[Weekly funding roundup] Optimism rides high on higher VC funding in 2021

The New Year has begun and a lot of expectation has been bubbling over the last few days on what 2021 will hold for the Indian startup ecosystem. The optimism is certainly high as 2020 had been coming to a close.

The year 2020 did not witness many large ticket deals but the resilience and inventiveness of the Indian startup ecosystem were very evident with the emergence of 11 unicorns, and startups battling through the challenges put forth by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The optimism of Indian startups stems from the fact that many of them have weathered through their toughest period and from here, it makes them more confident.

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The first week of January saw total funding of $20 million, and this low figure was expected as the end of December and the start of the New Year is generally a period of low activity. There were totally nine deals during the week, with only one transaction in the growth-stage, with the rest coming under the early category.

Transactions of the week

Agritech startup Gramophone raised Rs 25 crore ($3.4 million) in funding led by Siana Capital and existing investors — Info Edge, Asha Impact, and Better Capital also participated.

Agritech startup qZense Labs has raised Rs 4.5 crore in a seed round of funding led by Venture Catalysts. The others include 9Unicorns, The Chennai Angels, Entrepreneur First, and Lumis Partners.

NCOME, an escrow-as-a-service platform raised pre-seed funding of Rs 3.6 crore led by Venture Catalysts and VC fund PointOne Capital.

Agritech startup Aqgromalin raised Rs 2 crore from angel investors participating from the Middle East.

Edtech startup Vedarsy Technologies, raised Rs 1 crore as part of a pre-seed round of funding from GSF Accelerator and other angel investors.

Menstrual hygiene management startup, PadCare Labs, raised an undisclosed amount in its pre-seed funding round from technology startup incubator Venture Center under BIRAC’s LEAP Fund.

Metvy, a multilingual professional networking app, raised an undisclosed pre-series round of funding from HostelFund.

M&A

Edtech unicorn Unacademy has announced its sixth acquisition of 2020. After Kreatryx, Codechef, PrepLadder, Mastree, and Coursavy, Unacademy has now acquired NeoStencil, a test prep platform focused on government jobs, for an undisclosed amount.