Here’s a lowdown of the top deals from the startup space.
Social commerce startup DealShare turns unicorn
Social commerce platform DealShare became the fifth Indian startup to enter the unicorn club this year after raising $130 million in a Series E funding round led by Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Ventures.
As per filings sourced from Tofler, Tiger Global has invested almost $40 million while Alpha Wave Ventures infused over $31 million in the company. Other investors who participated in the funding round includes Kora Investment, DF International Partners and Twenty Nine Capital Partners.
The startup will use the fresh capital for growth and expansion of the business, the filings showed. DealShare is the second social commerce startup to turn unicorn after Meesho.
SaaS startup Darwinbox enters the unicorn club
SaaS startup Darwinbox has become the fourth unicorn of 2022 after raising $72 million led by TCV at a valuation of over $1 billion. TCV has previously invested in Netflix, Meta, Spotify and Airbnb among others.
Existing investors like Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia India, Lightspeed India, Endiya Partners, 3One4Capital, JGDEV and SCB 10X. After this round, the total investment raised by the company so far has gone over $110 million (approximately Rs 820 crore).
The new funding will be used for Darwinbox’s global expansion plan by allowing the company to accelerate its platform innovation agenda, strengthen its product, engineering, and customer success teams along with scaling its go-to-market presence in South Asia, SEA, and MENA. The company is expecting the overall team to grow by 100 percent and is also setting up to launch in the US in 2022.
MinIO gets $103M in Series B round, enters the Unicorn club
Multi-cloud object storage suite MinIO has turned unicorn after raising $103 million in Series B funding at a $1 billion valuation.
The investment was led by Intel Capital with participation from new investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and existing investors Dell Capital, General Catalyst and Nexus Venture Partners.
With this, the company has raised $126 million till date. MinIO growth metric include an ARR growth of over 201 percent, the customer count grew by over 208 percent in 2021 alone, said the company.
Google invests upto $1 billion in Bharti Airtel
Google has invested in Bharti Airtel via preferential issue, thus confirming a CNBC-TV18 news break.
The Bharti Airtel board approved the issuance of shares to Google on Friday and according to the deal, Bharti Airtel will issue 7.1 crore shares to Google at Rs 734 per share. This will translate to shares worth Rs 5,224.4 crore ($700 million approximately) on a preferential basis to Google for a 1.28 percent stake.
According to the tie-up release, Google will invest up to $1 billion for India Digitisation Fund. The deal includes an investment of up to $300 million for potential multi-year commercial agreements. The partnership also aims at enabling affordable access to smartphones in the country. Two companies will work with device manufacturers to bring down the barriers of owning a smartphone across a range of price points.
Swiggy raises $700M led by Invesco, turns Decacorn
On-demand convenience and food tech platform Swiggy has raised $700 million in new funding led by Invesco. The round saw participation from new investors such as Baron Capital Group, Sumeru Venture, IIFL AMC Late Stage Tech Fund, Kotak, Axis Growth Avenues AIF- I, Sixteenth Street Capital, Ghisallo, Smile Group and Segantii Capital.
Existing investors Alpha Wave Global (formerly Falcon Edge Capital), Qatar Investment Authority, and ARK Impact, along with its long-term investor Prosus, also participated in the round.
With this latest funding, Swiggy enters the Decacorn club, valued at over $10 billion. Sources tell CNBC-TV18 that Swiggy is now valued at $10.7 billion and will be the third most valued startup in India behind Flipkart and Byju's.
Moglix raises $250 mn in Series F funding; valued at $2.6 bn
B2B industrial goods marketplace Moglix has raised $250 Million in its Series F funding round led by Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global with Hong Kong based Ward Ferry coming onboard as a new investor.
This investment has pushed the startup’s valuation at $2.6 billion. In May 2021, Moglix became the first B2B commerce unicorn in the manufacturing sector, raising $120 million.
Moglix will increasingly focus on growth driven by supply chain financing, acquisition of the right partners and global expansion,” Rahul Garg, Founder & CEO, Moglix, said.
Aavishkaar and Germany’s KfW launch $250M ESG First Fund
Impact investment firm Aavishkaar Capital in partnership with German state-owned investment and development bank KfW, has launched a $250 million ESG First Fund.
