Funding Galore: Startup Fundings Of The Week [8 August – 13 August]

Fidelity Rutland Square Trust II fund marked-up the valuation of its Flipkart shares marginally by nearly 3%, while the US-based fund Valic did it by 10%. The current mark-up now puts Flipkart’s valuation at around $11.55 Bn, as compared to $10.5 Bn earlier.

This week 15 startups raised about $42 Mn in funding altogether. (The funding amount is based on the startups that disclosed their funding amounts).

Startups That Raised Funding This Week

Faircent: A P2P lending platform, Faircent raised $1.5 Mn from Brand Capital, the ad-for-equity investment arm of conglomerate, Bennett Coleman and Co. (BCCL). It will use the raised funds to reach more borrowers and lenders.

Gennext Students: A technology-enabled student platform, GennextStudents raised $209K from 1Crowd, a crowdfunding platform for startups. The funding will be used to build technology, expand its team, and for scaling marketing strategies.

91springboard: Coworking space provider 91springboard raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Khattar Holdings, and ThirtyThree Investments. Other investors who participated in this round include angel investor Soumitra Sharma, Deepak Sharma, and Sumit Dayal. The raised funds will be used for expansion of the company, building tech capabilities, and to increase operational efficiency and enhance the community building.

Bombay Shaving Company: An online portal for men’s grooming, Bombay Shaving Company raised $600K in an angel funding round from 25+ investors. The investment was led by former Vice Chairman of TCS and advisor to the Prime Minister Subramanian Ramadorai and McKinsey India MD Noshir Kaka. The raised funds will be used to extend product lines and categories.

Vebbler: A photo sharing platform raised $500K in a new round of funding. The investment was led by 16 investors which include Anupam Mittal, Founder & CEO of People Group, Sharad Sharma Co-Founder of iSpirt, Venkat Raju CEO of Kyron Accelerator, Pranav Pai & Siddarth Pai Founding Partners of 3one4 Capital, among others. The funding will be used to manage operations, optimisation of product and expanding the team.

Travelyaari: An online bus booking platform Travelyaari, closed $7 Mn in Series B funding round. The raised funds will be used to further augment its service network and increase the online penetration.

Zeolr: IIM Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) has invested an undisclosed amount in healthcare startup Zeolr. With this, CIIE aims to set in motion its active involvement in Healthcare IoT.

Mobident: A healthcare startup which offers ‘Dental Cliniq in a suitcase’, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from IM Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE). With Mobident, CIIE hopes to test the waters in the home care innovation space and foray into more asset-light models that address key barriers in making healthcare ubiquitous.

Zipgrid: A community services platform, Zipgrid raised $200K in equity financing from 1Crowd, a crowdfunding ecosystem for startups. The funding will be used to expand its footprint, team and invest in strengthening their technology and operations. It will aim to tap into the potential of ‘collective commerce’ catering to household services.

AdPushup: An ad revenue optimisation platform, AdPushup raised an undisclosed amount in Series A round of funding. The investment was led by Japan-based adtech company Geniee, Inc., who is a major shareholder in SoftBank Group Corp. Existing investors along with Chicago-based investment firm Purvi Capital also participated in the round. The company will use the funds to increase team size as well as expand its operations by accommodating integration with more ad networks and WordPress-independent websites.

Cuberoot Technologies: Gurgaon-based Cuberoot Technologies, a data-driven technology company, has raised nearly $500K from undisclosed investors. The startup will use the funds to expand business across the country and scale up growth parameters.

Innovaccer: Big Data startup, Innovaccer raised $15.6 Mn in Series A led by Westbridge Capital Partners with participation by other angel investors. With this, Sumir Chadha, Managing Director of Westbridge will join the board of the company.

Funcastic: A podcast aggregator startup Funcastic raised undisclosed amount of seed funding from HT Media’s startup accelerator. The raised funds will be used for technology development and product marketing.

Zenoti: Cloud-based service provider Zenoti raised $15 Mn funding in a round led by Norwest Venture Partners. Existing investor Accel India also participated in the round. The raised funds will be used to expand operations in the US and Europe along with an attempt to increase the client base, develop new products and workforce.

