[Weekly Funding Roundup] This week, Acko leads the pack with $65M; startups raise over $200M

As election fever starts to get going, the second week of March saw funding momentum being lukeworm at best. Only $208 million was raised across 20 deals, including five Pre-Series A rounds.

One highlight of the week was Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy’s investment in B2B ecommerce platform Moglix, although the amount was undisclosed.

Angel networks as well as prominent VC funds like Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, and Blume Ventures were active this week. US-based accelerator YCombinator also made an investment in Noida-based security firm HelloVerify along with Lead Angels Network, Data Collective, and VentureSouq.

Fintech leads

Fintech and financial services raised the highest amount this week - $123.8 million (including Innoviti’s $11.5 million in debt funding).

The week’s clear winner was Mumbai-based online insurance startup Acko, which raised $65 million in Series C round. Investors included Binny Bansal, Co-founder and former Group CEO of Flipkart, RPS Ventures, Intact Ventures, and existing investors Amazon, Accel Partners, SAIF Partners, and TechPro Ventures. After this round, Acko has raised a total of $107 million.

Mswipe, another Mumbai-based fintech startup, raised $31.5 million from Falcon Edge, Epiq Capital, B Capital Asia, and DSG Consumer Partners in its Series E round of funding.

Women's wellness startup Nua raised $4 million in a Series A round from Lightbox Advisors and Kae Capital.

Chennai-based Vivriti Capital also raised $15.8 million.

Catching the investors’ eye

Foodtech was the second most-funded sector this week - distantly - with Faasos raising $15.8 million from Sequoia Capital India, Lightbox Ventures, and Evolvence India Fund. According to Registrar of Companies (RoC) filings, this was a part of its Series D1 round.   

Bangalore-based ed-tech unicorn BYJU’s raised $11.5 million while SaaS platforms Yalochat and Whatfix raised $8 million and $12.5 million respectively.

Agritech also caught the eye of investors, as shown by AgroStar raising $27 million in its Series C from Bertelsmann India, and existing investors Accel, Chirate Ventures and Aavishkar Bharat Fund.

Bangalore-based four-year-old agritech platform TartanSense raised $2 million in its Pre-Series A  round from Omnivore Partners, Blume Ventures, BEENEXT, Dileep George, Akash Gupta, Samay Kohli, and Kush Jawahar.

Yet another Pre-Series A round was raised by AI-powered fresh food aggregator Aibono that raised $2.5 million from Menterra Venture Advisors, Milliways Venture, Artha Ventures, Rebright Partners, and 3one4 capital. The six-year-old startup is based in Chennai.

Last but not least, The Wedding Brigade raised Pre-Series A funding of $1 million from AET fund, Blume Ventures, and Allana Group.