Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [29 July-3 Aug]

We bring to you the latest edition of Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week!

This week US-based ecommerce company eBay is investing $160 Mn in Indian ecommerce company, Paytm Mall, valued at $2.86 Bn post-investment. According to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs filings accessed by Inc42, Paytm E-commerce private limited is issuing 1,28,028 equity shares at a price of $1,249.73 per share to eBay Singapore Service Pvt Ltd.

Further, Bengaluru-based digital payments company PhonePe received INR 697.9 Cr ($101.5 Mn) equity infusion from its Singapore-based parent, PhonePe Private Limited Singapore. Interestingly, the investment has come after PhonePe founders— Rahul Chari Vardha and Sameer Nigam— increased their equity stake in the company. In April, Vardha picked up 1.67 Mn equity shares and Nigam picked up 6.63 Mn shares at a nominal value of INR 1.

In total, this week, 15 startups raised $285.71 Mn funding and one startup acquisition took place in the Indian startup ecosystem. (This funding report is based on startups that disclosed funding amount.)

Indian Startup Funding For The Week

UrbanClap: Gurugram-based home services marketplace UrbanClap raised a $75 Mn Series E funding round led by Tiger Global. Existing investors Steadview Capital and Vy Capital also participated in this round. Prior to this, UrbanClap raised INR 149 Lakh ($216K) in fresh funding from ex-Flipkart CTO Mekin Maheshwari and Avaana Capital founder Anjali Bansal. This transaction is said to be split into two parts, a primary round which resulted in a share subscription by the investors and a secondary share sale by some early institutional investors.

Veri5Digital: Bengaluru-based software services provider Veri5Digital raised $2 Mn in Series A funding led by California-based Khosla Ventures. Veri5Digital plans to use the funding to scale its identity solutions for the Indian market and also build new identity and Digital India related products and services. It is also close to launching its identity related products in the US and Asia markets.

Indifi: Gurugram-based B2B lender Indifi Technologies raised INR 145 Cr ($21 Mn) in its Series C funding round, led by the CDC Group. The company also has additional investors like Accel India, Omidyar Network, Flourish (Fair Finance Fund) and Elevar Equity. The company aims to utilise the funds to modernise and expand the existing business into new areas of business, develop infrastructure, capital expenditure, repay debts and general corporate expenditure to meet objectives.

Ninjacart: Bengaluru-based agritech platform Ninjacart raised $50 Mn from retail giant Walmart. The startup would receive a first tranche of $10 Mn in the next three weeks and that the US retail company would get a board seat in Ninjacart. Walmart is looking to go deeper into the market with the Ninjacart investment, which also includes rights to invest further in future rounds.

Vymo: Bengaluru-based SaaS startup Vymo raised $18 Mn Series B funding round, with the investment being led by Emergence Capital, an enterprise cloud VC. Existing investor Sequoia Capital India also participated in the round. The company said that the fresh funding will fuel Vymo’s official US launch with headquarters in New York. The funds will also help Vymo drive continued growth in global markets. Jake Saper, partner at Emergence Capital, joins Vymo’s board as part of the investment.

Progcap: Delhi-based lending startup Progcap raised $5 Mn in its Series A funding round led by Sequoia India, with participation from MV Nair, chairman of CIBIL; Sandeep Tandon, cofounder of Freecharge along with existing investors GrowX Ventures Fund and Yes Bank’s cofounder Somak Ghosh. The fresh funds will be used towards operations, building technological differentiation, and to accelerate the pace of its pan-India expansion.

Aye Finance: Gurugram-based digital lending company Aye Finance raised INR 55 Cr ($7.99 Mn) in debt funding from DCB Bank through a securitisation deal. The funding will be used to grow its loan book and offer affordable and customised credit solutions to the credit-starved micro and small enterprises in India.

MyScoot: Gurugram-based events marketplace MyScoot raised $1.7 Mn (INR 11.7 Cr) seed funding round. The investments have come in from venture capitalists such as Lightspeed India Partners, Venture Highway, and Mayfield India with participation of angel investors such as Kunal Shah of CRED and Maninder Gulati of OYO. The funds will be used to hire core team, recruit tech talent and penetrate deeper into the markets where it has a presence.

Cred:  Gurugram-based credit card bill payment startup Cred raised a bridge Series B round of INR 27.55 Cr ($4 Mn) from Sequoia Capital India. The company issued 20,179 Series B CCCPS shares priced Rs 13,653.31 each. The company said in its filings that the Bridge Series B funds will be used for growth, expansion, marketing and general corporate activities of the company.

BigBasket: Bengaluru-based hyperlocal grocery startup, BigBasket raised INR 100 Cr ($14.34 Mn) venture debt funding from Trifecta Capital. BigBasket said the funding would be used to meet the working capital and capex requirements of the company including setting up new warehouses, strengthening the cold chain, setting up facilities for reprocessing of fruits and vegetables and for scaling-up of its supply chain for the recently-launched BB Daily milk subscription business and the BB Instant vending machine business.

Pocket Aces: Digital entertainment company, Pocket Aces raised an INR 100 Cr ( $14.34 Mn) funding round from Sequoia India, DSP Group, and 3one4 Capital. Pocket Aces will utilise the funding to expand its content library and technology platform, and to acquire more talent. Further, it will also continue to invest into its live gaming platform Loco with an aim to hit 50 Mn users in the next two years.

MindTickle: Sales SaaS platform MindTickle raised $40 Mn Series C funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners along with participation from existing investors such as Accel Partners, Canaan, NewView Capital and Qualcomm Ventures. The funding will fuel the company’s strategic, long-term growth plans while supporting ongoing investment in our expanding products and services.

