[Weekly funding roundup] Venture investments begin on a tepid note for month of March

The first week of March has not begun on a positive note for the Indian startup ecosystem with decline in venture funding when compared to the last week of February.

The week saw total venture funding of $49 million spread across 14 deals. This compared poorly with the last week of February, where the amount had touched $403 million.

Although, the positive highlight of the week was debt venture fund, which actually had a higher amount when compared to the equity funding. There were four debt deals during the week which garnered $55 million.

As has been the trend over the last one year, early stage transactions dominated venture funding during the week with 12 such deals followed by one each in growth and late stages.

Key deals

Online marketplace for used smartphones Cashifyraised $15 million from Asia Environmental Partners (AEP), a division of private equity player Olympus Capital.

Vertical professional networking platform Apna raised an additional $12.5 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital India and Greenoaks Capital.

Insurtech startup SymboPlatform Holdings raised $9.4 million in a round led by CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund (CEFIF) and Think Investments. The round also saw participation from Integra Partners, Insignia Ventures, and AJ Capital.

Other transactions

Euler Motors, an EV startup, raised Rs 30 crore as a part of its ongoing Series-A round Inventus India and Jetty Ventures. Angel investors Sujeet Kumar, Srinivas Anumolu and K Ganesh from Growth Story also participated.

Edtech startup ImaginXPraised $1.5 million in funding led by Venture Catalysts, along with co-investors Shashank Deshpande, Krish Kupathil, Samyakth Capital, and others.

Gaming startup All-Star Games raised $1.5 million from Lumikai along with Play Ventures, in a pre-Series A round.

Edtech startup Questt raised Rs 9.6 crore in a seed round led by Chiratae Ventures and AET Fund. The round also saw participation from angel investors.

The ePlane Company, a startup in aviation space, raised $1 million in seed round led by Naval Ravikant, and Speciale Invest. It also saw participation from Java Capital, FirstCheque.vc, and IIM Ahmedabad’s CIIE.CO.

Social platform startup Qoohoo raised seed funding of $800,000 from a consortium of investors.

Cleantech startup Clairco raised Rs 4.2 crore in angel funding led by Sanjiv Bajaj of Anicut Angel Fund.

Indian Gaming League (IGL), a gaming focused startup raised $500,000 from Hungama, along with Hindustan Talkies.

Convenience store startup AMPM raised Rs 1.6 crore through Agility Venture Partners, an angel investor platform.

Fintech unicorn PolicyBazaarraised an undisclosed amount of money from Bay Capital.

B2B startup Bijnis (Shoekonnect)concluded an undisclosed secondary funding round led by Zomatofounder Deepinder Goyal and other prominent angel investors.

India connect

Outplay, a sales engagement platform (SEP) raised $2 million in funding from Sequoia Capital India’s Surge.

Tech startup Yugabyte raised $48 million funding round, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Greenspring Associates, Dell Technologies Capital, Wipro Ventures, and 8VC.

Gurugram headquartered logistics unicorn Delhiveryhas acquired Primaseller, a SaaS startup focused on omnichannel retailers, for an undisclosed value.