[Funding Galore] From Medibuddy To Perfios— Over $699 Mn Raised By Indian Startups This Week

Continuing with the lukewarm funding trend of this month, the fourth week of February reported a total of $699 Mn of investment across 48 deals. This is almost 29% fall from $984 Mn that Indian startups bagged between February 14 and 19 across 34 deals.

The week also saw the rise of two unicorns in the form of Hasura, a GraphQL developer platform and Perfios, a fintech SaaS-based platform. 

The busiest investor(s) of this week were A91 Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Kalaari Capital, Omidyar Network, and Lightspeed Venture Partners who have  signed two deals each.

The Indian Startup Funding Deals Of The Week

Updates On Indian Startup IPOs

PharmEasy Received Nod For INR 6,250 Cr IPO

API Holdings, the parent company of epharmacy giant PharmEasy, has received clearance from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to raise funds through an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

The startup plans to raise INR 6,250 Cr through the IPO

Swiggy Eyes $800 Mn IPO Early Next Year

Food delivery giant Swiggy is eyeing to raise $800 Mn through public listing as early as by next year. Further, the Bengaluru-based food aggregator is likely to list itself as a logistics startup and not as a food delivery company. 

Nykaa, Paytm, Zomato Entered The List Of Nifty Next 50 Index

New-age technology companies Nykaa, Paytm and Zomato have now been included in the Nifty Next 50 index in the new reshuffle of National Stock Exchange (NSE) indices. 

The NSE, on February 24, notified the changes in eligibility criteria for the equity indices and announced the replacement of stocks as part of its periodic review. The changes will come into effect from March 31, 2022.

From The Startup Acquisition Desk

• Newly minted unicorn Perfios to acquire financial risk management platform Karza for $80 Mn
• Online grocery giant BigBasket acquired the enterprise business unit of deeptech startup Agrima Infotech
• Merchant solutions platform, Mosambee, acquired BNPL-focused fintech startup, Benow, for an undisclosed amount
• Singapore-based traveltech platform Wego, which operates in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region), signed an agreement with Flipkart to acquire Cleartrip’s Middle East business
• Feminine hygiene startup, Sirona, forayed into the women’s safety segment with the acquisition of IMPOWER in an all-cash deal
• Cloud kitchen brands aggregator Curefoods announced its acquisition of exclusive franchise rights in South India for the globally renowned pizza brand Sbarro
• Chennai-based subscription management unicorn, Chargebee acquired collections management platform numberz and launched its receivables to help businesses get paid faster 
• Tamil Nadu-based agritech startup, WayCool Foods acquired the IP of Bengaluru-based startup, GramworkX 
• AiDash acquired geospatial and AI powered farming solution provider Neurafarms.ai in an undisclosed deal
• RenewBuy announced acquisition of Artivatic.ai for around $10 Mn
• Servify announced its acquisition of 247around to strengthen its fulfillment network
• Edtech startup Great Learning announced acquisition of Superset, a talent recruitment automation platform.

Startup Funds This Week

• Mumbai-based growth-stage venture capital (VC) IvyCap Ventures raised INR 1,608 Cr, making the first close for its third fund. The startup targets a final close of INR 2,000 Cr; however, looking at the demand and the fund strategy, it may increase the size to INR 2500 Cr
• Venture Partners, an early-stage VC fund, announced the final close of its fourth fund of $120 Mn. It will invest in disruptive technology companies across fintech, edtech, healthtech, consumer internet and global SaaS 
• Venture Capital firm, WestBridge Capital, announced an investment of $9 Mn in SaaS accelerator Upekkha’s UP funds. The investment will enable Indian SaaS startups to go global and scale up
• New York-based venture capital and private equity company, Insight Partners raised $20 Bn for its twelfth flagship fund as it plans to increase investments in technology and software companies
• Supply Chain Labs (SCL), an initiative by investment firm Lumis Partners, TCI Ventures, among others, announced the first close of its purpose-specific fellowship fund at INR 75 Cr to help startups build a strong foundation for themselves.     

Other Developments From The Indian Startup Ecosystem

• Ronnie Screwvala-backed edtech startup Lido has laid off 150 employees amidst lack of funds
• Tiger Global & Lightspeed backed bookkeeping platform OkCredit has let go of their 40 employees
• Private equity firm Samara Capital, which is a local partner of Amazon India, is planning to raise as much as $500 Mn for a new fund targeting Indian companies
• The central government will create a new equity fund for startups with a 20% limited stake, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said
• Automobile marketplace unicorn Cars24 has announced ESOP buyback worth INR 75 Cr
• Supply chain startup Vegrow has created a new ESOP pool worth $3.5 Mn to reward its employees 
• Chiratae Ventures has announced the names of 19 startups that it had invested in as part of its maiden seed investment initiative, Sonic. These 19 startups have received around $2 Mn from the initiative. To know about these 19 startups, click here.
• B2B marketplace IndiaMART has acquired a 26% stake in Japan-based IB Monotaro, buying the 810K shares from Emtex Engineering for a total consideration of INR 104.2 Cr