Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [25 Feb – 2 Mar]

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

This week the thrill of biggest fundings came to the three major players: Zomato, Ola and Grofers. Gurugram-headquartered Zomato raised $62 Mn in Series I round led by Delivery Hero, with participation from Shunwei Capital and Saturn Shine.

At the same time, Gurugram-based online grocery startup Grofers raised nearly $60 Mn in a fresh Series F funding round from Masayoshi Son-led SoftBank Vision Fund (SVF). Post-money, the company has been valued at $425 Mn.

And yes, Ola Electric, Ola’s new e-mobility dream, has raised $56 Mn (INR 400 Cr) from old investors such as Tiger Global. The company will be led by Ola executives Anand Shah and Ankit Jain and is primarily focused on deploying charging and battery swapping networks focused on the commercial electric vehicle segment.

In all this week, 15 startups raised $193.72 Mn funding and one startup acquisition 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

The Man Company: Gurugram-based men’s grooming startup The Man Company raised a second tranche of funding from its existing investor, Kolkata-based FMCG company Emami. With this deal, Emami’s stake in the startup rose to 30%.

HomeLane: Bengaluru-based online home furnishing startup HomeLane has raised $4.56 Mn (INR 32.8 Cr) in a bridge round from JSW Ventures, Sequoia and Accel. The company said it will use the funds to fuel expansion of HomeLane experience centers in existing and new markets. A chunk of the funds will also be utilised to boost technology and brand strengthening.

Nymble: Bengaluru-based internet of things (IoT)-and hardware-driven startup, Nymble Labs raised an undisclosed pre-Series A funding from WaterBridge Ventures. The funds will help Nymble complete the development of a food cooking robot, named ‘Julia’.

NIRAMAI: Bengaluru-based NIRAMAI Health Analytix raised $6 Mn in Series A round funding led by a Japanese venture capital firm Dream Incubator. Its existing investors, including pi Ventures, Ankur Capital, Axilor Ventures, Binny Bansal, and BEENEXT, also participated in the startup’s latest funding round.  It is gearing up to scale its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven solution that detects cancer and abnormalities, across India and also expand its employee headcount.

Wishbook: Surat-based Business to Business startup Wishbook Infoservices raised $280K (INR 2 Cr) in fresh funding from Naukri-parent Info Edge.

Bulbul Apps: Hyderabad-based edtech startup Bulbul apps raised $493K (INR 3.5 Cr) in a fresh funding from Xseed Partners, Operator VC, Anblicks and Infolob. The company will use the funds to build its B2B2C market that is showing tremendous promise with an aim to serve a growing number of paid parents, subscribers.

Aidia Technovations: Mumbai-based Aidia Technovations raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a group of investors. It plans to use the fresh funds for team expansion, technology, content creation, legend onboarding and branding for its co-curricular marketplace, imd1 (I Am The 1).

HomeCapital: Mumbai-based home down-payment assistance programme HomeCapital raised an undisclosed pre-series A funding led by Astarc Ventures, with participation from Venture Catalysts, Anand Piramal of the Piramal Group, Singapore Angel Network, Venture Gurukool, Anuj Golecha, Samyakth Capital, Gaurav Gandhi of Essgee group, and Shalin Shah, a renowned Coinbase seed investor. The funds will be used for aggressive business expansion, developing and scaling technology infrastructure, and increasing the strength of its workforce.

CloudSEK: Bengaluru-based AI digital risk management and cybersecurity platform CloudSEK raised an undisclosed amount of funding from IDFC Parampara. The fresh funds will be used to evolve its product Xvigil and expand its footprints in India and South East Asia.

Artivatic.ai: Bengaluru-based Artivatic.ai raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Indian Angel Network. It will use the funds or Business Development, infrastructure enhancement and Research & Development. IAN member Rajesh Relan has joined Artivatic as a board member post the investment.

nCore Games: Bengaluru-based mobile games development and publishing company nCore games raised an undisclosed amount of funding from GoQii founder Vishal Gondal. He has also joined as a strategic advisor. nCore will also bring to India and publish games from top global studios for the Indian market.

