales in India grew by over 400%, and urban households began relying on snacks over stovetops.

But something was lost in the trade-off.
Shelf-stable replaced soul-stirring. Scale won over taste. Personalization, freshness, and regional depth were deprioritized in the name of uniformity.

Then came Domino’s in 1996, with a simple promise:

30 minutes or free.

It wasn’t just about pizza it was about building trust through time.
Domino’s grew to over 1,000 stores by 2015 and was doing 60M+ annual deliveries, not because it served the best food, but because it delivered it fast and reliably.

The food was predictable. The experience was scalable.
But the connection? Still missing.

The App Boom: Infinite Choice, Limited Feeling

The 2010s changed everything.

With the rise of Zomato, Swiggy, and Uber Eats, food delivery became a UI/UX experience. For the first time, a consumer in Bengaluru could order sushi, khichdi, and ramen in one tap all delivered within 40 minutes.

Food delivery volumes exploded:

• From just $200M in 2015 to $5B+ by 2020

• 2.5–3 million orders per day across platforms by 2022

• 70%+ of GMV from top 8 metro cities

• AOV (average order value): ₹300–₹450

• Repeat rates: ~40% in metros, far lower in Tier 2/3

But endless variety brought choice fatigue.
Meals became transactional ordered by app, eaten alone, forgotten soon after.
Anonymous packaging. Inconsistent quality. No narrative. No emotional thread.

India had entered the age of logistics-first food.

The Conscious Shift: From Convenience to Care

Over the last 3–5 years, something started shifting again — this time, emotionally.

Consumers no longer just want food fast.
They want food that feels like it’s meant for them.

Health > Indulgence

India’s health-focused food market hit $8B in 2023, growing at ~20% YoY.
Calorie counts, keto boxes, protein-packed meals, and diabetic-friendly menus are becoming default filters.
Subscription meal services like EatFit and Curefoods are scaling, with 40–50% of revenue from repeat subscribers.

“Guilt-free” is replacing “30-minute delivery” as the primary value proposition.

Nostalgia > Novelty

Consumers are reaching for meals that remind them of festivals, family, and ghar ka khana.

• On Swiggy and Zomato, dal-chawal, rajma-chawal, poha, and sabudana khichdi are now consistently among the top 10 “comfort” meals

• The regional and traditional foods market has crossed $1.2B and is expected to double by 2027

• Google Trends shows a 60%+ YoY spike in “homestyle food delivery” searches across Tier 1/2 cities

This isn’t just nostalgia it’s a craving for emotional continuity.

Personalization > One-size-fits-all

The future of food isn’t mass-market. It’s mood-based, metabolism-aware, and memory-driven.

• India’s personalized nutrition market is worth ~$500M, expected to grow to $2B+ by 2027

• Apps like Homeal are offering meals tailored to gut health, immunity, and even emotional well-being

• Personalized meal platforms are showing retention rates of 50–70%, vs 25–40% for generic delivery

This is no longer just food delivery.
It’s emotional logistics.

The Business of Better Eating

But beyond the market size is a deeper trend:
The rise of EQ (Emotional Quotient) in food tech.

What’s Next: The Rise of EQ in Food Tech

We’re entering a phase where food delivery is less about speed and more about significance.

Consumers are no longer outsourcing hunger.
They’re outsourcing care.

They want food that:

• Understands their biology

• Reflects their culture

• Remembers their rituals

And they want it delivered not in a foil box, but in a format that feels personal, thoughtful, and human.

The next unicorn won’t just optimize delivery time.
It’ll optimize emotional connection.

Up Next

Later this week, we’ll break down how health, heritage, and hyperpersonalization are shaping India’s new-age food brands and what founders are seeing on the ground as they scale love, not just logistics.

Until then, one final question:

What if the future of food delivery isn’t about getting food to you faster but making it feel like it came from you?

For decades, nutrition in India wasn’t a product category.
It was simply food.

A spoon of ghee on a roti meant strength.
Dal in your lunchbox was assumed to be enough protein.
And milk with Bournvita? That was growth or at least a comforting belief in it.

In most homes, nourishment was cultural, not clinical.
Health was built into habits, not printed on a label.

