Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [1-5 Jan 2019]

We bring you the latest edition of Funding Galore: Indian startup funding of the week.

This week one of the biggest fundings went to auto portal CarDekho, which raised $110 Mn in Series C funding from existing investors Sequoia India, Hillhouse Capital, CapitalG (Alphabet growth investment arm), and Axis Bank. GirnarSoft subsidiary plans to use the funding to strengthen its insurance, finance and used car vertical.

At the same time, food delivery major Zomato is looking to raise $500 Mn to $1 Bn from Chinese private equity major Primavera Capital and Alibaba payments affiliate Ant Financial, along with other investors.

Another unicorn in talks for fresh funds is cab hailing player Ola, which is in the process of raising $1.9 Mn (INR 14 Cr) by allotting preference shares to China-based electric vehicle company Eternal Yield International.

In all, this week, four startups raised about $110.7 Mn across sectors and two startup acquisitions took place in the Indian startup ecosystem. (This funding report is based on startups that disclosed funding amount.)

Indian Startup Funding For The Week

Abita Healthcare: Gurugram-based doctor’s workflow management platform Abita Healthcare raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Michigan-based early stage fund and global incubator Sky7Ventures. Other investors who participated in the round include Vignesh Ramanujam, Balasubramanian Sankaranarayanan, Navy Ramavat and Swapnil Mehta. The company plans to use fresh funds to expand to more cities and strengthen its foothold with more products and even better collaborations.

NapNap: Thane-based portable vibrating mat for kids NapNap raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Mumbai-based incubator thinQbate and venture capital company Hatcher+. It plans to use the funds for research and development of new product concepts in the babycare and mothercare space and geographic expansion into southeast Asia and MEA markets.

Manch: Bengaluru-based vernacular discussion platform Manch raised $700K (INR 5 Cr) in seed funding led by Stellaris Venture Partners. The company plans to use the fresh funds to fuel product innovation and acquire users.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• Mumbai-based device management platform Servify acquired gadgets repair startup iService in a cash and stock deal. As a part of this deal, both the iService founders, the core tech and the product teams will be joining Servify. However, the branded service centres of iService will be operating independently and are not part of the acquisition deal.
• Gurugram-based recommerce platform Cashify’s phone screen-repair service, Cashify ScreenPro acqui-hired Chandigarh-based hyperlocal screen repair service provider Teksolvr for an undisclosed amount. As a part of the deal, the core team of Teksolvr will join Cashify ScreenPro, in order to scale up their screen repair services. It is also planning to expand its services to different geographies across North India.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Ahmedabad-based Infibeam Avenues dissolved the deal to acquire Unicommerce eSolutions from Snapdeal. According to the company, the deal has been terminated because the precedent conditions for the deal were not fulfilled in the time period agreed on during negotiations.
• Mumbai-based edtech startup Fusion Klassroom Edutech Pvt. Ltd. is looking to raise $2 Mn to cater to its expansion plan. With fresh funds it is looking to grow to a network of more than 450 Klassroom centres within 12 months including 325 smart centers and 130 flagship centres building up a capacity of 50K students across 5 cities to become the largest network of branded coaching classes in India.
• Mumbai-headquartered data analytics company Fractal Analytics may raise $175 Mn – $200 Mn (INR 1,222.5 Cr- INR 1,397 Cr) in fresh funding from private equity group Apax Partners in exchange for about 45% stake in the company. Apax will buy out existing shareholders Khazanah Nasional Berhad and TA Associates. At the same time, it will also infuse fresh capital in the company to strengthen the balance sheet for future acquisitions and growth.
• Kerala has approved its departments and autonomous institutions to invite startups registered under the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) to implement their IT projects that cost upto INR 1 Cr ($143K). The government order states that the state departments, boards, local self-government institutions, corporations and universities etc can rope in startups through limited tender for design, development and implementation of their IT projects costing above INR 20 Lakh ($28,692) and upto INR 1 Cr ($143K).
• YES Bank, India’s fourth largest private sector bank, launched its YES SCALE accelerator programme for cleantech and agritech startups in November 2018. The launch marked the beginning of a 15-month programme where 14 startups, shortlisted from over 1,000 applicants, will work with companies such as Schneider Electric, BigBasket, ITC, First Solar and more.

Stay tuned for the next week edition of Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week!

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