Deal Street: Indian Startups Raised Over Rs 1,000 Crore Last Week
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Five Indian startups raised around $160 million (over Rs 1,000 crore) in angel, seed or venture capital funding across sectors such as lending, mobility, payments, recruitment, among others last week.
In what may be called as the largest infusion into a standalone Indian online lending entity, Ahmedabad-based fintech company, Lendingkart raised $87 million in a fresh round of funding.
Lendingkart raises its Series C round of funding.
Online lending start-up Lendingkart Technologies Pvt. Ltd. raised Rs565 crore ($87 million) in equity capital in a Series C round of funding led by Singapore’s Fullerton Financial Holdings Pte Ltd, the company said in a statement.
Existing investors such as Sistema Asia Fund, Bertelsmann India Investment, Mayfield India, India Quotient, and Saama Capital also participated in the round. With this new round of funding, Lendingkart group’s total equity and debt funding is $173 million (Rs 1,129 crore).
The company said the funds will be used to strengthen its technology and analytics capabilities. The group also aims to expand its credit product offerings to small enterprises especially among under-served micro enterprises.
We believe that the deployment of technology to develop scalable and accessible financial services platforms, incorporating big data analytics and machine learning, will be critical to any lending business serving the underbanked and underserved customers in India,Gan Chee Yen, CEO, Fullerton Financial Holdings
Founded in 2014 Lendingkart group offers collateral-free working capital and other business loans ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 10 lakh to small businesses. Since inception, the company said it has evaluated 1 lakh applications, disbursed more than 20,000 loans in more than 950 cities to more than 13,000 SMEs across 23 sectors.
Zoomcar on boards Mahindra & Mahindra in its Series C funding.
Self-drive car and bicycle rental platform Zoomcar raised $40 million (around Rs 266 crore) in a funding round led by Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., months after the two companies partnered for an electric vehicle push.
The fresh round also saw participation from other existing investors including Ford Smart Mobility, Greg Moran, co-founder and chief executive officer of Zoomcar, told BloombergQuint in an interview. Mahindra Group would invest up to Rs 176 crore for about 16 percent stake in Zoomcar Inc, M&M said in a statement.
The fresh capital will be used for accelerating its marketplace supply growth, doubling down on its efforts on Internet of things and expanding into additional mobility categories across India, Moran said. The company recently forayed into bike-sharing services in select cities.
The firm is now looking to launch two-wheeler rental service on its platform,“You will see us going for services such as scooter rental or electric scooter rental, which will take off this year,” Moran added.
Hacker Rank raises $30 million in Series C funding
Technical recruiting platform for enterprises HackerRank raised $30 million (Rs 192 crore) in a Series C funding round led by growth capital firm JMI Equity, a company statement said.
Existing investors such as Khosla Ventures, Battery Ventures, Randstad Innovation Fund, and Chartline Capital Partners also participated in the new round, taking the total fund raise by the the firm to $58.2 million.
The company said the capital will be used to accelerate its growth in the enterprise segment, expand and support its 3.4 million developer community, and advance its data science research and capabilities. It counts companies like BlackRock, Atlassian, VMware, Capital One, and Looker among others as its customers.
Founded in 2010 Bengaluru and California based HackerRank offers a software-as-a-software (SaaS)-based recruitment platform to screen technical candidates by testing them on programming challenges.
Others
Cashify, an online used phone platform raised close to $1 million in a venture debt funding round from Trifecta Capital. The company said in a statement that it will use the funds to meet the working capital requirements.
Mobile-based B2B marketplace Wyder raised an undisclosed amount in a fresh round of funding from its existing investors. The company said funds will be used to strengthen its seller base, set up pan-India offices and improve its product and technology stack to penetrate deeper in the Indian wholesale market.