But that’s no longer enough. Not when the gaps are this big.

The Malted Milk Drink Era: A Legacy of Emotion, Not Nutrition

In the 1980s and 90s, India saw the rise of malt-based “health drinks” a ₹7,500 crore+ segment today led by brands like Horlicks, Bournvita, Complan, and Boost.

These drinks were positioned as the solution to every child’s needs height, stamina, brainpower, immunity.

But while the marketing was effective, the formulations didn’t evolve with science or consumer awareness.

Most of them:

• Contained 30–50% sugar

• Relied on malt extract, milk solids, and synthetic additives

• Were not aligned with actual macro- or micronutrient deficiencies in Indian diets

• Were marketed as nutrition, but delivered little beyond empty calories

Despite commanding significant shelf space and brand equity, these products today face stagnation:

📉 The malted food drinks category is growing at just 3–4% CAGR (vs. 15–18% for newer health-forward food categories)
📉 Urban, educated households are steadily moving away from legacy brands especially in Tier 1 cities

Meanwhile, new entrants are growing rapidly by offering targeted, transparent alternatives.

India’s Silent Epidemic: The Protein Deficiency

India has a persistent, under-addressed problem: protein deficiency.

According to the Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB) and NIN (National Institute of Nutrition):

• 73% of Indian diets are protein deficient

• 91% of vegetarians do not meet their daily protein requirement

• Average protein intake in urban India is ~47g/day (WHO recommends 60g+)

• Rural protein consumption has dropped 11% over the last 10 years

Despite India being the world’s largest producer of pulses, protein consumption remains insufficient and imbalanced.

The result?
We now have a generation dealing with stunted growth, low muscle mass, and poor metabolic health especially among children and adolescents.

A Category Redefined: From Supplements to Everyday Smart Food

Across urban and Tier 2 households, the mindset is shifting.

Today’s Indian consumer is:

• ✅ Label-literate: 68% of urban shoppers now read ingredient lists (Nielsen, 2023)

• ✅ Function-first: 2 in 3 parents now prefer food that offers nutritional benefits beyond taste

• ✅ Fed up with filler: “No maida,” “no added sugar,” “high protein” are now baseline expectations, not brand USPs

This shift has created an entirely new category functional, family-first food growing at >20% CAGR, far outpacing legacy “health” food segments.

The innovations are simple but powerful:

• Protein-rich cookies with Indian flavours

• Iron-rich millet brownies

• Pancake and breakfast mixes with fiber and clean grains

• Ready-to-eat snacks that are as functional as they are familiar

What’s key is contextual design these foods are made for Indian homes, not gyms or fad diets.

Why Arise Invested in Gladful

At Arise Ventures, we back founders solving culturally rooted problems with scalable, insight-led innovation.

Gladful exemplifies this.

Founded by Parul Sharma, Gladful was born out of a simple but powerful gap: a mother couldn’t find protein-rich, clean snacks that were truly family-friendly especially for her growing child.

What followed was a brand designed to solve this gap at scale.

Today, Gladful offers:

• Cookies, breakfast options, and everyday snacks fortified with protein

• Products free from maida and refined sugar

• A taste-first, science-backed approach that fits into Indian routines

The result?
Gladful has grown rapidly across D2C and retail channels, with strong traction in Tier 1 and Tier 2 households.

More than a brand, it’s a response to a question that millions of Indian parents are now asking:
How do I feed my family better without compromising on taste or trust?

The Emerging Ecosystem

Gladful is not alone. A broader ecosystem is taking shape, built around transparent nutrition and cultural relevance.

Notable players include:

• Slurrp Farm — millet-based mixes and snacks for kids, now available across 1000+ retail outlets

• The Whole Truth — building radical transparency in the protein bar and snack space

• Lil’ Goodness — combining probiotics with child-friendly chocolates and crackers

• Tots & Moms — age-specific, clean-label food designed for early childhood

These brands are growing in the double digits in many cases, 20–30% YoY and proving that Indian consumers are ready for a smarter food future.

Where We See the Opportunity

At Arise Ventures, our thesis is clear: Indian food needs better defaults.

