Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [Funding Galore 28 Aug – 2 Sep]

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

This week 10 Indian startups raised about $91 Mn in funding and five acquisitions took place in the Indian startup ecosystem. (The startup funding calculations are based on the startups that disclosed their funding amounts).

Making it the biggest Indian startup funding of the week, Bengaluru-based budget hotel chain Treebo Hotels raised $34 Mn in its Series C funding round. The investment was led by Hong Kong-based investment firms Ward Ferry Management and Karst Peak Capital. Existing investors SAIF Partners, Matrix Partners India and Bertelsmann India Investments also participated in the funding round of the Indian startup. The startup funding will be used in enhancing customer experience, building a stronger brand, strengthening its technology team and expanding its footprint in existing and new cities.

Online matchmaking portal, Matrimony, is gearing up to offer an initial public offering (IPO) on September 11. The company received the approval of market regulator SEBI in July this year. Matrimony is looking to issue up to 3,767,254 equity shares in exchange for a total of $20.3 Mn (INR 130 Cr). The equity shares will reportedly be listed on the BSE and the NSE. The proceeds from the initial public offering will be spent on advertising, business promotion, and general corporate purposes. A portion of the amount will also be used to repay overdraft facilities, and purchase land for the construction of construction of offices in Chennai.

Indian Startup Funding Of The Week

Medgenome: Making it another high ticket Indian startup funding of the week, Bengaluru-based genomics research and diagnostics company MedGenome secured $30 Mn in Series C financing led by Sequoia India and Sofina s.a. The startup funding round also saw participation from Zodius Capital, Kris Gopalakrishnan of Infosys, and Lakshmi Narayanan, former CEO of Cognizant. The Indian startup will use the proceeds to accelerate development of its affordable diagnostics tests. Also, MedGenome will tackle market penetration by increasing customer awareness on the importance of genetic tests. Additionally, the funding will also be used to broaden biomarker discovery programmes.

Doxper: Healthtech IoT startup Doxper raised $750K in a Seed round of funding led by Vidal Health and growx ventures. Other investors who participated in the startup funding round include Capier Investments, Globevestor as well as private individuals in the medical space. As per the terms of the deal, Girish Rao, MD of Vidal Healthcare and Siddharth Dhondiyal representing growx ventures have also joined the Indian startup’s board of directors. Doxper is based out of Delhi and Bengaluru. The startup funding will be used to scale up operations and enhance the technology platform, according to an official statement.

CureFit: Bengaluru-based fitness startup CureFit raised $25 Mn in Series B round of funding from existing investors Accel Partners, IDG Ventures, Kalaari Capital and UC-RNT fund. Making it the third largest Indian startup funding of the week. The startup funding will be used to expand the company’s geographical footprint in the country and scale-up its business verticals.

Mobikon: Pune and Singapore-based restaurant solutions provider Mobikon raised $7 Mn in a Series B funding round led by Sistema Asia Fund, C31 Ventures and Qualgro. Existing investors, Spring Singapore and Jungle Ventures also participated in the startup funding round. Mobikon will use these funds to scale up its operations in India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East in the next 12-18 months, as well as setting up operations in the UK and Australia by January 2018.

FieldAssist: Gurugram-based retail tech startup FieldAssist has secured a successive round of debt funding from SIDBI. The undisclosed funding amount will be used for the R&D of introducing AI and ML in the existing FieldAssist platform. FieldAssist received its first round of 50L from SIDBI itself in 2015.

DAZL: Gurugram-based DAZL which builds connected devices for women’s safety raised $100K from SOS Ventures, which runs the HAX Growth program, against a minority stake in the company. The startup has been selected to participate in HAX Growth, an eight-week boot camp for hardware startups based in San Francisco.

Snaptrude: Intelligence-enabled 3D rapid modeling solution for real estate projects, Snaptrude raised an undisclosed amount of funding from  Brigade Enterprises Ltd. The announcement was made at the graduation event of its second batch of startups from its accelerator program.

Canvera: Mumbai-based online classifieds platform Info Edge invested $1.3 Mn (INR 8.6 Cr) in Canvera Digital Technologies. The transaction was made through a wholly-owned subsidiary, Smart Web Internet Services Limited.

Sapience Analytics: New York and Pune-based People Analytics Solution Company Sapience Analytics raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Credit Suisse Asset Management’s NEXT Investors. The NEXT investment will be primarily used to accelerate Sapience Analytics’ expansion into the US market.

Indian Startup Acquisition Of The Week

• The US-based enterprise SaaS platform Narvar acquired Indian logistics company GoPigeon. The acquisition marks the US firm’s entry into the Indian market. Narvar team is looking to bet its expertise in the Asia-Pacific region with GoPigeon acquisition.
• SaaS based business software provider Freshworks acquired Zarget for an undisclosed amount. The latest acquisition is part of Freshworks’ efforts to build a range of marketing solutions for businesses of all sizes and across various sectors.
• 1mg acquired Varanasi-based Dawailelo.com. Post acquisition the team will be working with the 1mg ePharmacy team, and report to COO Tanmay Saksena. The acquisition will help the 1mg team to expand 1mg’s footprint across most parts of India as per a company statement.
• South Indian media conglomerate Asianet News Network acquired NewsFast, a Tamil digital news platform. Asianet will leverage NewsFast’s content to enhance offerings on newsable.com, its English language digital video platform.
• Auto component manufacturer Rane Group acquired a majority stake in Internet of Things (IoT) startup Telematics4U. It will also invest INR 27 Cr in Telematics4U over the next two years to help the company scale up its operations.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Vertex Ventures, the venture capital arm of Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings, raised in excess of the targeted size of $150 Mn for its  Southeast Asia Fund. The Vertex Ventures SEA III is now expected to close by November this year.
• US-based Michael and Susan Dell Foundation revealed its intentions to set up an incubator for early stage startups in India. The focus will be on startups with solutions for the underserved and the unserved segments. The foundation is in talks with CIIE, of the same.
• Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath set up a $156.2 Mn (1000 Cr) fund for helping startups in the state. He flagged off a “Start-up Bus Yatra” in Lucknow and made a strong pitch for startups. The team will sign a MoU with SIDBI by September 15 for this purpose.
• The government of Karnataka announced the names of 100 startup winners’ list out of 1700 applications it received, during the course of its two-day grand finale of India’s first comprehensive entrepreneurship platform, ELEVATE 100 on 29-30 August, 017.
• Matrix Partners India announced to increase its investments in Delhi-based startups in order to expand its consumer internet portfolio as well as serve what it believes is an under-served market by investors. In this direction, Matrix Partners will also launch its Delhi office this week and has moved three of its investors there.
• Early-stage venture capital firm DSG Consumer Partners (DSGCP) announced the infusion of an additional $10 Mn (INR 63 Cr) in its second VC fund, DSGCP II, which backs consumer startups in India and Southeast Asia. This marks the fund’s final close at $50 Mn (INR 319 Cr).
• OMA Emirates Group announced the creation of the OMA Emirates FinTech Fund.  The OMA Emirates Fintech Fund will have a corpus of $23 Mn. The fund looks to first focus on digital payments-specific startups, with a broader scope for other startups in the hotly contested fintech sector.
• Andhra Pradesh government’s FinTech Valley Vizag, a sustainable global fintech ecosystem partnered with KPMG to develop a high potential fintech ecosystem in Vizag. With this partnership, the FinTech Valley Vizag also announced the launch of the BFSI Use Case Repository Program and Fintech Accelerator Programme along with a Blockchain Business Conference to be held in October 2017.

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