Top News of the Week:
1. Funding:
- 31 Indian startups raised around $336.45 million in funding this week. These deals count 11 growth-stage deals and 18 early-stage deals. Moreover, two early-stage startups kept their transaction details undisclosed.
- Battery-swapping startup Battery Smart’s $65 Mn Series B funding round was the week’s biggest funding round. The equity round is a mix of primary and secondary investments and saw participation from a mix of new and existing investors, including MUFG Bank, Panasonic, Ecosystem Integrity Fund (EIF), Blume Ventures and British International Investment (BII). The round also saw its initial backer Orios Venture Partners making a partial exit with 29X returns.
- Battery Smart’s funding round propelled the cleantech sector to top funding chart at a sectoral level. The sector saw startups raking in $71 Mn via three deals.
- Deeptech tied cleantech in terms of the secured number of deals. Startups in the space netted $53 Mn via three deals. However, the ecommerce sector witnessed the highest number of deals materialising this week, with startups bagging $51.9 Mn through six deals.
- Seed funding levels also improved significantly this week, going up 214% from last week’s $3 Mn to $9.4 Mn this week.
- Among the growth-stage deals, 11 startups raised $170.4 million in funding this week. Battery tech startup Battery Smart led the list with its $65 million funding followed by D2C skincare brand Foxtale with $18 million, and agri-finance company Samunnati with $16 million.
2. IPOs, Acquisitions:
- 360 One has signed an agreement to buy ET Money from Times Internet for INR 365.8 Cr in a cash and stock deal. Of this, the wealth and asset company will pay INR 85.8 Cr in cash to the company.
- Listed gaming Nazara Technologies’ subsidiary NODWIN Gaming International Pte Ltd, bought middle eastern esports and gaming production company Ninja Global FZCO (Ninja) for $3.57 Mn in a cash and stock deal.
- About six months after filing its DRHP, two-wheeler electric vehicle manufacturer Ola Electric got the approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for its initial public offering (IPO). The company will be looking to make its public market debut within a month.
- Online travel aggregator ixigo’s public issue received bids for 430.40 Cr shares against the 4.37 Cr on offer, implying a 98.34X oversubscription rate. QIBs led the charts as they oversubscribed their quota by 106.73X.
5. Top Hires and Layoffs:
- Hemesh Singh, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Unacademy, decided to quit after serving almost a decade at the Bengaluru-based edtech firm. He will now transition into an advisory role.
- SaaS firm Kissflow has laid off around 45-50 employees, representing 15% of its workforce, across sales, marketing, and product development functions. According to a report by Moneycontrol, the layoffs were driven by product shutdowns and annual performance reviews. Suresh Sambandam, Kissflow’s founder and CEO, explained that approximately 20-25 employees were let go due to a strategic shift from land-motion procurement to expand motion to boost customer acquisition across their products.
- Among key hirings, Aurm, an asset protection firm providing safe deposit locker services, appointed Vijay Arisetty, founder of the community management app MyGate, as its founder and CEO.
- hBits has welcomed Saumil Parekh, ex-VP of Marketing at Pharmeasy, as its new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), bringing over seven years of experience in leading marketing, growth, and revenue.
- VS Mani & Co, a South Indian filter coffee and snacks brand, has brought on music composer Anirudh Ravichander as a co-founder and brand ambassador.
- Paytm's asking fired employees to pay back their joining and retention bonuses, which the startup retrieves if an employee quits within 18 months of joining. Reports also claimed that Paytm asked fired employees to "voluntarily resign" without any prior notice
4. Other Developments:
- Zepto’s upcoming funding round, of $650 Mn. The round will see the quick commerce unicorn’s valuation soar to $3.5 Bn, 2.5X its erstwhile valuation of $1.4 Bn.
- D2C wearables major boAt’s parent Imagine Marketing India is in talks with three investors to raise an undisclosed amount. Its cofounder and CEO Sameer Mehta said the fundraise will be “strategic” in nature instead of just raising capital.
- Pavestone VC’s maiden fund Pavestone Technology Fund raised $1.8 Mn from Colruyt Group India, the engineering arm of Belgian food and grocery retailer Colruyt Group. The VC has set a target corpus of $107.7 Mn for the fund.
- Early-stage VC firm Huddle Ventures’ Fund II has been oversubscribed by 20% ahead of its final close. The VC firm has activated the green shoe option following the oversubscription and is aiming for a final close at INR 150 Cr in the next four to eight weeks.
- Fintech Neo group’s asset management arm Neo Asset Management has marked the final close of its maiden special credit opportunities fund at $308 Mn. Neo claims to have backed 12 companies and made two exits within a time span of 15 months via the fund
- VC firm Unifi Capital has floated two new funds in GIFT City, Gujarat. While the first fund will focus on Indian growth businesses benefiting from demographic shifts and sectoral reforms, the second will aim to assist Indian HNIs in diversifying their portfolios.
- Beauty ecommerce marketplace Purplle reportedly raised $100 Mn in a mix of primary and secondary investments led by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund ADIA. The fundraise valued the startup at $1.2-1.3 Bn, a 15% increase from its erstwhile fundraise.
- Fintech startup KreditBee’s NBFC arm bagged a $32 Mn Debt from Yubi, Dzerv, Neo Group, and OfBusiness, among others between April and June. The debt is likely to fuel its working capital needs and business expansion plans.
- Ola Electric is eyeing a $12 Mn debt raise from venture debt fund Alteria Capital. Its board has approved the issuance of 10,000 non-convertible debentures (NCDs) with face value of INR 1 Lakh each to the investor.
- D2C personal care startup 82°E will see a $6 Mn infusion as part of its extended seed funding round by its founder Deepika Padukone and her father Prakash Padukone’s investment entity, Ka Enterprises. The infusion is expected to be completed by June 20.
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