WaterBridge is off to a Rev-It-ting start in 2025 with a packed auditorium listening to the stalwarts of India's ConsumerTech | Issue #70 | Jan '25
WaterBridge Ventures
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WaterBridge hosted fireside chats with Anshoo Sharma (Co-founder & CEO, magicpin) and Ramesh Bafna (CFO, Zepto) on Rev-It-Up, in Bengaluru
On the panel alongside Manish Kheterpal , Co-founder & Partner of WaterBridge, Anshoo Sharma talked about magicpin's DNA of surviving pivots while juggling cash crunches, embracing tech to quickly iterate with multiple experiments and discern the ones that stick, and developing a strong belief system that he and his team would be able to overcome any curveball that comes their way.
In front of an overflowing auditorium populated with founders, VCs and operators, Anshoo emphasized the importance of being daringly fearless while going after moonshots. Great founders have time and again willed outcomes into existence, and magicpin cannot be any different. Anshoo drives this culture from the top - a culture interlaced with directness, clarity and promptness.?
He also let the eager audience in on a few quirky consumer insights that shaped magicpin 's journey. Anshoo strongly believes that hyperlocal is here to stay, and GenAI will transform magicpin's business (acquisition and engagement of merchants and customers) drastically in the next five years.
Ramesh Bafna , on the panel with Anjali Sosale , Partner at WaterBridge Ventures , spoke about building an ambitious team that scaled with Zepto and was instrumental in raising $1.3B in 2024, pushing business leaders to prioritise cashflows and executing Project Pace (Zepto's redomicile from Singapore to India) at a record pace never seen before.
Heartfelt gratitude to both Anshoo & Ramesh for being with us! We have many more in the series lined up throughout the year.?
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Portfolio Milestones
Notable Updates From Our Portfolio
Atlan named a Visionary by Gartner, and a Leader by G2
Atlan is off to a stellar start in 2025! It has been named a Visionary in the 2025 Gartner? Magic Quadrant? for Data and Analytics Governance Platforms, with top ratings in Gartner Peer Insights. This recognition validates Atlan's vision of building a metadata control plane for modern data governance, leveraging active metadata as the automation layer to create a platform that serves a diverse set of personas across data, engineering and business teams.
Atlan has also been named a Leader for the 6th straight quarter by G2 across 5 categories, with reviewers stating that Atlan is "one of a kind player in the data space", and that their "experience with Atlan has been .... exceptional".?
Prukalpa ? , cofounder of Atlan, credits a lot of this success to the way she drives culture and values in her team, without compromising on growth.
Nymble rebrands to Posha, starts shipping the second batch of cooking robots Home-cooked meals are a quintessential way of expressing love and care in families. While it also helps one eat healthy and cut back spending on restaurants and going out, Raghav Gupta and Rohin Malhotra , co-founders of Nymble, realised that it's love that draws one to the kitchen. That is why Nymble is now Posha (formerly Nymble) , derived from the Hindi word ???? (Poshan) which beautifully encapsulates the nurture, nourishment and care that home-cooked meals are associated with.?
Posha's robot chefs will ensure that you can express love through cooked food, without letting work commitments, personal ambitions or leisure get in the way. The second batch of these has now started shipping. Pre-order yours now!?
Nymble is also one of the 55 finalists for the 2025 SXSW Innovation Awards, a testament to its bold vision of reshaping how families enjoy mealtime.?
Priya joins the Advisory Board of WEF's New Champions Community?
This recognition is a testament to Chalo 's mission of making travel better for everyone, one bus at a time. Today, Chalo serves 180M rides every month, with 30K buses across 65 cities, revolutionising urban mobility. By 2028, Priya Singh , cofounder of Chalo, and her team, are confident of impacting 100 million lives with digitisation and sustainability. With features such as live bus tracking, Chalo has made bus travel streamlined for the public and safer for women, saving 23B minutes of wait time for its 30M commuters in the last 10 years.
