Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [Funding Galore 11-16 Sep]
By Meha Agarwal
We bring to you the latest edition funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding of the week.
This week 18 Indian startups raised about $115 Mn in funding and three acquisitions took place in the Indian startup ecosystem. (The startup funding calculations are based on the startups that disclosed their funding amounts).
Making it the most talked about Indian startup funding of this week, budget hotel booking marketplace OYO raised $10 Mn from China Lodging Group Limited. The investment is part of a MoU between both the firms to facilitate and strengthen collaboration to build a global hospitality business. The news comes just a few days after it raised $250 Mn in a Series D funding round led by SoftBank.
However, this week the Indian startup which grabbed the largest funding amount was Smaaash. Sachin Tendulkar backed virtual reality gaming and entertainment company Smaaash raised $44 Mn (INR 280 Cr) in a round led by Edelweiss Group’s non-banking finance unit, ECL Finance. Smaaash has been looking to set up centres in the US and in the Middle East.
Indian Startup Funding Of The Week
Ecom Express: This is the second highest Indian startup funding of the week. Delhi-based logistics solution provider Ecom Express raised $30 Mn (INR 192 Cr) from existing investor Warburg Pincus. The investment was done through Warburg Pincus’ unit Eaglebay Investment. Over the next two years, the company will look to expand its reach to 20,000 pin codes covering more near 3,000 towns and cities.
WittyFeed: Content marketing platform WittyFeed raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a Pre-Series A round from a group of marquee investors including Anand Chandrasekaran, former Snapdeal CPO; Apurva Chamaria, VP & Head Corporate Marketing , HCL Technologies; Ritesh Malik, co-founder, Innov8; Ashish Toshniwal , CEO, Y Media Labs; angel investor Ajeet Khurana; Aneil Mahajan, Ex COO, Bhaskar Group; Piyush Goel, founder and CEO Beyond Key Systems; Singapore Angel Network, and Harsh Mani Tripathi, founder Pyoopil Education Technologies. The company plans to use the startup funding to strengthen its technology infrastructure, enhance its distribution platform, as well as for augmenting its product portfolio. The funding will also be used for the expansion of its sales team to dive deep into the content-driven platforms and video making for brands while exploring other domains as well.
XPrep: Delhi-based edtech platform XPrep raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Netherland-based venture fund Rising Stars. The Indian startup funding round also saw participation from Manish Amin (co-founder & CIO – Yatra Online), Pallav Pandey (co-founder Knowlarity, Broex), Chavi Jafa (Head-Business Solutions, S. Asia, Visa) and a clutch of other angels. The startup will use company will use the newly raised capital to strengthen technology, expand product offerings and fill up key positions in the team.
Creator’s Gurukul: New Delhi-based coworking space provider Creator’s Gurukul raised an undisclosed amount in another round of funding from series of investors. The list includes Rohit Nanda, a well-known banker, and equity investor; Rajit Nanda, CIO of ACWA Power Dubai; Smarak Bhuyan, an investor based out of the Bay Area, California. Apart from this, Sashwat Brahma, Senior Banker and an environmentalist based out of Singapore also participated in this round. The coworking space is looking to open its first centre, a 500-seater space in Gurugram. It will be launching another two centres by the end of this year and total of over 15,000 seats across India in the first 18 months.
Unacademy: Bengaluru-based edtech startup Unacademy raised $11.5 Mn in its Series B round of funding led by Sequoia India and SAIF Partners. Existing investors and angels including Nexus Venture Partners and Blume Ventures also participated in the round. The startup funding will be used to grow 10X and onboard more than 10,000 educators across the globe in 18 months.
GlowRoad: Indian startup GlowRoad, a customer-to-customer(C2C) reseller network, raised $2 Mn in its Series A round of funding from Accel Partners. The startup funding will be used for scaling up and enhancing the technology.
CallHealth: Sachin Tendulkar, badminton player PV Sindhu, her coach and former badminton player Pullela Gopichand are looking to invest a $6.2 Mn funding round in Hyderabad-based startup CallHealth. Also, a Hyderabad-based IT services company, Tetra Soft India and Bijman Projects Pvt. Ltd has contributed to the round. CallHealth is a healthcare services aggregator.
Get My Parking: Cloud-based mobile parking startup Get My Parking secured Series A funding of $3 Mn. The funding in Delhi and Bengaluru headquartered startup was led by IAN Fund, BEENEXT and Indian Angel Network. The Indian startup will use the raised funding to advance their product transformation and business impact.
Sattviko: Delhi-based health food startup Sattviko raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Series A funding round from a bevy of angel investors led by Raman Roy, Chairman of Nasscom. Angels who participated in this round for the foodtech startup include Arvind Uppal, Chairman, Whirlpool; Sonu Bhasin, founder Families and Business (FAB); G Karthik- Partner, Global Holdings; G Ravishankar, former CEO Jet Airways and others.
Tonbo Imaging: This is the third highest Indian startup funding of the week. Bengaluru-based defence startup Tonbo Imaging raised $17 Mn in Series B funding led by WRV Capital. Qualcomm Ventures and Edelweiss Private Equity also participated in this round. The company was reportedly valued at about $62.5 Mn (INR 400 Cr). The startup will use the newly raised capital to scale up international operations and invest in R&D and product development on commercial businesses.
EarlySalary: Pune-based fintech startup EarlySalary raised $782K debt financing from IFMR Capital. The startup will use the recently raised funds to accelerate growth. The consumer lending fintech startup claims that it has disbursed about 7,000+ loans last month.
