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Deal Street: Fintech Startups Led The Funding Race Last Week 

Your weekly dose of startup deals...

Deal Street: Fintech Startups Led The Funding Race Last Week 

Paytm bagged $1.4 billion from SoftBank last week but fund-raising by smaller startups remained muted. Eight companies together raised $10 million from angel investors and venture capitalists compared to $28 million by 14 startups in the week ago.

Financial technology ventures mopped up the bulk of the funding...

Paysense Bags $5.3 Million

A woman holds the loan she has received. (Photographer: Adeel Halim/Bloomberg)
A woman holds the loan she has received. (Photographer: Adeel Halim/Bloomberg)

Paysense, a Mumbai-based technology driven loan distribution platform, raised $5.3 million (Rs 34 crore) in a Series A funding round led by Singapore-based Jungle Ventures, a company statement said. South African business conglomerate Naspers and existing investor Nexus Venture Partners also participated in the round.

The company said it will use the funds to ramp up its technology infrastructure, expand its data science and technology team, and enter Tier 2 cities. Paysense had last raised $2.3 million from Nexus Venture Partners and other angel investors in 2015.

It is present in nine major cities, including Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bangalore and Chennai. The two-year-old startup plans to offer customised loan offerings to its users and is also in preliminary talks with potential lending partners.

Telr Mops Up $3 Million

Financial technology startup Telr raised $3 million (about Rs 20 crore) in a Series B round from Innovations East fund, a company statement said.

Telr, which operates in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and India, is an aggregator of multiple payment methods, including cards and online banking. It offers unified application program interfaces (a set of tools for building software applications) to enable businesses to accept and manage online payments.

“The infusion of funds would help Telr not only strengthen its core offering, but also innovate around payment methods. Furthermore, while we focus on deeper penetration in the UAE, India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Indonesia, the funds will facilitate our expansion to other emerging markets,” Sirish Kumar, co-founder of Telr, said. The startup will also use the funds to offer short-term loans to small businesses.

Fashion Marketplace Fynd Raises Follow-On Funding

Fynd founders Sreeraman MG (from left), Farooq Adam and Harsh Shah. (Source: fynd)
Fynd founders Sreeraman MG (from left), Farooq Adam and Harsh Shah. (Source: fynd)

Online fashion marketplace Fynd raised $500,000 (around Rs 3.2 crore) in follow-on Series A funding from Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund Rocketship, a company statement said. The funding is an extension of the Series A round in March when the company raised $500,000 from seed investment platform Venture Catalysts.

Fynd aims to use the fresh capital to strengthen its technology backbone, optimise operations and enhance customer offerings.

The Mumbai-based company sources products such as apparel, shoes and bags directly from nearby outlets and takes 4-24 hours to deliver the order. Buyers also have the option to try the products and return them if not satisfied. The company claims to have 3.5 million styles live on its app and website, and plans to roll out another 3.5 million soon.

The company said it receives inventory data from over 8,000 stores in cities including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Amritsar, Guwahati and Kochi.

Others

Bengaluru-based consumer lending platform ExCred raised $1 million (around Rs 6.5 crore) in seed funding from a clutch of angel investors, the company said. The investors include Dheeraj Pandey, CEO of Nasdaq-listed Nutanix, Rajesh Yohannan, former head of global mobile banking at Citibank, and Akash Garg, director of engineering at cab aggregator Uber, among others.

Hyperlocal delivery and logistics startup Genie, based in Chennai, raised $250,000 (around Rs 1.6 crore) from a group of unnamed high net-worth individuals (HNIs), and will also resume its operations, it said in a statement. The firm, which was founded in early 2015, had shut down on March 31 due to lack of funding.

Clean tech startup ION Energy raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Haptik founders Aakrit Vaish and Swapan Rajdev, and OMC Power Chairman and Nippo Batteries founder Sushill Jiwarajka, said a statement by the Mumbai-based company.

Nanotechnology startup Log 9 Materials, based in Bengaluru, raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding from Delhi-based venture capital firm GEMs, a company statement said.

Bengaluru-based Vernacular.ai, which offers a multilingual artificial intelligence (AI) platform for businesses, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from KStart Capital, the seed programme run by venture capital firm Kalaari Capital, a company statement said. The startup had launched a business-to-consumer product earlier this year called Aisha – a personal assistant in the Hindi language that caters to people living in Tier 2 and Tier 3 areas.