Here is a list of top funding deals that happened in Indian Startup Ecosystem this week. Check out the brief description about all of them.
OYO Rooms Raises $250 Mn From SoftBank Vision Fund And Hero Enterprise
Hotel aggregator OYO Rooms has secured $250 million from its existing investor SoftBank, with new investor Hero Enterprise also coming on board. The Japanese telecom and internet conglomerate has invested through its $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund, making this the second major bet placed by the world’s largest pool of private capital in India over the course of the last two months.
The latest transaction has also seen participation from Gurgaon-headquartered company’s existing group of investor which includes, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Greenoaks Capital. Also joining the company’s investor cap table is Hero Enterprise, the Sunil Munjal.
Fintech Startup EarlySalary Secures Rs 5 Cr Debt From IFMR Capital
EarlySalary, India’s fintech startup to offer salary advances and instant cash loans has raised its first round of debt financing of Rs 5 cr from IFMR Capital. The current infused capital will help EarlySalary to accelerate its growth plans. EarlySalary was co-founded by Akshay Mehrotra and Ashish Goyal 18 months back and had raised Seed Funding from Ashok Agarwal of Transcorp International. Till date, the app has received 3,50,000+ downloads across its Android & iOS mobile app platform. The firm focuses on helping young working professionals get Instant Loans and Salary Advances in minutes and is fast becoming the first line of credit to young working Indians.
Homegrown E-commerce Giant Snapdeal Infuse $23.7 Mn Into Vulcan Express
According to filings with the Registrar of Companies, the Vulcan Express has received $23.7 million) from its parent, Snapdeal. According to Vccircle report, the company raised the sum by allocating 15.24 crore equity shares at Rs 10 apiece to Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd, which operates Snapdeal, on 7 August.
The new funding round comes even as Snapdeal is reportedly trying sell off Vulcan Express. Vulcan Express was the result of Snapdeal’s decision to build its own logistics arm, after its moves to acquire GoJavas did not materialize. Snapdeal, which had acquired a 42% stake in GoJavas in 2015, pulled out its business after instances of large-scale financial irregularities. GoJavas was later acquired by Pigeon Express.
E-commerce Startup Seniority Bags $1 Mn From RPG Group
The venture-capital arm of the tyres to transmissions tower conglomerate, RPG Group has invested $1 million in an online portal for old age-senior-care, Seniority. With this investment RPG Group ventures into senior care e-commerce.
The current investment is part of RPG Group’s strategy to use RPG Ventures to incubate and build new businesses. Seniority is created especially for all senior citizens. The Startup is here to help senior people with their specially curated products. Users can browse through their e-commerce platform or even through their chain of retail stores. Founded by Ayush Agrawal and Tapan Mishra in February 2017, Seniority is competing with other startups like Old is Gold, BeautifulYears, Senior Shelf, and Seniorworld.
Pet Care App TailsLife Secure Funds From V Balakrishnan
Pet care app Tailslife has raised an undisclosed round of bridge funding from existing investor and chairman of Exfinity Ventures, V Balakrishnan. The company has received commitments from other investors as well and has kept the round open to secure further investments, reports ET.
The firm plans to deploy freshly infuse funds towards the product and service enhancement. Founded in October 2015 by Balaji Ramesh, Prachi Gupta, and Dushyant Rao, TailsLife aims at making pet parenting easier and happier by providing content specific to the breed and age of your pet and easier access to vet, grooming and boarding services.
Mumbai Based CreditVidya Secures $5 Mn From Matrix Partners
B2B financial data technology platform CreditVidya has raised $5-million (Rs 32-crore) in Series-B round of funding led by Matrix Partners. The current round of funding also saw participation from existing investor Kalaari Capital. Post this round, the total capital raised by CreditVidya touches about $7 million.
The company plans to use freshly infused funds to add a wide range of fraud and verification services to its existing big data underwriting platform. Not only this, to enable better implementation of the AI-based algorithms, the company is looking to scale up its employee base from 74 to 100 over the next 6-9 months.
Bengaluru-based Oncology Focused Startup OncoStem Raises $6 Mn From Sequoia Capital
Bengaluru-based OncoStem Diagnostics, an oncology-focused startup offering personalized cancer treatment, has raised $6 million from Silicon Valley heavyweight investor Sequoia India, reported Times of India.
The funding round also saw the participation of its existing investor Artiman Ventures, a California-based VC firm which has so far pumped $3 million in multiple tranches since the company was founded. OncoStem will use the freshly raised funds in R&D to develop new products as well as expand its operations go deeper into Asia and Europe.
