Scooter, an Indian sales hiring startup, has raised ₹1.5 crore (US$0.16 million) in a pre-seed funding round led by AJVC, the early-stage venture capital fund founded by Aviral Bhatnagar.

The Pune-based company plans to use the fresh capital to strengthen its product and simplify sales hiring for startups and job seekers. The deal marks AJVC’s first investment in a Pune-based startup.

Scooter did not disclose its valuation or the total amount of capital it has raised to date.

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Moving Sales Hiring Beyond Resumes

Founded in 2024 by Kartik Mandrekar and Saumya Seth, Scooter is building a hiring platform focused specifically on sales roles. Rather than relying primarily on resumes and conventional screening, the startup assesses candidates through exercises designed around the requirements of individual sales positions.

The platform sources verified sales candidates and evaluates them before presenting employers with a shortlist of three to five applicants. Hiring managers can also review video clips from candidate assessments before examining their resumes.

Scooter’s approach is built around assessing how candidates perform in sales-related scenarios earlier in the recruitment process, giving employers another layer of information before committing time to interviews.

The model primarily targets startups and sales teams looking to evaluate practical selling skills while reducing the time required to screen large pools of applicants.

Pre-Seed Funding to Strengthen the Platform

Scooter will use the AJVC-led financing to expand its product and improve the hiring experience for both candidates and employers.

The company is working to refine how sales professionals are assessed and matched with potential employers, particularly startups that need to build or expand sales teams.

Its platform brings candidate sourcing, assessments and shortlisting into a single process. By providing employers with a smaller pool of evaluated candidates, Scooter aims to reduce some of the manual screening typically involved in sales recruitment.

The startup has not disclosed additional investors in the pre-seed round.

Building a Network of Sales Candidates

Scooter said it currently works with more than 50 companies and has added 14 new clients in recent months. Its candidate network has also grown to more than 10,000 sales professionals.

The company said one client completed a sales hire through the platform in six days. The business and performance figures were provided by Scooter and have not been independently verified.

The founders bring backgrounds spanning sales, hiring and science. Mandrekar previously led sales teams at Gartner, Shoptimize and Graas, giving him experience in both sales operations and recruitment. Seth is a scientist and holds a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

A Skills-First Model for Sales Recruitment

Scooter is betting that sales recruitment can benefit from putting practical assessments earlier in the hiring process rather than using resumes as the primary filter.

Its platform is designed to evaluate candidates against role-specific requirements and give hiring managers access to assessment results before they move deeper into the recruitment process.

With its first institutional capital from the AJVC-led pre-seed round, Scooter will now focus on developing its product, expanding its network and improving how startups identify and evaluate sales talent.

GalaxEye Space Solutions, a Bengaluru-based space technology startup, has secured ₹63.84 crore (US$6.67 million) in financial support from India’s Technology Development Board (TDB) to accelerate the development and deployment of its indigenous OptoSAR satellite technology.

The financing will support a ₹247.69 crore project focused on building a multisensor Earth-observation satellite that integrates Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) with electro-optical imaging. GalaxEye plans to use the funding to move the technology from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 to TRL 9, taking it from advanced demonstration to an operational space system.

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TDB Backs GalaxEye Through India’s RDI Fund

The Technology Development Board, which operates under the Department of Science and Technology, signed an agreement with GalaxEye Space Solutions Private Limited to provide the ₹63.84 crore financial package.

The support comes through the Government of India’s Research Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund, which finances technology-intensive projects as they progress toward deployment and commercialisation.

TDB will provide the financing through Optionally Convertible Debentures. GalaxEye will direct the capital toward engineering, system integration, testing, qualification and validation work required to prepare the OptoSAR platform for operational deployment.

TDB Secretary Rajesh Kumar Pathak highlighted the importance of supporting the domestic development and deployment of sophisticated technologies, with the RDI Fund designed to help projects bridge the gap between advanced development and commercial readiness.

Combining Radar and Optical Imaging

GalaxEye’s OptoSAR architecture brings SAR and electro-optical imaging together within a single multisensor satellite platform, aiming to overcome some of the limitations associated with relying on either technology independently.