We believe the next wave of food brands will be:

1. Protein-first, addressing structural gaps in the Indian diet

2. Taste-led, not clinical because enjoyment drives adoption

3. Clean-label by design, not just by marketing

4. Built for the Indian household, not copied from international formats

5. Omnichannel-ready, with high LTV across retail, D2C, and institutional distribution

We’re actively tracking startups building across:

• Functional snacks

• Fortified school-time and breakfast options

• Clean Indian desserts

• Women’s and child-specific nutrition

The opportunity is massive. India’s better-for-you foods market is projected to cross $30B by 2030 and the family segment is the most under-served part of it.

The Bigger Picture

We’re not just backing better snacks.
We’re backing a future where:

• Nutrition is intuitive again but updated for today

• Parents don’t have to choose between fun and functional

• And everyday food becomes the front line of better health

Legacy brands built awareness.
New-age brands like Gladful are building outcomes.

Because when food works better, families do too.

Coming Up Next: A closer look at how India’s snack aisle is changing and why the most exciting innovations are coming from founders who understand both food science and family life.

In the early 1980s, Gold Spot wasn’t just a beverage it was a phenomenon.

Launched by Parle Agro in 1977, Gold Spot came into existence at a pivotal time: Coca-Cola had been asked to exit India by the Janata government after it refused to dilute its equity under FERA (Foreign Exchange Regulation Act). This exit created a vacuum and local companies moved fast to fill it.

Parle Agro seized the moment, launching Gold Spot, Thums Up, Limca, and Citra four fizzy staples that became household names almost overnight. Thums Up, in particular, aggressively positioned itself against Pepsi and Coca-Cola’s legacy. By the late 1980s, Thums Up held nearly 85% market share in India’s cola segment, and Gold Spot was the undisputed orange soda of choice.

But in 1993, Coca-Cola made its return, backed by liberalization, capital, and global strategy.

It didn’t build its presence from scratch. Instead, it acquired Parle’s portfolio for ₹186 crore (~$60M in today’s value) not just to access distribution or bottling capabilities, but to neutralize its biggest competitors. Thums Up, Limca, Gold Spot, and Citra all came under its umbrella.

Then came the brand culling:

• Gold Spot was phased out in favor of Fanta (its global orange soda)

• Citra was shelved

• Limca and Thums Up survived, largely due to their massive loyalty and performance

The strategy was simple: retain what performs, and replace what doesn’t fit globally. Fanta had international recognition. Gold Spot didn’t.

By the late '90s, Coca-Cola and Pepsi controlled over 95% of India’s carbonated beverage market, a duopoly that defined the beverage aisle for the next decade.

India’s Packaged Beverage Industry Today: The Numbers

Fast forward to 2023 and India’s drink story looks very different.

• $20 billion: Value of India’s non-alcoholic packaged beverage market

• 8–10% CAGR: Expected growth, reaching $35B+ by 2030

• Shift in categories: While fizzy colas remain, they’re no longer the center of gravity

Market Breakdown (2023):

From Mass Sugar to Function + Flavor

1990s–2000s:
Coca-Cola and Pepsi dominated through mass TV advertising, celebrity endorsements, and aggressive distribution. Bottled water became normalized; Maaza, Slice, and Real captured juice-drinking moments.

2010s:
Early signs of health consciousness emerged. Low sugar and “real fruit” claims took hold. Dabur Real became a staple in middle-class homes. ORS, Glucon-D, and traditional drinks like buttermilk grew outside metro markets.

2020s:
The shift is clear — from “refreshment” to “reason.” Drinks are now being chosen based on benefits: gut health, energy, skin, calm. Kombucha and herb-based functional waters have emerged as niche-but-fast-growing formats. Traditional flavors like kokum, shikanji, nimbu-mint are being bottled with global aesthetics.

Why This Market Still Has White Space

Despite major players dominating shelves for decades, India remains underpenetrated compared to other economies:

• 60%+ of beverage consumption still comes from unbranded, informal, or regional sources

• Per capita packaged drink consumption: ~24 liters/year
  vs. China at ~118 liters, USA at ~180+ liters

• Even now, India’s average consumer drinks just 1/6th the packaged beverage volume of a Chinese consumer

This means the market is still in transition and ripe for reinvention.

