In this episode of India Tech - Weekly Deals Roundup: India Tech saw 26 companies including Bikayi, AppsForBharat etc raised over $63 million from investors such as Sequoia Capital India, Elevation Capital, BEENEXT, Matrix Partners India among others.
Welcome to India Tech Deals Roundup by Tracxn. This is your weekly update on Funding Rounds and Exits in India for the week ending 5th September.
Tech companies in India raised around $63 million of funding across 26 funding rounds during this week, down by nearly 80% from last calendar year's weekly average.
Hyderabad-based eCommerce enabler startup Bikayi raised $10.8 million in a Series A round by Sequoia Capital India. It provides a mobile-based integrated merchant eCommerce platform with a focus on small and medium enterprises with features like a digital storefront, payment gateway, visitor analytics, inventory management, WhatsApp integration, and others on a subscription basis. Founded in 2019 by IIIT alumni, it has raised $12.8 million to date from Y Combinator, Pioneer Fund, MANTIS Venture Capital, and others in the past.
Religion tech startup AppsForBharat raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Elevation Capital with participation from institutional investors like Sequoia Capital India, BEENEXT, Matrix Partners India, and angel investors like CRED’s founder Kunal Shah, Meesho cofounders Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, Tiger Global’s Scott Schleifer, and others. The company has developed a mobile app Sri Mandir that helps devotees to worship over 33 key Gods and Goddesses from the Hindu Dharm digitally. It also allows access to religious songs, daily horoscopes, festival information, virtual satsang, and personalized pravachan. Founded in 2020 by Trell co-founder Prashant Sachan, it has raised $14 million to date.
Gurgaon-based fintech startup Skeps raised $9.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Bertelsmann India Investments with participation from existing investor Accel. It provides an online marketplace and point of sales financing solutions for merchants and lenders. Its solution can be deployed on a merchant’s site, physical stores, or any partner’s platform. Founded in 2005 by IIT Kharagpur and IIT Delhi alumni.
Another fintech company Dezerv raised $7 million in a seed funding round led by Elevation Capital and Matrix Partners with participation from Whiteboard Capital and Blume Founders Fund. Dezerv provides an online financial advisory and investment management platform for individuals. Founded in 2020 by ex-IIFL Wealth senior managing partners, it aims to curate portfolio combinations for individual investors. The platform is currently invite-only.
The third Fintech company to get funded this week, Bangalore-based Jar raised $4.5 million in seed capital led by Arkam Ventures, Tribe Capital, WEH Ventures with participation from Kunal Shah, Shaan Puri, and others. Jar provides mobile app-based savings and gold investment platforms for individuals in India. It allows investors to invest as low as Re 1 into digital gold. It is based out of Bangalore and was founded in 2021.
Another Bangalore-based startup RevOS raised $4 million in a Series A funding round from Union Square Ventures and Prime Venture Partners. RevOS provides AI and cloud-enabled telematics and fleet management solutions for electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers. It offers an IoT-enabled tracker and control system that is integrated into vehicles. The company plans to expand its charging infrastructure for two and three-wheelers and is working on a pilot project Bolt to introduce a peer-to-peer charging solution. Founded in 2016 by BITS Pilani alumni, it has raised $4.6 million till now.
Salesforce integration platform provider, Rattle raised $2.8 million in seed capital led by Lightspeed and Sequoia Capital India with participation from angel investors including Chargebee co-founders Krish Subramanian and Rajaraman Santhanam, Amy Chang, and others. Founded in 2020, Rattle’s platform offers a layer built on top of Salesforce and enables AEs and SDRs to update CRM, get real-time visibility, and review pipeline reports via Slack.
Mumbai-based Elevar Sports raised $2.58 million in a Series A funding round led by venture capital firm Kalaari Capital with participation from Dream Capital. Founded in 2017 by Cornell University alumni, is a sports footwear and cricket bats D2C brand. It is sourcing premium materials and focusing on product innovation utilizing technologies for products across its portfolio.
This is all from the funding updates, moving on to the exits. India Tech observed 5 exits during the week of September 5th, 2021 compared to 3 last week.
In a major acquisition, PayU acquired Billdesk, an Indian online payment aggregator gateway platform for $4.7 billion. Billdesk was founded in 2010 by IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Lucknow alumni. It facilitates electronic payments and collections services for banks, businesses, and other institutions and enables payment of utility bills, credit cards, depository account charges, and more. It has focused on both domestic and cross-border transactions. In the past, it has raised $245 million from Clearstone Venture Partners, SBI, SIDBI Venture Capital, Temasek, General Atlantic, and others.
Digital brands aggregator GlobalBees acquired The Better Home, an internet-first platform offering eco-friendly home care products. The Better Home is a D2C brand that sells products like dishwashing liquid, home cleaners, air fresheners, laundry cleaners, and others through the online marketplace Amazon India and its own website. It is based out of Delhi and was founded in 2011.
Mumbai-based digital social content publisher 101India was acquired by Offbeet Media Group. 101India publishes stories across multiple categories like travel, food, love, comedy, music, sports, arts, culture, horror, and others. Founded in 2015, 101India publishes stories focused on the Indian subcontinent with young urban Indians as the main target audience.
Bangalore-based EdTech startup My Talking Tree was acquired by Federal Soft Systems. My Talking Tree is an AI-driven platform offering a smart-talking tree for schools. Its product AI-based Mr. DUDU is an interactive solution that interacts with school children visually and aurally helps in learning across subjects like language, spelling, words, science, general knowledge, health, personal hygiene, and others.
This is all for today. See you next week.