Funding Rundown: Pixis raises $100 mn, M2P Fintech secures $56 mn, SaaS Labs gets $42 mn, enters Europe with two acquisitions

This round has enabled Pixis’ early investor Exfinity Venture Partners to make a partial exit with 37X returns. The venture funds have brought out the stake held by Exfinity. With the close of its $17 million Series B round just four months prior, Pixis has raised a total of $124 million to date since its inception in 2018.

Pixis will leverage the fresh funds to help the company rapidly scale its AI platforms and plugins, as well as accelerate expansions across North America, Europe and India. Pixis aims to add over 200 customizable self-evolving AI models to the infrastructure it offers and has already introduced close to four dozen AI models since its last funding.

M2P Fintech, a payments infrastructure startup has secured $56 million in a Series C1 round led by New York-based venture capital firm Insight Partners with participation from MUFG Innovation Partners, a CVC company of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFG).

Existing investors Tiger Global and Better Capital also participated in the round. This is the company's third fundraise in less than a year. Just last October, M2P raised $35 million in a Tiger Global-led Series C round. The firm said that it has raised over $100 million since early 2021.

The investment allows M2P to further build its technology and team, while accelerating its plans to expand internationally, the startup said in a statement.

M2P says its key markets aside from India are the United Arab Emirates, Australia & New Zealand, Nepal, the Philippines, Bahrain, and Egypt.

“We see an unprecedented opportunity to meet this need by bringing our leading platform to other fintech markets across Europe, Africa and Asia, while doubling down on key and emerging fintech markets such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Egypt,” said Madhusudanan R, Co-Founder and CEO of M2P Fintech.

Previously known as Yap, the company was founded in 2014 and provides API infrastructure capabilities to banks, fintech, and consumer internet companies across Asia. M2P Fintech competes with the likes of Setu, Signzy and Decentro in the API infrastructure business.

SaaS Labs, which builds business automation tools for sales and support teams worldwide, has raised $42 million (about Rs 312 crore) in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital India.

The Series B funding round also saw participation from existing investors -- Base 10 Partners and Eight Roads Ventures. Prominent Silicon Valley angel investors such as Amit Agarwal, Allison Pickens, Anand Chandrasekaran, and Michael Stoppelman, also pitched in.

The company plans to use the funds raised on research and development, to develop new products for its global users, as well as to scale newly-launched products.

“While we are well-capitalized, this round gives us the firepower needed to double down on what's working, hire great talent globally, launch innovative products, focus on brand marketing and get aggressive with strategic mergers and acquisitions," SaaS Labs founder and CEO Gaurav Sharma said.

The company also announced its entry in the European market by acquiring Poland-based CallPage, a call-back automation tool and France-based Atolia which provides productivity, communication and collaboration workspace tools.

SaaS Labs said that the acquisitions will enable it to unlock product synergies through integration while the two companies benefit from the exposure to SaaS Labs' global customer base.

Founded in 2016, SaaS Labs claims to have more than 6,000 global customers which includes companies like GoStudent, Booksy, HelloFresh, Grab etc. The company has seen a 2.5 times growth in revenues primarily through organic channels in 2021. Over the next six to 12 months, the company will continue to look for acquisition opportunities in the space, it said in a statement.

Early-stage venture fund pi Ventures has marked the first closing of its second fund at $40 million. The fund was launched in March 2021 with a base target corpus of $75 million and a green shoe option of $100 million.

The first close of the new fund was primarily driven by Limited Partners (LPs) comprising entrepreneurs, high net worth individuals (HNIs) and family offices from across the globe.

The LPs include Binny Bansal, Varun Alagh, Samit Shetty, Rajesh Ranavat, Vikram Kailas, Anupam Mittal, Hemendra Kothari, Hitesh Oberoi, Ullas Kamath, Deep Kalra, and senior leaders from IBM, Facebook, and Google, among others, the firm said in a statement.

The final close of the second fund is expected in mid-2022. By then, institutional investors are also expected to come in as LPs.

So far, one investment has been made from the fund. pi Ventures plans on deploying funds across 20-25 startups, between seed and Series A rounds, operating in artificial intelligence (AI). The investment firm said it will also back firms functioning in blockchain, biotech and material sciences.

Founded in 2016, pi Ventures focuses on backing deeptech startups that are in the early stages. So far, the company has backed spacetech firm Agnikul, Locus, a supply-chain software as a service (SaaS) player, and Pyxis, among others.

Social investment startup StockGro has bagged $32 million in Series A round of funding from BITKRAFT Ventures, General Catalyst, and Itai Tsiddon, who is the co-founder of Lightricks, an Israel-based unicorn.

The round also saw participation from existing investors like Roots Ventures, and Creed Capital Asia. A syndicate of angel investors including Base10 Capital Founders, Junglee Games founder Ankush Gera, Nazara Technologies founder Nitish Mittersain and founding member of Robinhood also participated in the round.

According to the firm, this round also included a commitment for secondary financing for its early backers which would lead to multi-fold returns on their previous investments.