Founded by Manjiri Bakre in 2011, OncoStem is focused on personalized cancer treatment planning through the development of tests that try to effectively predict the chance of cancer recurrence in patients.
Datasigns Technologies Secures $1.5 Mn From SRI Capital, BeeNext, Others
Datasigns Technologies, a mobile first financial technology startup that operator of lending platform Shubh Loans has raised $1.5 million in pre-series-A funding from SRI Capital, BeeNext and Pravega Ventures. The firm plans to utilize freshly infused fund to grow its technology team and expand to 25 markets from seven.
Prior to this round, the company has raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Sanjai Vohra, former MD of JP Morgan, V Bunty Bohra, India CEO of Goldman Sachs, and Peeyush Misra, a former partner at Goldman Sachs.
Founded in 2016 by Monish Anand, Rahul Sekar, Anand Barua and Tushar Patel, Shubh Loans is a vernacular language app that builds a proprietary credit score and report for loan applicants, who can then borrow from any of the nine banks and NBFCs on the platform.
Paytm’s Parent Company Pumps In Rs 60 Cr More In Payment Bank
Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications have infused Rs. 60 crore more into the Paytm Payments Bank. With Sharma owning majority stake in the bank, Sharma and One97 had earlier invested about 220 crore in the payments bank,
Sharma has invested Rs. 30 crore in this tranche, while One97 Communications has put in Rs.23 crore. According to documents with the Registrar of Companies as per research platform Tofler, the rest has come from One97 Communications India, a subsidiary of One97. The shares were allotted on August 1, according to the documents. The new allotment brings the authorised capital of the bank to Rs.400 crore and the paid up capital of a Rs.278 crore.
Lendingkart Technologies Raises $10.51M in Equity from Sistema Asia Fund and Current Investors
Lendingkart Technologies has raised Rs 70 crore ($10.51M) in the form of equity funds. Singapore-based Sistema Asia Fund along with current investors – Bertelsmann India Investment, Mayfield India, Saama Capital, India Quotient and Darrin Capital Management participated in this round.
With this fresh funding, the company has raised total funding of Rs 534 crore (equity of 243 crore and debt of 291 crore). The latest infusion of equity capital will enable the company to increase their loan book and strengthen its technology & analytics capabilities. Additionally, this will aid the company to further reach out to the underserved markets of India that continue to face lack of access to funds.
Founded in 2014, by ex-Banker & ISB Hyderabad alumnus, Harshvardhan Lunia and ex-Finance Director at Lebua Group Bangkok & IIM Bangalore alumnus, Mukul Sachan, Lendingkart Group has built a technology platform to service the working capital financing needs of SMEs in India.
Bona Vita Technologies’s GoFro Bags Close To $10 Mn
Online holiday marketplace, GoFro has raised close to $10 million in its second round of equity financing, led by Japanese travel major HIS Co and MakeMyTrip, reports ET. Owned and operated under Bona Vita Technologies, GoFro informed that proceeds from the Series B, which is yet to be closed and could cross $10 million, will be used by the company to further build its tech platform and expand to new geographies, along with growing its supply and agent network.
Founded by Misra in 2015, GoFro brought MakeMyTrip on board as its first investor the same year, even while it was in a stealth mode. MakeMyTrip, which had invested about $5 million in the company from its $15 million Innovation Fund, holds a controlling stake in the venture.
PrimaryIO Secures $5.6 Mn Investment From Accel, Exfinity and Partech Ventures
Storage management firm, PrimaryIO has secured seed funding of $5.6 million from Accel, Exfinity Ventures and Partech Ventures, to expedite its product development efforts.
PrimaryIO has developed breakthrough software technology for storage management for virtualized data centers as enterprises embrace the public cloud. This investment will help accelerate product development to bring innovation to the enterprise IT customers that are dealing with data center capacity, cost and performance issues, enabling them to benefit from the public cloud solutions while retaining control and security of their data.
Tthe online food ordering and restaurant discovery firm Zomato is in advanced talks to raise up to $200 million from Alibaba and its payments affiliate Ant Financial, also known as Alipay, reports BGR. The Chinese e-commerce major’s interest in the Gurgaon-based startup comes at a time when Zomato has narrowed its losses by over three-fourths in FY17 while growing its revenues by 80%.
In another development, India’s largest online grocery firm BigBasket is raising whopping $280 million in Series-E round led by Paytm Mall and China’s Alibaba Group. As a result, BigBasket’s ‘post funding’ valuation will now range between $800-900 million, making the company in close range of ‘unicorn’ startups.