Investor Lens: What We See

From a venture lens, beverage brands offer a mix of emotional resonance, frequency, and business fundamentals:

• Gross margins of 55–70% are standard in premium, functional, and sparkling segments

• Low CAC for repeat users especially when built on ritual (e.g., daily wellness shots, post-meal tonics)

• High exit potential through M&A: beverage is a natural extension for many large FMCG, hospitality, and health players

• Channel flexibility: beverage brands scale well across D2C, retail, QSRs, kiranas, cafes, weddings, and cloud kitchens

We’re closely tracking brands that are:

• Rooted in Indian taste but ready for premium scale

• Using functional ingredients to solve for fatigue, focus, or immunity

• Building brand-first with strong recall and community

What’s Coming Next

We believe the next generation of beverage brands from India will:

• Pair heritage with health

• Turn everyday drinks into rituals

• Create distribution not just with stores, but with culture

• Compete not on flavor alone but on story, relevance, and reason to exist

As India moves from a volume market to a value market, the opportunity is not to build the next Gold Spot, it’s to build something bigger: a brand that outlives trends by owning moments.

Up Next

This was just the first pour.

Later this week, we’ll break down what India’s current beverage shelf tells us from energy drinks to sparkling tonics and why today’s consumer isn’t choosing based on taste alone. Toward the end, we sit down with a founder reimagining the drink experience from the ground up.

Stay tuned.

Innovating at Scale: Startups & Enterprises, Redefining Growth

SAP Labs India, Deloitte, and Arise Ventures have come together to launch a nine-month startup studio program designed to help high-growth startups scale and navigate enterprise markets. This initiative provides direct access to enterprise technology, go-to-market (GTM) strategy support, and a chance to engage with potential clients within SAP, Deloitte, Arise Ventures and their networks. At the same time, enterprises benefit from working closely with emerging ventures that bring fresh thinking and innovative solutions to industry challenges.

The program is also committed to fostering diverse leadership, with a strong focus on supporting women-led and high-impact startups. By combining enterprise resources with startup agility, this cohort aims to drive meaningful industry transformation.

For startups, breaking into enterprise markets isn’t easy. For enterprises, staying ahead of change is just as challenging. This initiative creates a direct bridge—giving startups the market access and expertise they need to scale, while helping corporations stay connected to what’s next.

Why This Matters

🚀 Enterprise-Ready Innovation – Scaling deep-tech startups into enterprise ecosystems requires more than just technology—it demands enterprise-grade integration, market alignment, and strategic scaling. This cohort brings together SAP’s Business Technology Platform (BTP) and Business AI, Deloitte’s industry insights and GTM expertise, and Arise Ventures Global Innovation network, investments and strategic scaling focus to create a seamless pathway for startups to grow within the global enterprise landscape. Through hands-on co-innovation, startups will develop, refine, and embed their solutions into industry-leading organizations, ensuring they meet the highest standards for enterprise adoption.

🌍 Market Access & Growth Acceleration – Enterprise adoption is often the biggest challenge for startups. This program eliminates those barriers by providing direct access to global enterprise clients, industry networks, and strategic partnerships. SAP enables startups to integrate with its enterprise ecosystem, opening doors to commercialization at scale. Deloitte works closely with startups to refine GTM strategies and ensure corporate adoption, while Arise Ventures Global Innovation and Investment network brings capital, mentorship, and deep ecosystem connects for startups to work strategically with enterprises that align with deep-sector growth opportunities. This is more than just exposure—it’s about actively embedding startups into the industries they aim to transform.

💡 Solving Real-World Industry Challenges – The future of business will be shaped by those who can bridge enterprise needs with breakthrough solutions. This cohort is focused on three core sectors—Enterprise AI, CPG Retail, and Pharma Life Sciences—where innovation must be both agile and enterprise-ready. SAP provides the infrastructure and industry-aligned platforms to integrate new solutions at scale, Deloitte brings deep-sector expertise and enterprise validation, and Arise Ventures ensures, enterprise connects, investment alignment and long-term global growth strategy. The result? Startups that don’t just build innovative products but create real industry impact.

