Funding Galore: Startup Fundings Of The Week [12 October-17 October]

According to reports, Temasek Holdings plans to invest in online insurance policy aggregator, PolicyBazaar by acquiring a stake indirectly from its existing shareholder, Info Edge, as per a stock market disclosure.

On the other side, the online grocery store, BigBasket plans to raise $25 Mn from International Finance Corporation (IFC). IFC, in turn, will acquire a minority stake in Supermarket Grocery Supplies Private Limited, the parent company of BigBasket.

This week 18 startups raised more than $5 Mn, in funding altogether. (Majority of startups have kept the funding amount undisclosed)

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

Bounty App: Nanolocal commerce app, Bounty, raised an undisclosed amount in seed round of funding from Fireside Ventures, Mumbai Angels and MAPE Advisory Group to expand into other cities, add new retail categories and enhance product and technology stacks. The round also saw participation from Basab Pradhan and Apurva Salarpuria.

Gaana: Micromax made a strategic investment in music streaming app, Gaana.com. As a part of partnership Micromax phones will have the Gaana app pre-installed.

GymTrekker: A fitness discovery platform, GymTrekker, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from angel investors Dewang Neralla, Roopak Taneja and Manisha Gupta. The startup will use the funds to expand its existing platform.

LookUp: Lookup, a free and secure messaging app that connects shoppers with local businesses, raised $2.5 Mn in Series A round of funding led by Vinod Khosla’s personal fund Khosla Impact. The round also saw participation from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures and Global Founders Capital. The funds will be used to expand startup’s merchant base.

Voodoo: Voodoo, a mobile only shopping assistant app, raised $1 Mn in seed funding led by SAIF Partners. The funding amount will be used to build a unique, mobile-first global shopping experience.

Homigo: Homigo, a platform that provides working professionals with fully-furnished houses on sharing basis, raised $200k in seed funding from unnamed individual investors based out of Bangalore and abroad. With this round of funding, the startup plans to expand only in Bangalore and aims to reach 500 beds.

Mubble: Mobile technology startup, Mubble, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A round of funding from Accel Partners. The funds will be utilised in the expansion of its tech team and product design.

Tripoto: Online global travel community for travellers Tripoto raised undisclosed amount of funding led by 500 Startups, IDG Ventures & Advantedge fund. With the raised funds, the startup aims to strengthen its leadership in technology, content and community.

Gridle: Gridle, a productivity platform for work, raised $100K in a seed round of funding led by Jyotsna Bapat. Besides, other angel investors who participated in this round included Gaurav Zutshi, Rohit Kilam and Sanjay Tekale. The funding will predominantly be utilised to broaden sales pipeline and scale up operations.

Bizongo: B2B marketplace for industrial goods, Bizongo, raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Accel Partners. The funding will be used to build a unified platform for businesses in the plastics, chemicals and packaging industries to buy and sell products/raw materials.

Faircent: Online P2P lending marketplace, Faircent.com, secured an undisclosed amount in funding from TV Mohandas Pai led Aarin Capital Partners. With this, Pai will also join the board of Faircent as advisor and will ensure the leadership in credit appraisal technology and mobile.

Zify: ZIFY, which lets people share rides on the go via its platform, raised $190K in a angel round of funding from Sean O’Sullivan of SOSventures and two Hyderabad-based angel investors. The startup will use the raised funds in improving technology & marketing.

AskMyGift: AskMyGift, an app that makes the entire gifting process easier, raised $50K (about INR 30 lakh) in a pre-seed round from Ashish Mittal, Chief Mentor of TurningIdeas incubator and an angel investor. The startup is also in an advanced talks with a few VC firms to raise around $308K (INR 2 Cr) in seed funding soon.

Zappfresh: Zappfresh, an online raw meat vendor, secured $300K in angel funding from a few disclosed investors. The startup plans to enhance its technical infrastructure, product catalogue and presence to new cities.

BolRealty: BoIRealty, a crowdsourced portal on real estate and allied sectors, secured an undisclosed amount in angel funding from Manpreet Singh. The platform that receives content contributions from more than 100 leading real estate developers, aims to build a network of around 10000 citizen journalists and bloggers across the country who’d report in on the latest realty scenario as well as buyer experiences in their respective locations.

Homers: C2C online real estate marketplace, Homers.in, raised its first round of funding from a group of investors including Devesh Rai G, Amitpal Bhutani and Rajesh Aggarwal. With listings in excess of 4,500, the company plans to expand its presence to six cities by end of the current fiscal. The funds will also be utilised in creating technology differentiators, customer acquisition and expansion.

S-Cube Futuretech: Parampara Capital has invested an undisclosed amount in an engineering automation software provider, S-Cube. The funds will be utilized for product development and strengthening company’s presence in Asian countries.

Holidify: Online holiday destination discovery platform, Holidify, raised $100,000 (about INR 65 lakh) in an angel funding round led by Aarti Industries. The startup will use the funds to to strengthen its technological capability.

A fintech startup, Shiksha Finance, focusing exclusively on the education finance segment is in advanced talks to raise $2 Mn (INR 13 Cr) to fund their expansion plans. Shiksha is the only company in India, currently in this space offering education loan for school going students focusing on the low income segment.

Acquisitions That Took Place This Week

• Gifting startup, Giftxoxo acqui-hired Yipeedo, a startup focused on helping city dwellers to discover and book leisure activities. As a part of acquisition, Yipeedo founders have joined Frogo to lead the product and operations teams.
• Attaining its first acquisition in India, the US-based networking equipment company Cisco acquired IT security firm Pawaa Software for an undisclosed amount. With this acquisition, the Pawaa team will join Cisco’s software platform group.
• Content distributor app, Inshorts acquired BetaGlide, the company behind Retention.ai, which helps app developers track uninstalled users, draw insights on user experience and improve user retention. With this acquisition, Inshorts aims at improving mobile experience for customers.
• O2O deals marketplace, Little acquired Trideal, a curated deals marketplace. With the acquisition, Trideal’s co-founders and its core team will join Little.

Also, ecommerce marketplace Amazon is in advanced talks to buy a stake in on-demand home services company Housejoy.

Other Developments Of The Week

• PayPal announced the launch of its fourth round of Start Tank Incubation Challenge for early-stage startups in payments and financial space. The startups can apply for the program by October 23, 2015.
• Nasscom announced its EMERGE 10 Award winners to recognize the companies in the IT product and service domains. The winners were announced at the Nasscom Product Conclave at Bangalore.
• Silicon Valley based online platform which allows startups to raise capital from accredited investors, AngelList, partnered with China Science & Merchants Investment Management Group, China’s third-largest private equity firm, to power a $400 Mn seed fund called CSC Upshot.
• Siddaramaiah, CM of Karnataka, launched a new fund-of-funds for early stage startup ventures. He also announced that the government will introduce more business friendly measures for startups in order to ensure Bangalore holds on to its lead position as India’s startup capital.
• Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje unveiled the ‘Rajasthan Startup Policy – 2015’ at the national level startup event to be hosted in Rajasthan, designed to boost entrepreneurship in the state.The policy focused on areas like Social and Cleantech.
• A global incubator and venture fund, 1776, partnered with Headstart Network to host the Mumbai leg of its Challenge Cup in November. The startups in the fields of education, energy, food, health, money, security and transportation can apply by October 31, 2015.

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