Fingerlix: Mumbai-headquartered foodtech startup Fingerlix raised $4.39 Mn (INR 31.2 Cr) in Series C funding from Swiggy. With a growing presence in the top six metros, the Fingelix aims to be an integral part of the everyday tasty dining experience in Indian homes.

Expected Fundings:

• Masayoshi Son-led SoftBank has received the final approval from Competition Commission of India (CCI) to pick up a major stake in ecommerce logistics startup Delhivery. CCI said that it has approved “acquisition of 22.44% of the total share capital of Delhivery Pvt. Ltd. (on a fully diluted basis) by SVF Doorbell (Cayman) Ltd.” The CCI has also approved the acquisition of preference shares in Delhivery by CA Swift Investments.
• The eight-year-old food maker and delivery app Faasos is looking to raise $75 Mn-$100 Mn round from new investors such as Multiples Alternative Asset Management, Temasek, Goldman Sachs, Falcon Edge and Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• Walmart Labs acquihired a Bengaluru-based deeptech startup, Dataturks, in a bid to use latter’s machine learning (ML) capabilities in various projects for the digital arm of the US-based retail major Walmart Stores. The five-member team of Dataturks have already joined Walmart Labs and are now part of Walmart Lab’s merchant technology division.

Expected  Acquisitions:

• New Delhi-based online retail payments platform Pine Labs is reportedly in talks to acquire Bengaluru’s digital gift card firm Qwikcilver Solutions for over $100 Mn, as the former looks to creating a strong footing in the gifting space.Once the acquisition deal materialises, the existing investors in the company are expected to cash out, while the founders of the company may stay on with the team.

• A media report citing sources said that Amazon is in the final stages of talks to get a stake in Future Coupons, a coupon provider owned by Future Group. Amazon is doing this to ensure it is in compliance with the new FDI policies under which it cannot have a majority stake in its sellers.

Other Developments Of The Week

• The four Indian startups selected in the Y Combinator 2019 winter batch are MyScoot, Skill-lync, Trexo Robotics and Mudrex Inc. Y Combinator is an American seed accelerator, which accelerates two startup batches in a year and invests $150K in selected startups.
• Sachin Bansal via BAC Acquisitions has reportedly invested $35.16 Mn (INR 250 Cr) each via non-convertible debt in Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) — Altico Capital India and IndoStar Capital Finance. The funds will be used to manage their working capital requirements and to leverage their books.
• Bengaluru-based home rental startup, NestAway has launched a six-month equity free incubation programme for consumer startups. As part of the initiative, Nestaway Startup Lab will offer end-to-end support to bootstrapped startups.
• Delhi-based integrated incubator Venture Catalysts has entered into a partnership with JPIN, a Euro-Asia focused VC, a startup mentor and a global advisory, to build the largest Euro-Asia corridor for angels to invest and nurture early stage ventures. It aims to develop a over 500 strong investor network and INR 400 Cr worth of corpus to offer during funding rounds.
• LaLiga and the Global Sports Innovation Center powered by Microsoft (GSIC) launched the 2019 Startup Competition of The Original Inspiration Centre to find the best technological developments in the sports and entertainment industry. The digital innovators participation must ensure their disruptors are aimed towards fan engagement, media, smart venues and sports performance in football, sports and entertainment.
• The Telangana Government in partnership with GlobalLinker announced the launch of a digital networking platform called ‘Telangana State GlobalLinker’. The platform will digitise and connect over 2.3 Mn MSMEs in Telangana to a global community of small and large businesses
• The CoWrks Foundry has partnered with Yale University with support from the RMZ Foundation, to launch the Sustainable Health Initiative. The Sustainable Health Initiative is a six-month, interdisciplinary accelerator program that will be facilitated through the Yale Institute for Global Health for young and early stage startups building innovative solutions in health.
• Venture Capital firm A91 Partners may raise around $25 Mn from International Finance Corporation. The World Bank’s investment arm said that the target corpus of the fund is pegged at $250-300 Mn. A91 Partners focuses on early to growth stage private companies across consumer, healthcare, financial services, and technology sectors

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