Funding Galore: Startup Fundings Of The Week [11May – 16May]

With the growing traction and activities in Paytm, the mobile payment services firm is moving on the rolls of development. This time Paytm obtained its boards’ nod to raise $375 Mn. Post this round of funding, Paytm will be placed amongst the most valued startups in the Indian ecommerce space, next to online retailers Flipkart and Snapdeal and cab aggregator OlaCabs.

India’s largest ecommerce player, Flipkart has begun preparations to close its funding round of $550 Mn at a valuation of nearly $16 Bn. The funding is planned to be closed before the month-end with Tiger Global is leading the round with $100 Mn.

This week 12 startups raised approximately $12 Mn in funding altogether. (Calculations are based on startups that disclosed their funding amount.)

IndianRoots.com: NDTV’s ethnic ecommerce venture, IndianRoots secured $5 Mn in Series B funding round led by  KJS Group valuating the company at $85 Mn. The fresh funding will be used to scale up the logistics and delivery mechanisms, expand its marketing activity with the aim to be the market leader in Indian fashion in the coming year.

Zapstitch: Bangalore-based enterprise startup raised $2 Mn (about INR 12.4 Cr) in pre Series A funding from Helion and existing investor Orios Venture Partners. The startup plans to infuse the funds to expand its offerings in the product line which are designed for data migration, data quality, and data validation.

Wassup: Chennai-based on-demand Laundry Service Startup raised $2 Mn Pre-Series A funding from apparel ecommerce firm Jabong’s founders Pravin Sinha and Arun Chandra Mohan. The startup has plans to add personal care, home care, car care, pet care and handyman services to its portfolio through its technology platform in the near future.

MyCuteOffice: Mumbai-based office space sharing aggregator, MyCuteOffice raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Lead Angels. The startup that provides a marketplace for sharing vacant work desks, offices, studios and meeting facilities to help small businesses plans to launch its mobile app in coming months.

Workhorse: An app-based, on demand service startup raised an undisclosed amount from a group of High Net Worth Individuals in Mumbai and Delhi. The company is also in talks to raise its next round to grow its presence in coming months.

Plancess EduSolutions: Mumbai-based online education portal raised $2 Mn funding from Aarti Group’s Promoters Gogri Family. The startup plans to use fresh funding to strengthen the resource base, product base by developing cutting edge products and international expansion.

Innovaccer: Data analytics startup raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding led by Google’s Vice President for South East Asia, Rajan Anandan and other investors. Earlier, bootstrapped with a capital of INR 20 lakh, Innovaccer is a data analytics firm that simplifies access to structured data and analytics through implementations of machine learning and Big Data Technology.

Restron-Wheel Food Truck: Ahmedabad-based Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI) invested in its student’s ventures. EDI has invested $5.4K in Gurgaon-based, Utkarsh Gulati’s Restron-Wheel Food Truck. The startup plans to raise further funds via venture capital and expand the company’s operations to other cities including Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune and Bangalore.

Returntruck.com: Ahmedabad-based Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI) also invested $3.8K in Nitin Gupta’s launched Returntruck.com. The aggregator allows companies to book such trucks at a 20% discount. Gupta aspires to be the ‘Ola’ for trucks.

Venturesity: The startup creates challenges specific to a job description provided by an employer has raised its maiden funding of $270k from RedBus’ co-founder Phanindra Sama, Jay Sethuram, Founder and CEO of Torrent Networking Technology, Hemant Kanakia, and founder of angel fund and incubator Srijan Capital Ravi Trivedi.

RedPolka: Online fashion curator raised an angel round of about $250K (INR 1.6 Cr) from a group of five investors. The startup also has a podium for SME brands to help them create a framework for building brands and shopper marketing needs driving more transactions for them.

Also, Paypal’s founder Peter Thiel has announced his plans to invest in Mumbai-based startup Citrus Pay. Theil plans to invest around $3Mn in his personal capacity in a $25 Mn round along with Sequoia Capital and other existing investors.

Along with the various fundings, the acquisitions  that took place this week are:

• Bangalore-based travel and holiday information portal, HolidayIQ acquired travel mobile development team from a mobile development firm, SourceN. The deal is aimed to accelerate mobile offerings to the Indian travellers.
• Mobile multi-channel messaging platform, mGage acquired integrated cloud communications solutions provider, Unicel Technologies for about $12–15 Mn in an all-cash deal. The acquisition will enable the US mobile messaging provider; mGage to churn a turnover of $46 Mn by next year.

Other important developments of the week include:

• Unitus Seed Fund has announced the StartHealth Competition for healthtech startups in India. The nationwide challenge is to identify promising early-stage health-tech startups focused on serving India’s 20 Cr families living on under INR 20,000 per month.
• Tiger Global has part-exited by selling 2.1% stake in JustDial for INR 162 Cr ($25 Mn) through open market transactions. In March, the global investment firm had sold 3.4% stake in the company for INR 300.5 Cr, clocking around 20x returns on its eight-year-old investment.
• The Indus Entrepreneurs (Bhubaneswar chapter of TiE) has launched an angel fund of around $1.5Mn (INR 10 Cr) The fund will provide seed capital to the startups in the state and will be functional in 60 days.
• Silicon-Valley-based, Lightspeed Venture Partners is raising $115 Mn (INR 734 Cr) India-specific fund. The Venture Partner which was investing from its global fund till now has raised the specific funds as it looks to double down on the country’s booming startup ecosystem. The plans were formalised through a disclosure with the US capital market regulator, Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC).