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

A US-based mutual fund managed by T.Rowe Price, that has invested about $100 Mn in Flipkart, has marked down its shares in ecommerce giant by 15%. After Morgan Stanley, Rowe is the second firm that has marked down Flipkart’s valuation.

Matrix Partners India raised additional $110 Mn (INR 730 Cr) to top up its second fund. It will now has a total corpus of $400 Mn in its second fund.

This week 22 startups raised about $33 Mn in funding altogether (the funding amount is based on the startups that disclosed their funding amounts).

Startups That Raised Funds This Week

Druva: Pune-based Druva, raised a strategic investment from NTT Finance and Telephone Corporation. With the newly raised capital, the company plans to strengthen its presence in Japan.

KNOLSKAPE: A software company that focuses on management training, assessment and research, KNOLSKAPE, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from Inventus Capital Partners and the HR Fund. The investment will be used to expand in international markets for product innovation and building global partnerships.

Advanced Structures India: GirnarSoft made a strategic investment in car testing and benchmarking startup Advanced Structures India. This development will help Girnarsoft to leverage ASI’s expertise to significantly improve car search experience on its portfolio of auto sites that will objectively showcase metrics and scores.

m.Paani Solutions: A marketing and data analytics startup that enables local retailers to attract customers with a mobile-based loyalty programme. m.Paani has raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Series A round of funding led by Blume Ventures. The startup plans to utilise the funds to expand to other cities for product development and hire talent across various departments like technology, product and sales.

Yufta: A hyperlocal fashion retail platform, Yufta, has raised an undisclosed amount of Pre Series A Funding from Rajasthan Angel Investor Network founder members, Ajay Data (CEO, Data Infosys Ltd), and other HNIs. With this, Ajay Data will join the board at Yufta. The startup will use the newly raised funds for building technology and scaling up its operations in top metro cities.

Mishtag: A social commerce app raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from M&Y Partners, SVG Media, Anthil Ventures, and other angels. The team is planning to create an AI-based chat-bot, which besides improving the performance of the application would automate the Q&A process.

1MG: Healthkart’s online drug search business 1MG raised $15 Mn (INR 100 Cr) in Series B funding led by Maverick Capital Ventures. Its existing investors Sequoia India and Omidyar Network also participated in the round. The Rainmaker Group was the exclusive advisor to 1MG Technologies for the transaction.

Fashalot: A location-based fashion discovery platform, Fashalot, raised an undisclosed amount of funding in Pre-Series A round led by YourNest Angel Fund and investor Rajul Garg. With the newly raised capital, Fashalot plans to hire top level talent, invest in product development, accelerate business growth, and expand to more cities beyond Delhi, Gurgaon, and Bangalore, where it currently operates.

DriversKart: Online driver solution application, DriversKart, raised an undisclosed amount of Pre-Series A round of funding from ah! Ventures and others. This round was also led by Sidharth Pansari, Apurva Salarpuria, Saket Agarwal, Ayush Patni, Silicon Valley investors, and Namit Agarwal.

Betaout: An ecommerce marketing software startup, Betaout, raised $1.5 Mn in its Pre-Series A round of funding from cluster of investors including Beenext, Stanford Angels, LetsVenture, Chennai Angels, Hyderabad Angels, and Mumbai Angels. The round also saw participation from Sam Yagan.

OYOFit: Fitness services marketplace OYOFit raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from RN Agarwal, managing director, WeP Peripherals Ltd. The startup plans to use the newly raised capital to hire new talent, launch APIs that will be used by diet food and medical service providers, and to develop live inventory management software.

Oliveboard: Edtech startup Oliveboard raised an undisclosed amount of funding from India Educational Investment Fund (IEIF). The funds will be utilised to increase the marketing strategies, build content and strengthen mobile technology.

Simplilearn: Online professional certification platform, Simplilearn, raised an undisclosed amount of investment from The Times Group’s Brand Capital. The two have also entered into a strategic collaboration, which will help Simplilearn reach a much wider pool of aspiring white-collared workers.

Houssup: An ecommerce platform for interior design, Houssup, raised an undisclosed amount of angel round funding from Mitin Patel and Gaurav Agarwal. With this, Mitin Patel will join the board. Houssup is also in talks to raise a Pre-Seed funding round this year, followed by $2 Mn in Seed round for which the team is already in contact with strategic industry leaders and VCs.

CollegeDekho: An online platform connecting colleges and students, CollegeDekho, raised $2 Mn in Pre-Series A round of funding from London-based Man Capital. The raised capital will be used for building robust technology, ramping up the team, increasing marketing activities, and onboarding more colleges.

