India's 1st Processor IP Company Incore Semiconductors Raises $3 Mn in Seed Funding from Sequoia India

Chennai-based InCore Semiconductors, India's first Processor IP company, has raised $3M in seed funding from Sequoia India.

The funding will support the company's mission to build innovative RISC-V processor cores and contribute to India's growing semiconductor industry. InCore will use the raised funds to enhance its portfolio of Core-Hub generators and reference SoC (System-on-Chip) platforms aimed at multiple segments of the embedded chips space.

To recall, prior to InCore Semiconductors, Sequoia India has invested in $2.325 funding round of MindGrove Technologies, also a Chennai-based semiconductor startup. 

InCore is building proprietary in-house developed family of RISC-V core generators. RISC-V is an open standard instruction set architecture based on established reduced instruction set computer principles. Unlike most other ISA designs, RISC-V is provided under royalty-free open-source licenses.

InCore’s RISC-V Core-Hub Generators are software tools that generate hardware designs based on proprietary RISC-V processors. These generators provide a quick and efficient way to create customized processor cores that meet specific requirements. They enable developers to configure the processor's microarchitecture to meet specific application needs, which is an extension of the RISC-V’s philosophy of configurable and modular architecture is essential in today's rapidly changing computing landscape.

Launched in 2018, by Neel Gala, G S Madhusudan, Arjun Menon, and Gautam Doshi, InCore enables its customers with turnkey processor IP solutions for strategic industrial segments like automotive, industrial automation, and general electronics.

Currently based at IIT-Madras Research Park, Incore’s team has earlier worked for India’s ambitious indigenous processors "Project Shakti" at IIT Madras, and are well-renowned experts in the R&D and industrial corridors.

IIT Madras Incubated Semiconductor Startup Mindgrove Raises $2.32 Mn in Seed Funding

Chennai-based Semiconductor startup MindGrove Technologies has secured $2.325 million in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital India.

Other investors who participated in the round include Speciale Invest and Whiteboard Capital, as well as Ashwini Asokan, CEO of Mad Street Den, and Nischay Goel, CIO of Duro Capital, who participated in their personal.

Mindgrove designs state-of-the-art, scalable, and reliable System-on-Chips (SOCS) in India. These high-performance chips can be leveraged in power-constrained environments such as industrial automation, automotive, consumer electronics, defense, security, and aviation.

Founded in 2021, by Shashwath T. R. and Sharan Srinivas J., Mindgrove design cost and power-effective microprocessor technology in India, for the world. Mindgrove is backed by IIT Madras Incubation Cell, and IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation, a DST, Govt of India funded section 08 company housing the Technology Innovation Hub on Sensors, Networking, Actuators, and Control Systems (SNACS).

Mindgrove designs state-of-the-art, scalable, and reliable System-on-Chips (SOCs) in India. These high-performance chips can be leveraged in power-constrained environments such as industrial automation, automotive, consumer electronics, defense, security, and aviation.

Mindgrove’s series of 3 SoCs - System on Chips - are designed specifically for Edge signal processing and vision applications. They are based on the 'Shakti' core microprocessor which is amongst India’s first industrial grade microprocessors. Shakti was developed at the Reconfigurable Intelligent Systems Engineering (RISE) Lab at IIT Madras, under the Digital India RISC-V program funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) .

About the founders of Mindgrove, Shashwath is an electronics engineer by training. A graduate from SRM Engineering college, Shashwath worked at Lucid Software from 2006 to 2021. Lucid provides Non Destructive Testing (NDT) services to various heavy industries.

During his 15 year stint at Lucid, Shashwath developed specialised ultrasound devices, drivers and computer vision algorithms for the nuclear, oil and gas and the aerospace industry. He is an expert in systems engineering, signal processing and machine vision software.

While, Sharan is a computer scientist with an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Meenakshi Sundararajan Engineering College, Anna University (2012) and a masters degree in Computational Science from ETH Zurich.

At ETH Zurich, Sharan developed an interest in programming for high performance scientific applications. He worked at Lucid Software from 2016-2021 where he developed CUDA/OpenCL programs running on NVIDIA GPUs. At Lucid, Sharan got a taste of hardware and embedded programming, and also met Shashwath.

Mindgrove's journey so far has been made possible by a unique government - academia - industry collaboration. The semiconductor industry itself is a global industry and such collaborations have yielded high returns for countries like Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan in the last few decades.

Gokwik, That Boosts Conversion Rate of D2C e-Commerce Brands, Raises $35 Mn in Series-B Led By Think Investments

(L-R) Ankush Talwar, Chirag Taneja and Vivek Bajpai

• Plans to use the funds to work on tech solutions for large marketplaces, omni-channel players, and continue deeper penetration in D2C
• Committed to remote-first approach to team building, it plans to hire 200+ people across India by end of 2022
• Aims to significantly scale its India operations, with additional key hires focusing on engineering, data sciences (AI and ML capabilities)

eCommerce enablement company GoKwik, which helps brands democratize the shopping experience, has raised $35 million in a Series B round led by Think Investments. The round also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India, Matrix Partners India & RTP Global.

GoKwik is building an enablement stack to nurture the e-commerce sector that is flourishing with new-age D2C brands, social commerce platforms and marketplaces. To combat the complex challenges that are impacting the conversion rates at the pre & post order stage, GoKwik is creating innovative solutions by combining technology, data and UI/UX expertise to drive the overall profitability of the businesses.

 

Being pandemic born and just 15 months old, GoKwik has helped more than 250+ brands by not only solving their many business challenges such as conversion rates, reducing RTO or improving GMV but also by providing a seamless checkout process to their consumers, thus improving their customer experience & retention potential. Marketplaces like Snapdeal, Limeroad & Lenskart & D2C brands like boAt, Mamaearth, Crocs, The Man Company, Neeman’s, The Souled Store, Oziva, Mochi, Plum Goodness, BeBodywise, Man Matters, Bombay Shaving Company, Faces Canada, DaMENSCH etc are already using GoKwik’s technology to reduce cart abandonment losses, pump up incremental sales, and enhance profitability.

