Tonbo Imaging Bags $17 Mn From WRV Capital In Series B Funding

Defence startup Tonbo Imaging has raised $17 million in series-B funding led by WRV Capital, the largest private venture investment in the domestic defence technology space. In the current round, Qualcomm Ventures, the investment arm of Qualcomm Incorporated, Edelweiss Private Equity and existing investor Artiman Ventures also participated in Tonbo's latest fundraise.

With this latest investment, Ganapathy Subramaniam from WRV Capital and Pranav Parikh from Edelweiss Private Equity have joined Tonbo's board of directors.

Commenting on the development, Nicholas Brathwaite, Managing Director, WRV Capital said “Based on our experience in building and investing in imaging businesses globally, we believe that Tonbo is very well-positioned for rapid growth in both military and commercial markets. We will work closely with Tonbo to expand the use of their imaging platform into new market opportunities including surveillance and automotive applications.”

Building on this momentum, Tonbo will use the financing to continue expanding its global reach in defense markets, accelerate product growth and innovation in automotive safety markets and continue evaluating strategic acquisition opportunities in specialized technology areas of lasers and photonics.

“We plan to spend the funds on scaling up our international operations, which constitutes 70% of our revenue and invest in R&D and product development on commercial businesses. We are (also) looking at acquiring companies with expertise in lasers and photonics, and are in discussion with a few firms worldwide,” said Arvind Lakshmikumar, Chief Executive, Tonbo Imaging.

The Bengaluru-based startup that partners with the Indian military was founded in 2008 by BITS-Pilani alumni Arvind Lakshmikumar. Tonbo Imaging has been a pioneer in computational imaging and machine learning driven image acquisition. Tonbo’s technology combines fundamental innovations in the image acquisition process along with powerful computer vision algorithms to support superior imaging and scene interpretation for a wide range of applications.

Tonbo leverages the computing power of consumer electronics hardware and economies of scale of contract manufacturing to build systems that outperform existing technology in size, weight, power, and cost.

Our goal is to “democratize night vision imaging technology” says Lakshmikumar. “Our technology leverages the power of computational imaging on consumer electronics hardware to provide our customers with the most sophisticated imaging packages that are needed for the harshest of military applications. While this technology has been military qualified, it has also been built to move into mainstream commercial applications. We are working actively to see large-scale adoption of this technology for vehicle safety and other autonomous operations,” he added.

With Tonbo’s technology, night vision has become cheaper, easier to integrate and completely unrestricted. Over the past five years, Tonbo’s imaging technology has caused a disruption in the global procurement of military electro-optics systems.

Tonbo’s growth has been driven by increased demand from emerging markets that are looking to modernize their aging military equipment. In defence, the sights are mounted on tanks, drones, guns and other artillery to allow soldiers to see better at night over long ranges ­ the sophistication they need in modern battlefields. The ability to see better at night, over longer ranges and effectively engage targets, is a much needed and sought-after technology. Tonbo’s products offer these markets the sophistication they need for today’s modern battlefield.

Since its Series A funding from Artiman Ventures in 2012, Tonbo has grown its staff to over 170 highly specialized imaging, machine learning and computer vision engineers located in Bengaluru, Palo Alto, Greece, Poland and Singapore.

Tonbo’s products are deployed across 25 countries addressing needs spanning surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting across the ground, air and naval applications. It counts among its customers, global military forces, Tier I defense and homeland security agencies.

This Series B round is the largest private venture investment in the Indian defense industry, and one of Silicon Valley’s largest investments in defense technologies.

Mobikon, Marketing & Customer Engagement Platform For F&B Industry, Raises $7M In Series B Funding

Mobikon, a leading marketing and customer engagement platform for Food & Beverages (F&B) industry, today announced raising of $7 million in Series B funding from a three-member investor consortium, Sistema Asia Fund (Proprietary fund of Russia’s largest conglomerate, Sistema JSFC), C31 Ventures (Singapore) and Qualgro & participation from the existing investors, i.e.- Jungle Ventures & Spring Singapore

Mobikon to utilise the latest round of funding to scale up its business in India, South East Asia and Middle East. The company also plans to penetrate deeper into existing markets and build the next level of leadership team in India, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Philippines, Singapore and new markets like United Kingdom (UK) and Australia in the next 12-18 months. Prior to this round of funding, Mobikon had raised Seed funding in 2012 and Series A funding, amounting to US$5 million from Jungle Ventures, Life.Sreda, Qualgro, Spring Singapore, and Lion Rock, in 2015. The capital raised by the company from new and existing investors,now totals $12 million.

