FUNDING | Pixr8 News

24Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Mobile Banking Startup Neat Secures $3 Million in Fresh Funding

A Hong Kong-based startup Neat that offers startups and SMEs access to credit cards and banking services has secured funds amounting to $3 million in a fresh funding round. The particular round was led by China-based VC Linear Capital. The round also saw participation from Hong Kong’s Sagamore investments and existing backers Dymon Asia Ventures and Portag3 Ventures. Prior to this, the company raised $2 million seed round earlier this year. The company basically provides quick access to prepaid Mastercard-based cards and basic banking services. Cards are charged at around $7.50 per month, with varying prices on incoming, outgoing and international payments. Along with this, there is also a consumer option, which is much like European startups Monzo, Starling and Revolut, but Neat ...

ClearTax Raises $50 Million from Hong Kong based Investor

23Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

ClearTax Raises $50 Million from Hong Kong based Investor

Online tax return-filing and investment platform ClearTax has raised funds amounting to $50 million in a fresh financing round. The round was led by Composite Capital which is based in Hong Kong. This deal has come at a time when the financial tech sector, commonly referred to as fintech, has clocked rapid growth and managed to attract aggressive funding. The investor basically invests in early- to mid-stage companies across consumer goods, retail, transportation and technology in Asia. It was founded by a former partner at one of the leading Chinese investment firms called Hillhouse Capital. Talking about the total funding of ClearTax, the company has raised $65 million since inception. It counts popular Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like Peter Thiel, whose Founders Fund and Max Levc...

New Jersey-based Video Learning Platform Secures $930,000

22Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

New Jersey-based Video Learning Platform Secures $930,000

Artificial intelligence-powered video-learning platform VideoKen Inc. has reportedly raised funds amounting to $930,000 (Rs 6.83 crore). The funding round was led by SRI Capital and Touchstone Equities. Along with this, Hyderabad Angels also participated in the round with existing backer LG Chandrasekhar of Sutures India including angel investors like Flipkart and former Yahoo executives. This marks as the second round of seed funding by the New Jersey- and Bengaluru-based startup. The company plans to use these funds for the expansion of its operations in North America. Prior to this, VideoKen had raised $1 million from a clutch of angel investors. The company was founded in 2017 by Manish Gupta and Ashish Vikram. The company makes use of AI and machine learning to summarise vide...

20Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

SaaS Startup Hiver Raises $4 Million in Fresh Funding Round

Bengaluru and San Jose-based SaaS-focused startup Hiver has raised an amount of $4 million (Rs 30 crore) in a new round of funding. This particular funding round was led by venture capital firms Kalaari Capital and Kae Capital. Prior to this, the company raised $130,000 in seed funding from the Citrix Startup Accelerator and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma in 2012. The company was earlier known as Grexlt. It later rebranded as Hiver last year. The funds from this round will be utilized by the company for product development, as well as expanding its global customer base. “With this investment, we will fuel our efforts to realise our vision of making Gmail a powerful collaboration platform that businesses can use for sales, support and their internal functions,” Niraj Ranjan Rout...

California-based Oh My Green Raised $20 million

18Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

California-based Oh My Green Raised $20 million

In a fresh funding round, California-based B2B company Oh My Green has raised $20 million. This particular funding round was led by Initialized Capital, Powerplant Ventures, Backed VC, ZhenFund, Talis Capital and the Stanford StartX Fund. With this investment, the company plans to expand throughout the U.S. and gradually launch overseas. The basic motive behind this step is to bring healthier foods to offices around the U.S. The startup offers Nashville nutritional snacks and meals to businesses in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Austin, Denver, Boston, New York City and Nashville. The company stocks office snack pantries which is a staple at technology startups and caters events, manages cafes and provides wellness programming. Founded in 2014 by Michael Heinrich...

Grocery Delivery Startup Instacart Secures $600 million

17Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Grocery Delivery Startup Instacart Secures $600 million

A startup that delivers grocery called Instacart has reportedly raised funds amounting to $600 million in its latest funding round. The funds have been basically raised to fight against its rivals as it competes against players like Amazon and valuing the company at $7.6 billion. The company is based in San-Francisco-based and has been steadily growing in the last few years, helped by partnerships more than 300 retailers including Walmart, Aldi and Kroger. This latest financing round was led by investment firm D1 Capital Partners which raised Instacart's funding till date to more than $1.6 billion. The company has plans to use these funds to further expand in North America and also invest in marketing and hiring. The company said it now has about $1.2 billion in cash to spend on ...

16Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

myGate Secures $8.8 million in Series A Funding Round

Mobile-based security management solution for gated premises called myGate has secured funds amounting to Rs 65 crore (around $8.8 million) in Series A funding round. This round was led by existing investor Prime Venture Partners. The company is planning to utilize these funds to grow rapidly across 10 cities including Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR. It has not been mentioned whether any other backer took part in the funding round or not. myGate is owned and operated by Bengaluru-based Vivish Technologies Pvt. Ltd and was founded in 2016 by Vijay Arisetty, Abhishek Kumar, Vivaik Bhardwaj and Shreyans Daga. “Technology is pervasive and it was only a matter of time for the security at gated communities to be transformed using smart and intelligent solutions… We will expand the myGate t...

AI Firm Worxogo Raises Funds from Inventus Capital & Ideaspring Capital

16Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

AI Firm Worxogo Raises Funds from Inventus Capital & Ideaspring Capital

Artificial Intelligence (AI) company Worxogo that offers a cognitive AI engine as a software-as-a-service or SaaS application has secured an amount of Rs 16.5 crore in its first funding round, which was led by Inventus Capital and Ideaspring Capital. The company plans to use these funds for the purpose of entering the US market, where it has also applied for a patent for its AI engine, called Mia. “The engine is based on behavioural science, neuroeconomics and AI, which, when integrated to the enterprise system, can serve as a cognitive digital assistant to nudge employees to improve productivity,” said CEO Ramesh Srinivas. The Worxogo app sends “nudge” notifications to employees on a daily basis to improve performance, based on the individuals’ behavioural patterns. The backers state...

Zomato to Raise $210 Million from Alibaba’s Online Payment Firm

15Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Zomato to Raise $210 Million from Alibaba’s Online Payment Firm

The food delivery and restaurant discovery major Zomato has reportedly entered into a deal to raise funds amounting to $210 million (roughly Rs. 886 crores) from Alibaba's online payment platform Alipay Singapore. This funding news has come a few weeks after the food-ordering platform announced the acquisition of TongueStun, a Bengaluru-based startup that serves corporate catering space in six Indian cities. "[W]e would like to bring to your knowledge that Zomato has signed a definitive agreement to undertake a primary fund raise of approximately $210 million from Alipay Singapore Holding Pte Ltd (which is an existing shareholder of Zomato) and/ or any of its affiliates, and upon the closing of this fund raise," the regulatory filing mentioned. Prior to this, the company secured $150 ...

13Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Top Five Funding of the Week (8th Oct – 13th Oct)

This week saw various companies all across the globe raising funds for various purposes. Many of the well-known companies participated in the fundraising process and some also led the funding rounds. Funding, these days, has become a very important part of business and especially in case of startups. Let’s talk about the funding activities that took place this week. This week was quite active in terms of funding activities and the company that secured the largest amount of funds was Once Upon a Farm which is a US based startup that sells organic, cold-pressed baby food. The company raised $20 million from CAVU Venture Partners. Let us know more about the funding rounds and have a look at the top 5 funding activities of the week. 1. ONCE UPON A FARM ...

GoZefo Raises Rs 21 Crore from a Stage-agnostic Investment Firm

13Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

GoZefo Raises Rs 21 Crore from a Stage-agnostic Investment Firm

Online marketplace for second-hand goods GoZefo has reportedly raised an amount of around Rs 21 crore (close to $3 million) in a fresh round of funding. The particular funding round was led by stage-agnostic investment firm FJ Labs. FJ Labs is a New York-based company co-founded by Fabrice Grinda who is one of the founders of online classifieds firm OLX. The company has put in around Rs 10 crore in this financing round. The other existing backers that participated in this round include Sequoia Capital and Helion Venture Partners. “The OLX co-founder is a very relevant investor for us. It was more of a chance to get him on board. It is strategic capital for us,” GoZefo co-founder Rohit Ramasubramanian said. Prior to this, FJ Labs has invested in a number of companies including Chine...

AI-Powered Matchmaking Company Betterhalf Raised $500,000

12Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

AI-Powered Matchmaking Company Betterhalf Raised $500,000

An artificial intelligence-powered matchmaking platform called Betterhalf.ai has reportedly secured funds amounting to $500,000 (around Rs 3.7 crore) from angel investors including former Google India managing director Shailesh Rao and Flipkart’s former investment director Vinay Subramanian. Along with these, the other backers that participated in the round included early-stage investor FirstPenguin Capital’s Rehan A Khan and senior executives from Google, Uber and Amazon. The company is planning to use these fresh funds in the further enhancing of its AI capabilities while continuing to invest in technology and talent. With this funding round, the company so far has raised about $750,000. It competes with other players in the market such as Tinder and Woo. Betterhalf was found...