GoKwik will utilize the newly obtained funds to broaden its e-commerce enablement stack and grow its network of brands, further optimize their conversion results, and also provide customized solutions. It is further committed to building an eCommerce sanctuary and plans to enable more payment options, increase the prepaid success rate and also ensure financing alternatives to help partner brands provide affordability to an aspiring “Bharat”.

In addition, GoKwik is also working closely with other eCommerce enablers and is striving to create a thriving eCommerce ecosystem for brands & consumers. To support its mission, GoKwik will also utilize the funds to hire new talent extensively across the tech, product, and data science domains.

B2B Sales Intelligence Platform Apollo.io Raises $110 Mn in Series C Funding Led by Sequoia

Company Expands Market Presence With its Category-Leading Sales Intelligence

and Engagement Platform

Apollo.io, the integrated B2B sales intelligence and engagement platform, announced today that it has closed $110 million in a Series C round of funding led by Sequoia Capital, along with existing investors Tribe Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, and NewView Capital. 

With this funding round, Apollo.io will accelerate its product-led growth, increasing its investment in product and engineering by nearly 300% to continue to build the best platform in its category. Apollo.io has raised over $150 million to date.

This Series C round of funding comes at a pivotal moment for Apollo.io. Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) has nearly tripled in the past 12 months. Since announcing its Series B round of funding three months ago, Apollo.io expanded its paid customer base by nearly 60% to over 15,000 paying customers.

"Apollo’s mission is to make world-class go-to-market solutions simple and accessible to all," said Tim Zheng, Co-founder and CEO, Apollo.io. “We are one of the fastest-growing sales platforms integrating the most accurate buyer data with powerful engagement, automation, and intelligence tools to easily find and target the right buyer at the right time with the right message. This funding will enable us to hire the very best people in the industry, continue to build and market our category-leading sales intelligence and engagement platform, and accelerate our growth with investments in marketing and sales."

Apollo.io helps over one million professionals, across 160,000 companies, automate their sales processes and 10X their revenue. Apollo.io's platform includes a B2B contact database with information on over 220 million buyers. Furthermore, the platform offers powerful and smart sales engagement features to help sales teams automate their workflows and outreach driving increased productivity. Apollo.io streamlines the sales process by integrating with other sales tools including Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Sendgrid, and LinkedIn.

"Apollo.io simplifies the convoluted and manual processes of sales prospecting—ultimately, making smart, data-driven GTM simple and accessible to all,” said Sonya Huang, Partner at Sequoia. “Tim and the Apollo team have built a product-led tool that is beloved by thousands of customers. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Apollo on their journey to help every company reach its full potential.”

Earlier in the month, Apollo ranked 3rd on G2's prestigious 2022 Fastest Growing Products list, beating 1000s of companies across the reviewer's website.

Ex- Google Pay Execs' Startup Epifi Raises $13.2 Mn in Seed Funding led by Sequoia India, Ribbit Capital

Bengaluru-based neo-banking startup Epifi on Monday said it has raised USD 13.2 million (around Rs 93.4 crore) in a seed funding round led by Sequoia India and Ribbit Capital.

The company said it will utilise the funds to build its core technology platform, drive sales as well as marketing initiatives and expand its technology team.

The seed funding round that was led by Sequoia India and Ribbit Capital also saw participation from Hillhouse Capital and angel investors, including David Velez, the founder of Nubank, and Kunal Shah, Founder and CEO, CRED, the statement said.

Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company.

Founded in May last year by Google Pay top executives Sujith Narayanan and Sumit Gwalani, Epifi is a fintech startup that provides digital banking solutions.

"Millennials are a digital-first generation who are reshaping the world's economy, pushing companies to re-examine the way they do business.... Through epiFi, our mission is to provide digital natives a new-age platform that uses customer insights and deep tech to simplify their banking journey and help them take a big step towards achieving financial freedom," Epifi Co-foundersaid Sujith Narayanan said. PTI SID

Mamaearth Raises 130 Crore Round Led by Sequoia India

The round also saw investment from existing investors — Fireside Ventures, Stellaris Venture Partners and Sharp Ventures

Mamaearth, one of the fastest-growing FMCG brands to reach a 100 crore run-rate, has raised a round of funding led by Sequoia India with participation from existing investors, Fireside Ventures, Stellaris Venture Partners and Sharp Ventures. 

Founded in 2016 by husband-wife duo Varun and Ghazal Alagh, MamaEarth is Asia’s first Made-safe certified brand that offers 100% toxin-free & natural skincare, hair care & baby care products. The company is building a new range of direct to consumer brands that use the internet-first approach to reach the target audience.

According to Varun Alagh, Founder and CEO of Mamaearth -

We have a long way to go at Honasa (Mamaearth’s parent company). Our vision is to create the FMCG conglomerate of the future by building brands that connect strongly with millennials and Gen Z customers using the combined power of digital marketing and e-Commerce at large scale. Sequoia India’s investment at this stage of our journey validates this vision of building a global brand of the future.

Across India, millennial consumers are becoming increasingly conscious and are looking for safe natural alternatives to replace the existing cosmetic products being offered by large multinationals. This strong demand has been reflected in Mamaearth’s meteoric growth. Today, their range includes 80+ natural, toxin-free products, with a whopping 1.5 million+ consumers in over 500 cities across India. 

