Funding Galore: Startup Fundings Of The Week [15 June – 20 June]

Alibaba Group and Foxconn Technology Group are in talks to invest over $500Mn in Snapdeal.com and if the deal goes through Snapdeal will be valued at about $5Bn. It was also reported that Alibaba and Foxconn decided to take over 10% stake in Snapdeal through this deal. Apart from this, Foxconn has also tied up with Snapdeal’s founders to look for Indian startups.

This week 17 startups raised around $38 Mn in funding altogether and 5 acquisitions took place.

iStart: Bangalore-based iStar has raised a funding round led by Unitus Seed Fund. The startup provided employability training and placement, and with said funds it plans to expand its operation across  the country and to execute a skill development project for the Department of Higher Education, Government of Kerala.

Karma Recycling: The Delhi-based startup buys old electronic goods from customers for recycling. It raised its Series A round of funding from Infuse Ventures and Low Carbon Enterprise Fund. The company will use these funds to develop its technology as well as expand its consumer and retailer operation across the country. The company has raised a total of $500K since its inception.

FoodAbhi: Mumbai-based online tiffin marketplace, FoodAbhi raised seed round funding from investors based in US,UK, Netherlands and India. The company will be using the funds for technology and geographical expansion. The company delivers tiffin service for lunch and dinner orders and has served over 15000 tiffins in Mumbai.

Jiffstore: Bangalore-based startup Jiffstore,which connects local  kirana stores to customers through a mobile app that offers online grocery ordering and home delivery raised follow on capital from Unitus Seed Fund and Times Internet. The company will be using the funds to expand its network of stores along with expanding the team and improve the technology platform to provide better customer experience.

Logicserve Technology: The parent company of CouponRaja and CompareRaja raised $500K in a funding round from a group of angel investors including Mahesh Pratapneni and Pallab Chatterjee who will be joining the boards of the company. The funds will be used to improve its technology assets along with reaching out to new users. Couponraja is an online coupon aggregator and CompareRaja is a price comparison site.

BabyChakra: Mumbai-based Babychakra raised angel round of funding led by Mumbai Angels. The startup helps young parents discover and select services for their kids. Other parties in the round include Patni Family Office, Satveer Singh Thakral from the Singapore Angel Network, Karan Maheshwari, Jatin Aneja, Kishor Ganji, Roopa Nath. The funds will be used for hiring and further accelerating its traction.

Shippr: Bangalore-based logistics solution startup, Shippr raised seed fund of $500K from i2india Venture Factory. The said funds will be used for company’s expansion into more cities. The company currently operates in Bangalore and Delhi. Shippr helps companies in organizing packages resenting goods to the consumer in simplest form.

Minio:The company raised $3.3Mn in Seed Funding round led by General Catalyst and Nexus Ventures. Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, Index Ventures, Mark Leslie, Brian Stevens, Ben Golub, Lanham Napier and Andrew Feldman also participated in the funding. Minio enables developers to build their own cloud storage and scale to millions of users.

Moovo: Moovo is a Delhi-based on demand logistics service provider. The company raised an undisclosed amount in a funding round led by Yuvraj Singh’s YouWeCan Ventures. Other angels including Vikram Chachra, Pratyush Prasanna, Anindya Shuvra Sen, Jio Bijay Sahoo, Nitin Sethi, Sameer Nagpal and Doshi Family. The company is currently processing over 1000 orders a month and has plans  to expand to at least 6 other cities by year-end.

Fracktal Works: Bangalore based 3D printer maker Fracktal Works raised $3Mn from Neoteric Infomatique Limited and the funds will be used to expand its teams and increase the skill sets of the startup. The company’s printer is capable of printing bigger models than world’s popular printer, Makerbot. The company has revenue rate of 40 Lakh per annum and aims to touch at least $236k by end of fiscal year.

Cupick: Cupick is a social network for artists that allows them to merchandize their artwork, has closed a seed round of fund of $120k from a group of US and Indian angel investors via TermSheet.io. Other angel investors also participated in this round including KN Partners and Sushil Agarwal from India and Kalpesh Shethia, Rajeev Mudumba, Dinesh Tadepalli and Sudheshna Vuppala.

