Funding Galore: From Swiggy To BYJU’S — $902 Bn Raised By Indian Startups [April 12-17]

We bring to you the latest edition of Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week

Japanese conglomerate SoftBank is reportedly planning to invest about $450 Mn in Swiggy, valuing the food delivery app at $5 Bn. As per media reports citing sources, SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son was in talks with the two Indian food delivery giants Zomato and Swiggy as the VC firm finally wanted to take a bet on the sector in India.  The Japanese investor decided to bet on Swiffy as the company is looking to diversify its offering with quick grocery delivery service Instamart and daily essentials delivery Supr Daily.

The latest investment is said to be an extension of Swiggy’s $800 Mn round announced by the company cofounder and CEO Sriharsha Majety in an internal email this month. The company has already raised the first tranche of this round earlier this week.

India Quotient Sees 49X Returns On Its SUGAR Investments

Micro VC firm India Quotient booked a 49x return on its investment in SUGAR after a part exit from the company in February this year, when the brand raised $21 Mn in Series C funding round.  The company has booked an internal rate of return of approximately 61% on its entire investment in SUGAR, even as most of its shareholding remains intact.

Prior to this, the VC firm has clocked in 25X return on its investment in ShareChat, as its stake worth in the social media platform grew from INR 50 Cr to INR 270 Cr. However, the company decided not to sell its stakes in the company’s recent unicorn round.

Serum Institute Acquires Stakes In PolicyBazaar

Vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute Of India and four other entities have bought homegrown private equity firm True North’s stake in online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar. Ashoka India Equity Investment Trust, Triumph Global Holdings, IIFL Special Opportunities Fund Series 8 and India Acorn Fund are the other four buyers of the insurtech startup’s stakes.

“We’ve had a great partnership with PolicyBazaar over the last three years. We are extremely pleased with the company’s sustained growth momentum and efficiency in delivering great results in spite of the challenging market conditions. We will continue to support PolicyBazaar as it heads towards public markets in the next 12-15 months and scripts many more success stories,” said Divya Sehgal, Partner, True North.

Top Indian Startup Funding Deals This Week

Overall, $902 Mn was invested in Indian startups across 29 deals this week.

Note: This funding report is based on startups that disclosed funding amounts

Acquisitions This Week

Samunnati Acquires Agri Supply Chain Startup Kamatan

Chennai-based Samunnati Financial Intermediation & Services Pvt Ltd has acquired agri-supply chain platform Kamatan in an all-stock deal to position itself as an end-to-end agri-solutions service provider. The acquisition would help Sammunnati expand its footprint in the central and northern parts of India, where Kamatan has a strong base with over 50 farmer producer organisations.

Nykaa Fashion Acquires Online Jewellery Brand Pipa Bella

Mumbai-based omnichannel lifestyle retailer Nykaa has acquired online jewellery brand Pipa Bella to capture the growing market for contemporary fashion jewellery in India. After the acquisition, Pipa Bella will continue to operate independently and offer products on its own website as well as extend its portfolio to the Nykaa Fashion platform.

Nykaa has added that Pipa Bella, along with other consumer brands, will be an integral part of its offline expansion this year.

Flipkart Acquires OTA Cleartrip In Distress Sale

Ecommerce giant Flipkart has acquired online travel aggregator ClearTrip. The amount of the acquisition hasn’t been disclosed, but reports this week suggested the deal will value the OTA at around $40 Mn. Reports had suggested that the acquisition by Flipkart would be a distress sale for the 15-year-old travel portal, considering the downturn in the travel and hospitality industry amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Flipkart to further develop technology solutions to make travel simple for customers.

Fund Announcement

• Mumbai-based incubator and early stage startup fund 9Unicorns announced the third close of its first accelerator fund at over INR 300 Cr or $40 Mn with more than 36 additional LPs — industrialists and businesses hailing from India and across the globe. The fund intends to write its first check to 150 startups from various tech sectors through the capital raised over the next year.

• Amazon India, during its annual ‘Smbhav’ event to celebrate the association with small businesses, announced a $250 Mn Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund to invest in startups and entrepreneurs focusing on technology innovations in SMB digitisation, agriculture and healthcare.

• AngelList India head Utsav Somani is launching a $15 Mn micro-fund iSeed II to support 50 Indian early-stage tech startups across sectors in the next two years.

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