Here is a list of top funding deals that happened in Indian Startup Ecosystem this week. Check out the brief description about all of them.
Flipkart Raises $71 Mn from Naspers for 16.5% Stake
Indian homegrown ecommerce giant Flipkart, which is currently facing a fierce battle from US-based ecommerce biggie Amazon has raised a whopping $71 million from South African technology investor Naspers. The investment takes Naspers stake in the company to 16.5 per cent.
The South African tech investor first invested its money in Flipkart five years ago in 2012 when the latter was raising its series D funding. At that time, Naspers emerged as the lead investor for the round. The company once again pumped in money in the company in 2014 when it teamed up with Tiger Global and led a $1 billion investment into the ecommerce company during the series G round.
Drive.ai Raises $50M in Series B Round to Accelerate the Self-Driving Reality
Drive.ai has announced a $50 million series B funding round, led by New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) with participation from GGV Capital and existing investors, including Northern Light Venture Capital, who led Drive.ai’s series A. This funding will bolster the company’s technology development, global reach, and scalability.
Drive.ai is advancing the self-driving reality through technology and advocacy. Drive.ai’s technology is grounded in deep learning, powering its self-driving system to learn driving routes and scenarios with unrivaled pace, scalability, efficiency and cost. Drive.ai’s business strategy is aimed at powering fleets of vehicles with retrofit kits, transforming traditional vehicles into self-driving models. The kits will soon be deployed on existing business fleets, with pilots starting later this year.
In-Video Discovery Platform Tagos Design Raises $5M in Series A Funding
Tagos Design Innovations Pvt. Ltd, an in-video discovery platform, has raised $5 million in a Series-A funding round from a venture capital firm and two global corporations. The company did not disclose the names of the investors.
Founded in 2014 by GBS Bindra, Sushant Panda, and Tripat Preet Singh, Tagos operates an in-video platform called Charmboard that makes videos interactive. For instance, a user can touch any object on a streaming video, be it a person, dress, a piece of furniture or an accessory, without interrupting the visual. That particular object is bookmarked and saved automatically and can be accessed by the consumer after watching the video to cull out more details about the object.
Online Lending Platform Stashfin Raises $5M in Pre-Series A Round
Digital lending platform Stashfin, operated by Delhi-based EQX Internet Capital Advisors Pvt Ltd, said on Tuesday it has raised $5 million (Rs 32.2 crore) in a pre-Series A round of funding.
The investors included Kirloskar Group’s venture capital arm, Snow Leopard Ventures, as well as Singapore-based Alto Partners and GrowX Ventures, the startup said in a statement.
Several individual investors such as Vibhav Dhawan and Praveen Malhotra, managing partners at executive search firm Positive Moves; Ranu Vohra, founder and managing director of financial services firm Avendus Capital; Raoul Bajaj, chief executive of commodities trading firm Trafigura; Pramod Kabra, partner at investment firm True North; and senior executives from KKR also participated in the round.
V Resorts Raises $4M in Its Third Round of Funding from Seedfund and RB International
V Resorts, an asset-light resort management company, recently raised $4 million in its third round of funding, with Seedfund and RB International. V Resorts currently manages over 70 resorts across 15 states in the country. The company operates on a business model of aggregating existing properties and managing the operations of those properties on a revenue share basis.
With this infusion of funds, V Resorts is all set to make a paradigm shift in the landscape of the leisure travel sector in India.
Fintech Startup Rubique Secures $3 Mn In A Bridge Round Of Funding
In yet another game-changing round of finance, Rubique, the fintech company empowering individuals and SMEs by providing easy and smooth access to finance and financial products has raised a bridge round of funding of $3 million. The money has been invested by existing investor Kalaari Capital and Udayan Goyal, managing partner at Apis Partners, a financial services-oriented private equity firm focused on Africa and South Asia.
The recent bridge round of funding came after the company’s announcement mid last year that it intends to raise $10-15 million in a Series-B round. The company had raised $3 million in Series A from Kalaari Capital, YourNest Angel Fund, Globevestor and Dexter Angel Circle in April last year.
Hyderabad Angels, Others Back Data Analytics Startup ZineOne
ZineOne Inc, an event-driven interactions platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI), has raised $2.5 million (around Rs 16 crore) led by New York-based Golden Seeds Angels and Hyderabad Angels with participation from a bunch of angel investors.
The company is looking to use the funds to enhance its offerings in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence for customer interactions across digital channels and devices, ZineOne said in a statement.
AI Startup Niki.ai Raises $2 Mn In Series A Funding From SAP.iO, Unilazer Ventures, Others
AI startup, Niki.ai has secured $2 million in Series A round of funding from San Francisco based fund SAP.iO and existing investor Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures. The funding also saw participation from other Indian investors including Haresh Chawla (Partner at True North) and Arihant Patni, along with some US and German investors.