Set up by Samir Khadepaun in 2012, Mobikon currently has presence in 6 countries and has 700 restaurants brands with over 3400 outlets globally. The company plans to launch operations in United Kingdom (UK) and Australia by January 2018 and double the number of restaurants on its platform over the next one year. Having witnessed more than 200% growth in FY 2015-2016, the company has again set an estimated growth rate target of 200% for the next financial year. The company is in line with its goal to achieve a market leadership position in the South East Asia by 2019.

Speaking on the latest round of funding, Samir Khadepaun, Co-founder and CEO of Mobikon said, “We are very excited with this major round of funding. It will help us scale faster and strengthen our products across key markets. With Sistema Asia Fund and C31Ventures coming onboard, it will help us to further strengthen our market leadership positioning in customer engagement and marketing. Besides funding, Sistema Asia Fund (SAF) and C31Ventures bring in other distinct advantages. While SAF has great knowledge in building scalable teams, C31Ventures has strong inroads across South East Asia. This would help us in our aim to attain market leadership position in the said geography.”

Dhruv Kapoor, Managing Director- Sistema Asia Fund Advisory added, “Sistema Asia Fund is excited to partner with Mobikon in its remarkable journey to build a global customer engagement and analytics platform for F&B industry. What Samir and his team have achieved so far is truly remarkable. Over 700 brands spanning over 3400 outlets in 9 countries, all use Mobikon's platform to interact and engage with over 8.5 million customers. With fresh investments coming in, I am confident that the Mobikon team would go full steam in their scale up plans.”

“Mobikon Provides unique platform for F&B outlets to capture data, get feedback, perform analytics and improve marketing. It helps them to use technology to drive improvements in customer service, marketing and increase revenue. Larger franchises are also seeing the benefits this can bring to their business and we are excited to be a part of this journey” - Jason Edwards, Co-Founder, Qualgro VC

Mobikon provides a single dashboard for the entire spectrum of restaurant services including; quick service, fine dine, casual dine and cafes, intelligent engagement with customers, with integration across ordering, reservations, feedback, payments and marketing platforms. Its proprietary platform mEngage is the only platform for F&B marketers to have a 360 degree view of customers. For the F&B industry, the impact is seen in improved revenues by 3-5%, increase in customer loyalty, greater returns on investments (ROI) on marketing spends and seamless inStore operations. Mobikon has also made two acquisitions in the last two years that includes – trii.be - a marketing platform for the food and beverage industry and a Mumbai-based social and marketing solutions providerMassBlurb. Mobikon had also made a strategic investment in Hipcask last year; which is an online pre-buying & gifting platform for alcohol and coffee.

Mobikon has presence in India, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines. The platform usage has increased multi-fold, and now powers over 160,000 in-store reviews per month, having over 8.8 million unique diner profiles. Last year, restaurants have engaged over 17.8 million diners on the platform. Some of the leading brands in its kitty are Shakey’s pizza in Manila, Bistro Group Manila, Minor Group Singapore, Leopold’s of London in UAE, LiteBite Foods India, Pan India Foods, Pind Baluchi, Oriental Group, Billion Smiles, JP group, Speciality Restaurants and many other large and medium groups.

Innoviti Raises $18M in Series B Round to Grow its Payments and Lending Businesses

Leading payments company, Innoviti Payment Solutions today announced financing of Rs 120 Crores (~ USD 18 million) to further its vision of digitally organizing the flow of money for businesses across the retail supply chain. The current round was led by the SBI-FMO Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners and existing investor Catamaran. Masterkey Holdings, Bangalore were the exclusive investment bankers to the deal.

Less than 10% of India’s retail payments are currently digital, creating a market opportunity of more than $500 Bn annually. Similarly, the shortfall in supply of funds to SMEs is estimated in excess of $300 Bn and is difficult to solve in the absence of technology-based solutions. Further the Indian market requires a differentiated approach to product design given the communication infrastructure challenges and low levels of awareness about digital technologies. Innoviti has focused on an experience-centric approach to solving these problems through its uniPAY Next and smelending.com platforms. Deep technology has been used to build solutions that work within existing infrastructure constraints to deliver payment processing reliability of more than 96% vs. the industry average at ~80%. Enhanced reliability builds confidence in digital payments with both the consumer and the merchant. Transaction processing time has been brought down to an average of ~2 seconds (vs. industry averages at 7 seconds), thus delivering a superior experience to the customer.

