Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [18-23 Feb]

We bring to you the latest edition of Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week!

One of the biggest fundings this week was raised by Ola which raised $92 Mn (INR 650 Cr) in Series J funding from Flipkart cofounder Sachin Bansal. The Ola funding represents his most prominent and largest investment to date, and his first major deal since he left Flipkart following its sale to Walmart for $16 Bn last year.

In all, eight startups raised $118.7 Mn funding and two startup acquisitions took place in the Indian startup ecosystem altogether. (This funding report is based on startups that disclosed funding amount.)

Indian Startup Fundings Of The Week

ZipLoan: New Delhi-based online lending startup Ziploan raised $12.6 Mn (INR 90 Cr ) in its Series B funding round led by SAIF Partners with participation from existing investors Matrix Partners India, Waterbridge Ventures and Whiteboard Capital.

SilverPush: Singapore-and Gurugram-based adtech startup, SilverPush, raised $5 Mn (INR 355.7 Cr) Series B funding led by Japan’s marketing company FreakOut Holdings. The company is gearing up to deploy its artificial intelligence (AI) technology for over-the-top (OTT) players in the Asia-Pacific region.

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Xpressbees: Pune-based ecommerce logistics provider Xpressbees raised $4.9 Mn (INR 35 Cr) from InnoVen Capital. The fresh funds will be used for expanding its existing network and developing new business lines.

Pickyourtrail: Chennai-based travel tech startup Pickyourtrail raised about $3 Mn (INR 21 Cr) in Series A funding led by Kumar Vembu, CEO, GoFrugal and Shyam Sekhar, founder, iThought.  Rajagopal Subramanian, CIO, Entrust and Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO of Freshworks also participated in the round. The funds will be used to scale up their proprietary technology platform and expand its technical team.

Turms: Bengaluru-based internet first intelligent apparel brand Turms raised $281K (INR 2 Cr) in a seed round from angels including Myntra cofounder Raveen Sastry, ex Googler Sree Unnikrishnan, FarEye founder Gautam Kumar, PremjiInvest Partner Rahul Garg & Atul Gupta, and ex-Flipkart’s Sanjay Ramakrishnan. The company now plans to set up offline experience centres in top Indian cities to increase brand penetration

Royal Brothers: Bengaluru-based bike rental startup Royal Brothers raised $1 Mn in a Pre-Series A round of funding from Pradeep Deviah, chairman and CEO PDA trade fairs and his associates along with angel investor Amrith Prasad. The fresh funds will be used to strengthen the company’s inventory across all the existing cities to increase its market share. It will also enable the company to create more awareness, build the market for bike rentals, and even expand to five more states, including 10 new cities over the next six months.

GlamEgo: Hyderabad-based beauty discovery platform GlamEgo raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Brand Capital. The funds will be used to further expand its reach to a huge untouched market to scale rapidly.

Expected Fundings:

• Online lending startup Capital Float may soon raise $100 Mn-$150 Mn fresh funds from Naspers-owned fintech company PayU for a 25%-30% stake valuing it at nearly $500 Mn. The company may also look at becoming a majority stakeholder in future funding rounds.
• Online beauty and wellness marketplace Nykaa may soon raise $30 Mn (INR 213.5 Cr) in fresh funding from private equity firm TPG Capital. The fresh funding may value Nykaa at about $631 Mn (INR 4,500 Cr).
• Gurugram-based carpooling startup sRide may raise up to $4.2 Mn (INR 30 Cr) for a 26% stake or more from Bengaluru-headquartered cab hailing company Ola as it looks to strengthen its cab sharing business.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• CarDekho-parent Girnar Software has acquihired Delhi-based car marketplace Carbiqi for an undisclosed amount to add offline and online retail auction model for selling pre-owned cars. With the acquihire, Carbiqi’s cofounders — Akansh Sinha and Anubhav Deep — have now been appointed to lead Gaadi.com’s sales and operations verticals as cofounders. Its 40-odd team members have already joined Gaadi.com in departments spread across retail, sales, tech and operations.
• Gurugram-based logistics provider for ecommerce companies, Delhivery, has reportedly acquired the India business of Dubai-based logistics firm Aramex for an undisclosed amount. Delhivery will now take over Aramex India’s pick-up and delivery shipment operations. However, Aramex will continue to focus on its global competencies of express and freight and will continue the international business in the country.

Expected Acquisitions:

• Gurugram-based hospitality chain OYO Hotels and Homes may acquire Bengaluru-based cloud kitchen startup FreshMenu in a deal worth $50 Mn-$60 Mn (INR 356 Cr-427 Cr). The deal will help OYO standardise its food experience across all its hotels as it has been working on this initiative for over a year. The deal will also help OYO increase its margins.
• Ecommerce companies Amazon and Flipkart are reportedly in talks with Mumbai-based online kids fashion platform Hopscotch for purchasing a significant minority stake. According to reports, Hopscotch has hired UK-based financial institution Barclays as its investment banker in order to raise $60 Mn (INR 428 Cr) for expanding its services and recruiting more employees.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Private equity firm General Atlantic may sell its 20% stake worth $200 Mn in Bengaluru-based data analytics company Mu Sigma to Carlyle and KKR & Co.  If the talks with KKR and Carlyle fail, the private equity firm may hire an advisor to reach out to other potential buyers.
• The Department of Science and Technology (DST), Lockheed Martin Corporation and Tata Trusts announced an investment of $2 Mn (INR 14.2 Cr) for social and industrial innovations under the India Innovation Growth Programme 2.0 (IIGP 2.0).
• Delhi-based angel investor Dhianu Da launched his venture capital fund, Alfa Ventures with a corpus of INR 100 Cr ($14.06 Mn). The fund will be focusing on supporting homegrown early stage startups. He will also mentor the entrepreneurs to help them scale their businesses.
• Weeks after its entry in India, UK-based global ‘talent investor’ and accelerator, Entrepreneur First (EF) raised $115 Mn for the first close of its new deeptech focused global fund. Leading institutional investors from across the U.S, Europe and Asia invested in the funding round, including new anchor LP Trusted Insight. This new fund will enable EF to support its various programs over the next three years, impacting more than 2.2K individuals.
• BLS Accelerator has committed to invest upto $1 Mn in early startups across focussed sectors including agritech, G2C, egovernance, healthcare and travel.  BLS Accelerator will run its first programme in April followed by two more similar accelerator programmes in 2019.
• Singapore-based BIGO Technology, a global video-based social media platform has committed $100 Mn investment in India over the next three years. In India, BIGO offers its video making LIKE app, which reached 100 Mn Indian users in November 2018.
• CBA Ventures and MET League of Colleges, Bandra have come together to launch Startup Accelerator in Mumbai. The initiative is likely to provide MET with the early mover advantage in the global content. The MET-CBA Ventures, eventually, would serve as a global platform for Indian startups looking to expand globally through its global partner CBA Ventures.

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