Blockchain-based Loan Marketplace Streamsource Raises $1 Mn Seed Funding from Accel India

Gurgaon-based StreamSource Technologies, a decentralized marketplace for loans, has raised $1 million in seed funding from Accel India, making it Accel’s first local investment in the blockchain sector.

Interestingly, StreamSource was founded in 2018 by a former Uber and an Ola executive -- Mayank Tewari and Prerit Srivastava, respectively. While Mayank was General Manager of Products at Uber, Prerit was CEO of Qarth Technologies, which was aquired by Ola in 2016 and he was at Products team at Ola.

The startup will utilize the funds raised in further developing its product, while also growing its sales team in the US and hiring local resources in markets such as Australia and UK where it plans to go next. The startup also is working to expand the product bring in merchants, apart from just lenders, who will be able to sell leads to the lenders on its platform.

StreamSource, a Quorum based private blockchain platform, is a decentralized marketplace where lenders and debt buyers can initiate and settle transactions that includes buying and selling of credit approved leads and whole loan transactions.

Quorum is an enterprise-focused version of variant of the Ethereum blockchain, developed by J.P. Morgan.

Streamsource is currently working with a few mid-size lenders in the US, the names of which it did not disclose.

The company said it picked the US as it first market as the decision making for processing of unsecured loans in India is far deeper, more complex and requires manual intervention.

“The problem has been known for years, but it hasn’t been solved because traditional technologies are generally very inefficient in transactions like this where both parties do not want data to be shared but they want to collaborate,” said Prerit Srivastava, co-founder of Streamsource.

Prayank Swaroop, Principal at Accel Partners, said, “We’ve been trying to do investments in this space for the longest time, but what we found was people were artificially trying to create blockchain use cases. Here we found that this is a business need and that gave us confidence to invest in them."

Source - Economic Times - ET Tech

Bike Rental Startup Metro Bikes Raises $12.2 Mn from Sequoia, Accel, TaxiForSure Co-Founder

Bangalore-based Wicked Ride Adventure Services Pvt. Ltd, which operates online rental service for scooters and motorcycles via app Metro Bikes and brand name 'Bounce', has raised $12.2 million in a Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital India, Accel Partners, Raghunandan G, co-founder of TaxiForSure, and a consortium of other investors have also participated this round.

The startup intends to utilize the funds in further scaling its network across Bengaluru, invest in a delivery model through innovations in technology and develop a pan-India presence by expanding to all major cities across India by 2020.

The startup, which recently changed its brand name to Bounce to avoid the confusion of being operational only in metro cities, has earlier raised $790,000 as seed fund in July 2015 followed by $1.5 Mn funding from Chandrasekhar Gopalan, chairman of Sutures India Pvt. Ltd, in February this year, according to data by Crunchbase.

Founded in May 2014 by Anil G, Varun Agni and Vivekananda Hallekere, Metro Bikes aka Bounce offers a dockless scooter sharing service allowing users to pick up the scooter from anywhere, ride to their destination and drop it off at any location.

The startup claims to be India's first smart urban mobility solution offering premium bikes including Harley Davidson, Triumph and Royal Enfield motorcycles. It charges on average ₹6 per kilometre from a rider.

Beside scooters and motorcycles, Bounce has also ventured into bicycles, electric pedalled bicycles and kick scooters.

In one of its future plans, the startup plans to eventually convert its entire fleet into electric vehicles and is in talks with partners in China and Taiwan to source such products.

H R Vivekananda, co-founder, Bounce, said that there is tremendous potential for innovation in the shared mobility segment given the major gap in last mile connectivity in intra-city travel. Market opportunity is around $4.5 billion.

Speaking about the funding, Shailesh Lakhani, managing director, Sequoia Capital India, said, "There has been a lot of attention on four-wheel shared mobility across the world. While it makes sense in other markets, a service like Bounce has immense potential in India, where limitations of space and cost has always made two-wheelers more popular."

"The network has the potential to be a category creator - being the first to offer an extremely cost-effective, personalised, motorised transport that fills a critical need gap in the Indian market — and Sequoia India is looking forward to being a part of this journey,” added Lakhani.

Last December, Y-Combinator backed Wheelstreet, touted as one of India’s largest motorbike rental platform, had launched a Dockless Commute platform for their users, which at that time was India's first. Prior to this, Mumbai-based self-drive bike rental platform ONN Bikes raised INR 4.5 crore from Venture Catalysts, Z Nation Lab and other angels.

Source - Business Standard

[Top Image ~ YourStory.com]

Bike Rental Startup Metro Bikes Raises $12.2 Mn from Sequoia, Accel, TaxiForSure Co-Founder

Bangalore-based Wicked Ride Adventure Services Pvt. Ltd, which operates online rental service for scooters and motorcycles via app Metro Bikes and brand name 'Bounce', has raised $12.2 million in a Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital India, Accel Partners, Raghunandan G, co-founder of TaxiForSure, and a consortium of other investors have also participated this round.

The startup intends to utilize the funds in further scaling its network across Bengaluru, invest in a delivery model through innovations in technology and develop a pan-India presence by expanding to all major cities across India by 2020.

The startup, which recently changed its brand name to Bounce to avoid the confusion of being operational only in metro cities, has earlier raised $790,000 as seed fund in July 2015 followed by $1.5 Mn funding from Chandrasekhar Gopalan, chairman of Sutures India Pvt. Ltd, in February this year, according to data by Crunchbase.

Founded in May 2014 by Anil G, Varun Agni and Vivekananda Hallekere, Metro Bikes aka Bounce offers a dockless scooter sharing service allowing users to pick up the scooter from anywhere, ride to their destination and drop it off at any location.

