Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [05-10 Feb 2018]

We bring to you the latest edition Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding of the week.

This week 27 Indian startups raised about $215 Mn in funding altogether and four startup acquisitions took place in the Indian startup ecosystem. (The startup funding calculations are based on the startups that disclosed funding amount.).

One of the biggest Indian startup funding rounds of the week was raised by online food ordering and delivery platform Swiggy which announced its Series F funding. The foodtech startup revealed an investment of $100 Mn led by Naspers, in participation with the new investor Meituan-Dianping.

Indian Startup Funding Of The Week

CallHealth: Hyderabad-based preventive healthcare startup CallHealth raised $7.8 Mn (INR 50 Cr) from BCCL (Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd.). This is primarily a Value-for-equity deal. The funding will provide CallHealth with the ability to invest in customer education and engagement and to aid its next phase of growth and brand building.

CollegeDekho: Gurugram-based CollegeDekho raised $2 Mn in its third round of funding from GirnarSoft, London-based ManCapital, the investment arm of the Mansour Group, and others. The startup will use the funding to strengthen its technology, to expand collaboration with international colleges and to increase marketing activities, including more offline campaigns.

GenRobotic: Kerala-based GenRobotic raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Unicorn India Ventures. The startup has also received a grant from BPCL to further research in the area and develop Bandicoot, a product under design to build an automatic robotic system for manhole and sewer cleaning to eliminate manual scavenging.

SectorQube: Kerala-based SectorQube raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Unicorn India Ventures. SectorQube has developed smart kitchen appliance and with this funding, it plans to make the product market ready. The startup also has an eye on international expansion where the Indian diaspora is strong.

Perfectfit Fashion: Koshi-based Perfectfit Fashion raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Unicorn India Ventures. The startup plans to utilise the latest funding towards product enhancement and customer acquisition.

healthi: Digital preventive healthcare startup, healthi raised $3.1 Mn in a funding round led by Montane Ventures. The startup aims to use the raised funding to boot up applications that empower users to understand, engage with and take control of their health. It further aims to accelerate product development efforts by significantly growing product and technology teams.

Furlenco: Bengaluru-based online furniture rental startup Furlenco raised $1.5 Mn (INR 10 Cr) in a debt funding round from a consortium of HNI investors via non-convertible debentures.The investors who participated in this round include Rekha Hrishikesh Mafatlal (Arvind Mafatlal Group), Lakshmi Narayanan – Ex-Vice Chairman of Cognizant, and M Krishna Sindhuri Private Trust.

Icertis: The software company Icertis raised $50 Mn in Series D funding round from Meritech Capital Partners with additional investments by PSP Growth and Cross Creek Advisors. Existing investors—B Capital, Ignition, Greycroft, and Eight Roads – also participated in the round. With the raised funding the software provider will accelerate investment in the ICM platform’s risk management, compliance, and revenue optimisation capabilities, driven by artificial intelligence. The company will also expand its geographical footprint in North America, EMEA, and Asia Pacific

Placio: Noida-based Placio, a student housing startup raised $2 Mn in a Pre-Series A funding round from Prestellar Ventures, a Singapore-based private equity fund. The startup plans to use these funds to expand its services in India and Southeast Asia. Placio also plans to use these funds to acquire additional beds and make its technology platform well-equipped.

Nazara Technologies: Mobile gaming startup Nazara Technologies Limited raised an undisclosed amount of funding from ESL (Electronic Sports League), the world’s largest esports company against a minority stake in it. The investment will be used to scale up Nazara’s footprint in emerging markets.

Joveo: Hyderabad-based Joveo, which runs a job advertising technology platform, raised $5 Mn in a Series A round of funding led by Nexus Venture Partners. The startup will be using the funds to accelerate its product offerings, expand its partnerships and scale its AI and deep learning layer.

HealthifyMe: Bengaluru-based health and fitness startup HealthifyMe raised $12 Mn in Series B funding round led by Sistema Asia Fund. With this round, Sistema will also join the company’s board. Other investors who participated in the round included Samsung Next, Atlas Asset Management, Dream Incubator along with the existing investors IDG Ventures India, Inventus Capital, Blume Ventures, and NB Ventures. The startup will use the latest funding round to deepen its presence in India and also hopes to enter other emerging markets in near future.

