[Weekly Funding Roundup] India gets a new unicorn; startups raise $88.8M

Unlike last week, this week saw debt funding vanishing again, and with the help of two late-stage deals, total funding secured in the Indian startup ecosystem was just $88.8 million.

Two late-stage deals raised $39.9 million, while the balance amount was raised through early-stage and other deals.

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Deal of the week

Gurugram-based Ofbusiness raised Rs 250 crore ($35 million) in a Series D round led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Falcon Edge and Matrix Partners. The startup focuses on lending to small and medium businesses, and provides unsecured credit of up to Rs 2 crore to SMEs through NBFC Oxyzo Financial Services. It has also partnered with Tata Capital and AU Small Finance Bank.

Early stage deals

Darwinbox, a cloud-based end-to-end HR management startup raised $15 million Series B investment led by Sequoia India. The round also saw participation from existing investors Endiya Partners, Lightspeed India Partners, and 3one4 Capital. The freshly raised capital will be used to accelerate growth across Asia and focus on product innovation. The startup’s platform focuses on all HR needs across an employee's lifecycle. 

Hyderabad-based WhistleDrive, an employee transportation startup, raised Rs 72 crore ($10 million) from Chicago-based Colosseum Group in a Series B round. The tech-platform, Whistle Tech, developed by the company, allows corporates to automate the entire transportation process. It serves 32 clients, registering more than one lakh trips a month to transport more than 15,000 employees to their offices, every day.

Cancer care aggregator Onco raised Series A funding of $7 million led by Accel Partners, Chiratae Ventures, and Dream Incubator. The platform aims to be a one-stop shop for all cancer-related needs of patients and caregivers. With this fund raise, the team plans to expand its customer base and scale operations globally. 

Hyderabad-based Digi-Prex, a healthtech startup, raised $5.5 million in its seed round of funding, led by Khosla Ventures. Founded by Samarth Sindhi in 2019, a mechanical engineering graduate from Brown University, the startup was shortlisted for Y Combinator's Demo Day in August 2019.

Healthtech platform Pharmarack raised $3 million in Series-A round from IvyCap Ventures. Pharmarack also counts Unicorn India Ventures and Currae Healthtech Fund among its investors. The Pune-based startup plans to use the funds to expand its network for pharma manufacturers and retailers.

Electric vehicle mobility startup, Blu Smart raised an angel round of $3 million from KA Enterprises, the investment office of Deepika Padukone; JITO Angel Network; Kalpavriksh Trust (Centrum VC Fund); Survam Partners (family office of Hero Group’s Suman Kant Munjal), along with other prominent names.  

Chennai based Aquaconnect, raised $1.1 million in seed funding led by Omnivore and HATCH. With this fund raise, the startup intends to accelerate the growth of its farmer network, launch new SaaS tools for the aquaculture ecosystem, roll out deep tech improvements on its platform FarmMOJO, and push monetisation on its omnichannel marketplace. 

Mumbai-based AdvaRisk, a fintech platform focussed on fraud prevention, detection, investigation, and recovery, raised $700,000 in a seed round led by Sprout Venture Partners, along with participation from SEA Fund and angels, including industry veterans like Sharad Bhatia and Varadarajan Srinivasan.

Zerodha’s early-stage fintech fund and incubator Rainmatter invested Rs 4 crore ($0.56 million) in Finception, an early-stage startup. Co-founded in 2018 by three IIM Ahmedabad graduates - Bhanu Harish Gurram, Shrehith Karkera, Pawan Kumar Rai, and one IIT Delhi graduate, Lokesh Gurram, Finception aims to make stock markets more accessible to the layperson.

Clean-tech company Log 9 Spill Containment raised Rs 4 crore (0.56 million) from angel investors Renjit Shinto and Omkar Ghaisas in its Pre-Series A round. Log 9 Spill Containment, a subsidiary of Log 9 Materials Scientific, will use the funds for product innovation and development, as well as for infrastructure development.

Cloud kitchen startup Zesty Kitchen raised Rs 3 crore (approximately $422,085) of fund this week, from a group of angel investors.

Gurugram-headquartered Ketofy raised $250,000 as a part of its pre-Series A funding. Prominent investors include Alok Mittal, ex-MD, Canaan Partners; Rohit Chanana, Founder, Sarcha Advisory; and Tejinderpal Miglani, Co-founder, India Bulls, among others.

Late stage funding

Rivigo has now entered the unicorn club after raising $4.97 million from KB Global platform fund, the investment arm of South Korea-based KB Financial Group Inc. The total valuation of Rivigo is expected to be $1.05 billion, after its value went up to $950 million when it raised Series E funding of $65 million in July this year.

Others

Health solutions provider Agatsa raised $1 million in funding from Indian Angel Network (IAN) and the Technology Development Board (TDB), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. With this funding, Agatsa will scale up its operations and marketing along with expanding its global outreach.

DIPL, a Mumbai-based transaction service provider, raised Rs 5.75 crore ($0.8 million) from US-based investment group IC1101. The investment group was among the top eight investors who participated in India's funding platform, Horses Stable. 

Delhi-based SpeakIn raised an undisclosed amount of funding from OYO South Asia CEO Aditya Ghosh-backed Homage Ventures. With this funding, SpeakIn announced its plans to launch a first-of-its kind “Expert Platform” and become the world’s window to Asian expertise.  

Exits and acquisitions

Skill-gaming platform Junglee Games announced the completion of the acquisition of Algorin TechLabs, a Bengaluru-based gaming company. In a statement, Junglee Games said the strategic acquisition strengthens its position in the skill gaming space and provides a strong presence for the company in Bengaluru. 

Flipkart Co-founder Sachin Bansal has picked up stake in Chaitanya Rural Intermediation Development Services (CRIDS), and has pumped in Rs 739 crore in the non-banking financial company.

Haptik, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries and a conversational AI platform, announced that it has acquired Buzzo.ai, a Mumbai-based conversational commerce startup. 

(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)

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