💰 Beyond Funding: Building Sustainable, Scalable Ventures – Startups need more than capital to succeed—they need the right strategic backing, industry access, and enterprise integration to scale effectively. SAP, Deloitte and Arise Ventures open direct opportunities for startups to engage with enterprises, from pilot projects to full-scale adoption. Arise Ventures connects startups with investors who understand deep-tech and enterprise growth, ensuring they secure not just funding but the right investment partners. This program isn’t just about scaling a company—it’s about building businesses that are ready for sustained, global impact.

📈 A Model for the Future of Startup & Enterprise Collaboration – Startups that successfully integrate into enterprises drive long-term industry transformation. Programs like this have already scaled emerging companies into market leaders, proving that structured, high-impact collaborations between startups, enterprises, and VCs lead to sustainable innovation and competitive advantage. SAP, Deloitte, and Arise Ventures have created a model that moves beyond the traditional accelerator—it’s a blueprint for how deep-tech startups, enterprises, and venture capital can work together to redefine industries.

This isn’t just another startup program—it’s a shift in how enterprises, startups, and investors collaborate to build the next generation of industry leaders. The success of this model will set the stage for how ecosystems across the world drive real innovation, scale deep-tech, and create lasting enterprise impact.

Cohort Launch: A Milestone in Startup & Enterprise Collaboration

The SAP x Deloitte x Arise Ventures Startup Studio 2025 was officially launched on March 3, 2024, marking a significant step in bridging the gap between startups and global enterprises. The launch event brought together Sindhu Gangadharan (MD, SAP Labs India), Romal Shetty (CEO, Deloitte South Asia), and Ankita Vashistha (Founder & Managing Partner, Arise Ventures), alongside industry leaders and ecosystem partners. With key insights from these leaders and an in-depth look at the selected startups, the cohort is set to redefine enterprise technology over the next nine months.

Meet the Visionary Startups

• AgriPilot.ai – AI-powered agricultural intelligence optimizing precision farming.

• MedySeva – Transforming rural healthcare through cutting-edge telemedicine solutions.

• Intelekt AI – Revolutionizing business intelligence with AI-driven decision-making.

• Prodoc AI – Smart automation enhancing enterprise document workflows.

• Avysh – Advancing industries with sophisticated AI applications.

• QpiAI – Unlocking new frontiers with the fusion of AI and quantum computing

Leadership Perspectives: Why This Collaboration Matters

What’s Next?

Over the next nine months, startups in this cohort will gain:

✅ Enterprise-Ready Innovation – Strategic workshops and technical enablement on SAP’s industry-leading platforms.
✅ Guided Co-Innovation – Direct collaboration with SAP, Deloitte, and Arise Ventures, ensuring seamless integration and product validation.
✅ Market Entry & Investor Access – A launchpad into SAP’s enterprise client network, Deloitte’s industry expertise, and Arise Ventures’ innovation and capital ecosystem.

This isn’t just acceleration—it’s the future of how startups and corporations scale together.

Follow the journey. Back the Bold. Build the future.

Happy Holidays! 🎄🎁❄️
At StrongHer Ventures we believe in women being independent and successful and powerful creators and consumers. We are curating a list of amazing products and services from our our women led and focused portfolio & community member companies for the Holidays and New Year 2023. Everything we believe in, from women’s health, financial wellness, career and consumer choices.

GLADFUL

Gladful is a brand built by moms and nutritionists for active, imaginative, and curious kids. We love snacking but we also believe it should serve a purpose! We make snacks that have just the amount of protein one should have in a go, are FSSAI approved and have the goodness of protein from milk, peas, rice, and fiber from whole wheat. What's great is these products don't contain maida, trans fats, cholesterol. These were made with unrefined cane sugar and have no preservatives added Power of 3 proteins in 3 yum flavors!

Where: Offer available in India.

StrongHer Offer: Use the code STRONGHER at checkout!

MEOLAA

Meolaa is a marketplace for purpose drive D2C brands. They aim to define the future of shopping by curating products that resonate with the values of next-generation shoppers. — Millennial’s, Gen Z, and Gen Y consumers — who are more likely to buy sustainable, high-quality products.