The startup claims to be India's first smart urban mobility solution offering premium bikes including Harley Davidson, Triumph and Royal Enfield motorcycles. It charges on average ₹6 per kilometre from a rider.

Beside scooters and motorcycles, Bounce has also ventured into bicycles, electric pedalled bicycles and kick scooters.

In one of its future plans, the startup plans to eventually convert its entire fleet into electric vehicles and is in talks with partners in China and Taiwan to source such products.

H R Vivekananda, co-founder, Bounce, said that there is tremendous potential for innovation in the shared mobility segment given the major gap in last mile connectivity in intra-city travel. Market opportunity is around $4.5 billion.

Speaking about the funding, Shailesh Lakhani, managing director, Sequoia Capital India, said, "There has been a lot of attention on four-wheel shared mobility across the world. While it makes sense in other markets, a service like Bounce has immense potential in India, where limitations of space and cost has always made two-wheelers more popular."

"The network has the potential to be a category creator - being the first to offer an extremely cost-effective, personalised, motorised transport that fills a critical need gap in the Indian market — and Sequoia India is looking forward to being a part of this journey,” added Lakhani.

Last December, Y-Combinator backed Wheelstreet, touted as one of India’s largest motorbike rental platform, had launched a Dockless Commute platform for their users, which at that time was India's first. Prior to this, Mumbai-based self-drive bike rental platform ONN Bikes raised INR 4.5 crore from Venture Catalysts, Z Nation Lab and other angels.

Source - Business Standard

[Top Image ~ YourStory.com]

Rentomojo Raises $2 Mn In Pre Series A From Accel Partners and IDG Ventures

Rentomojo, Furnishing Solutions platform, headquartered in Bengaluru raised $2 million in Pre-Series A from Accel Partners and IDG Ventures India. Venkatesh Peddi from IDG Ventures India and Prashanth Prakash from Accel Partners join the board of Directors.

Rentomojo was founded in November 2014 by IIT Madras graduates Geetansh Bamania and Ajay Nain. The company had raised seed capital from London-based investors last year. Currently they operate in four cities: Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi NCR and Pune. Categories on the platform include Appliances, Furniture, Packages, Kitchen and Home utility, as well as two wheelers.

The company lets users rent furniture and home furnishings for a minimum period of three months.Headquartered out of Bengaluru, it currently has more than 50 employees.

Speaking on the occasion, Geetansh Bamania, Co-founder and CEO, Rentomojo said, "With urbanization, increasing incomes and declining savings among the working professionals, we are witnessing the birth of Access Economy with the advent of Airbnb, Uber, Rentherunway and the likes. We want our users to get an access to a personalized lifestyle without actually owning it. We work as a marketplace and keep this business asset light."

"We are delighted to have Accel Partners and IDG Ventures India as our partners in our mission to provide convenient and affordable solutions. The funds will fuel our expansion across the country."

"Rentomojo has a grand vision. Both Geetansh and Ajay have demonstrated excellent execution focus and passion to build out a strong technology platform. Their platform is witnessing exponential growth and it is exciting to be part of this growth" said Venkatesh Peddi, Executive Director, IDG Ventures India Advisors.

"This is an India innovation, led by young entrepreneurs, built on the philosophy of experience without owning. We are confident that there is an incumbent market for the business, which would help accelerate the business," said Prashant Prakash, Accel Partners.

In India, IDG Ventures has invested in companies such as Flipkart, Yatra, Newgen, Brainbees (FirstCry.com), Vserv, Manthan Software, Valyoo (Lenskart.com), Ozone Media and Actoserba (Zivame.com).

Freshdesk raises $31 mn from Tiger Global, Accel Partners & Google Capital

FreshDesk, a SaaS ('Software as a Service') & cloud-based customer support software provider is about to get whooping $31 million (Rs.183.55 crore) in series D funding from Tiger Global Management along with previous investor VC firm Accel Partners and Google Capital. Although, Freshdesk is expected to officially announce this news of investment on Thursday, reported NYTimes Dealbook

FreshDesk is headquartered in Chennai, India and California, US and the company was founded in October 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy in Chennai, India. FreshDesk will be the first foreign investment for Google Capital.

In December 2011, six months after its launch, Freshdesk secured $1 Million in Series A funding from VC firm Accel Partners. In second round of funding in 2012 Freshdesk raised $5 million from Tiger Global Management and Accel Partners as repeat investor. In November 2013, Accel Partners and Tiger Global again invested $7 million in Freshdesk as a Series C round of funding.

In January 2014, Freshdesk Inc. launched its new product, Freshservice, a cloud-based IT service desk to allow businesses to support customers by offering help desk ticketing, service-desk automation, asset management, Problem management, issue tracking and insightful analytics across phone, email, web, live chat, social media and other channels.

In December 2011, Freshdesk was accused of being a ripoff of Zendesk by a blogger Ben Kepes and Mikkel Svane (CEO of Zendesk) the entire episode of accusations turned into racism as references was made on country of origin of founder of Freshdesk. In response to this Freshdesk created ripoffornot.org chronicling the entire conversation, and presented a comparison between the two products and inviting users as well as Ben Kepes to try the product.

However it ended up as defaming freshdesk as competitor of Zendesk, as blogger Ben Kepes turned out to be a 'paid blogger' hired by Zoomdesk.

As of now, with coming new round investment Freshdesk has decided not to disclose its valuation and revenue it has generated so far and with Google Capital joining as investor for the startup, will help Freshdesk to access expertise from Google on how scale its business and marketing.