Goldman Sachs Acquires Majority Stake in PeopleStrong for $130 Mn

Goldman Sachs has acquired a majority stake in PeopleStrong, a Gurgaon-based HR software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm, for $130 million (approximately ₹1,200 crore) reported The Economic Times. The deal involved Goldman Sachs purchasing Multiples PE’s 84% stake in PeopleStrong, along with a portion of the employee stock option (Esop) pool.

This acquisition marks a significant move in the HR SaaS space, following a similar private equity buyout earlier this year when Everstone Capital acquired Wingify for around $200 million. PeopleStrong, founded by Pankaj Bansal in 2005, serves over 500 companies across India, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.

The company reported total revenues of ₹274.5 crore in FY24, slightly higher than ₹271.7 crore in FY23, and managed to turn profitable with a net profit of ₹57 crore, compared to a net loss of ₹84 crore in the previous year.

PeopleStrong’s CEO Sandeep Chaudhary expressed excitement about the partnership, highlighting Goldman Sachs’ global expertise in SaaS and AI as a key factor in driving the company’s next phase of growth.

The acquisition marks a significant development in the HR technology landscape in India.

This transaction, reported to be around a $130 million deal in some media coverage, underscores PeopleStrong’s robust market position as one of the few EBITDA-positive firms in the HR tech sphere and highlights its operational strength and growth prospects.

PeopleStrong is widely recognized for its AI-powered HCM platform that integrates key capabilities such as applicant tracking, payroll processing, employee experience management, and talent management. With over 1.5 million paychecks processed monthly and a growing client base that includes major organizations across sectors such as banking, retail, aviation, and healthcare, the company currently serves more than two million individual users.

The strategic investment is expected to fuel the next phase of PeopleStrong’s expansion—its ambition is to scale up to 10 million users globally within the next five years. This growth plan is driven by an emphasis on AI-led product innovation and deeper market penetration, both domestically and across emerging international markets like the GCC region.

For PeopleStrong, the deal with Goldman Sachs Alternatives is more than just a capital infusion—it represents a partnership that leverages Goldman Sachs’ deep expertise in SaaS and global market dynamics. According to statements by PeopleStrong’s CEO Sandeep Chaudhary, the alliance is intended to further drive operational excellence and technological innovation, ensuring that the company not only maintains its competitive edge in the HR SaaS space but also scales sustainably.

At the same time, for Goldman Sachs, this move reinforces its strategic commitment to high-growth technology sectors and the digitization of enterprise HR functions, areas that have been gaining significant traction in the global market.

Previously, a significant stake in PeopleStrong was held by Multiples PE, which had nurtured the company’s growth over the years. The transition to having Goldman Sachs Alternatives as a majority stakeholder signals confidence in PeopleStrong’s business model and its future prospects in the rapidly evolving HR tech arena. This deal also fits within a broader trend of private equity investments in SaaS companies, as investors increasingly focus on scalable, technology-driven platforms that promise both sustainability and robust returns.

Looking ahead, this acquisition sets the stage for PeopleStrong to accelerate its innovation and expand across new markets, reinforcing its position as a frontrunner in the increasingly competitive HR technology space. With the backing of a global powerhouse like Goldman Sachs, PeopleStrong is well-positioned to harness advanced AI capabilities and drive the transformation of HR practices, benefiting a diverse range of industries and clients worldwide.

In A Largest By InsurTech, InsuranceDekho Raises $150M in Series A Funding

• Largest ever Series A round by an Indian Insurtech company
• Goldman Sachs Asset Management and TVS Capital Funds led the equity round
• Investcorp, Avataar Ventures and LeapFrog Investments also participated
• Funding InsuranceDekho’s vision of insuring every Indian

InsuranceDekho, India’s leading Insurtech player, today said it has raised $150 million in Series A funding consisting of a mix of equity and debt, the largest ever series A round by an Indian Insurtech company. The equity round was led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and TVS Capital Funds with participation from Investcorp, Avataar Ventures and LeapFrog Investments.

InsuranceDekho was founded by Ankit Agrawal and Ish Babbar in 2016. Since its inception, the company has seen significant premium growth and aims to achieve annualized premium run-rate of INR 3,500 crores by March 2023.

