Funding rundown: Tata Capital’s PE fund raises $126M, IndMoney closes $86M Series D funding round, Vivriti Capital gets $55M & Binny Bansal backed 021 Capital invests $5.5M in SuperK

TCHF II will principally be taking equity positions in healthcare and life sciences related companies having significant business exposure to India, its managing partner Visalakshi Chandramouli said.

About 60 percent of the new fund’s bets will be focused on the theme of domestic healthcare and life sciences consumption, while the rest will be devoted to companies focused on healthcare and life sciences competency through delivering products or services to the world markets, Chandramouli elaborated.

The new fund has already committed money to three companies — Linux Pharma (domestic pharma formulations), Atulaya Healthcare (diagnostic services) and Deeptek (digital health), and expects to announce the fourth investment shortly, its partner Vamesh Chovatia added.

It has a pipeline of deals and is expected to continue the deal momentum in the coming months, Chovatia said, adding, it is typically looking at committing $5-15 million per transaction and potentially a larger ticket size along with co-investment support from its limited partners, who have committed to investing in the fund.

Wealth management platform IndMoney has bagged an additional $11 million as a part of its ongoing Series D funding round, led by Singapore-based Sixteenth Street Capital.

Other investors who participated in the round include Lenskart founder Peyush Bansal and Nearbuy cofounder Ankur Warikoo.

The firm’s founder and CEO Ashish Kashyap has also invested as a part of the current tranche, along with several other senior executives in the startup,  including general counsel Sunny Bajaj, marketing head Divyang Bhardwaj, strategy head Ankur Goyal, and finance head Vinay Saraf.

The company has closed its ongoing fundraise at $86 million, valuing it at $650 million post-money. In the earlier round, it had raised $75 million from existing investors including Steadview Capital, Tiger Global and Dragoneer Investment Group.

“To partner with the best institutions and individuals that will enable us to fulfill our mission of enabling consumers to better their financial lives via our Neo banking features. Second: it is an excellent validation when your own customers and team members invest behind the mission,” said Kashyap.

Vivriti Capital, a lender to mid-market enterprises, has raised $55 million in its Series C funding round, taking its total amount of funds raised to $165 million.

Existing investors Lightrock India and Creation Investments led the round, after having participated in the Series A and B rounds. The firm said that the valuation has increased three times. Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to Vivriti Capital on this transaction.

Besides lending in partnerships with banks and global debt investors, Vivriti Capital provides investment banking and advisory services to its clients.

“Throughout the pandemic, we've experienced phenomenal growth and considerable scale across debt products. The equity capital will give us sufficient firepower to scale across domestic and international markets,” said Vineet Sukumar, co-founder and CEO of Vivriti Capital and Vivriti Asset Management.

Vivriti Capital has a target of $5 billion assets under management over the next four to five years, up from the current $700 million. The company plans to achieve this through its balance sheet and that of its Vivriti Asset Management.

The firm has over 300 clients across 26 states and claims to have a 90 percent client retention. Vivriti Asset Management provides debt in the range of Rs 25 to 75 crore to emerging and mid-sized operating companies for a tenure of 2-4 years.

Pixxel raises $25 million in what is India’s largest fundraise by a space technology company till date. The funding round was led by Toronto-based Radical Ventures with participation from Jordan Noone, Seraphim Space Investment, Lightspeed Partners, Blume Ventures, Sparta LLC and Inventus Capital India.

The fresh capital will enable Pixxel to expedite production of its high-resolution hyperspectral satellite, which offers artificial intelligence-powered insights help discover and predict climate issues at a fraction of traditional satellite cost.

Founded by Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal in 2019, Pixxel works with space organisations such as Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), NASA and SpaceX. In fact, the startup is launching the first of its hyperspectral satellites as a part of SpaceX’s upcoming Transporter-4 mission in April.

Edgegrid, a consumer facing grid technology platform had secured $6 million in its seed round of funding from Lightrock India, along with participation from Theia Ventures and other angel investors.

The firm is building a fully-integrated technology platform to enable the energy transition for last-mile customers, namely household, small businesses, commercial building owners and electric vehicle charging networks. Its platform enables last-mile customers to consume energy efficiently and generate energy locally. Further, it works closely with energy distribution companies and distributed energy generators to reduce their costs and expand renewable energy penetration for the entire ecosystem.

