Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [26-31 Aug]

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

In one of the important development, it was revealed that Following the $225 Mn Series C funding round of B2B marketplace Udaan in September 2018, the B2B online marketplace received a total of around $81.8 Mn in multiple equity rounds led by Udaan’s Singapore-based parent entity Trustroot Internet Private Limited. The latest infusion of INR 72 Cr (around $10 Mn) from Trustroot came on August 28, according to the company filings accessed by Inc42

In another development, it was reported that Chinese tech giant Alibaba has temporarily paused all new investment to review its India strategy. Alibaba is not seeing any opportunity in India within its focus areas that compel the firm to Invest. The company still has to get some exits, so it has decided to wait out and watch the market, instead of making risky investments.

Apart from these, in total, this week, 15 startups raised $276 Mn funding and two startup acquisition took place in the Indian startup ecosystem. (This funding report is based on startups that disclosed funding amount.)

Indian Startup Funding Of The Week

Cred: In one of the biggest Indian startup funding this week, Bengaluru-headquartered credit card bill payment app Cred said it raised $120 Mn from a bunch of existing and new investors. The Bridge Series B funds will be used for growth, expansion, marketing and general corporate activities of the company.

Vedantu: Bengaluru-based online tutoring startup Vedantu raised $42 Mn in a fresh funding round led by New York-based Tiger Global Management and WestBridge Capital. Existing investors Accel, Omidyar India and TAL Education also participated in the round, along with Prince Maximilian of Liechtenstein and founders of Vedantu. The funds will be utilised towards branding, scaling operations and expand its learner base as well as deepen investment into tech and content capabilities.

LendenClub: Mumbai-based peer-to-peer lending platform LenDenClub raised $1 Mn in a Pre-Series A funding round. The investment was led by Artha Venture Fund with participation from family offices such as UAE-based Transworld Group. Also, marquee angel investors Shuchi Kothari, Ramakant Sharma, Narendra Karnavat, Nandi Mehta as well as existing investors also participated in the current round. The company plans to use the funds to expand its senior management team, develop innovative lending products and expanding its geographical reach to 12 states.

SastaSundar Healthbuddy: Japan-based business giant Mitsubishi committed to invest $13.9 Mn (INR 100 Cr) in Kolkata-based SastaSundar Healthbuddy. It is a digital healthcare subsidiary of SastaSundar Ventures. The funds will be used towards expansion into newer markets and expanding its India footprint.

Fitternity: Mumbai-based fitness discovery and booking startup Fitternity has raised an additional $1 Mn as part of its Series A funding from Sixth Sense Ventures and other investors. In May 2019, the company had raised $4 Mn in Series A round to scale up its services across categories, inventory and supply base. The additional investment will help the company scale up its newly launched subscription model and grow 10X to $100 Mn annual revenue over the next 24-36 months.

AdvantageClub: Gurugram-based corporate engagement platform Advantage Club raised $1 Mn in Pre-Series A funding round led by GrowX Ventures. Other investors who participated in the round include Axilor Ventures, Sprout Venture Partners, Avtar Singh Monga, Mumbai Angels, Rahul Maroli, Rajnish Sinha, Rohit Chanana, Vikas Bagaria and existing investors. The funds will be used to build deeper insights and become more holistic benefit platform for employees catering to their wellness, financial and experiential needs.

TNQ Technologies: Chennai-based publishing technology and services company TNQ Technologies invested $2 Mn in a joint venture with augmented and virtual reality startup InGage Technologies. The companies have come together to form a joint venture, TNQ InGage which will focus on developing immersive technology solutions using augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality integrated with IoT and analytics. With this joint venture, InGage will cease to exist as an entity, and its people, intellectual property and customer relationships will be absorbed into this JV.

Chargebee: Chennai-based subscription management platform Chargebee raised $14 Mn (INR 100.5 Cr) in its Series D funding round led by Steadview Capital, Insight Venture Partners and Accels Partners. With this investment, the company has raised funds of $38.2 Mn (INR 274 Cr). The startup will utilise the funds to fill gaps in the subscription management ecosystem and to upscale automation in this field, to support business revenue operations.

