Funding Galore: Startup Fundings Of The Week [22 August

RNT Capital, the VC fund by Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, revealed its plans to deploy $300 Mn across startups in India, Southeast Asia and the US. The fund is expected to invest $10-15 Mn funds in tech businesses.

This week 22 startups raised $142 Mn in funding altogether. (Funding amount is based on the startups which disclosed their funding.)

Startup Fundings Of The Week

Zzungry: Bengaluru-based FoodTech startup Zzungry raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Silicon Valley-based entrepreneurs Satish Vasudeva, Madhusudhan Jujare and a group of other individual investors. The funds raised will be used towards unit expansion and building revenue channels.

TAC Security: Cybersecurity solutions provider TAC Security Solutions raised an undisclosed amount of Pre-Series A funding from Vijay Kedia. He will also join the company’s Board of Directors as the Non-Executive Independent Director.

Notesgen: New Delhi-based students notes exchange marketplace Notesgen raised $100K angel funding from Riju Gupta, CEO of JuiceUp and other angel investors (Kamal Chhabra). The raised funds will be used to launch an app for Windows, create new content discovery channels, and partner with more educators.

NearU: Mumbai-based O2O startup NearU raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Dr. Goutam Challagalla, international marketing guru and professor at IMD Business School, Switzerland. The team will utilise the expertise and knowledge of Dr. Challagalla for its future marketing plans and expansion in international regions.

Octo: New Delhi-based analytics-driven marketing automation platform Octo raised Seed funding of $200K at a valuation of $1.5 Mn. The investment was led by a host of angel investors, which included Rohan and Arjun Malhotra (Investopad); Rahul Khanna (Trifecta Capital); Rakesh Agrawal, Sidharth Rao (WebChutney), Outbox Ventures, Rajan Navani; Gautam Gandhi (Ex-Google, Angel Investor); Jaspreet Bindra; and Gagan Duggal.

ShaadiSaga: Delhi-based wedding service marketplace ShaadiSaga raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Series A round of funding led by ah! Ventures. Anupam Mittal (People Group), Kunal Shah & Sandeep Tandon (Freecharge.com), Dheeraj Jain (Redcliffe Capital), Rohit Chokhani (White Unicorn Ventures), also participated in this round along with a few other angel investors. The recent fund infusion will be utilised to increase the partner’s base associated with the platform. It will also be investing in building technologies to ensure higher conversion rates.

Unacademy: Bengaluru-based online learning platform Unacademy raised an additional $1 Mn funding in a second round of external investment. The round was led by Blume Ventures, along with Stanford Angels India, and WaterBridge Ventures. Marquee angels including Sachin Bansal, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Binny Bansal, Kunal Shah, Sandeep Tandon, Ashish Tulsian (Posist) also participated in this round. The round also saw participation from Tracxn Labs and existing investors including Sujeet Kumar (ex-Flipkart), Aprameya Radhakrishnan (TaxiForSure), Phanindra Sama (RedBus), Sumit Jain (CommonFloor) and Vikas Malpani (CommonFloor). The funds raised in this round will be infused towards product, technology, research and development, and hiring.

Advenio: New Delhi-based clinical imaging solution provider Advenio Technosys raised $100K from Kalaari Capital. It was the winner of the #StartupGirlsChallenge conducted by the accelerator programme last quarter.

Guarented: Bengaluru-based rental marketplace Guarented raised $500K from Kalaari Capital. It is committed to the ‘asset-light’ approach, and it has structured its business on minimal inventory ownership.

Beyond Evolution: Gurugram-based technology solutions provider Beyond Evolution raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from former Micromax CEO Vineet Taneja and Kamal Puri, Chairman of UAE’s Skyline Group, Samsung and Bharti Airtel. The company will use the funding for product development as it progresses from the stage of a minimum viable product (MVP) to product feature enhancement and marketing.

UberDreams: Mumbai-based experience curation platform UberDreams has raised $500K funding from Mohit Lalvani, CEO of Mascot Group. The team plans to utilise the investment in expanding the list of offerings and ensuring awareness and conversions through digital marketing platforms.

ConveGenius: Singapore and India-based EdTech platform ConveGenius raised $900K from Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. The investment is expected to further empower ConveGenius’ (CG) agenda of taking engaging, impactful education to millions of children by 2020 and nearly 90,000 children by the end of 2016 alone.

