Funding Galore: From Delhivery To Locus — $462 Mn Raised By Indian Startups This Week [May 31 – June 05]

The biggest news from the point of view of Indian startup funding this week was the $275 Mn raised by Delhivery in what is expected to be the final funding round before the firm files for an IPO later this year.

This is the Series H funding round for the logistics unicorn. The Gurugram-headquartered startup raised funds through a primary round led by Boston-based investment firm Fidelity ($126 Mn). Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, Abu Dhabi’s Chimera, and UK’s Baillie Gifford also participated in the new round.

“We are delighted to welcome Fidelity and our other new investors to our cap-table. This round of financing significantly strengthens our balance sheet and is a statement of confidence as we plan to go public.” Sahil Barua, Delhivery’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

He also added that the investment coincides with two other significant milestones as Delhivery completed 1 Bn cumulative shipments till date in April 2021 and will be 10 yrs old in June 2021.

The company entered the unicorn club in 2019, after raising $413 Mn from SoftBank and other investors. It has raised about $1.2 Bn to date (including this round) from investors such as Nexus Venture Partners, Multiples, CPP Investment Board and others.

Note: This funding report is based on startups that disclosed funding amounts

Startup Funding In May 2021

According to Inc42 Plus analysis, Indian tech startups have raised a whopping $9.4 Bn (disclosed) in the first five months of 2021, between January 1, 2021 to May 31, 2021. This translates into 82% of $11.5 Bn (disclosed) funding that startups raised in 2020.

While our previous report estimated that Indian startups would reach its historical peak with total funding of $13.7 Bn in 2021. The total funding amount is now expected to be much higher than the previous estimates if the ecosystem continues to grow at this pace, all thanks to the influx of unicorn rounds in 2021. In the first five months of this year, 13 startups have made it to the unicorn club compared to 11 unicorns in 2020.

Compared to the first five months of 2020 (January to May), the Indian startup funding has grown almost 96% from $4.8 Bn to touch $9.4 Bn in 2021 (Jan-May). Meanwhile, the deal count has risen almost 50%, from 335 to 502 in the same time period. Overall, 924 deals were struck in 2020, which means the ecosystem has already covered half of those between January to May 2021.

When talking about the influx of investments, there is no way one can skip Tiger Global, which has taken a giant leap in terms of its Indian portfolio. Out of the 13 startups that have become unicorn this year, Tiger Global has been an investor in eight of them including Infra.Market, Innovaccer, CRED, GupShup, ShareChat, Groww, Chargebee, and Moglix. Overall, it is an investor in almost half of the 55 Indian startups that have entered the Indian unicorn club to date.

Startup Acquisitions This Week

Binny Bansal’s xto10x Acquires HRTech Startup Dockabl

Binny Bansal-owned SaaS-based consultancy xto10x has acquired HR tech startup Dockabl for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will help xto10x’s product offering, which includes platforms like 10xGoals (OKR strategy to execution platform) and 10xPeople (employee sentiment analysis and engagement platform).

After the acquisition, xto10x says will now provide a comprehensive solution for organisations to align company objectives, link them to employees’ performance, and manage feedback reviews, all on one single platform. Saikiran Krishnamurthy, cofounder, xto10x, said, “Dockabl is an ‘easy and simple to use’ performance management tool for all organisations to adopt. Given the ease with which it can adapt into multiple design choices, the tool can become the preferred employee performance management tool for startups and enterprises alike.”

Founded in 2017, Dockabl drives business performance and organisation culture with its core capabilities in employee performance management. Their current set of clients include giants like Dickinson and Company, Bajaj Capital, Airbnb, and Porter. The startup had raised $1.26 Mn in a Pre-Series A funding round in 2019.

RoundGlass Acquires Gympik

Health and wellbeing platform RoundGlass has acquired fitness discovery platform Gympik Health Solutions and Traqade, a SaaS-based gym and club management software claimed to be used by more than 1,000 fitness companies in India. Traqade is owned by Gympik.

The integration will combine Gympik’s extensive network of fitness centers across India with RoundGlass’s ecosystem of wellbeing solutions, which includes physical and mental healthcare. Gympik was founded in 2013 by Amaresh Ojha and claims to have more than 5 Lakh monthly visitors, ,more than 20K fitness and wellness centres, and 7,000+ personal trainers and nutritionists.

Shiraj Chakraborty, head of people & culture for India at RoundGlass, said, “The team at Gympik has done great work in driving the digital transformation of India’s fitness and wellbeing space. We are delighted to work with them towards a common goal: raising awareness about Wholistic Wellbeing and providing Indians with the tools and solutions they need to live better lives.”

New Fund Launches

Micro VC Artha Venture Fund Closes Maiden Early Stage Fund At INR 220 Cr

Artha Venture Fund (AVF), an early-stage micro venture capital (VC) fund, has announced the final close of its debut fund at INR 220 Cr, and said it will invest in 12-15 startups in 2021-22.

The fund claimed over 50 limited partners (LPs) participated in the fundraising process, with more than half of the investments coming from family offices. Besides this, it has raised capital from over 20 listed companies, non-resident Indians (NRI), ultra-rich individuals, super angels and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). The fund, which had announced its second close in June 2019, will be looking to invest the capital raised over the next 24-30 months.

Impact Investor Harsha Moily Launches $200 Mn Fund To Boost India’s Cleantech Ecosystem

Impact investor and entrepreneur Harsha Moily is launching a $200 Mn venture fund that will invest in India’s cleantech ecosystem and climate technology sector.

Moily, who founded rural fintech and business enablement startup MokshaYug Access in 2006 is the son of former Karnataka chief minister M Veerappa Moily. He has launched the VC firm with three other general partners and is said to have found four-five investors who have shown interest to commit 30%-40% of its target corpus. According to a news report, the fund will identify startups and founders from India and Israel innovating in on sustainable agriculture, green buildings, energy storage and alternative energy.

Egreens’ Early Stage Agritech Fund 

Mayank Chaurasia-founded agri supply chain and food business Egreens has announced an INR 150 million fund for early stage, agritech startups in India. It will focus on startups working in food production, storage and transportation, market linkage, use of AI and machine learning in farming practices and implementation of IoT (Internet of Things) across the supply chain. The new fund announcement comes close at the heels of an investment of INR 15 Cr in VegEase, the in-house food retail brand of Egreens.