Over the past twelve months Innoviti has also been extending the platform to provide lending solutions for small businesses. Branded as smelending.com, this platform extension provides a frictionless process for addressing the short-term working capital requirements of small businesses. Using technology to automate all aspects of the lending process, the platform enables loans as small as Rs. 30,000 (US$500) for periods as short as 15 days. Designed as an asset light platform, smelending.com connects lenders to small businesses and processes more than 150,000 loans annually for over 30,000 such small businesses.

On the payment processing side, Innoviti has several recent firsts to its credit. These includes a) the launch of faster contactless card acceptance for the first time in multiplexes, b) launch of UPI acceptance in offline retail through its UPI@POS solution in collaboration with NPCI, and c) launch of automated acquirer fallback feature to provide greater payment processing reliability to merchants struggling with store and bank network failures.

The current round of funding will be used to a) aggressively market the uniPAY Next experience to acquire customers looking for greater speed and reliability in their payment acceptance, b) rapid expansion of smelending.com platform to provide working capital loans to kirana stores and brand franchisees and c) expand the product to address payment and lending issues beyond just retail to more businesses across the supply chain.

Innoviti’s payment platforms serve a marquee client base of merchants including Reliance Retail, Titan, Landmark Group, INOX, Indigo, Walmart and several others. Leading banks such as HDFC, ICICI, Axis, SBI, Standard Chartered, Kotak and Citibank use the platform to access customers for processing their payments and distributing to them loans.

“A rapidly growing Indian economy with fledgling infrastructure needs a different approach to delivery of payment solutions. An approach that first focusses on making every transaction happen, and happen fast. Innoviti with its extensive experience and relationships in the payments space has embarked on the journey of delivering to this simple promise of speed and reliability in payments. The current funding from marquee investors is a huge endorsement of our approach and business plan. We believe that our platform is a game changer and are eager to utilize this round of funding to rapidly scale our presence," said Mr. Rajeev Agrawal, CEO, Innoviti.

Image: Rajeev Agrawal, CEO, Innoviti

Epigamia Raises Series B Funding of 90 Cr from Verlinvest, DSG Consumer Partners and InnoVen Capital

Drums Food International, the parent company of Epigamia Greek yogurt, announced a Rs 90 Crore Series B financing. The round was led by Verlinvest, a Belgium-based consumer focused private equity group created by the founding families of Anheuser-Busch InBev, and DSG Consumer Partners (DSGCP), an early stage venture capital firm run by consumer industry veteran Deepak Shahdadpuri, and also included venture debt participation from InnoVen Capital, India’s largest venture debt provider backed by Temasek Holdings. The company plans to innovate & launch new flavours, initiate brand-building activities and increase production capacity through the new capital.

Rohan Mirchandani, Co-Founder & CEO, Drums Food International said, “It has been such a pleasure to work with Verlinvest and DSGCP, they have been true value-added partners and helped us grow the business with full support and assistance. We have been able to see firsthand why their global track record is so successful! Partnering again in this round was a no brainer and with their support we plan to continue expanding our product lines, categories, and geographies. With the recent additions to our leadership, including Siddarth Menon, Francis Vidhayathil and Dharmesh Joshi, the missing pieces to our dream team are now in place and the sky is the limit for this amazing team I am proud to be a part of.”

Epigamia is India’s first branded and leading premium Greek yogurt which has rapidly gained traction with the Indian consumer. Made with all-natural ingredients and no preservatives, Epigamia is popular across a wide consumer demographic, positioning it as the snack of choice for India’s health-conscious millennials.

Since raising its Series A round last year from Verlinvest & DSGCP, the company has expanded distribution by over five times and launched the Epigamia Snack Pack, the first of its kind in Asia combining dry snacks to be mixed with Greek yogurt through innovative packaging.

Nicholas Cator, Executive Director, Verlinvest said, “We are very happy with our fantastic partnership with Epigamia and Rohan. We believe there is great growth potential to offer premium dairy products to Indian consumers and Epigamia addresses this with a compelling proposition. Verlinvest prides itself on being a daring investor in the consumer world and enabling entrepreneurs through inspiring journeys. Epigamia fits well within this vision.”

