Japanese Payments Firm Anypay Backs Bengaluru Based Instamojo

On-demand payments and e-commerce platform, Instamojo has secured an undisclosed amount of funding in pre-series B round from Anypay, a Japanese payments firm. Existing investor, Kalaari Capital also participated in the current round.

This latest round of funding marks Anypay's foray into the Indian internet market. Prior to this round, the company has raised $2.6 million from Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures, 500 Startups and others in November 2014.

The latest funding will allow Instamojo to expand its suite of offerings and introduce e-commerce enabling services such as cataloging, logistics, shipping and GST compliance assistance.The company will leverage big data and introduce financial services such as lending via third-party providers in the coming months. Instamojo plans to expand its leadership team to meet these goals.

Commenting on the development, Shinji Kimura, CEO, AnyPay said “For the first time, many Indian small businesses will be able to go digital, including themselves into the mainstream financial system.We are excited about the possibilities and the future of the Indian SME market, and hold confidence that Instamojo will be able to capture that often underserved market space.”

Based out of Bengaluru, Instamojo provides payments and e-commerce offerings for SMEs looking to digitize their business. It connects marketplace which connects small business owners with sellers who offer services such as content development, logo and web designing, translations, digital marketing, SEO analytics etc.

Founded in 2012, Instamojo enables over 3,00,000 SMEs to build, manage and grow their business online. The company has acquired 10% of the digitally-active SMEs in India and controls 30% of their annual turnover. Instamojo aims to extend its wallet share to 70% by 2019 and grow its merchant base by 400% in 2018.

It has features such as a shopping cart, optimized SEO links, advanced analytics, payment links for easy checkout, sales reports and other important apps like accounts and tax-related tools to offer a complete online business experience to merchants. The company claims that it adds over 20,000 products to the store on a monthly basis and the 5000+ stores have over 1,00,000 monthly visitors.

“We, at Instamojo understand the nuances of small businesses in India and leverage cutting-edge design and technology to deliver highly customizable solutions. With our vertical approach, we aim to cater to the end-to-end requirements of merchants and become an integral part of their growth story. We are inspired by Shinji Kimura's intuitive ability to build scalable businesses and look forward to leveraging AnyPay’s expertize to further drive the adoption of online payments and e-commerce among SMEs.”, said Sampad Swain, Co-founder, and CEO, Instamojo.

In April 2017, Instamojo had announced that it aims to expand its current merchant base of 250,000 to 1 million by next year. Instamojo has successfully increased the number of merchant registrations on the platform by 106% and has witnessed a 150% growth in new merchant activations in the last financial year.

The company also announced the launch of a suite of strategic and powerful solutions that cater to the diverse business needs of merchants and enable them to build, manage and grow their business online with ease.

Fintech Startup Capital Float In Talks To Raise Rs 300 crore

Capital Float, a digital lending startup is reportedly is in advanced talks to raise around Rs 300 crore in a new funding round.

According to the media reports, Ribbit Capital, the US-based finance technology focused venture capital is in talks to lead the fresh round of funding. It is believed that existing investors SAIF Capital and Sequoia Capital will also participate in the latest round so that their stake in the company is maintained. The company plans to utilise the fresh funds for expanding its lending portfolio to consumer financing and for financing kirana stores as well. After this round, the company is expected to be valued at around Rs 1,300 crore.

Founded in 2013, the startup is based in Bengaluru with offices in New Delhi and Mumbai. The fintech startup is an online platform that provides working capital finance to SMEs in India. The company offers flexible, short-term loans that can be used to purchase inventory, service new orders or optimize cash cycles. With the help of this platform, borrowers can apply online in minutes, select desired repayment terms and receive funds in their bank accounts in 3 days with minimal hassle.