FarEye: New Delhi-based logistics management startup FarEye picked up $9.5 Mn (INR 61.5 Cr) in Series C funding from Deutsche Post DHL Group. The newly-secured financing from Deutsche Post DHL Group will be utilised to expand the logistics management platform’s presence across Europe and the US later this year.

CashSuvidha: Delhi-based online lending platform Cash Suvidha raised $2.5 Mn in debt financing through financial institutions and private placement. The startup will use the latest funding to increase the loan books of the company. The loans will cater to financing SMEs and individuals particularly in Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Rajasthan

HeyHolidays: Bengaluru-based holiday rental platform HeyHolidays raised $1 Mn in funding from Hampton Capital. The funds will be used for expanding company’s global footprint with an increase in demand shown by its Indian outbound travellers.

Pratilipi: Self-publishing platform Pratilipi raised $4.3 Mn in its Series A round of funding led by Omidyar Network. The round also saw the participation of existing investors, Nexus Venture Partners, Atul Goel, Contrarian Capital and Times Internet Limited and new investors Shunwei Capital and WEH Ventures. The funds will be used to expand and strengthen the existing team in the areas of product, technology and data science and also for further growth and partnerships.

Webengage: SaaS startup WebEngage, which provides on-site customer engagement suite raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Social Capital, the Palo Alto-based VC firm led by Chamath Palihapitiya. The funding will be used to build upon the product pipeline for 2018.

Tork Motorcycles: Pune-based electric bike startup, Tork Motorcycles received $194K (INR 1.25 Cr) from the Ola founders and Kapil Shelke, founder of Tork, reported Paper.vc. Kapil has put in $124K (INR 80 Lakhs) and the balance came from Bhavish and Ankit. The current amount included, the Ola founders have invested $497K (INR 3.2 Cr) in the e-bike startup. The company has raised a total of $746K (INR 4.8 Cr).

Ambee: The Hyderabad-based healthcare transportation solutions provider raised $74.5 K (INR 48 Lakhs) from Japanese VC firm, Spiral Ventures in what appears to be an extended seed round, reported Paper.vc. The startup has earlier raised funding from Uber, Capier Investment and the healthcare-centric Ahmedabad-based family office anAmaya Capital.

FoodMemories: Ahmedabad- based foodtech startup FoodMemories, a marketplace for authentic geographically unique Indian foods secured seed investment from a consortium of eight investors led by Delhivery co-founders Bhavesh Manglani and Suraj Saharan as well as Darshan Upadhyay and Sanjay Notani, Partners at Economic Laws Practice, Mumbai. Additionally, Sachin Khandelwal, Founder of Bangalore-based Corporate Gifting major – Kirti Sales & Services, has joined the investor group.

TyreMarket: Online tyre retailer Tyremarket.com raised around $500k from Blackcicles’s founder Michael Welch, reports VCCircle. Michael Welch is also a strategic adviser to Tyremarket.

Propstack: Mumbai-based real estate data analytics platform Propstack raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Private equity and hedge fund professionals. The round saw the participation of S. Sriniwasan, MD of Kotak Investment Advisors, Ashish Khandelia, director of KKR, Shanti Ekambaram, president of consumer banking at Kotak Mahindra Bank, and TS Sivashankar, MD of US-based Rohatyn Group, in their personal capacity.

PinkBlue: Bengaluru-based clinical supplies provider raised $792K (INR 5.1 Cr) from Orios Venture Partners, Anupam Mittal, Sakate Khaitan of Khaitan Legal Associates and other HNIs in what appears to be a Pre-Series A round, Paper.vc reported.

Shape India: Pune-based Shape (School Health and Physical Education) India raised $200K (INR 1.28 Cr) in Pre-Series A round from a group of investors led by Sandeep Mathur, former managing director of business software and hardware firm Oracle India Pvt. Ltd said a company statement. With this investment, Mathur would join the board of Shape India.

Strand Life Sciences: Bengaluru-based Strand Life Sciences raised an investment of $13 Mn led by Quadria Capital, HealthQuad Fund, and Singapore-based Heritas Venture Fund. This investment will be utilised to fund the growth and expansion of Strand towards becoming Asia’s leading integrated diagnostics company.

