Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [30 July- 4 August 2018]

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

This week the Indian startup ecosystem witnessed two of the biggest fundings. Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori-led health and fitness startup Cure.Fit raised $120 Mn in a Series C funding round led by IDG Ventures, Accel Partners, and Kalaari Capital.

The startup will be using the funding to strengthen its technology platform by offering AI- driven health planning, create its own fitness devices, and also to expand to newer markets such as in Southwest Asia in the next 12-15 months.

Chennai-based SaaS startup Freshworks raised $100 Mn funds from existing investors including Sequoia Capital, and Accel Partners, with participation from CapitalG. The startup plans to use the funding for international expansion in its key markets — the US and the UK — as well as to continue investment in its integrated SaaS platform and the Indian SaaS market.

In another major development, Flipkart’s co-founder and former chief executive Sachin Bansal is planning to raise startup fund with $700 Mn -$1 Bn corpus and would be contributing for the 40% of the raised funds from the sale of his entire 5.5% stake from Walmart-Flipkart deal. He plans to invest the funds in running an artificial intelligence startup.

This week 17 startups raised around $268.99Mn Mn in funding altogether and three startup acquisitions took place in the Indian startup ecosystem. (The startup funding calculations are based on the startups that disclosed funding amount.)

Indian Startup Funding Of The Week

AntWorks: Singapore-based artificial intelligence and intelligent automation products and solutions company AntWorks raised $15 Mn in a Series A funding round from SBI Investments.The startup plans to use funding to strengthen their marketing and sales engine, and energise their foray into new markets. The funding will also help in their next level growth in AI, enterprise RPA, and fuel R&D.

Shuttl: Gurugram-based bus shuttle service provider Shuttl raised $11 Mn in a Series B funding round led by Amazon, Amazon Alexa Fund, Dentsu Venture, and some existing investors. The startup plans to use the funding for product development, expansion to new cities, and marketing.

Samosa Labs: Hyderabad-based vernacular social media and chat entertainment application Samosa Labs raised $7 Mn in a fresh funding round led by Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi and Sequoia Capital India. It is a chat entertainment platform that enables user-generated audio and gifs that can be shared across other social media platforms such as Facebook and Whatsapp.

Racetrack.ai: Bengaluru-based AI startup Racetrack.ai raised $5 Mn in  a pre-Series A funding from a group of investors including Murali Krishnan and US-based Angel Investor Dov Kagan. The startup plans to use the funding to expand its operations to the US, Mauritius, and Singapore markets.

Purple Style Labs: Mumbai-based fashion house of designers and stylists Purple Style Labs (PSL) raised $3 Mn in a funding from a clutch of high-net-worth individuals (HNIs). The funding round saw participation from Flipkart’s Binny Bansal, PayU’s Jitendra Gupta, and Astarc Ventures. Existing investors such as Calcutta Angels and Operator VC were also present. The fashion house plans to use the funding to build an omnichannel sales network to expand its homegrown brand and for Pernia’s Pop Up Shop.

HealthPlix: Bengaluru-based Healthtech startup HealthPlix raised $3 Mn in a Series A Round from IDG Ventures and Kalaari Capital. The startup aims to transform the way diseases are treated in outpatient care in India.Further, the startup plans to use the funding to strengthen its technology and expand its medical specialities.

MyHealthcare: Gurugram-based healthtech startup MyHealthcare raised $2 Mn in a Series A funding round led by Delhi-based Hunch Ventures and Angel Investor Ajay Nanavati. The startup aims to provide information on the benefits of healthcare to users by engaging with their healthcare needs and records. It also provides emergency services, video consultation, health monitoring among others.

Tessol: Mumbai-based cold chain logistics startup raised an undisclosed amount in a follow-on equity funding round led by early-stage venture capital platform ICrowd. The funding round saw participation from existing investors including Infuse Ventures and Ankur Capital. The startup plans to use the funding to strengthen its current product suite and bring some disruptive products that were under development to pilot and commercialisation.

Goodera: Bengaluru-based CSR lifestyle management platform Goodera raised an undisclosed amount in a Series B funding round led by SAIF Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, and Omidyar Network. The startup had developed a platform for companies to keep track of the progress of their corporate social responsibility projects (CSR) and conduct measure-impact assessments.

Coolberg: Mumbai-based non-alcoholic beverage maker startup Coolberg raised an undisclosed amount as seed funding from India Quotient Fund and the Indian Angel Network’s maiden Fund. The funding round was led by Sanjay Mehra, Anirudh Agarwal, and Madhukar Sinha. The startup plans to use the funding to spread brand awareness along with deeper market penetration.

NewsDog: China-based news and entertainment content aggregator NewsDog raised an undisclosed amount of funds from Series C+ round of funding from Vision Plus Capital. The news platform strives to provide intriguing and localised content to Indian users according to their preference instead of aggregation of news from different sources. It is further looking for more product upgrades in the future.

Actionable Science: Bengaluru-based AI startup Actionable Science raised $1 Mn in a seed funding round from Globevestor and Tr-Valley Ventures- a California based fund. The funding round saw participation from several corporate executives from US and Asia. The startup plans to use the funding to accelerate product development, reach more customers, and improve client delivery.