Easy Home Finance: Real estate and lending tech company Easy Home Finance Limited announced a strategic partnership with Harbourfront Capital, a group company of Das Capital. The VC firm will invest an undisclosed amount in the real estate financing company. Easy will be utilising the funds from Harbourfront in expanding its assets under management (AUM) base and for further investment in its technology platform.

Leap: Mumbai-based logistics startup Leap India raised INR 216 Cr ($31.77 Mn) in a Series C funding round led by private equity firm TVS Capital Funds. While TVS Capital has infused INR 100 Cr ($14.52 Mn), Sixth Sense Venture Fund invested INR 32 Cr ($4.64 Mn) and Samena Capital pumped in INR 40 Cr ($5.81 Mn) along with existing investors such as Mayfield and IndiaNivesh Fund. The fresh funds will help the company maintain the high growth trajectory.

GoHive: Delhi-based coworking space GoHive raised $358.6K (INR 2.5 Cr) in a Pre-Series A round of funding from seasoned angel investors. The company plans to use the funding to fuel its growth and expansion plans. GoHive aims to double its current size and reach to 5,000 seats within a year, with presence in NCR, Bengaluru and Mumbai.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• Robotic process automation company, Automation Anywhere, announced the acquisition of Paris-based Klevops for an undisclosed amount. Post-acquisition, Automation Anywhere fast forwards the RPA category to Attended Automation 2.0, where managers can easily orchestrate workflows across a team of employees and bots. This enables customers to automate more processes with the same level of central governance, security and analytic capability.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Poland-headquartered edtech startup Brainly raised $30 Mn in a fresh funding round led by Naspers. Runa Capital and Manta Ray also participated in the round. The company said it would use the funds to improve user experience and further expand its presence in developing markets such as India.
• Nasper-owned Digital payments company, PayU invested INR 50 Cr (about $7 Mn) in its lending business PayU Finance, which goes by the brand name LazyPay. Earlier in January, PayU has separated its lending business as a separate entity, with an aim to become a full-service financial player around credit business in the country.
• B2B online marketplace Udaan is reportedly close to raise around $500 Mn in a fresh funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global. Other investors such as Hillhouse Capital and Altimeter Capital are also said to be participating in this round. This round is said to increase the company’s valuation to $2.7 Bn.
• Bengaluru-based food delivery unicorn Swiggy is reportedly close to raising a $700-$750 Mn funding round led by its existing investor Naspers. Naspers will be investing around $350 Mn along with a group of Korean investors such as STIC Investments and Korean Omega Investment who are said to co-invest about $50 Mn. While, the rest is said to be raised from the other existing investors of Swiggy.
• Paytm-owned gaming company Paytm First Games is in talks to raise $25 Mn. The investors in the round include SAIF Partners along with a Hong Kong-based entity. The gaming platform claims to have 30 Mn users with half of them being monthly active users.
• Bengaluru-headquartered epharmacy startup Medlife is reportedly in talks with pharmaceuticals company Cipla to raise funds. It is being speculated that Cipla may invest upto INR 150 Cr – INR 170 Cr in Medlife. The talks are said to be in advanced stages after Cipla has been tracking the online sector for a while to identify its bet. It is being reported that the deal will help Cipla with a significant channel to market.
• Fintech startup BharatPe is in talks to raise $75 Mn funding round from Hong Kong-based Steadview Capital. The platform also enables merchants to track their transactions and settlements, manage sales record and also earn periodic cashbacks.
• Global ecommerce giant Amazon is reportedly in talks to acquire about 26% stake in the retail arm of the Indian conglomerate, Reliance. These investment talks have started after Reliance’s deal with the Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba did not complete because of differences over the company’s valuation.
• Ecommerce major Amazon India is reportedly in talks to acquire the Indian arm of Uber Eats, which is the food delivery vertical of global ride-hailing company Uber. The acquisition talks are in the initial stages and can also result in a strategic partnership. With this acquisition, Amazon might be looking to add food delivery to its slew of already existing services such as video and music streaming, voice assistant Alexa, sale and delivery of items such as groceries, books, clothing, and electronics among others.
• Mumbai-based integrated incubator Venture Catalysts announced the launch of the $43.41 Mn (INR 300 Cr) 9Unicorns Fund. 9Unicorns Fund will identify high potential early stage businesses across sectors including electric vehicles, mobility, augmented reality VR, AI and ML, fintech, retail and FMCG startups.
• Alteria Capital today announced the final close of its maiden venture debt fund (Alteria Capital India Fund I) at INR 960 Cr ($140 Mn) in a round that was oversubscribed. Alteria Capital’s investors in the maiden fund include several large domestic banks, family offices, and development financial institutions such as IndusInd Bank, SIDBI, Azim Premji Foundation, Binny Bansal and Kiran Reddy among others.
• Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India is reportedly looking to raise an additional $200 Mn for the same fund. The company closed its sixth fund at a fund corpus of $695 Mn in August 2018. The report said that they had interest from Limited Partners (LPs) earlier, but had to close the fund. However, with the good market conditions, they have reached out to LPs in the US for an extension.
• Sojitz, a Japanese trading conglomerate, opened its Bengaluru office and on July 30, Gaurav Gupta, principal secretary, IT/BT department, Karnataka government announced the 100 shortlisted startups for the 3rd year of Elevate 2019. Sectorwise, 41 startups in IT/ITES, 15 startups were selected in biotechnology, 13 startups in medtech, nine startups in agritech, eight startups in cleantech, five startups in ESDM, four startups in aerospace and aviation, two startups each in AVGC, Kannada and culture and one startup in Tourism.

Stay tuned for next week’s edition of Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week!