Capital Float is the trade name of Zen Lefin Pvt. Ltd., a non-banking finance company (NBFC) registered with the RBI. Talking about their management team, it consists of experienced professionals with prior careers in blue-chip companies such as McKinsey & Company, Gokaldas Exports, Oracle, Citibank, Capital First, and Wipro. They also hold advanced degrees from leading universities around the world such as Stanford University, Princeton University, IIT Mumbai, The London School of Economics and Delhi University.

Earlier in 2017, the startup had raised debt capital from several investors. It raised Rs 15 crore from Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services by allotting non-convertible debentures (NCDs) and Rs 17 crore from IFMR Capital Finance through NCDs in December 2016. Not only this, Capital Float has recently partnered with Amazon India to enable e-commerce sellers to manage their dynamic working capital requirements.

Talking about Ribbit Capital, it has been investing in India since 2014. The firm has invested in companies like Policybazaar.com, a Gurgaon-based fintech startup, consumer lending startup ZestMoney to name few.

IIT-M Incubated DeTect Technologies Secures Funding from IIM Ahmedabad's CIIE, Axilor Ventures, Others

An IoT tech startup, DeTect Technologies has secured an undisclosed amount of funding from IIM Ahmedabad's CIIE, Axilor Ventures and angel network Keiretsu Forum. According to ET reports, around 15 investors on the Keiretsu network invested in the company which was led by entrepreneur Anil Jain's AJ Ventures. This year, DeTech was part of Axilor's latest accelerator batch and is one of the few to have received funding from Axilor's fund.

The company plans to use freshly infuse funds towards R&D and expansion to cater international clients.

Commenting on the development, Ashwin Raguraman, a partner at CIIE's Bharat Innovation Fund told ET, “DeTect's IoT product for high temperature and inaccessible pipelines and other industrial assets is at the cutting edge of technology and demonstrates how deep technology, which is globally competitive, is being built out of India. We are excited to support DeTect in its journey from having a world-class product to becoming a world-class business.”

Incubated at IIT Madras’s incubation cell in 2013, the startup builds technologies for the heavy industrial sector for asset monitoring. The IoT startup was founded by alumni Daniel Raj David, Harikrishnan AS, Karthik R, Tarun Mishra and professor Krishnan Balasubramanian. The company had received initial funding from the IIT Madras incubation cell through one of its first clients ­­ Reliance Industries.

The startup who have a drone named Noctua now offered to nearly 10 leading organisations, including BPCL, HPCL and Tata, among others. Not only this, it has also developed an ultrasonic sensor called GUMPS which caters to the energy sector for inspection of pipelines through remote monitoring. The company is now planning to eye on international clients.

Click2Clinic Announces Acquisition Of Wellness Home Healthcare Agency, Launches Clinicopedia

The Hyderabad-based startup Click2clinic has announced the launch of Clinicopedia, a health app that enables connected home health services. Connected home care platform provides home health care and companionship services for people who want to live in the comfort of their home. During the launch, the startup further announced the acquisition of wellness home health care agency in Bangalore.

Commenting on the development, Dr. Sujeeth R. Punnam, MD, FACC, Founder, Chairman , Click2Clinic said, “This UI friendly app is being currently upgraded with My Health Manager which will have a portal where every patient can seamlessly transfer the patient reported outcomes synchronized with a popular digital health devices like glucometer, blood pressure monitor, weight scale and so on. Our custom connected home care plans to keep people happy, safe and cheerful in their own homes is also gaining steady adoption.”

Further, startup disclosed that it raised $600k (Rs. 4 crores) in the US and $250k (Rs1.6 crore) in Malaysia recently for further development of the platform and to step up its app as well as services customer base in newer markets.

Founded by Dr Sujeeth R. Punnam and Dr Murali Bharadwaj, Click2Clinic is currently working on a proof of concept with a large Accountable Care Organization (ACO) in the US for Diabetic patients with patient reported outcomes automatically synchronized with digital health and communicated to the care team.

The light weight app developed by Click2Clinic application development team in Hyderabad is freely downloadable both at iOS and Android stores. The app claims to clocked 12,000 downloads already and the company has set a target of > 100,000 by end of 2017.