HealthifyMe: HealthifyMe has raised its second round of funding from angel investors and the company will now establish its global headquarters in Singapore, thus establishing a global footprint. The clutch of investors comprised of Gopal Srinivasan, Sashi Reddi, Amit Gupta, Pallav Nadhani and Dr Roopa Nath. The company will use the funds for growth and is planning to hire around 1000 nutritionists and fitness trainers.

Hansa Cequity: Mumbai-based Hansa Customer Equity Pvt Ltd raised $4.7Mn from private equity firm ASK Pravi. The company provides consulting services in customer strategy, data management, analytic, campaign management, CRM and digital services. It is looking at global expansion into key markets where data-driven marketing is gaining attention.

CAKART:CAKART raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from Sunil Maheshwari and other unnamed investors. The Bangalore-based company is an online education marketplace that deals with commerce stream course. Funds so raised will be used for geographical expansion and scaling of its education products.

FundsIndia: Chennai-based FundsIndia is an online financial services transaction platform which focuses on mutual funds raised $11Mn in its Series C round of funding. The funding round was led by private equity  firm Faering Capital, with follow-on investments from existing investors Foundation Capital and Inventus Capital Partners. The funds will be used to widen its reach across the country and enhancing its service offering with sole focus on mobile platforms.

Housejoy: Housejoy is a house services marketplace startup based out of Bangalore. The company raised $4Mn in Series A round of funding from Matrix Partners. The funds so raised will be used to scale the company’s technology and expand to new cities as well. The company is also in talks to raised another Series B round of funding. The company is fulfilling 1500 orders a day and has  partnered with 2000 service providers across eight cities on its platform and is increasing its reach to two cities this month.

News Corp has increased its stake in Elara Technologies, parent company of Bangalore-based PropTiger. The company acquired 25% stake in Proptiger in November 2014 for a valuation of $30Mn. The said stake has increased by 5%. Other major shareholders in Elara, SAIF Partners and Accel Partners, which had increased their shareholdings as part of the original News Corp investment will remain key backers of PropTiger. Since then, PropTiger has acquired  two startups which include digital design startup Out of Box Interaction (OoBI) and property search portal Makaan.com.

With this, Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal alongwith other angels invested in a  new round of funding in Tracxn. It has raised $10Mn in this round for launching its incubator TracxnLabs. The incubator has plans to invest a minimum viable capital between $20-50K in startup and has already started working with over 10 startup in sectors such as online rentals, lending and foodtech.

Also, Bangalore based home solutions startup Homelane is in final stages of closing a $50 Mn funding round in which Sequoia Capital is going to co-invest in this alongwith few other investors.

With this, according to reports Fosun International Ltd is in talks to invest over $100 Mn in Mumbai-based real estate portal Housing.com.

Lastly, delivery startup Roadrunnr is said to be in the final stages of raising $10 Mn in its first round of funding to be led by Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners,

Lets have a look at acquisitions that took place this week:

• Home furnishing startup BedBathMore acquired art based startup Crude Area for an undisclosed amount.
• Tokyo-based online recipe network, Cookpad acquired Helion-backed Indian online recipe sharing startup Cucumbertown for an undisclosed amount. The said acquisition will enable Cucumbertown to expands its reach to international markets as well as monetization of the platform and pass on revenue to the users, much like the YouTube creator model.
• Continuing its acquisition spree, Snapdeal this week acquired a mobility solutions company, Letsgomo Labs.
• 9Slides, a mobile multimedia learning solutions venture was acquired by US-based employee engagement platform Limeade for an undisclosed amount.
• With this, Real estate advisory Square Yards announced a merger with search & discovery platform, realizing.in.

Lets have a look at other developments of the week:

• Silicon Valley based startup accelerator, YCombibator is raising money to create a new VC fund by the name of YCombinator Continuity Fund I, according to the forms filed with the SEC.
• Dell announced the launch of a startup incubator in India for startups operating in the space of security, mobile, and Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications.
• Microsoft which runs a startup accelerator in India, launched a corporate engagement initiative called as Innovation for Corporates (ICI), which aims at building deeper engagements between corporates with upcoming startups in the country.