Deal Street: Indian Startups Raised Nearly Rs 3,000 Crore Last Week
Your weekly dose of startup deals.
Eight Indian startups together raised $434 million or Rs 3,000 crore from angel investors and venture capitalists last week, the highest weekly tally so far this year. That compares with $82 million raised the week before by six startups.
While Indian ride-hailing giant Ola bagged the bulk of the week’s funding. Bengaluru-based startups led the funding pack.
Ola Raises $400 Million In Fresh Funding
Homegrown cab hailing giant Ola raised $400 million (Rs 2,620 crore) from Singapore-based Copper Technology Pte Ltd, documents filed with Registrar of Companies showed. Copper Technology is an associate entity of Tencent.
Ola had raised fresh investment by allocating 19.08 lakh preferential shares at Rs 13,521 apiece, the RoC filings showed.
Ola has raised around $800 million since November last year. It received $36 million (Rs 231 crore) from New York-based hedge fund Tekne Capital Management in August. However, it could not be ascertained whether the investment was part of an ongoing or a fresh round. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Ola is looking to raise $2 billion from a group of investors including Softbank Group and Tencent Holdings.
An Ola spokesperson declined to comment on BloombergQuint’s emailed query on the latest round of fund-raising.
Self-Drive Rental Startup, Drivezy Raises $10 Million
Mumbai-based peer-to-peer car and bike rental platform Drivezy raised $10 million (Rs 65 crore) in a fresh round of funding from Das Capital, Axan Ventures, CrowdWorks and IT-Farm, the startup said in a statement.
The company will use the funds to enter new markets in India and overseas and create rental coins, its own private currency. The company had earlier announced the launch of its private initial coin offering. Earlier known as JustRide, the company also accepts bitcoins as a mode of payment and has partnered with bitcoin startup Unocoin.
“With the growing popularity of bitcoins in India, we feel that this is the right time to open alternative means in the sharing economy. This ICO is part of our vision to leverage the power of the blockchain to build an open, secure and transparent technology to globalize the Indian car sharing marketplace,” Ashwarya Singh, chief executive officer and co-founder of Drivezy said.
The new round of funding takes the total amount raised by the company till date to $16 million.
Drivezy allows individual car owners to list their idle cars on the company’s platform, which are then rented by customers. The company boasts that it has onboarded over 800 owners and has 1,318 vehicles listed on its platform. Currently, it operates in Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune and Mysore.
Farm Taaza Raises $8 Million In Series A Funding
Fresh produce supply chain management firm, Farm Taaza, raised $8 million (Rs 52 crore) in Series A funding led by Hong Kong-based Epsilon Venture Partners and Tara India Fund IV managed by IL&FS Investment Managers Ltd, the company said in a statement.
The Bengaluru-based company had received $1 million in its seed round from angel investors such as former iGate CEO Phaneesh Murthy and former Asia-Pacific chief of Intel Capital Sudheer Kuppam.
The company said it will use the funds to scale up business and strengthen its technology infrastructure by leveraging machine learning, artificial intelligence and data analytics.
Founded in August 2015, the business-to-business startup supplies products to retail stores, kirana shops, and hotels, restaurant and catering firms across Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad, and has collection centres in Chickballapur, Ooty, Krishnagiri, Olakoor and Mettupalayam.
Farm Taaza said it has over 1,400 farmers supply more than 150 varieties of fruits and vegetables to it.
Used Furniture And Appliances Platform Zefo Raises $ 9 Million
Furniture and appliances platform Zefo, which operates as gozefo.com, raised about $9 million (Rs 60 crore) in a Series B round from Sequoia Capital India, Helion Venture Partners and Beenext Pte. Ltd, the company said in a statement.
The Bengaluru-based company will use the money to widen operations, expand inventory and hire fresh talent.
Zefo refurbishes and repairs the sourced furniture and appliances and sells it on its platform. It recently started selling mobile phones in some of the cities and it plans to add more categories in the future.
With over 10,000 products across categories like beds, sofas, dining sets, wardrobes, TVs, washing machines, refrigerators and air-conditioners, it operates in Bengaluru, Mysore, Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Mumbai
The platform also sources furniture from e-commerce marketplaces like Flipkart, Amazon, UrbanLadder and Pepperfry.
Others
SlicePay, a digital payment platform catering to college students, raised $2 million (about Rs 13 crore) in a Series A round from Japanese investment fund Das Capital and Russian early-stage investor Simile Venture Partners, VCCircle reported.
On-demand mobile repair and refurbishment startup, Yaantra (earlier known as Gadgetwood) raised $3.1 million in fresh funding, the company said. The recent round took the startup’s total funding to about $10 million.
Delhi based online platform for local recommendations and discoveries Little Black Book (LBB) raised close to $1 million (Rs 6.5 Cr) from Blume Ventures, and existing investors IDG Ventures and IAN, according to a press statement. The company said it will use the funds to scale up user base.
Bengaluru-based Elanic, a peer-to-peer platform to sell used fashion clothing online, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a Tokyo-based incubator and venture capital investor Digital Garage, it said in a statement. The funding was routed through DG Incubation, the investment subsidiary of Digital Garage which focuses on investments in Japan and Asia.