Speaking on the investment, Ishaan Mittal, Principal, Sequoia Capital India LLP says

Out of India’s $15B+ personal care market, online channels contribute to only 3-5%. With 15-20% of Indian shoppers influenced digitally and expected to double in next 7-8 years, digital first brands have the potential to redefine the architecture of tomorrow’s FMCG companies. Varun’s vision is to ride these market tailwinds to create a multi-brand, cross geo FMCG company over the next decade. The team at Sequoia India is excited about being partners in this phenomenal journey.

MamaEarth is driven by innovation and uses the best of science and ayurveda to stand out in the personal care space. The brand combines in-depth research and customer feedback to create best-in-class products for the young, aspirational and increasingly conscious Indian consumer.

“From day one we have ensured we listen to our consumers and provided products which they were looking for. This led us to develop & launch over 80 products in under three years. Last year, for instance, our we noticed that our consumers were using onion juice as the ultimate household remedy for hair loss. That's when we launched our onion range of hair care products and saw phenomenal results. This has now become a part of our DNA & in the coming years we will continue to launch new products, enter new categories & use the right ingredients based on our listening tools”, says co-founder, Ghazal Alagh, who is also Chief Mama for the Brand. 

The current round of INR 130 crores raised by Honasa Consumer Pvt Ltd parent company of Mamaearth is the biggest round size for any internet-first consumer company in India. The round has also been particularly noteworthy because it's seen as a phenomenal exit for seed investors. Some early angels have exited the company in this round with a return of over 20X on their initial investment. For a D2C FMCG brand, such an exit is almost unprecedented.  

The company plans to use the freshly acquired funds over the next 3 years to continue its exponential growth — building it into a 500 crore brand by acquiring 5 million new consumers. The funds will also be used to launch more brands under the Honasa umbrella— all of which will be internet-first and focused on the needs of the new-age, millennial consumers. Apart from this, the company plans to utilize the funds to hire best-in-class talent as the organization scales rapidly. There are also plans to expand into key markets in Southeast Asia, where the presence of a similar millennial audience lends it strong market potential. 

MamaEarth claims to be Asia’s first Madesafe certified brand that offers 100% toxin-free & natural baby care, skincare, and hair care products. MamaEarth is part of Internet-first brands company Honasa Consumer Pvt Limited, that is creating the FMCG conglomerate of the future. Honasa caters to the needs of millennial consumers through innovative products, evolved propositions, digital marketing channels, and e-commerce fulfillment.

Their goal is to build a global billion-dollar FMCG conglomerate in the next 5 years — spread across the globe but connected through digital centres of excellence. MamaEarth is a brand driven by innovation and uses the best of science and Ayurveda to meet all personal care needs of young, aspirational and increasingly conscious Indian consumers. It also brings a spirit of constant innovation and in-depth research and customer feedback into every single product. 

In the short span of 3 years, MamaEarth has launched a range of 80+ natural products, has reached over 1.5 million customers in 500 Indian cities, and is the fastest-growing FMCG startups to hit 100 Cr run rate in India. Mamearth products are available across major eCommerce platforms like Amazon, Nykaa, Flipkart, etc and its own platform www.mamaearth.in. The brand is now expanding its footprint to offline channels, establishing a presence in over 2000 stores in the country.

About The Founders

Varun Alagh, Co-Founder, CEO, Honasa Consumer Pvt Ltd

The idea of a 100% toxin-free baby products brand MamaEarth came to Varun and his partner & Co-Founder Ghazal when they became parents and had a difficult time finding chemical-free products for their son.

Varun Alagh comes with over 10+ years of leadership experience in sales and marketing roles with world-renowned FMCG brands. Varun started his career with Hindustan Unilever and has, twice been listed amongst the top managers in HUL. He then went on to become the Senior Brand Manager at Diageo. As a part of this assignment, Varun managed the ATL, BTL, Digital & Trade activations for Smirnoff across India. Varun has also completed a four-year stint with Coca-Cola as the Senior Brand Manager and has been instrumental in launching Coke Zero in India. During his corporate stint, he has won multiple recognitions including Business Unit Presidents Award, Above and Beyond Award and I am Diageo Award. Varun leverages his understanding of the FMCG market to develop, distribute and market MamaEarth's 100% toxin-free products. 

He holds a Masters in Finance and Marketing from XLRI, Jamshedpur, and Bachelors in Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering (DCE),

Ghazal Alagh, Co-Founder, Chief Mama, Honasa Consumer Pvt Ltd 

A corporate trainer turned artist-cum-entrepreneur Ghazal Alagh co-founded MamaEarth, driven by the passion for making early parenting stress-free. As the Co-Founder and Chief Mama at MamaEarth Ghazal is responsible for product development and community management. She works closely with a large number of consumers to develop product lines that address problems that they face on a daily basis. 

Ghazal’s overarching vision is to make this world a better and safer place with toxin-free, MadeSafe-certified products for everyone. With a Bachelors in Information Technology and Intensive Courses in Modern Art, Design and Applied Arts from New York Academy of Arts, she started her career with NIIT as a Corporate Trainer. As a part of her role, she trained managers and engineers from various IT companies in SQL, J2ME, and Oracle. Ghazal has also been recognized amongst top 10 women artists in India, nationally and internationally.  Having straddled three different roles —a corporate trainer, an artist, and a mother— Ghazal has a diverse skill set that helps her build the MamaEarth brand in such a unique way. 

Moglix Raises $60 Mn in Funding led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital

Noida-based Moglix, a business-to-business (B2B) industrial goods marketplace, has raised $60 million (about ₹412 crore) in its latest equity financing round led by Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital, The Economic Times reported.

Hong Kong-based Composite Capital also came on board as a new investor, marking its second investment in India after investing in ClearTax in last October.

Post this funding, Moglix now values the company at about $200 -300 million, said the report. The startup has raised about $100 million in funding across rounds.

Recently backed by Flipkart chief executive officer (CEO) Kalyan Krishnamurthy in March, Moglix will will primarily use the funds raised in ramping up its infrastructure. Moglix is currently present in 14 locations, and plans to be in 22-25 industrial hubs.