The company said it will use the funds raised to tap into additional markets, introduce new product offerings and ramp up its hiring across all functions. Founded in January 2020, the startup has raised total about $40 million in funding so far.

"Having set up a solid foundation, our aim is to build a disciplined culture of trading in India and help the digital generation of today to invest in an informed and learned manner,” said Ajay Lakhotia, Founder & CEO, StockGro.

The company claimed that it has doubled its user base from five million in October 2021 to 10 million as of January 2022.

Silver jewellery startup GIVA has raised $10 million in its series A funding round from D2C-focused venture capital funds Sixth Sense Ventures, A91 Partners and other marquee investors like India Quotient, Grand Anicut Angel Fund, and Founder's Bank Capital.

Providing a major fillip to its expansion strategy, these funds will help GIVA proliferate both online and offline channels with its range of modern silver jewellery that are crafted with quality for everyday use, a company statement said.

The startup will also use some fund to expand its international presence. While most of the capital raised will be pumped into driving product development, GIVA plans to venture into new product categories to appeal to a wider set of audiences.

GIVA also offers a range of designs in metals like 18K gold, Rose Gold, and oxidized silver with embellishments of zircon, pearl, marcasite, and other coloured stones.

Founded in 2019, GIVA will expand its digital presence through a dedicated mobile application and drive offline business through partnerships with leading retailers. The company has set a target of achieving a revenue of Rs 200 crore in 2021-22.

Consumer platform Madbow Ventures has raised $2 million as a part of its Series A funding led by Planify Capital.

The round also saw participation from Junita Majumder, (JK Future), Bhumika Srivastava, (HR partner at Airbnb), and angel investors like Sanjay Damani, Jagannath MS, Pranab Dutta and Bhagya Lakshmi Inti.

"The funds raised will be used for the company's expansionary purposes as the company is planning to launch fashion brands and labels in kids, ethnic, high fashion, cosmetics, and general merchandising, as well as bring all the fashion and lifestyle requirements under one roof. After experiencing amazing responses from various events and exhibitions, we are also planning for 100+ MBO stores and 10 EBOs by the end of 2022,” said Naveen Mahlawat, CEO of Madbow Ventures.

The startup which is focused on direct-to-consumer fashion brands, is eying Rs 100 crore revenue in next 18-24 Months. The company recently partnered with marketplace players like Myntra, AJIO, Amazon Fashion to provide curated designs.

B2B services rental platform Settlrs has raised $1 million in Pre-Series A funding round led by Canbank Venture Capital Fund, Vinod Jain Family Office, MaGeHold, JN Capital and an angel investor.

The startup will use this fund for business expansion into other cities and to build a next generation fintech platform that attracts and connects the users seamlessly, it said in a statement.

The company claims to have successfully rented out more than 35,000 assets such as furniture, home appliances, fitness equipment and IT infrastructure with 25 % month-on-month growth in revenues.

D2C performance wear startup Zymrat has secured $500,000 in a Seed funding round led by Dominor Investment Holding and Anicut Angel Fund.

Angel investors such as Aditya Somani, Rashmi Daga, Founders - Fresh Menu, Mahesh Agrawal, Mridumesh Rai, Business Director - Alshaya Group), Ankit Somani and Sunil Goyal, Founders- Ladderup Finance, also participated in the round.

The funds will be used for category extension, accelerating product innovation, hiring of talent and building awareness and visibility through brand building, the company said in a statement.

“The activewear and athleisure market has been growing exponentially in India.  We are witnessing 5x more demand for our products in the space we operate in. Repeat rate of 40% has been our biggest product market validator that we are moving in the right direction. This capital infusion will help us in using revolutionary technologies to design and develop high performance, durable and unique products,” said Ujjawal Asthana, Co-Founder & CEO, Zymrat.

The company said it will be launching 30 new SKUs across categories in the next few months.

Social eSports platform Khelgully has raised Rs 3.1 crore in its seed funding round led by Titan Capital.

Prominent Angel investors Sujeet Kumar, co-Founder- Udaan, Neil Bahal, founder & CEO-Negen Capital PMS, Dukaan co-founder Sumit Shah, Rishabh Karwa, Co-Founder at GoMechanic, and Bewakoof.com co-founder Prabhkiran, among others, also participated in the fundraise.

Khelgully’s co-founder, Prakul Bansal, said, “We intend to build a collaborative platform to motivate the players, organizers, content creators, sponsors and other deep-rooted stakeholders, and bring them together in a constructive and uplifting environment.”

The startup aims to provide eSports organizers, players, streamers, content creators, and other stakeholders, with a platform where they can engage with each other, collaborate on eSports tournaments, and earn while doing what they love.

Khelgully operates on the real money gaming model and allows players to earn real cash while pursuing their passion for gaming. The platform also allows gamers to play with their friends, see who the real winner is, and also get a referral bonus every time they invite another player to play on Khelgully.

According to the company, various industry reports suggest that in India, the gaming market is anticipated to be valued at $7 billion by 2026, and has made its mark in multiple, mainstream sporting tournaments