The latest funding will be used to scale up InsuranceDekho’s product and technology functions, expand to new markets, launch new innovative products in the health and life categories, grow the company’s Micro, Small & Medium Enterprise (MSME) insurance business, strengthen its leadership team and pursue inorganic growth opportunities.

Ankit Agrawal, CEO and Co-founder, InsuranceDekho, said: “We need to go beyond the urban regions when it comes to insurance penetration in the country. To realize our goal of democratizing insurance for the general public, we are expanding our reach and will continue to build on our tech-based solutions and empowered advisors so that they can serve every village and region of India by the end of the year. India is on the verge of a revolution in insurance, and InsuranceDekho is well positioned to meet the insurance needs of every Indian.”

Ish Babbar, CTO and Co-founder, InsuranceDekho, said: “Insurance distribution in India is a complex problem that needs innovative solutions. The fundraise will enable us to deploy scalable Insurtech solutions in the areas of data analytics, Artificial Intelligence, last mile servicing and claims management while keeping customer experience at the core of everything.”

India’s current insurance penetration is 4.2% of GDP compared to 12% in the USA and 7%2 globally. Almost 85%1 of India’s existing insurance premium is centered in the metros and Tier 1 cities. InsuranceDekho aims to change that. As part of its mission to provide access to insurance throughout the country, InsuranceDekho gets 82% of its premium from Tier 2 and beyond regions. It is present in more than 1,300 towns covering 98% of pin codes in India and is working towards establishing 100% penetration in the country.

By the end of this calendar year, InsuranceDekho aims to have more than 200,000 insurance advisors active on its platform.Typically, most InsuranceDekho insurance advisors observe a threefold increase in total household income within six months of being associated with the company. The advisor's ability to earn more allows them to significantly improve the quality of living for their families.

InsuranceDekho works with most insurance providers and has direct integration with 46 insurance companies across India offering more than 380 insurance products including 175 products for health and life. InsuranceDekho intends to expand its portfolio by offering more products in near future.

Haitong Securities India acted as sole financial advisor to the fundraise.

Amit Jain, CEO and Co-founder, CarDekho Group, said: “Celebrating the spirit of entrepreneurship and thriving on the robust value system, CarDekho Group has promoted the culture of being a ‘House of Founders’ who have fostered various disruptive ideas and propelled these businesses to the orbit of sustainable growth with profitability. It’s heartening to see that InsuranceDekho under Ankit’s leadership, has come a long way as it continues to disrupt the Insurtech space in India by leveraging its unparalleled unit economics, the best technology, phenomenal partner practices, and innovation to set new benchmarks in stakeholder experience.”

Rajat Sood, a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management said: “Technological innovation is transforming the Indian insurance industry by making coverage more accessible and affordable. InsuranceDekho has demonstrated a proven ability to bring new-to-insurance channel partners to their platform, while empowering them through technology-based solutions and working closely with insurers. We look forward to leveraging our global domain expertise and supporting the management team in its expansion to provide broader coverage and more solutions nationwide.”

Praveen Sridharan, Partner, TVS Capital Funds said: “Though insurance is vital for financial security of everyone, its penetration is still at 4.2% of Indian GDP compared to global overage of 7.4%. The key for this is to access the middle and lower middle income class—the next 400 million—living in the next 1000 towns of India. InsuranceDekho, with its agency model and digital DNA, offers a powerful mechanism for this penetration to expand. We are convinced on the InsuranceDekho model. Of course, we always back founders who can demonstrate bringing alpha and were impressed with Ankit and the team basis their execution capability, operational excellence, and superior technology skills. We are delighted to partner in their journey of enabling access to insurance products to the 600,000 villages of India.”