Boutique Spirit: New-Delhi based hard liquor company Boutique Spirit raised $1 Mn from Kae Capital. The startup plans to use the funding to launch a new whiskey brand and plans to expand the sale of rum and brandy to eight and four states respectively. It is further planning to launch a vodka brand in the long term.

Flinto: Chennai-based education firm Flinto raised $873 K from venture debt firm Innoven Capital. The startup plans to use the funding to expand its footprints in India and expand into International markets including Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Ziffy Homes: Gurugram-based home rental startup Ziffy Homes raised $120 K from US-based startup incubator Y Combinator. The startup had earlier raised a fund of $314.6 K from India-based Angel investors – Bikky Khosla and Anirudh Agarwal.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• Flipkart fashion subsidiary Myntra has acquired Mumbai-based end-to-end omnichannel platform Pretr. With this acquisition, Myntra plans to forge omnichannel partnerships with brands on its platform and provide a comprehensive solution to retailers to enhance their own omnichannel journey.
• Online food and delivery platform Swiggy has acquired on-demand delivery platform Scootsy. With this acquisition, Swiggy will further strengthen Scootsy’s curated restaurant network and help the brand expand to newer cities on the back of its operational excellence and backend strength. It will also help Scootsy’s expansion across Mumbai and propel its foray into five major cities.
• EbixCash has acquired Mumbai-based Mercury Travels and Delhi-based Leisure Crop for approximately $14.2 Mn cumulatively. With this acquisition, Ebix plans to add a new travel division named ‘Mercury – An EbixCash Luxury initiative’.

Other Developments Of The Week

• SoftBank Vision Fund is examining its investment in either of the two— Swiggy and Zomato. It is being suggested that Zomato’s talks with SoftBank have advanced further than Swiggy’s discussions and the company is looking to raise nearly $500 Mn in its next round.
• LendingKart Finance has announced that it has raised $43.7 Mn in no-convertible debentures from Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC along with other entity. The company will be using the raised funds to grow its loan book and in financing more MSMEs. It will also be using the funds to widening its offerings to MSMEs country wide.
• Healthon 2018, organised by incubator Indigram Labs Foundation focused on highlighting rural health and wellness solutions. The programme had selected three startups which include Medblocks, Medsamaan, and Arogyam Medisoft. The startups were asked to brainstore to code, build, and design the solutions using technologies such as AI, blockchain among others.
• The Rajasthan Digifest event saw the launch of digital initiatives by the honourable CM of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje. Initiatives include the launch of Abhay command centres in seven districts, Rajasthan Wildlife Surveillance Systems, State Disaster Recovery Centre, Raj Wifi to connect to 10k Gram Panchayats among others.
• Former MDs of Sequoia Capital- VT Bharadwaj and Gautam Mago have joined hands to launch a new $291 Mn investment company named A91 Partners. The duo will be investing in emerging companies across sectors such as consumer, healthcare, financial services, and technology. The fund will start investments by early next year.
• Edtech platform BYJU’s is in talks with SoftBank and other investors to raise $200-250 Mn. The company may use the raised funds for global expansion. The planned deal is still in its final stage and nothing on it has been finalised as yet. If the deal goes through, the company will be valued at $2 Bn.
• Ola-backed Foodpanda is in the last leg of talks to acquire Mumbai-based cloud kitchen player Holachef, which has shut down its operations three months ago. With the acquisition, Holachef’s founding team will join its management leadership.
• The Rajasthan government has announced that it will be extending cloud services to startups for free, and at a cheaper price to other state governments, PSUs and corporations under its RajMegh programme. RajMegh is a brand of Rajasthan government of IT infrastructure services, including cloud storage and data centre services.
• POWERED Accelerator programme has announced 10 women entrepreneurs working on areas such as access to energy, water conservation, application of energy in agriculture, and easy finance among others. The focus of POWERED accelerator programme is to support female-led ventures by helping them expand their innovation-lead consumer-responsive products and services.
• India-Israel Innovation Bridge has selected six Israeli tech startups specialising in the fields of healthcare, agriculture and water management. The programme is designed to help Israeli startups develop, adapt and commercialise their innovation in the Indian sub-continent.
• The State Bank of India has inked a pact with Reliance Jio Infocomm to integrate its digital banking solution Yono with MyJio application to boost digital payment. Yono will be preloaded on Reliance Jio handsets and SBI customers will be benefited from Jio Prime.
• BlackBerry is planning a comeback in India with locally-developed and manufactured devices that run on Google’s Android operating system. The company has further launched two all new devices (priced at INR 24,990 and INR 34,990) that have been conceptualised, developed, and manufactured entirely in India.
• Anheuser-Busch InBev has invited academics, entrepreneurs, scientists, and technologists to apply to the 100+ Accelerator. The accelerator has the aim of mobilising the world’s brightest minds to solve some of the most pressing global sustainability issues. It is looking for partners who can deliver breakthrough advancements in a range of areas including water stewardship, farmer productivity, product upcycling, responsible sourcing and green logistics.
• T-Hub has selected three Indian startups for Boeing HorizonX India Innovation Challenge. Boeing and T-Hub will be helping the selected companies in taking their ideas to the market. The three teams selected are HUVIAiR, Merxius and ZestIoT working on emerging business models in Extended Reality, unmanned aircraft technology and the Internet of Things.

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