BYJU’S gets $250 million more from existing investors, promises profitability in 2023
India's most-valued edtech company BYJU'S raises $250 million in a fresh funding round, with participation from existing investors including Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).
BYJU'S, which counts Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Tencent, Naspers General Atlantic, and Lightspeed as its investors, hasn't disclosed the complete list of backers in the new funding round. Last valued at $22 billion, what also remains unknown is the valuation given to BYJU'S in this round.
The fresh capital infusion comes soon after the company announced plans to lay off 2,500 employees across teams, while enlisting a slew of 'optimisation measures' to hit profitability by March, 2023. For FY21, BYJU'S loss widened by nearly 20 times to Rs 4,559 crore — the worst bottomline figure among all of India's unicorns or startups valued at $1 billion or more.
"BYJU’S is now at that sweet spot of its growth story where the unit economics and the economies of scale both are in its favour. This means the capital that we now invest in our business will result in profitable growth and create sustainable social impact," said Byju Raveendran, Founder & CEO, BYJU’S.
"Regardless of the adverse macroeconomic conditions, 2022-23 is set to be our best year in terms of revenue, growth and profitability," he added.
At the time of releasing the FY21 results, which was delayed by at least 18 months, as BYJU'S adopted a new 'revenue recognition mechanism', the company had said that it clocked Rs 10,000 crore in revenue for FY22 (unaudited). That's a 4x jump over the Rs 2,280 crore reported for FY21. Meanwhile, Member of Parliament Karti P Chidambaram has called upon the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to probe BYJU’S financials.
Avataar Venture Capital sets up new fund to back SaaS & B2B startups
Avataar Venture Capital, a SaaS & B2B tech-focussed growth-stage investor, launches its Fund-II with a target size of $350 million. From the new fund, the VC firm plans to invest in startups raising their early growth rounds, including Series C.
Avataar’s portfolio includes Amagi, RateGain, Zenoti, CRMNext, Algonomy, and HR Tech Sense. The VC fund was an early investor in ElasticRun, a unicorn which provides B2B ecommerce platform to reach rural India.
Having raised two funds previously, Avataar VC operates on a focused-fund strategy, where it invests in only about a dozen startups per fund. The VC fund invests $10- 50 million in companies with $10 million in ARR and higher, aiming to help them scale beyond $100-150 million ARR.
Avataar VC claims that three out of its nine portfolio startups are already past $100 million ARR or $1 billion GMV, with another three to four on-track to hit the milestone in the next couple of years.
Alteria Capital announces first close of third fund at Rs 1,000 crore
Alteria Capital has announced the first close of its third venture debt fund at Rs 1,000 crore or $125 million. With assets under management of Rs 3,800 crore or $475 million, Alteria Capital claims to be India's largest venture debt platform.
Founded by Vinod Murali and Ajay Hattangdi in 2017, Alteria Capital was and has backed over 100 startups including Rebel Foods, Spinny, Mensa Brands, Dealshare, Good Glamm Group, Infra.market, BharatPe, Dunzo, Cars24, Niyo, EarlySalary, and Zepto.
Alteria Capital's Fund III will back around 70-100 startups including those that are already covered in the two existing funds, such as Chaayos, Mylo, LBB, Country Delight, Wow Sciences, Ayu Health, Euler Motors, Happay, Medibuddy, Damensch, Exotel, Sunstone Eduversity, Cropin, and Universal Sportsbi and others.
AIC-Pinnacle plans to incubate 40 new 'Bharat' startups
AIC (Atal Incubation Centre)-Pinnacle Entrepreneurship Forum, an incubation and investment platform supported by Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, Ministry of MSME, and Ministry of Electronics and IT, Govt. of India, has announced its plans to incubate 40 innovative startups from tier-2 and tier-3 cities that are willing to address the ground-level societal issues of "Bharat"—where 70 percent of India resides.
The incubator is also eying to facilitate Rs 5 crore to startups over the next three years across automotive, EV, agritech, IT/IoT/AI, clean energy, health tech, social innovation, and other emerging areas.
At present, AIC-Pinnacle incubated startups, including Attron Automotive, Nettoyer Automotives, Krishigati, Agrosonic Solutions, Ziffytech Digital Healthcare, Diabetico, Rut3, Arcatron Mobility, Adivid, Eldew Digital, Fountlab Solutions, U4U Sociotech and others.