“We are excited to announce the incorporation of Click2Clinic Malaysia in this month in partnership with Care Clinics group for connected home health care (unique concept where treating physician is looped into the home care delivery staff). The Care Clinic group has an 80 member strong primary care physicians with a total patient volume of > 1000/day,” said Ram Prakash Sreedharan, Founder, Chairman at Click2Clinic.

Talking about company’s growth projections Vivek Reddy, Chief Operating Officer, Click2Clinic said “We anticipate to garner profits in the first year of operations as we anticipate a tremendous need for such services in the region. Following our Malaysian foray, we will enter Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh markets by end of this year”.

To fuel its aggressive growth targets in the Indian market, the company recently acquired wellness home health care agency in Bangalore with a staff of 80 nurses and care providers for an undisclosed amount in July 2017.

“We will continue to grow both organically and inorganically to accomplish our growth target. Going forward we have drawn a definitive strategy to enter into 10 new cities in the next 1 year including plans to find new partners that will sync with our company’s growth objective,” concludes Vivek Reddy.

Healthcare Firm Portea Medical To Raise $25 Mn From Sabre Capital, Accel

Portea Medical, a home healthcare company is in advanced talks to secure $25 million (Rs 160 crore) in its Series C round of funding. If sources to be believed, Sabre Capital, an India-focused mid-market private equity firm is leading the round. Accel Partners is also participating in the round, as per the sources.

Commenting on the development, Meena Ganesh, CEO, Portea Medical told ET, “Portea is in talks with three investors to raise $25 million. I can’t elaborate further at this point.”

As per the sources, Portea is reportedly raising the capital at a valuation lower than that during the previous investment round in 2015.

Founded in 2013, Portea Medical focuses on general primary health care, post-hospitalization care, chronic disease management and allied services. The company offers home visits from doctors, nurses, nursing attendants and physiotherapists. In addition, Portea also provides the collection of lab samples and medical equipment on hire, bringing the entire gamut of healthcare services to a patient’s doorstep.

Being a part of serial entrepreneurs K Ganesh and Meena Ganesh’s startup factory GrowthStory, Portea in 2015 had secured an investment of $37.5 million from Accel Partners, IFC, Qualcomm Ventures and Ventureast which had valued the company at Rs 628 crore. Prior to this, Portea had received $9 million Series A funding from Accel, Qualcomm Ventures and Ventureast in December 2013.

Not only this, In April 2016, Portea had acquired home medical equipment provider Health Mantra India for an undisclosed amount in cash and stock. I January 2016, the firm had picked up a majority stake in healthtech startup, PSTakeCare, whose platform seamlessly connects key stakeholders in the healthcare delivery ecosystem. The investment in PSTakeCare follows Portea’s acquisition of speciality pharmaceutical distributor, MedybizPharma in November 2015.

The firm claims to handles over 1,20k visits per month across 16 cities and has about 4,500 employees. An email sent to Portea Medical did not elicit any response at the time of publication.

Mobile Loyalty Firm MobiQuest Bags Investment From PayTM

One of the leading digital payment startups, PayTM has pumped in an undisclosed amount in MobiQuest Mobile Technologies, a loyalty firm. The Noida-based company, which uses data analytics and consumer loyalty programmes will help merchants on the PayTM platform target consumers through these programmes. The company will continue to operate as a separate entity post its partnership with Paytm.

This association will power Paytm partnered merchant network to leverage Mobiquest’s data analytics & precision marketing solution in acquiring, engaging and rewarding its customers. With this solution, merchants will soon be able to design customized multi-channel loyalty programs which will enable them to retain and engage their consumer base thereby increasing their revenues.

Commenting on the development, Sudhanshu Gupta, vice-president, PayTM said, "In the next phase of growth, we aim to enable our offline partner merchants with tools that will help them drive incremental sales and revenues. Our partnership with MobiQuest will help us offer mobile-based loyalty programs to our partnered merchants."