Where: Offer available online.

StrongHer Offer: 10% discount on all purchases using coupon code- MeolaaXStrongHer10

BASIS

Basis is a fin-tech platform for urban Indian women to learn and discuss money and avail personalized financial advisory. They provide actionable recommendations for urban women’s money decisions based on proprietary algorithms and gender-intelligent insights. Basis recently launched The Power Card- India's first payment card curated for women - by women. Basis, has partnered with incredible women-run and women-centric brands as they've built out a thoughtful rewards experience for urban women with incredible discounts and offers. Get rewarded as you spend - and support women-run businesses as you redeem those rewards. 

Where: Offer available in India.

StrongHer Offer: You can get on board the #PowerTrain and start unlocking the amazing rewards with your Basis Power Card using the code STRONG upon signing up!

We have other exciting holiday offers lined up exclusively for you from some amazing companies! Click below to view StrongHer Ventures Holiday Gift Guide 2023! 🎄🎁

See more exiting holiday offers!

Happy Holidays! 🎄🎁❄️
At StrongHer Ventures we believe in women being independent and successful and powerful creators and consumers. We are curating a list of amazing products and services from our our women led and focused portfolio & community member companies for the Holidays and New Year 2023. Everything we believe in, from women’s health, financial wellness, career and consumer choices.

GLADFUL

Gladful is a brand built by moms and nutritionists for active, imaginative, and curious kids. We love snacking but we also believe it should serve a purpose! We make snacks that have just the amount of protein one should have in a go, are FSSAI approved and have the goodness of protein from milk, peas, rice, and fiber from whole wheat. What's great is these products don't contain maida, trans fats, cholesterol. These were made with unrefined cane sugar and have no preservatives added Power of 3 proteins in 3 yum flavors!

Where: Offer available in India.

StrongHer Offer: Use the code STRONGHER at checkout!

READY SET JET

Ready Set Jet is the go-to brand for beauty enthusiasts, wanderlusters, and on-the-go citizens worldwide. From the beach to the boardroom, our fuss free products allow you to transform yourself on the fly no matter your destination.

We strive to be the global destination for a supportive and engaged community who care about our social cause as much as we do.

Where: Offer available globally.

StrongHer Offer: 30% OFF Any Ready Set Jet Products by using Discount Code STRONGHERVIP at checkout.

MEOLAA

Meolaa is a marketplace for purpose drive D2C brands. They aim to define the future of shopping by curating products that resonate with the values of next-generation shoppers. — Millennial’s, Gen Z, and Gen Y consumers — who are more likely to buy sustainable, high-quality products.

Where: Offer available online.

StrongHer Offer: 10% discount on all purchases using coupon code- MeolaaXStrongHer10

BASIS

Basis is a fin-tech platform for urban Indian women to learn and discuss money and avail personalized financial advisory. They provide actionable recommendations for urban women’s money decisions based on proprietary algorithms and gender-intelligent insights. Basis recently launched The Power Card- India's first payment card curated for women - by women. Basis, has partnered with incredible women-run and women-centric brands as they've built out a thoughtful rewards experience for urban women with incredible discounts and offers. Get rewarded as you spend - and support women-run businesses as you redeem those rewards. 

Where: Offer available in India.

StrongHer Offer: You can get on board the #PowerTrain and start unlocking the amazing rewards with your Basis Power Card using the code STRONG upon signing up!

OWNTRAIL

Why you? Why this? Why now? OwnTrail is a social timeline of people's lives that is particularly helpful for  founders, as you work to answer these crucial questions with clarity and confidence. On OwnTrail, you can share where you've been and get help with where you're headed, alongside a supportive community that has your back.

Where: Offer available Globally.

StrongHer Offer: OwnTrail is happy to offer 25% off a year of membership to the StrongHer community. Just use the code STRONGHER when you sign up!

An EXCLUSIVE 25% off the JOURNEY WORKSHOP, Our one-hour workshop for founders combines authentic reflection, story development and meaningful connection in one interactive event to help founders own their journeys and answer these questions with clarity and confidence. Ideal for: Groups of 10-200

PAPA PAWSOME

Papa Pawsome is a Digital first one stop solution for natural pet care. Papa Pawsome is working towards building a community of well-informed pet parents and being their guide in their pet parenting journey. Their aim is to be a household brand for Natural pet grooming products.

