Funding and acquisitions in Indian startups this week [24 Jan-29 Jan]

This week 43 Indian startups raised funding, of which 35 received a total of about $1701.8 million or $1.7 billion. Swiggy alone mopped about $700 million, followed by Moglix, which raised $250 million.

DealShare and Dawinbox became unicorns by raising $165 million and $72 million respectively.

Meanwhile, the funding of the 8 of the total funded startups remained undisclosed.

Below is the summary of the deals closed this week

Growth/late startups 

Swiggy: Food delivery and quick commerce segments are poised to heat up as Swiggy has raised $700 million in a round led by Invesco. New investors including Baron Capital Group, Sumeru Venture, IIFL AMC Late-Stage Tech Fund, Kotak, Axis Growth Avenues AIF- I, Sixteenth Street Capital, Ghisallo, Smile Group and Segantii Capital have joined the new round.

Moglix: B2B industrial goods marketplace Moglix has raised $250 million in its Series F funding round led by existing investors Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global with participation from Hong Kong-based Ward Ferry.

Ola Electric: Ola Electric has raised $200 million in a new round from Tekne Private Ventures, Alpine Opportunity Fund, Edelweiss and others. With this, the company has mopped up $400 million in the past five months and its valuation soared to $5 billion.

DealShare: Grocery and essentials focused social commerce startup DealShare has raised around $165 million in its Series E round that pushed the company into the coveted club of unicorns. This is the maiden round for DealShare in 2022.

Darwinbox: HR tech platform Darwinbox has raised $72 million in its Series D round led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) along with participation from existing investors Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia India, Lightspeed India, Endiya Partners, 3One4Capital, JGDEV and SCB 10X. 

ShopKirana: B2B e-commerce platform ShopKirana has raised $38 million in its Series C round from new and existing investors. Oman India, Info Edge and Sixth Sense Ventures are the major investors in this round along with participation from Trifecta, Incubate Fund, Akatsuki, Ajanta LLP, Gunosy Capital and others.

Vyapar: Business accounting software Vyapar has raised $30 million in its Series B round led by WestBridge Capital. Existing backers IndiaMart, India Quotient and Fortytwo.vc have also participated. 

Skyroot Aerospace: Spacetech startup Skyroot Aerospace has raised $4.5 million (about Rs 34 crore) in a bridge round to Series B funding led by Google’s founding board member Ram Shriram’s Sherpalo Ventures. Wami Capital, existing investors – former WhatsApp chief business officer Neeraj Arora and ex-Google executive Amit Singhal have also participated.

Infurnia: Infurnia concludes Rs 4 crore or $533K in pre-IPO (initial public offering) funding from Yogesh Chaudhary of Jaipur Rugs. Pallavi Nadhani, Founder of SaaS firm Fusion Charts, who is an existing investor, also participated in the round. 

Early-stage deals

Smiles.ai: Healthcare startup Smiles.ai has raised $23 million in Series A funding led by Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI). The round also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Chiratae Ventures.

Raise Financial: Raise Financial Services has raised $22 million in its Series A round led by BEENEXT and Mirae Asset Venture Investments. The financing round also saw participation from 3one4 Capital along with Rocketship.vc and angel investors including Vidit Aatrey, Sanjeev Barnwal, Amrish Rau, Sujeet Kumar, Jitendra Gupta and Sandeep Tandon.

StanPlus: Ambulance startup StanPlus has raised $20 million (around Rs 148 crore) in its Series A round led by Healthquad, Kalaari Capital, and HealthX Singapore.

Adonmo: Zomato has invested $15 million in Adonmo to acquire a 5% stake.

SuperOps.ai: Chennai-headquartered unified Professional Services Automation (PSA) and Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) platform SuperOps.ai has announced raising $14 million in Series A round of funding led by Lee Fixel-backed investment firm Addition, and Tanglin Venture Partners.

iMocha: Pune-headquartered digital skills assessment platform iMocha today raised $14 million in a Series A round led by Eight Roads Ventures. Returning investors Upekkha and Better Capital also participated in the round, the startup said.

Kissht: Lending startup Kissht has raised Rs 100 crores or $13.3 million in funding led by Trifecta Capital and Northern Arc. The company has so far raised over Rs 270 crore in equity and over 1,200 crores in debt investments.

Vajro: Chennai-based mobile app builder Vajro on Tuesday said that it raised $8.5 million in a Series A round from Kansas City-based growth equity firm Five Elms Capital. 

Our Food: Agritech startup Our Food has raised $6 million (around Rs 45 Crore) in growth funding led by existing investor, 3Lines Venture Capital, and a new investor, C4D Asia Fund. Lalit Jalan, 3Lines India Chairman and ex-CEO of Reliance Infrastructure, will join the company’s Board of Directors. 

