Funding Galore: Startup Fundings Of The Week [13 March – 18 March]

Flock CEO Bhavin Turakhia further invested about $25 Mn in the communication app. The investment will be done to enhance product innovation and meet global demand. The recent funding is in addition to Bhavin’s original $20 Mn investment.

This week 11 startups raised around $30 Mn in funding altogether.

Startup Fundings Of The Week

LatestOne: Hyderabad-based online store for tech accessories, LatestOne raised about $3.35 Mn (INR 22 Cr) through a preferential allotment. Florintree led and advised investors in this round of preferential allotment. The investors include Mathew Cyriac (former Co-Head of Blackstone India Private Equity Business), Chidambaram Palaniappan (founder of Florintree), K. Madhavan (Joint Managing Director of Star TV India), and Bharat Sheth (Managing Director of Great Eastern Shipping). Other participants in the round include Ashish Dhawan, founder of Chryscapital apart from another existing investor, Passage To India Master Fund. The startup will use the latest round of funding for investments in additional fulfilment centres, brand building, inventory, building B2B channels and developing the managed market place further.

Fitso: Fitso, a health and fitness app has raised $200K of angel funding from a group of angel investors including Sujeet Kumar (ex-president, Flipkart), Bhupinder ( CEO, INtelenet), Yashish Dhaiya (CEO, PolicyBazaar) among others. With this round of funding, Fitso intends to invest extensively in product development, expanding its team, making the app more engaging and easy to use. Additionally, the team has also launched multiple offline training classes for Running, swimming and triathlon in Delhi-NCR and building a team of best coaches to provide personal training.

FITNAPP: Delhi-NCR based online fitness startup FITNAPP raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Series A round of funding from SD Group, a leading name in Real Estate, Education and International trading. The company will use the funds for online expansion, increasing the number of associations, partners and marketing. Also, in the next one year FITNAPP plans to infuse funds into technology and roll out new highly personalised fitness management tools for users. The company also aims to scale up its operation and expand into new geographical footprints.

Frapperz: Frapperz, a community-powered, intuitive digital platform focused on simplifying the home set up and home management processes, raised an angel round of$100K led by undisclosed investors. Since its launch in Kolkata, the app has registered 10K+ active downloads and notched up a Gross Transaction Value of $10K per month.

Tuneup: Tuneup, the dating app to match people through music announced its acceptance into Facebook’s FbStart program under the Bootstrap track. With this, the company has also received services worth $40K towards its initial growth phase.

MyDermacy: Health startup MyDermacy raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Chinese venture capital firm Cyber Carrier. The investor acquired 15-18% stake in the company. The round also saw participation from MyDermacy’s existing investors. This funding will primarily be utilised towards the expansion of the product offering and leadership hiring.

farMart: Indian Angel Network (IAN) made an undisclosed investment in Gurugram-based farMart, an agriculture machinery renting platform for the farmers and by the farmers. The investment was led by Ambarish Raghuvanshi on behalf of IAN and he has also joined the board of the company. farMart is currently operational in one district and will be expanding to more than 20+ districts in Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.

ShilpMIS: ShilpMIS Technologies Pvt Ltd raised an undisclosed amount of funding via the IvyCamp platform. The investment was led by digital industry veteran and investor Mr. Puneet Gupta, Nimitt Desai, partner at Deloitte USA and other HNIs.

m.Paani: Mumbai-based loyalty and marketing startup m.Paani secured $1.35 Mn in its Pre-Series A round of funding led by IDG Ventures, Blume Ventures, and Saha Fund. The company plans to deploy the funds towards product development, sales, and marketing functions.

iReff: Bengaluru-based iReff got selected for Facebook’s developer-focused programme “FbStart” which caters to the early-stage, mobile-focused startups. As part of the programme, the startup will be provided with services & credits worth $40,000.

Acquisitions Of The Week

• On-demand washing and dry cleaning startup, PickMyLaundry acquired subscription-based laundry services provider, OneClickWash in an all cash deal. The move aims to leverage OneClickWash’s laundry processing unit, team, and tech infrastructure to improve its service efficiency, as per an official statement.
• e-Zest Solutions, a digital transformation solutions provider acquired SmarterMe, a personal assistant for sales powered by an intelligent mobile platform that is enabling sales people at small businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises to work smarter.

Also, Delhi-based courier company Pigeon Express is in talks to acquire the stake held by online marketplace Snapdeal in ecommerce-focused logistics company GoJavas. Snapdeal had invested Rs 250 crore in two tranches to acquire 42% stake in Gojavas, which was acquired by Pigeon Express in August last year.

Other Developments

• IIT Kanpur has launched INVENT, a fund that incubates startups in social space, in collaboration with Technology Development Board (TDB) and the Department for International Development (DFID), Government of the United Kingdom. The corpus of this fund is $1.14 Mn (INR 7.5 Cr) and it will incubate 40 social startups that operate for-profit in the social enterprise space.

• Gujarat University Startup and Entrepreneurship Council (GUSEC) in association with the Gujarat Corporate Social Responsibility Authority and Entrepreneurship Development Institute is organising ‘JumpStart’, a pre-seed funding opportunity for innovative ideas and startups. Under JumpStart, selected ideas shall receive INR 40,000 in grant money from GCSRA as well as incubation support, infrastructure support, mentorship, guidance, further financial assistance along with all other support from GUSEC.
• The government has proposed the disbursement of $760K (INR 5 Cr) collateral free loan to the startups. The scheme will be functional under the supervision of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, after Cabinet approval.