Crofarm: Technology-based agricultural supply chain Crofarm raised $1.5 Mn in seed funding from Mukul Singhal and Rohit Jain,former Principals at SAIF Partners. Angel investors including Himanshu Aggrawal, co-founder and CEO of Aspiring Minds; Ashish Gupta, former COO, Evalueserve; and Sunil Goyal, VP at Paytm also participated in the round. The funding will be used to establish their presence in Tier II  markets and operate in 10 cities over the next two years

Acquisitions Of The Week

• Raw meat etailer EasyMeat acquired Pune-based Nowveggies in an undisclosed all-cash deal. The acquisition aims at leveraging the warehouse location of Nonveggies to cover the entire city and to get hold of its customer base.
• The US-based AI marketing platform Boomtrain signed a definitive agreement to acquire Bengaluru-based Nudgespot. The acquisition aims to accelerate AI-powered messaging between businesses and consumers and expand operations into APAC (Asia Pacific).
• Vegetarian (Sattvik) food chain Sattviko acquired FYNE Superfood, a New Delhi-based packaged food products company for an undisclosed  amount. The acquisition aims at further scaling Sattviko’s product portfolio.
• Niramaya Path Labs acquired online diagnostics platform Labstreet in a cash and stock deal. Post acquisition Labstreet will function as an independent unit. With this move about 50% of the team from Labstreet, will join Niramaya. The founders of Labstreet will not be a part of the team and will only stay on in an advisory role.
• Online real estate advisor PropTiger acquired Gurgaon-based 3DPhy. The acquisition will strengthen PropTiger’s visual marketing solutions for developers, in the field of virtual and augmented reality & 3D visualisations.
• Flipkart-owned Myntra has bought 51% stake in Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan’s lifestyle brand HRX. Flipkart will further invest in the brand for expansion in inner-wear and menswear categories.
• Daily Delite India Pvt. Ltd, acquired a fresh fruits and vegetables ecommerce player, DelhiMandi.com, for an undisclosed amount.

Courier service provider Pigeon Express Pvt. Ltd is in advanced talks to acquire the Gurgaon-based delivery startup GoJavas. The latter was out in the market looking for buyers after it temporarily suspended its operations last week due to ‘technical issues’.

Intel acquired California-based Nervana Systems with an aim to enter into the Artificial Intelligence (AI) segment. Nervana’s software expertise will be used to further optimise the Intel Math Kernel Library and its integration into industry-standard frameworks.

In addition, Naspers-backed PayU is in talks to acquire FinTech company Citrus Pay. The deal is expected to be somewhere between  $149 Mn (INR 1000 Cr) to $179 Mn (INR 1200 Cr) and will be closed by the end of September this year. Post acquisition, Citrus Pay will be completely absorbed by PayU.

Also, Zeta Interactive, an American big data firm is planning to invest $10-50 Mn to scout acquisitions in India. It is targetting a firm which could help to get onboard local clients in sectors such as financial services, ecommerce, travel and automobiles.

Other developments Of The Week

• Indian Angel Network (IAN) announced its plans to raise an early stage fund of $22 Mn (INR 150 Cr). It has already registered a fund with the Securities and Exchange board of India (SEBI). The fund will be used to invest in early stage startups and also for making follow-on investments along with its angel network.
• The Embassy of Israel in cooperation with TiE Delhi-NCR will be hosting the “Start Tel Aviv” (Start TLV) challenge on Friday this week. The finalists of the national competition in India will pitch their startups to a panel of experts which includes Dev Khare, Managing Director, LightSpeed Ventures India; Rajesh Razdan, Founder & CEO, mCarbon; Ankita Vashishth from Saha Fund (Women-Focussed Fund); Gaurav Bhatnagar, Co-Founder, Travel Boutique Online; Kalpana Jain, Partner, Deloitte Tohmatsu; and Gita Dang, Talent Advisory Services from the local “Shark Tank”.
• In a recent buyback, Tejasvi Mohanram, founder of the online consumer and SME credit platform RupeePower took back the reins of the company from online marketplace Snapdeal. Jasper Infotech is now a minority shareholder in RupeePower. The decision regarding the buyback happened due to lack of funds in the market. RupeePower will raise its capital independently.
• Department of Science & Technology, in collaboration with Innovation & Entrepreneurship division and Government of India, launched a programme National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations (NIDHI). It is a $15 Mn (INR 100 Cr) programme to support knowledge-based and technology-driven startups in India.
• The Indian arm of global tech company Intel announced to launch a hardware incubator programme called Plugin. Under this initiative, around 20 intellectual property-driven hardware and system startups will get incubated in the first year. The initial focus would be on selecting hardware startups working in areas such as security, graphics, display, IoT, healthcare, data centres, and cloud.
• IBM SmartCamp announced the 12 winners of its startup challenge, IBM Smartcamp for Fintech. The finals were held in Mumbai last week in association with Edelweiss. The list includes DSYH, ftcash, Stelae technologies, Signzy Technologies Private Limited, Rubique, UnoPay, ORO Wealth, WhizDM Innovations private limited, Avenues Payments India Private Limited, LendBox, Fisdom, and Musk technologies.