Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [2-7 October]

We bring to you the latest edition Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding of the week. This week 12 Indian startups raised about $2.072 Bn in funding in the Indian startup ecosystem and two startup acquisitions took place. (The startup funding calculations are based on the startups that disclosed their funding amounts)

Making it the biggest announcement for the month, Bengaluru-headquartered cab aggregator Ola has reportedly raised $2 Bn in a fresh funding round led by the investment arm of Chinese Internet giant, Tencent. Existing investor, Softbank Group Corp, also participated in the round. Tencent poured nearly $400 Mn into the ride-hailing startup, taking the latter’s valuation to $3.8 Bn. Other backers in Ola’s latest financing round include a VC fund jointly run by the University of California’s investment arm, Ratan Tata and a number of US-based institutional investors.

Flipkart fueled in its digital payment arm PhonePe, with a $38.7 Mn investment and invested another $98 Mn in its logistics arm Ekart, through the group firm Klick2Shop. Also, Amazon India revealed its plans to increase its investment in Amazon Pay by up to five times.

Indian Startup Funding Of The Week

SlicePay: Bengaluru-based fintech startup SlicePay raised $2 Mn as part of its ongoing Series A funding round. The investment in the Indian startup was led by Japan-based Das Capital, Simile Ventures from Russia and few undisclosed angel investors. Existing investor Blume Ventures also participated in the round. The startup funding will be used to expand in three more cities, as well as make some senior-level hiring.

Drivezy: P2P car and bike sharing platform Drivezy raised $10 Mn in a part equity and part debt funding. The equity investment totalling $5 Mn has been made by American and Japanese investors, including Das Capital, Axan Partners, Das Capital and IT Farm. Meanwhile, a group of banks and NBFCs including Mahindra Finance, ICICI Bank, Cholamandalam Finance and Shriram Finance has invested $5 Mn in debt in Drivezy. In addition to raising this round, Drivezy also announced the launch of its first private Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to expand its peer-to-peer sharing marketplace for cars and bikes. The startup funding will be used to create Rental Coins– a currency for car-sharing industry.

Farm Taaza: Bengaluru based B2B agritech startup, Farm Taaza raised $8 Mn Series A funding in a round led by Epsilon Venture Partners. The round saw participation from IL&FS Investment Managers’ Tara India Fund IV and other angel investors. The startup funding will be used for expansion across the southern part of India. The financing will also enable the startup to further develop its tech stack.

Yaantra: On-demand mobile repair and refurbishment startup, Yaantra (earlier known as Gadgetwood) raised $3.1 Mn funding. The recent round of funding took the startup’s total funding to about $10 Mn.

Zefo: Bengaluru-based ecommerce portal for used goods, Zefo raised $9.2 Mn (INR 60 Cr) in Series B funding. The round was led by existing investors Sequoia India, Helion Venture Partners and Singapore-headquartered fund Beenext. The startup will use the recently raised funds to strengthen its core operations including warehousing and logistics. Apart from this, the cash will be used to expand its product and technology team as well as to ramp up its newly launched mobile phones business.

Little Black Book: Delhi based online platform for local recommendations and discoveries Little Black Book (LBB) raised close to $1 Mn (INR 6.5 Cr) from Blume Ventures, and existing investors – IDG Ventures and IAN. The total investment raised by LBB now stands at $2.5 Mn (INR 16.5 Cr). The startup will use the funding to scale up the user-base.

Elanic: Bengaluru-based Elanic, a peer to peer platform to sell used fashion clothing online, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a Tokyo-based incubator and venture capital investor Digital Garage. The funding was routed through DG Incubation, the investment subsidiary of Digital Garage which focuses on investments in Japan and Asia.

Chqbook: Gurugram-based fintech startup Chqbook raised an undisclosed amount of funding from YouWeCan-backed Startup Buddy. Apurva Chamaria, Global head of corporate marketing at HCL; Sachin Arora, ex-CTO at Myntra; Bharat Gupta, founder of Net Asset Consulting LLP; and Amit Manocha, a private equity professional based out of Singapore, also participated in the round. Chqbook will use the raised funding to expand to over 50 cities and increase its product portfolio to credit cards and personal loan services.

HomeCapital: Delhi-based fintech startup which helps home buyers with down payment, HomeCapital raised an undisclosed amount in a Seed funding round from Venture Catalysts. The funding was led by VCats angels Anuj Golecha, Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Gaurav Gandhi and others. The startup plans to use the funds raised to develop its brand, scale up its current infrastructure and enhance its product.

CollPoll: Bengaluru-based CollPoll, a communication and collaboration platform for educational institutes raised around $306K in funding led by seed-stage investor Sprout Angels LLP. Other investors who participated in the funding round are Chenraj Jain, Moloy Kumar Bannerjee, and Pallab Bandyopadhyay, the company’s filings with the Registrar of Companies showed.

Oorjan: Mumbai-based rooftop solar platform, Oorjan Cleantech raised $450K in seed funding led by Globevestor. A group of senior directors in banks and financial services companies, including Sayandev Chakravartti, Aditya Sharma, Nisha Pillai and Mayur Bhat, also joined the round. The company already has operations in four cities, namely Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, and Chennai, and has completed around 70 projects till date.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• European payments player Worldline, which is the $5.10 Bn payments arm of French IT services giant Atos, has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 100% stake in Chennai based Indian payment platform MRL PosNet for $104.5 Mn(€ 89 Mn). The transaction is expected to close before the end of October 2017.
• itelligence India Software Solutions Private Limited acquired vCentric Technologies Private Limited based in Hyderabad. This acquisition will help itelligence to expand its offerings throughout India to serve local and international customers even more effectively and efficiently for the upcoming tasks of digitalisation.

Other Developments Of The Week

• The Karnataka government revealed its plans to invest $6.1 Mn (INR 40 Cr) for the construction of a state-of-the-art tech hub. In an official statement issued by the state government, industry body NASSCOM was named the centre’s programme and implementation partner.
• Enterprise software company Oracle has announced the first batch of startups for its Startup Cloud Accelerator programme in Delhi. The company has selected five startups for the first cohort. The company had invited applications in May 2017. At that time it had introduced new centres in Delhi/NCR, Mumbai apart from the existing centre in Bengaluru.
• Silicon Valley accelerator-investor Y Combinator has announced its Office Hours-schedule in three Indian cities for its upcoming India visit. Three partners Gustaf Alströmer, Adora Cheung, and Anu Hariharan, visiting this October, will host talks and office hours in Bangalore, Mumba, and Delhi.
• Bengaluru-based Revvx, a hardware, and IoT accelerator have entered into a strategic partnership with Silicon Valley Innovation Center (SVIC). Revvx and SVIC will also be leading a delegation to the mega event CES 2018 in Las Vegas. Consumer Electronics Show aka CES 2018 is an annual flagship event focusing on the convergence of devices, data and cloud.
• Mobile10X and Napino Auto & Electronics Limited joined hands to launch an incubation programme around Internet of Things (IoT). The aim of the programme would be to encourage young developers and aspiring entrepreneurs to create innovative and disruptive solutions around the IoT, which would eventually go on to make “Smart India’, in line with the government’s vision of ‘Digital India and ‘Smart India’.

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