Paytm’s partnership with Mobiquest will help its partners to engage with their consumers and leverage the power of mobile technology to widen their consumer base.

Established in August 2008, Mobiquest uses the mobile device to create the largest ecosystem of performance advertising, last mile data capture and data analytics in both digital and offline world through their platform m'loyal. According to the company, more than 100 brands/companies use m'loyal to have one-one connect with their consumers based on actual real time data coming from their Point of Sales (POS). M'loyal platform is available for brands across retail, F&B, fashion, malls, health and wellness and hospitality.

“We are excited to partner with Paytm and leverage the huge consumer base of the platform. Our teams are dedicated to the mission of using real time transaction data to drive meaningful insights for the brands and consistently drive up their Marketing ROI,” said Vineet Narang, CEO, MobiQuest.

M’loyal offers a self-serve mobile enabled loyalty, analytics and campaign management platform to brands across Retail, F&B, Fashion, Malls, Health & Wellness and hospitality among others. M-loyal combines mobile technology with deep drill down analytics to provide higher ROI for marketing spends made by brands.

m’loyal™ today is deployed across more than 200 brands, with over 80 million users on the platform with transactions worth Rs 5000 crore and growing. It not only h the s national presence, but it has expanded its footprint in international markets like Malaysia, Singapore and Dubai.

PayTM, with the current user base of more than 225 million, is on a mission to bring half a billion Indians to the mainstream of the economy using mobile payment, commerce and recently launched Payment Bank. Founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, PaTM is headquartered in the National Capital Region, India. Earlier this week PayTM has announced the acquisition of Insider.in. The startup has acquired a majority stake in Insider.in, a ticketing platform for about 35 crores.

Bengaluru Based Increff Secures $2 Mn Funding From Sequoia Capital

The brand registered under NextSCM Solutions, Increff has secured about Rs 13 crore ($2 million) in a funding round from Sequoia Capital. The other bunch of investors participated the round includes, Premji Invest’s Rajesh Ramaiah, warehouse automation provider Grey Orange Robotics; founders of CareerNet- Anshuman Das and Rishi Das and Jasbir Juneja Director of RedSeer.

Fashion supply chain solution provider Increff plans to use freshly infused funds to enhance its product offering, expand its customer base and hire for its technology team.

Commenting on the development, Rajul Jain, Startup’s chief executive told ET, “The fashion industry, including brand houses, retailers, and e-commerce players, is struggling to generate margins while they try to achieve a faster rate of moving inventory. INCREF's offering takes into account factors such as predicting demand on merchandising level and ensuring constant tracking of every item at warehouse level.”

Founded in August 2016 by former Myntra executives, Rajul Jain, Nirmal Jain, Anshuman Agarwal and Romil Jain, Increff offers an end to-end supply chain management solution for the fashion industry. According to the company website, it provides solutions to identify the “right demand” and enable “fast response” to serve this demand – leading to higher sales at lower inventory. Prior raising this round, startup had infused external funding from Global VC in December 2016.

Earlier in June 2017, OneAssist Consumer Solutions Pvt Ltd had raised $18million in Series C funding Led by Existing Investor Sequoia Capital. Prior to this, it was reported that Gurgaon-based startup, Numberz was in talks to raise a new round of funding from Sequoia Capital. In February 2017, Belong, predictive outbound hiring platform provider had raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from existing investor Matrix Partners India.

Assisted Living Technology Startup Arcatron Bags Seed Funding From IAN

Arcatron Mobility, which manufactures next generation devices to make assisted living more dignified and safe, has raised an undisclosed funding led by Sudhir Mehta, Harish Mehta and Ketan Dalal from the Indian Angel Network.

Startup will use freshly infused funds for the production launch of Frido, a self driven shower and commode wheelchair which fits in a suitcase. In addition, funds will also be utilized to set up online and offline sales channels across major cities in India and filing of IP for future products like the Frido Lite.

