Funding and acquisition in Indian startups this week [31 Jan- 05 Feb]

This week 30 Indian startups raised funding, of which 22 received a total of about $467.49 million. Chargebee raised the highest funding of about $250 million, followed by Scaler and Loadshare, which raised $55 million and $40 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 

Chargebee: Chargebee, a subscription management and recurring billing platform, has raised $250 million in its Series H round at a valuation of $3.5 billion. The latest round was co-led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital, with participation from Insight Partners, Sapphire, and Steadview Capital.

Scaler: Tech upskilling startup Scaler (by Interviewbit) has scooped up $55 million in its Series B round led by new investor Lightrock India along with two existing investors, Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global at a valuation of $710 million.

Loadshare: Logistics platform Loadshare has raised $40 million (about Rs 300 crore) in a funding round led by Tiger Global. Filter Capital, 57 Stars, existing investors CDC Group and Matrix Partners India, and a few prominent family offices also participated in the round.

Headout: Travel experiences app Headout has raised $30 million in Series B round in addition to the $12 million raised in September last year, bringing the total round size to $42 million.

Bombay Shaving Company: New Delhi-based personal care and hair removal brand Bombay Shaving Company has raised Rs 50 crore or $6.69 million from Gulf Islamic Investments (GII), as a follow on to its Rs 160 crore Series C funding round led by Malabar. This takes the round size to Rs 210 crore.

Waterfield Advisors: Wealth advisory firm Waterfield Advisors raised $6 million from family offices, ultra-high net worth individuals, and existing investors

Early-stage startups 

Jar: Daily gold savings app Jar has raised $32 million in a Series A round led by Tiger Global and participated by Rocketship.vc, Third Prime, Stonks, Force Ventures and existing investors including Arkam Ventures and WEH.

Two Platforms: Jio Platforms Ltd has invested $15 million in Two Platforms Inc, a Silicon Valley based deeptech startup founded by Pranav Mistry, for a 25% equity stake on a fully diluted basis. 

SuperShare: Smartphone dialer and communication platform Quiph’s SuperShare has raised Rs 48.5 crore or $6.5 million in a Series A round from new and existing investors.

Nautius Mobile: South Korean gaming major Krafton has invested $5.4million in JetSynthesys-owned mobile game development studio Nautilus Mobile.

Scrut Automation: Scrut Automation, an information security compliance platform, has raised $3 million in its seed round from Lightspeed and Endiya Partners.

Pillow: Fintech startup Pillow has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Elevation Capital and a host of crypto angels, including Scott Lewis (Co-founder, DeFi Pulse), JD Kanani & Sandeep Nailwal (Co-founders, Polygon), Prabhakar Reddy (Co-founder, FalconX), and Aniket Jindal (Co-founder, Biconomy). 

OneTo11: OneTo11, a Noida-based blockchain gaming startup, recently raised $2.5 million in its seed funding round. 

EekiFoods: Agritech startup EekiFoods has raised $2 million from Avaana Capital. Existing investor Spectrum Impact, Kunal Shah, founder CRED; Ramakant Sharma, founder Livspace; Abhishek Kejriwal, founder Kutumb; and, Harsh Shah, Fynd founder, O2 Angels Network and Gopinath K, Eeki have also participated in this round.

POPT: Proptech startup POPT on Thursday said it has raised $2 million mainly from Canada-based angel investors MRW Ventures and Riar Holdings. In the pre-seed round of funding, seven other Indian angel investors also participated.

Logibricks: Zomato Ltd-backed e-commerce shipping and enablement firm Shiprocket, operated by BigFoot Retail Solutions Pvt Ltd, has invested $1.5 million in Logibricks Technologies Pvt Ltd.

CyborgIntell: SaaS startup CyborgIntell has raised $1.19 million in pre-Series A round led by SenseAI and Pentathlon Ventures. Existing backers and Ghosal Ventures have also joined the round.

Kisanwala: Agritech solutions startup Kisanwala has raised around $1 million in an angel round led by veterans from the tech and agri industry. 

Burgerama: Delivery-focused fast-food brand Burgerama has raised $700,000 (Rs 5 crore) in pre-Series A round led by Anicut Angel Fund.

Life & Pursuits: Life & Pursuits, a direct-to-consumer (D2C) beauty brand focused on ayurveda, on Friday said it has secured $0.5 million (around Rs 3.75 crore) funding from a host of angel investors.  

ZFW: ZFW, a Dark Store platform for D2C, and food and beverage brands (F&B), has raised $415K or $0.41 million in pre-seed round from a clutch of marquee startup founders and angels.

Sortizy: Sortizy, a smart kitchen management platform, has raised $100K or $0.1 million in a funding round led by Campus Fund, a venture capital firm that backs student-led startups.

Undisclosed

PlantVita, Kaagaz, The Renal Project, ZERUND, Zama Organics,   LegalPay, Bibo, and Truphe did not disclose their financial details.

Acquisitions this week

Conversational messaging platform Gupshup has acquired cloud communications firm Knowlarity Communications.