[Weekly funding roundup] No late-stage deals but early-stage bucks the trend, grows 4x

While the number of seed and early-stage deals halved compared to last week, the amount raised during the course of all seed and early-stage deals increased 4x to $53.6 million (vs $13.5 million). This actually bucked the trend of slowing “seed and early stage” deals that was revealed in NASSCOM’s startup ecosystem report released yesterday.

After a somewhat slow start in the first two weeks of October, investment activity picked up last week with Zomato raising $210 million. This week was quieter in that there were no late-stage deals, and total funding fell to $58.26 million, closer to the levels seen early this month.

Bengaluru-based ClearTax raised $50 million in Series B funding

Tax filing and investment startup ClearTax raised $50 million as part of its Series B funding round from Hong Kong-based Composite Capital and existing investors. ClearTax was also the first India-focused company to be funded by Y Combinator. Its other investors include Peter Thiel and Sean Parker-backed Founder’s Fund and Sequoia Capital. The startup was founded in 2011 by IIT Guhawati alumnus Achit Gupta, Chartered Accountant Raja Ram Gupta, BITS Pilani alumnus Srivatsan Chari and Mumbai University Alumnus Ankit Solanki.

Bengaluru-based Hiver raises $4 million

GrexIT Inc, which operates SaaS platform Hiver, raised $4 million from Kalaari Capital and Kae Capital. The platform helps users collaborate over emails. Hiver was founded in 2011 by Niraj Ranjan Rout and Nitesh Nandy. Since then, it had only raised a small, $130,000 round from the Citrix Startup Accelerator and Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma. Since then, they have been virtually bootstrapped and grew the company to 1,100+ paying customers and a 50-person team – all from the revenues they generated.

[YS Exclusive] Co-founder Niraj Ranjan Rout on how Bengaluru-based SaaS platform Hiver raised $4 million from Kalaari, Kae Capital]

Mumbai-based Cube Wealth raised $2 million

The fintech startup raised $2 million from Beenext, Asuka Holding and 500 Startups in a Series A round. The company said that it will use these funds for additional asset partners, and to develop a network of premium sales and marketing partners across different countries in India, as well as across Europe and Japan, as it is looking to target non-resident Indians from these markets.

The finance management mobile platform was founded in 2016 by Satyen V Kothari, who is also the co-founder of payment gateway Citrus Pay, that was acquired by PayU in 2016 for $130 million.

Gurugram-based Shuttl raises $1 million in debt funding

The bus aggregator platform raised $1 million in debt funding from Trifecta Capital. The startup was founded by Amit Singh and Deepanshu Malviya in 2014. In July his year, the bus aggregator run by Super Highway Labs Private Ltd raised $11 million in a Series B funding round that was co-led by Amazon Alexa Fund and Japan based Dentsu Ventures.

Other funding news

Omnichannel platform for health products, HealthKart is reported to be raising $10 million from Sequoia Capital India and IIFL Alternate Asset Advisors Ltd. Bright Lifecare Private Ltd, which runs HealthKart, was founded in 2011 by Prashant Tandon and Sameer Maheshwari.

There were four Pre-Series A rounds this week. Bengaluru-based artificial intelligence-powered video-learning platform VideoKen raised $0.93 million in its Pre-Series A round where SRI Capital, Touchstone Equities, Hyderabad Angels and LG Chandrasekhar participated. Delhi-based ed-tech startup, GuruQ raised $330,000, also in a Pre-Series A round. Medimetry, a health-tech startup and Clensta, a biotechnology startup also raised undisclosed amounts in Pre-Series A rounds.

Bengaluru based, Digital media services and software company, Premiere Digital Services and Chandigarh based men and women's grooming products marketplace, Letsshave also raised undisclosed amount in this week.