Funding Galore: Startup Fundings Of The Week [June 20 – June 25]

In a recent Union Cabinet meeting chaired by PM Narendra Modi, the government finally approved the INR 10, 000 Cr corpus of ‘Fund of Funds for Startups’ is in line with the ‘Startup India Action Plan’. The fund aims to generate employment for 18 lakh persons on full deployment and will support seed stage, early stage and growth stage startups.

This week, 16 startups raised about $10 Mn in funding altogether (the funding amount is based on the startups that disclosed their funding amounts).

Startups That Raised Funds This Week

Staqu: An Artificial Intelligence (AI) focused research startup Staqu raised an undisclosed amount in funding from IAN. Bikky Khosla, Neeraj Singal and Ajay Gupta led the round on behalf of IAN. With this, Bikky Khosla will join the Staqu board. The startup will use the newly raised funding to further build and democratise technology and strengthen the team.

Celerix Tech: A fintech product and services startup Celerix Tech raised $400K in seed funding from Bitkemy Ventures. The funds raised from this round will be used for expanding the team.

Prettysecrets: An online lingerie platform Prettysecrets raised $6 Mn (INR 40 Crore) from RB investments. Existing investor Orios Venture Partners also participated in the round. The raised funds will be utilised on adding new products and categories to its platform. The company will also invest in improving its supply chain and for marketing campaigns.

Onspon.com: An event-brand partnership platform Onspon raised $150K (INR 1 Cr) in angel funding from Indore’s Swan Angel Network. With the new round of funding, the startup plans to scale up the operations, marketing and technology backbone of the product.

ProcMart: Procurement marketplace for office products ProcMart raised an undisclosed amount on Pre Series A funding from IndiaMART. The startup would be investing the newly raised capital in creating a robust technology, which is comprehensive, user friendly and easily scalable.

The Indian Iris: A policy research and consulting startup The Indian Iris raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Timbru Ventures. The startup will use the newly raised funds to scale its operations.

ClearTrip: Online travel portal ClearTrip raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Concur Technologies and Gund Investment.

Qonfuse: Edtech startup Qonfuse raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from CureInstant founder Hamraj Kumar, through a Facebook Group, Startup Delhi. The startup is about to launch a service which will avail the users to take an online mock test.

Dipper Technologies: Freight logistics marketplace Dipper raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from unnamed angel investors. The startup plans to use the funds for marketing initiatives and ramping up operations, besides expanding its teams in Delhi and other cities.

SpiderG: Gladiris Technologies that launched its free e-invoicing app SpiderG  raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from a group of investors.

FarEye: Logistics management software, FarEye, raised $3.5 Mn (INR 20 Cr) in Series A round of funding as growth funds from Saif Partners. The startup will use the raised capital for the expansion of business to other territories. It wants to capitalise on its logistics management expertise and help enterprises across the globe streamline their logistics.

Drivify: On-demand driver app Drivify raised $50K in seed funding from Citrus Pay founder Jitendra Gupta and a high net-worth individual Pankaj Tripathi. The startup will use the funds to improve and expand the platform, acquire customers and give incentives to drivers.

Uolo: Student education tracking app Uolo raised $210K in seed funding from Purvi Ventures, Sunstone Business School director Rajul Garg and Vipin Arora. Others who participated in this round included Exponentially I Mobility LLP and Artieca Family Trust. The funds will be used to upgrade the tech infrastructure, and on-board more school.

Naturenama: Travel-tech startup Naturenama Pvt Ltd raised $225K in seed funding from venture capital firm White Unicorn Ventures. The startup will use the funds mainly for technology enhancement, brand building and marketing.

Parablu: Kstart, a start-up accelerator run by venture capital (VC) firm Kalaari Capital, invested $500K in Parablu Inc., a cloud security startup. The startup will invest the funds in team expansion, marketing and distribution activities.

REstate: Real estate startup focused on landowners and builders, REstate, raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Idein Ventures. With the new funding, the startup is looking to hire talent from local and global markets.

Venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners is in advanced talks to invest around $12 Mn in food-delivery company Swiggy. The deal, if it concludes, will value the company at around $200 Mn.

Acquisitions Of The Week

• Marketing Platform for the F&B industry, Mobikon, acquired MassBlurb, an automated online marketing platform for restaurants. With this, founders of MassBlurb, Sanket Shah and Pankit Chheda will be taking up key roles at Mobikon and the team will also join Mobikon.
• Rise India and aggregator in the education sector acquired for PadhoPadhao.com, a home tutor aggregator portal, for an undisclosed amount. The company acquired 60% stake. With this PadhoPadhao will get an aid to upgrade IT services to gain a strong foothold in the industry.

Other Developments Of The Week

• TurningIdeas announced the launch of TurningIdeas Venture Partners (TVP), a platform that will bring together angel investors looking to invest in next generation startups. The new investment fund will be a value-added for deserving startups in their quest for growth and sustainability.
• Times Internet’s startup accelerator, TLabs, partnered with Stripe Atlas Network to provide a global reach to Indian entrepreneurs. Atlas will help entrepreneurs set up a business in the U.S., save on travel costs, legal fee, document creation, and other tedious processes.
• Microsoft accelerator and TCS launched an innovation network to create a platform for the Indian startup ecosystem. The joint initiative aims at creating a value proposition for the startup in the enterprise marketplace
• JSW Ventures has received mandatory clearances from SEBI to invest $15 Mn (INR 100 crores) in early stage startups over a period of three years. The fund will be initially focussing on  technology-enabled startups working in the areas of education, healthcare, financial services, SaaS and enterprise software space.
• SEBI is reworking its plans for a capital-raising platform targeted exclusively at startups. It is considering sweeping changes to the listing framework for tech-based startups that will allow them to trade publicly on regular stock exchanges.
• SAP launched its startup studio in Bangalore to incubate early stage startups. It will be a 12-month accelerator programme under which apart from providing financial support to startups, it will also provide space, access to technology infrastructure, mentoring and business consulting. It has selected 7 startups including CloudKare, Blubirch, Niki.ai, Sellerworx, Rapportworx, Ecolibrium Energy and Moglix.