The fund will focus on investing in Asia and Africa to strengthen the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices of mid-cap businesses and offer them growth capital for expansion, the companies said in a statement.
The fund will provide transformational capital to businesses to improve their ESG standards and meet increasing demands on corporate due diligence especially for access to European markets.
Ola Electric gets $200 mn in funding; valued at $5 bn
Ola Electric has raised over $200 million from Tekne Private Ventures, Alpine Opportunity Fund, Edelweiss and others, valuing the electric vehicle maker at $5 billion.
In September last year, Ola Electric had announced raising a similar amount in funding from Falcon Edge, Softbank and others that had valued the company at $3 billion.
In the past, Ola Electric has raised funding from various investors, including Tiger Global and Matrix India. In July last year, Ola Electric had announced signing a $100 million 10 year-term debt financing agreement with the Bank of Baroda.
Venture Catalysts launches ‘Beams Fintech Fund’, targets $100M for fintech companies
Startup incubator Venture Catalysts has announced the launch of a growth capital fintech fund--Beams FinTech Fund (Beams)--which will invest in fintech companies operating in the financial services and technology space.
With a target size of $100 million, Beams plans to invest $8 million-10 million in growth stages, Series B and C rounds of fintech companies, and build a concentrated portfolio of a dozen fintech companies. The founding team is already in the advanced stages of its first close, the company said in a statement.
Beams is Venture Catalysts’ second fund after 9Unicorns, a $100 million early-stage sector-agnostic accelerator fund.
Avanse Financial secures Rs 357 crore via securitisation transaction facilitated by Northern Arc
Avanse Financial Services, an education-focused NBFC, has raised Rs 357 crore via securitisation transaction from a renowned global financial institution. The funding which is for 10 years was facilitated by Northern Arc Capital.
The funds will support expansion of the Avanse’s education financing programme. The organisation’s deep domain expertise, healthy portfolio and robust business strategy have enabled it to receive this long-term investment, it said in a statement.
The non-bank lender claims to have offered loans to around two lakh students studying both in India and abroad. Avanse has also provided growth and working capital to about 1,000 educational institutes.
Smiles.ai raises $23 mn Series A from Alpha Wave, others: Reports
Smiles.ai, an online platform for dental treatments has raised $23 million in a Series A round, led by Alpha Wave Incubation (Falcon Edge Capital), along with existing backers Sequoia India’s Surge and Chiratae Ventures.
Angel investors such as Lenskart founders Amit Chaudhary and Peyush Bansal, Mosaic Wellness’ Revant Bhate, CRED’s Miten Sampat and Haptik’s Aakrit Vaish also invested in the startup, according to reports.
The company said India’s dental care industry will be a $15 billion market by 2023, and is growing 20 percent year-on-year (YoY), although customers are largely acquired via offline channels and individual clinics account for most business in the sector.
Pravin Jadhav’s Raise Financial Services raises $22 mn in Series A
Fintech platform Raise Financial Services has raised $22 million in a Series A funding round led by BEENEXT and its existing investor Mirae Asset Venture Investments.
The round also saw participation from 3one4 Capital, Rocketship.vc and angel investors such as Meesho co-founders Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau, Udaan co-founder Sujeet Kumar, neobanking platform Jupiter founder Jitendra Gupta, and Sandeep Tandon of Whiteboard Capital.
The startup will deploy the newly raised funds into its newly launched investment platform Dhan, to strengthen the product engineering, operations and customer experience teams, it said in a statement.
StanPlus bags $20 mn in Series A funding from HealthQuad, Kalaari Capital & HealthX
Emergency medical response company StanPlus has raised $20 million in a Series A led by Healthquad, Kalaari Capital, and HealthX Capital Singapore.
Pegasus (Hiranandani family office), Sandeep Singhal (Avaana) and Prashant Malik also participated alongside a clutch of angel investors. The round also includes debt funding from N+1 capital. Additionally, the company raised $2 million from Grip Invest to be utilized for leasing ambulances, it said in a statement.
The capital infusion will be leveraged to scale up StanPlus’s operations to 500 hospitals, launch its flagship Red Ambulance brand in 15 cities from the current 5.
