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Top News of the Week: 1. Funding: - Quick commerce major Zepto reaffirmed its position as the most heavily backed startup of the year. Bagging a mega cheque of $350 Mn from investors like Motilal Oswal, Sachin Tendulkar, Mankind Pharma Family Office this week, Zepto’s cumulative fundraise for the year now stands at $1.3 Bn. - On the back of Zepto’s fundraise, the consumer services sector emerged as the investor favourite sector this week. Startups in the space bagged $354 Mn across three deals. - Besides Zepto, the week also saw another mega funding round materialise in the form of HealthKart’s $153 Mn fundraise. With this, the ecommerce sector saw the second highest capital infusion this week. Startups in the space raised $163 Mn across three deals. - Venture capitalist firm Blume Ventures was the most active investor this week, backing fintech startup Zopper and Mayank Bidawatka’s latest venture Billion Hearts. - Seed funding continued its upward movement this week, with startups at this stage cumulatively bagging $10.9 Mn. This marked an 85% jump from the $5.9 Mn raised by startups at this stage last week. galore 2. Mergers & Acquisitions - The Good Glamm Group completed the acquisition of D2C mom and baby care brand The Moms Co this week. However, it did not disclose the terms of the transactions. - Moglix bought eco-friendly paper products manufacturer Khatema Fibres for $9.4 Mn to bolster its sustainable packaging portfolio. 3. Other Developments - Reports this week said that B2B marketplace startup OfBusiness has roped in Axis Capital, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Citigroup and Bank of America for a near $1 Bn IPO in 2025. - With its public issue seeing an oversubscription of 1.86X, shares of logistics major BlackBuck got listed on the BSE and NSE this week at a premium of 2.9%. - Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola Consumer initiated its IPO journey this week by receiving its shareholder nod to drop the word “private” from the company’s name. - IN-SPACe’s chairman Pawan Goenka told Inc42 that the Centre-led INR 1,000 Cr spacetech fund is set to become operational by the first quarter of fiscal year 2025-26 (Q1 FY26). - Solar solutions startup SolarSquare plans to raise $30 Mn at a $130 Mn valuation. This marks a 2.7X jump from its previous valuation of $47.7 Mn. A secondary share sale at omnichannel eyewear unicorn Lenskart is likely to value $6 Bn, up 20% from its last valuation of $5 Bn. - Hospitality unicorn OYO’s founder Ritesh Agarwal is looking to infuse $65 Mn to increase his stake in the startup. - Listed online travel aggregator MakeMyTrip will be acquiring fintech unicorn CRED’s expense management platform Happay in a bid to become the go-to platform for comprehensive corporate travel and expense management solutions. - Former International Finance Corporations’s executive Sayan Ghosh launched his own VC firm Ortella Global Capital (OG Capital) this week along with a $36 Mn fund. - IIT Bombay’s Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (SINE) will be launching its maiden VC fund with a target corpus of $11.8 Mn. Through the fund, it aims to back 1,000 startups over the next 10 years with an average ticket size of INR 2-15 Cr. Stay Updated. Stay Informed. Stay Ahead. Share the Medial App with your network, colleagues, and friends. Let's brainstorm, discuss together and help each other achieve our goals. And don't forget to rate us on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store to help us reach even more amazing people like you.