About InsuranceDekho

InsuranceDekho was incubated within India’s leading Auto-tech and IPO bound Unicorn - CarDekho Group. InsuranceDekho is a brand name owned by Girnar Insurance Brokers Pvt Ltd (GIBPL). GIBPL was incorporated in 2016 and has been granted the license to act as a Direct Insurance Broker by the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (“IRDAI”) in 2017. It enables its consumers to compare different insurance policies based on their requirements and helps them purchase the most suitable plan. The company currently has tie-ups with 46 insurance companies offering more than 380 plans on its platform. 10 Indians buy a policy from InsuranceDekho every minute. InsuranceDekho is headquartered in Gurgaon and has a presence in 1300+ cities across the country. Multi-talented Director Actor Farhan Akhtar is InsuranceDekho’s brand ambassador.

www.InsuranceDekho.com

Google and Goldman Sachs Partner with Infobip to Launch Mentorship Program for Startups of the Youngest EU Member Country

Aerial Photo of a Croatian  Island [Photo by Palo Cech from Pexels]

US-based tech and finance leaders eyeing Croatia as the next European Silicon Valley

16 Croatian startups included in the Scale|Croatia mentorship program now have access to the best tech and financial experts advising them on the development of their businesses

Infobip is the bridge between the vibrant Croatian startup ecosystem and the global leaders

US-based Google and Goldman Sachs today announced a new partnership with Infobip to launch an innovative mentorship program for startups from Croatia, the youngest EU member state with a population of more than 4 million. The country already has created its first two unicorns and its potent startup community is increasingly standing out in the Southeastern Europe region, and within the EU. Infobip, the leading global cloud communications platform, is one of the examples of a successful startup that started in small Croatia and reached unicorn status.

Google and Goldman Sachs recognized Infobip as a leader in the tech ecosystem in Croatia and the region. The Scale|Croatia joint mentorship program is open to all Croatian-based startups from Infobip’s Startup Tribe program. In the first year of Scale|Croatia, founders from 16 Croatian startups have received access to a 4-month mentorship program, enabling even faster and better-quality development and scaling of their businesses.

“Jigsaw is honored to participate in the Scale|Croatia mentorship program to further develop the tech ecosystem in this emerging European hub. We look forward to continuing to partner with emerging leaders of innovative companies in the region,” said Scott Carpenter, Director at Google Jigsaw.

Startup founders will get dedicated mentors from Google and Goldman Sachs with whom they can consult on various aspects of business development - product development, fundraising, marketing, sales and other fields.

“We decided to pilot this project with Croatian startups as we noticed a pattern of almost unlikely - but outstanding success stories. The data shows remarkable results for the up-and-coming Croatian tech sector. Croatia seems to be on a path that’s very similar to Estonia and Israel in the earlier days of their ecosystem, so the timing to engage with this particular group of young entrepreneurs feels very opportune“, said Jared Cohen, Co-Head of Applied Innovation and President of Global Affairs at Goldman Sachs.

Among the 16 startups from Croatia, Osijek-based Orqa stands out - a world leader in developing FPV goggles for drone pilots, and other startups developing products.

"We are very pleased that through Scale|Croatia we can help Croatian startups to more easily reach global leaders such as Google and Goldman Sachs. The fact that such large companies recognized the potential of our startup ecosystem is validation for us at Infobip, but also an important honor for the tech sector in Croatia, which positions itself as a new European tech hub, the European Silicon Valley alike. I wish much luck to all startups in the program and I am convinced that they will use all the opportunities it brings them,” concluded Nikola Pavešić, Director of Startups at Infobip.

The program was launched in June with an on-site event in New York City, attended by the majority of the 16 startup founders. The on-site kick-off was held in both Offices of Goldman Sachs and Google, where participants had an opportunity to listen to experienced speakers from both companies.

"The program opened access to a completely new level of expertise for Croatian startups, which unfortunately cannot be found at home. To be specific, we found it extremely useful to gauge the experience of Google in the field of product management, as well as the experience that Goldman Sachs has in listing tech companies on world stock exchanges. We are extremely grateful to Infobip and the Infobip Startup Tribe for everything they are doing for the regional startup ecosystem, and I hope that other large local companies will be inspired by this", said Srđan Kovačević, co-founder and CEO of Orqa.

Currently, the startups are halfway through the program, and positive results have already been reported. The Scale series, if proves successful with the Croatia edition, it will serve as a blueprint for other regions across the globe as well.

“We are very pleased that, through the Scale|Croatia, we can help domestic startups reach global leaders such as Google and Goldman Sachs, which ten years ago - when I was personally running my startup, was nearly impossible. Now with programs like this, this is no longer the case, and I am extremely proud that we at Infobip now serve as a bridge for all startups in the region to connect to the world’s center of the tech industry", concluded Ivan Burazin, Chief Developer Experience Officer at Infobip.