Talking about the developments in the FMCG market and growing relevance of Greek yogurt, Deepak Shahdadpuri, Managing Director, DSG Consumer Partners said, “DSGCP is pleased to continue our relationship with Rohan and the amazing team at Epigamia with this new round of investment. Along with our partners Verlinvest, we have seen the team launch India’s first Greek yogurt and more recently, the first yogurt snack pack a few months ago. Core to Epigamia’s success is its unrelenting focus on innovation and always delighting the customer. With this new round of funding, we will see exciting new products coming to the market focused on healthy and functional benefits. Indian consumers are increasingly looking for exciting new products that taste delicious.”

The Company also announced that Arjun Anand, from Verlinvest’s Singapore office, and Prashant Chhaya, former Executive Director at Cadbury (Mondelez International), will join the Company’s Board of Directors.

“We are happy to continue to back a talented team that has set out to build the leading premium dairy brand in India. Greek yogurt has great health and wellness benefits and we believe that Greek yogurt and premium dairy in general will become large categories in India. This increased investment in Epigamia alongside DSGCP fits well within our partnership to be a long-term supporter of young brands and talented entrepreneurs in growing categories in India. Rohan has put together a great Board of Directors with talent across strategic areas and I look forward to joining them soon,” said Arjun Anand.

"The value added dairy market in India is predicted to grow at double digit rate over the next few years. With rising popularity of probiotic products, superior offering, higher level of brand recall & awareness & increased market penetration, Epigamia is well placed to lead the Greek yogurt market in India," said Prashant Chhaya.

Launched in June 2015, Epigamia is currently available in 8 unique flavours across 4000+ retail stores such as Reliance Fresh, Godrej Nature’s Basket, Future Group Foodhall & Big Bazaar, Hypercity, e-commerce platforms such as Big Basket, and numerous general trade retailers spread across Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, and Hyderabad.

The company is positioned to become a formidable FMCG player in the fast emerging "GLocal" space –global quality and locally made in India.

Indian Fintech Startup Telr Raises $3M in Series B Funding from Innovations East

Telr, one of the fastest growing payment gateways with operations in the Middle East, South East Asia and India, has received an investment worth $3 million from Innovations East, a fund managed by people with extensive experience in marketplaces and online payments, as part of their Series B funding round.

The investment will be used to build out and enhance Telr’s core product proposition, roll out new payment methods and scale up operations in focus markets, especially India and other emerging markets. Funds will also be deployed, through selective partnerships, in creating an ecosystem for SMEs seeking to take their businesses online – with initiatives such as a web store builder and short-term lending.

Commenting upon the fund-raising and future plans, Sirish Kumar, CEO and Co-Founder of Telr said, “Since its inception in 2014, Telr has prided itself in providing a full technology stack payment platform including anti-fraud, social commerce, clearing and settlement capabilities. The infusion of funds in the Series B round would help Telr to not only strengthen its core offering, but also innovate around payment methods. Furthermore, while we focus on deeper penetration in the UAE, India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Indonesia, the funds will facilitate our continued expansion to other emerging markets.”

Telr has an extremely senior team with prior experience of working at firms such as WorldPay, PayPal, Standard & Poors and Voice Commerce. The company has won various awards such as “Arabian Business: Start-up of the Year” in 2014, “The Asian Banker: Best Payments Product” in 2015 and the founder Sirish Kumar also received “Entrepreneur of the Year Award” in 2016.

With growth of more than over $500 mn of transactions annually, Telr anticipates reaching $1 bn of transactions per year by the end of 2017. Through its earlier rounds of fund raising, Telr had raised funds from investors in Singapore and the Middle East, including Hatcher and iMena Holdings.

Wodehouse Capital Advisors advised on the transaction.

Bengaluru Based Gourmet Meat Brand Licious Gets $10M in Series B Funding

Bengaluru based leading gourmet meat brand, Licious, run by Delightful Gourmet Pvt. Ltd, announced today that it has secured $10 million in a Series B funding round led by Mayfield India, 3one4 Capital, Sistema Asia Fund and Neoplux Technology Fund. The investment is expected to boost business growth for the company and facilitate its expansion plans in other markets like Hyderabad and Delhi-NCR. In a highly commoditized space, this investment will fuel the company’s innovation efforts which have helped the brand achieve a differentiated consumer perception in a short time.

