Connect with us

Asia Startups

Singapore-Based FinTech Startup Handshake Finance Closes $390K to Expand Escrow Platform for Renovation Payments

in pre-seed funding to expand its escrow-as-a-service platform and tackle payment trust issues in the renovation and interior design sector.

Published

on

Singapore fintech startup Handshake Finance has closed a  S$500,000 approximately US$390,000 pre-seed funding round to accelerate the development of its escrow-as-a-service platform, designed to reduce payment risks in high-value service industries.

The company plans to use the new capital to strengthen its presence in Singapore’s renovation and interior design market, its first target sector, where payment disputes and project-related fraud remain persistent challenges.

Handshake Finance aims to create a more secure transaction framework by holding funds in regulated escrow accounts and releasing payments based on verified project milestones.

Get Featured

Founders Turn Personal Experiences Into a Fintech Solution

The idea behind Handshake Finance emerged from personal experiences involving payment fraud and failed service agreements.

Co-founder Lee Jun Xian witnessed a friend lose approximately S$80,000 in renovation prepayments, while Co-founder Christopher Chan saw a close acquaintance become the victim of a rental scam. These incidents highlighted a structural problem in service transactions, where one party often assumes a disproportionate share of the financial risk.

University classmates Lee and Chan combined their expertise to build a solution. Chan brings experience in designing compliant payment systems within regulated financial environments, while Lee contributes venture capital and startup growth experience.

Building Trust Through Regulated Escrow Infrastructure

Handshake Finance operates on payment infrastructure supported by partners regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Customer funds are held in segregated escrow accounts with DBS, ensuring compliance and additional safeguards for both service providers and customers.

The company believes regulatory oversight and transparent payment flows are essential to establishing trust in industries where transactions often involve significant sums of money.

According to Co-founder Christopher Chan, ensuring compliance and providing customers with confidence when handling large transactions remains a core priority for the business.

Targeting Structural Problems in the Renovation Industry

Handshake Finance selected the renovation sector as its initial market because of long-standing trust and payment challenges.

The industry operates without a mandatory licensing framework for many service providers, creating risks for homeowners who engage contractors and interior designers. In many cases, customers are required to pay a substantial portion of project costs upfront, leaving them exposed if contractors fail to complete projects or cease operations.

At the same time, service providers often face delayed payments and collection challenges, creating financial pressure on legitimate businesses.

To address these issues, Handshake Finance uses artificial intelligence to structure contracts around clearly defined project milestones. Funds are held in escrow and released incrementally as work progresses, creating greater accountability for both parties.

Early Market Adoption and Regional Growth Potential

The platform was developed following eight months of research involving more than 80 stakeholders across the renovation ecosystem.

Handshake Finance reports that it has already onboarded more than 40 interior design firms and established partnerships with renovation-focused platform Renonation.sg and Network SG.

While the company’s immediate focus remains on the renovation market, its long-term strategy is to expand its escrow-based model into other service industries facing similar trust and payment challenges.

By combining regulated financial infrastructure with AI-driven contract management, Handshake Finance aims to establish a new standard for transaction security and trust across Southeast Asia’s service economy.

Subscribe to the Arab Founders Newsletter

The best entrepreneurship & investment stories from the Arab world — weekly, straight to your inbox

No ads. No fluff. No spam — we value your time.

Arab Founders is your go-to source for the latest insights, news, and stories on startups, entrepreneurship, and innovation across MENA and the World.

Asia Startups

Indian FinTech Startup 72 Street Raises $450K to Expand Investment Research Across Futures, Commodities, and Mutual Funds

The Mumbai startup will broaden its AI-assisted research into derivatives, model portfolios, commodities and mutual funds.

Published

on

Mumbai-based investment research platform 72 Street has raised approximately $423,000 from angel investors and ultra-high-net-worth individuals to expand its product range beyond equity research. The conversion reflects the exchange rate reported on September 3, 2026

The company plans to enter futures and options, model portfolios, commodities and mutual funds while developing Venty, its artificial intelligence-powered market research tool. It is also seeking registration as a SEBI Registered Investment Adviser, which would allow it to offer personalised investment advice directly to individual clients.

Get Featured

Combining AI With Analyst Oversight

Incorporated in late 2025, 72 Street was founded by CEO Rohit Agarwal and CTO Fal Ghancha. The company operates as a SEBI-registered research analyst under registration number INH000029722.

Its platform combines regulated investment research with AI-supported market analysis, targeting retail investors who may have access to large volumes of financial information but lack the time or technical knowledge to interpret it.