Moglix also counts Accel Partners India and US, International Finance Corp, the investment arm of the World Bank, former WhatsApp senior executive Neeraj Arora, and Ratan Tata among its list of investors.

Indian e-commerce market is expected to reach $120 billion by 2020, growing at an annual rate of 50% and globally, the B2B e-commerce almost doubling in size vis-à-vis the B2C e-commerce market and India is no exception to this.

To recall, in March this year an another B2B e-commerce marketplace Zetwerk had raised $9 million (~₹64 crore) in a Series A round of funding from Accel Partners

Razorpay Raises Fresh $75 Mn from Ribbit Capital, Sequoia Capital and Others

Bangalore-based payments solution startup Razorpay has raiaed fresh US$75 million in Series C funding round of financing led by Ribbit Capital, a Palo Alto-based venture capital firm that invests globally in ventures working in financial services, along with contribution from Sequoia Capital.

Existing investors Tiger Global Management and Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund also participated in the funding round, reported Economic Times, citing Harshil Mathur, chief executive of Razorpay.

Razorpay plans to use the fresh capital in strengthening its two new business lines - neo-banking platform Razorpay X and its lending arm Razorpay Credit.

With latest funding, the 5-year-old startup is valued at about $450 million, said the report. The xact figure of valuation however is not officially acknowledged by the company.

In March, www.indianweb2.com first reported that Razorpay is in advanced discussions with Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Sequoia Capital to raise $75-100 million in new funding.

Razorpay, which also counts Matrix Partners, MasterCard and a host of angel investors, among its list of backers, has raised a total of about $106 Mn to date, according to www.indianweb2.com estimates. Prior to this latest funding, Razorpay last raised funds of $20 million in January, 2018, which was from Y Combinator, Tiger Global and Matrix Partners.

Founded in 2013, by Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, Razorpay is the only payments solution in India which allows businesses to accept, process and disburse payments with its range of product suite. The startup provides access to all payment modes including credit card, debit card, netbanking, UPI and popular wallets including JioMoney, Mobikwik, Airtel Money, FreeCharge, Ola Money and PayZapp.

In January, Rajorpay launched two new verticals - Razorpay X and Razorpay Capital.

Razorpay Capital is lending arm through which the company help businesses on its platform get loans from its partner lenders based on the customer’s transaction pattern and history.

Razorpay X, on other hand, is essentially an AI-driven digital bank account where businesses can own and operate their account. It is a back-end platform, where it allows businesses to manage their entire current account through Razorpay. It is essentially a digital bank account where businesses can own and operate their account.

Razorpay may Raise $75-100 Mn from Sequoia Capital - Report

Bangalore-headquartered online payments startup Razorpay is in advanced discussions with Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Sequoia Capital to raise $75-100 million in new funding, The Times of India reported citing two people aware of the development.

If the funding happens then it will value Razorpay at about $425-$450. Sequoia is expected to lead the fundraise.

Founded in 2014 by IIT Roorkee alumni Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur, Razorpay was based out of Jaipur in its earlier days and later moved its headquarter to Bangalore. The startup was part of the winter batch of Y Combinator's startup program in 2015.

Razorpay counts Tiger Global, Matrix Partners India and Apoletto Managers, the private investment arm of Russian billionaire Yuri Milner’s DST Global, among its investors. These investors, too, are likely to participate in the latest funding round, the ToI report said.

According to an another report -- in November -- Tiger Global had acquired shares from 140 employees of Razorpay who had cashed in their company-issued stock options aka ESOPs.

So far, Razorpay has raised a total of $31.6 million in funding over 4 rounds. It last raised funds of $20 million in January, 2018, which was from Y Combinator, Tiger Global and Matrix Partners.

Razorpay competes with PayUMoney, Instamojo as well as PayTM.

Logistics Tech Startup Blackbuck Raises $27.4 Mn from Sequoia Capital, Others

Bengaluru-based tech-enabled logistics startup BlackBuck has raised ₹202 crores (~ US$27.3 million) in a fresh funding round from Sequoia Capital, which will be joining the startup as new investor, according to the regulatory filings. Existing investors Accel Partners and Sands Capital also participated in the round.

Sequoia’s SCI Investment fund has invested more than ₹100 crores in Blackbuck, while the rest comes Accel and Sands Capital. So far, the startup has raised a total of about $135 million in funding over five rounds including this one.

The funding comes soon after Sequoia Capital closed its sixth India focused fund at $695 million, in August 2018.

Founded in 2015, by IIT Kharagpur alumni - Chanakya Hridaya, Rajesh Yabaji and Ramasubramaniam B, BlackBuck is one of the best funded online freight startups in India. The startup has built a B2B online marketplace platform for freight where shippers and the fleet operators can engage seamlessly.

To recall, in December 2016 all three BackBuck co-founders had made strategic investment in Comet, a Mumbai-based online marketplace for international freight services.

Beside Accel, Sands Capital and now Sequoia, the other prominent investors that have invested in Blackbuck include Flipkart, IFC of World Bank, Tiger Global and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner-backed fund Apoletto Asia.

In the last two years, Blackbuck has seen fast growth with revenue growing seven-fold in FY'17 to Rs 566 crore however the losses also grew more than five times to Rs 86 crore. The startup had also reached operational profitability in that financial year. The company has not filed its financials for FY'18 so far.

“Macroeconomic factors like GST and their downstream effect into the logistics industry would affect the ecosystem in FY18 and company expects to be in a strong position to take advantage of the same,” Zinka Logistics, as the company is registered, had said in its MCA filing for FY'17.

Other prominent players in freight logistics include Locus, Locanix, ElasticRun, 4tigo Network Logistics, among others.

