[Funding Galore] From Stashfin To Mystifly — Indian Startups Raised $180 Mn This Week

The third week of March again witnessed a massive dip in the funding activities. If we recap, last week we saw the startup fraternity raising a whopping over $700 Mn funding. So, between March 20 and March 25, Indian startups collectively raised around $180 Mn across a mere 10 deals. 

This is 77% lower than the $791 Mn raised by the startup ecosystem between March 13 and March 18 which proved to be an outlier week. 

This week’s funding is however a bit higher when compared to $178 Mn raised across 18 deals between March 6 and 11. 

Key Highlights From This Week’s Funding 

1. Interestingly, this week’s biggest fund raise was a debt funding round. Stashfin, a neobanking fintech startup, secured $100 Mn in a debt round from Innoven Capital and Trifecta 
2. The second biggest funding was secured by EV charging startup CHARGE+ZONE. It raised $54 Mn in its Series A1 funding round, which was a mix of equity and debt, led by global impact investment manager BlueOrchard Finance
3. Airline retailing-focused B2B SaaS startup Mystifly took home the third biggest funding amount of the week. It mopped up $8 Mn in a Pre-Series B round from Cornerstone Venture Partners Fund (CSVP Fund)
4. LetsVenture was the most active investor with participation of three deals this week 
5. Enterprisetech sector recorded the highest number of deals with closing of six fundings, whereas the fintech sector bagged the highest funding amount at $100 Mn
6. Cleantech sector continued to grab investors’ interest this week as well. As of the total 11 deals, three were from this segment
7. Early stage investment rounds such as Seed and Pre-Series A funding continued to dominate this week – indicating investors’ high confidence in such startups amidst the funding winter. 

Startup Funding Deals Of The Week

From The Acquisition Desk

• Profitable edtech unicorn PhysicsWallah has acquired UAE-based, K-12 online learning platform Knowledge Planet for an undisclosed sum
• Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) acquired agritech startup MITRA after increasing its stake from 47.33% to 100% 
• Listed wealth management firm Nuvama Wealth acquired a 74% equity in wealthtech startup Pickright Technologies giving exit to latter’s early investors – Mumbai Angels Network, JITO Angel Network, and 100x.VC
• IT giant Accenture acquired Bengaluru-based AI startup Flutura for an undisclosed sum. Including the latest acquisition, Accenture till date has acquired three Indian startups in the last three years
• Content to commerce unicorn The Good Glamm Group has made its ninth acquisition by acquiring social commerce platform Bulbul
• Nazara’s sports news platform Sportskeeda has signed definitive agreements to acquire a 73.27% stake in Pro Football Network LLC for $1.82 Mn (about INR 16 Cr) in an all-cash deal.

Other Key Developments

• Indian edtech unicorn PhysicsWallah is in talks to raise a fresh $250 Mn funding; this might almost triple its valuation to $3.3 Bn
• Gaming startup WinZO launched a $50 Mn ‘Game Developer Fund’ to invest in global gaming startups
• Two years after acquiring social commerce platform Simsim for $70 Mn, YouTube has now pulled the plug of the platform
• Yudiz Solutions, a blockchain, artificial intelligence and game development company, has filed draft papers with the NSE’s SME Platform, NSE Emerge, for its initial public offering (IPO). The company’s IPO offer consists of a fresh issue of 27,17,600 equity shares.