Friday, April 19

FUNDING

Startup Funding News: Get the latest news on startup funding, small business funding, investor management and many more about funding on Pixr8.

Box8 Raises $15 Mn from eWTP Ecosystem Fund & Others
FUNDING

Box8 Raises $15 Mn from eWTP Ecosystem Fund & Others

Box8, one of India’s largest cloud kitchen startups has raised $15 million led by eWTP Ecosystem Fund. Existing investors Mayfield and IIFL Seed Ventures fund have also participated in this round. Started by two IIT graduates Amit Raj and Anshul Gupta, Box8 is a technology first, full stack cloud kitchen company that is known for its All-in-1 meals, Desi Boxes & more. They own the entire value chain, from procurement of high-quality ingredients to food preparation to the last mile delivery, hence ensuring superior customer experience every time. Box8 has a presence in 4 cities: Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune and NCR delivering over 1 million meals every month from the company-owned 110+ cloud kitchens. Its network of cloud kitchens negates the high rental & operations costs incurre...
BigBasket raises $150 million from Alibaba and Others
FUNDING

BigBasket raises $150 million from Alibaba and Others

Mirae has pumped in about $60 million, while CDC and Alibaba have infused $40 million and $50 million, respectivelyBigBasket has previously stated that it aims to garner $2.5 billion (around 17,500 crores) in revenue by 2020. New Delhi: Online grocery platform BigBasket has raised about $150 million from South Korea's Mirae Asset Management, UK's CDC Group, and existing investor Alibaba, according to regulatory filings. BigBasket had raised $300 million in February last year from Alibaba and others. In November, it had said it was looking at raising fresh funds of up to $200 million. Mirae has pumped in about $60 million, while CDC and Alibaba have infused $40 million and $50 million, respectively, according to documents filed with the corporate affairs ministry. The grocery s...
Inito becomes the First Medical Device Startup from India to Secure Funding from Y Combinator
FUNDING

Inito becomes the First Medical Device Startup from India to Secure Funding from Y Combinator

New Delhi: Inito, a Bangalore based medical technology startup, has been selected by Y Combinator in their Winter ’19 Cohort. By doing so, it becomes the first Indian medical device startup to be supported by Silicon Valley based Y Combinator. The Silicon Valley based startup incubator boasts of a portfolio of well-known startups like AirBnB, Reddit, Quora and Dropbox etc. Inito’s flagship innovation is a small device that enables smartphones to perform lab-grade fertility diagnostic tests at home. The device is based on the company’s patent-pending ‘Flat-lens’ technology and comes with the Inito Reader, App and test strips. Right now, Inito’s Monitor measures two fertility hormones, Estrogen & Luteinizing Hormone (LH), in urine and enables women to track their fertile days at hom...
Delhivery Raises $413 Million From Softbank Vision Fund
FUNDING

Delhivery Raises $413 Million From Softbank Vision Fund

MUMBAI: Delhi based logistics service provider Delhivery has raised fresh investment of $413 million in a financing round led by the Softbank Vision Fund, they said in a joint statement on Sunday. Carlyle and Fosun, both existing investors in the e-commerce business, also participated in the latest financing round. Delhivery was founded in 2011 as a food delivery company but has since shifted to providing a full suite of logistics services in more than 1,800 cities. "We will be scaling up our newer warehousing and freight services through large investments in infrastructure and technology and global partnerships, in addition to improving the reach, reliability and efficiency of our transportation operations and sharing these benefits with our customers and partners," Delhivery CE...
FrontdeskAI Raises Additional $2 Million Seed Funding from Pi Ventures
FUNDING

FrontdeskAI Raises Additional $2 Million Seed Funding from Pi Ventures

PALO ALTO, Calif.-- FrontdeskAI, the leading developer of artificial intelligence (AI) assistants for small businesses, and the fastest adopted AI assistant in the wellness market, raises an additional $2 million in seed funding, bringing its total seed funding to $4.2 million. This round of seed funding was led by pi Ventures, an India based VC fund, and will help FrontdeskAI accelerate product development, increase customer acquisition and investigate new vertical markets. Previous seed rounds include $1.1 million in June 2018, led by Blue Pointe Capital, and $1.1 million in November 2018, led by Speciale Invest. pi Ventures partner, Abishek Surendran, will join the FrontdeskAI board which includes BluePointe Ventures managing partner, Sandeep Sardana, and Speciale Invest managin...
Doubtbox Raises Investment From Times Group Owned Brand Capital
FUNDING

Doubtbox Raises Investment From Times Group Owned Brand Capital

Kochi, Kerala, India:  The strategic investment arm of the Times Group Media House, Brand Capital, has done an Investment of undisclosed amount in a Kerala based Educational Technology startup company, Doubtbox. Doubtbox is a learning platform that will make the child learn effortlessly and easily.Doubtbox is founded by the promoters of eTutor, a path-breaking digital content repository, which is used by more than half a million school students for the last one decade. According to Ranjith Balan, the Founder and CEO of Doubtbox, the freshly raised funds will be used for branding in order to compete with other players especially Byju’s and Toppr Learning. Post this funding, the valuation of Doubtbox is expected to be between INR 50 Crores and 60 Crores. The online education se...
Airbnb planning to Invest $100-$200 Million in OYO
FUNDING

