Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [January 4-9]

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

As the pandemic hit too close to home, boAt had found itself in a fix as its supply chain was completely disrupted due to a shutdown of factories in China. Therefore, the company decided to bring its supply chain to India and start manufacturing locally from 2021.

As a part of this plan, the consumer electronics brand raised $100 Mn from an affiliate of Warburg Pincus, the New York-based private equity firm, at a valuation of $300 Mn. The company will use this funding to focus on production and work on research and development (R&D) for new devices.

“The pandemic made us realise that it would be convenient for us to be able to manufacture our products in India itself. But we needed partners for that because we can’t do it ourselves. That’s where the recent investment will be a huge boost for us,” said cofounder Aman Gupta, adding that the company would focus on widening its presence in the smartwatches sub-segment. It will also look into gaming peripherals such as joysticks, headsets, gaming mice and keyboards.

About $544 Mn was invested across 28 Indian startups this week.

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

Top Indian Startup Funding Deals Of The Week

• Udaan: $280 Mn from Octahedron Capital, Moonstone Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, DST Global, GGV Capital, Altimeter Capital, and Tencent.
  

• boAt: $100 Mn from an affiliate of Warburg Pincus at a valuation of $300 Mn

• CRED: $81 Mn in Series C from DST Global, Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, General Catalyst, Sofina Capital, Coatue and Times Internet’s Satyan Gajwani

• CropIn: $20 Mn in Series C round from ABC World Asia, Chiratae Ventures, Invested Development, and Ankur Capital

• Zupee: $9.5 Mn from Matrix Partners, West Cap

• Bizongo: $9.3 Mn from Accel India, IDG Ventures and International Finance Corporation

• BharatPe: $8.2 Mn venture debt from InnoVen Capital

• OYO: $7.5 Mn from Hindustan Media Ventures in Series F1

• Meddo: $6 Mn in Pre-Series A from Picus Capital, SRI Capital, LetsVenture, growX Venture, Citrus Pay’s Jitendra Gupta and Venture Gurukool

• Toothsi: $5 Mn in Series A from Think Investments, JM Financial’s Nimesh Kampani, API Holdings’ Siddharth Shah and LivSpace’s Ramakant Sharma

• Kyt: $5 Mn in Series A round from Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI), Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, January Capital, Titan Capital and another angel investor
  

• BlackSoil Capital: $4.4 Mn (INR 32 Cr) from more than 60 investors for a tenor of three years

• Practically: $4 Mn in Pre-Series B from Siana Capital, YourNest Venture Capital and Exfinity Ventures

• Phi Commerce: $4 Mn in Series A BEENEXT, Yatra Angel Network (YAN)

• Pocket Aces: $2.3 Mn venture debt from Stride Ventures

• Generico: $1.4 Mn in debt from Alteria Capital

• Zerone: $1.3 Mn in Pre-Series A round from IAN, Sanjiv Bajaj, Raman Roy, Sanjay Rishi, and Mahesh Ramachandran

• Devic Earth: $1.3 Mn from Blue Ashva Capital

• KiranaKart: $726K in Pre-Seed from Global Founders Capital, Contrary Capital, 2 AM Ventures and several angel investors

• DcodeAI: $500K from Sultan Chand & Sons

• Legalwiz.in: $517K from ContCentric IT Services

• Finsall: $327K in seed round from Unicorn India Ventures. SEA Fund and angel investors like Karthik Sridhar and Tirumala Gudla

• iMUMz: $300K from Enzia Ventures, Titan Capital, and AngelList

• Bhatia Labs: $245K in equity crowdfunding

• Vanity Wagon: $200K in seed round from Agility Venture Partners, Alfa Ventures; Dhianu Das and angel investor Sanjay Nagi

• HobSpace: $136K in Pre-Series A1 from Inflection Point Ventures

• Agri10x: Undisclosed seed round from Omnivore

• Monrow: Undisclosed amount from Venture Catalysts, Blume Venture, LetsVenture and AngelList

Other Developments Of The Week

• Sharechat is reportedly close to raising funding from Google, Snapchat maker Snap Inc and existing investor Twitter. The round will value the company at over $1 Bn.

• Early-stage venture capital firm Blume Ventures launched a ‘Blume Founders Fund’ through which it has invested in five companies — short video app Chingari, fintech platform Indiagold, lifestyle DTC brand Monrow, an undisclosed autonomous robotics venture and an undisclosed fintech venture.

• Mirae Asset group is looking to widen its India footprint with a dedicated $35 Mn (INR 256 Cr) fund for early-stage Indian startups. The fund will look to invest in up to Series A rounds in early stage tech companies.

• Venture capital firm Z3Partners has announced the first close of its maiden fund at $13 Mn (INR 100 Cr), with a target corpus of $100 Mn (INR 730 Cr). The company is looking to invest in high-growth startups across consumer and enterprise sectors. It has already invested in cybersecurity SaaS startup CYFIRMA and social commerce startup DealShare using this fund.

• FirstCry may raise $180 Mn in a secondary transaction as its early stage investors Chiratae Ventures, Vertex Ventures and Elevation Capital (formerly SAIF Partners) are looking to sell about 7%-9% of their shares. The round may value the company at $2.1 Bn.

• Chennai-based growth private equity firm TVS Capital Funds has announced the final close of its fund, TVS Shriram Growth Fund III, with $211 Mn (INR 1,550 Cr) in assets under management (AUM) for its blind pool and with potential co-investment pool of $61 Mn (INR 450 Cr) — the total AUM would be $272 Mn (INR 2,000 Cr).

• Mumbai-based edtech platform upGrad has announced the grant of employee stock ownership plan (ESOPs) to 600 of its 2,500 employees. Logistics software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup FarEye has also announced an ESOP liquidation programme.

• Endiya Partners has raised $2.4 Mn (INR 17.5 Cr) from the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council’s (BIRAC) AcE Fund, for the final close of its $68 Mn (INR 500 Cr) Fund-II, through which Endiya has already made three investments with more in the pipeline.

• Ahmedabad-based Plutus Wealth Management and its associates have acquired shares worth over $68 Mn (INR 500 Cr) from Nazara Games’ early investor WestBridge Capital which has sold its entire stake in the company.

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