About Infobip

Infobip is a global cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected experiences across all stages of the customer journey. Accessed through a single platform, Infobip’s omnichannel engagement, identity, user authentication and contact center solutions help businesses and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications to grow business and increase loyalty. With over a decade of industry experience, Infobip has expanded to 70+ offices across six continents. It offers natively built technology with the capacity to reach over seven billion mobile devices and ‘things’ in 190+ countries connected directly to over 700 telecom networks. Infobip was established in 2006 and is led by its co-founders, CEO Silvio Kutić, COO Roberto Kutić and CTO Izabel Jelenić.

AlphaSense Raises $225 Mn Series D Led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Viking Global, Valuation Jumps to $1.7 Bn

• Increase in valuation driven by strong business performance at significant scale
• More than doubles its user and customer base in the past year, surpassing $100 million in recurring revenue
• Innovation hubs in Pune, Mumbai, and Delhi to hire local talent and double the strong cohort of developers in India

New York-based AlphaSense, the leading market intelligence and search platform, today announced its $225 million Series D financing round led by the Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Goldman Sachs) and Viking Global Investors. 

The financing values the company at $1.7 billion, which is nearly double the valuation from its $180 million Series C funding in September 2021 that was also led by Goldman Sachs and Viking Global. This new funding round includes a substantial debt investment from funds and/or accounts managed by BlackRock earlier this year.

AlphaSense’s platform leverages proprietary search technology powered by AI and NLP to extract relevant insights from an extensive universe of public and private content, including company filings, earnings transcripts, expert call transcripts, news, trade journals, and equity research. Having on-demand access to key data points and insights enables professionals to make critical decisions with confidence and speed, thus improving business performance and outcomes.

The valuation increase is commensurate with AlphaSense’s rapid and sustained growth and follows the achievement of key revenue and product milestones; notably, annual recurring revenue (ARR) now exceeds $100 million. In addition, AlphaSense experienced significant gains in other key metrics, including user and customer base, which both grew by well over 100% in the past year.

Raj

AlphaSense’s base of 3,500 customers now includes over 78% of the S&P 100, 97% of the Dow 50, 70% of the top asset management firms and banks, and leading companies in wide-ranging industries such as energy, industrials, consumer goods, and technology, with the platform appealing to knowledge workers across a wide range of roles including strategy, competitive intelligence, investor relations, corporate development, and financial analysis.

“We are excited to upsize our investment in AlphaSense,” said Holger Staude, a Managing Director within the Growth Equity business at Goldman Sachs. “Achieving high organic growth and strong business fundamentals while exceeding $100 million in ARR is a substantial accomplishment and demonstrates the team’s focus on building an enduring business in a large market."

John Doyle, Director of Venture Lending at BlackRock, added, “AlphaSense’s impressive growth and high-quality customer base reflect the power of its platform to substantially improve productivity and enable smarter data-driven decisions for users across industries and roles. We are excited about our debt investment in AlphaSense at this important stage in its evolution.”

The capital infusion will be used to further invest in product development, content expansion and customer support, and to drive organic growth as well as strategic transactions. Recent acquisitions include the purchase in October 2021 of Stream by Mosaic, provider of a leading library of expert interview transcripts, as well as the purchase of Sentieo, a financial intelligence platform designed for investors, which closed last month. The company intends to use the funding to grow across all its offices globally, including its innovation hubs in India, which are located in Pune, Mumbai, and Delhi.

Raj Neervannan, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of AlphaSense, said, “The Series D round highlights investor confidence and shows the quick pace at which AlphaSense has been growing. The fresh funding will help us improve our value offering, furthering our mission to help companies across industries make better decisions faster and with greater confidence.” He added, “With this financing round, we also plan to expand our innovation hubs in Pune, Mumbai and Delhi. We recently doubled our India presence to over 325 people with the recent addition of our Delhi office, and, with our hiring efforts underway to recruit the best talent, we expect our employee count to continue to grow substantially in the coming months. I am proud and delighted by the growth India is seeing and hope to strengthen it.”