Smytten: Online discovery platform for premium products and services, Smytten, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from angel investor Rajan Anandan. The startup will use the newly raised capital to launch new vertical for curated premium experiences for fine dining, events around wine tasting and others for Delhi and Mumbai soon.

Jugnoo: On-demand auto rickshaw aggregator, Jugnoo, raised a total of $10 Mn in its second round of Series B funding led by Paytm. Paytm has invested $5 Mn in Jugnoo while the other $5 Mn has been infused by it’s existing investor Snow leopard, along with a new investor Rocketship.vc.

Lenskart: Online eyewear retailer Lenskart raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Ratan Tata. The investment is a part of Lenskart’s latest fundraising initiative, where the company is looking to raise about INR 400 Cr. The latest round of fundraising will value Lenskart at about $240 Mn.

Tork Motorcycles: Tork Motorcycles raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Bhavish Agarwal and Ankit Bhati, and a group of angels led by Harpreet Grover. The company is building India’s first electric motorcycle and is planning to launch this year.

Imaginry: Kids entertainment portal Imaginry owned by TOKO Innovation Studios raised $450K in seed funding from IAN. Others who participated in the round were few angels from Rajasthan Angel Investor Network and few independent investors like Suresh Kalpathi, Akshay Garg, Srikumar Misra, and Rohit Krishnan. The startup will utilise the funds for product development, user growth and content partnerships.

Licious: An online meat delivery service, Licious, raised $3 Mn Series A investment from Mayfield India Management. The startup will utilise the funds to expand its services to more cities including Delhi-NCR, over the next six months.

Broomberg: A startup that offers cleaning services for home and office, Broomberg, raised an an undisclosed amount of pre-series A round of funding from HNIs. The startup has also entered into a partnership with on-demand cleaning services marketplace HELPI, to access customers on each other’s platform.

Also, Nazara Games has picked up 26% stake in London-based gaming studio Mastermind Sports. Mastermind Sports is ready to launch its first game ‘CricBet,’ a real-time prediction game offering second screen experience.

SelfDrive.in, an online self-drive cab operator plans to raise $6 Mn in the next six months to fund expansion into Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Residential rental management startup Zenify.in is in the process of raising $5 Mn (about INR 33 Cr) to fund expansion plans.

Acquisitions Of The Week

• Internet consulting company, Indus Net Technologies, made a strategic investment to acquire a majority stake in TechShu after buying out the existing investors. With this, the company will be named Indus Net TechShu and will be part of the Indus Net Group
• IndiQus Technologies acquired data analytics startup Amicus Technologies in an all-stock deal. With this, Amicus CEO, Aayush Srivastava will join IndiQus as Head of Product & Marketing, along with Software Engineer, Akashdeep Singh Lamba. Two other Amicus founders took an exit for an undisclosed amount

Other Developments Of The Week

• ICICI Bank announced that it will invest in fintech startups that work in technologies like big data and artificial intelligence, which will help the bank to serve its customers better
• Target India launched fourth batch of its startup accelerator program for fourth batch, through which it mentors startups that work in tandem with the retail space relevant to Target’s business. Five startups that were selected for the program are MintM, Lawboat, Lechal, Preksh and Uncanny Vision.
• SIDBI approved about $150 Mn (INR 1,000 Cr.) to 30 venture funds through the government-financed India Aspiration Fund in order to support startups in their early stages.
• Local commerce platform Nukkad Shops emerged as the winner of the ‘Get in the Ring‘ challenge hosted by National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) in Hyderabad
• White Unicorn Ventures plans to raise a $20 Mn fund to invest in early stage startups and spend up to $5 Mn by the end of 2016. Its founder and CEO Rohit Chokhani said that 50% of the fund allocation will focus on cross-border deals while the remaining amount will largely focus on real-estate tech startups in India.
• Radha Kapoor, daughter of YES Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor and also an entrepreneur in her own right, is looking to invest in technology-oriented startups. She will invest $1-5 Mn in startups working in sectors such as media, advertising, education, and consumer service providers.
• Alibaba backed UCWeb, under its accelerator ‘’9 Apps Dev’, launched a $20 Mn fund for Indian gaming startups. It plans to invest in 100 startups with each receiving an amount of $500K.
• Angel investors Naganand Doraswamy and Prashant Deshpande plans to launch an early stage venture capital firm along with Patni Computers’ scions Arihant and Amit Patni. The firm will back technology startups in the country. The firm will essentially come at the seed-stage and support its portfolio companies till they are ready to hit the market to raise a Series A round of funding.
• Gen Next Hub partnered with Invest Ottawa to provide an opportunity to Ottawa-based startups to expand into India and on the other side, offer Indian startups a springboard into the North American market.

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