Venty scans more than 3,800 companies listed on the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange. The tool assesses stocks using fundamental, technical and sentiment indicators while identifying chart patterns and candlestick formations.

According to the company, Venty can produce an initial assessment of a stock in less than 20 seconds and translate complex market information into more accessible, jargon-free language. However, 72 Street said its SEBI-registered analysts review every insight generated by the tool before publication.

Ghancha said the company developed the 72 Street app to give retail investors a single, trusted platform for their investment research. He added that Venty can identify patterns across fundamental, technical and sentiment data that would take a human analyst hours to find manually.

Experienced Founders Target Retail Investors

Agarwal brings more than 20 years of investor advisory experience to the company, having previously worked with Bajaj Allianz, HDFC Life and Reliance Capital.

Ghancha previously served as head of technology and chief information security officer at JioBlackRock Asset Management Company. He also held the position of chief information security officer at DSP Mutual Fund.

Agarwal said retail investors now have access to more market information than ever, but interpreting that information remains difficult. He said 72 Street aims to make investment research transparent and understandable, with analysts reviewing findings before they reach users.

The combination of automated analysis and human oversight is central to the startup’s positioning. Rather than presenting Venty as a replacement for registered analysts, 72 Street is using AI to accelerate market screening and simplify the resulting information.

Expanding Into New Investment Categories

The platform currently concentrates on equity research but intends to extend Venty’s capabilities across additional asset classes and investment products.

Its planned move into futures and options, commodities, mutual funds and model portfolios would broaden the platform’s relevance to investors seeking research beyond individual stocks. The funding will support that expansion as the company develops new products and builds on its existing analytical infrastructure.

Securing investment adviser registration would represent another important step. While its current research analyst status allows 72 Street to publish investment research, the additional registration would enable one-to-one advisory services tailored to individual investors.

With its new capital, 72 Street is seeking to build a broader research destination that pairs the speed of AI with the accountability of regulated human review.

Subscribe to the Arab Founders Newsletter

The best entrepreneurship & investment stories from the Arab world — weekly, straight to your inbox

No ads. No fluff. No spam — we value your time.

Continue Reading

Asia Startups

India-Based HealthTech Startup DocPharma Raises $2M to Scale 30-Minute Medicine Delivery Infrastructure

The Equentis-led round will help DocPharma expand its prescription-compliant supply chain for healthcare platforms and providers.

Published

on

Indian healthcare infrastructure startup DocPharma has raised $2 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Equentis, as it looks to make rapid medicine delivery available to healthcare businesses without requiring them to build their own fulfilment networks.

Existing investor 100Unicorns participated in the round alongside Vinners and a consortium of strategic angel investors.

DocPharma does not operate as a consumer-facing e-pharmacy. Instead, it provides the underlying technology, licensed dark stores and prescription-compliant fulfilment processes that allow other businesses to offer healthcare deliveries within 30 minutes.

Get Featured

Infrastructure for Rapid Healthcare Delivery

DocPharma serves e-pharmacies, health insurers, corporate wellness providers, hospitals, wellness and nutraceutical brands, and pet care companies.

These businesses can connect to its infrastructure and offer faster delivery without investing in their own warehouse network, inventory systems or prescription-verification operations.

The company’s licensed dark stores stock more than 40,000 products each. Its model attempts to solve an inventory challenge that distinguishes medicine delivery from conventional quick commerce, where a comparatively narrow selection of frequently purchased products can be distributed through hyperlocal facilities.

DocPharma co-founder Saquib Ali said quick-commerce platforms have conditioned Indian consumers to expect rapid delivery across most product categories, but medicine remains an exception. He argued that inventory represents the main obstacle because the healthcare category contains around 300,000 products, far beyond the few thousand items typically stocked by an individual pharmacy.

Ali said DocPharma addresses that constraint by combining larger inventories with an AI-driven system overseen by pharmacists and compliance teams. The goal, he added, is to bring quick-commerce speed to medicine delivery without compromising regulatory requirements.

DocPharma One Connects the Supply Chain

At the centre of the company’s operation is DocPharma One, an internally developed software platform that combines warehouse management, inventory tracking, order processing and fulfilment.

The system gives customers real-time visibility into available stock and routes each order to the nearest compliant store. It also incorporates prescription verification into the fulfilment process rather than treating compliance as a separate step.

DocPharma co-founder Sagar Chauhan described the platform as the intelligence layer behind the company’s supply chain. He said the startup built every component internally, including its order and warehouse management systems, AI-based inventory forecasting, prescription validation tools and pharmacist checkpoint workflows.