Earlier this month, Gurgaon-based GoBOLT, a tech-logistics company operating in line haul & short haul trucking, has secured funding of ₹40 crore from Aavishkaar Bharat Fund.

Late last month, one of India's largest third-party logistics (3PL) solution providers, Mahindra Logistics (MLL) had acquired a strategic stake in Transtech Logistics, also known as ShipX. The acquisition deal was done at Rs.7 Crores


Source - Economic Times

Logistics Tech Startup Blackbuck Raises $27.4 Mn from Sequoia Capital, Others

Bengaluru-based tech-enabled logistics startup BlackBuck has raised ₹202 crores (~ US$27.3 million) in a fresh funding round from Sequoia Capital, which will be joining the startup as new investor, according to the regulatory filings. Existing investors Accel Partners and Sands Capital also participated in the round.

Sequoia’s SCI Investment fund has invested more than ₹100 crores in Blackbuck, while the rest comes Accel and Sands Capital. So far, the startup has raised a total of about $135 million in funding over five rounds including this one.

The funding comes soon after Sequoia Capital closed its sixth India focused fund at $695 million, in August 2018.

Founded in 2015, by IIT Kharagpur alumni - Chanakya Hridaya, Rajesh Yabaji and Ramasubramaniam B, BlackBuck is one of the best funded online freight startups in India. The startup has built a B2B online marketplace platform for freight where shippers and the fleet operators can engage seamlessly.

To recall, in December 2016 all three BackBuck co-founders had made strategic investment in Comet, a Mumbai-based online marketplace for international freight services.

Beside Accel, Sands Capital and now Sequoia, the other prominent investors that have invested in Blackbuck include Flipkart, IFC of World Bank, Tiger Global and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner-backed fund Apoletto Asia.

In the last two years, Blackbuck has seen fast growth with revenue growing seven-fold in FY'17 to Rs 566 crore however the losses also grew more than five times to Rs 86 crore. The startup had also reached operational profitability in that financial year. The company has not filed its financials for FY'18 so far.

“Macroeconomic factors like GST and their downstream effect into the logistics industry would affect the ecosystem in FY18 and company expects to be in a strong position to take advantage of the same,” Zinka Logistics, as the company is registered, had said in its MCA filing for FY'17.

Other prominent players in freight logistics include Locus, Locanix, ElasticRun, 4tigo Network Logistics, among others.

Earlier this month, Gurgaon-based GoBOLT, a tech-logistics company operating in line haul & short haul trucking, has secured funding of ₹40 crore from Aavishkaar Bharat Fund.

Late last month, one of India's largest third-party logistics (3PL) solution providers, Mahindra Logistics (MLL) had acquired a strategic stake in Transtech Logistics, also known as ShipX. The acquisition deal was done at Rs.7 Crores


Source - Economic Times

Oyo Raises $1 Billion at Valuation of $5 Billion; To Fund its Growth in Global Regions

Gurgaon headquartered accommodation aggregator, Oyo Hotels, is raising massive $1 billion to fund expansion into China and other global regions.

Existing investors including SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners have put in $800 million, with commitments for another $200 million, the company said on Tuesday. About $600 million of the total will be plowed into China where Oyo began operations only 10 months ago. The funding values the startup at $5 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the matter is private.

The funding comes within a month after it was speculated that China’s Didi Chuxing has shown an interest to invest in Oyo, which however comes to an end as the Chinese ride hailing firm didn't participated in Oyo's massive round.

Ritesh Agarwal, a 24-year-old college dropout, founded Oyo five years after traveling around India on a shoestring budget. He discovered wildly unpredictable standards for hotels and guest houses, and decided to start an online service to bring more reliability to the travel experience. In the past two years, Oyo has expanded beyond India into China, Malaysia, Nepal and Britain.

“With this additional funding, we plan to rapidly scale our business in these countries, while continuing to invest further in technology and talent,” Agarwal said in the statement. “We will also deploy fresh capital to take our unique model that enables small hotel owners to create quality living spaces, global.”

His startup, whose official name is Oravel Stays Pvt, signs on hotel owners and then gets them to upgrade everything from linen, toiletries and bathroom fittings to its specifications. It also equips hotels with staff training and standardized supplies.

It then brings them on board its hotel website, where rooms start at $25 per night. Hotel owners pay Oyo a 25 percent commission.

“Budget travelers are consistently shortchanged by the lack of trust, quality, and consistency,” said Bejul Somaia, managing director of Lightspeed India, explaining that Oyo can change that dynamic.

At a $5 billion valuation, Oyo would be India’s most-valuable startup after One97 Communications, the parent of digital payments pioneer Paytm. Flipkart Online Services Pvt had been the most valuable startup in the country, but the online retailer has been acquired by U.S. retail giant Walmart Inc. earlier this year.

India’s hotel industry includes large chains with dependable hospitality experiences at the mid to top end. But the business also includes thousands of unbranded, ramshackle hotels and lodges with broken beds, yellowing linen and stinking bathrooms. Oyo is trying to make hotels easier to find through its site and more predictable as well.

Its criteria are exacting — from the thickness of the mattress to the placement of the light switches to the size of the showerhead in the bathroom. Agarwal has said that he wants the Oyo brand to convey a superior experience.

Oyo began with one hotel in Gurgaon and has grown to 125,000 rooms in India, where it says it’s tripling year-over-year in terms of transactions. In China, where it began operations last November, it has expanded to 171 cities with 87,000 rooms. It is now in over 350 cities with 211,000 rooms.

The Flipkart acquisition was seen in India as an example of the country’s growing success in building valuable startups. Walmart acquired 77 percent of the business for $16 billion as the U.S. retailer seeks to compete with Amazon.com Inc. in the country.

