New Delhi, July 31 -- Gaming startup STAN, AI platform Metaforms, learning platform for school students Arivihan, toy marketplace Snooplay and software-delivery startup Heizen have secured cheques in separate early-stage rounds from various investors, the companies said on Thursday.

STAN

Social-gaming platform STAN has raised $8.5 million (around Rs 74.5 crore) in a fresh funding round from major Japanese gaming companies such as Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc, Square Enix and Reazon Holdings, with participation from Google's AI Futures Fund, Aptos Labs.

Other investors involved in the round include General Catalyst, GFR Fund, T-Accelerate Capital, and PixCapital.

The startup said the funding will be used to expand STAN's presence in India and other markets, invest in AI-led personalizations and creator tooling, and launch new integrations for publishers and partners looking to build inside gaming-led communities.

Led by Parth Chadha, STAN's platform enables creators to build and monetize communities through shoutouts, subscriptions, and brand-led activations. The platform is available on Android and iOS. It claims to have 25 million downloads and a strong user base in India's tier-2 and tier-3.

Metaforms

Metaforms has secured $9 million in a Series A round led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from Nexus Venture Partners and Together Fund, as the startup expands its AI infrastructure platform and eyes a larger share in the global market research industry.

With the funding, the startup intends to aggressively hire in India, expand into new workflows like report generation and voice-based research, and deepen integrations with tools like Decipher and Confirmit.

Metaforms said its Bengaluru-based engineering and AI research teams are set to triple. It also said it has signed four of the top 20 research agencies globally since launching commercially just six months ago, including Dynata, Savanta, Strat7, and Borderless Access. The platform currently processes over 1,000 surveys per month and aims to process over 100,000 surveys per year in the long-term.

Founded in 2022 by Akshat Tyagi and Arjun S in Bengaluru, Metaforms' AI-based platform helps market research agencies improve research teams' work output across survey programming, data processing, bidding management, and voice research, enabling them to handle more projects while maintaining quality.

Arivihan

Learning platform Arivihan has raised $4.17 million (around Rs 36.5 crore) in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Prosus, Accel, and participation from GSF Investors.

The startup plans to use the fresh capital to expand into three new states, grow its AI research and language support capabilities, and scale its on-ground marketing and distribution strategy.

Founded by Ritesh Singh Chandel, Sonu Kumar, and Rushabh Kothari in 2024, Arivihan operates an AI-based tutoring platform that delivers personalized coaching through interactive video lectures, instant doubt-solving, and AI-driven study plans. The platform claims to eliminate the dependency on live teachers, making education accessible to students across India.

Snooplay

Snooplay, a Noida-based toy marketplace, has raised Rs 8 crore ($910,000) in its extended Pre-Series A round led by Pravek Family Office, with participation from a host of angel investors.

The startup will use the fund to enable the launch of its two proprietary tech products which discovers, buys, and recirculates toys using AI and data. It will also fund the launch of new tech products across India and build a most comprehensive Toy Intelligence Database that maps developmental skills, moods, play types, and learning goals.

Founded in 2019 by Aanchal Mahajan and Brij Raj Singh, Snooplay is a toy-tech startup which operates an AI-led platform designed for toy discovery and introduce toy-buyback mechanism. The company claims to have a catalogue of 35,000 toys from 600-plus brands.

Heizen

Heizen said it has collected $500,000 (around Rs 4.3 crore) in a pre-seed funding round led by Titan Capital, with participation from angel investors such as Mamaearth founder Varun Alagh and Tracxn founder Abhishek Goyal.

The AI-native software delivery startup said it will deploy the funding to scale its engineering team in India, expand customer acquisition in the US, and develop its proprietary multi-agent software delivery platform.

Founded in April 2024 by Aman Arora, Abhilasha Singh, and Nijansh Verma, Heizen delivers software through small, AI-native teams powered by AI agents. The platform blends LLM-powered (large language models) agents with human engineers to design, develop, and deploy custom AI products, internal tools, and minimum viable products (MVPs). It has onboarded over 50 clients across the US and India.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.