Agara is a startup founded by seasoned industry members and has reached the fundraising phase. The company is negotiating to raise approximately $5 million in a new round of financing, according to those with knowledge of the development. The move is significant in the fintech and consumer product industry, especially because the startup is utilizing the expertise of its founding team to create a platform that can support the participation of large numbers of participants within a wide range of global categories.
Strategic leadership and vision
Agara is the brainchild of two individuals, Nikhil Ramesh and Manasjoti Saloi, who have extensive experience in leading positions in the technology and venture capital ecosystem. Nikhil Ramesh is an artificial intelligence expert, having worked as an AI Resident at Accel between March and November 2025. This technical background is complemented by the vast experience of Manasjoti Saloi in product management.
Saloi worked as the Vice President of Product Management at GoTo Group before co-founding Agara (more than six years). Under his watch, several product lines, such as transport, consumer logistics, GoShop, Kilat, and GoCorp, were spearheaded, and the grocery and other consumer-focused services were managed.
The AI experience, combined with the track record in handling various consumer goods, puts the founders in a position to develop a strong platform. The leadership of the partnership is still in its infancy at the moment, but the background of the startup management has already caught the attention of the investment community.
According to sources, Accel will be taking part in the existing funding round, which will be valued at a post-money valuation of approximately $20 million. The negotiations are continuing, and the eventual conditions of the transaction, in addition to the overall round size, may tend to go up as more investors are interested in coming on board the venture.
Global and market focus
Agara is being developed as an opinion-sharing and prediction markets application where people will be able to earn money on their talent of correctly predicting the results of future occurrences. The platform is aimed at encompassing an enormous range of interests, which will guarantee wide coverage among various groups of users. These segments are sports, entertainment, politics, weather, culture, technology, and the emerging cryptocurrency market. Through this broad coverage, Agara will be able to achieve a mass feeling among users around the world.
Besides the usual prediction models, more advanced features will be implemented into the platform to improve the user experience. These are the establishment of local and contextual markets serving local interests, and advanced trading formats like parlays and leverage. Although the founders are developing a platform that is supposed to be a global event, the strategic focus of the first phase will be Southeast Asia. The geographical orientation is probably because the founders have prior knowledge of the market forces and consumer behavior in the area.
Agara enters the market when the prediction market and real-money gaming industries are undergoing a major shift and evaluation of their offerings and business models. The industry in India has been challenged by the tightening of the regulatory framework, and several leading platforms such as Probo, Gameskraft, MPL, My11Circle, and Zupee ceased real-money operations in August after a set of specific regulatory measures. It is within this context that the difficulties that startups experience when conducting business in jurisdictions with changing or constraining legal positions on opinion trading are illuminated.
The future of such platforms worldwide is encouraging in places where there are more transparent regulatory requirements. At the international level, organizations such as Kalshi and Polymarket have been able to gain momentum, proving an increasingly strong interest in event-driven trading and market-based models that reflect the collective opinion. Agara seems to be positioning itself to capture this international trend and targeting those areas where such work is encouraged by more open systems.
Conclusion
Agara is a venture with a high barrier to entry into the prediction market, and a founding team with an unusual combination of experience in AI residency and a history of running large-scale consumer products. To reach a valuation of $20 million and a minimum of $5 million in capital, the startup is indicating its desire to become a powerhouse in the opinion-sharing arena. Although the regulatory landscape in some of its markets, such as India, poses a challenge, Agara targeting Southeast Asia and the idea of a feature-rich and global platform imply a path to growth in an up-and-coming field of digital assets.
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