Funding Galore : Startup Fundings Of The Week [28 December, 2015- 2 January, 2016]

This week, 8 startups raised about $8 Mn in funding altogether. (The funding amount is based on the startups that disclosed their funding amounts).

Startups That Raised Funds This Week

HELPI: Home services startup HELPI raised an undisclosed amount in angel round of funding led by a group of IIT alumni and few investment bankers based out of the US. The startup will utilise the funds for team expansion and product building.

Smartcooky: Yet to be launched NDTV’s ecommerce venture, Smartcooky, a marketplace for health products and personal care products, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Rajan Anandan, Pramod Bhasin, Manvinder Singh Banga and Siddharth Pai.

Intelligent Interfaces: Yuvraj Singh invested an undisclosed amount in Rahul Yadav’s new venture via his venture fund – YouWeCan Ventures. With this, Yuvraj joins the list of star investors, Flipkart founders, Sachin and Binny Bansal; Paytm founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Micromax co-founder, Rahul Sharma who are already investors in the startup.

Mobikwik: Mobile wallet company, MobiKwik, closed about $6.5 Mn (INR 44 Cr.), in a mix of debt and equity funding from Sequoia Capital and Tree Line Asia. The investment is part of the Series B round which the company had raised in June 2015. The round also saw participation from Cisco Investments and American Express. The funds will be utilised to drive product innovation, brand and marketing initiatives and for expanding mobile payments in the offline space.

Bumper: Car care service provider startup Bumper raised $500K (about INR 3.3 Cr.) in a seed round funding led by SAIF Partners. The startup will utilise the raised funds to expand its team and enhance customer experience by providing efficient and effective end-to-end solutions for any car related services.

Town Essentials: Grocery delivery startup Town Essentials raised $1 Mn (about INR 6.7 Cr.) in a fresh round of angel funding from a cluster of high-net-worth individuals. The round was led by Infosys’ first non-founder employee Sharad Hegde; former Workday executive Girish Reddy; Siddharth Patil, head of data science at the TellApart division at Twitter; and existing investor Shrikant Patil. The startup will use the raised funds for marketing activities.

Hotify: Personalised news curation app Hotify raised $150K (INR 1 Cr) in seed investment from Rajasthan Angel Innovators Network’s (RAIN). The startup will use the funds mainly for product development and innovation on artificial intelligence capabilities, and to hire innovators.

Kolabro: A technology platform for real estate brokers, Kolabro, raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from Gaadi.com’s founder Umang Kumar and CollegeDekho’s co-founder Ruchir Arora, along with other undisclosed investors also participating. The startup will use the funds raised to strengthen its technology and marketing capabilities and expand into more cities.

With this, Japanese adtech startup Geniee raised an undisclosed amount of series D funding from Fenox Venture Capital to expand its reach in Asian markets. The company already has subsidiaries in Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam – along with joint ventures in Thailand and Malaysia. It also plans to expand its presence to China, India and Taiwan by 2016 year end.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Local seed investment platform Venture Catalysts partnered with Plug & Play International, a global incubator and seed fund, to help Indian startups get exposure to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors. The development will help startups for mentorship and potential funding opportunities.
• Vertex Ventures, a venture capital firm, raised $151 Mn for its debut early-stage fund i.e. ‘Vertex Ventures US Fund I, LP’. Singapore state fund Temasek is the anchor investor in the fund. Infosys Ltd also has also invested in the fund. The firm had made its first close in January this year.
• Ahmed Aftab Naqvi, founder and CEO of digital marketing firm Gozoop and startup accelerator Sparknext, has decided to accelerate around 30-40 startups in the year 2016. It will incubate shortlisted entities from the consumer internet and mobile space for a period of six to eight months and provide them with resources for idea validation, branding, UI/UX, technology, marketing, PR and fundraising, to build and grow these ideas into independent companies.