Commenting on the development, Indian Angel Network Lead Sudhir Mehta said, “Arcatron Mobility is doing a tremendous job in simplifying and improving lives of elderly and locomotor impaired individuals enabling them to lead more independent and active lifestyles. We are hopeful that with their motto of ‘Purpose Driven Innovation’ Arcatron, will continue to apply engineering and technology for making products aimed at making assisted living more dignified and safe. At IAN, we are happy to make this design lead manufacturing investment”

Notably, Sudhir Mehta is also the Managing Director of Pinnacle Industries, India’s largest commercial vehicle and Interiors Company. According to Sudhir, they have entered into a manufacturing partnership with Pinnacle Industries on favorable terms. This allows Arcatron to have access to a high-tech manufacturing facility with near zero fixed cost. This will also help them to stay asset light and focus on our core offerings i.e. R&D, marketing and sales.

Founded in 2015 by four NIT Calicut alumni, Ganesh Sonawane, Laxmikant Banjarey, Kunal Kamble and Dewaj Baruah, Arcatron is building the next generation of devices to enhance lives of people with limited mobility and elderly care needs.

“We are working on developing various products like the Frido Lite which has the potential to replace most of the transport wheelchairs used by elderly individuals, tourism companies, hospitals, etc. Presently, no product available in India allows people with limited mobility to safely access bathrooms at their homes and on the go, Frido will help solve this problem,” said said Ganesh Sonawane, Co-founder and CEO, Arcatron Mobility.

Indian Angel Network is one of the largest business angel network with close to 500 members across the world. Established in 2006 to foster entrepreneurship with prime focus on nurturing and mentoring new generation entrepreneurs, IAN brought the concept of angel investment to India and has been instrumental in bringing India’s startup ecosystem on the global map. The network is sector agnostic and has funded startups across 17 sectors in India and 6 other countries growing global footprint companies. In the calendar years' 14,15 ,16 IAN has invested about over $32 million in approx. 60 deals.

Not only this, 15 companies have already given cash exits and another 12 have raised next round monies with excellent increase in valuations. Some of its marquee investee companies include, WebEngage, Druva, Stayzilla, Box8 to name few.

Sector Overview

If we look at the figures, market potential for shower and commode wheelchairs in India is around 440 Cr. More than 90% of it is untapped because of lack of availability of the right products. The global wheelchair companies with strong Indian presence have failed to deliver products compatible to Indian infrastructure in shower chair category. Whereas Chinese products dominate the Indian market but are perceived too unsafe and risky by hospitals and most end users. These figures indicate that Indian entrepreneurs have great opportunity to tap this untapped market and offer Indian masses with the solution while making making.

Fintech Startup Rubique Secures $3 Mn In A Bridge Round Of Funding

In yet another game-changing round of finance, Rubique, the fintech company empowering individuals and SMEs by providing easy and smooth access to finance and financial products has raised a bridge round of funding of $3 million. The money has been invested by existing investor Kalaari Capital and Udayan Goyal, managing partner at Apis Partners, a financial services-oriented private equity firm focused on Africa and South Asia.

The recent bridge round of funding came after the company's announcement mid last year that it intends to raise $10-15 million in a Series-B round. The company had raised $3 million in Series A from Kalaari Capital, YourNest Angel Fund, Globevestor and Dexter Angel Circle in April last year.

Commenting on making the fund raising a discreet affair, Manavjeet Singh, CEO, Rubique said, “We delayed our Series B round since the company was already generating revenue worth Rs 2 crore a month for the last six months without spending any money on marketing. In fact we didn't need money for survival. However, we decided to go with the new round of funds as there was immense inbound interest. We’ll be leveraging these funds to make even greater inroads across India, strengthen technology product with rich data science methodologies like AI-MLP and explore new product territories in Insurance & Mutual Funds”

Based out of India's financial capital Mumbai, Rubique was incorporated by Manavjeet Singh along with his partner Sandeep Nambiar on October 2014, to bring every borrower and lender on a common platform. The duo introduced a tech-led lending solution which is unique in terms of its matchmaking algorithm and direct integration with financial institutions’ lending underwriting systems. Rubique’s marketplace platform has been integrated with financial institutions’ systems for real time processing and for providing online approvals to the customer. The advance technology solution not only reduces the processing time significantly but the data analytics done on hundreds of data points helps to bring predictability & assess creditworthiness offering best deal to their customer.