Source - Bloomberg Quint

[Top Image - develope.me/oyo-wiki]

Oyo Raises $1 Billion at Valuation of $5 Billion; To Fund its Growth in Global Regions

Gurgaon headquartered accommodation aggregator, Oyo Hotels, is raising massive $1 billion to fund expansion into China and other global regions.

Existing investors including SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners have put in $800 million, with commitments for another $200 million, the company said on Tuesday. About $600 million of the total will be plowed into China where Oyo began operations only 10 months ago. The funding values the startup at $5 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the matter is private.

The funding comes within a month after it was speculated that China’s Didi Chuxing has shown an interest to invest in Oyo, which however comes to an end as the Chinese ride hailing firm didn't participated in Oyo's massive round.

Ritesh Agarwal, a 24-year-old college dropout, founded Oyo five years after traveling around India on a shoestring budget. He discovered wildly unpredictable standards for hotels and guest houses, and decided to start an online service to bring more reliability to the travel experience. In the past two years, Oyo has expanded beyond India into China, Malaysia, Nepal and Britain.

“With this additional funding, we plan to rapidly scale our business in these countries, while continuing to invest further in technology and talent,” Agarwal said in the statement. “We will also deploy fresh capital to take our unique model that enables small hotel owners to create quality living spaces, global.”

His startup, whose official name is Oravel Stays Pvt, signs on hotel owners and then gets them to upgrade everything from linen, toiletries and bathroom fittings to its specifications. It also equips hotels with staff training and standardized supplies.

It then brings them on board its hotel website, where rooms start at $25 per night. Hotel owners pay Oyo a 25 percent commission.

“Budget travelers are consistently shortchanged by the lack of trust, quality, and consistency,” said Bejul Somaia, managing director of Lightspeed India, explaining that Oyo can change that dynamic.

At a $5 billion valuation, Oyo would be India’s most-valuable startup after One97 Communications, the parent of digital payments pioneer Paytm. Flipkart Online Services Pvt had been the most valuable startup in the country, but the online retailer has been acquired by U.S. retail giant Walmart Inc. earlier this year.

India’s hotel industry includes large chains with dependable hospitality experiences at the mid to top end. But the business also includes thousands of unbranded, ramshackle hotels and lodges with broken beds, yellowing linen and stinking bathrooms. Oyo is trying to make hotels easier to find through its site and more predictable as well.

Its criteria are exacting — from the thickness of the mattress to the placement of the light switches to the size of the showerhead in the bathroom. Agarwal has said that he wants the Oyo brand to convey a superior experience.

Oyo began with one hotel in Gurgaon and has grown to 125,000 rooms in India, where it says it’s tripling year-over-year in terms of transactions. In China, where it began operations last November, it has expanded to 171 cities with 87,000 rooms. It is now in over 350 cities with 211,000 rooms.

The Flipkart acquisition was seen in India as an example of the country’s growing success in building valuable startups. Walmart acquired 77 percent of the business for $16 billion as the U.S. retailer seeks to compete with Amazon.com Inc. in the country.

Source - Bloomberg Quint

[Top Image - develope.me/oyo-wiki]

Hyperlocal Delivery Firm DailyNinja Raises Funding from Matrix, Sequoia

Bangalore-based milk and grocery delivery startup DailyNinja has secured an undisclosed amount of funding from Matrix Partners India, with participation from existing investors Sequoia India and Saama Capital.

The funding came within four months after the e-grocery startup had raised $3 million in a funding round led by venture capital firm Saama Capital, along with participation of existing investor Sequoia Capital, in June this year.

DailyNinja will use the fresh capital raised to further strengthen its presence in the daily essentials space and also in expanding to new cities beyond Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai.

On the back of fresh funding, it would expand its operations to new markets like Mumbai and Gurgaon. “We clock about 35,000 deliveries per day and we are looking to accelerate it to about one lakh as we expand to new markets and deepen our reach in existing markets. We are the clear market leaders in this space and this investment is an outcome of the progress we have been making,” said Yarnalkar, co-founder, DailyNinja.

Matrix Partners India director Gourav Bhattacharya said, “Daily consumption of milk is an India-specific habit. DailyNinja has been able to leverage this habit to create a pipeline to customers’ homes, and has built an attractive business on top of this distribution channel. Their unique hybrid approach of using the existing milk delivery system as well as their own in-house delivery fleet has enabled them to outpace competition.”

Founded in 2015, by Anurag Gupta and Sagar Yarnalkar, Daily Ninja, has a mobile app that delivers daily needs on a subscription model.

The company has recently acquired HYderabad-based 4amShop, which delivers milk, bread, eggs, butter, juices and other daily need items at customers' doorstep, free of charge.

Freshworks Raises $100 Mn from Sequoia, Accel and CapitalG To Become India's First Unicorn in Enterprise Software Space

California and Chennai-based Freshworks, a enterprise software product-based startup, has raised fresh $100 million in a series G round of funding co-led by its existing investors Sequoia and Accel Partners, with participation from CapitalG, a late-stage growth fund of Google's parent firm Alphabet.

With is funding, Freshworks is now valued at $1.5 billion.

Earlier in November 2016, the company was valued at $750 million when it had raised $55 million from Sequoia Capital India and Accel Partners. With today's funding round the total funding raised by the company brings to mere $250 million -- to become India's first Unicorn in enterprise software segment.

In addition to funding, Freshworks also announced that it has hired a former AppDynamics VP of finance and treasury Suresh Seshardi, who helped AppDynamics prepare for its IPO. AppDynamics however got acquired by Cisco instead of going IPO.

Additionally, the company also said that it has scaled to $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Interestingly, Freshworks co-founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham indicated that Freshwworks may prepare for going IPO (which might be reason of hiring AppDynamics' Seshardi) and this funding will likely be the last private funding round for the company.

“Freshworks hasn’t started the IPO process but we do feel that we will eventually go public in the U.S.,” he said to TechCrunch.

