[Weekly Funding Roundup] Indian startups raise $29M, equity falls by 75 pc

The Indian startup ecosystem witnessed a 75 percent decline in funding in the second week of March with total capital at $29.16 million.

This was across 19 deals, but the quantum of funds raised compared very poorly with last week's $116 million. In fact, this has been the fourth consecutive week that the Indian startup ecosystem has recorded a consecutive drop in funding.

17 early-stage deals raised $27.2 million while the rest was cornered by two growth-stage ones. There were no debt deals this week.

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Highlights of the week

MultiLiving raised $6 million from Lodha Ventures, the investment arm of Mumbai-based property developer Mangal Prabhat Lodha family. Abhinandan Lodha from the Lodha Ventures joins the board of advisors of MultiLiving. Set up by Pankaj Singh last year, MultiLiving will go live in Mumbai with this funding.

New Delhi-based cKers Finance, a specialised sustainable energy finance company, raised $5 million from non-profit New Energy Nexus, a California based firm which supports clean energy businesses. cKers Finance will use the funds to grow the distributed residential and commercial solar energy segments, including solar systems and pumps.

Other deals

FamPay, a payments app for teenagers and their families, raised an investment of $4.7 million in a seed round from Y Combinator, Venture Highway, Sequoia India, and GFC (Global Founders Capital). Kevin Lin, Co-founder of Twitch; Vladimir Tenev, the Co-founder of Robinhood; Kunal Shah, Founder of CRED; and Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs also participated in this round. The payments platform will invest this funding in building its engineering team to develop its technology and accelerate growth.

Airmeet, Bengaluru-based all-in-one platform to host, discover, and attend fully remote events, raised $3 million funding in a round led by Accel India.

Fintech startup Karbon Card raised a seed funding of $2 million led by angel investors in India and China, including Kunal Shah of Cred, Amrish Rau of Citrus Pay, and Jitendra Gupta of Jupiter. The funding will primarily be used for product development, market expansion, and operations.

Singularity Automation raised Rs 8.5 crore in Pre-Series A funding from IvyCap Ventures as it looks to build IoT products such as smart door locks and other sensors for consumers. The Bengaluru-based company works with coworking, co-living and other new-age sharing economy based companies.

Pawan Munjal, the Chairman and Managing Director at Hero MotoCorp, invested about $1 million in Ola Electric. The investment is being made by Munjal via his family trust.

Ahmedabad-based cloud kitchen startup BigSpoon Foods raised an angel round of $200,000 from Urmin Family Office, Lemonade Ventures, LetsVenture and marquee angel investors.

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Undisclosed deals

Bharti Airtel Ltd picked up a stake in Spectacom Global Pvt. Ltd, a fitness-focussed startup, through its Airtel Startup Accelerator Programme.

Bhopal-based edtech startup CollegeKhabri raised an undisclosed funding in an angel round led by Vishal Dixit, CEO of Vdiec Global, an educational firm.

Singapore-based private equity platform Frontline Strategy Funds led a Pre-Series round of investment in the medtech startup Cardiotrack. The round also saw participation from other angel investors.

Cricketer Ajinkya Rahane has invested in Mahindra Group-backed organic products startup MeraKisan and will also be its brand ambassador.

Indore-based Anaxee Digital Runner has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Orios Venture Partners, with participation from LetsVenture, Keiretsu Forum, GAIN, and Angel Network.

(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)