OYO Rooms Raises $250 Mn From SoftBank Vision Fund And Hero Enterprise
Hotel aggregator OYO Rooms has secured $250 million from its existing investor SoftBank, with new investor Hero Enterprise also coming on board. The Japanese telecom and internet conglomerate has invested through its $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund, making this the second major bet placed by the world’s largest pool of private capital in India over the course of the last two months.
The latest transaction has also seen participation from Gurgaon-headquartered company’s existing group of investor which includes, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Greenoaks Capital. Also joining the company’s investor cap table is Hero Enterprise, the Sunil Munjal.
Fintech Startup EarlySalary Secures Rs 5 Cr Debt From IFMR Capital
EarlySalary, India’s fintech startup to offer salary advances and instant cash loans has raised its first round of debt financing of Rs 5 cr from IFMR Capital. The current infused capital will help EarlySalary to accelerate its growth plans. EarlySalary was co-founded by Akshay Mehrotra and Ashish Goyal 18 months back and had raised Seed Funding from Ashok Agarwal of Transcorp International. Till date, the app has received 3,50,000+ downloads across its Android & iOS mobile app platform. The firm focuses on helping young working professionals get Instant Loans and Salary Advances in minutes and is fast becoming the first line of credit to young working Indians.
Homegrown E-commerce Giant Snapdeal Infuse $23.7 Mn Into Vulcan Express
According to filings with the Registrar of Companies, the Vulcan Express has received $23.7 million) from its parent, Snapdeal. According to Vccircle report, the company raised the sum by allocating 15.24 crore equity shares at Rs 10 apiece to Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd, which operates Snapdeal, on 7 August.
The new funding round comes even as Snapdeal is reportedly trying sell off Vulcan Express. Vulcan Express was the result of Snapdeal’s decision to build its own logistics arm, after its moves to acquire GoJavas did not materialize. Snapdeal, which had acquired a 42% stake in GoJavas in 2015, pulled out its business after instances of large-scale financial irregularities. GoJavas was later acquired by Pigeon Express.
E-commerce Startup Seniority Bags $1 Mn From RPG Group
The venture-capital arm of the tyres to transmissions tower conglomerate, RPG Group has invested $1 million in an online portal for old age-senior-care, Seniority. With this investment RPG Group ventures into senior care e-commerce.
The current investment is part of RPG Group’s strategy to use RPG Ventures to incubate and build new businesses. Seniority is created especially for all senior citizens. The Startup is here to help senior people with their specially curated products. Users can browse through their e-commerce platform or even through their chain of retail stores. Founded by Ayush Agrawal and Tapan Mishra in February 2017, Seniority is competing with other startups like Old is Gold, BeautifulYears, Senior Shelf, and Seniorworld.
Pet Care App TailsLife Secure Funds From V Balakrishnan
Pet care app Tailslife has raised an undisclosed round of bridge funding from existing investor and chairman of Exfinity Ventures, V Balakrishnan. The company has received commitments from other investors as well and has kept the round open to secure further investments, reports ET.
The firm plans to deploy freshly infuse funds towards the product and service enhancement. Founded in October 2015 by Balaji Ramesh, Prachi Gupta, and Dushyant Rao, TailsLife aims at making pet parenting easier and happier by providing content specific to the breed and age of your pet and easier access to vet, grooming and boarding services.
Mumbai Based CreditVidya Secures $5 Mn From Matrix Partners
B2B financial data technology platform CreditVidya has raised $5-million (Rs 32-crore) in Series-B round of funding led by Matrix Partners. The current round of funding also saw participation from existing investor Kalaari Capital. Post this round, the total capital raised by CreditVidya touches about $7 million.
The company plans to use freshly infused funds to add a wide range of fraud and verification services to its existing big data underwriting platform. Not only this, to enable better implementation of the AI-based algorithms, the company is looking to scale up its employee base from 74 to 100 over the next 6-9 months.
Bengaluru-based Oncology Focused Startup OncoStem Raises $6 Mn From Sequoia Capital
Bengaluru-based OncoStem Diagnostics, an oncology-focused startup offering personalized cancer treatment, has raised $6 million from Silicon Valley heavyweight investor Sequoia India, reported Times of India.
The funding round also saw the participation of its existing investor Artiman Ventures, a California-based VC firm which has so far pumped $3 million in multiple tranches since the company was founded. OncoStem will use the freshly raised funds in R&D to develop new products as well as expand its operations go deeper into Asia and Europe.