3hcare: New Delhi-based healthcare services provider 3hcare raised $100K in a funding round from undisclosed investors. The startup funding will be used to plan their expansion in diagnostics, surgery and boosting medical tourism. The initial focus will be on expanding their collaborations with over 500 hospitals across the country with NABL and JCI accreditation for improving the accessibility in the interest of common people.
Hetrogenous Communications Technologies: Chennai-based Machine to Machine integration platform Hetrogenous Communications Technologies raised $779K (INR 5 Cr) funding from The Chennai Angels, Keiretsu Forum and other individual investors. With this, the startup aims to fund its ambitious growth plans in remote asset management, industrial automation and IoT.
AskArvi: Mumbai-based insurance aggregating platform AskArvi.com, raised an undisclosed amount from US-based early-stage investment fund Jang Capital LLC. A few American angel investors also participated in the round. The startup funding will be used to build its AI platform and acquire the first 1,000 customers for travel and health insurance.
Wheelstreet: Bengaluru-based online bike rental platform wheelstreet.in received $120K in Seed funding from Silicon Valley-based startup accelerator Y Combinator. The Indian startup plans to use the money to expand its presence in more Indian cities, besides establishing its footprint in select South Asian countries.
Freight Tiger: Mumbai-based logistics solutions startup Freight Tiger raised $1.09 Mn from Shriram Transport Finance Company Ltd against a 17% stake. The Indian startup operates a mobile app for truck-owners, brokers and logistics companies, helping them increase their truck utilisation and get efficient loads.
Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week
Zomato acquired Bengaluru-based Runnr to strengthen Zomato’s food delivery capacity. Post acquisition, Runnr founder Mohit will remain the founder and CEO of the hyperlocal startup. He will continue developing his vision along with the rest of the founding team – Arpit, Mukunda, Gnanesh, Vatsal and Aravind.
Chef Gautam Chaudhry-led Demiurgic Hospitality acquired World In A Box, a Gurugram-based food startup. While details of the acquisition are undisclosed, the deal is most likely to be a cash-plus-equity deal.
Sattviko acqui-hired snacks company Indori Chotore based out of Mumbai and Pune. With this, Sattviko aim to penetrate deeper into existing geographies and grow into newer cities in India. To achieve this goal, the brand is already working on launching new product lines in different parts of the India.
Other Developments Of The Week
Mumbai-based early stage investment firm Kae Capital closed its second VC fund at $53 Mn, a 32.5% increase from the estimated $40 Mn. About 20% of the newly-raised fund will be used to back non-tech consumer brand startups, while the remaining amount will be utilised to invest in consumer Internet and software-based companies.
Japanese Entrepreneur turned Investor Taizo Son, Founder & Chairman, Mistletoe, launched ‘Gastrotope’, an accelerator platform in association with India’s leading tech accelerator, GSF India and Indo-Japan business consultancy firm, Infobridge.
Real estate firm Lodha Group, in association with Mumbai-based Zone Startups India (ZSI) launched the Palava Accelerator. The programme will provide a testing ground to emerging technology startups to conduct their pilots at Palava, a privately-developed greenfield smart city located in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). The Lodha Group will be investing in Palava Accelerator from its flagship Startup Investment Fund for Real Estate and Smart Cities which has an initial corpus of $7.8 Mn (INR 50 Cr).
The Kerala government announced its intentions to create a fund of funds for startups. The government is also planning to invite investors to back young companies based in the state. Saji Gopinath, Chief Executive of the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), confirmed the same, stating that the government was looking to create a corpus of about $78 Mn (INR 500 Cr) for Kerala-based startups over the next three years.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu announced that the government would allot $15.6 Mn (INR 100 Cr) to create a separate startup fund for budding entrepreneurs. The Chief Minister and National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) Chairman and Managing Director H. Purushottam also signed a MoU to encourage startups through AP Innovation Society (APIS).
Accelerator Group LLC announced a $25 Mn early stage private equity fund for women entrepreneurs. The Accelerator Group’s Achieving Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) Fund I is specifically for women-owned and led enterprises.
Government invites startup proposals under India Israel Innovation Bridge. The participating startups will get $7820 (INR 5 Lakhs) cash prize, mentorship opportunity from the government bodies and additional support from Corporate & Investor Partners. The startups will also get a working space for six months in the partner incubator.
-Nazara Technologies announced to offer $156.5 Mn public offering early Next Year. This will be the first public listing in the Indian gaming space. As per reports, the Mumbai-based company has mandated ICICI Securities and financial services firm Edelweiss for the proposed initial public offering. According to sources, the public offering is expected to raise a total of $156.5 Mn (INR 1,000 Cr) at a valuation of somewhere between $469.7 Mn-$548 Mn (INR 3,000 Cr-INR 3,500 Cr).
Matrimony IPO gets oversubscribed 441% on final day . According to NSE data, the public offering of the online matchmaking and marriage services provider received bids for 12,409,980 shares against a total issue size of 2,811,280 shares. After a tepid first day, with around 67% subscription, Matrimony’s IPO made a comeback on Day 2 with 1.36 times oversubscription. With the fresh issue of shares, the online matchmaking portal is looking to raise $20.3 Mn (INR 130 Cr) against approximately 3.7 Mn shares at a price band of INR 983 – INR 985.
Buyfie, a Kerala-based hyperlocal ecommerce startup, was selected for the ‘in2Korea’ acceleration programme. Conducted by South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) and National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA), the programme offers startups the opportunity to fast-track their growth in one of the world’s major IT hubs.
Stay tuned for the next edition of the Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week!