Aqgromalin: Aqgromalin, an agritech platform for animal husbandry and aquaculture ecosystem, has raised $5.25 million in its pre series A round from Sequoia Capital India’s Surge and Venture funds, Omnivore Partners India and Zephyr Peacock India. The round had received strong investor interest and was reportedly oversubscribed.

Flint: Flint, a crypto investment platform, has raised $5.1 million in its seed round led by Sequoia Capital India and GFC. Coinbase Ventures, Hashed, IOSG, Better Capital, Antler India and MSA Capital have also participated in the round as part of 11 institutional investors.

Growth School: Growth School, a community-led live learning platform, has raised a $5 million seed round led by Sequoia Capital India and Owl Ventures. Over 80 angel investors also participated in the round, including reputed entrepreneurs like Kunal Shah, Nikhil Kamath, Ritesh Agarwal, and Tanmay Bhat. 

UrbanPiper:Zomato has invested $5 million in UrbanPiper as part of a larger $24 million round for a 19% stake.

Wise: Edtech startup Wise has raised $5 million led by James Beshara alongside a clutch of angels and VC funds including Weekend Fund, Shrug Capital, RemoteFirst Capital, Taurus VC, Operators Partners as well as William Hockey and Ankur Nagpal (founder Teachable, Vibe Capital).

Reevoy: Reevoy India Pvt Ltd, which operates invoice factoring startup Reevoy, on Tuesday said it has secured $4 million (around Rs 30 crore) as a part of its seed round led by 9Unicorns and Venture Catalysts (VCATs). 

Hospals: Hospals, a cross border healthtech platform, has raised $3.5 million in its pre-Serie A round led by Inflection Point Ventures and 9Unicorns. Kunal Shah, Sanjeev Mishra and Razorpay founders along with existing backer Venture Catalysts have also participated in the current round.

Social Swag: New age content platform Social Swag has raised $3.5 million in a pre-Series A round led by IMEF and Unicorn India Ventures. 

StreamAlive: StreamAlive, a tech-based audience engagement application for live stream events, recently announced raising an oversubscribed pre-seed investment of $1.53 million led by deeptech and early investor, Speciale Invest. 

HYPD: HYPD, an enabler of a creator-owned marketplace, closed its seed funding round, raising $1.5 million from investors. The seed funding round was led by three different cohorts, that is, VCs such as Better Capital, Sauce VC and others; creators/influencer networks such as Bhuvan Bam, Tanmay Bhatt, and more; and sector experts such as CXOs of unicorn companies.

Oben Electric: Two-wheeler EV maker OBEN EV raised an additional $1 million in seed funding from Krishna Bhupal of GVK Power and Infra, and Shajikumar Devakar of IIFL Wealth and other investors.

Ekank Technologies: Ekank Technologies, which runs a vernacular storytelling platform called ThisDay, has raised $1 million funding from a clutch of investors, including 9Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, Titan Capital, Bharat Founders Fund Syndicate, and Sujeet Kumar, cofounder of Udaan.

Hatica: Hatica Technologies Pvt Ltd, which operates the software-as-a-service platform Hatica, has raised $0.9 million (around Rs 6 crore) in a pre-seed funding round led by Kae Capital.

Contlo: Contlo, an AI-powered customer data and marketing platform for e-commerce and D2C brands, has raised $800K or $0.8 million in its pre-seed round led by Better Capital. Titan Capital and other angels have also joined the round.

SustainKart: SustainKart, a sustainable products marketplace, has raised $500K or $0.5 million in its pre-seed round led by India Accelerator. 

Super Scholar: Super Scholar, an edtech platform, has raised $400K or $0.4 millio in a recent funding round from investors such as MAGIC Fund, 2am VC, Astir VC, JITO Angel Network, and others. 

Klassroom: Klassroom Edutech, an edtech startup, has raised an additional $175K 0r $0.17 million in Pre-Series A2 round from investors led by ah! Ventures, taking its total fundraise to $600,000 in the last six months. 

Undisclosed deals

Bold Finance, VDOC, Hike, GPS Renewables, F Sharp, Baby Amore, ixamBee and TagZ Foods did not disclose their financial details.

Acquisitions this week

D2C unicorn The Good Glamm Group has acquired a majority stake in Organic Harvest, a beauty and personal care brand.

Mensa Brands has invested in homegrown online gardening solutions brand, TrustBasket.

Lightspeed Venture Partners-backed edtech platform Teachmint, has bought MyClassCampus.

Curefoods has bought Accel-backed Maverix Platforms Pvt Ltd, which runs ready-to-cook food brand Fingerlix, for an undisclosed amount. 

Online solutions provider to creators AppX has acquired website building platform super.page for an undisclosed amount.