“Having been in the energy space, it has become apparent that a shift in the way we produce and consume energy is essential. We believe that a consumer-centric-model instead of a centralized-model is the only viable solution to make this energy transition more sustainable and profitable. To have a material impact, you need to be willing to go where the emissions and losses are and hence focus on the last mile,” said Sunil Talla, Founder and CEO, EdgeGrid.

Rural retail aggregator, SuperK, has raised $5.5 million in its pre-series A round led by Binny Bansal backed 021 Capital. Other investors who participated in the round included Saikiran Krishnamurthy (Co-Founder & CEO, xto10x), Ankit Nagori (Founder, Curefoods), Ashish Kacholia (Public market investor), Nipun Mehra (Founder & CEO, Ula), MarsShot Ventures (Razorpay Founders), Blume Founders Fund and existing investors.

The firm plans to utilize this investment for expansion, building a strong team and brand, enhancing technology and supply chain infrastructure, it said in a statement.

“The existing organized retail models are built for the metros and can’t scale deep into the semi-urban and rural markets. SuperK is on a mission to create thousands of entrepreneurs by enabling franchise partners to take advantage of the massive market opportunity while keeping the unique needs and challenges of rural retail in mind. We plan to scale rapidly and reach 200+ stores across 120+ towns in Andhra Pradesh by end of next year.” said Neeraj Menta and Anil Thontepu, Co-Founders, SuperK.

Over the past year, SuperK has co-created close to 50 stores and serves over one lakh families. As per the firm, its franchisee stores have seen a 4X growth in sale volume, clocking Rs 1 crore on average in annual sale resulting in a 10X jump in their take-homes.

FairPlum, a food company has raised $2 million in a seed round led by early-stage focused VC Unicorn India Ventures. Angel investors Vivek Sirohi, VP-R&D, Unilever, Amith Agarwal, Co-Founder and CEO at Agri-Bazaar, Dinshaw Family Office, Anisha Subandh, have also participated in the funding round.

The funds raised will be utilized by the company for marketing & brand building, enhancing people skills, improvement of organization facility and boosting the working capital, the firm said in a statement.

“We will use the fresh funds to improve consumer experience with innovations in technology and upgrade the infrastructure with expanding the platform to other strategic territories,” said Rupesh Agrawal, Founder & CEO, FairPlum.

Founded by former senior Unilever executives Rupesh Agrawal and Mitesh Thakkar, and Mayank Tandon, FairPlum products are deployed through a phygital model of cloud kitchens, e-commerce, experience centres and channel sales platform.

The firm plans to have 100 Cloud Kitchen locations, one physical experience center, 5-10 kiosks within 2022 starting from Delhi-NCR & Mumbai. The food company operates in 17 locations and has confirmed 10 more cloud kitchen locations and one physical experience centre in Thane along with Bikanervala which is expected to go live in the next 2 months.

Paperplane, a digital clinic, has bagged nearly $400,000 in a follow-on funding round that was led by Cornerstone Venture Partners.

LV Angel Fund and other seed investors also participated in the funding round.

The funds will be used to enhance sales capabilities and further product development, the firm said in a statement.

“Paperplane was born out of a motivation to ease this load on medical practitioners of patient management, so that they can focus more on diagnosis and treatment. The fresh round of funding will help us further improve AI-based practice management platform and amplify its reach,” shared Devansh Swarup, CEO of Paperplane.

The platform is being used by over 1,000 medical practitioners, conducting 11,000+ consultations per day, serving more than 1,00,000 patients across the country, as per the firm. Paperplane claims to be growing at more than 30% month-on-month due to the ease of adoption and minimal disruptions in the consulting process.

Mumbai Angels, a platform for private investments along with its co-investment partner venture investments and advisory house x10xventures has invested an undisclosed sum in WCube, a B2B Procurement Enablement solution for large and mid-sized enterprises.

The funding round also witnessed participation from other investors, including FAAD Network and other prominent angel investors and family offices. WCube will utilize the fresh capital for scaling the business and expanding its footprint to new geographies, it said in a statement.

Nandini Mansinghka, Co-Founder and CEO of Mumbai Angels, said, “In the age of technology-enabled disruptions becoming a necessity, the WCube procurement and supply solution is a milestone achieved towards attaining maximum efficiency through a streamlined value chain. With the additional funds coming in, we are confident that WCube would be able to replicate its success model through the sbsequent growth stages."

With a team of 50 members WCube is looking for a national expansion in the coming quarters. It currently serves over 250+ clients, sells over 30 categories and has over 50 million products.

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