The month of June has been great for Indian startups. The second week of the month has seen venture capitalists invest $507 million in 32 deals – a significant jump from the previous week where an investment of $326 million was put towards just 24 deals.
Top Deals of The Week
Proptech startup Ivy Homes raises $7M from Khosla Ventures, Venture Highway, others
Bengaluru-based proptech startup Ivy Homes raised $5.75 million in equity and $1.3 million in debt in its seed round, which saw participation from Khosla Ventures, Venture Highway, Y Combinator, GFC, Foundamental, Better Capital, Titan Capital, and Rebright Partners.
Ivy Homes, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to provide instant liquidity to home sellers, will use the funds to build its product and expand its team.
“The funding we raised is a big step toward realising our mission to deliver transparent solutions to the real estate sector. With our unique data and pricing engine, we aim to transform what is a complex, painful, and month-long ordeal into a transparent and predictable process.” said Abhilash Narahari, Co-founder, Ivy Homes.
Indian content technology firm Text Mercato raises $2.6 million in pre-series A round
India-based Text Mercato, a content technology firm has raised $2.6 million in its pre-Series A funding round to make its services go international. Launched in 2011, Text Mercato offers content writing and cataloguing services using its collection of AI products.
With a 3x revenue generated last year, the firm claims it serves over 50 brands, including Nykaa and Myntra, and processes more than one million stock units monthly. ICrowd, Mount Judi Ventures, Modulor Capital, Innospark Ventures, and Tremis Capital led the round with participation from angel investors.
FlexiLoans raises $90 million from global investors in Series B funding
MSME fintech lender FlexiLoans Technologies Pvt. Ltd has raised $90 million (around Rs 693 crore) in a Series B funding round in a mix of equity and debt from Fasanara Capital, MAJ Invest and Caravel Group chairman Harry Banga’s family office.
The fresh capital will be used to strengthen and broaden its lending base and reach out to a large number of small and underserved small enterprises. It will also use the capital to further scale its BNPL (Merchants Buy-Now-Pay-Later) platform, and analytics capabilities, expand its partner ecosystem, and create new product category offerings, the company said in a statement.
Also read: Weekly Funding Update – India (May 28– June 03)
Physics Wallah Founder’s acting passion makes edtech firm unicorn
Alakh Pandey, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of PhysicsWallah, is a different man, still passionate about teaching. Unlike the founders heading multi-billion dollar edtech firms, Pandey is not too tuned into the start-up lingo and jargon.
This is despite his start-up recently going against the tide in the edtech space by becoming a unicorn. It raised $100 million in its first round of funding.
When asked what it means to be a unicorn at a time when edtech firms are sacking employees and focusing on profitability, he said, “Till six months back, unicorn for me meant the mythical creature.
Cashify raises around $50 Mn led by Prosus
Re-commerce platform Cashify has raised around $50 million in its Series E round led by Prosus. The Gurugram-based company had raised $15 million in Series D funding round in March last year.
Cashify board has approved the allotment of 15,772 preference shares for an issue price of Rs 239,696.4 per share to raise Rs 378.05 crore or nearly $50 million, the company’s regulatory filings with RoC show.
Prosus has spearheaded the round with Rs 231 crore followed by NewQuest, Paramark, AEP Holdings and Bessemer which pumped in Rs 77 crore, Rs 46.6 crore, Rs 17.61 crore and Rs 5.9 crore respectively.
Cashify has been valued at a little over $250 million in this Series E round. The company has raised $90 million since its inception in 2013.
10club set to close $30 mn funding round led by Olive Tree Capital
Roll-up commerce startup 10club is set to raise more than $30 million, in an equal mix of debt and equity, its top executive told ET. Olive Tree Capital, a Boston-based fund, led the funding round, while existing investors,which includes Fireside Ventures, Secocha Ventures and Boat co-founder Aman Gupta, also participated.
10club has already closed $22 million, while the remainder will be closed over the next few weeks, it said in a statement. “The commitments for the remaining amount have come in and we are happy with the interest. We are in the process of closing the remaining round,” said Bhavna Suresh, co-founder and chief executive of 10club.
Pepper Content raises $14 million for US expansion
Content marketplace Pepper Content has raised $14.3 million in its Series A funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, as the startup looks to bolster its presence in the United States and foray into new categories.
The financing round also saw participation from new investor Tanglin Venture Partners and existing investors Lightspeed and Titan Capital as well as individuals such as DoorDash’s Gokul Rajaram, Oyo’s Ritesh Agarwal and Abhinav Sinha, Teachable founder Ankur Nagpal, Nutanix and DevRev co-founder Dheeraj Pandey, Cred founder Kunal Shah, and Helion Ventures co-founder Ashish Gupta.
CRED raises $140M in Series F round at $6.4B valuation
Fintech unicorn CRED has raised $140 million (Rs 1,089 crore) of fresh capital (primary and secondary) as part of its Series F funding round from new and existing investors.
The digital payments platform has approved the issuance of 42,308 Series F Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares (CCPS) at an issue price of Rs 145,846.98 per share to raise $80 million, a regulatory filing with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) shows.
The round is led by GIC (via Lathe Investment) at Rs 467 crore, followed by Tiger Global, Sofina Ventures SA, Falcon Edge, and Dragoneer.
This fresh round values the company at $6.4 billion—60 percent higher than its previous valuation of $4.01 billion when it raised a Series E financing round of $251 million from existing investors, in October 2021.
Purplle turns unicorn with $33 Mn Series E round
Online beauty and grooming products marketplace Purplle has raised $33 million in its Series E round from South Korea’s Paramark Ventures as well as existing backers Blume Ventures, Kedaara and billionaire Azim Premji’s Premji Invest.
According to the Mumbai-based company, it has raised the fresh funds at a valuation of $1.1 billion and entered the unicorn club.
Purplle’s valuation has jumped over 50% in this round. The company was valued at $728 million when it raised $38 million as a part of Series D round in January this year.
Vernacular news app Way2News snags Series A funding from WestBridge, Sashi Reddi
Vernacular hyperlocal short news app Way2News Pvt. Ltd on Thursday said it has raised $16.75 million (Rs 130 crore) in its Series A funding round from WestBridge Capital and venture capitalist Sashi Reddi.
The Hyderabad-based company will use the fresh capital to expand in the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala, said Way2News in a statement. Part of the funds will also be deployed to hire and to strengthen its artificial intelligence (AI) based technology to help deliver news with minimal human intervention, it added.