Founded by Manjiri Bakre in 2011, OncoStem is focused on personalized cancer treatment planning through the development of tests that try to effectively predict the chance of cancer recurrence in patients.
Datasigns Technologies Secures $1.5 Mn From SRI Capital, BeeNext, Others
Datasigns Technologies, a mobile first financial technology startup that operator of lending platform Shubh Loans has raised $1.5 million in pre-series-A funding from SRI Capital, BeeNext and Pravega Ventures. The firm plans to utilize freshly infused fund to grow its technology team and expand to 25 markets from seven.
Prior to this round, the company has raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Sanjai Vohra, former MD of JP Morgan, V Bunty Bohra, India CEO of Goldman Sachs, and Peeyush Misra, a former partner at Goldman Sachs.
Founded in 2016 by Monish Anand, Rahul Sekar, Anand Barua and Tushar Patel, Shubh Loans is a vernacular language app that builds a proprietary credit score and report for loan applicants, who can then borrow from any of the nine banks and NBFCs on the platform.
Paytm’s Parent Company Pumps In Rs 60 Cr More In Payment Bank
Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications have infused Rs. 60 crore more into the Paytm Payments Bank. With Sharma owning majority stake in the bank, Sharma and One97 had earlier invested about 220 crore in the payments bank,
Sharma has invested Rs. 30 crore in this tranche, while One97 Communications has put in Rs.23 crore. According to documents with the Registrar of Companies as per research platform Tofler, the rest has come from One97 Communications India, a subsidiary of One97. The shares were allotted on August 1, according to the documents. The new allotment brings the authorised capital of the bank to Rs.400 crore and the paid up capital of a Rs.278 crore.
Lendingkart Technologies Raises $10.51M in Equity from Sistema Asia Fund and Current Investors
Lendingkart Technologies has raised Rs 70 crore ($10.51M) in the form of equity funds. Singapore-based Sistema Asia Fund along with current investors – Bertelsmann India Investment, Mayfield India, Saama Capital, India Quotient and Darrin Capital Management participated in this round.
With this fresh funding, the company has raised total funding of Rs 534 crore (equity of 243 crore and debt of 291 crore). The latest infusion of equity capital will enable the company to increase their loan book and strengthen its technology & analytics capabilities. Additionally, this will aid the company to further reach out to the underserved markets of India that continue to face lack of access to funds.
Founded in 2014, by ex-Banker & ISB Hyderabad alumnus, Harshvardhan Lunia and ex-Finance Director at Lebua Group Bangkok & IIM Bangalore alumnus, Mukul Sachan, Lendingkart Group has built a technology platform to service the working capital financing needs of SMEs in India.
Bona Vita Technologies’s GoFro Bags Close To $10 Mn
Online holiday marketplace, GoFro has raised close to $10 million in its second round of equity financing, led by Japanese travel major HIS Co and MakeMyTrip, reports ET. Owned and operated under Bona Vita Technologies, GoFro informed that proceeds from the Series B, which is yet to be closed and could cross $10 million, will be used by the company to further build its tech platform and expand to new geographies, along with growing its supply and agent network.
Founded by Misra in 2015, GoFro brought MakeMyTrip on board as its first investor the same year, even while it was in a stealth mode. MakeMyTrip, which had invested about $5 million in the company from its $15 million Innovation Fund, holds a controlling stake in the venture.
PrimaryIO Secures $5.6 Mn Investment From Accel, Exfinity and Partech Ventures
Storage management firm, PrimaryIO has secured seed funding of $5.6 million from Accel, Exfinity Ventures and Partech Ventures, to expedite its product development efforts.
PrimaryIO has developed breakthrough software technology for storage management for virtualized data centers as enterprises embrace the public cloud. This investment will help accelerate product development to bring innovation to the enterprise IT customers that are dealing with data center capacity, cost and performance issues, enabling them to benefit from the public cloud solutions while retaining control and security of their data.
Other Important Fundings
Tthe online food ordering and restaurant discovery firm Zomato is in advanced talks to raise up to $200 million from Alibaba and its payments affiliate Ant Financial, also known as Alipay, reports BGR. The Chinese e-commerce major’s interest in the Gurgaon-based startup comes at a time when Zomato has narrowed its losses by over three-fourths in FY17 while growing its revenues by 80%.
In another development, India’s largest online grocery firm BigBasket is raising whopping $280 million in Series-E round led by Paytm Mall and China’s Alibaba Group. As a result, BigBasket’s ‘post funding’ valuation will now range between $800-900 million, making the company in close range of ‘unicorn’ startups.
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