Funding Galore: Startup Fundings Of The Week [21 September – 26 September]
By Akanksha Pahwa
Didi Kuaidi may invest in homegrown cab hailing company Ola. It seems that Didi Kuaidi is creating a global alliance against Uber as this investment move comes after it acquired stakes in San Francisco-based Lyft and Malaysia’s GrabTaxi.
On the other side, Berlin-based startup incubator Rocket Internet is reportedly considering a plan to sell its top companies in India including Foodpanda, Fabfurnish and Jabong. As per the sources, instead of incubating startups, the founders of Rocket Internet will now invest directly in companies through a venture capital fund.
This week 23 startups raised more than $60 Mn in funding altogether. (The funding amount is based on the startups that disclosed their funding amounts).
Let’s Have A Look At The Startups That Raised Funds This Week
Saavn: Music streaming service Saavn raised an undisclosed amount in funding led by former Vodafone CEO, Arun Sarin. Sarin will also join Saavn as a strategic advisor to lead company’s continued progress.
InnerChef: Food-tech startup InnerChef raised $1.66 Mn (INR 11 Cr) in its pre-series A round of funding led by founders of RedBus, Paytm, Shaadi.com, GOQii, Bharat Matrimony, Indiamart & Tolexo, Hungama, Encompass, NetPrice & Beenos, and Atsushi Tiara (Senior Softbank executive), Hiro San (M&S Fund, Japan), Boris Raybov (Investor from Silicon Valley), Sateesh Andara’s (ex DFJ) new fund, and TA Venture from Europe. The funds will be used to focus on building Indulge as a hyper local desserts marketplace.
Juggernaut: Mobile-first publishing startup, Juggernaut, raised about $2.2 Mn (INR 15 Cr) in funding, led by FabIndia’s founder William Bissell, Infosys’ co-founder Nandan Nilekani and Boston Consulting Group’s MD Neeraj Aggarwal. With the newly raised funds, the startup plans to establish new ways of commissioning and rethinking the reading experience, book distribution and payments.
Furdo: Online home décor platform Furdo that helps visualise home and its furniture in 3D, secured $400K (INR 2.64 Cr.) in an angel round of funding from Bobby Reddy (CEO of Indus Homes Pvt Ltd). With the newly raised funds, the startup plans to scale the product further.
SilverPush: A cross-device retargeting company raised close to $1.2 Mn from early-stage investment firm M&S Partners. The funds will be used for the launch of its new product, PRISM, which is presently in its beta version and launched in India and Philippines.
Amigobulls: A platform for stock market news, views and analysis videos, Amigobulls, raised undisclosed amount of seed funding via LetsVenture. The funding round was led by Sharad Sharma of iSPIRT and Vijay Anand of Intuit India. Besides, Mohandas Pai, Pallav Nadhani, GP Group of Thailand and others also participated in the round. The funds will primarily be utilized to build mobile platforms and strengthen Amigobulls’ network of video bloggers.
Credihealth: Online healthcare service provider, Credihealth, secured undisclosed amount of strategic investment from Rajat Malhotra, director of engineering at Twitter India. As a part of investment, Rajat will join Credihealth’s board and will help the company scale up its technology.
The Man Company: Subscription based ecommerce platform for men’s grooming and essentials, The Man Company, raised an undisclosed amount in its angel round of funding led by Karan Bajwa of Microsoft India, Amanpreet Bajaj of Airbnb and Manish Vij of SVG Media. The startup aims to build a subscriber base of about 5,000 users in next 2-3 months.
Korra: Online private label brand, Korra, grabbed $300K in an angel funding round led by Asha Jadeja Motwani of Dot Edu Ventures and few other undisclosed investors. The funds will be used to expand and build its product.
Bestdealfinance: Bestdealfinance is an online ‘Financial SuperMart’ that offers wide range of loan products and end-to-end loan fulfillment for individuals and MSMEs. The startup raised $3 Mn in Series A round of funding led by Kalaari Capital with participation from YourNest Angel Fund, Globvestor and Dexter Angel Circle.
GameXS: A pre-owned game store, GameXS, raised an undisclosed amount of angel round funding from Lead Angels. The startup focuses on enabling Indian gamers to seamlessly buy and sell video games online.
DishCo: Food-tech app DishCo that allows users to book restaurant tables & discover signature dishes, raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Mahindra Group’s Anand Mahindra, Punj Lloyd’s Uday Punj, Bookmyshow’s Ashish Hemrajani and Goldman Sach’s Sanjeev Mehra. The funds will be deployed to expand its services to more geographies.
LafaLafa: Mobile-first coupons and cashback app, LafaLafa, has been chosen for the 500 startups Accelerator Program. As a part of this, LafaLafa will be the part of batch 15 of 500 Startups Accelerator Program and will receive a seed investment of $125K.
Neotrade Analytics: A startup that distributes real-time data to traders & trading bodies, Neotrade, raised about $227K (INR 1.5 Cr.) in its first funding round from startup incubator and fund Rainmatter. The capital raised will be used to build a comprehensive digitised trading solutions product to help traders build strategies as well as marketing efforts.
Portea Medical: Home healthcare firm Portea Medical raised $37.5 Mn in a Series B round of funding led by Accel Partners. Other participants were International Finance Corporation (IFC), Qualcomm Ventures and Ventureast. The funds will be used for company’s expansion in India and regions of Malaysia, where it already provides services in four cities.