Keeping the technology stack in-house gives DocPharma greater control over how its software interacts with regulated fulfilment processes. It also allows the company to develop workflows specifically for healthcare rather than adapting systems created for general retail.

Compliance Shapes the Operating Model

Healthcare logistics involves requirements that conventional ecommerce platforms do not typically face. Products may carry different storage protocols, regulatory conditions and implications for patients, making speed only one part of the fulfilment equation.

Co-founder Shashank Rai said DocPharma built its compliance operations from the ground up instead of modifying an existing retail model. The team developed the network rule by rule and expanded it one licensed dark store at a time, he added.

The new funding will support DocPharma as it scales this combined infrastructure of software, inventory, licensed facilities and pharmacist-led controls.

Its opportunity lies in becoming the backend for healthcare companies seeking faster delivery without taking on the cost and regulatory complexity of operating a dedicated supply chain. The company’s challenge will be maintaining compliance and inventory availability as it extends the network and handles larger order volumes.

Subscribe to the Arab Founders Newsletter

The best entrepreneurship & investment stories from the Arab world — weekly, straight to your inbox

No ads. No fluff. No spam — we value your time.

Continue Reading

Asia Startups

India-Based Startup Cradlewise Raises $12M to Expand AI-Powered Child Sleep Products Globally

The Series A will support new sales channels, geographic expansion and a broader product roadmap extending beyond infant cribs.

Published

on

Indian consumer health and wellness startup Cradlewise has raised $12 million in Series A funding to expand its AI-powered sleep technology for infants and children.

3one4 Capital and Prudent Investment Management led the round, bringing Cradlewise’s total funding to $26 million. Its other backers include Sean O’Sullivan Ventures, Footwork VC and Charles River Ventures.

The company will use the new capital to enter additional markets, widen its sales channels and invest in product research and development. It is also planning a broader portfolio of sleep products designed to support children beyond the first two years of life.

Get Featured

A Smart Crib That Responds Before the Baby Wakes

Founded in 2019 by Radhika Patil and Bharath Patil, Cradlewise emerged from the founders’ experience of sleepless nights as new parents.

The startup has developed an AI-enabled crib that combines sensing, learning and soothing within a closed-loop system. It monitors a baby’s movement, sounds and sleep state, then attempts to predict when the child may wake and intervene before that happens.

Rather than simply alerting parents after their baby wakes, the crib responds automatically in an effort to extend the child’s sleep. Cradlewise says the system can save parents up to two hours of effort each day.

The company has collected more than 75 million hours of sleep data, which it uses to improve the product’s detection, prediction and personalisation capabilities. Its hardware and sensing systems are protected by patents, according to the startup.

Radhika Patil, co-founder and CEO of Cradlewise, said the founders wanted to create a product that would do more than notify parents that their child was awake. She said the smart crib was designed to help babies sleep better while giving parents practical support, with the new funding enabling the company to reach more families and develop products for later stages of childhood.

Manufacturing and Technology Built in India

Cradlewise manufactures its cribs at an integrated facility in Pune. The company says the site can produce, test and package thousands of units each month, giving it control over several stages of the manufacturing process.

Co-founder and CTO Bharath Patil said Cradlewise’s technology is built around sensing, learning and creating a practical impact. He described the company’s goal as developing technology that works quietly in the background, solving problems without demanding constant attention from users.

He also emphasised that Cradlewise is building the technology and engineering foundation behind its products in India.

The combination of hardware manufacturing, proprietary sensing technology and sleep data gives the startup a more complex operating model than a software-only consumer health company. Scaling will require Cradlewise to increase production while maintaining the reliability of both its physical products and AI systems.

Moving Beyond the Infant Crib

Cradlewise currently focuses on the period from birth to 24 months, but its product roadmap extends into later childhood.

The company is developing software-led sleep routines, additional child sleep hardware and more affordable entry-level products. It is also working on reusable sensing and electronics modules that could shorten the development cycles for future devices.

This strategy would allow Cradlewise to maintain relationships with families after children outgrow the crib, while applying its existing technology to a wider range of sleep challenges.

With $12 million in new funding, Cradlewise is now preparing to scale distribution while evolving from a smart-crib company into a broader child sleep technology platform.

Subscribe to the Arab Founders Newsletter

The best entrepreneurship & investment stories from the Arab world — weekly, straight to your inbox

No ads. No fluff. No spam — we value your time.

Continue Reading

Most popular