Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [19-24 March 2018]

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

This week 11 startups raised around $112 Mn in funding altogether and two 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 news this week was Emerald Media leading $80 Mn funding round Singapore and Chennai-based sports tech company GSC (Global Sports Commerce) through a combination of primary and secondary investments.With this deal, Emerald Media will acquire a significant minority stake in GSC. The company will use the latest round of funding for inorganic acquisition opportunities, develop next-generation technologies for the sporting ecosystem, and expand GSC’s operations in Asia and the US.

Indian Startup Funding Of The Week

Kottaram Agro Foods: Bengaluru-based packaged foods company, Kottaram Agro Foods raised $5.3 Mn in funding from Aavishkaar’s Bharat Fund. The company will use the funds to help company strengthen its product ‘Soulfull’  portfolio, accelerate marketing and expand its distribution reach to over 50,000 retail outlets in the next 3 years.

One Labs: AI-based startup One Labs raised an undisclosed amount of funding from handset maker Micromax Informatics. The funding will be used for further product development and have 200+ apps on the platform within the next 12 months by opening inOne to third-party developers and making it an instant app platform.

Zappfresh: Gurugram-based raw meat etailer Zappfresh raised around $3 Mn (INR 20 Cr) in funding led by Amit Burman, Vice Chairman of Dabur India with participation from SIDBI Venture Capital. The company will use the funding to expand Zappfresh’s supply chain, strengthen its management team and widen its geographical presence.

CustomerSuccessBox: San Francisco- and Gurugram-based CustomerSuccessBox, a customer success platform for B2B SaaS companies, raised $1 Mn in a Pre Series A round of funding led by early-stage venture fund pi Ventures and Axilor Ventures.The company plans to use the funding to drive growth and product innovation.

Fingerlix: Mumbai-based footech startup, Fingerlix raised $1.31 Mn (INR 8.5 Cr) in venture debt funding from Alteria Capital’s maiden venture debt fund, launched earlier this month. The company will use the funding towards building out Fingerlix’s production capacity, expansion of the product suite as well as growth into newer markets.

i2iFunding: Noida-based P2P lending startup i2iFunding raised $768K (INR 5 Cr) led by SucSEED Venture Partners; Manish Poddar, a serial entrepreneur and investor, and a group of angel investors. The company will use the funds to strengthen its technology infrastructure and geographical expansion.

Karma Healthcare: Kolkata-based healthcare startup Karma Healthcare raised $500K (INR 3 Cr) from 1Crowd, existing investors Ankur Capital, Ennovent Capital and Beyond Capital, and angel investors including Mr Anil Chatta (an experienced healthcare professional based in the Middle East). The company will use the funding to scale its operations as well as enhance its technology offering to improve quality of care and provide great patient experience.

What’s Up Life: Gurugram-based What’s Up Life raised undisclosed amount of funding from Karan Puri, author and Praveen Puri of Skyline Knowledge Centre, a Skyline Education Group Company. The company will use the latest funding for expansion and growing its team to newer cities and will also create new business lines.

ChargeBee: Chennai-based subscription management and recurring billing solutions startup Chargebee raised $18 Mn Series C funding from New York-based Insight Venture Partners. The company will use the funding to expand globally and improve proximity to customer locations, increase investments in product, sales marketing, and growth initiatives.

GigIndia: Pune-headquartered GigIndia, which provides micro-jobs to students raised an undisclosed amount of Seed funding from a consortium of angel investors. The list includes Jessica Wong, Founding Managing Partner of Ganesh Ventures; Hiro Mashita, Director at M&S Partners; Xue Manzi, Director-Manzi Fund and Yiyun Zhang, CEO at Pocket Part Time. The company will use the newly raised funding for its expansion, hiring of staff and shaping the product with automation techniques to enhance the user experience.

ZineOne: Bengaluru-based customer engagement company ZineOne raised $2.5 Mn in Series A round of funding led by Omidyar Network. It plans to use the funds towards aggressively accelerating sales, marketing and the execution of a product roadmap that is focussed on building the most intelligent system within its category, with significant investments toward securing top talent in machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• Gurugram-headquartered hotel aggregator OYO acquired Chennai-based service apartment operator Novascotia Boutique Homes. The acquisition will help the company reach its stated target of having 180K rooms by end of 2018. The company claimed that the acquisition also brings great support to OYO’s already deep operational teams.
• Pune-based IT services company Zensar is set to acquire the US and Bengaluru-based insurance technology startup Cynosure for $33 Mn. The move is aimed at expanding Zensar’s foothold in the growing property and casualty insurance sector. Post the acquisition, Cynosure will be managed by its founders, while its US and Bengaluru-based teams will be joining Zensar’s insurance vertical.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Goa’s revamped IT startup scheme, which aims to focus on employment generation and incentives for Goan entrepreneurs and startups, will be implemented in the next 20 days. It aims to provide subsidies and incentives to startups which include a one-time grant of $15,373 (INR 10 Lakh) with a promise of the minimum viable product.
• US-headquartered VC firm Sequoia Capital is reportedly slashing the size of its new India fund by 25%. Sequoia Capital is looking to raise $650 Mn-$700 Mn for its sixth India Fund.
• Gurugram-headquartered hotel aggregator OYO is in talks to raise $500 Mn-$800 Mn in funding. The fundraise would also enable the hotel aggregator to accelerate its international expansion. Prior to this, OYO raised $10 Mn funding from China Lodging Group Limited and $250 Mn Series D funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund at an estimated valuation of $850 Mn.
• At the recently concluded Rajasthan IT Day 2018, Hackathon 4.0 announced its three winners from amongst 5000 entries of non-stop 36-hour coding marathon. Jalandhar-based AK Pal Robotic, Delhi-based Tech 9 and Bengaluru-based Swift Ace have won the Hackathon 4.0 organised by the government of Rajasthan.
• Conducted over a period of 90 days, “India Fintech Opportunities Review” by YES Bank revealed that the fintech sector is dominated by young tech entrepreneurs with 91% entrepreneurs coming from a STEM background and 60% under the age of 40. The conclusions drawn by YES Bank on the basis of these parameters state that India has the second highest global fintech adoption rate and incumbents have been partnering with fintechs to co-create Proofs of Concept.
• Early stage investment firm Fireside Ventures closed its first fund with a corpus of $52.12 Mn (INR 340 Cr). The VC firm now aims to invest in 20-25 consumer brand businesses from this fund over the next two to three years.
• Indian Institute of Management-Lucknow’s Enterprise Incubation Centre (L-Incubator) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with ONGC under which L-Incubator would act as the incubation body to support and promote energy sector startups funded by ONGC.
•  Brigade REAP, an accelerator program with a focus on technology that Impacts the real estate industry, announced the graduation of its third cohort of five startups during the Brigade REAP Handover Day.The startups that graduated from the program are ECOSTP, QuickQuotes Synconext, WeGoT Utility Services and Woodzon. With this, the applications for the fourth cohort have also opened.Stay tuned for the next edition of Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week!

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