[Weekly funding roundup] Investments into startups touch $113 million

The investments into the Indian startup ecosystem crossed the $100 million mark for the week ending May 22 as funding in the previous two weeks was well below the three digit mark.

Funding into Indian startups touched $113 million across 19 deals as the preceding two weeks saw investments of $88 million and $43 million, respectively.

The trend noticed in terms of startup funding for the last two months has the been the increased focus on the Series A, pre-Series A and seed stage investments. There were debt deals during this week.

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For the current week, early-stage startups saw the highest number of deals at 14, followed by growth-stage at 4, and one for the late-stage startup.

Key deals of the week

Khatabook, a Bengaluru-based utility solutions provider which helps micro, small, and medium-sized businesses track business transactions, has closed a $60 million Series B round of funding led by B Capital Group. The round also saw participation from new and existing investors including Sequoia India, Partners of DST Global, Tencent, GGV, RTP Global, Hummingbird Ventures, Falcon Edge Capital, Rocketship.vc, and Unilever Ventures. Angel investors Kevin Weil, Alexander Will, Kunal Shah, Kunal Bahl, and Rohit Bansal also participated.

Lendingkart Technologies, the Ahmedabad-based fintech startup, raised an equity round of little over Rs 319 crore in its Series D funding (comprising Rs 233 crore as part of D1 and Rs 86.24 crore as part of D2). The funding round has been led by existing investors, including Fullerton Financial Holdings Pte Ltd (“FFH”) and Bertelsmann India Investments, Sistema Asia Fund, and India Quotient. Lendingkart till now has raised more than Rs 1,050 crore of equity capital from investors.

Other deals

Beer brand, Bira91 has received Rs 38.08 crore from its existing investors. Of this funding, Sofina invested Rs 22.84 crore on May 18 while Sequoia has invested Rs 15.23 crore on May 15.

Bengaluru-based intracity logistics firm, LetsTransport has received an investment of Rs 13 crore from InnoVen Capital. It was founded in 2015 by three IIT-Kharagpur alumni — Pushkar Singh, Sudarshan Ravi, and Ankit Parasher.

Bengaluru-based Mobisy, a SaaS-based distribution technology solutions provider, is raising Rs 11.4 crore from B2B ecommerce platform IndiaMART, and Triton Alternative Investment Trust. Triton is investing Rs 1.4 crore in Mobisy. This startup was founded in 2012 by Lalit Bhise.

Xtracap Fintech, the Gurugram-based startup, has raised $1 million in angel round of funding. The startup had launched its mobile app Bridge2Capital in October 2018 for small shopkeepers to receive limited loan amount to pay their GST supplier bills. According to this startup, since launch of the app, it has seen an overall customer increase from less than hundred to over 1,000 shopkeepers. It has crossed over 30,000 registrations across India.

CreditMantri Finserve, an online credit management startup, is set to raise a little over Rs 6 crore from a clutch of existing investors. The company has issued and offered 1.11 lakh Series B4 compulsorily convertible cumulative preference shares to investors Elevar Equity, Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures) and funds managed by Accion Labs.

leap.club, a Gurugram-based community-led professional network for women, on Thursday announced that it has raised $340,000 in its pre-Seed round. The round saw participation from some of angels and funds including Whiteboard Capital (Sandeep Tandon’s VC fund), FirstCheque, Artha India Ventures, Sweta Rau (Founder, White Ventures), Amrish Rau (CEO Pinelabs, Founder Citrus Pay), Deepak Abbot (Former SVP, Paytm), and Harpreet Singh Grover (Co-founder, Co-Cubes) among others. 

Egg producer and agritech startup Eggoz has raised Rs 2.5 crore as part of its seed funding to fuel its growth and expansion plans. The Bihar-based startup had earlier secured Rs 1.2 crore from a clutch of angel investors. The seed funding round saw participation of investors like Tracxn Labs, Angellist, Tri-Deep Capital, founders of Letstransport, and angel investors, along with existing investors — Narendra Sankar, Sunil Mishra, and Vishal Sharma.

Illumnus Education Technologies, an edtech startup focused on developing collaborative learning management systems, has raised $100,000 in seed funding. The company has raised this capital from a clutch of high net-worth individuals and angel investors from Dubai.

Undisclosed deals

Bengaluru-based Winuall, an edtech startup helping coaching institutes go digital, has raised an undisclosed amount from Ankit Bhati, Co-founder of Ola, and Nitin Gupta, Head of Engineering, Milkbasket, along with other angel investors. The startup said it will utilise the funds for expanding the business and curating more content, providing an entire ecosystem for the coaching industry across India. Recently, Winuall also launched live classes, which enables teachers to teach online.

Bharti Airtel has acquired a strategic stake in Voicezen, an early-stage startup focused on conversational-AI technologies, under its Airtel Startup Accelerator Program. The investment will give Airtel preferred access to Voicezen’s technologies, which can be deployed across its customer touch-points in multiple languages.

Vakilsearch, a Chennai-based online platform for legal, tax, and compliance services, raised an undisclosed sum from technology growth investor and the Co-founder of B2B ecommerce platform Udaan, Sujeet Kumar. Prior to Udaan, Sujeet was the President of Operations at Flipkart. 

Mumbai-based celebrity engagement platform Tring has raised funds from top entrepreneurs and startup investors including Kalyan Krishnamurthy of Flipkart, Sujeet Kumar of Udaan, Gaurav Munjal of Unacademy, Keshav Sanghi of VentureWorks India, Roman Saini of Unacademy, Hemesh Singh of Unacademy, and Sumit Jain of Opentalk among others. The startup had earlier raised funds from Dalbir Saini (Chairman, BDI Group).

Specialty tea brand Teamonk Global has raised funding from Mumbai-based Lead Angels Network, an angel investment platform. Nalin Sood, CEO at Teamonk Global, said there is heightened consumer focus on health and wellness, and the firm with its wide portfolio of 100 percent natural, healthy, and delicious teas, is well poised to leverage this trend.

Health and wellness platform Stepathlon Lifestyle Pvt Ltd has raised funding from nine investors across several countries including India, the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Mumbai-based Insurtech startup, Riskcovry, has raised an undisclosed amount in its pre-Series A round from Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund, Varanium Capital, and Better Capital. Riskcovry considers itself as a neo-insurer providing "insurance-in-a-box" solution,

Amit Burman, Chairman of Dabur India, has invested an undisclosed amount of money in his personal capacity in a Delhi-based mental health startup No Worry No Tension Healthcare (NWNT). NWNT is a Delhi-based startup set up by psychiatrist Sandeep Vohra focusses on 'Emotional Wellness Index' with the help of AI, machine learning and data analytics.

Any Time Classes Educational Services, an edtech startup focused on app-based visual content, has raised funding from the Mumbai Angels Network.

Other deals

Cyberbit Ltd, a subsidiary of Elbit Systems Ltd and a global provider of cyber range training and simulation platforms, has received an investment of $70 million from Charlesbank Technology Opportunities Fund, a fund managed by Charlesbank Capital Partners. The deal is a combination of a primary investment and a secondary purchase from Elbit Systems Ltd. Existing investor Claridge Israel also participated in the round.