Dunzo: Hyperlocal delivery platform Dunzo raised $4.7 Mn (INR 34.56 Cr) funding by issuing debentures as well as Series C1 preference shares to existing investor Alteria Capital. The Bengaluru-based startup has been taking funds from everywhere to sustain its substantial cash burn rate and escalate its expansion into other cities.

Innovcare Lifesciences: Mumbai-based healthtech company Innovcare Lifesciences raised about $6.4 Mn (INR 450 Mn) from JM Financial Private Equity Fund II. The existing investors in the company also participated in the round. The company is expected to use the funds to boost its expansion plans, by supporting the augmentation of Innovcare’s current product portfolio and its further expansion into new areas.

WOWS: The yet-to-launch World of Web Series (WOWS) is an AI-backed startup operated by Roaring Wolf Media. It raised an undisclosed amount of investment from advertising firm RazorPod and various other angel investors.

Recko: Bengaluru-based fintech startup Recko raised an undisclosed amount of fresh funding from marquee angel investors. This includes Taavet Hinirikus (cofounder of Transferwise), Ashish Gupta (managing director, Helion Ventures), Vaibhav Puranik (financial product head for Carta), Shamir Karkal, (founder of Sila Money), Eric Kwan (early Facebook engineer and founding engineer of Operator) and Locus Ventures. The follow-on funding round also saw participation from the company’s existing investor  Prime Venture Partners. Prior to this round, Recko raised $1 Mn seed funding from Prime Venture Partners in June. The company plans to use the funds towards expansion and plans to enter international markets including the US, in the next six months.

FreshToHome: Bengaluru-based online marketplace and supply chain startup for perishable goods FreshToHome raised $20 Mn in Series B funding round from Iron Pillar and Joe Hirao, founder, ZIGExn, Japan. The fresh funds will be used to expand within India and overseas, especially the UAE. The company will also use the funds to diversify their product offerings in various other fresh and chemical-free food categories.

BharatPe: Payments platform BharatPe raised a $50 Mn funding round led by Ribbit Capital and Hong Kong-based Steadview Capital. Existing investors of the company Sequoia Capital, Beenext Capital and Insight Partners also participated in the round. It plans to deploy these funds to aggressively expand its current merchant base of 1.45 Mn to over 5 Mn within the next one year and fulfil the capital requirements of the under-served offline merchants in India by lending to them.

Blackboard Radio: Bengaluru-based conversational English mastery startup Blackboard Radio raised $100K in a seed funding round from business incubator Villgro and other marquee angel investors. The startup will utilise the funding to accelerate the development of the AI-powered personalised English speaking coach for school-going students in tier 2 and 3 cities in India.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• Bengaluru-based online doctor consultation platform DocsApp acquired DocWise, another Bengaluru-based patient-doctor engagement optimisation platform, for an undisclosed amount. Post-acquisition, DocWise will add to DocsApp’s growing doctor network and enrich its engagement with the community. Further, DocWise co-founders Rahul Gupta and Samar Ahmed will head the consumer business and doctor ecosystem respectively.
• Cisco acquired CloudCherry, a customer experience management (CEM) company. The acquisition is expected to close by the first quarter of FY2020. After the completion of the transaction, the CloudCherry team will join Cisco’s Contact Center Solutions business, which is led by Cisco vice president Vasilli Triant. Until then both the firms will work as separate entities.

