In this episode of India Tech - Weekly Deals Roundup: India Tech saw 32 companies including LEAD School, Refyne and Rupeek raise over $404 million from investors such as WestBridge Capital, Lightbox, and Tiger Global Management, among others.
Welcome back to India Tech Weekly Deals Roundup, a weekly podcast by Tracxn for key startup deals in India from last week.
In this edition, we will cover funding rounds of LEAD School, Refyne, Rupeek and more. In exits, we will cover the acquisition of nFactorial by AscentHR among others.
Starting with our deep dive into funding rounds, tech companies in India raised around $404 million funding across 32 funding rounds during this week.
In a major funding round event, EdTech startup LEAD School, raised $100 million in a Series E funding round led by WestBridge Capital and GSV Ventures. With this funding round, LEAD School achieved unicorn status on 13th January 2022. LEAD School is a provider of school management software. LEAD School includes features like the monitoring of student learning and teacher performance, courses for teachers, and course curriculum delivery. LEAD School also provides digital learning content, physical readers and workbooks, e-books, and learning activities. LEAD School offers a mobile app for Android devices. Founded in 2012 by IIM Ahmedabad alumni, Mumbai-based LEAD School has raised $170 million till date.
Refyne, a FinTech startup, raised $82 million in a Series B funding round led by Tiger Global Management with participation from DST Global, QED Investors, RTP Ventures, and others. Refyne is an online platform for payday loans. Refyne offers a solution for employers to provide real-time access to earned wages to the employees, who can obtain them before payday by logging in and requesting the amount. Refyne enables fund transfer to the registered bank account upon approval by the employer. Founded in 2020 by IIT Guwahati alumni, Bangalore-based Refyne has raised $106 million till date.
Bangalore-based FinTech startup, Rupeek, raised $34 million in a Series E funding round led by Lightbox with participation from Accel, GGV Capital, Sequoia Capital, and others. Rupeek is an online marketplace for gold loans. Rupeek offers a lending app connecting lenders and borrowers for gold loans, where the borrowers must call the agent or install the application to specify loan requirements, and the authenticity of the gold is verified by an agent. Rupeek then enables the transfer of money to the borrower's bank account upon approval and implementation of the credit risk model. Rupeek offers an app for Android platforms. Founded in 2015 by IIT Bombay alumni, Rupeek has raised $143 million till date.
In another funding round, Rooter, a Delhi-based Gaming startup, raised $25 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightbox, March Capital and Duane Park with participation from leAD, Capital A and Goal Venture Partners. Rooter is an online social platform offering videos for gamers. Rooter allows users to livestream videos of their gameplay, with the ability to like, share and follow other gamers. Rooter is available across Android and iOS devices. Founded in 2016, Rooter has raised $30 million till date.
Environment Tech startup, Recykal, raised $22 million in a Series A funding round led by Morgan Stanley with participation from Circulate Capital, Vellayan Subbiah and Arun Venkatachalam. Recykal is a provider of cloud-based solid waste recycling solutions. Recykal offers products like Smart Centre Solution which helps waste aggregators and dry resource collection centres digitise their routine tasks, ERP Loop for ERP fulfillments, and Recykal Marketplace to buy and sell recyclable items. Recykal also offers a digital DRS scheme management system for governments and smart cities. Founded in 2016 by Indian School of Business alumni, Hyderabad-based Recykal has raised $25 million till date.
This was all from the funding updates, moving on to the exits. India Tech observed 4 exits during the week of 16 January 2022.
HR Tech startup, nFactorial, was acquired by AscentHR. nFactorial offers a real-time employee and customer engagement platform. nFactorial includes solutions like HR analytics, a facial recognition-based attendance system, employee feedback platform, and organizational network analysis. Bangalore-based nFactorial was founded in 2014.
In another acquisition event, Hexa, a Bangalore-based EdTech startup, was acquired by Bizongo. Hexa is a provider of AI and cloud-based student assessment solutions for colleges. Hexa offers features such as practice tests, in-depth analytics, training videos, placement officer dashboards, as well as cross-college comparisons. Hexa was founded in 2018.
This was all for today, we will be back next Monday with more updates. You can subscribe to our podcast on Google Podcasts to stay updated. If you have any feedback, please reach out to us at podcast@tracxn.com. Thank you for tuning in today, see you next week.