The company plans to use freshly infused funds to strengthen their machine learning capabilities, building voice and multilingual functionalities and expanding their distribution network.
Abhinav Bindra’s Shooting Star Pumps In $1 Mn In FITPASS
The all-access pass to gyms and fitness studios, FITPASS has raised $1 million led by professional shooter, Abhinav Bindra and his business partner, Gaurav Marya, Chairman, Franchise India. The fresh funds invested through Bindra’s venture fund – Shooting Star and Franchise India Brands Ltd. will be used to expand the full-suite of FITPASS’ service offerings across 10 cities in the next 6 months.
Abhinav Bindra, is a fitness conscious athlete who is committed to making India fitter. To him fitness has a more holistic meaning and that’s what he says attracted him to FITPASS.
The Chennai Angels Invests in Automobiles Parts Marketplace SparesHub.com
The Chennai Angels (TCA) has announced an investment of Rs. 40 lakhs in Iradium Automobiles Private Limited. The investment was as part of the total investment round of Rs. 2 crores which also saw participation from Anthill Scale Ventures (Singapore), Esvee Technologies Inc. (USA), Inc95 Consulting and other HNIs. Iradium Automobiles Private Limited owns and manages SparesHub.com, an automobiles parts marketplace catering to the requirements of car parts of independent multi-brand workshops and car owners across India. The startup is based in Pune and has a total team size of 27 employees.
Apart from these top 10 funding deals, here are a few startups which have also secured funding for their growth and expansion:
Mumbai-based food startup Authenticook has said that it got a grant of Rs 1.45 crore (200,000 euros) as a winning prize of a contest run by the world’s largest hotel aggregator Booking.com.
Time Of Sports, A Leading Sports Consultancy Startup, Raises Angel Round
Carbon Masters, a Bangalore based energy startup has raised an undisclosed amount from India’s first and World’s largest angel investor network; Indian Angel Network and Sangam Ventures a pure play clean tech venture fund.
Zeta, a fintech pioneer in digitised employee benefits solutions, has made a equity investment in Zinghr, a cloud services provider, for an undisclosed amount.
Goa-based Casino Pride Group has bought a 30% stake in OceanKing Software Solutions LLP, the Mumbai-based company that owns and operates online gaming startup Baadshah Gaming, for an undisclosed amount.
Data analytics startup, FORMCEPT Technologies and Solutions Pvt. Ltd has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from VC fund GVFL(Gujarat Venture Finance Ltd).
Data analytics startup Quantta Analytics has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in its Pre-Series A round.
Flipkart Raises $71 Mn from Naspers for 16.5% Stake
Indian homegrown ecommerce giant Flipkart, which is currently facing a fierce battle from US-based ecommerce biggie Amazon has raised a whopping $71 million from South African technology investor Naspers. The investment takes Naspers stake in the company to 16.5 per cent.
The South African tech investor first invested its money in Flipkart five years ago in 2012 when the latter was raising its series D funding. At that time, Naspers emerged as the lead investor for the round. The company once again pumped in money in the company in 2014 when it teamed up with Tiger Global and led a $1 billion investment into the ecommerce company during the series G round.
Drive.ai Raises $50M in Series B Round to Accelerate the Self-Driving Reality
Drive.ai has announced a $50 million series B funding round, led by New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) with participation from GGV Capital and existing investors, including Northern Light Venture Capital, who led Drive.ai’s series A. This funding will bolster the company’s technology development, global reach, and scalability.
Drive.ai is advancing the self-driving reality through technology and advocacy. Drive.ai’s technology is grounded in deep learning, powering its self-driving system to learn driving routes and scenarios with unrivaled pace, scalability, efficiency and cost. Drive.ai’s business strategy is aimed at powering fleets of vehicles with retrofit kits, transforming traditional vehicles into self-driving models. The kits will soon be deployed on existing business fleets, with pilots starting later this year.
In-Video Discovery Platform Tagos Design Raises $5M in Series A Funding
Tagos Design Innovations Pvt. Ltd, an in-video discovery platform, has raised $5 million in a Series-A funding round from a venture capital firm and two global corporations. The company did not disclose the names of the investors.
Founded in 2014 by GBS Bindra, Sushant Panda, and Tripat Preet Singh, Tagos operates an in-video platform called Charmboard that makes videos interactive. For instance, a user can touch any object on a streaming video, be it a person, dress, a piece of furniture or an accessory, without interrupting the visual. That particular object is bookmarked and saved automatically and can be accessed by the consumer after watching the video to cull out more details about the object.
Online Lending Platform Stashfin Raises $5M in Pre-Series A Round
Digital lending platform Stashfin, operated by Delhi-based EQX Internet Capital Advisors Pvt Ltd, said on Tuesday it has raised $5 million (Rs 32.2 crore) in a pre-Series A round of funding.
