Deal Street: Alibaba Pumped Rs 1,700 Crore In Indian Startups Last Week

Five Indian startups raised $400 million in angel, seed and institutional funding across sectors such as grocery, education, logistics, health, among others last week.

Chinese e-tailer Alibaba made the bulk of funding in the domestic startups and infused around $260 million (Rs 1,700 crore).

BigBasket Raises $300 Million From Alibaba

India’s biggest online grocer, Big Basket, raised $300 million in fresh round of funding in a round led by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the company said in a statement.

Existing investors, including Abraaj, International Finance Corporation (the investment arm of the World Bank), and Sands Capital, also participated in the round. The fresh round values the company at around $950 million.

Founded in December 2011, Big Basket said at present it operates in 30 cities and is clocking Rs 200 crore in terms of monthly run-rate. This is expected to increase to Rs 300 crore in August and Rs 500 crore in March 2019, the statement added.

Accel Partners Infuses $50 Million In Web, Mobile Browser Testing Firm

BrowserStack, a mobile and web testing service platform, raised $50 million in Series A round of funding, its maiden venture funding, from Accel partners.

The company said in a statement that the proceeds from the round will be used to expand its team and for marketing initiatives.

This funding allows us to invest in enhancing our testing infrastructure suite, added Ritesh Arora, co-founder and chief executive of BrowserStack. “We are also expanding our enterprise go-to-market capabilities while maintaining our extraordinary growth trajectory, especially in the North American market, where we expect to increase our presence significantly over 2018.”

The six-year-old Mumbai-based company said it has more than 40,000 customers apart from two million developers in 135 countries using the browser testing platform. It counts as Microsoft, Twitter, Mastercard, Barclays, Gap, TD Ameritrade, Lincoln Financial, and others as its customers.

Alibaba Backs Indian Logistics Firm Xpressbees

Logistics firm Xpressbees raised Rs 225 crore (around $35 million) in its Series D round of funding from Alibaba.com Singapore E-commerce Pvt. Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., according to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies.

Started in 2012, as logistics arm of baby products e-tailer, FirstCry, it later spun out to become an independent business.

Xpressbees had last raised $12.5 million from SAIF Partners, IDG Ventures India, NEA, Vertex Ventures, and Valiant Capital in February 2016.

It competes with Tiger Global-backed logistics startup Delhivery, Ecom Express and Future group acquired Vulcan Express.

Education Technology Startup iNurture Raises Series C Funding

Education technology startup iNurture that provides higher education programmes in India raised $4.4 million in Series C round of funding led by venture capital firm Ventureast.

Existing investors, including Bertelsmann India Investments (strategic investment arm of Bertelsmann SE & Co) and private equity and venture capital firm Ascent Capital, also participated in the round, a company statement said.

The company said that the funds will be used to expand its e-learning platform for skill centres and distance learning, and to also scale up its campuses’ business.

Bengaluru-based iNurture which was founded in 2007, offers industry-relevant courses in association with universities/colleges across India. It has partnerships with more than 30 academic institutions and over 6,000 students are pursuing its programmes.

Others

Bengaluru based health solutions startup, CureFit, founded by former Flipkart senior executives Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori, raised about $10 million in debt financing with a significant portion coming from two of India's largest private sector lenders — HDFC Bank and Axis Bank, The Economics Times reported.