Indian Startups Looking To Raise Funding This Week

• Bengaluru-headquartered bike taxi startup Rapido is raising INR 391 Cr ($54.54 Mn) in a Series B funding round. Some of the other investors include Integrated Capital Growth Limited, BAce Capita, Shunwei Capital, Sabre Partners, Rashmi Kwatra. Post-investment, WestBridge is expected to hold 22.4% stake in the company, followed by 12.54% stake of Nexus and Shunwei Capital with 4.18% stake.
• Shared workspace provider Smartworks plans to raise $35-40 Mn in, both in debt and equity,  to double its portfolio to 5 Mn sq ft by March next year. The company is aiming for a two-fold increase in its revenue for the fiscal to INR 320 Cr.
• RentoMojo is looking to raise INR 27.74 Cr from Samsung Venture arm and Mitsui Sumitomo. Post the latest infusion, Accel India will hold 24.92% stake, Chiratae (IDG Ventures) will hold 15.6% stake, Samsung Venture capital will hold 3% stake and Mitsui will hold 0.99% stake in the company.
• Bengaluru-based technology platform Tracxn is raising INR 20.94 Cr in a Series B funding round. Post-issue, KB Global Platform will pick up 3.41% stake in the company and  the post-money valuation of the startup will be around $78.75 Mn.
• Embassy Buildcon, the franchisee arm for WeWork in India reportedly pledged its shares in the coworking company to raise debt capital of INR 200 Cr.(about $27.7 Mn) from ICICI Bank. According to a media report, Embassy Buildcon, which operates WeWork properties in the country, has pledged its 26% stake to raise this capital.
• Sukhbir Singh has selected eBikeGo for his second investment in India, after investing in LQI as his first angel investment in India. Amritsar based Mobility startup, eBikeGo is in the process of raising funds and it will deploy these funds to expand its operations to other cities in India as well as for increasing their fleet in Delhi.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Orios Venture Partners will launch #Misfits Cohort 3 – an India specific scale-up programme for seed-stage startups. The program will offer upto $1.5Mn of seed capital with mentorship and guidance of Senior Entrepreneurs in the areas of Scaling up efficiently, Raising funds and Hiring right.
• US-based retail giant Target has announced the seventh cohort of the ‘Target Accelerator Program’ in India. The cohort is made up of startups in logistics (supply chain, inventory placement, vendor management), marketing (ad technology, merchandising, product design) and sustainability. The selected startups are Unifiz, Entropik, Blubirch, Unreal AI, SprintAI, TrashCon, Stylumia, Intello Labs, Kenscio and Flixstock.
• Flipkart is speculated to be close to investing in logistics startup Shadowfax. The company is said to be in advanced talks to invest $40 Mn in the Bengaluru-based startup.
• Tiger Global management,  the New York-based investor is in talks to back three new startups, which would include a mega $50 Mn (approximately INR 350 Cr) investment in MyGate, along with investments in B2B commerce platform Infra.Market and SaaS startup UrbanPiper.
• The SoftBank tech investment unit is reportedly in advanced talks to close investment deals with two Indian companies. SVF is expected to invest $400 Mn round of funding in Lenskart and $150 Mn in Dailyhunt as a part of a bigger round.
• RPG Group-owned CEAT launched Excellerator — a competition to identify and partner with upcoming startups. The competition is expected to identify entrepreneurs that are addressing large market opportunities in new-age mobility businesses and could have a strong collaboration with CEAT.
• Telangana announced a three-month funding acceleration program called T-Angel. The programme will shortlist 30 startups with leading-edge solutions across various sectors like healthcare, real estate, entertainment, sports, education and finance after an extensive screening process. The batch will commence on October 20, 2019. Applications for the programme is available on T-Hub’s official website till September 30, 2019.
• Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Himachal Pradesh reportedly said that its startup incubator, Catalyst, will disburse over INR 10 Cr to startups over next five years. It also raised the ceiling on the maximum amount a startup could raise in seed capital from IIT Mandi Catalyst to INR 50 Lakh from the earlier maximum of INR 15 Lakh.
• DSG Consumer Partners (DSGCP) made the final close of its third flagship fund at $65 Mn just four months after it was announced. The final close is more than the $50 Mn that was earlier estimated to be the total fund size and DSGCP, led by Deepak Shahdadpuri, will now have about $200 Mn worth of assets under management, doubling from when it closed its second investment vehicle two years ago.
• A consortium of family offices is working to enhance the intricacies of the investments. The proposed ‘Family Office Consortium’ is being seen an attempt to break free from the lack of consistent returns and high management fees in private equity and venture capital funds.
• Venture Catalysts launched a FamilyOffice initiative, which will connect such investors with the most promising startups. The FamilyOffice was launched in Mumbai and Venture Catalysts’ role is limited to that of a facilitator, extending support in the identification, curation, diligence and post-investment procedures leveraging the company’s experience in this domain.

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