Licious, which was founded in June 2015 by Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, is a consumer brand backed by technology which is pioneering its way into reshaping the meat industry in India and structuring a highly unorganized sector by taking a major chunk of the value chain under its purview.

Built on the farm to fork model, Licious owns the entire back-end supply chain powered by stringent cold chain control in order to scientifically maintain the quality and freshness of each product that reaches the end user. This unique business model allows the company to bolster its business in a sustainable manner. The company’s plan to scale up its business has been complemented by its sharp focus on profitability. The securing of a Series B Funding, in a volatile investor environment, validates the strong fundamentals that has accelerated growth for the company since its inception in 2015.

Licious had previously raised angel funding and Series A Funding of USD 3.5 Million from 3one4 Capital and Mayfield Capital. The Series B fund, which has been garnered within two years of its existence, will be generated by the two existing investors as well two new investors. Sistema Asia, a Russia based venture fund will make its first consumer investment in India through Licious, after completing three investments in the technology space in the recent past. Neoplux Technology Fund, a South Korean Fund, is foraying into the Indian market by investing in Licious.

“We are excited to announce our Series B funding of USD 10 Million, as it comes in the wake of rapid expansion plans that we have set out for the company’s growth. Being a modern consumer brand that places high importance on the product quality and bespoke consumer led innovations in our product range, complemented by assured delivery promise, we wanted to establish a startup that revolutionizes the meat industry in India. We are extremely happy that Licious has started off in the right direction and is now the highest funded startup in the meat industry.” said Abhay Hanjura, Co-Founder at Licious.

“It is heartening to note that in an investor environment that is fraught with uncertainty, we have managed to secure some of the most reputed funding companies to put faith in our business. Our strengths lie in the fact that we work on sound business fundamentals that focus on profitability and sustainability. The Series B Fund will greatly aid us in beefing up our back-end and expanding in newer markets after strongly laying the foundation in the Bangalore market.” said Vivek Gupta, Co-Founder at Licious.

“Licious is a first mover in building a full stack meat gourmet brand in a market where demand is unconstrained (70% + non-vegetarians) and supply is largely unorganized (90%+). Company has exhibited rapid scale and customer loyalty in Bangalore in a capital efficient manner. We at Sistema Asia Fund are excited to partner with Abhay and Vivek in building a new age Pan-India gourmet brand leveraging the power of technology and internet” Dhruv Kapoor, MD, Sistema Asia Fund Advisory
“There is growing demand for branded fresh meat and meat products in India. The Licious brand, with its focus on taste, quality and hygiene, is well on its way to serve this market need. The Company is driven by product innovation and technology combined with a focus on traditional business fundamentals that has helped scale the business and build India’s first fresh meat brand. We are happy to have partnered with them and are excited about their journey ahead” said Nikhil Khattau, MD, Mayfield India.

Licious has expanded exponentially in the past two years and now possesses 11 delivery hubs and employs around 250 people across different functions in their company. The number of orders has grown from 1000 in the first month to a remarkable 50,000 orders in 2017. The assurance of quality and health has been a key feature of the company since the beginning and has translated into an 80% repeat customer rate. In order to meet the standards of freshness and quality, Licious has formulated a zero inventory model. It has built contractual arrangement with large institutional meat vendors who are trained on managing livestock and meat handling techniques. Therefore, they are able to regularly supply fresh produce to Licious by adhering to the stringent quality standards set by the sourcing team within the company.

CreditMantri Gets $7.6M in Series B Funding Led by Quona Capital

A vast majority of Indian consumers have limited access to formal credit. The CreditMantri platform was created to bridge this gap between consumers and lenders and thereby make credit possible. Using a combination of traditional data (such as credit reports) and alternative data (such as social media, data from mobile phones etc.), CreditMantri enables consumers to create their credit profile in order to understand their credit potential. The firm has raised $7.6 million funding in series B round led by Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund, managed by Quona Capital along with Newid Capital and existing investors -  Elevar Equity, IDG Partners and Accion Venture Lab. The company has served over 1.4 million users till date with over 60% of users providing access to over 2000+ credit relevant data points in-order to build their credit profile using CreditMantri’s proprietary algorithm. All data is captured or shared only after obtaining explicit consumer consent.

The CreditMantri profile helps users understand their credit potential and this understanding helps them make informed and considered credit decisions. On the platform, users can discover loans, credit cards best matched to the profile from lenders across the risk continuum, resolve and dispute issues on existing loans and borrowings, and reduce current borrowing costs.