Where: Offer available online.

StrongHer Offer: The holiday offering features 20% off, site-wide. Use coupon STRONGHER at checkout.

AMRUTAM

Amrutam brings decades-long experience and expertise in the Ayurveda Industry. Inspired by the Vedic Principles and being in sync with nature, the unique and authentic formulations are infused with raw herbs that address the root cause of the problem instead of just treating the symptoms. Amrutam is cruelty-free, ethically-sourced and lovingly curated one-stop solution for your health and beauty needs. Certified by the Ministry of AYUSH, PETA and USFDA.

Where: Offer available online.

StrongHer offer: Get Amrutam Personal Care Travel Pack | 3 Travel-Friendly Recipes for Skin and Hair worth INR 630 FREE on all orders above INR 1199 until 15 March 2022. Use code STRONGHER.

BEUNIC

BeUnic is a queer-owned, community-driven platform for LGBTQ+ creators and entrepreneurs. We support the Queer community through upskilling, counseling, entrepreneurship and international exposure.

BeUnic curates lifestyle products created by Queer entrepreneurs underlining the idea of Being You and Being Unique. We also work with and donate a share of our profits to NGOs working with Queer folks tackling diverse challenges.

Where: Offer available online.

StrongHer offer: This holiday season, support a queer platform by purchasing BeUnic products and get 15% off with the coupon STRONGHER while checking out. Be you, be unique!

MEETINGS AND OFFICES

MeetingsandOffices is an online marketplace to book private office spaces that connects potential buyers with curated, verified, co-working and flexible shared workspaces across the country. The platform enables companies to register and search for the spaces by applying the location. Users can book conference rooms, training rooms, day offices, meeting rooms, and more through the platform.

Where: Space will be provided at selected MnO co-working partners and is strictly subject to availability.

StrongHer offer: Take advantage of our holiday offer of either 1 week free trial at a co-working space or 10% off on Meeting, Training, and Conference Room Bookings across India from now until March 19, 2023 by using coupon STRONGHER.

DOSETAP

DoseTap is a smart pill box which alerts the patients when it is time to take medicines and notifies the associated caregiver if the patient misses doses.
The sensors in the IoT pill box track patient usage as per the prescribed schedule and generates insights for the patient and caregiver.

Where: Offer available online.

StrongHer offer: Take advantage of the holiday offer featuring top selling products for 20% off, sitewide, from now until February 28, by using coupon STRONGHER at checkout.

COREFACTORS

Corefactors is a RevOps-enabled AI-based CRM for businesses to help them achieve revenue growth faster. Try Corefactors AI CRM today to Sell Faster, Scale Faster and Resolve Faster.

Where: Offer available globally.

StrongHer Offer: Begin the New Year 2023 by enabling RevOps in your business with Corefactors AI CRM at an exclusive 23% discount on the first billing. Use the below link and also get a 30-Day Free Trial unlocked. (offer valid till 15th March 2023)

Corefactors STRONGHER coupon

OPOD AUDIO

Opod Audio is an audio content insights engine, available in English and 8 Indian languages. Whether commuting, cardio-burning, or cooking, Opod allows users to listen to the "why" and the "how" behind any news and podcasts, while keeping their hands free.

Where: Offer available globally.

StrongHer Offer: 3 months of free listening as we launch Opod Audio!

FUNNGRO

Funngro provides the teenager's talent for companies based on their work requirements. Find the right talent for your business.

Where: Offer available online.

StrongHer Offer: A waiver off platform fees upto Rs. 20,000/- use code STRONGHER for registration!

COLLEARN

CoLLearn is an Ed-tech platform that provides live online cohort-based courses and mentorship programs by well-renowned industry experts in an interactive and engaging manner across sports, media and entertainment.

Where: Offer available Globally!

StrongHer Offer: This season give your loved one the gift of knowledge and passion by using code STRONGHER for a Flat 15% off!

Happy Gifting and Happy New Year 2023! 🎄🎁-