The UAE’s CE-Ventures, the corporate venture capital platform of Crescent Enterprises, and Singapore’s Jungle Ventures led a $7.7 million Series A funding round for the specialty chemicals startup Distil. Other investors included India Quotient, PI Industries Vice Chairperson Mayank Singhal, and strategic investors Rubamin.
With this, Distil has raised $10.8 million in total funding to date. Through its First Cheque@Jungle platform, the startup raised $3.1 million in its seed round, which was led by Jungle Ventures, in June of last year.
The money raised will be used to deepen R&D efforts to support high-value industrial applications, improve enterprise partnerships, and broaden the company’s product line. As manufacturers around the world look for dependable and affordable specialty chemical alternatives, Distil is also committed to expanding its export pipeline.
Distil, which was founded in 2021 by Atanu Agarrwal and Viraj Shah, creates cutting-edge specialty chemicals for use in paints and coatings, plastics, and building supplies. It uses an asset-light, R&D-first business strategy, utilizing India’s underutilized chemical manufacturing capacity to scale production without requiring significant capital expenditures.
From pre-revenue to $7 million in yearly sales, the startup claims to have scaled quickly. It has also built a 19-person R&D and engineering team and served over 100 enterprise clients.
Accel and Bertelsmann India Investments co-led a $40 million Series B funding round earlier this year for Scimplify, a platform for sourcing and manufacturing specialty chemicals. Additionally, it faces competition from Elchemy, Covvalent, Atomgrid, and Mstack.
