Funding and acquisitions in Indian startups this week [15 Nov- 20 Nov]

This week 42 Indian startups raised funding, of which 31 raised $417 million. Mensa Brands raised the highest funding of about $135 million, followed by Byju’s which raised about $67 million.

Meanwhile, the funding of 11 of the total funded startups remained undisclosed. 

Growth/late startups

Mensa Brands: E-commerce roll-up firm Mensa Brands has raised $135 million in its Series B round led by Falcon Edge Capital’s Alpha Wave Ventures.

Byju’s: Edtech company Byju’s has raised $67 million from Chan Zuckerberg and GenGlobal Bright Corp.

Purplle: Online beauty and grooming products marketplace Purplle, which recently announced raising $75 million in a new round led by Kedaara Capital, has scooped up another $50 million from a new investor: Premji Invest.

Wonderchef: Wonderchef Home Appliances has raised Rs 150 crore or $20 million from Sixth Sense Ventures, with participation from others such as Godrej Family office, Malpani Group, and HNIs.

Wingreens Farms: Packaged food retailer Wingreens Farms has raised Rs 124 crore ($17 million) in a round led by mid-market private equity investor Investcorp. 

Disprz: Enterprise skilling startup Disprz has raised $13 million in a Series B round led by Dallas Venture Capital and Mars Grow Capital. Existing investors Go1, Tara India Fund IV, Auctus Capital and Kae Capital also participated in the round.

Foodlink: Luxury cuisine brand Foodlink raises $8 million in a Series B round from Plutus Wealth Management. The company has so far raised $23 million including the current round.  

Petpooja: Restaurant POS and management software Petpooja has raised $4.5 million in a Series B round led by Aroa Ventures. Existing investor Udaan along with GVFL, Dr Mayur Desai and other angel investors also participated in the round.

Early-stage startups 

Velocity: Fintech startup Velocity has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures and other investors including Presight Capital, iSeed, Maninder Gulati, Zac Price and Philippe De Mota. 

GoKwik: Saas startup GoKwik has raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Sequoia Capital India. Existing investors Matrix Partners and RTP Global also participated in the round.

GuardianLink: NFT tech-infra startup GuardianLink has raised $12 million in a Series A round led by Kalaari Capital and other private investor groups.

GENLEAP: GenLeap, a Gurugram-based startup that combines technology capabilities of HR and education segments, has raised Rs 60 crore or $8 million in a seed round of funding from a group of angel investors.

Mindhouse: Online mental fitness platform Mindhouse is raising its first institutional round. The Gurugram-based startup is raising around $6 million from a clutch of investors. This is the maiden funding round for Mindhouse in 2021.

Defy: Crypto exchange platform Defy has raised $5.5 million led by Goat VC, JAM Fund and Goodwater Capital. The round also saw participation from Gemba Capital, Night Ventures, GMO Venture Partners, Olive Tree Capital, and existing investor Better Capital.

Tickertape: Invest-tech platform Smallcase has announced an investment of $5 million in Tickertape.

Clinikk: Healthtech and insurtech startup Clinikk has raised $4 million in a pre-series A round led by MassMutual Ventures, with participation from Kunal Shah, Rohit M.A., Anjali Bansal, Stanford Angels and other prominent individuals.

SalaryBox: Gurugram-based fintech startup SalaryBox on Wednesday announced that it has raised $4 million in a new seed round from new and existing investors including Y-Combinator, Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, Soma Capital and 2AM Ventures.

K&L Wellness: Healthtech startup K&L Wellness on Wednesday said it raised Rs 30 crore or $4 million in a seed round from angel investors — Vimal Kedia and Surendra Kedia of Manjushree Ventures, and Narendra Firodia of Sohamm Group.

DGV: Dairy Industry focused Neo-Banking startup DGV has raised $3.1 million Pre-Series A round from Info Edge Ventures and Omnivore.

