FreeCharge Founder Kunal Shah in Talks To Raise $30 Mn for His New Startup

Freecharge founder Kunal Shah, who founded the online recharge venture in 2010 and subsequently sold it to Snapdeal for $400 million in 2015, is on verge of raising capital of $30 million for his new startup. The funds if raised will perhaps be largest Series A round of funding for an Indian startup, reported Economic Times (ET).

The ET report further said that Sequoia Capita along with Russian fund Ru-Net, and a financial-technology focused fund Ribbit Capital, will possibly be among a group of investors who will participate in the round for Freecharge founder's new startup.

It is to be noted that, before getting acquired by Snapdeal, both Sequoia and Ru-Net were investors in FreeCharge, when it was in control of Kunal Shah. Last year, Freecharge parted its ways with Snapdeal and got acquired by Axis Bank for mere $60 million.

Kunal Shah has been associated with Sequoia as an advisor and mentor, however that role came to an end this January. It is now being speculated that his new venture will be an incubator or a lab that will engage in multiple ideas such as consumer finance, healthcare, and education, said the ET report.

Notably, Kunal is also a prolific angel investor in quite a few startups such as Go-Jek, Unacademy, Voonik, TVF, Pianta and PocketAces, among others.

Kunal would now join a select group of high-profile, serial tech entrepreneurs in India, who sold out their earlier ventures to start new ones. For an instance, Myntra co-founder Mukesh Bansal, who sold off his company to Flipkart and started new firm Curefit, a healthcare and fitness startup, in 2016. Mukesh co-founded Curefit with former Flipkart senior executive Ankit Nagori in 2016.

Last November, InMobi’s co-founder Amit Gupta stepped down from his executive role within the company to launch IoT-driven bicycle sharing startup Yulu. Prior to this, Manmohan Agarwal who introduced India to the world of fashion e-commerce with his brainchild Yebhi.com, unveiled his second venture, Truxapp, in August 2017.

In March 2017, Aditya Verma, co-founder & CEO of real estate website Makaan.com launched 'The Office Pass', a technology platform that helps companies & professionals find office space. Adtitya left the Makaan.com in December 2016.

In May 2016, Oxigen Wallet’s founder Pramod Saxena launched a startup accelerator called Aarambh Ventures in partnership with IIT-Roorkee, specifically focusing on fin-tech and clean-tech startups. The accelerator partnered with several early-stage funds including Unitus Seed Fund, Ivy-Cap Ventures and LetsVenture, along with select HNIs and angel investors.

In the same year, Housing co-founder Advitiya Sharma, who quit the real estate portal in March 2016, had launched an education start-up - Genius, which offers software for neighborhood tutors to make learning more effective.

FreeCharge Founder Kunal Shah in Talks To Raise $30 Mn for His New Startup

Freecharge founder Kunal Shah, who founded the online recharge venture in 2010 and subsequently sold it to Snapdeal for $400 million in 2015, is on verge of raising capital of $30 million for his new startup. The funds if raised will perhaps be largest Series A round of funding for an Indian startup, reported Economic Times (ET).

The ET report further said that Sequoia Capita along with Russian fund Ru-Net, and a financial-technology focused fund Ribbit Capital, will possibly be among a group of investors who will participate in the round for Freecharge founder's new startup.

It is to be noted that, before getting acquired by Snapdeal, both Sequoia and Ru-Net were investors in FreeCharge, when it was in control of Kunal Shah. Last year, Freecharge parted its ways with Snapdeal and got acquired by Axis Bank for mere $60 million.

Kunal Shah has been associated with Sequoia as an advisor and mentor, however that role came to an end this January. It is now being speculated that his new venture will be an incubator or a lab that will engage in multiple ideas such as consumer finance, healthcare, and education, said the ET report.

Notably, Kunal is also a prolific angel investor in quite a few startups such as Go-Jek, Unacademy, Voonik, TVF, Pianta and PocketAces, among others.

Kunal would now join a select group of high-profile, serial tech entrepreneurs in India, who sold out their earlier ventures to start new ones. For an instance, Myntra co-founder Mukesh Bansal, who sold off his company to Flipkart and started new firm Curefit, a healthcare and fitness startup, in 2016. Mukesh co-founded Curefit with former Flipkart senior executive Ankit Nagori in 2016.

Last November, InMobi’s co-founder Amit Gupta stepped down from his executive role within the company to launch IoT-driven bicycle sharing startup Yulu. Prior to this, Manmohan Agarwal who introduced India to the world of fashion e-commerce with his brainchild Yebhi.com, unveiled his second venture, Truxapp, in August 2017.

In March 2017, Aditya Verma, co-founder & CEO of real estate website Makaan.com launched 'The Office Pass', a technology platform that helps companies & professionals find office space. Adtitya left the Makaan.com in December 2016.

In May 2016, Oxigen Wallet’s founder Pramod Saxena launched a startup accelerator called Aarambh Ventures in partnership with IIT-Roorkee, specifically focusing on fin-tech and clean-tech startups. The accelerator partnered with several early-stage funds including Unitus Seed Fund, Ivy-Cap Ventures and LetsVenture, along with select HNIs and angel investors.