MedTel: Bhubaneswar-based B2B2C telehealth platform MedTel has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a pre-Series A round led by DFID (UK)-INVENT equity funds. The startup will use the fresh funds towards technology and product development, activating more digital health clinics & onboarding more specialist doctors on its platform. Besides, it also plans to enter into other states.

Besides these, premium eyewear brand Lenskart, which operates with an omni-channel retail model, has plans to invest $4 Mn more to set up more offline stores for one of its major brand John Jacobs.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• Jovio acquired Ripple Media Inc., a programmatic media buyer. Ripple partners with agencies to provide an open publisher marketplace and trading expertise.Joveo currently has 10 Fortune 500 companies using their offerings.
• Chennai-based hyperlocal delivery startup Genie acquired Dinein, a food delivery services startup in an all-stock deal. The acquisition will help Genie strengthen its business by bolstering volume and adding customer touch points, the company said in a statement.
• ION Energy acquired French battery management company Freemens SAS, as part of a cash-and-equity deal. Post the acquisition, the entire Freemens engineering and sales team will be joining the core team of ION. With this, Freemens SAS founder and CEO Alexandre Collet joined ION as co-founder and VP of Engineering to strengthen the startup’s founding team.
• GotMatter, an IT & ecommerce company acquired Ridaex Technologies, known for manufacturing the first Indian Made LED Smart TVs. Post acquisition, the whole legal rights of Ridaex Technologies will be owned by GotMatter and will take complete control over the manufacturing, marketing & sales of the same.

Other Developments From The Indian Startup Ecosystem

• eBay has written off close to $61 Mn on its investment in beleaguered online marketplace Snapdeal. In addition to being one of Snapdeal’s early investors, eBay Inc currently holds a 5.44% stake in another Indian ecommerce startup, Flipkart.
• Tiger Global’s stake has dropped from 33.6% to 20.5% in Flipkart. In April 2017, when the homegrown ecommerce giant raised $1.4 Bn from Tencent, Microsoft and eBay, Tiger sold a part of its holding in Flipkart. Later in August 2017, it was reported that a large portion of SoftBank’s $2 Bn-$2.5 Bn investment in Flipkart was actually paid to Tiger Global in exchange for one-third of its shares in Flipkart.
• As per the rising speculations, Walmart is looking to acquire a big stake in homegrown ecommerce unicorn Flipkart. If the deal goes through, it would catapult Flipkart’s valuation to $20 Bn from its current valuation of $11.6 Bn.
• Flipkart is planning to invest $25 Mn in a Silicon Valley-based AI startup to procuring deep tech solutions that will enable Flipkart to thwart competition from its biggest competitor, Amazon India.
• In the Grand Finale of the 4th India-UK TECH Rocketship Awards, a total of seven finalists were awarded in the grand finale. The list included Staqu, DineOut, Thirdwatch, Paymatrix, Ayasta Technologies, Mimyk, CropIn Technology.
• RBL Bank collaborated with Startup India and Invest India to mentor and provide funds to the startups under their initiative- InFinIT20. InFinIT20 is a three-month intensive programme where RBL Bank will provide funding and mentorship opportunity to 20 promising startups for their early stage hurdles. The initiative aims to empower and educate companies while driving sustainable economic growth.
• LetsVenture has tied up with SOSV, the world’s third largest active seed investor with over 860 startups funded globally. This partnership comes after SOSV’s Mobile Only Accelerator (MOX) launched its syndicate on the LetsVenture platform thereby closing 2 deals presented to investors on LetsVenture.
• Tata Trusts’ Foundation for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship (FISE) announced the “Social Alpha Energy Challenge” to find high impact innovations that could catalyze system change in the field of energy. A maximum of 10 winners will be selected to receive complete incubation support.
• The IAMAI-Mobile10X Incubation Centre in Kozhikode, supported by the Kerala Startup Mission and located at the Cyberpark was inaugurated by Rajan Anandan, Chairman, IAMAI & Vice President, South East Asia and India, Google.  Mobile10X is an Indian internet industry backed program to support app developers/ app entrepreneurs to bring about a significant change in the App ecosystem.

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