Doola: StartPack announced today that they have rebranded to Doola and have raised $3 million in financing. The funding round was led by Nexus Venture Partners with participation from YCombinator, Hustle Fund, Psion Capital and others.

EyeMyEye: EyeMyEye, an online platform for the eyewear market, raised Rs 20.5 crore or $2.7 million in funding from angel investors and high net-worth individuals (HNIs) in a pre-Series A round.

Toplyne: SaaS startup Toplyne raised $2.5 million from Sequoia Capital’s Surge, Together Fund and angels from Canva, Freshworks and Zoominfo.

Bombay Hemp: Ratan Tata-backed Bombay Hemp Company (Boheco) has raised $2 million (about Rs 15 crore) from the family offices of Achin Kochar of the Vi-John Group, Riteesh Mohan Bakshi and Raghav Mohan Bakshi. 

Bert Labs: Artificial intelligence company Bert Labs has raised $1 million from Katkar Family Office, Kailash Katkar and Sanjay Katkar, founders of Quick Heal Technologies.

OneRare: OneRare, which claims to be the first Metaverse for food, gaming and NFTs platform, has raised $2 million led by key blockchain VCs including Arkstream Capital and others.  

Planys: Deep-tech startup Planys Technologies has raised $1.6 million in its ongoing pre-series A round from Keiretsu Forum, LetsVenture, Shell, existing investors ONGC, Ranjan Pai, Kris Gopalakrishnan and other seed investors.

Boingg: D2C furniture brand Boingg has raised INR 2.2 Cr or $0.29 million in a seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures.  

Knocksense: Hyperlocal Content Platform Knocksense has raised a bridge round worth $150K or $0.15 million led by Applyhigh and others including We Founder Circle, Mumbai Angels and LetsVenture. The startup has raised $0.5 million in total to date.  

Inzpira: Edtech platform Inzpira has raised Rs 2.3 crore or $0.3 million in a seed round led by Raj Nair, Gopinath Latpate and other angels. The company had earlier raised Rs 25 lakh as part of its pre-seed round from 100X.

Valuationary: Edtech startup Valuationary has raised a pre-seed round of $100K or $0.1 million from strategic investors and corporate leaders, such as Ashish Jain (Ex-India Head, Enfusion), Ajay Surana (Ex-Director, Moody's Analytics - Singapore), Rachit Poddar (Marwari Catalysts), Rajesh Gupta, and Hetal Desai.   

Cookd: Chennai-based digital home cooking startup Cookd has raised $600K or $0.6 million in a pre-Seed funding round by Konglo Ventures, Kerala Angel Network.

Undisclosed deals

VideoForm, IOTRL, Urban AI, EnrichVideo, NanoSniff Technologies, Bynry, GOVeva, OceanFrogs, Kloudle, OhLocal and Zenpay did not disclose their financial details. 

Acquisitions this week

Credlix has acquired NuPhi, for an undisclosed amount. 

GOAT Brand labs has acquired 11 direct-to-consumer brands from various categories, disclosing only the name of Frangipani, a Mumbai-based kids clothing brand, G.O.A.T Brand Labs did not disclose other D2C companies it acquired.

Turtlemint has acquired IOPhysics for an undisclosed amount.

10Club has acquired three lawn and garden brands — Kraftseeds, Gate Garden and Kriti Kalash. 

E-commerce giant Flipkart is set to acquire a majority stake in Kolkata-based SastaSundar, which offers digital healthcare and pharmacy platform.

Avail Finance has acquired neobanking platform YeLo.

In talks

Kunal Shah-led fintech platform CRED is in talks to acquire two startups - Dineout and Wint Wealth. Shah, through his new entity Newtap Technologies Pvt. Ltd., has reportedly acquired Parfait Finance & Investment.

Mobility tech startup Chalo is in talks to acquire scooter rental firm Vogo, according to Entrackr's sources.

Crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber is in late-stage talks to acquire mutual fund platform Symbl.

Update: The story and infographic has been updated to reflect fund raised by Byju's