Funding Galore: Startup Fundings Of The Week [5 Jan-10 Jan]

In a new round of funding, Bangalore-based real estate portal, CommonFloor.com raised undisclosed amount in funding led by Google Capital. Commonfloor plans to strategically invest in making the platform more robust to enable the buyers and sellers to find their match faster. In total, 16 startups raised more than INR 72 Cr. (This is based on the startups that disclosed their funding amount.)

Let’s have a look at the startups that raised funds during this week:

Sokrati: Digital media spend management platform, Sokrati an undisclosed amount in Series B round of funding from IvyCap Ventures, with its Existing investor Inventus Capital also participating. The funding will be primarily used for aggressively growing its sales and marketing efforts both within India, as well as for expanding to the US.

Gympik.com: It raised $135 K from Tom Clausen, Rohan Ajila and Haldyn Glass. HealthStart also participated in this round of funding. Founded in December 2012, Gympik.com is an online marketplace for fitness service. It plans to use the raised funds for marketing, geographic expansion, and for developing new features.

#fame: Mumbai based a talent-led digital entertainment network startup raised $10 Mn in second round financing from TO THE NEW Ventures. The company currently produces more than 150 videos a month and plans to ramp over 1,000 original videos. The company plans to scale up its digital video business, invest in emerging talent, invest in new technology and expand to other countries in Asia from the raised funds.

Near.In: From a group of investors including Anupam Mittal, Near.In raised INR 1.8 Cr. Healthkart CEO Prashant Tandon and CTO Gaurav Agarwal, global vice-president of the mobile division of enterprise software maker SAP Labs, Akash Agarwal Aspiring Minds CEO Himanshu Aggarwal and Kevin Parikh of consulting firm Avasant also participated in this round of funding. Gurgaon-based Near.in is founded by Sunil Goyal, Lomesh Dutta and Akshay Khanna.  The startup plans to launch its operations in Delhi-NCR by the end of this quarter.

Faircent.com: Gurgaon based Faircent raised an undisclosed amount in its first round of funding from the promoters of Fusion Microfinance Pvt Ltd, Devash Sachdev and Ashish Tiwari. The company is now valued at $4 Mn. The startup was founded by Rajat Gandhi, Vinay Mathews and Nitin Gupta in 2013, it provides a platform where borrowers and lenders connect directly.

Nurturey.Com: An online parenting digital platform, Nurturey.Com raised $125 K through UK-based crowd funding platform Seedrs. CEO of Nurtury, Tushar Srivastava said, “The funds will be used for marketing and product development, in addition to launching apps.” From the raised funds company plans to expand their user base and build more friendly and instinctive website.

TookiTaki: Founded in 2012, TookiTaki raised $1 Mn in seed funding from Jungle Ventures, Rebright Partners and Blume Ventures. It plans to use the raised funds for R&D and to expand its service-as-a-software platform into new markets in Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

Purplle.Com: It raised an undisclosed amount in funding round led by IvyCap Ventures in Series A round of funding. Three year old startup plans to use the raised funds to create a TripAdvisor-like marketplace for discovery of beauty and grooming products and services.  The company was founded by the IITians-Delhi, Manish Taneja and IIM-Ahmedabad graduate Rahul Dash.

NumberMall: An online service for bill payment and ticketing raised an undisclosed amount in funding from SRI Capital. According to the deal, Sashi Reddi will be joining the board of NumberMall. The startup was launched in 2012. It plans to increase 100,000 merchants in the next 18 months. The CEO Kiran Gali said, “We target to cross the INR 200 Cr. mark this year.”

Bewakoof:  Mumbai-based this online apparel startup raised funds from the founders of Snapdeal, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. The company decides to switch to online destination model and expand its portfolio online and increase presence across brick-and-mortar retail stores across India.

MyDreamStore: Online Merchandise startup, MyDreamStore raised INR 1.8 Cr. in a funding led by group of investors to disrupt custom merchandise segment in India. The company was launched by the three NIT Allahabad graduates. The company targets to see about 1000 campaigns being created each day and each campaign would contribute to a ticket size of INR 20000 on average.

Lookup: A free messaging app Hatchery Software Pvt Ltd which runs Lookup closed a total of INR 2.4 Cr. in seed round of funding. It was founded Deepak Ravindran, co-founder and former CEO of SMS-based search engine services startup Innoz Technologies. Lookup previously announced two investments and raised $100K from MKS Switzerland SA and $160K in funding from Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan.

TapCibo: Bangalore-based mobile-only food ordering service, owned and operated by TapCibo Online Solutions Pvt Ltd, raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Alok Goel, founder and CEO of FreeCharge. The startup was founded in October 2014 and will use the capital for team expansion as well as for technology enhancement.

Mumbai based Contrarian Drishti Partners hits its first close of its maiden angel fund Contrarian Vriddhi Fund I at INR 15 Cr. ($2.4 Mn). The two startups made up from the funds; First  is an unnamed medical devices maker for developing markets and second has gone to BookMyCab. The fund has a target of $9.5 Mn. Further company plans to to raise a VC fund with a corpus of $50 Mn to invest in Series A round.

Recently Snapdeal acquired a stake in Smartprix. According to the reports last, year Snapdeal had acquired a 10% stake in Smartprix. Smartprix is an online pricing and product comparison website that provides information about products and prices and aims to improve user’s online shopping experience.

Let’s have a look at the acquisitions of the week:

Bangalore-based anonymous app for students Bakfy was acquired by real estate-portal CommonFloor. According to the deal the Bakfy team will join CommonFloor as Entrepreneurs-In-Residence and will work directly with the founders to build social and mobile products.

Indian internet messenger app, Hike acquired US-based voice-calling company – Zip Phone. It’s the first acquisition of Hike will enable it to broaden its portfolio in the internet-based communication space.  Launched in 2012, Hike has raised $86 Mn from Tiger Global and Bharti SoftBank (BSB), a joint venture of Japan’s SoftBank and India’s Bharti Enterprises.

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