Zilingo, smallcase raise funding; Swiggy goes beyond food delivery

Foodtech unicorn Swiggy has big plans on its agenda for 2019! In its official blog post, the platform announced that it will now go beyond online food delivery with the launch of Swiggy Stores, where it offers customers the convenience of ordering anything from any store across the city. "Think of Swiggy Stores as the superpower that connects you to every store, retailer, or brand in the city,” added Sriharsha Majety, Co-founder and CEO of Swiggy.

Indian fintech has witnessed a meteoric rise. But where is it headed?

Over the last three years, Indian fintech has undoubtedly found a strong footing. Anyone would tell you the sector shot to prominence after the government demonetised high value currency notes in November 2016 and gave digital payments a big push. In fact, in 2018 alone, the sector garnered close to $2.34 billion in equity funding, a whopping 300 percent increase from 2016, when total funding stood at little over half a million ($593 million). As for 2019, analysts are positive that fintech will continue to draw investors.

Zilingo raises Series D funding of $225 million

Singapore-based ecommerce marketplace Zilingo has raised Series D funding of $225 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital, Temasek, Burda Principal Investments, Sofina, EDBI, Singapore Investment fund, and existing investors. Last year, the ecommerce platform had raised $54 million in Series C funding; it raised $17 million the year before that. With the latest round, however, Zilingo looks to develop the infrastructure and tech of its new B2B SaaS platform, which aims to help small and big businesses to optimise the fashion supply chain and grow. 

StudyBud founders exit company as part of strategic acquisition

Edtech startup StudyBud’s founders Anubhav Jain and Dhruv Bhushan have sold their entire 100 percent stake in an all-cash deal to Sanjeev Sharma and Vinai Kumar Singh, both leading professionals in the higher education sector. With this, Sanjeev and Vinai will now take over as Directors of Excelsior Education Pvt Ltd - StudyBud's parent company - and will lead the operations going forward. StudyBud was started in 2014, originally as an online skill development and assessment platform. 

smallcase raises $8 M Series A funding from Sequoia India

On Tuesday, investment platform smallcase Technologies announced it has raised $8 million in Series A funding round led by Sequoia India with participation from existing investors Blume Ventures, Straddle Capital, Beenext Pte Ltd, WEH Ventures and DSP Adiko. Founded in 2015 by IIT Kharagpur graduates Vasanth Kamath, Anugrah Shrivastava, and Rohan Gupta, smallcase will use the fresh capital to build an infrastructure that will help retail brokerages and others to offer theme-based investments.

Belong co-founder Rishabh Kaul on hiring for new-age skills

Rishabh Kaul spotlighted the idea of hiring in the digital age during his talk at the second edition of YourStory’s Future of Work conference in Bengaluru. Speaking at length to the audience comprising mainly techies and entrepreneurs, the co-founder and CEO of Belong, a predictive outbound hiring solution company, offered great insights into what is happening in the hiring scene in the tech world. One of his many recommendations was specialisation for every ambitious individual.

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