From Stable Money To Incuspaze – Indian Startups Raised $43 Mn This Week

Investment activity across the Indian startup ecosystem redacted to an all year low in the budget week. Between July 22 and 27, startups managed to cumulatively raise a meagre $43.1 Mn via 12 deals, down 365% from $200 Mn raised across 25 deals in the preceding week. 

It is pertinent to note that seven of the deals materialised this week didn’t disclose the financial terms of their transactions. 

Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [ July 22- July 27]

Key Startup Funding Highlights Of The Week

• Despite the plunge in overall funding aggregated, fintech emerged as an investor favourite in the week. The week’s top two fund rounds, Stable Money’s $14.7 Mn Series A round and NeoGrowth’s $11 Mn debt, took fintech to the top spot at a sectoral level.
• The week saw FAAD Capital backing four agritech startups with an infusion of over $121K. The firm’s investment turned agritech as the sector with the maximum number of deals and FAAD as the most active investor in the startup ecosystem.
• The week saw no seed funding deal materialise.

Other Major Developments Of The Week

• During the budget speech, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the setting up of an INR 1,000 Cr venture capital (VC) fund. She said that the government has increased its focus on the space economy and private sector-driven research and innovation at the commercial scale.
• Packaged food startup Wingreens Farms is eyeing the raise of $4.3 Mn debt from investors including S Gupta Family Investments, Saket Agarwal, Reena Singhal, Sanjeev Agarwal, among others
• In an exchange filing, beauty ecommerce major Nykaa said that it is looking to raise INR 125 Cr (about $15 Mn) via non-convertible debentures (NCDs) from an undisclosed foreign portfolio investor. Its board has approved and authorised the issuance of up to 12,500 NCDs at a face value of INR 1 Lakh each to raise the amount.
• Adtech unicorn InMobi-owned mobile content provider Glance is in advanced talks with existing investors, including Google, to raise $250 Mn. The talks are expected to materialise in the coming weeks.
• Former defence secretary Ajay Kumar led venture capitalist firm MountTech Growth Fund has marked the first close of its fund Kavach at INR 250 Cr (around $29.9 Mn). The VC is targeting a total corpus of INR 500 Cr for Kavach. 
• Electric mobility startup Kazam is raising $5 Mn in a funding round led by Licious and Vertex Ventures. It plans to use the capital to fuel its growth and expansion plans.
• PharmEasy-owned diagnostics platform Thyrocare Technologies is acquiring the Punjab-based pathology diagnostic business of Polo Labs to expand its presence in northern India.
• EV major Ola Electric is looking at a public listing as early as in the first fortnight of August. It plans to raise around $740 Mn via a combination of a fresh issue and an offer for sale.
• Captain Fresh is looking to acquire Poland-based food and beverage manufacturing company Koral to expand its footprint in the European market.