Optical sensors can capture detailed visual information but are constrained by darkness and cloud cover. SAR uses radar signals and can operate during the day or night and under cloudy conditions. Combining both capabilities could provide more consistent Earth observation across changing weather and lighting environments.

The proposed satellite is being designed to deliver imagery with a resolution of less than 0.5 metre. GalaxEye is targeting applications including wide-area monitoring, infrastructure observation, surveillance, human and vehicle detection, and target classification.

Moving OptoSAR From TRL 6 to TRL 9

GalaxEye’s technology has reached TRL 6, indicating that the system has been demonstrated in a relevant environment. The next development phase will focus on reaching TRL 9, when the technology has been proven in its final operational configuration.

Achieving that milestone will require further system integration, qualification, performance validation and testing before deployment. TDB’s financial support is intended to help fund this transition and move the OptoSAR platform closer to operational use.

The technology could support applications across defence and border monitoring, disaster management, agriculture, infrastructure planning, maritime surveillance and environmental monitoring. Its multisensor configuration is designed to combine the detailed visual information provided by optical sensors with SAR’s ability to capture imagery despite poor visibility or cloud cover.

Building Domestic Earth-Observation Capabilities

The programme also contributes to India’s efforts to develop domestic capabilities across satellite manufacturing, advanced sensing and space-based data services.

For GalaxEye, integrating radar and optical sensors into a single satellite architecture could give users greater flexibility in satellite tasking, data access and system configuration while reducing observation gaps created by weather and lighting conditions.

The TDB-backed programme now represents a key development phase for the company as it works to validate its OptoSAR technology and move the platform from an advanced prototype toward operational deployment.

Alive App, an Indian AI-powered experience-tech startup, has raised $1 million in a seed funding round led by Powerhouse Ventures, with participation from Flipkart Ventures, as it looks to deepen its presence across six Indian markets.

The Bengaluru-based company will use the fresh capital to strengthen its product and technology capabilities while expanding the supply of experiences available through its platform. Alive App is also targeting 3X revenue growth over the coming months and plans to increase how frequently customers book activities.

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Building a Marketplace for Local Experiences

Founded in 2023 by Vivek Kumar, Alive App helps urban consumers discover curated activities spanning adventure, food, wellness, art, culture and learning.

The platform operates across Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Goa, offering more than 500 experiences through a network of over 400 creators and partners.

More than 90% of bookings on Alive App are for local experiences, according to the company, indicating that much of its demand comes from consumers looking for activities within their own cities rather than travel-related experiences.

Alive App currently adds around 100 new experiences every month. The startup said its experience supply across Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Goa has grown five times faster than during its initial expansion phase.

Fresh Capital to Strengthen Product and Supply

The $1 million investment follows a ₹6 crore pre-seed round raised last year, which was also led by Powerhouse Ventures.

Alive App plans to use the latest funding to improve its product and technology while increasing the breadth of experiences offered across markets where it already operates. Rather than prioritising entry into additional cities, the company is currently focused on strengthening its existing footprint and increasing booking frequency.

Bengaluru, Alive App’s first and largest market, has already recorded its first profitable quarter. Meanwhile, newer markets are showing faster early-stage expansion, according to the company.

Founder and CEO Vivek Kumar said the adoption of experiences as an alternative to conventional weekend plans has been one of the company’s strongest signals over the past year. He noted that Mumbai and Chennai are expanding faster than Bengaluru did during its early months, while supply in recently launched cities has scaled at a significantly quicker pace.

The company’s longer-term ambition, Kumar added, is to make Alive App a regular destination for urban consumers looking for activities and experiences each week.

An AI-Led Approach to Scaling

Alive App is also using AI beyond the consumer-facing platform, incorporating the technology into how it operates and scales the business.

Kshitij Golwalkar, General Partner at Powerhouse Ventures, described Alive App as a differentiated and capital-efficient business within the category. He said the startup’s use of AI across its operations, combined with its consumer proposition and differentiated experience supply, was central to the investor’s decision to continue backing the company.

The new financing gives Alive App additional capital to build on its existing network of creators and partners while improving the technology connecting consumers with local activities.

With more than 500 experiences already available across six markets, the company’s next phase will centre on expanding supply, driving repeat usage and pursuing its target of tripling revenue in the coming months.