On the supply side, CreditMantri provides financial institutions access to better quality consumer risk profiles besides helping these institutions cut down on expensive credit operations processes and disburse loans faster. Consumer demand data on the platform is used to create custom credit products to address unmet credit needs e.g. providing unsecured personal credit lines for new to credit consumers or debt consolidation loans for credit challenged consumers. Rich profiling data results in lenders not having to waste resources on applications which do not meet their credit criteria. Over 40 lenders already use the platform to source consumers, resolve past loan issues and expand into new customer segments.

“Lending in India, and doing so responsibly, is a huge opportunity, and alternative data is the key to unlocking this potential. The digitization of Indian consumers’ financial data, pioneered by CreditMantri, is the catalyst that will help build a truly financially inclusive India. Quona is very excited to partner with CreditMantri team and we have tremendous confidence in the team and the way they are solving this important problem,” says Ganesh Rengaswamy, a Founding Partner at Quona Capital, which manages the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund.

CreditMantri was founded by three former Citibank executives - Ranjit Punja, R Sudarshan and Gowri Mukherjee. CEO Ranjit Punja says “The richness in the quality of our credit profiles is validated by the uptake and portfolio performance of the tailormade loan products launched in partnership with financial institutions. The response from consumers and lenders has far exceeded our expectations and validates that we are solving a real market need”.

CreditMantri will use the funds to grow its user base, strengthen its’ product proposition and build out the team. Veda Corporate Advisors were the bankers to the transaction. “The funds raised will help us deliver a complete suite of products and services to give the Indian consumer better choice and make credit truly possible” says Ranjit Punja.

Matrix Partners Backed Ofbusiness Raises Rs 75 Cr in Series B Investment Round

Ofbusiness, a Gurgaon-based technology-enabled SME marketplace, has raised INR 75 Crores in its Series B funding round led by Zodius Technology Opportunities Fund (ZTOF), one of India’s leading growth stage tech and digital funds, with participation from existing investors Matrix Partners India and angels.

Ofbusiness was launched in January 2016 with the aim of solving the problems of price discovery, reliability and financial access in one of India's largest and inefficient segments, the SME space, by harnessing the power of technology. It combines commerce, credit and logistics services for SMEs in the geographical clusters that it operates in. The commerce is around primarily raw materials in construction and manufacturing and suppliers on the platform are also mostly SMEs that find new markets and channels.

Asish Mohapatra, Co-founder, Ofbusiness said, “We at Ofbusiness are passionate about the SME space given our collective experiences and the opportunity it offers in both depth and scope for innovation. “Profitable” commerce is how we acquire customers, credit will lock them in and gradually, we will add more services in the network. We intend to build the largest SME network in India. Zodius is a highly respected name in the growth capital world, known for supporting businesses that disrupt deep offline sectors through sheer execution and technology. It’s a privilege to have them as partners in our quest to be the most trusted and deepest SME network in India.”

Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix India, added, “Indian MSME/SMEs are adopting technology at a rapid pace and ready to transact online, opening up perhaps one of the largest markets in India. The OfBusiness approach combining technology, credit and deep geographical operating expertise is leading to fantastic growth with sustainable economics. We are privileged to partner with Asish, Bhuvan, Ruchi and a fantastic management team here; and welcome Zodius to the partnership”

Gautam Patel, Managing Director, Zodius, said, “We are strong believers in the digital commerce market opportunity where we have backed B2C e-commerce companies like PepperFry, BigBasket and Zivame. We are excited to invest in the B2B commerce sector as well where Ofbusiness has a unique “Cluster-wise” approach to servicing SME Buyers & Sellers. Their combined high touch relationship management and product capability (material, credit and logistics) will make them the profitable leader in the sector”.

Ofbusiness is currently present in 10 industrial and construction clusters across India. Since its start, the Company is off to a rapid scale with best in class industry metrics in profitability, working capital, transaction sizes and repeat rates. The latest infusion of funds takes the total capital raised by the company till date to over INR 100 Crore. Ofbusiness now plans to significantly expand its footprint to cover 30+ clusters, more product lines like consumables. The Company’s growth is also expected to be driven by its financial services subsidiary which will enable greater access to financing for the SME ecosystem. The subsidiary will be led by a strong team from the financial services sector under ex-Mckinsey partner and co-founder, Ofbusiness, Ruchi Kalra.

