Funding Galore: Startup Fundings Of The Week [18May – 23May]

According to the latest rumors Bengaluru-based Maxheap Technologies Pvt Ltd, which owns online real estate portal CommonFloor, is believed to be in preliminary conversations with classifieds company Quikr for a merger. However, in an email circulated in the company, Sumit Jain, Founder and CEO of Commonfloor, has denied any such thing.

With this, India’s third most valuable Internet company, Ola is in early talks with potential investors to raise at least $500 Mn. The last round of funding evaluated Ola to $2.5 Bn making it the third most valuable Internet company in India.

This week 13 startups raised approximately around $30 Mn in funding altogether. (Calculations are based on startups that disclosed their funding amount.)

Crown-it: Gurgaon-based startup has raised a $5.5Mn in Series A round of funding from Accel Partners and Helion Venture Partners. With the freshly infused capital the company has planned to expand its service to more cities.

MeetUniv: New Delhi-based startup raised $1 Mn from US-based Peesh Venture Capital. MeetUniv helps students who are looking to pursue higher education abroad. in searching colleges and information about them.

Lookup: Bangalore-based startup Hatchery Software Pvt Ltd, which runs lookup, that allows local businesses to acquire and connect with customers over a chat, has raised funding from Twitter’s cofounder Biz Stone.

Cooey: An Engineering graduate, who earlier had worked with Yahoo and Microsoft, Manu Madhusudanan, recently launched an IoT platform to satiate health monitoring needs attracted $470k in angel funding. It is an end to end family health monitoring platform to collect (device), store, analyze and provide insights of vital signs for patients.

Nudgespot: Bangalore-based customer communication startup raised about $629K (INR 4 Cr.) in seed funding from Kae Capital and few Angel investors. The fresh funding will be utilized to expand company’s operations in the US, as well as towards marketing and product development.

Chaayos: Delhi-based customized tea startup raised $5 Mn from capital firm Tiger Global Management Llc in Series A. Currently Chaayos, runs eight cafes in the national capital region (NCR) aiming to add over 50 stores.

EveningFlavors: Bangalore-based table reservations platform raised a $500k round of funding from independent angel investor Sandiep Shrivatsava. The funds will be used to expand across India.

Awaaz De: Ahmedabad-based enterprise communications solutions startup raised funds in an angel round from Mumbai-based angel investor Samir Shah. The infused funds will be utilized to expand its reach and to strengthen the team.

TheBetterIndia: Bangalore-based online media startup raised undisclosed amount of funding from former Infosys CFO and Chairman of Manipal Global Education, Mohandas Pai.

Inspirock Inc: Gurgaon-based, MakeMyTrip bought 18% stake in an online planning tool for developing customizable itineraries. The deal will help MakeMyTrip increase its capabilities in online tour planning space.

Akosha: A messaging platform for all sort of consumer-to-business interactions, raised over $16 Mn (INR 100 Cr.) in Series B round led by Sequoia. The funds will be used to hire over 200 software engineers and product managers and fund the exponential growth of Akosha’s new mobile app for connecting users and businesses.

RazorPay: Flipkart’s chief product officer Punit Soni, has made a personal investment in Jaipur-based online payment company Razorpay Software Pvt Ltd. Razorpay is an online payment gateway firm for small businesses, startups and institutions such as schools, colleges and training centres.

With this, HDFC bank picked up 1% stake in auto portal Cardekho.com for an undisclosed amount. And on the other side, Applyifi.com announced that OGES, an online Q&A and best practices platform for the Oil & Gas industry has received firm commitments for funding from a group of senior professionals and HNIs through its platform. This is one of the early investment commitments Applyifi has secured from its first batch of 4-curated startups. Two other startups from the first batch – one raising around $39K (INR 25 lakh) and the other raising around $79K (INR 50 lakh)

With this, Amitabh Bachchan has invested in Singapore-based global cloud storage service firm, Ziddu at a valuation of around $71 Mn. Ziddu offers free file hosting as well as secured cloud services for documents, photos, videos, and audio that can accessed from mobile or desktop across the world.

Apart from the funds raised there are a few who plan to be in the league of raising funds in the coming time. SoftBank Corp is in talks with a technology driven chain of standardized budget hotels, Oyo Rooms, to lead a $100 Mn funding round. If the funding is finalized then this will be the third institutional fund-raise for Oyo Rooms.

Mumbai-based Kribha Handicrafts Pvt Ltd, which runs an ecommerce marketplace, Craftsvilla, is in advance talks with its existing investors Sequoia Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Global Founders Capital and Lightspeed Ventures to raise $100 Mn (INR 635 Cr) in its Series C round of funding.

TeleRickshaw is set to launch an autorickshaw pooling service on the lines of carpool. The startup is in talks with three-four private equity players to raise $1-2 Mn in its first round of fundraising.

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

• Consumer Internet firm, Askme.com acquired online grocery marketplace, BestAtLowest.com to expand its marketplace services. The acquisition is intended to help Askme further expand its search capabilities and enable near real-time inventory sync between online and physical stores.
• Argentina based IT and Software Development company, Globant acquired Pune-based product engineering startup Clarice Technologies for an amount close to $20-25 Mn (approx. INR 125-160 Cr).
• Bangalore-based end-to-end home design service provider and curated marketplace for homeowners and designers Livspace has announced the acquisition of Mumbai-based curated online network of interior designers Dwll.in.
• Delhi-based digital marketing training company Digital Vidya acquired Indian digital marketing education firm, Digital Academy India. Digital India has already trained more than 5,000 professionals across the country.
• Mumbai-based online property search venture Housing.com, is close to acquire real estate intelligence service firm RealtyBI for under $3 Mn.

Other important developments of the week include:

• US-based chipmaker Intel and the Department of Science & Technology has announced partnership to develop solutions for driving technology adoption in India. Intel, CIIE and MyGov have decided to work together for application management, program facilitation and popularisation.
• 50K Ventures has announced its launch in Hyderabad. It aims at investing in at-least 1 startup a month. The venture has claimed that any investment will have an average bracket of $40k to $156k (INR 25 lakh to INR 1 Cr.).
• US-based Peesh Venture Capital (PVC) is gearing up to launch a $10 Mn fund followed by a $50 Mn fund in India. The fund which is expected to be launched in less than a year will look at making seed and super early-stage investments.
• Delhi-based media conglomerate HT Media Ltd planned to launch an accelerator programme for media and advertising technology companies in partnership with US-based North Base Media. Times has also been the first among media companies to launch an accelerator and an early stage fund called TLabs.
• India’s leading energy technology firm ACME, plans to invest INR 500 Cr over the next five years to support entrepreneurs with innovative solutions under an initiative called ‘Idea Factory’ as part of its growth strategy.
• Tiger Global has exited its eight-year-old investment in Mumbai-based Just Dial Ltd. The global investment arm sold its remaining 5.37 per cent in the company for INR 408 Cr ($64 Mn) on Tuesday through open market transactions.
• IIM-Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) has launched its IT vertical in Pune.
• Bangalore-based Kalaari Capital is raising $275 Mn (INR 1,750 Cr) for its two new funds. Besides, the firm also listed Managing Directors Rajesh Raju and Vani Kola as the promoters of the new funds. The move was disclosed during the filings with US capital market regulator, Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) last week.
• Value Prolific Consulting Services (ValPro) which is a financial services company announced its web-based deal enabling platform ‘Enablers’. It has partnered with NASSCOM and IIT Kanpur to promote and nurture startups.