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Venture Garage kicks off SME Shakti series in 15+ cities, Yes Bank and Yes Securities join hands for Ghaziabad edition Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh) [India], 18 July, 2025: Venture Garage launched the first edition of SME Shakti on July 11th at Radisson Blu, Ghaziabad, in partnership …
Venture Garage Launches SME Shakti to Empower High-Potential SMEs Across Tier 2 India New Delhi, India – 08 July 2025: Venture Garage, in partnership with YES BANK, is proud to announce the launch of SME Shakti, its flagship initiative aimed at accelerating the growth of …
Venture Garage congratulates Saswat Finance on its $2.6M Pre-Series A raise
Gurugram, 18th July 2025: We’re excited to see our portfolio company Saswat Finance mark a key milestone by raising $2.6 million in a Pre-Series A round led by Ankur Capital, with participation from Incubate Fund Asia. Founded by Arun Tiwari, Indrajyoti Bhattacharjee, Ravi Ranjan Chaudhary, and Rahul Nischal.
Saswat is building a rural-first fintech platform that unlocks credit access for smallholder farmers—through tech-led lending, insurance integrations, and digital collections.
Venture Garage partnered with Saswat during an earlier round with Incubate Asia, Sparrow VC and Seedstars. Venture Garage backed Saswat early, drawn by the team’s strong domain expertise and a clear whitespace in vertical lending across underserved rural markets. Saswat’s asset-light model, grassroots network, and on-ground execution have set it apart in a sector dominated by legacy inefficiencies.
Vineet, Managing Partner at Venture Garage, shared:
“We had backed them driven by our belief in the founding team’s strong domain expertise and the clear whitespace in vertical lending in rural India. Their asset-light model, grassroots reach, and execution-led scale have made them a standout in the space.”
As they expand across high-potential rural markets like Maharashtra, UP, and Karnataka—with partners like Amul, RBL Bank, and Iffco Tokio and lenders like Shivalik Small Finance Bank, Ambit Finvest —we’re proud to be cheering them on from the sidelines.
Read more about Saswat here
Here’s to building Bharat’s financial backbone, one partnership at a time. 💼🚜📈
Sector FinTech | AI | Software/SaasS | Enterprise Tech Website www.onrench.com Location Gurugram Stage Early
Ruskle is a new-age food brand transforming one of India’s most iconic but outdated tea-time staples—rusk—into a modern, health-first and flavour-rich snacking product. Positioned as India’s first and only “No Maida” rusk, Ruskle combines traditional cultural affinity with modern consumer demands for clean-label, flavour-forward, and mindful snacking.
FMCG | Consumer Brand
www.ruskle.in
Bengaluru
Early
With a fast-growing snacking market worth ₹44,000 Cr and a rusk subcategory worth ₹5,000 Cr (60% unorganized), Ruskle is well-positioned to lead a category reinvention—one rooted in nostalgia but adapted to today’s health-conscious, flavour-seeking audience..
Opportunity
Former senior executive at ShareChat, brings deep expertise in scaled content systems and creator ecosystems.
15+ years in brand/advertising; scaled multiple F&B D2C brands.
Fast food chain founder; 11+ years in B2C sales.
Cleevo Secures $1 Million in Seed Round Led by Eternal Capital with Participation from VG-Angels
New Delhi, May 30, 2025 – Venture Garage is proud to announce that its portfolio company Cleevo, a home hygiene startup focused on sustainable cleaning solutions, has successfully raised $1 million in its seed funding round. The round was led by Eternal Capital, with participation from Zeca Capital, DeVC, VG-Angels including Sumit Jalan, Ajay Kumar (Action Tesa Group) and Deepak Chitnis(Lodha Group). Other marquee individual investors including Alok Mittal (Indifi), Utsav Somani (iSeed), and Suhail Sameer (OTP Ventures) also participated in the round.
Founded by Mayank Jain and Karan Shah, Cleevo is reimagining the cleaning category by introducing concentrate-based, non-toxic home cleaning products that reduce packaging waste, lower carbon emissions, and deliver affordability at scale. Produced at an in-house R&D and manufacturing facility, Cleevo’s products are already available on Zepto, Amazon, Flipkart, and its D2C platform, reaching thousands of eco-conscious Indian households.
“Home hygiene hasn’t seen meaningful innovation in decades. We’re still buying bottles that are 90% water and 10% performance, paying more for packaging and logistics than for effectiveness. Cleevo questions that model from the ground up. This fundraise isn’t just about capital—it’s validation of our mission to create smarter, safer, and more sustainable cleaning solutions.” said Mayank Jain, Co-founder of Cleevo.
Pawan Raj Kumar, Partner at Zeca Capital, added:
“We believe that the consumers are looking for more sustainable products that are not only good for them but also good for the environment. Cleevo is doing just that. The founding team’s unwavering focus on the customer will take Cleevo to great heights and we are very happy to partner with them for this growth.”
Vineet, Managing Partner at Venture Garage, shared:
“Mayank and Karan are rethinking home cleaning from the ground up with Cleevo, bringing a sharp focus on sustainability, efficiency, and affordability. Their ability to drive strong consumer adoption while maintaining solid unit economics and high operational efficiency is particularly impressive. We’re excited to be part of their journey.”
The freshly raised capital will be used to scale up Cleevo’s manufacturing 10X, deepen its investment in research and development, and expand across digital-first channels, B2B pilots, and select international markets.
Read more about Cleevo here
