Funding Galore: Startup Fundings Of The Week [26 October – 31 October]

This week 24 startups raised about $75 Mn in funding altogether. (The funding amount is based on the startups that disclosed their funding amounts).

Let’s Have A Look At The Startups That Raised Funds This Week

Instavans: On-demand logistics startup, Instavans raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Dell Services president Suresh Vaswani’s family office. The raised funds will be deployed to build a virtual fleet which will be managed using Instavan’s technology platform.

Tavaga: App and web based investment management platform, Tavaga, raised an undisclosed amount in seed-round from angels via TracxnSyndicate. With this, investor Ashish Goenka will join the board of Tavaga.

ORIGA Leasing: Asset financing company, ORIGA Leasing, raised over $1 Mn (INR 7 Cr.) from ah! Ventures, 500 Startups and a consortium of high profile investors. The raised funds will be utilised towards leasing of assets, people and technology.

Simpli5d Technologies: Digital engagement solutions company, Simpli5d Technologies, raised an undisclosed amount in its second round of funding led by Dheeraj Jain and YourNest Angel Fund. The funds will be used for technology enhancements, expanding to new geographies and for people investment.

Care24: Home healthcare startup, Care24, raised about $350K (INR 2.25 Cr.) in a funding round from India Quotient. The raised capital will be used to train on-boarded caregivers and expand to more localities in Mumbai.

Jombay: Talent assessment and analytics platform, Jombay, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from VentureWorks India. The raised capital will be used to create products that will help employees communicate and develop organization skills.

Razorpay: Online payment gateway, Razorpay, raised $9 Mn (INR 58 Cr) in a round led by Tiger Global. Matrix Partners also participated in this round. The raised capital will be used to further build its product and enter other segments of the payment industry.

Girnar Software: Girnar Software received investment from Times Internet. Besides Times, Sequoia Capital, Hillhouse, Tybourne, Ratan Tata and HDFC Bank have also invested in Girnar Software.

NetMeds.com: Online pharmacy brand, NetMeds, raised $50 Mn in tranched funding led by OrbiMed. The company plans to use about $10 Mn of the $50 Mn for developing back-end infrastructure and to augment its logistics infrastructure in order to provide medicines and healthcare products in under-served cities.

AlmaMapper: Education technology startup, AlmaMapper, raised about $400K (INR 2.6 Cr) in seed funding from Oswal Techno Ventures LLP. The startup will use the proceeds of the funds raised to scale up operations by entering new markets within India and across the world.

Parcelled: Logistics startup, Parcelled, raised $5 Mn from Delhivery and Tracxn Labs. The funds raised in this round will be used to invested in technology and expand to 50 cities.

Flexing It: The startup that caters to online marketplace for consultants and on-demand expertise, Flexing It, raised $500K in an angel round of funding from private investors. With the new round of funding the startup plans to expand its services across India and other geographies where huge demand exists for such services.

Qik Stay: The hotel branding and aggregator startup, Qik Stay, raised $250K in seed round of funding from venture capital firm, I.D. Enablers Pvt. Ltd. The transaction was closed in August. Qik Rooms will use the funds to expand its services across the country.

ZopHop: A mobile-tech startup that suggests faster and cheaper ways to get around a city raised $450K (INR 2.9 Cr) in seed funding from Amit Singhal, PK Gulati, Anupam Mittal, Hero Choudhary, Jeenendra Bhandari, Satyan Gajwani and other six unnamed investors. The company will use the funds for product and team development.

Urdoonline: Hypermarket, Urdoorstep Eretail Pvt Ltd, raised Series A funding from Rajeev Chandrasekhar-led Jupiter Capital for its expansion plans.

Moglix: A global marketplace for business and industrial supplies raised an undisclosed amount in its pre series A funding from Accel Partner and Jungle Ventures. The funds will be used to enhance the technology platform, build a deep merchant base across Asia as well as in marketing to customers, globally.

