As we gear up to embark on a new week, let's have a quick recap of the top 10 things that happened in the Indian Startup sector last week.

1) Snapdeal and FreeCharge Launch “Wallet on Delivery"

Last week saw one of India's largest Online marketplace Snapdeal announce the launch of a new and first-of-a-kind feature, Wallet on Delivery (WoD), which will allow Snapdeal and FreeCharge users to pay on delivery by using their FreeCharge wallet.

WoD provides a quick and effective solution to all the users currently having concerns regarding Cash on Delivery (CoD) because of the physical currency crunch due to the demonetisation drive by the Modi government.

2) ShopClues Launches a One-Stop Shop for all Your Wedding Needs – ‘The Wedding Store’
In order to cash-on on the incoming wedding season, ShopClues is making sure that it becomes the top-most preferred e-commerce destination for brides and grooms to fulfil all their wedding shopping desires.

The e-commerce site has launched, ‘The Wedding Store’ that will help brides and bridegrooms shop for all the occasions associated with their wedding, right from their Sangeet ceremony to Bachelorette party to the D-Day. In an offer to offer them the most unique shopping experience, the platform has also tied up with multi-jewellery brand Gitanjali to provide flat 50% discount on diamond and gold jewellery and 70% discount on silver jewellery.

3) IFMR Capital Raises $25M Funding from Eight Roads Ventures

Chennai based IFMR Capital, which is currently at the top of the ladder when it comes to providing capital market access to financial institutions serving the bottom of the pyramid, has successfully raised funding from Eight Roads Ventures, the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International Limited which will be investing up to $25M in the company.

The current funding round is IFMR Capital’s second round of institutional funding. The fresh round of investment will help the company escalate its existing business to a whole new level and even allow it to explore other opportunities across new products and sectors.

4) Razorpay Introduces One-Hour ‘Express Activation’ to Enable Online Payments for Small Businesses

Razorpay, an online payments platform, announced about the launch of ‘Express Activation’ for all offline businesses in India. The main aim behind this move is to provide immediate relief to thousands of small businesses currently facing the brunt of the surprise demonetization drive undertaken by the Modi government.

‘Express Activation’ allows small merchants to get their account approved and activated within just 1 hour of submitting all the relevant documents. With Express Activation, Razorpay has become the only payment gateway in India to onboard merchants in an hour. The initiative will come as a great respite to small merchants who have been primarily transacting through physical currency until now.

5) Square Yards Raises $12M from Reliance Group

One of India’s top-most online to offline (O2O) real estate transaction player, Square Yards, has successfully raised a whopping $12 million in investments from the Private Equity arm of Mr. Anil Ambani led Reliance Group.

This is startup's first institutional investment after it had raised $11Mn from a clutch of HNW investors in the year 2015. With the money, Square Yards aims to target a double digit market share in Indian Real Estate distribution, expand to more than 25 countries on the ground advising on global real estate, become largest mortgage advisory and developer marketing firm in India, and strengthen its distribution network across Indian and global markets.

6) Unocoin Reveals Robust API To Power New Business

Last week saw Unocoin, a young India based bitcoin company, successfully implementing its Application Programming Interface (API) that allows companies from all around the globe to access the world’s largest potential market for Bitcoin and to take advantage of all of Unocoin’s extraordinary set of features.

The startup's API provides companies and individuals in India the power to generate bitcoin wallets; buy, sell, send and receive bitcoin; securely store bitcoin; receive notifications when payments arrive; retrieve real-time or historical price information, and accept and request bitcoin payments for merchants. It even allows companies to remit bitcoin to India and to submit the KYC details of their beneficiaries.

7) JustRide Raises $3M in a Bridge Round by Y Combinator Partners and Others

JustRide, an emerging self-drive car rental company, has successfully raised a capital of $3 million from marquee YC partners and major global investors. The funds will be put to use to bolster the startup's car sharing platform JustConnect and Yabber, an IoT device for cars which is built on the company’s innovative Smart Vehicle Technology. JustConnect is a car sharing platform that helps in monetising the cars of the individuals, when they're not in use.

8) Organic Farmer and Social Entrepreneur Dharamvir Kamboj Secures Financial Backing from Investors

A one-of-its-kind show in India, The Vault has has had a great track record in providing financial support and national visibility to innovative business ideas. A recent episode of the show saw saw organic farmers and entrepreneurs Dharamvir and Prince Kamboj winning the amazement and praise of The Vault Keepers with their idea of a multipurpose machine that processes farm produce.

9) GO-JEK Buys Pune-Based Mobile App Developer Leftshift
Indonesia’s largest startup, GO-JEK, has acquired Pune-based mobile application developer Leftshift that specialises in designing and engineering mobile apps for popular startups such as Walnut and BookMyShow. With the acquisition, GO-JEK aims to strengthen and upscale its product development, design and engineering platforms so as to support the unicorn’s rapidly growing Indonesia operations.

10) TiE and HAX Join Hands To Accelerate IoT and Hardware Startups In India
The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA) have come together to work with Shenzhen and San Francisco based HAX to provide a forward push to Internet of Things (IoT) and hardware startups in India. HAX is the first and largest global accelerator and seed investor for hardware startups.

With its great experience and expertise in incubating a string of startups across the globe, HAX will provide the selected startups, with best-in-class prototype in manufacturing and access to global markets.
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