V-Mart acquires e-commerce startup LimeRoad for Rs 31 crore
Fashion retailer V-Mart Retail (V-Mart) has acquired e-commerce platform LimeRoad for a lump sum cash of around Rs 31.12 crore. It further plans to invest Rs 150 crore to scale and achieve sustained profitability, said the company in a regulatory filing.
The Gurgaon-based startup LimeRoad was founded in 2012 by Suchi Mukherjee, Ankush Mehra and Prashant Malik. The startup clocked 1.7 crore value shoppers and achieved a gross merchandise value of more than Rs 700 crore, said the company.
LimeRoad had raised over $51 million altogether and was backed by investors including Tiger Global, Matrix, and Lightspeed among others. According to the filings, LimeRoad clocked net revenue of Rs 179.95 crore in 2019-2020 which dropped to Rs 69 crore in 2021-2022.
Snapmint raises $21 million to expand BNPL offering
Buy-now-pay-later platform Snapmint has raised a total of US $21 million in equity and debt as a part of its latest fundraising round, which was led by Northern Arc Capital.
Commenting on RBI tightening the operating environment for lending-based apps, Snapmint's co-founder Anil Gelra said, "Since Snapmint is an NBFC, which is compliant with all digital lending guidelines of RBI, it has been able to leverage the infrastructure changes the government has brought about in the ecosystem post Covid."
Founded by Nalin Agrawal, Anil Gelra and Abhineet Sawa in 2017, Snapmint enables customers to shop on instalments to buy a range of products such as mobiles, electronics, fashion and more.
Snapmint claims to have has grown 6x in 2022, largely driven by more than 300 D2C brands adopting its instalment payments platform. The startup intends to deploy the funds to expand its merchant network both online and offline.
GOPIZZA raises $25 million in Series C funding to fuel expansion plans in India
Korea-headquartered pizza brand GOPIZZA has raised $25 million in a Series C funding round co-led by GS Ventures, CJ Investment, Mirae Asset Securities, NCORE Ventures, Woori Bank, Capstone Partners, Big Basin Capital, DS Asset Management, and Pureun Investment.
GOPIZZA runs 160 outlets across South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, India, and Hongkong. In India, the brand has 15 outlets and has announced plans to open its first store in Hyderabad next month. The brand aims to reach 25 outlets by the end of 2022 and more than 100 stores by 2023.
In the next few years, GOPIZZA aims to establish outlets in Pune, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, and some key Tier-2 cities including Chandigarh, Jodhpur, Jaipur and Kochi. Globally the brand will foray into new markets of Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and United States.
HRTech firm Workruit raises $500,000 in Pre-Series A round
Workruit, an AI-powered career and recruitment platform that caters to B2B and B2C segments, has announced that it has raised over $500,000 in pre-Series A round led by the family office of Kantamaneni from the US.
Workruit will utilize the funds to scale its product, expand operations and focus on customer acquisition. As part of the expansion plans, Workruit also aims to extend its recruitment platform in the US markets by Q1 2023 with the support of the strategic investor.
Till date, over 2.5 million job seekers, mostly Indian have registered on the Workruit platform. More than 2,500 employers, from Just Dial, BYJUs, HDFC, Fortune Group, Reliance Group, Amazon, Asian Paints, etc., are among the recruiters on the platform.
As a part of its expansion plans, the company aims to reach over 5 million job seekers, 5,000 enterprises & SMEs and 2,000 colleges by the end of 2023.
UpScalio launches private-label gaming brand Archer Tech Labs
UpScalio, an Indian e-commerce roll-up, has announced the launch of Archer Tech Labs, an electronic peripherals brand exclusively geared towards the gaming industry.
While working on previously acquired brands Green Soul Ergonomics (gaming chairs) and Tizum (electronic peripherals), UpScalio’s team identified the market gap in electronic and other accessories for gamers.
The brand has debuted exclusively on Amazon with 12 products across cooling pads, gaming mice, gaming keyboards, and mousepads.
"We will expand Archer to global markets such as the USA and Middle East, and also debut it on other Indian marketplaces. Based on the customer response we’ve seen, we’re targeting a Rs 20 crore ARR in one year of operations,” said UpScalio in a statement.
