Deal Street: Binny Bansal Makes Fifth Investment In A Startup After Quitting Flipkart

Six Indian startups raised $13 million (about Rs 90 crore) in angel, seed or venture capital funding last week across sectors such as financial technology, events booking platforms and education, among others. Financial technology startups led the funding pack. Here’s what went on...

Kuvera Raises $4.5 Million In Growth Funding

Wealth management startup Kuvera raised $4.5 million (around Rs 31 crore) in a growth funding round led by Eight Roads, the investment arm of Fidelity International Ltd.

The funds will be used to build its team and expand its product portfolio, it said in a statement.

“With Eight Roads as an investor, we will continue to innovate and expand our advisory offering across financial products,” Gaurav Rastogi, chief executive officer and co-founder of Kuvera, said in the statement.

Founded in 2016, Kuvera is a “free-to-use” web-based direct mutual fund investment platform, and also allows individuals to set investment goals such as buying a house or paying for education. The startup is said to have 100,000 users who manage about Rs 3,000 crore in mutual fund assets.

Increff Raises $3 Million From Binny Bansal, 021 Capital

Increff, a Bengaluru-based startup that offers supply chain and warehousing solutions to physical stores, raised $3 million (around Rs 20 crore) in growth funding led by Binny Bansal and 021 Capital.

The funds will be used to expand its customer pipeline, enhance its product offerings, and enter the international markets, Increff said in a statement. The company said the investment will also help it to add other retailers such as fashion and lifestyle brand to its platform.

Founded in 2016, Increff, which works with more than 50 brands, said its platform helps brick-and-mortar stores increase sales and inventory efficiency. It boasts of clients such as Puma and Reliance AJIO, among others, and has opened seven fulfillment centres across India in the last one year.

Bansal is slowly emerging as the one of the active investors in startups, especially after he quit Flipkart in November last year. Since then, Bansal has invested in five startups such as SigTuple, Acko General Insurance, Niramai, and Crio, according to Crunchbase. So far, Bansal has made 31 investments.

Besides, Bansal is working on his new venture Xto10X where he’s the executive chairman. The venture will offer consulting services to growth stage startups.

BookMyShow Makes A Strategic Bet On A Payments Firm

BookMyShow, a Mumbai-based online movie and events ticketing portal, made an undisclosed strategic investment in a payments technology firm AtomX.

The investment will help to strengthen ticketing, producing and managing on-ground operations, BookMyShow said in a statement.

Founded in 2012, AtomX offers a cashless payments platform. It allows users to store cash in the form of digital money in their near field communication chip. Users can just tap and pay, and buy food, beverages and merchandises instantly.

Anil Makhija, BookMyShow’s venues and service delivery operations chief, will join AtomX’s board of directors as part of the transaction.

In 2017, BookMyShow had acquired video-on-demand platform Nfusion for an undisclosed amount in an all-cash deal.

Others

• Setu, a startup that offers open application programming interface, raised $3.5 million (Rs 24.5 crore) in a funding round led by Lightspeed India Partners. Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund, the seed fund under Bharat Inclusion Initiative, also participated in the fundraising, Setu said in a statement.
  
• Eduvanz, a fintech startup that provides loans to individuals for education and skill development, raised $2 million (Rs 13.8 crore) from social-impact investment firm Unitus Ventures and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.
  
• BookEventZ.com, online event venue booking platform, raised an undisclosed amount in growth funding round from venture capital firm Equanimity Investments—backed by emerging markets investor Mark Mobius, among others.