Lee Fixel’s Addition invests $14 mn in SuperOps.ai
SuperOps.ai, a professional services automation (PSA) and remote monitoring and management (PMM) company, has secured $14 million in Series A funding round which was led by Addition and Tanglin Venture Partners.
Existing investors, Matrix Partners and Elevation Capital, along with angel investors including Giovanni Sanguily (CEO of Honey CRM), Sidharth Malik (CEO of CleverTap), Noel Wax and Lisa Woods (CEO and COO of Groundswell Group), and Abhi Kumar (Partner at M12 Ventures), too participated in the funding round.
The firm said that this investment will help it disrupt the stagnant Managed Service Providers (MSP) market and take on legacy vendors with its newly launched AI-powered PSA-RMM platform. In beta since May 2021, SuperOps.ai has revealed the launch of its full-service platform, having already worked with over 30 clients to build a platform that meets the needs of MSPs.
Vajro raises $8.5 mn in Series A funding to create mobile shopping apps
Mobile app builder firm Vajro has raised $8.5 million (around Rs 63.52 crore) in a funding round from Kansas City-based growth equity firm Five Elms Capital.
Vajro enables e-commerce store owners and service providers to create mobile shopping apps for Android and iOS users in 60 minutes or less, without writing codes.
"Vajro will use its Series A funding to develop its next-generation platform with new features and flexibility and to build integrations with other e-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce, Magento, and others in order to expand its reach even further," Vajro CEO Baskar Agneeswaran said.
Agritech startups Aqgromalin secures $5.25 mn from Sequoia’s Surge
Agritech platform Aqgromalin has bagged $5.25 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital India-Surge and Venture funds, Omnivore Partners India and Zephyr Peacock India.
The round had received strong investor interest and was reportedly oversubscribed, the company said in a statement. Aqgromalin is part of Sequoia Capital India-Surge's sixth cohort of 20 companies.
The company plans to allocate the funds to strengthen its market expansion, farmer base, technology and product categories.
Crypto startup Flint bags $5.1 mn from Sequoia & GFC
Crypto startup Flint has bagged $5.1 million in a seed funding round led by Sequoia Capital India and GFC.
Coinbase Ventures, Hashed, IOSG, Better Capital, Antler India and MSA Capital participated in the round along with other 11 institutional investors and angels. Angel investors including Kunal Shah (founder, CRED), Sandeep Nailwal (co-founder, Polygon), Jaynti Kanani (co-founder, Do Kwon (founder, Terra), Nitin Gupta (co-founder, Uni), Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal (co-founders, Snapdeal), and Tanmay Bhat, too pitched in.
The fresh capital will be used to enhance the product based on early feedback, and hire seniors across engineering, design and product functions. Flint also plans to allocate a significant portion of the funding to strengthen legal and risk functions, ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory norms, and going above and beyond market standards to reduce business risk.
Kissht bags Rs 100 crore fromTrifecta Capital, Northern Arc
Kissht, an instant credit platform, has raised Rs 100 crore in the funding round led by Trifecta Capital and Northern Arc.
In the current round, Trifecta and Nothern Arc have each subscribed to Rs 50 crore of Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs). The company has so far raised over ₹270 crore in equity and over 1,200 crore in debt investments.
The company will utilise the funds to expand its scale of operations by branching out to smaller cities, it said in a statement. Kissht also plans to expand its business to 10 million unique borrowers and total transaction-linked credit volume to Rs 10,000 crore in the financial year 2023.
First Published: Jan 28, 2022 7:52 PM IST
Check out our in-depth Market Coverage, Business News & get real-time Stock Market Updates on CNBC-TV18. Also, Watch our channels CNBC-TV18, CNBC Awaaz and CNBC Bajar Live on-the-go!
AAP protest today: Delhi traffic police issues traffic advisory, security at BJP headquarters beefed up
May 19, 2024 11:26 AM
BJP is planning to ban RSS, says Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray
May 18, 2024 8:01 PM
Punjab Lok Sabha elections: Complete list of Congress candidates
May 18, 2024 4:08 PM
Punjab Lok Sabha elections: Check full list of AAP candidates and constituencies
May 18, 2024 12:59 PM