Highlighting the importance of technology, Bhuvan Gupta, Co-founder, Ofbusiness, said, “Our initial focus has been to build technology that makes us, buyers and suppliers efficient in commerce and related services. With this raise, we intend to further deepen the presence of technology among SMEs.”

Image Source: ShutterStock

Indifi Technologies Raises $10M in Series B Funding Round

Indifi Technologies, an enabler of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME) financing in India, announced today it has raised $10 million in a Series B investment round led by philanthropic investment firm Omidyar Network, established by the founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar. Existing investors Accel Partners and Elevar Equity also participated in the round. Indifi Technologies, while maintaining its focus on MSME businesses, intends to direct the investments towards furthering its products and technology.

Further elaborating on the intended use of the capital raised, Alok Mittal, CEO and cofounder of Indifi Technologies, said: “Through our current roadmap, we have validated our vertical approach to financing and are now present across travel, e-commerce, retail, and hotel segments. The capital raised in this series will be targeted toward improving our offerings in these verticals. That means not only expanding our product lineup but also creating a more seamless customer experience, and enhancing our data and credit models. We are delighted to have Omidyar Network as a new partner in our journey, and are excited to leverage their global perspective and experience.”

Commenting on the investment, Smita Aggarwal, Director, Investments, Omidyar Network, said: “This investment strengthens our commitment of backing innovative business models that increase access to credit by underserved segments in India. Indifi’s unique platform combines smart data analytics and strategic partnerships with supply and distribution chain aggregators in a one-stop solution, revolutionizing the way lenders reach and underwrite credit to MSMEs, while helping them grow and thrive.”

In the past several months, Indifi Technologies has significantly expanded its lenders’ portfolio, increasing the offering of segment-specific product and credit design, and enhanced its proprietary data analytics to strengthen credit quality.

Dairy Brand Osam Raises $6.7M in Series B Funding Led by Lok Capital and Aavishkaar

Ranchi-based HR Food Processing Private Limited (HR Food), which manufactures and markets dairy products under the brand ‘Osam’ has raised Rs 45 crores ($6.7mn) in Series B funding. This round of funding was led by Lok Capital advised Growth Catalyst Partners (GCP) – the third fund from the India focused VC firm along with co-investment from existing investor, Aavishkaar India II Company Ltd. The funds will be utilised by the company to expand its production capacity and further its distribution outreach into neighbouring districts in Jharkhand and Bihar.

Following the commercial launch in 2015, Osam has established itself as a leading private dairy brand in Jharkhand, with a procurement network reaching more than 10,000 dairy farmers, processing around 40,000 litres per day and selling products through a network of 3,000 plus retailers across Jharkhand. Leveraging this fundraise, HR Food has already acquired another dairy plant in Jharkhand and is looking at other acquisitions to capture a significant share of Eastern India’s dairy market.

India is the largest consumer of dairy products and the consumption of milk alone constitutes to 400 million litres per day. The dairy market is expected to grow at 16% CAGR and reach $155 bn by FY 2020. However, the per capita consumption of dairy in East India is almost 50% lower than the national average, indicating huge potential for companies like HR Food to create strong consumer brands and build large dairy businesses.

Founded by Abhinav Shah, Rakesh Sharma, Abhishek Raj and Harsh Thakkar, HR Food identified a large demand-supply gap in the states of Bihar and Jharkhand that have low penetration of organized dairy players and focused on building a seamless dairy supply chain in these underserved areas. The company positively impacts the livelihoods of dairy farmers by training and enabling them with modern practices in dairy farming, procurement of livestock, design of farms, milk procurement, processing, packaging and delivery. HR Food’s integrated model, procures milk directly from farmers in Bihar, processes it at its facility in Jharkhand and sells its products like milk, curd, lassi, and paneer to retailers.

Talking about the latest round of funding, Abhinav Shah, Co-founder and CEO of HR Food, said, “We are very excited to partner with Lok Capital for this critical fundraise and thankful for Aavishkaar’s ongoing support, which has been indispensable in building the Osam story. With this round of fundraise, Osam is well poised to deepen its outreach into key target markets in East India, with an expanded production capacity enabling our growth, and emerge as the leading dairy brand in Eastern India.”