BeaconsTalk Technologies: A startup that enables brands and retailers to target and re-target customers, BeaconsTalk Technologies, raised $80K (about INR 52 Lakh) in seed round funding from retail and real estate industry professionals such as Puneet Bhatia. The funding will be used to scale proximity network, fund product development and team expansion.

Kleeto: An end-to-end record and information management company owned by Next Gen Paper Solutions Pvt. Ltd., raised $229K (INR 1.5 Cr) via GREX. The funds raised will be used for technology enhancement and geographical expansion.

TinyOwl: Food-tech startup, TinyOwl, secured $7.6 Mn (INR 50 Cr.) from existing investors Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners. With the new round of funding, the company gets 12 months runtime to manage the turmoil in the company. In the meantime, the company will focus on restructuring its processes in order to create a sustainable business.

LiftO: The mobile platform for ride-sharing startup raised $130K (INR 85 lakh) in angel funding from Rajesh Bhatia, Dheeraj Mehta, Amith Aggarwal and the Gupta family from OM Logistics including promoters of established listed & unlisted companies, private equity fund managers and other corporate executives. The funds will be used for expansion to more cities and increase its user base.

Niki.ai: An artificial intelligence (AI) startup, owned and operated by Techbins Solutions Pvt Ltd. raised an undisclosed amount of funding in its seed round from Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures. The seed funding will be majorly used on product development and expanding service offerings.

Toppr: Online test prep platform, Toppr, raised $2 Mn in a round from Venture Debt provider Innoven Capital. The round is an extension to its previous round of funding that was commenced in May this year. The company plans to use the raised capital for the acquisitions lined ahead and also for technological developments and partnerships.

With this, Snapdeal is in talks with existing and new investors to raise about $300 Mn (INR 2000 Cr) for its digital services platform, FreeCharge. However, Snapdeal declined to comment on what it called ‘speculation’.

Online payment service provider BillDesk is expected to raise $200 Mn from global private equity major General Atlantic (GA). The transaction is reported to value the company to about $1 Bn.

Indian Angel Network made an undisclosed amount of investment in a VoIP service provider, Aznog. Alok Agarwal, Harsh Hada & Vishal Khare from the IAN network led this round of investment. With this Alok & Harsh joined the board of the company.

Acquisitions That Took Place This Week

• The yet to-be-launched online venture of Tata Trent, Trend West, acquired Eat.Shop.Love.(ESL), the fashion vertical of Bangalore based startup
• Bangalore-based on demand delivery service startup, MagicTiger, acquired Zoyo, an artificial intelligence-based platform that allows users to shop over chat. This was a cash-and-stock deal. With this acquisition, the company has strengthened its senior business and product team with which they aim to scale faster.

Also, on-demand delivery startup Grofers, reportedly is in process to acqui-hire its competitors Townrush, an on-demand delivery platform, and Spoonjoy, a food delivery app. There is no significant cash or equity involved in this deal, an executive from Grofers confirmed. The primary reason for these acquisitions is to hire the teams who have experience in building and running early-stage tech companies.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Hay Group announced to aid 100 selected Indian entrepreneurs to transform their startups into successful companies of the future, under its NextBig100 programme. Hay Group experts will advise and support them with ‘talent and growth challenges’.
• The venture capital arm of Temasek, Vertex Venture Management, is planning to make early-stage investments in India. The venture capital firm will now look to invest in early stage, these include series A and series B investments. Vertex Ventures presently makes its investment in India through its South Asia fund.
• ProductNation announced the first batch of 25 successful companies who will attend inaugural #PNgrowth program. The program will bring together India’s most promising early-stage software product companies with the focus on building a team, establishing a strong culture and positioning the startup in global marketplace in them.
• IBM Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP) announced five winners for its SmartCamp Ahmedabad edition including Vmukti Solutions Pvt Ltd, Vian Matex Pvt Ltd, NKonnect Infoway Pvt Ltd, OneHop, Remedy Social.

Unitus Seed Fund announced medical device startup, MedPrime Technologies, as the winner and Bangalore-based telehealth technology startup, Neurosynaptic Communications Pvt. Ltd as runner up in the results of its second edition of StartHealth Competition India.