Indian startups raised more than $700 million last week!

Monday February 09, 2015 , 4 min Read

Funding Round up Feb 1-7 2015

Last week was one of those busy weeks, money was raining on Indian startups. Here’s a list of startups that raised funding and some which were acquired. (see all of 2014)

FreeCharge, M-commerce platform has raised USD 80 million in a series C round of funding from investors that include Tybourne Capital Management and Valiant Capital Management. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, along with Sofina and RuNet also participated in the round. FreeCharge had raised a Series B round of USD 33 million in September last year. FreeCharge will be using the fresh funding to expand the team size.

NewsHunt’s parent company, Ve rse' Innovation Pvt. Ltd, has raised Rs. 250 crore in series C funding led by New York-based hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital. Existing investors Matrix Partners India, Sequoia Capital India and Omidyar Network also participated in this round of funding. In September 2014, Newshunt had raised Rs. 100 Cr in series B. The newly raised capital will be used to grow NewsHunt’s vernacular content aggregation platform, by bringing more ecosystem partners.

Though Paytm and Alibaba haven’t confirmed it yet, according to media reports, Ant Financial Services Group, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, has agreed to pump in about $575 million in Paytm to acquire 25 percent in One97 Communications Ltd. Paytm’s mobile wallet is used by more than 23 million users to pay for various services in India.

NowFloats has raised series A funding from a new investor Omidyar Network and existing investors, including Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels and Hyderabad Angels. NowFloats has over 33,000 customers and is one of the fastest growing companies in the Small and Medium Business (SMB) segment in India.

SmartPocket’s parent company Findulum Techlabs Pvt Ltd has raised between Rs. 1-1.5Cr in a seed round funding led by early stage investment firm Sol Primero and angel investor Rajiv Mehta, CEO with Arvind Group. SmartPocket mobile app helps local businesses to manage loyalty cards as well as digital storage of other ID cards.

Yumist, a food delivery startup has raised it’s first round of funding from Orios Venture Partners. Yumist was founded by Alok Jain, a technology entrepreneur and ex-CMO at Zomato along with Abhimanyu Maheshwari, a seasoned F&B entrepreneur.

Aisle, the popular matchmaking site among affluent single Indians, has raised $100k in seed funding from a group of angel investors from Bay Area and India, including Anand Vijay of Microsoft and Shashank Mehrotra of Bigrock. Aisle.co is trying to solve the local social matchmaking issue without much deviation from the traditional Indian way.

Culture Machine, a digital media company for the internet generation that helps creators and brands succeed on YouTube using technology and content, has raised $18 million from Tiger Global and existing investors. Previously, Culture Machine had raised $3.5 million in an earlier round of funding from Zodius Capital in 2014.

Chennai-based Kobster has raised undisclosed amount of seed funding from Splice Advisors. Splice Advisors recently invested in DoctorC a Hyderabad-based healthcare e-commerce startup, and has over 26 investments in various companies in its portfolio.

Bangalore-based Big Data intelligence service Manthan Software has secured an undisclosed amount in Series D round of funding, led by Singapore based investment firm Temasek.

Holachef.com, a food startup, has raised around $323,000 in seed funding led by early stage investor India Quotient in a convertible note. According ET report, Holacher is also looking to raise Series A funding of Rs 20-30 crore in the coming months.

Frsh.com’s parent company Fingertip Foods Pvt Ltd has raised about Rs 3.2 crore in seed funding from early-stage investors India Quotient and Kae Capital.

Last week at the IIT Bombay Entrepreneurship summit few startups raised funding from Angles.

Online custom apparel platform Faaya raised Rs 63 lakh from 10+ investors. An event ticket booking InstaBounce raised Rs 10 lakh. A career intelligence tool CleverSharks has raised Rs 12 lakh. A cash-back platform Dealwithus has raised Rs 15 lakh. An online snack ordering platform Snackexperts.com (Chloroplast Foods) has raised Rs 14 lakh. An IoT startup Leaf has raised Rs 21 lakh from seven investors, the startup is developing devices for women to make a distress call.

Acquisitions: According to a tweet by Chairman and MD of Mahindra Group, Anand Mahindra, BabyOye.com has been acquired by Mahindra Group, which runs Mom & Me, for an undisclosed sum. And Exotel has acquired Singapore-based voice-media startup Croak.it earlier last week.

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