[Weekly funding roundup March 28-April 1] Venture investments into startups registers 100 pc growth

The month of April has started on a very positive note for the Indian startup ecosystem as the venture capital funding has almost doubled as compared to the last week of March.

The venture funding for the first week of April stood at $574 million cutting across 37 deals. This is almost double the figure of $288 million which was reported in the last week of March. The increase in funding was primarily due to sizable deals with a value of over $40 million.

This is a welcome sign for the Indian startup ecosystem after a tepid March, and reports indicate that the first three months of year saw venture funding totalling over $10 billion.

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However, there needs to be element of caution as some reports again indicate there might be slowdown in venture funding in the coming months due to various developments across the global like the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates, rising inflation, and Russia-Ukraine crisis

Key transactions

Multi-game platform Games 24x7 raised $75 million from Malabar Investment, Tiger Global, and Raine Group at a valuation of $2.5 billion.

Edtech startup Classplus raised $70 million from Alpha Wave Global and Tiger Global.

Finova Capital, MSM-focused NBFC, raised $65 million from Norwest Venture Partners, Maj Invest, and Faering Capital.

Fintech unicorn Pine Labs raised $50 million from Vitruvian Partners with a valuation slightly over $5 billion.

Browser testing platform LambdaTest raised $45 million from Premji Invest, Sequoia Capital India, Telstra Ventures, Blume Ventures, and Leo Capital.

Healthtech startup qure.ai raised $40 million from Novo Holdings, HealthQuad, and MassMutual Ventures.

Wiz Freight, a supply chain startup, raised $36 million in a mix of equity and debt from Tiger Global, Axilor Ventures, Arali Ventures, and others.

Agritech startup FarMart raised $32 million from General Catalyst, Matrix Partners India, and Omidyar Network India.

D2C brand mCaffeine raised $31.5 million from Paragon Partners, Singularity Growth Opportunities Fund, Sharrp Ventures, and others.

Spacetech startup Pixxel raised $25 million from Radical Ventures, Jordan Noone, Seraphim Space Investment, Lightspeed Partners, and others.

Tech startup Onecode raised $13 million from General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Nexus Venture Partners, and Waterbridge Ventures.

Tech startup CARD91 raised $13 million from Infinity Ventures, Point72 Ventures, Sabre Partners, Emphasis Ventures (EMVC), Commerce Ventures, and angel investors.

M&A

Mumbai-based mobility startup Chalo has acquired Vogo Automotive, a tech-enabled shared mobility startup.

Agrostar, a Pune-based digital farmer network and agri-inputs platform, has acquired Mumbai-based INI Farms.