About AlphaSense

AlphaSense is a market intelligence platform used by the world’s leading companies and financial institutions. Since 2011, our AI-based technology has helped professionals make smarter business decisions by delivering insights from an extensive universe of public and private content—including company filings, event transcripts, expert call transcripts, news, trade journals, and equity research. Our platform is trusted by over 3,500 enterprise customers, including a majority of the S&P 500. Headquartered in New York City, AlphaSense employs over 1,000 people across offices in the U.S., U.K., Finland, Germany, and India. For more information, please visit www.alpha-sense.com.

About Goldman Sachs Asset Management Growth Equity

Bringing together traditional and alternative investments, Goldman Sachs Asset Management provides clients around the world with a dedicated partnership and focus on long-term performance. As the primary investing area within Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), we deliver investment and advisory services for the world’s leading institutions, financial advisors and individuals, drawing from our deeply connected global network and tailored expert insights, across every region and market—overseeing more than $2 trillion in assets under supervision worldwide as of March 31, 2022. Driven by a passion for our clients’ performance, we seek to build long-term relationships based on conviction, sustainable outcomes, and shared success over time. Follow us on LinkedIn. 

About Viking Global Investors

Founded in 1999, Viking is a global investment management firm that manages approximately $48 billion of capital for its investors. It has offices in Greenwich, New York, Hong Kong, London, and San Francisco and is registered as an investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. For more information, please visit www.vikingglobal.com.

Goldman Sachs is Exploring Creating its Own Cryptocurrency

American multinational investment bank Goldman Sachs is exploring creating its own cryptocurrency, revealed Mathew McDermott, who is a Goldman Sachs' newly appointed head of digital assets and a managing director who ran the investment bank’s internal funding operations.

CNBC reported that, at Goldman Sachs, McDermott, the newly appointed head of digital assets is expanding his team, doubling its headcount with hires in Asia and Europe.

One Goldman project involves collaboration with JPMorgan, potentially regarding how the two banks’ nascent technology efforts could work together.

said McDermott

“In the next five to 10 years, you could see a financial system where all assets and liabilities are native to a blockchain, with all transactions natively happening on chain,” said the new digital assets head.

The company also indicated a possible collaboration with other companies, including JPMorgan and Facebook. JPMorgan has created the JPM coin and Facebook has proposed the Libra cryptocurrency project.

Goldman Sachs is reportedly hiring JPMorgan Chase’s head of digital assets strategy - Oli Harris, who was involved in JP Morgan’s cryptocurrency, the JPM coin, and was also a vice president in charge of Quorum, the ethereum-based blockchain platform that underpins the JPM coin.

It is speculated that Goldman's sudden move to cryptocurrency love is result of the recent research which revealed that Wall Street giants are increasingly moving even larger transfers of bitcoin and cryptocurrency as institutional investors in North America pile into bitcoin and cryptocurrency and the trend thought to be rise further.

Open Source AI Creator H2O.ai Raises $72.5 Mn funding from Goldman Sachs, Ping An

New Delhi, Aug 20 (PTI) H2O.ai, an artificial intelligence (AI) firm, on Tuesday said it has secured USD 72.5 million (about Rs 519.7 crore) in a funding round led by Goldman Sachs and Ping An Global Voyager Fund.

The series D round also saw continued investment from Wells Fargo, NVIDIA and Nexus Venture Partners, a statement said.

With the latest infusion, the total funding raised by the company is about USD 147 million.

Jade Mandel from Goldman Sachs will be joining the H2O.ai Board of Directors, it said.

With this new round of investment, the company plans to accelerate innovation and expand sales and marketing globally, the statement said.

"The new investment will be used to further simplify AI for business users with new and ground-breaking technologies," it added.

[caption id="attachment_133269" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] H2O.ai Team[/caption]

H2O.ai will also continue to innovate to support AI4Good with a focus on wildlife and water conservation, and investments in its academic program that makes the H2O.ai portfolio freely available to students, researchers and universities, the statement said.

Currently, the company has a small presence in India with about half a dozen people and an AI Centre of Excellence in Chennai.

The company plans to expand this to a team of 40 people in the next 12 months.

H2O Driverless AI, the company's automatic machine learning platform, has helped tripled H2O.ai's customer base.

Its customers include names like Booking.com, Capital One, Comcast, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Franklin Templeton, Hitachi, MarketAxess, Nationwide Insurance, PwC, Tokio Marine, Wells Fargo and Walgreens.