Encashea: Bengaluru-based end-to-end recycling solutions provider EnCashea raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Freecharge co-founders Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon, Tracxn Labs and a group of undisclosed investors. The funding will be primarily used to build its Android app, expand the team, enhance its warehousing capabilities and expand its operations in more localities of Bengaluru.

InCred: Mumbai-based non-banking financial company InCred Finance raised $75 Mn in a funding round led by former Deutsche Bank co-CEO Anshu Jain and private equity firms. Several other angel investors also participated in this round. Jain will join as Chairperson of the advisory board of InCred.

EngineerBabu: Indore-based IT service aggregator EngineerBabu raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round of funding led by Scale Ventures. The raised funds will be infused in expanding its client base in US, China, Japan, and other potential countries.

NearFox: Mumbai-based local lifestyle content and discovery platform NearFox raised an undisclosed amount from Globevestor Angel Fund, CoverFox CTO Devendra Rane, GenY Medium co-founder Ravi Jain, and Craftsvilla Product VP Arpan Nagdeve, among others. The startup will utilise the funds for expanding the team and launching operations in more geographies.

Witworks: Bengaluru-based consumer IoT company Witworks raised an undisclosed seed round of funding led by Fireside Ventures, Investopad, P39 Capital and a group of angel investors. Anupam Mittal (Shaadi.com Founder), Pranay Jivrajka (COO, Ola), Maninder Gulati (Chief of Strategy, Oyo), Abhinav Sinha (COO, Oyo Rooms) and top executives from ITC also participated in this round of funding. The current funding round is inclined towards Witworks’ launch of a smart wearable platform, BLINK.

Urban Ladder: Gurugram-based online furniture retailer Urban Ladder raised $3 Mn in venture debt from Trifecta Capital. Till date, it has raised about $77 Mn. It competes with Pepperfry (Trendsutra Platform Services Pvt. Ltd) and Fabfurnish.

CULT: Bengaluru-based healthcare startup CULT raised $3 Mn from Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori’s startup CureFit. With this investment, CureFit will now own a majority stake in the startup, but CULT will continue to operate independently.

MobiKwik: Gurgaon-based mobile wallet company, MobiKwik signed a subscription agreement with South Africa-based Net1 UEPS Technologies, Inc. As part of the strategic partnership, Net1 will invest $40 Mn in MobiKwik. Also, its card technology will be integrated across all MobiKwik wallets.

Crownit: Local merchant discovery and privileges platform, Crownit, secured an undisclosed amount of funding, The investment was led by FreeCharge founders Kunal Shah & Sandeep Tandon, Freshdesk founder Girish Mathrubootham, and former Snapdeal CPO Anand Chandrasekaran.

Snapdeal: Luxembourg-based firm Clouse S has ploughed in another $21 Mn in the ecommerce firm Snapdeal. The current round is a part of $200 Mn funds raised in February this year from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

Tiger Global Management is speculated to sell its 12% stake in deals discovery marketplace Little, to Paytm. Little has so far raised about $60 Mn from these investors at a valuation of $130-$150 Mn

Acquisitions Of The Week

The AdTech platform, Media.net was acquired by a Chinese Consortium in an all-cash transaction valued at about $900 Mn. The consortium was led by Zhiyong Zhang, the Chairman of Beijing Miteno Communication Technology Co. Ltd. a technology, media and telecom (TMT) business listed on the GEM Board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
US-based tech firm FullContact acquired Profoundis Labs, known for its flagship product Vibe, for an undisclosed amount. Post-acquisition, the complete team of 70 employees will be absorbed into FullContact’s global workforce.
Online classifieds portal Quikr acquired on-demand beauty, wellness and fitness app ZapLuk. With the acquisition, ZapLuk’s co-founder Lavanya Hariharan and a team of close to 50 stylists and professionals will now be a part of AtHomeDiva, the beauty service brand of Quikr.

Other Developments Of The Week

Gurugram-based recruitment firm Kelly Services launched a corporate venture capital fund in a joint venture with Temp Holdings for Asia Pacific. The fund which is called ‘Temp Innovation,’ will invest in startups working in the $6 Bn (INR 40,000 Cr) Indian human resource market.
Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Hyderabad (SIBM-H) revealed its plans to launch an incubation zone to promote innovative startups. The institute seeks to support 10 startups from the Symbiosis International University(SIU) in the initial stage.