In the same year, Housing co-founder Advitiya Sharma, who quit the real estate portal in March 2016, had launched an education start-up - Genius, which offers software for neighborhood tutors to make learning more effective.

BOB, Times Internet In Talks To Acquire Jasper Infotech's E-wallet FreeCharge

Jasper Infotech-owned digital wallet FreeCharge is in talks with Bank of Baroda (BOB) and Times Internet for an all-cash acquisition. According to a report, the deal size is expected to be in the range of $60 - $75 million. This deal will allow BOB to expand its mobile wallet service, M-Clip which was launched last year and also to get access to millions of young customers FreeCharge has on its platform

Whereas with this deal Times Internet looks to add the wallet service to its online ventures like as Indiatimes Shopping and Gaana to name few.

Prior to this, it was reported that both Paytm and MobiKwik are also in talks for the FreeCharge acquisition. While Paytm has already signed a non-exclusive term sheet with FreeCharge at an expected deal value of $45 – $90 million, MobiKwik deal has still not moved beyond speculation.

Founded in 2010 by Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon, FreeCharge was acquired by Snapdeal in April 2015 for $450 million which is currently valued at less than 80%. Not only this, recently it also received an investment of $3.38 million from Jasper Infotech.

Company backed by investors such as Valiant Capital Management, Tybourne Capital Management, and Sequoia Capital had secured total of $177.65 million in six rounds of funding including the funds infused by its parent company.

These acquisition talks have come into picture at a time when parent company Snapdeal is already on the verge of finalizing a merger deal with it rival firm Flipkart.

BOB, Times Internet In Talks To Acquire Jasper Infotech's E-wallet FreeCharge

Jasper Infotech-owned digital wallet FreeCharge is in talks with Bank of Baroda (BOB) and Times Internet for an all-cash acquisition. According to a report, the deal size is expected to be in the range of $60 - $75 million. This deal will allow BOB to expand its mobile wallet service, M-Clip which was launched last year and also to get access to millions of young customers FreeCharge has on its platform

Whereas with this deal Times Internet looks to add the wallet service to its online ventures like as Indiatimes Shopping and Gaana to name few.

Prior to this, it was reported that both Paytm and MobiKwik are also in talks for the FreeCharge acquisition. While Paytm has already signed a non-exclusive term sheet with FreeCharge at an expected deal value of $45 – $90 million, MobiKwik deal has still not moved beyond speculation.

Founded in 2010 by Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon, FreeCharge was acquired by Snapdeal in April 2015 for $450 million which is currently valued at less than 80%. Not only this, recently it also received an investment of $3.38 million from Jasper Infotech.

Company backed by investors such as Valiant Capital Management, Tybourne Capital Management, and Sequoia Capital had secured total of $177.65 million in six rounds of funding including the funds infused by its parent company.

These acquisition talks have come into picture at a time when parent company Snapdeal is already on the verge of finalizing a merger deal with it rival firm Flipkart.

Gurgaon Based Food Ordering Startup Twigly Raises $600K in Seed Funding

Gurgaon-based food ordering startup Twigly has raised $600,000 in seed funding from Bengaluru-based Tracxn Labs, Hyderabad Angels, Freecharge founder Kunal Shah and Flipkart vice-president (engineering) Gaurav Bhalotia, among others. The company is looking to expand its kitchen-on-cloud business to Delhi and Bengaluru during the next 6-10 months. Also, the startup will use the money to expand into new cities and towards building a food brand that will be made available in supermarkets and online platforms.

Twigly, inspired by US-based Sprig, was founded in August 2015 by Sonal Minhas, Rohan Dayal and Naresh Kumar Kachhi. the company is currently in the process of creating back-end infrastructure to manufacture its private label products. You can expect its products to be available in places such as Godrej Nature’s Basket and Le Marche within the next six months, as per LiveMint report.

Twigly works on an online kitchen model where the food is made at a central kitchen and shipped to customers directly. The menu is limited and changes on a weekly basis. The company runs two kitchens in Gurgaon and delivers close to 150 orders a day and targeting to serve about 1,000 orders a day in the next three quarters. The company’s foray into packaged food category is expected to further boost sales.

“We aim to scale the business to $100 million in sales in the next seven to eight years,” according to Minhas. Twigly, which went live seven months ago, has a customer base of 6,000 people and currently has a 50-member team.

In November last year, Twigly raised $200,000 from angel investors, including Amit Gupta, co-founder of InMobi, Mukul Singhal of SAIF Partners, TracxnLabs, an incubator backed by Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, and Deepak Singh of Anzy Careers.

Other players operating in the space include TinyOwl which merged with logistics firm RoadRunnr (Carthero Technologies Pvt. Ltd) in May to start a new entity called Runnr to stay afloat. Internet-first kitchen Spoonjoy and restaurant aggregator Dazo, which had marquee investors Amazon India chief Amit Agarwal, Google India chief Rajan Anandan and Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, have shut down their shop in October after failing to raise substantial funds.