"H2O.ai is democratizing AI and powering the imagination of every entrepreneur and business globally - we are making them the true AI superpowers," H2O.ai founder and CEO Sri Ambati said.

Founded in 2012, H2O.ai's investor base includes names like Barclays, Capital One, Crane Ventures, CreditEase, New York Life, Paxion Ventures, SST Holdings, TransAmerica and Walden River Wood. PTI SR

All Images - Twitter.com/h2oai/

Furniture E-Tailer Pepperfry May Raise $100 Mn from Existing Investors

Private Equity fund of American investment bank, Goldman Sachs, along with Norwest Venture Partners and Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) may invest $100 million in furniture e-tailer Pepperfry, reported ET Tech, citing sources privy to the development. All three investors are already investors in Pepperfry.

The funds raised will help Pepperfry expand its offline presence and diversify to strengthen its position in furniture market which is riding on a wave set off by Global giant like Ikea, a Siss company entered India last year.

Ikea, along with search giant Google, are contemplating to enter Indian e-commerce market as they both are coming up with their own e-commerce stores under their own brand names respectively, to sell their branded products under one roof.

Existing investors of Pepperfry are looking at investing $100 million into the company and according to the report, fresh equity will be issued in the proposed round in which the investors will seek to maintain their level of holdings in the company.

In July 2015, Goldman Sachs, Bertelsmann India Investments and Norwest Venture Partners, have contributed in $100 million Series-D rounding of funding of Pepperfry. This was followed by an additional 210 crore investment in September 2016.

Founded in 2012, by Ambareesh Murty and Ashish Shah, Pepperfry.com has raised a total of about $198 million in funding over 6 rounds. Their latest funding was raised about $34 million in March last year, according to data by Crunchbase. NOtably, in the same month of same year, Pepperfry's rival, Urban Ladder, too had raised $12 million from Kalaari Capital, SAIF Partners, Sequoia Capital and Steadview Capital, in its second internal round of funding.

According to industry estimates, India's online home-furnishing and furniture retail market is expected to cross $1.1 billion in revenue this year, up from about $900 million in 2016.

FabHotels Raises $25M in Series B Round from Goldman Sachs and Accel Partners

FabHotels, a technology-driven budget hotel franchise, announced today that it has raised $25 million in a Series B investment led by Goldman Sachs Investment Partners. Accel Partners, an existing investor, also participated in the round. The funds will further accelerate the nationwide expansion of FabHotels.

FabHotels’ franchise model focuses on partnering with 20 - 40 rooms capacity budget hotels. Such unbranded budget hotels, with over one million rooms of capacity, make up the largest and most fragmented hospitality segment in India today. The company uses its proprietary technology platform to deliver superior yields to franchisees and assists in property operations for the delivery of best-in-segment stay experiences to travelers. FabHotels also operates a professional training academy for hotel staff and on the ground quality control teams.

"We have built our technology framework and operations with three core objectives: delivering a superior return on investment to our franchise partners, providing consistent high-quality experiences for hotel guests and building a strong sustainable business for everyone involved,” said Vaibhav Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO, FabHotels. “This investment by Goldman Sachs Investment Partners will further strengthen our market leadership position, brand and expansion.”

FabHotels currently operates over 5,000 rooms across more than 225 franchise hotels in over 20 major cities across India, including Mumbai, the National Capital Region and Bengaluru.

"We see significant growth potential in the budget lodging market in India and believe it is ripe for disruption,” said Shweta Bhatia, head of Asia investments at the Venture Capital and Growth Equity team at Goldman Sachs Investment Partners. “With technology at its core, FabHotels has scaled significantly within a short duration of time. We expect them to continue to transform and enhance the Indian hospitality marketplace.”

"There is enormous opportunity to innovate around the hospitality experience of today’s budget traveler in India,” said Prashanth Prakash, a partner at Accel Partners. “FabHotels management team has built a strong brand and business operation representing quality, transparency and reliability.”

The Goldman Sachs Investment Partners Venture Capital and Growth Equity team partners with entrepreneurs around the world to build disruptive businesses. Since 2003, the team has invested more than $6 billion in private opportunities globally.

