Avendus Future Leaders Fund invests Rs 195 Cr in Xpressbees
Avendus Future Leaders Fund has made a secondary investment of Rs 195 crore in logistics company Xpressbees. However, the financial details of the deal remain undisclosed.
This is the sixth investment from the Rs 1,500 crore Avendus Future Leaders Fund II raised in August 2021. It has invested in Lenskart, SBI General Insurance, Licious, Juspay, Zeta and now Xpressbees.
According to a Moneycontrol report, Avendus Future Leaders Fund has bought a minority stake in XpressBees from Elevation Capital which had a 12.32 percent stake in Xpressbees, which was valued at Rs 1,060 crore as of April 2022.
WebEngage raises USD 20M in Series B funding round
B2B SaaS startup WebEngage has raised USD 20 million in Series B funding round led by Singularity Growth Opportunities Fund and SWC Global. Existing investors, including India Quotient, Blume Ventures, and IAN Fund, also pitched in the round.
The round also saw participation from a few family offices, including Unmaj Corporation, NB Ventures, Shashwat Nakrani, Co-Founder of BharatPe, and Gopal Srinivasan, Chairman of TVS Capital, amongst others.
The startup said it will deploy the newly raised capital to maintain a high growth trajectory. The company claimed it has been growing 100 percent YoY and has scaled operations across India, MENA, and SEA regions. It also increased its team strength 2.5x since 2020 and bagged key clients like Adani Group in India and IKEA in Saudi Arabia.
WebEngage added it had burned ~USD 6M in capital to reach a USD 20 million annual revenue run rate, while its peers in SaaS spend about 3x to 5x more to get to the same scale.
EV 2-wheeler startup River secures USD 11M from Chris Sacca's Lowercarbon Capital
Electric two-wheeler company River has raised USD 11 million in a Series A funding round led by Chris Sacca's Lowercarbon Capital with participation from Toyota Ventures.
The firm intends to use the fresh capital to expand its team, invest further in R&D, set up a manufacturing facility, and get its first product ready for sale.
"Our first electric two-wheeler is designed with a broad usage spectrum in mind. We are reimagining how people ride and carry their world on two wheels," said Vipin George, Co-founder, River.
The Series A round brings River's total funding figure to USD 13 million so far, after the startup fetched USD 2 million from Israel-backed Maniv Mobility and San Fransisco-based Trucks VC in March 2021.
watchTowr gets USD 8M in Pre-Series A round to expand footprint in India
watchTowr, a Singapore-based cybersecurity startup, has raised USD 8 million in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Prosus Ventures and Vulcan Capital.
The round saw participation from Indian angel investors including Saket Agarwal of Onnivation, Gaurav Gupta of Farfetch, Bikram Singh Bedi of Google India, and Gaurav Samdaria of Karza Technologies.
As per the company, the investment from Indian investors will help the startup scale its operations in the country, explore market opportunities, and address the rising cases of cyberattacks in the country.
The firm said its technology builds a real-time view of an organisation’s attack surface in the eyes of an attacker, with the aim to help CISOs with a 300-400 percent increase in attack surface visibility.
SaaS startup Emitrr raises USD 4M from Chiratae Ventures and others
Emitrr, a SaaS platform that solves customer communication and engagement for small & local businesses in the US, has raised USD 4 million in Pre Series A funding round led by Chiratae Ventures, Venture Highway, FortyTwo VC, and Axilor Ventures.
The company said it will use the fresh capital to scale its go-to-market efforts and improve product capabilities to solve deeper problems for local businesses, like payments.
“Our goal is to help local businesses digitize their customer experience with the help of better communication and automation on top of SMS. With companies like Amazon and Uber offering a world-class customer experience, today the end user’s expectations have sky-rocketed - they demand similar digital journeys from all businesses. Our product is enabling that experience for the end user when they interact with a local business,” said Anmol Oberoi, Founder, Emitrr.
Founded in 2020, the firm claims that that over 150 local businesses in the US use its platform. These businesses range from single-location healthcare practices to multi-location home service companies. The startup also has some small business clients in Australia and Canada.
Ottonomy gets USD 3.3M in seed funding round
Ottonomy.IO, a deep tech startup, providing contactless deliveries using fully autonomous robots, has raised USD 3.3 million in its seed funding round led by pi Ventures.
The round also saw participation from Connetic Ventures, Branded Hospitality Ventures and Sangeet Kumar, Founder and CEO of Addverb Technologies. With this the firm has raised USD 4.9 million in funding till date.
Ottonomy.IO will use the capital to scale production and build capacity to address the current pipeline of customers, expand its team size and further strengthen their presence across North America, Europe and the Middle East, a statement said.
Omidyar Network invests USD 2M in gig worker platform Voiz
Voiz, a marketplace for gig working professionals, has raised USD 2 million in a funding round led by Omidyar Network.
Launched in July last year by Rajesh Bernard, Vineet Patil, and Sandeep Nyamati, Voiz helps businesses recruit gig workers for online roles such as customer service, tele-calling, sales, and data entry and recruitment, among others.
“The company will use the funds to scale up the gig workforce platform and strengthen the technology, operations and marketing functions. Our vision is to disrupt the gig workforce economy and create employment for over 3 million independent professionals in the next 5 years,” co-founders said in a statement.
