From Purplle To Eruditus – Indian Startups Raised $478 Mn This Week

SUMMARY

Startups raised $478 Mn across 29 deals, marking a 319%% increase from the $114 Mn raised across 22 deals in the preceding week

Buoyed by Eridutus’s mega funding round, edtech emerges as the most funded sector for the week at $126.9 Mn

Seed funding for the week stood at $26.5 Mn, which was an increase of 48.8% from previous week’s $17.8 Mn

After two consecutive weeks of tepid funding, investment activity in the startup ecosystem gained significant momentum this week.

In the week between October 14 and 19, Indian startups raised $478 Mn across 29 deals. This was an increase of 319% from $114 Mn raised across 22 deals in the preceding week.

Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding This Week [Oct 14-19]

Date	Name	Sector	Subsector	Business Model	Funding Round Size	Funding Round Type	Investors	Lead Investor
18 Oct 2024	Eruditus	Edtech	Online Certification	B2C	$150 Mn	Series F	TPG, Softbank Vision Fund II, Leeds Illuminate, Accel, CPP Investments, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative	TPG
14 Oct 2024	Purplle	Ecommerce	B2C Ecommerce	B2C	$60 Mn	Series F	ADIA, Premji Invest, Blume Ventures, Sharrp Ventures	ADIA
16 Oct 2024	Neuron7	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	$44 Mn	Series B	Smith Point Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Battery Ventures	Smith Point Capital
14 Oct 2024	GIVA	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$30.3 Mn	Series B	Premji Invest, Epiq Capital, Edelweiss Discover Fund	–
16 Oct 2024	Everstage	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	$30 Mn	Series B	Eight Roads Ventures, Elevation Capital, 3one4 Capital	Eight Roads Ventures
16 Oct 2024	Primus Senior Living	Real Estate Tech	Shared Spaces	B2C	$20 Mn	Seed round	General Catalyst, Nikhil Kamath, Gruhas	General Catalyst
15 Oct 2024	Troo Good	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$9 Mn	–	Puro Wellness, Oaks Asset Management, V Ocean Investments	Puro Wellness
18 Oct 2024	WROGN	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$8.9 Mn	–	Aditya Birla Digital Fashion Ventures	Aditya Birla Digital Fashion Ventures
15 Oct 2024	Simplismart	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	$7 Mn	series A	Accel, Shastra VC, Titan Capital	Accel
18 Oct 2024	Yu Foods	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$6.5 Mn	Series B	Ashish Kacholia, Asian Paints	Ashish Kacholia, Asian Paints
17 Oct 2024	Suraasa	Edtech	Online Certification	B2C	$6 Mn	–	Reach Capital, ETS Capital, NB Ventures, TSM ventures, TRTL Ventures	Reach Capital
15 Oct 2024	Evenflow	Ecommerce	Roll Ups	B2C	$5 Mn	Series A	Shail Patel and some existing investors	Shail Patel
17 Oct 2024	Budy	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	$4.2 Mn	pre-Seed	BeeNext, The Neon Fund, BITS SPARK Angels, Raju Reddy, Abhinav Asthana, John Hayes, Bruno Kurtic	RTP Global
17 Oct 2024	AGNIT Semiconductors	Deeptech	IoT & Hardware	B2B	$3.5 Mn	Seed	3one4 Capital, Zephyr Peacock, Lakshmi Narayanan	3one4 Capital, Zephyr Peacock
14 Oct 2024	The Good Bug	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$3.5 Mn	Series A	Sharrp Ventures, Fireside Ventures, Keshav Biyani	Sharrp Ventures
15 Oct 2024	Yoho	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$3.2 Mn	pre-Series B	Gulf Islamic Investments, Rajeev Misra, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Rukam Capital, Pankaj Chaddah	Gulf Islamic Investments
14 Oct 2024	Perceptyne	Deeptech	IoT & Hardware	B2B	$3 Mn	Seed	Endiya Partners, Yali Capital, Whiteboard Capital	Endiya Partners, Yali Capital
16 Oct 2024	Optimized Electrotech	Deeptech	Defencetech	B2B	$2.9 Mn	–	Government of India	–
17 Oct 2024	Febi	Fintech	Fintech SaaS	B2B	$2 Mn	pre Series A	Lumis Partners, Virender Rana, Amit Chaudhary, Padmaja Ruparel, Rohan Bhargava, Rajat Jain	–
14 Oct 2024	Elixia	Logistics	Logistics SaaS	B2B	$1 Mn	pre-Series A	JIIF, Motilal Oswal , Vimal Shah, Sparsh Jain, Vinod Dugar, Vimal Khinvasara, Ashok Shah, Amit Chandwar	JIIF
16 Oct 2024	Tablesprint	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	$1 Mn	–	Ankit Bhati, Ajeet Khurana, Sunil Sharma, BlueLotus Ventures, TDV Partners, DGC Ventures, Abhijeet Bhandari	–
17 Oct 2024	Lifechart	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$500K	–	Prajay Advisors, Agility Ventures, Expert Dojo, Ahana Gautam, Nitish Mittersain, Sarath Sura, Marwari Angels	Prajay Advisors
16 Oct 2024	Alchemyst AI	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	$300K	pre-Seed	Inflection Point Ventures, 100Unicorns, Early Seed Ventures	Inflection Point Ventures
15 Oct 2024	SportsSkill	Enterprise Tech	Entetprise Services	B2B	–	–	KP Balaraj	KP Balaraj
16 Oct 2024	ANNY	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	–	–	FAAD Capital	FAAD Capital
14 Oct 2024	Brown Living	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	–	pre-Seed	Blink Digital, Sanjay Nayar, Sorin, Bharat Iyer	Blink Digital
15 Oct 2024	PetStrong	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	–	–	Auxano Capital	Auxano Capital
15 Oct 2024	Traqo.io	Logistics	Logistics SaaS	B2B	–	pre-Seed	We Founder Circle	We Founder Circle
15 Oct 2024	Healspan	Healthtech	Healthcare SaaS	B2B	–	Seed	Lead Angels, Ankitt Jain, Srijith Nair, The Doctorpreneur Academy	Lead Angels
	Source: Inc42 *Part of a larger round Note: Only disclosed funding rounds have been included