“With that said, our primary focus right now is on growing the business and investing in our platform. When the timing is right, we’ll make that decision," added Mathrubootham.

Founded out of Chennai in 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy, Freshworks was earlier known as Freshdesk until it re-branded last year to reflect an expansion beyond its core helpdesk product. Now, Freshworks is the parent company behind its several enterprise software products which includes Freshdesk, Freshservice, Freshsales, Freshcaller, Freshteam, Freshchat, and Freshmarketer.

The company's cloud-based suite of SaaS products is widely used by over 150,000 customers around the world including Honda, Bridgestone, Hugo Boss, University of Pennsylvania, Toshiba and Cisco.

With offices in California, London, Berlin, and Sydney, a larger chunk of Freshwork's employees are based out of Chennai, India, where it claims around 1,400 people working on product development.

Moreover, the company has also made a substantial amount of acquisitions in span of just two years. Freshwork's last acquisition was in August last year when it made its ninth acquisition - of Zarget, a leading marketing software startup that provides marketers and designers with a suite of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) tools helping them understand how users interact with their websites.

A month prior to that, it had a href="http://indianweb2/2017/07/20/freshworks-freshdesk-acquires-gurgaon-based-chatbot-startup-joe-hukum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">acquired Gurgaon-based Joe Hukum, a platform that helps businesses build their own chatbots.

Source - Techcrunch | Business Insider

Freshworks Raises $100 Mn from Sequoia, Accel and CapitalG To Become India's First Unicorn in Enterprise Software Space

California and Chennai-based Freshworks, a enterprise software product-based startup, has raised fresh $100 million in a series G round of funding co-led by its existing investors Sequoia and Accel Partners, with participation from CapitalG, a late-stage growth fund of Google's parent firm Alphabet.

With is funding, Freshworks is now valued at $1.5 billion.

Earlier in November 2016, the company was valued at $750 million when it had raised $55 million from Sequoia Capital India and Accel Partners. With today's funding round the total funding raised by the company brings to mere $250 million -- to become India's first Unicorn in enterprise software segment.

In addition to funding, Freshworks also announced that it has hired a former AppDynamics VP of finance and treasury Suresh Seshardi, who helped AppDynamics prepare for its IPO. AppDynamics however got acquired by Cisco instead of going IPO.

Additionally, the company also said that it has scaled to $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Interestingly, Freshworks co-founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham indicated that Freshwworks may prepare for going IPO (which might be reason of hiring AppDynamics' Seshardi) and this funding will likely be the last private funding round for the company.

“Freshworks hasn’t started the IPO process but we do feel that we will eventually go public in the U.S.,” he said to TechCrunch.

“With that said, our primary focus right now is on growing the business and investing in our platform. When the timing is right, we’ll make that decision," added Mathrubootham.

Founded out of Chennai in 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy, Freshworks was earlier known as Freshdesk until it re-branded last year to reflect an expansion beyond its core helpdesk product. Now, Freshworks is the parent company behind its several enterprise software products which includes Freshdesk, Freshservice, Freshsales, Freshcaller, Freshteam, Freshchat, and Freshmarketer.

The company's cloud-based suite of SaaS products is widely used by over 150,000 customers around the world including Honda, Bridgestone, Hugo Boss, University of Pennsylvania, Toshiba and Cisco.

With offices in California, London, Berlin, and Sydney, a larger chunk of Freshwork's employees are based out of Chennai, India, where it claims around 1,400 people working on product development.

Moreover, the company has also made a substantial amount of acquisitions in span of just two years. Freshwork's last acquisition was in August last year when it made its ninth acquisition - of Zarget, a leading marketing software startup that provides marketers and designers with a suite of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) tools helping them understand how users interact with their websites.

A month prior to that, it had a href="https://www.indianweb2.com/2017/07/20/freshworks-freshdesk-acquires-gurgaon-based-chatbot-startup-joe-hukum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">acquired Gurgaon-based Joe Hukum, a platform that helps businesses build their own chatbots.

Source - Techcrunch | Business Insider

In Sequoia Capital's Alleged Money Laundering Involvement, India Begins Probe

One of the most active venture capital firm within Indian startup ecosystem, Sequoia capital is now going through troubled circumstances as result of political game of throne running in full force in India because of upmcoming general election.

American firm Sequoia is finding itself estranged and one of pawns of Indian politics after India has alleged that it has possible role in money laundering activities in the country. Moreover, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which looks at financial crimes, has already started probing the alleged role of American firm, Sequoia Capital.

In a latest development in this case, ED is looking in to the reason behind the Sequoia’s acquisition of shares of Vasan Healthcare, a health care startup, at a premium from a company allegedly controlled by former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s son Karti Chidambaram, said a report by Bloomberg.

In April 2016, India's central government's dictated activities has already created an atmosphere of scare and worries in the international financial community active in India when ED raided Sequoia Capital office in Bangalore. In that spooky incidence, ED grilled the Sequoia executives barring their communications with the outside world as well as temporarily seized Sequoia's office documents, laptops and hard drives, and looked into all, shocking the whole VC and private equity community in the country.

Sequoia, which had invested in Vasan in 2009, has made one of the largest bets on India. In December 2015, it raised $900 million for its India-focused fund. ED had raided the Bengaluru office of WestBridge Capital as well.

Investment funds associated with Sequoia Capital India hold a minority interest in Vasan Healthcare. VT Bharadwaj, a Managing Director of Sequoia Capital India Advisors Private Limited, served as Sequoia Capital India’s designee on the Vasan Healthcare Board of Directors. During his tenure on the Board, he demanded that management of Vasan Healthcare conduct a thorough investigation into the allegations, which was unearthed in 2015.

According to a report by Indian daily, there are two transactions where Sequoia paid Rs. 32.9 crores for shares that just two years before were worth only RS.3 crores. The windfall gain on the shares of Vasan Health Care was made by a company in 2010 - that was indirectly owned by Karti Chidambaram.

