New Delhi, Aug. 11 -- Automation startup for e-commerce Graas.ai and robotic services company Neuralzome have raised early-stage funding in separate rounds, the companies said. Meanwhile, the retinal cell therapy company Eyestem has raised $10 million (around Rs 88 crore) in a round from internal and strategic investors.
Graas.ai
Graas.ai has secured over $9 million (around Rs 79 crore) in a pre-Series B round led by Singapore-headquartered Tin Men Capital, with participation from InCred Wealth, Orzon Ventures, and existing investors Integra Partners and Yuj Ventures.
The startup said it will use the funding to expand its "Agent Foundry" in India, a platform to build virtual agents that autonomously address challenges including rising customer acquisition costs, pricing optimization, margin erosion, and inventory mismanagement.
Founded in 2022, headquartered in Singapore, Graas is an AI-native data and automation company for e-commerce. It offers a modular stack of AI agents that observe, decide, and execute autonomously across 100 platforms including all marketplaces, direct-to-consumer (D2C) and ad platforms in India and Southeast Asia. The company, founded by Prem Bhatia and Ashwin Puri, operates under the holding company Solv Pte Ltd.
Eyestem
Eyestem Research Pvt Ltd has raised $10 million in a funding round, which saw participation from internal and strategic investors, to support the development for its investigational retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cell therapy, Eyecyte-RPE. The company said the capital raised will enable completion of the ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial in India and support preparations for filing an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). IND refers to a class of drugs that is undergoing clinical trials under FDA, but has not been approved for public use.
"Strong participation by internal investors and addition of a strategic investor, underline the shared belief in Eyestem's long-term vision of creating an innovative cell therapy platform providing scalable solutions for incurable diseases worldwide," said Jogin Desai, founder and CEO, Eyestem.
A joint statement from Raju Barwale, chairman, Mahyco, and Sandeep Singh, managing director, Alkem Laboratories Ltd, said, "The results observed in Phase 1 not only demonstrate promising efficacy compared to other ongoing global trials but also validate India's potential as a leader in advanced cell therapy innovations. We are privileged to support a breakthrough that has the potential to redefine treatment outcomes for millions suffering from dry AMD (age-related macular degeneration)."
Eyecyte-RPE, derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), is a retinal cell therapy to replace the damaged or lost retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells and potentially enable tissue regeneration in the diseased retina. Pluripotent stem cells are those that can go on to generate any cell type in the body.
Neuralzome Cybernetic
Neuralzome Cybernetic has raised $2.4 million (around Rs 21 crore) in pre-seed funding round led by venture-capital firm 8X Ventures, with participation from Turbostart, Avinya Ventures, Saka Ventures, Appreciate Capital, Astir Ventures, IIM Ahmedabad's CIIE, SIDBI, and Heston Castelino.
The Bengaluru-based deeptech startup said the proceeds will be used to advance R&D in multi-agent autonomy and vision-based navigation, increase manufacturing, and expand to North America and Europe.
Founded in 2023, Neuralzome builds no-code AI agents for quick deployment of robots without in-house robotics expertise. The startup follows a robot-as-a-service (RaaS) model to serve labour-intensive industries such as orchard management and commercial landscaping. Its platform, NeuralPilot, works with the RedPill simulation environment to create photorealistic digital twins, allowing robots to be trained in complex scenarios and reducing field training time and costs.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.