Rang De: Tata Trusts invested an undisclosed amount of funds in internet driven, peer-to-peer (P2P) micro-lending platform Rang De. The initiative aims to offer an affordable micro-credit solution to nearly quarter of million families, over next five years.
Capabiliti: SaaS-based training and recruitment startup, Capabiliti, raised about $400K in a funding round led by 500 Startups, Smile Group and angel investors like Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal, Girish Mathrubootham. The funding will be used to expand company into international markets, team expansion and technology platform enhancement.
Quintype Inc: Data driven publishing platform for the mobile first world, Quintype Inc, raised $3.25 Mn (INR 22 Cr.) in a funding round led by Raghav Bahl, media entrepreneur-turned early stage investor. The capital will be used to grow the product engineering and sales teams, across its locations.
TravelKhana: Online meal-booking platform for train passengers, TravelKhana, raised its Pre-Series A round of funding led by Astarc Ventures and HNIs. This funding is a part of $10 Mn Series A round that company is raising.
Virtual Logic Systems: Startup that develops products using virtual reality, simulation and 3D stereoscopic technologies, Virtual Logic Systems, raised funding of amount between $600 K to $900 K (INR 4 Cr to INR 6 Cr) in its pre-Series A round of funding from Swarnim Multiventures and two HNIs.
ConnectAbank: A lead generation and comparison portal for financial products, ConnectAbank, raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from Gulab & Co’s Prakhar Bumb. The funds will be used to expand presence in other cities and for product development.
Licious: TV Mohandas Pai and Kanwaljit Singh along with few others made a seed investment of about $1 Mn (INR 6.4 Cr) in online meat ordering startup Licious. The startup plans to use the funds to scale its platform to more cities.
Along with the funds raised, few startups are in talks with investors to endure more funds.
Gurgaon-based mobile-first hyperlocal grocery delivery services startup, PepperTap, is reportedly close to raising a $50 Mn round to be led by ecommerce etailer Snapdeal.
On the other side, as per reports, Canada-based Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, plans to pick up minority equity stake in Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd, which runs and owns ecommerce marketplace, Snapdeal.
Chinese conglomerate Lead Eastern Group is set to invest $15 Mn for a 10% stake in Reliance Games’ Zapak Mobile Games. As part of the transaction, Reliance Games will partner with Lead Eastern Group to create and market mobile games globally.
Acquisitions That Took Place This Week
Healthcare platform Practo acquired Qikwell, a leading appointment scheduler at hospitals. The acquisition now makes Practo the world’s largest appointment booking platform with nearly 40 Mn appointments every year. Under the deal term Qikwell will continue to be led by the founders, Krishna Prasad and Raghavendra Prasad.
A startup focused on e-sports betting, Unikrn, acquired Gurgaon-based DotaProHub, an analysis tool for competitive Dota 2 gaming that caters to fans, professional players and casting studios alike. As part of the deal, DotaProHub founders Swaroop Hegde and Aditya Mukherjee will move to Seattle, where Unikrn’s main office is located.
Housing.com acqui-hired Plat and BigBHK. Plat is an online network for agents enabling them to share real estate inventories and requirements, whereas, BigBHK is a property management software (PMS) targeted at rental suppliers. The acquisition will enable Housing to strengthen its supply product portfolio and merge quality talent on board from Plat’s and BIgBHK’s team.
Chat-based personal assistant app, Helpchat, acquired Niffler that helps users to discover deals and discounts from brick and mortar stores at an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will help Helpchat in its expansion plans.
Other Developments Of The Week
While speaking to CNBC, Kunal Bahl, co-founder of Snapdeal said that Snapdeal plans to launch an IPO in India in five years time. However, this would not be his sole decision, it will be a decision by the board.
With an aim to promote entrepreneurial ideas, Federal Bank has started a $3.78 Mn (INR 25 Cr.) startup fund that will exclusively look at small-ticket projects. The fund will invest upto $15 K in sector agonistic startups starting from states of Gujarat and Kerala.
Out of 16 shortlisted startups for Google’s Launchpad, Curofy, LightMetrics and SlamdunQ emerged as winners. The startups underwent five-day programme of mentorship in product strategy, UX and UI, marketing, business development and presentation skills.
Liqvid eLearning Services announced its plans to incubate and fund up to five mobile-first startups in the edtech space. The company is open to spend upto $5 Mn for handholding early stage startups and entrepreneurs, with a novel idea.
Venture fund, Trifecta Capital Advisors LLP, raised around $30 Mn capital in its debut fund. With this, the specialty debt-financing venture will start investing in companies, while it reaches to the final corpus of $76 Mn (Rs 500 crore).
VC fund, IDG Ventures, is reportedly raising additional $200 Mn to invest in domestic and global startups. The VC firm has reached out to around 150 family offices and has got over 50 commitments.
Haywards 5000 announced 11 finalists for its “Haywards 5000 Hauslay Ki Udaan” entrepreneurship program who will compete this weekend for final round. The winner will be awarded a seed fund of about $22 K (INR 15 lakh).
IBM Global Entrepreneurship Program opened applications for its Smartcamp 2015 Hyderabad edition for the startup challenge. The event is scheduled for 29th September.
