Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [30 April- 5 May 2018]

We bring to you the latest edition Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding of the week.

This week 14 startups raised around $61.2 Mn in funding altogether. (The startup funding calculations are based on the startups that disclosed funding amount.)

One of the biggest funding in the Indian startup ecosystem this week was Mumbai-based B2B online marketplace Bizongo (Business On-The-Go) raising $22 Mn Series B funding round from B Capital along with International Finance Corporation (IFC), in participation with the existing investors, Accel Partners and IDG Ventures. The startup plans to use the funding to focus on advancing its technology platform and design functions, as well as strengthen its teams across cities.

Indian Startup Funding Of The Week

Suki: AI enabled healthtech startup Suki (formerly called Robin) raised $20 Mn led by Venrock, First Round, Social Capital, as well as individual Googlers and other angels including Nat Turner of Flatiron Health, and Marc Benioff (CEO of Salesforce).

MyLoanCare: Gurugram-based B2C online loans marketplace MyLoanCare secured $977.7K (INR 6.5 Cr) equity Series A funding from Ncubate Capital Partners, a private investment arm of SAR Group family office. The startup plans to use the funding for branding, technology augmentation and growth.

SAMCO: Mumbai-based discount broking firm SAMCO raised $7.5 Mn (INR 49 Cr) in a Series B funding round from existing promoters and London-based investment management firm Bay Capital Investment Partners. The startup plans to use the funding towards building its mutual fund distribution, lending capability, research and advisory businesses.

Eruvaka: Vijayawada-based Internet of Things aquatech startup Eruvaka raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding led by Nutreco, a global leader in animal nutrition and aqua feed, and existing investor Omnivore. With the funding, Nutreco takes a 25% stake in Eruvaka, thus entering into a commercial partnership to help scale Eruvaka globally.

Rubique:  Mumbai-headquartered online lending marketplace Rubique raised fresh funding led by Japan’s Recruit Group and Russian venture capital management company Emery Capital.The startup plans to use the funds to hire more data scientists, enhance technology and reach a monthly revenue of $1.8 Mn (INR 12 Cr) by September.

Excess2Sell: Mumbai-based B2B startup excess2sell raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Angel Investors including Aashish Pitale and Harinder Singh. The startup plans to use the funding to enhance technology solutions on the platform, expand footprint and customer base, and widen the reach of its offerings across the country.

Capital Float: Bengaluru-based online SME lending platform Capital Float raised its first international debt investment of $7.2 Mn (INR 48 Cr) from the Netherlands-based Triodos Investment Management, taking total debt raise to $130 Mn (INR 840 Cr) so far. The startup plans to utilise the funds for onward lending, with prime focus on expanding its MSME borrower segments.

OYE! Loans: Noida-headquartered consumer-focussed lending startup OYE! Loans raised $2.25 Mn seed funding from its parent company, GAIN Credit. The startup plans to use the latest funding to strengthen its underwriting models aimed at new-to-credit consumers, scale-up operations, and enhance its footprint to cover multiple cities.

Uniti: Anthill Ventures made an undisclosed investment in Uniti, a Swedish urban mobility electric car startup looking to drive its electric cars on the Indian roads.  Anthill Ventures will be providing Uniti a platform to explore market opportunities in India and South East Asia.

Cricnwin: Gurugram-based social gaming platform Cricnwin raised an undisclosed amount in a seed funding round led by Chinese accelerator and venture fund ZDream Ventures. The startup plans to use the funding for product development and market expansion.

OpenTap: Chennai-based fintech startup OpenTap raised $450K in funding from a clutch of high net-worth individuals. The startup plans to use the funding to develop its team, to strengthen its technology infrastructure, for marketing, and to widen the reach of its financial services network across the country,

boAt: Delhi-based consumer tech lifestyle startup boAt raised $897.85K (INR 6 Cr) from Fireside Ventures. The startup aspires to sail new-age consumers toward an era where they are always connected over high-quality audio with smart, efficient, stylish and durable ‘hearables’.

FreightBro: Mumbai-based, logistics technology startup, FreightBro raised a seed round with Suresh Kumar, former Global CIO of Bank of New York Mellon, as a significant investor. The startup plans to use the funding to expand aggressively across all major and minor port cities of India by the end of 2018.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• Pune-based fintech company Vayana Network acquired SahiGST, a startup offering cloud-based GST return filing and compliance solutions, to enhance its portfolio offerings in the GST and E-Way Bill space. Post-acquisition, SahiGST will be held as a portfolio product of Vayana Network and its existing clients will be serviced seamlessly with support from Vayana GSP. Also, the acquisition will provide linear business integration for Vayana Network by including SahiGST into its GST and E-Way bill compliance related offerings.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Google.org has given a grant of $3 Mn to non-profit organisations in India and this includes a $1 Mn grant to TheTeacherApp and a $2 Mn Google.org grant and technical assistance from the YouTube Learning team to the Central Square Foundation.
• Unitus Ventures (formerly known as Unitus Seed Fund), an impact venture fund investing in early-stage startups, raised $15 Mn (INR 100 Cr) towards the first close of its $45.2 Mn (INR 300 Cr) Unitus Ventures Fund II. The fund will be utilised for onward investing of $753K – $2.2 Mn (INR 5 Cr -INR 15 Cr) each to 25 to 30 startups specialising in education, healthcare and inclusive fintech.
• The Rajasthan government’s Department of Information Technology (DoITC) is implementing a first-of-its-kind government initiative wherein the selected students from the local colleges will get a chance to travel to the Silicon Valley, US. The main aim of the programme is to encourage college students to take to technological innovations, to encourage them to come up with digital solutions to real-life problems and also to transform their ideas into successful businesses.
• Reliance Jio is looking to invest more to create a comprehensive ecosystem of digital products and services around its core telecom service. To add more relevant entertainment and education content to its Jio platform, the company is looking to invest in or acquire startups operating in the content, healthcare, education technology, financial technology and transportation segments.
• US-based incubator Techstars opened applications for hardware and software-focused startups to partake in the Techstars Bengaluru Accelerator and aims to support 10 early-stage startups that specialises on hardware and software technology sectors. Spanning up to three months, upon selection of startups, will offer a $100K convertible note. It also contributes $20,000, mostly used as a stipend, and in return receives a 6% stock, the Company said.

Stay tuned for the next edition of Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week!

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