Airbnb planning to Invest $100-$200 Million in OYO

Airbnb, which is planning to go public by next year, has been looking towards India and China market to meet its growth goals, and OYO with its sizeable footprint in these two markets fits in neatly with these plans. According to the source, hospitality company OYO is readying to welcome yet another marquee investor on board Airbnb less than six months after it raised USD 1 billion from SoftBank, Sequoia and other existing investors to enter the unicorn club. Sources familiar with the matter told Pixr8 News, "Airbnb is in discussions to invest USD 100 million to USD 200 million in India based hotel aggregator OYO to meet its growth goals in India and China and amplify its growing focus on the hotel business. Both these markets are among the fastest-growing globally, Airbnb has a re...
InstareM Raises $41 mn Series C Funding Round
FUNDING

InstareM Raises $41 mn Series C Funding Round

InstaReM, Southeast Asia’s hottest digital cross-border payments company has announced the close of its US$ 41 million Series C funding round.The latest round of funding is led by Singapore’s Vertex Growth Fund (their first investment in Southeast Asia) and is supported by a new investor Atinum Investment, a leading Venture Capital investor from South Korea.The proceeds of this round will be used to drive growth in new markets, and to drive growth in existing and new market and support the launch of new products (including a cards platform). London, 19 MARCH 2019: InstaReM, Asia’s only digital cross-border payments company closes US $41 million Series C funding round in Singapore. The company’s spectacular growth has attracted an additional US $20 million investment in Series C round, ...
Acko raises USD 65 mn from Investors
FUNDING

Acko raises USD 65 mn from Investors

Acko on Wednesday said it has raised USD 65 million from investors, including Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal. The round of funding also saw participation from existing investors such as Amazon, Accel, SAIF and TechPro Ventures, the company said in a statement. Founded in 2016, Acko General Insurance claims to be the country's first digital native insurer, offers an intuitive purchase experience, cheaper prices and stress-free claims. The company uses a direct-to-consumer approach for distributing motor insurance, allowing for favourable risk selection and superior underwriting. Earlier, the company raised its largest seed rounds of $30 million. Founded by Varun Dua in 2016, Acko completed 12 months of operations and distributed over 20 million insurance policies to customer...
MovingNow Raises Angel Funding From a set of Individuals
FUNDING

MovingNow Raises Angel Funding From a set of Individuals

Logistics Tech company MovingNow raises angel funding from a set of investors. This was led by a couple of big-ticket individual investments from NRIs giving them the honour of receiving FDI in the angel round. MovingNow has introduced a unique pricing algorithm for their B2C business which they have filed for a patent that makes it simple for the users to place moving orders on the website. While B2B business is conducted on the mobile application on Demand/Supply mechanism. Most of the funds would be utilized to expand into new geographies in India. This would result in hiring additional staff and improve upon technology to correlate with the growing bandwidth. Founding CEO of MovingNow Manish Datta says, "Logistics must be simple. We at MovingNow, inspired by the optimism of the ...
E-scooter startup VOI raises another €26 million Funding
FUNDING

E-scooter startup VOI raises another €26 million Funding

The Stockholm-based e-scooter startup VOI raises another €26 million to accelerate its expansion in Europe. The e-scooter startup has already expanded into 14 cities, including Paris, Madrid, and Lisbon. Founded in August 2018, VOI raises €44 million Series A round in last November. The funding came from existing investors Vostok New Ventures, Balderton Capital, LocalGlobe and Raine Ventures, alongside new investors Project A and Creandum, and a host of business angels. Riders can use Voi scooters by downloading the app to locate a nearby scooter on the street or by using a map, pressing the ‘ride’ button, and scanning the VOI QR code. There’s a €1 unlocking fee and a ride costs €0.15 per minute. The startup’s approach to growth is “distinctively Scandinavian – based on dialogu...
Softbank invests Rs 2,800 cr in Indiabulls Housing Fin’s associate OakNorth
FUNDING

Softbank invests Rs 2,800 cr in Indiabulls Housing Fin’s associate OakNorth

Indiabulls Housing Finance Friday said Japan's Softbank is investing Rs 2,800 crore of equity capital in its associate OakNorth, a commercial bank in the UK. Indiabulls Housing Finance said OakNorth is the fastest growing new bank in Europe, leveraging technology tools for fast and efficient disbursals to the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector. The bank has no physical branches. "The current loan book of OakNorth is Rs 21,390 crore and the bank has no delinquencies as on date," the company added. OakNorth was seeded by Indiabulls Housing in October 2015 with Rs 650 crore to own a 40 per cent controlling stake in the bank. Last year, Indiabulls sold a part of its holding to the government of Singapore for Rs 900 crore. Shares of Indiabulls Housing Finance were t...