Funding Galore: From Dunzo To DeHaat — $166 Mn Raised By Indian Startups [January 18 -23]

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

This week, Bengaluru-based hyperlocal delivery startup Dunzo has raised $40 Mn in its ongoing Series E funding round from new and existing investors including Google, Lightbox, Evolvence, Hana Financial Investment, LGT Lightstone Aspada, and Alteria among others. The company plans to use this capital for sustainable growth and capitalise on the traction achieved in the past few months in Mumbai, Chennai, and Pune, besides Delhi NCR and Bengaluru.

Prior to this, the company had raised $28 Mn in a Series E funding round led by Google and Lightstone. Existing investors Lightbox, 3 L Capital, Moving Capital, Pivot Ventures and Bhoruka Finance Corporation also participated in this round.

Overall, $166 Mn was invested in Indian startups across 26 deals this week, and one company got acquired.

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

Top Indian Startup Funding Deals Of The Week

• Dunzo: $40 Mn in Series E from Google, Lightbox, Evolvence, Hana Financial Investment, LGT Lightstone Aspada, and Alteria among others

• DeHaat: $30 Mn in a Series C from Prosus Ventures (previously known as Naspers), Sequoia Capital India, Entrepreneurial Development Bank FMO, Omnivore and AgFunder

• BharatPe: $27.2 Mn in venture debt from Trifecta Capital, Alteria Capital and InnoVen Capital

• MFine: $16 Mn from Heritas Capital, family office YS Investment, SBI Investment, SBI Ven Capital, BEENEXT and Alteria Capital

• Darwinbox: $15 Mn from Salesforce Ventures

• AlphaICs: $8 Mn in Series B from Endiya Partners, Emerald Technology Ventures, ReBright Partners, 3one4 Capital, KARSEMVEN Fund, Aaruha Technology Fund, IREON Ventures, Canal Ventures, JSR Corporation, CBC Co Ltd, and the Whiteboard Capital.

• Lohum Cleantech: $7 Mn from Baring Private Equity Partners (BPEP)

• Ripplr: $3 Mn in Series A from Zephyr Peacock India Growth Fund, 3one4 Capital and Chand family office, Yukti.

• Furlenco: $2.7 Mn in venture debt funding from Blacksoil Capital

• Fashinza: $2.6 Mn in seed round from Accel Partners, Elevation Capital, Snapdeal’s cofounders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, and Indifi’s Alok Mittal

• Udayy: $2.5 Mn in seed round from Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI), Better Capital, CRED founder Kunal Shah and other angel investors

• Volopay: $2.1 Mn in seed funding from Tinder founder Justin Mateen,  Soma Capital, CP Ventures, Y Combinator, VentureSouq, the founders of Razorpay – Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur
• BeyondSkool: $2 Mn seed round from Tomorrow Capital

• CreditEnable: $2 Mn froom Venture Catalysts, JPIN Venture Catalysts Ltd

• Turnip: $1.63 Mn in seed round from Elevation Capital

• ShopG: $1.5 Mn in seed round from Orios Venture Partners, RPSG Ventures, Blackbuck CEO Rajesh Yabaji, Taxi for Sure’s former CEO Raghunandan G, Flipkart’s former employee Prashanth Nair

• Mindler: $1 Mn in a pre-Series A from Inflection Point Ventures, Taxmann Group and CIIE IIM Ahmedabad

• Dangal Games: $1 Mn in series A round from undisclosed investors
  

• Inficold: $900K in Pre-Series A from RVCF and other undisclosed high networth individuals (HNI)

• MemeChat: $150K from 500 Startups as part of its accelerator programme

• The Label Life: Undisclosed amount from Klub

• Simple Energy: Undisclosed amount Vel Kanniappan with participation from four other investors

• WealthDesk: Undisclosed amount in pre-Series A from senior Bankers and executives from global banks, market participants and other technology businesses corporates

• ClaimBuddy: Undisclosed amount in seed round from Titan Capital, LV angel fund, First Cheque, and other individual angel investors

• Salud Beverages: Undisclosed amount from actor Rana Daggubati

• Living Food: Undisclosed amount in seed round from Amasia

Acquisition Among Indian Startups

• Real estate services firm Anarock Group has acquired society and apartment management platform ApnaComplex from proptech startup NestAway Technologies. NestAway had acquired ApnaComplex last February as a part of its initiative to offer end-to-end support to the apartment ecosystem.

Other Developments Of The Week 

• Gaming company Nazara Technologies has filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) relating to its initial public offering (IPO) with market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) last week (January 15). It has become the first Indian gaming technology company to list publicly.

• Food aggregator business Zomato has acquired full-stack sports facilities provider and discovery startup Fitso in a deal reportedly worth INR 80 Cr-INR 100 Cr. The deal has reportedly been internally announced by Zomato, but there has been no official confirmation/announcement for the public. This will be Zomato’s first big acquisition after it bought UberEats’ India business for $350 Mn in January 2020.

• Fireside Ventures that invests in consumer brands has announced the final close of its Fund II at $118 Mn (INR 863 Cr). The company had targeted a corpus of approximately $100 Mn (INR 750 Cr) in this round, but raised an additional $18 Mn (INR 113 Cr) through the greenshoe option.

• Nutrition-based healthcare startup Possible (previously known as Truweight Wellness) has reportedly raised INR 5 Cr ($683K) from Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as a part of a larger funding round of INR 15 Cr ($2 Mn).

• As Ola Electric is underway building the world’s largest electric vehicles (EV) manufacturing unit, it is looking to raise $300 Mn from existing and new investors for brand building, distribution and technology enhancement.

• Serial investor Sanjay Mehta-led venture capital firm 100X.VC revealed the 10 seed-stage startups of its Class 03 portfolio. These startups are Vitra.ai, Accio Robotics, Kerala Banana Chips, BurnCal, Solvio.ai, DCode Care, Cora, SaleAssist, Vecros and MicroDegree.

• CCI has approved Flipkart’s $205 Mn (INR 1,500 Cr) investment in Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail (ABFRL), which owns brands like Pantaloons, Allen Solly and Peter England.

• The Tata Group has inched a few steps closer to its super app ambition with a $200 Mn-$250 Mn primary cash infusion in Bigbasket finalised, according to sources. This is part of its larger deal to acquire a majority stake in India’s biggest online grocery company.

• Kerala chief minister Shri Pinarayi Vijayan, on January 19, said that the state government is looking into the possibility of setting up a dedicated venture capital (VC) fund for startups. It is also looking to open up the government market for startup consortia and hiking the special fund for startup development.

• Shiprocket has shortlisted seven direct-to-customers (D2C) startups for the first batch of its startup accelerator program RocketFuel. The company plans to invest $478K (INR 3.5 Cr) in each of these startups — Watchout Wearables, LoopAudio, Durmeric, Everpret, Supply6, BebeBurp, and Georgia Foods

• The Gujarat University Startup and Entrepreneurship Council (GUSEC) has called for applications from Indian startups looking to raise a seed amount of upto $68K (INR 50 Lakh) under the ‘GUSEC Seed’ initiative.

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