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Key Startup Funding Highlights Of The Week

The biggest cheque this week was pocketed by edtech unicorn Eruditus secured $150 Mn in its Series F funding round led by TPG’s global impact investing platform The Rise Fund.
Buoyed by Eruditus’ mega funding round, edtech emerged as the most funded sector for the week at $156 Mn.
However, ecommerce witnessed the most number of deals materialise this week at 12.
Seed funding for the week stood at $26.5 Mn, an increase of 48.8% from previous week’s $17.8 Mn.

Startup Fund Launches Of This Week

Nikhil and Nithin Kamath-led fintech unicorn Zerodha launched a new fund, FLOSS/fund, aimed at supporting Free/libre and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects globally. The fund will provide annual funding of $1 Mn.
In another development, alternate investment firm Anicut Capital raised $11 Mn (about INR 92 Cr) through a feeder fund based out of GIFT City for its Private Credit Fund III.
Besides this, airline major Indigo received approval from the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to float its venture capital (VC) arm IndiGo Ventures.
Masters’ Union founder’s global business school Tetr College of Business floated a $10 Mn fund to back student entrepreneurs

Updates On Indian Startup IPOs

Omnichannel jewellery startup BlueStone is preparing to go public by the second quarter of next year. The Prosus-backed startup is expected to raise $200 Mn to $250 Mn (about INR 1,681 Cr to INR 2,100 Cr) through its IPO at an estimated valuation of $1 Bn to $1.5 Bn.

Mergers and Acquisitions This Week

D2C foodtech unicorn Licious acquired Bengaluru-based offline retailer My Chicken and More in a cash and equity deal, expanding its offline footprint by adding 23 stores to its network.
MSME-focused fintech startup Lendingkart said that Temasek’s subsidiary Fullerton Financial Holdings (FFH) will acquire a controlling stake in the startup with an additional investment of INR 252 Cr.

Other Developments Of The Week

Tiger Global-backed Mensa Brands, which operates consumer brands such as Pebble, MyFitness, Dennis Lingo, among others, is shifting its domicile from Singapore to Mumbai.
Customer engagement and retention startup Clevertap is also in discussions with advisers to relocate its headquarters from San Francisco to India.
Two major exits were reported this week. Early stage VC firm 8i Ventures made a full exit from fintech startup M2P Fintech with 12X returns in 4.5 years. Besides, Zodius Capital marked its full exit from B2B marketplace OfBusiness via a secondary share sale of around $100-120 Mn, against its initial $8 Mn investment.
Singapore’s state investor Temasek is eyeing acquiring a 20-25% stake in Rebel Foods via a mix of primary equity infusion and secondary share sale for around $180 Mn to $200 Mn.
Zomato’s board will meet on October 22 to consider raising funds via qualified institutional placement (QIP). As per reports, the board will consider raising INR 8,500 Cr (about $1 Bn).
Zepto is in advanced discussions to raise $100 Mn from asset management company Motilal Oswal, as well as high-net-worth individuals (HNIs) and family offices.
Bengaluru-based Jetapult made its maiden investment in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region by acquiring a stake in Saudi Arabia-based game developer UMX Studio for $4.5 Mn.
Edtech unicorn upGrad’s cofounder and managing director Mayank Kumar stepped down from his executive role to launch a new venture.
Listed gaming major Nazara received the approval from its shareholders to acquire a 47.7% stake in Pokerbaazi’s parent company Moonshine Technology for INR 831 Cr.