With this technology solution, the model is focused on disbursement rather than mere lead generation allowing the customer to get the best deal in the quickest possible time while lowering the cost for customer acquisition for the financial institutions. With a unique technology-driven model, it aims to tap all customer segments be it the digital savvy or the traditional Indian customer.

Rubique has been truly metamorphosing the traditional lending process through technological interventions in an unprecedented fashion. It has just localised its Rubique Associate app. The interactive app now live in Hindi, Marathi and Bengali language will now enable more number of potential business associates to register with Rubique and earn a commission for every reference search for Loans or Credit Cards. The interface for all the three language apps is an exact replica of the English version, making all the user-friendly features available to speakers of Hindi, Marathi and Bengali.

Its recently launched Rubique Advantage feature, new lending solution TAB and the freshly added insurance products to its portfolio has enabled the platform to disburse more than Rs 1,500 crore worth of loans across 27 cities till date. Of this, Rs 250 crore was disbursed in the last two months alone. Rubique is now looking to expand its team of data scientists as well.

BlueStone.com Raises Rs 200 Cr in Series D Round from IIFL, Accel and Others

BlueStone.com, India’s leading online destination for fine jewellery, has raised a fresh round of funding led by IIFL and Accel along with Kalaari Capital, RB Investments and IvyCap Ventures. The ₹200 crore fund will enable the company to grow the category and strengthen its leadership position.

Globally, the online jewellery segment is witnessing exponential growth and is expected to capture 10% of total jewellery sales by 2020. The Indian precious jewellery market which is currently valued at $60 billion is projected to cross the $1 10 billion mark in the next five years with online contribution estimated to be in the $2 – 3 billion range.

Currently, the online jewellery segment in India contributes less than 0.5% but is growing at 5X YoY as compared to traditional jewellery players. BlueStone.com has planned major investments in expanding design and manufacturing capacity as well as marketing initiatives to grow the online jewellery segment.

According to Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, Founder and CEO, BlueStone.com, “BlueStone.com pioneered the category of online fine jewellery in 2011 and in a short span of five years has captured majority market share. We are now targeting a four-fold increase in revenues to touch Rs 1000 crore by 2018 and we want to achieve this goal in a profitable and sustainable manner. The new round of investments underscores the success of the company’s vertically integrated full stack online first business model and the enormous untapped potential in the jewellery category.”

Prashanth Prakash, Partner, Accel Partners said, “BlueStone.com has posted strong, sustained growth and set several benchmarks in the online jewellery retail industry in India like leveraging technologies such as 3D Visual Merchanding to omni-channel initiative of Home Try-On. We are committed to extend our association with BlueStone.com as we see immense potential in the brand.”

Speaking on the latest fund raise, Vani Kola, Managing Director, Kalaari Capital said, “BlueStone.com has a high quality team and has grown rapidly over the last year. With the strong foundation and this capital infusion, we believe BlueStone.com is well positioned to build a large online jewellery brand in India.”

BlueStone.com offers over 5,000 unique jewellery designs and plans to scale to 30,000 designs in the next three years. With design, manufacturing and logistics capabilities built in-house, the brand is able to quickly expand its manufacturing capabilities and customize its design offerings as per market trends.

Headquartered in Bangalore, BlueStone.com had earlier raised funds from Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, IvyCap Ventures and Saama Capital. Mr Ratan Tata and Ms Meena Ganesh (CEO of Portea) have also invested in the company. With the latest fund raise, the total funding received by BlueStone.com is $60 million.

Image - Gaurav Kushwaha, CEO and Co-founder, BlueStone