Eloelo hits monetisation goldmine in interactive entertainment
Eloelo 's single-day revenue on 31st Dec'24 was greater than the combined revenue of April and May. Users exchanged 43K "Happy New Year" virtual gifts on Eloelo to bring in the new year with their digital community. Indian consumers have evolved to prefer "lean forward" experiences, with live vlogging emerging on Eloelo as a fast-growing category. Interactivity has become a cultural phenomenon, with boundaries blurring between creators and consumers. Eloelo, growing 200% YoY with 85M downloads, is at the forefront of this $12.5B new media market, with innovative digital interactions and creator monetisation.
magicpin launches 15-minute delivery with magicNOW?
magicpin is the biggest hyperlocal platform in India, bringing food, dining, and fashion together. With magicNOW, customers can order a variety of food options, breakfast items, and quick snacks for doorstep delivery from restaurants within a 1.5-2 km radius. Every order is going to be freshly prepared by magicpin's trusted restaurant partners. It is committed to delivering fresh food within 15 minutes, while preserving the integrity of every meal. With 2 lakh+ orders delivered by Dec 31st, they're just getting started.
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WBV Insights
Thought Leadership From Our Team
WaterBridge is developing a practical guide for ESG-led value creation?
ESG isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a game-changer for long-term business resilience and value creation. In collaboration with PwC India , WaterBridge is creating a handbook for early-stage companies to scale businesses sustainably, drawing on actionable insights to drive growth, operational efficiency, and long-term impact. Being founders first, we value the experiences & perspectives of entrepreneurs, and want this publication to reflect your voice!
CBREX on S04 E02 of That One Idea podcast
In Episode 2 of That One Idea, we have Gautam Sinha (Co-founder & CEO) and Divya Chethan (Co-founder & CPO) of CBREX talking about addressing the challenges faced by organisations while recruiting for cross-border roles that require niche, specialised skillsets, and building a magical hiring platform that is fungible across industries. Recruiters in Mexico can now hire for roles in Barcelona, at a pace never seen before. This episode has a sneak peek of the launch of C-Lightning - CBREX's guarantee to TAs of having an offer rollout within 7 days of job posting.?
Insights: India Tech generated $70B revenue in FY24, clamping down losses by 37%
Over the last 12 years, India’s thriving Tech ecosystem has attracted over $150B in venture capital, creating 115+ unicorns and driving transformational innovation. In FY24 India Tech strengthened their core businesses, with 132 of 447 startups (30%) in our dataset now reporting positive PAT. We took a deep dive into this dataset, analyzing the top-performing startups that raised $50M+ or are generating $50M+ in annual revenues. These companies represent $120B of the $150B VC funding, and their performance showcases a growing maturity in aligning growth with sustainability. ?
Insights: India's Shifting Tax Dynamics
India's tax base has grown 2.2X from 36M in 2014 to 80M in 2024. Total income tax collected in the corresponding period grew to 3.9X, outpacing the growth of the tax base, signalling higher incomes across segments. With Budget 2025 announcing higher exemptions on personal income tax, Indian consumers are standing at the precipice of discretionary spending. We foresee Prime TAM (23M households earning >?5L per annum living in top 25 cities) and Value TAM (28M households in 443 urban towns) together spending $1.1T on discretionary items by 2031, opening up significant opportunities for new businesses to be created for these TAMs. If you're building for India's consumers, write to us!?
WaterBridge to co-host an evening of networking in San Francisco
Along with Convivialité Ventures , we are bringing together a curated set of VCs, LPs and founders interested in the US-India corridor investments and the thriving startup ecosystem. We're also excited to host a live cooking demo by Posha - robot chefs designed to think and cook like humans. The private chef will draw on its extensive culinary library to pick a dish, cook on its own, add ingredients and orchestrate the steps until the meal is ready. Team Posha is excited for you to taste the meal, and hear your thoughts! ?
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The Dots That Make the Picture
Celebrating The Everyday
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