Pepperfry Raises Rs 210 Cr in Series E Round of Funding from Existing Investors

Pepperfry.com, Indian furniture and home marketplace, has raised Rs 210 Crore in a fresh round of funding from current investors Goldman Sachs, Bertelsmann India Investments (BII), Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and Zodius Technology Fund. This is the largest investment raised by a vertical-focused, pure-play ecommerce company in India this year. These funds will be used to scale Pepperfry’s logistics & service network and to expand the Pepperfry Studios’ (Experience Centers) footprint.

In the last five years, more than three million customers have made purchases from over 10,000 merchants on the Pepperfry platform, leading it to a position of dominance in the online furniture and home segment in India.

In India, Pepperfry owns and operates the largest customer facing Big Box Supply Chain through 17 fulfilment hubs and a delivery fleet of over 400 vehicles, delighting customers across 500+ cities.

In the last year, Pepperfry has also extended its customer offerings to include Bespoke Interior Design Consulting and Project Management Services and has launched Pepperfry Studios in India’s six largest metros.

In these next few months the Pepperfry Studio coverage will be extended into Tier II and III towns, and in keeping with Pepperfry’s sharp focus on customer experience significant investments will be made behind Supply Chain Automation and the Big Box logistics network will expand to 1000+ Cities.

Ambareesh Murty, Founder & CEO of Pepperfry said, “Our mission is to help 20 million customers’ create beautiful homes by 2020. We are doing this through a differentiated, profitable business model and I thank our investors for believing in the team and for being great partners on this journey”.

Ankur Sahu, Co-Head of Private Equity at Goldman Sachs in Asia said, “Over the past year and a half, Pepperfry has continued to successfully innovate, grow its business and deliver on the macro theme of domestic consumption growth in India. In partnership with the talented management team, our goal is to establish a differentiated and sustainable leader in India’s rapidly growing ecommerce industry to stand the test of time.”

Pankaj Makkar, Managing Director, Bertelsmann India Investments said, "The Indian internet story has just begun and the furniture category is set to witness explosive growth over the next couple of years. Pepperfry is an exceptional brand and is well positioned as the market leader to ride this next wave of market expansion”.

Niren Shah, Managing Director, Norwest Venture Partners said, “Pepperfry is built on strong values and a differentiated business model. We have been fans of Pepperfry since its inception and are confident that Ambareesh and Ashish will continue to excite customers and create exceptional value for all stakeholders.”

Gautam Patel, Managing Director, Zodius Technology Fund said, “Pepperfry’s success lies in deep understanding of their customers by analyses of customer requirement and experience data. This latest round of funding is a validation of Pepperfry’s value proposition and our continued commitment to the business.”

Paytm in Talks to Raise $300M from Goldman Sachs, Temasek, Mediatek

Mobile payment and ecommerce platform Paytm, is in advanced talks to raise fresh funding of about Rs 2,000 crore ($300 million) from Taiwanese semiconductor maker MediaTek, Goldman Sachs, Singapore's Temasek and other investors, as reported by ET. Existing investors, which include Alibaba and its payments affiliate Alipay besides venture capital firm SAIF Partners, will also be participating.

According to multiple source, the new round is expected to value the company at close to $5 billion. The money will be deployed across all of Paytm's businesses -digital payments, online marketplace and the upcoming payments bank.

Paytm was valued at $2.3 billion in the last round of capital infusion in June.

Paytm rivals in payments include Mobikwik, which recently raised $40 million from South Africa's Net1, and Snapdeal-owned Freecharge, which has been looking to raise a $150-300 million round since October 2015. Flipkart is also expected to launch its mobile payments business under PhonePe next week, and plans to invest $100 million initially.

Over the last 12 months, Paytm has been pushing its offline to online business aggressively, entering areas like movie ticketing, petrol pump payments, taxi payments and education fees among others. This is expected to be key drivers in monthly gross merchandise value (GMV) increasing to $500 million by December from $300 million in July, Sharma told ET in an interview earlier this month. Sharma had also said that Paytm is running at a 1% operating loss, which includes online marketing, payment gateway and cashback costs.

As of now, Paytm's Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma holds 21.33% stake in One97 communications (Paytm's parent company) and its earliest venture capital investor SAIF Partners has 30.81%. Alibaba holds 8.53% while Alipay is the single largest shareholder with a 32.41% holding.