Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [27 Nov -2 Dec]

We bring to you the latest edition Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding of the week. This week 12 Indian startups raised about $78 Mn in funding altogether in the Indian startup ecosystem. (The startup funding calculations are based on the startups that disclosed their funding amounts)

Making it this week’s biggest Indian startup funding mobile gaming company Nazara Technologies raised $51 Mn in a funding round led by IIFL Special Opportunities Fund.

Also, the Japanese conglomerate, along with Flipkart and Tencent, is gearing up for a $200 Mn-$250 Mn investment in foodtech startup, Swiggy. If successful, the investment would likely take place at a pre-money valuation of $600 Mn-$650 Mn.

Indian Startup Funding Of The Week

Smaaash: Sachin Tendulkar backed virtual reality gaming and entertainment company Smaaash raised $3.8 Mn (INR 25 Cr) from Mumbai-based consumer-centric VC firm, Sixth Sense Ventures.With the newly-secured investment, Smaaash is aiming to strengthen its physical presence in domestic as well as international markets. A portion of the financing will also be spent on making its augmented reality technology ready for the booming online gaming market.

Chumbak: Bengaluru-based design-led lifestyle brand Chumbak secured $13.1 Mn (INR 85 Cr) funding from mid-market private equity firm, Gaja Capital, along with existing backers Matrix Partners India and Seedfund. Narayan Ramachandran, the Operating Partner at Gaja Capital, also joined the funding round in Chumbak.

MobieFit: Mobile fitness startup Mobiefit raised $1.35 Mn (INR 8.85 Cr) in a Pre-Series A funding round led by NB Ventures and existing investor, MediAssist India. The investment follows the startup’s Seed round of $1 Mn in December 2015.

Befikr: Delhi NCR-based hyperlocal services provider befikr raised about $2 Mn in Series A funding round from undisclosed investors. The newly raised funding will be used towards the expansion of befikr’s services in Delhi-NCR and Pune region. The funding will further help the company to strengthen its current technology infrastructure and also be employed for brand building.

Passion Gaming: Passion Gaming, which owns and operates online gaming startup RummyPassion raised $3.75 Mn funding in an all-cash deal from UK-based Stride Gaming. As part of the deal, the online gaming company has divested 51% stake in itself to Stride Gaming. The funding will enable Passion Gaming to achieve faster growth and will be utilised to strengthen its marketing, technology and customer service teams.

Stanza Living: New Delhi-based student accommodation platform Stanza Living raised $2 Mn in funding from investment firms Matrix Partners and California-headquartered Accel Partners. The startup will be utilising the fresh capital to expand its presence in new cities and further develop its technology platform. A portion of the funding will also be spent on talent acquisition.

Uniphore Software Systems: Chennai-based IT startup Uniphore Software Systems closed its series B round of funding led by the Executive Chairman of Cisco and the newly made US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), John Chambers, in his personal capacity and the existing investor IDG Ventures. This is the first startup-investment of Chambers outside the US.

HolaChef: Mumbai-based food delivery startup Holachef raised a fresh capital through a mix of equity and debt from Rajasthan-based software publishing and consultancy firm IPI Technolab Pvt. Ltd. and Innoven Capital, the venture debt arm of Singapore Government’s sovereign fund Temasek.

Raybaby: Hyderabad-based artificial intelligence startup Raybaby raised around $1 Mn funding from Anthill Ventures.  Raybaby, promoted by three Bengaluru-based women entrepreneurs and registered in the US, was supported by Johnson & Johnson in the product development stage and recently teamed up with US retailer Target for marketing its products.

KrishiHub: UP-based agritech startup KrishiHub raised undisclosed seed funding from IIT Kanpur INVENT accelerator and Villgro Innovation Fund along with a few angel investors and HNIs. With this round of funding, KrishiHub plans to expand its operations aggressively across Delhi-NCR, add more businesses to its customer portfolio and increase its farmer base in more states.

ERA: Venture Catalysts facilitated an investment of $38.77K (INR 25 Lakhs) in the startup idea pitched by ERA, the winning team on the recently-concluded Droom.in MTV Dropout. Era offers integrated identity management platform, providing its users a safe and secure way to share their identities with the world. By building an ecosystem of real identities, by using Era organisations would be able to reliably and seamlessly authenticate users without an expensive & cumbersome KYC process, be it at a physical location or an online portal. The startup will use the funds to hire technologists, build underlying technology, and explore strategic partnerships.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• Bengaluru-based edtech firm AEON Learning acquired Acadgild in an all-stock deal worth $10 Mn. Post the deal completion, Vikalp Jain, co-founder of Acadgild will join AEON Learning as President. With this acquisition, AEON Learning aims to tap into the fast-growing online higher education market, which is pegged to be a $1.96 Bn industry by 2021 as per a latest KPMG-Google report.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Pune-headquartered AutoNebula, India’s only incubator/accelerator that focuses on connected transport, secured a Category I AIF (alternate investment funding) of $7 Mn (INR 45 Cr). The funding was headed by Milestone Trustees along with Sanjay Puri, Chairman, and founder of AutoNebula.
• Google announced the list of startups that will be joining the fifth edition of the Launchpad Accelerator Programme, at the Google Developers Launchpad Space in San Francisco. With this batch, a total of 30 Indian startups will have participated in the Launchpad Accelerator programme so far. The four Indian startups selected are BabyChakra, m.paani, NIRAMAI, and Social Cops.
• On the 2nd day of the ongoing GES 2017 (Global Entrepreneurship Summit), Uber announced 10 Indian startups as UberEXCHANGE winners. Under the UberEXCHANGE programme, the startups will be awarded an all-expense-paid trip to San Francisco, Uber’s headquarter. The winners include Anytimeloan.in, carenGrow, Docturnal, Preva Systems, AlgoSurg, Imaginate Software Labs, JioVio HealthCare, Gayam Motor Works and Gray Routes Technology.
• Amazon India announced a collaboration with global crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and China-headquartered hardware accelerator HAX. The partnership is geared towards creating a conducive environment for early-stage product startups in the country.
• Hyderabad-based startup incubator T-Hub launched Blockchain Hyper Hub in collaboration with CASHe. With an aim to co-create blockchain-powered solutions, Blockchain Hyper Hub will focus on grooming and develop the talents required for the same.
• Venture capital firm Fenox Venture Capital is looking to expand its presence in Asia by launching special investment funds for two of the largest countries in the region–India and China. For India, Fenox had planned to float a $50 Mn venture capital fund dedicated to investments in the country.
• T-Hub joined hands with Microsoft to launch its first accelerator programme which will allow startups to scale to the next level. The 90-day accelerator programme of T-Hub Microsoft Accelerator to be launched from February next year will enable entrepreneurs to access new revenue channels and help them figure out shortcomings in their distribution channels and fine-tune them.
• Kerala IT Parks CEO  Hrishikesh Nair launched a new entrepreneur platform NCubeRoot for empowering startups at Infopark Cherthala. The platform is designed to dispense a host of projects to emphasize the growth of startups and to yield freelancers with immense projects.
• Boeing [NYSE: BA] announced the launch of the Boeing HorizonX India Innovation Challenge 1.0 to energize aerospace innovation in India. The challenge is a collaboration with T-Hub and is aimed at attracting the best Indian startups to propose disruptive solutions to tackle complex challenges in the areas of autonomous and unmanned systems, advanced manufacturing, industrial IoT and automation, analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

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