Agri-diary is one of the important investment themes for Lok’s third fund as it offers good growth potential and the right blend of socio-economic impact and brand creation. The fund will support businesses that create value for small and marginal farmers along with generating good commercial returns. Lok believes that there is tremendous scope for agri-dairy enterprises to innovate, scale-up and address the challenges faced by the Indian agri and dairy sectors.The funding in Osam marks Lok’s first investment in dairy and second investment in the agri-diary space, following earlier investment in a Pune-based company, SV Agri Processing from its fund II – Sarva Capital.

Announcing the latest investment, Rajesh Babu, Director, Lok, said, “Given the large opportunity present in the dairy industry and the significant scope for high-quality private sector players to operate in the space, Lok is keen on backing integrated business models that make dairy and agriculture more sustainable for farmers. Osam is transforming the dairy sector in Jharkhand and Bihar through high quality customer offerings and improving farmer livelihoods by providing transparency on price, quantity and quality to over 10,000 farmers.”

Ajay Maniar, Partner, Aavishkaar said “We are extremely encouraged by the growth and build-out of Osam. We have invested in the company since the ideation stage and are delighted by the company’s progress and the validation of our investment thesis. We look forward to the founding team to continue and build on the momentum as they establish Osam as the dominant player in Jharkhand and Eastern India.

Unitus Capital was the exclusive investment banking advisor. Richa Natarajan, Vice President, Unitus Capital (UC) said, “Dairy has always been a critical part of UC’s mission given its potential to transform the lives of millions of farmers. We are very proud to have played a role in Osam’s successful fund raise and look forward to helping them scale over the coming years!”

Angel Investor and Entrepreneurial Product Leader Anand Chandrasekaran Invests in NoBroker.com

NoBroker.com has announced that Angel Investor and Entrepreneurial Product Leader, Anand Chandrasekaran has invested in the company. The investment further strengthens NoBroker’s robust investor portfolio.

NoBroker.com had raised Series B funding in February this year. The total funding raised by NoBroker.com so far is $13 million. The company’s portfolio of investors includes SAIF Partners, BEENEXT- Singapore-based venture capital firm run by Teruhide Sato, Digital Garage (early investor in Twitter), BEENOS, Qualgro and Mr. Mamoru Taniya of Asuka holdings.

Speaking on his investment, Mr Anand Chandrasekaran says, “NoBroker.com is disrupting an age old real estate industry. The business model is hugely scalable and the product reach has global potential. Innovative products driven by technology have removed intermediation in majority of sectors and it is happening in real estate as well. I am excited to guide their vision at a global level.”

Since raising the series-A round, NoBroker has grown 20 times across all key dimensions: website visitors, registered users and new property listings. “Since inception, our focus has been on building a disruptive product and enhancing customer experience. Our product philosophy is driven by innovation and fulfillment of customers’ stated and unstated needs. We are excited to have Anand as an investor. His expertise in building products of global standards will help us take our disruption to the next level”, says Akhil Gupta, CTO and Co-Founder, NoBroker.com.

NoBroker.com has served over a million customers making it the world’s largest C2C real estate platform. The firm is adding 1 lakh customers on a monthly basis and witnessing 5 lakh customer connections every month which leads to a saving of more than 18 crorers. NoBroker.com recently moved to a freemium subscription-fee based model. “There is a huge customer demand and acceptance of a brokerage-free real estate marketplace. Our focus is on building a profitable business by breaking-even next year”, says Amit Kumar Agarwal, CEO and Co-Founder, NoBroker.com.

The market size of residential rental and resale brokerage alone in top 20 cities in India is a whopping $6.5 bn which is estimated to grow to $17 bn in next 5 years. The problem that NoBroker.com is trying to solve has massive scale and impact. It is set to disrupt, redefine and democratize the real estate sector for the benefit of the customer. Before NoBroker.com, a typical rental transaction would cost 2 months brokerage and a resale transaction used to cost buyers & sellers a combined 4 to 6 per cent of the deal value as brokerage. NoBroker.com has managed to crash this transaction cost and put the savings back in customer’s pocket.

NoBroker.com is a brokerage-free real estate portal that connects customers directly with each other by eliminating the middleman. NoBroker.com is disrupting the real estate sector by removing the information asymmetry with the use of cutting edge technology and innovation. It was founded by Akhil Gupta from IIT- Bombay, Amit Kumar Agarwal from IIT- Kanpur and IIM- Ahmedabad andSaurabh Garg from IIT- Bombay and IIM- Ahmedabad.