Founded by A. M. Arun, who was ranked as 244th richest Indian with ₹2,314 crore fortune in its 2015 list, Vasan Healthcare Group is a health care group based out of Trichy & Chennai.

Via - Bloomberg | Economic Times | LiveMint

Hyperlocal Delivery Startup Dailyninja Raises $3 Mn In A Funding by Saama Capital

Bangalore-based DailyNinja, a hyper-local delivery startup for milk and groceries, has raised $3 million in a fresh funding round led by venture capital firm Saama Capital, along with participation of existing investor Sequoia Capital.

The startup will use the funds to expand its business by acquiring more customers across Bangalore, Hyderabad and Gurgaon. Additionally, the funds will also be used to upgrade customer experience by adding more offerings.

“With this fundraise, we plan to expand in new cities and capture a bigger customer base in our home city of Bengaluru,” said SagarYarnalkar, CEO and Co-founder of DailyNinja.

The startup had earlier raised $1.5-million from Sequoia Capital, in October last year. Prior to this, in August 2016, it had raised an undisclosed amount in Pre series A round of funding led by Venk Krishnan (NuVentures), who was also an existing investor from their previous round. Till date, Dailyninja has raised a total of $4.5 million in four different rounds, according to Crunchbase data.

Founded in 2015 by BITS Pilani graduates Anurag Gupta and Sagar Yarnalkar, DailyNinja handles 25,000 orders daily and expects to increase it to 150,000 in 12 months.

“(Venture capitalists) were averse to the term hyper-local during 2015 and 2016 and we were looking to raise a bridge round after the first round of angel funding,” recalled Yarnalkar, CEO of Daily-Ninja. “Since none of the VCs we approached were interested in funding us, we went back to the angels and that kept us going.”

DailyNinja competes with the likes of Gurgaon-based Milkbasket, Bangalore-based Doodhwala and Town Essentials, and Maharashtra-based RainCan in the micro delivery segment. Milkbasket handles about 8,000 daily orders and SuprDaily about 5,000, according to industry estimates. Doodhwala said it averages 15,000 daily orders.

Notably, MilkBasket and Doodhwala do have a similar business model, they however operate their own fleets unlike to DailyNinja.

Via - Economic Times.

Hyperlocal Delivery Startup Dailyninja Raises $3 Mn In A Funding by Saama Capital

Bangalore-based DailyNinja, a hyper-local delivery startup for milk and groceries, has raised $3 million in a fresh funding round led by venture capital firm Saama Capital, along with participation of existing investor Sequoia Capital.

The startup will use the funds to expand its business by acquiring more customers across Bangalore, Hyderabad and Gurgaon. Additionally, the funds will also be used to upgrade customer experience by adding more offerings.

“With this fundraise, we plan to expand in new cities and capture a bigger customer base in our home city of Bengaluru,” said SagarYarnalkar, CEO and Co-founder of DailyNinja.

The startup had earlier raised $1.5-million from Sequoia Capital, in October last year. Prior to this, in August 2016, it had raised an undisclosed amount in Pre series A round of funding led by Venk Krishnan (NuVentures), who was also an existing investor from their previous round. Till date, Dailyninja has raised a total of $4.5 million in four different rounds, according to Crunchbase data.

Founded in 2015 by BITS Pilani graduates Anurag Gupta and Sagar Yarnalkar, DailyNinja handles 25,000 orders daily and expects to increase it to 150,000 in 12 months.

“(Venture capitalists) were averse to the term hyper-local during 2015 and 2016 and we were looking to raise a bridge round after the first round of angel funding,” recalled Yarnalkar, CEO of Daily-Ninja. “Since none of the VCs we approached were interested in funding us, we went back to the angels and that kept us going.”

DailyNinja competes with the likes of Gurgaon-based Milkbasket, Bangalore-based Doodhwala and Town Essentials, and Maharashtra-based RainCan in the micro delivery segment. Milkbasket handles about 8,000 daily orders and SuprDaily about 5,000, according to industry estimates. Doodhwala said it averages 15,000 daily orders.

Notably, MilkBasket and Doodhwala do have a similar business model, they however operate their own fleets unlike to DailyNinja.

Via - Economic Times.

Freecharge Co-Founder Kunal Shah Raises $30 Mn Via Sequoia; To Start Incubator for Consumer-Tech Startups

Payments firm FreeCharge co-founder Kunal Shah has raised $30 million for his upcoming venture from a clutch of investors led by venture capital investor Sequoia Capital, reported LiveMint, citing two people familiar with the development.

According to the report, to start his new venture, which is launching very soon, Kunal has closed $30 million funding round, which reportedly got participation mostly from foreign investors including Sequoia Capital.

Kunal is planning to start an incubator which would help startups in consumer space, added the report.

IndianWeb2.com first reported about Kunal Shah raising funds close to $30 million, last month.

It is to be noted that, Sequoia, who reportedly led the funding of this round, has been associated with Kunal for quite some time. In February 2017, Kunal joined marquee venture capital firm Sequoia Capital as an advisor role, which came to an end this January.

The relationship between Kunal Shah and Sequoia goes back almost six years after the investment firm first backed Freecharge, in 2011.

Kunal founded FreeCharge in 2010, along with Sandeep Tandon, seeing the potential of online recharging in a growing market. In April 2015, FreeCharge was acquired by Snapdeal for an estimated amount of $400 million. Shah was appointed as the new CEO of the company. Later, Freecharge got again acquired by Axis Bank from Snapdeal. Notably, Kunal also led the acquisitions of Wishberg and Preburn in 2014.

For a brief stint, Kunal was also on a role of chairman of industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), which counts companies such as Facebook, Microsoft and Google as members.

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