The investors included Kirloskar Group’s venture capital arm, Snow Leopard Ventures, as well as Singapore-based Alto Partners and GrowX Ventures, the startup said in a statement.
Several individual investors such as Vibhav Dhawan and Praveen Malhotra, managing partners at executive search firm Positive Moves; Ranu Vohra, founder and managing director of financial services firm Avendus Capital; Raoul Bajaj, chief executive of commodities trading firm Trafigura; Pramod Kabra, partner at investment firm True North; and senior executives from KKR also participated in the round.
V Resorts Raises $4M in Its Third Round of Funding from Seedfund and RB International
V Resorts, an asset-light resort management company, recently raised $4 million in its third round of funding, with Seedfund and RB International. V Resorts currently manages over 70 resorts across 15 states in the country. The company operates on a business model of aggregating existing properties and managing the operations of those properties on a revenue share basis.
With this infusion of funds, V Resorts is all set to make a paradigm shift in the landscape of the leisure travel sector in India.
Fintech Startup Rubique Secures $3 Mn In A Bridge Round Of Funding
In yet another game-changing round of finance, Rubique, the fintech company empowering individuals and SMEs by providing easy and smooth access to finance and financial products has raised a bridge round of funding of $3 million. The money has been invested by existing investor Kalaari Capital and Udayan Goyal, managing partner at Apis Partners, a financial services-oriented private equity firm focused on Africa and South Asia.
The recent bridge round of funding came after the company’s announcement mid last year that it intends to raise $10-15 million in a Series-B round. The company had raised $3 million in Series A from Kalaari Capital, YourNest Angel Fund, Globevestor and Dexter Angel Circle in April last year.
Hyderabad Angels, Others Back Data Analytics Startup ZineOne
ZineOne Inc, an event-driven interactions platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI), has raised $2.5 million (around Rs 16 crore) led by New York-based Golden Seeds Angels and Hyderabad Angels with participation from a bunch of angel investors.
The company is looking to use the funds to enhance its offerings in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence for customer interactions across digital channels and devices, ZineOne said in a statement.
AI Startup Niki.ai Raises $2 Mn In Series A Funding From SAP.iO, Unilazer Ventures, Others
AI startup, Niki.ai has secured $2 million in Series A round of funding from San Francisco based fund SAP.iO and existing investor Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures. The funding also saw participation from other Indian investors including Haresh Chawla (Partner at True North) and Arihant Patni, along with some US and German investors.
The company plans to use freshly infused funds to strengthen their machine learning capabilities, building voice and multilingual functionalities and expanding their distribution network.
Abhinav Bindra’s Shooting Star Pumps In $1 Mn In FITPASS
The all-access pass to gyms and fitness studios, FITPASS has raised $1 million led by professional shooter, Abhinav Bindra and his business partner, Gaurav Marya, Chairman, Franchise India. The fresh funds invested through Bindra’s venture fund – Shooting Star and Franchise India Brands Ltd. will be used to expand the full-suite of FITPASS’ service offerings across 10 cities in the next 6 months.
Abhinav Bindra, is a fitness conscious athlete who is committed to making India fitter. To him fitness has a more holistic meaning and that’s what he says attracted him to FITPASS.
The Chennai Angels Invests in Automobiles Parts Marketplace SparesHub.com
The Chennai Angels (TCA) has announced an investment of Rs. 40 lakhs in Iradium Automobiles Private Limited. The investment was as part of the total investment round of Rs. 2 crores which also saw participation from Anthill Scale Ventures (Singapore), Esvee Technologies Inc. (USA), Inc95 Consulting and other HNIs. Iradium Automobiles Private Limited owns and manages SparesHub.com, an automobiles parts marketplace catering to the requirements of car parts of independent multi-brand workshops and car owners across India. The startup is based in Pune and has a total team size of 27 employees.
Apart from these top 10 funding deals, here are a few startups which have also secured funding for their growth and expansion:
Mumbai-based food startup Authenticook has said that it got a grant of Rs 1.45 crore (200,000 euros) as a winning prize of a contest run by the world’s largest hotel aggregator Booking.com.
Time Of Sports, A Leading Sports Consultancy Startup, Raises Angel Round
Carbon Masters, a Bangalore based energy startup has raised an undisclosed amount from India’s first and World’s largest angel investor network; Indian Angel Network and Sangam Ventures a pure play clean tech venture fund.
Zeta, a fintech pioneer in digitised employee benefits solutions, has made a equity investment in Zinghr, a cloud services provider, for an undisclosed amount.
Goa-based Casino Pride Group has bought a 30% stake in OceanKing Software Solutions LLP, the Mumbai-based company that owns and operates online gaming startup Baadshah Gaming, for an undisclosed amount.
Data analytics startup, FORMCEPT Technologies and Solutions Pvt. Ltd has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from VC fund GVFL(Gujarat Venture Finance Ltd).
Data analytics startup Quantta Analytics has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in its Pre-Series A round.
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