Weekly funding round up: Indian startups continue to attract venture capital

The venture capitalists have already invested more than USD 10 billion in then first half of 2021 and going by the bullish sentiment it’s expected to get doubled by the end of the year. There were nearly two dozen deals during the week with a majority of the funding for the early stage growth. Here we have enlisted 10 key deals of the week




Zomato raises Rs 4196 crore: Food delivery platform Zomato on Tuesday raised a little over Rs 4,196 crore from anchor investors ahead of its initial share sale. The company has decided to allocate 552,173,505 equity shares to anchor investors at Rs 76 apiece, aggregating the transaction size to Rs 4,196.51 crore, according to a circular uploaded on BSE website.

Flipkart raises USD 3.6 billion: Flipkart Group on Monday said it has raised USD 3.6 billion (about Rs 26,805.6 crore) in funding led by GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Walmart, valuing the e-commerce giant at USD 37.6 billion. The funding round also saw participation from sovereign funds DisruptAD, Qatar Investment Authority, Khazanah Nasional Berhad as well as marquee investors Tencent, Willoughby Capital, Antara Capital, Franklin Templeton and Tiger Global.

OYO raises USD 660 million debt fund: Hospitality firm OYO on Friday raised TLB funding of USD 660 million (nearly Rs 4,920 crore) from global institutional investors and the capital will be used for paring debt and other business investmentsThe offer was oversubscribed by 1.7 times and the company received commitments of close to USD 1 billion from leading institutional investors, OYO said in a statement.\

Inshorts raised USD 60 million: News app Inshorts on Thursday said it has raised USD 60 million (about Rs 445 crore) in funding from Vy Capital and existing investors. Inshorts also operates a location-based social media platform Public. With this, the company has raised USD 140 million in the last one year from investors, including Addition, Tiger Global, SIG, A91 and Tanglin Venture Partners.

Multiplier raises USD 4 mn: Professional Employment Organisation (PEO) platform Multiplier on Wednesday announced USD 4 million (around Rs 29.8 crore) funding led by Sequoia Capital India”s Surge.
The funding round also saw participation from co-investors Golden Gate Ventures, MS&AD Ventures, Picus Capital, and angel investors.rofessional Employment Organisation (PEO) platform.

Trell raises USD 45 mn: Trell co-founder and CEO Pulkit Agrawal told PTI. Social media commerce firm Trell has raised USD 45 million (over Rs 334 crore) in a funding round led by financial group Mirae Asset and H&M. The round was co-led by LB Investments. “The fund will be majorly used to enhance AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) muscle, go deeper into regional languages and establish a much better personalisation engine in dialects that we understand,” Trell co-founder and CEO Pulkit Agrawal told PTI.

Pratilipi raises USD 48 mn: Online storytelling platform Pratilipi on Wednesday said it has raised USD 48 million (about Rs 358 crore) in a funding led by South Korean gaming giant Krafton Inc. Existing investor, Omidyar Network India also participated in the series D round along with a number of startup founders including Hemesh Singh and Gaurav Munjal (Unacademy), Nishith Rastogi (Locus), Sahil Barua (Delhivery), Vidit Aatrey (Meesho), Mekin Maheshwari (Udhyam) and Amit Agarwal (NoBroker).

OneCode raises USD 5 mn: OneCode, a platform to digitise the sales ecosystem, on Thursday said it has raised USD 5 million (about Rs 37.2 crore) in funding led by Sequoia Capital India”s Surge and Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from WaterBridge Ventures.

Credit Fair raises USD 15 mn: Credit Fair, a consumer lending fintech startup, has raised USD 15 million (about Rs 111.7 crore) as part of a seed funding round led by angel investors Anand Ladsariya and Alok Agarwal of Striver Capital Advisors. Credit Fair will leverage the capital infusion to augment its technology team, enhance underwriting models and expand into tier II and III cities to scale its assets under management (AUM), a statement said.

Square Yards raises Rs 185 cr debt: Property brokerage firm Square Yards has raised USD 25 million (about Rs 185 crore) as debt from Hong Kong-based ADM Capital to expand its business. With this debt funding, Square Yards has so far raised USD 50 million in equity and USD 50 million in debt financing since its inception in 2014.