[Funding Galore] From LEAD To Toddle — Indian Startups Raised $127 Mn This Week

SUMMARY

The Indian startup ecosystem raised around $254 Mn across 14 deals between January 2 and 7, 2022

The week saw edtech unicorn LEAD raising $19.5 Mn in debt from Alteria Capital and HDFC Bank

Ecommerce roll up startup GOAT Brand labs announced acquisition of Chumbak and four other D2C brands for an undisclosed amount

After a relatively good start to 2023, the funding raised by the Indian startup ecosystem has plummeted in the second week of January. Between January 9 and 14, the Indian startup ecosystem has raised $127 Mn across 20 deals. This is a 50% drop from $254 Mn raised collectively by Indian startups in the first week of 2023 across 14 deals. However, this week’s funding is 9% higher than $116 Mn raised by Indian startups between December 26 and 31 of 2022.

The week’s biggest cheque was raised by edtech unicorn LEAD. The Mumbai-based startup raised $19.5 Mn in debt from Alteria Capital, Stride Ventures, Standard Chartered Bank, HDFC Bank, among others. The fresh development came a day after Inc42 exclusively reported that the startup laid off around 60 employees from its tech and product team.

The week’s second biggest cheque was received by Amit Lakhotia’s Park+. The Gurugram-based startup raised $17 Mn in its Series C round from Epiq Capital, Matrix Partners, and Sequoia India to expand to 100 cities.

Edtech startup Toddle secured the third-highest funding round this week. It raised $17 Mn in its Series A round of funding from Sequoia Capital, Tenacity Ventures, Trifecta Capital, among others.

Sequoia Capital and IPV were the most active investors of this week as they participated in three deals each.

Funding Deals Of The Week

Other Key Developments

Sanjay Ghodawat Group’s FMCG arm Ghodawat Consumer Limited (GCL) has acquired Delhi-based startup To Be Honest (TBH) for an undisclosed amount
Ecommerce roll up startup GOAT Brand Labs has announced acquisition of Chumbak along with four other D2C brands for an undisclosed amount
Investment tech unicorn Groww has reportedly made a strategic investment in fintech SaaS startup Digio by acquiring a minority stake in it
The Dallas and Hyderabad-based venture capital (VC) firm Dallas Venture Capital (DVC) has announced the first close of its INR 350 Cr India-focused fund for enterprisetech startups.