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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...

Online Printing Startup Gogoprint Raises $7.7 million

11Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Online Printing Startup Gogoprint Raises $7.7 million

Bangkok-based online printing startup Gogoprint has reportedly secured funds amounting to $7.7 million in Series A funding round. The round has been led by existing backer OPG (Online Printing Group), an investment firm from Kai Hagenbuch. With these funds, the company is planning to expand its business in Asia Pacific. It is looking to go beyond Southeast Asia and enter Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and other markets over the coming 12 months. Gogoprint claims to have been associated with around 45,000 companies as of now. The company’s major services include printed business cards, flyers, booklets, posters and more, in addition to marketing collateral such as promotional pens, other stationary and flash drives. Gogoprint is aiming to upend the industry in Southeast Asia w...

Berkeley-based Foodtech Startup Raises $20 million for Expansion

10Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Berkeley-based Foodtech Startup Raises $20 million for Expansion

Berkeley-based startup Once Upon a Farm has reportedly raised funds amounting to $20 million in Series B financing round. The funding round was led by CAVU Venture Partners. The company plans to use the funds to expand its direct to consumer business, partner with more U.S. grocers and build out a wider assortment of baby products. Following the deal, CAVU’s co-founder and managing partner Brett Thomas, along with CAVU investor Jared Jacobs, will join the company’s board. Founded in 2015, the startup sells organic, cold-pressed baby food in 8,500 grocery stores in the U.S. It was founded by serial entrepreneurs Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz. The company also mentions actress Jennifer Garner and former General Mills president John Foraker as its co-founders. Foraker had been an a...

AI Firm Machinify Raises $10 Million in Series A Round

9Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

AI Firm Machinify Raises $10 Million in Series A Round

Artificial intelligence company Machinify has reportedly raised funds amounting to $10 million in Series A funding round. The round was led by Battery Ventures with participation from GV and Matrix Partners. Through Machinify, the companies feed the system raw data, specify what they’re trying to optimize for. Based on past decisions, the machine can figure out the right thing to do. “Our core notion is that today, enterprises are collecting a ton of data,” Machinify founder and CEO Prasanna Ganesan stated. “But if you look at how many of them are successful in turning it into smarter decision-making to drive efficiency, very few companies are succeeding.” Machinify is laser-focused on the critical operational issues created by the deployment of what we often call Software 2.0 within ...

Lavelle Networks Secures Rs 2 Crore from ASM Technologies

8Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Lavelle Networks Secures Rs 2 Crore from ASM Technologies

Indian enterprise networking company called Lavelle Networks Pvt. Ltd, has raised around Rs 2 crore ($270,000) in a financing round. This round was led by infotech consulting and software services company ASM Technologies Ltd. Following this funding round, the valuation of the company is expected to reach around $5.2 million (Rs 38.4 crore). This financing round has come eighteen months after Ideaspring Capital invested $600,000 (Rs 4 crore) in Lavelle. The company is based in Bengaluru and was co-founded by Shyamal Kumar and Karthik Madhava in 2015. Lavelle offers a software-defined networking (SDN) platform for wide area network (WAN) management. WAN refers to a telecommunications or computer network that extends over a large geographical distance. The main idea of the company i...

ElasticRun Secures $8 million from Venture Partners & Kalaari Capital

6Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

ElasticRun Secures $8 million from Venture Partners & Kalaari Capital

Ntex Transportation Services that runs logistics startup ElasticRun has secured funds amounting to $8 million (Rs 60 crore) in a fresh funding round. The round was co-led by existing backers Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital. With this funding round, the estimated post-money valuation of the Pune-based startup has reached around $60-65 million (Rs 442-479 crore). The company was founded in 2016 by co-founders Saurabh Nigam and Shitiz Bansal. Prior to this, the startup had raised $7 million (Rs 45.5 crore then) as part of a Series A round from Kalaari Capital and Norwest Venture Partners in April last year. ElasticRun uses technology for transportation and supply chain operations and runs an asset-light, variable-capacity logistics network. The startup caters to clients in e-com...

6Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Top Five Funding News of the Last Week (1st Oct – 6th Oct)

Funding is an important and vital part of businesses these days. Through funding, businesses expand aggressively in the market and give a fight to the other competitors in the space. The company that raised the maximum funds this week was Droom that raised an amount of $30 million. This week was very eventful in terms of fundraising as many companies raised funds for various purposes and also various backers participated in this funding week. Here we have the list of top five funding activities of the week. 1. VAHDAM TEAS An Indian online tea brand called Vahdam Teas has reportedly raised funds amounting to $2.5 million (Rs 16 Crore) in its third institutional round of fundraising. This round was led by existing investor Fireside Ventures. With thi...

Droom Technology Raises $30 million in Equity Financing

5Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Droom Technology Raises $30 million in Equity Financing

Droom Technology, an online martketplace to buy and sell cars has raised an amount of $30 million (about Rs 221 crore) in Series E funding round. The round was led by family office of Joe Hirao, the founder of ZigExN, the Tokyo-headquartered company that owns and operates a number of content-focused websites. The name of the second backer was not disclosed. The company plans to use these funds to further ramp up Droom Credit, its fin-tech product launched last year, and which provides auto financing to, both, dealers and buyers in the used car and bike segment. “The latest round of fund will help us in our expansion goals and, accomplishment of our growth objectives and scaling up our technology to build efficiency. A substantial portion will also go towards building up Eco, the comp...

4Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Ouriel Ohayon’s KZen has Raised $4 million in Seed Funding

KZen, a company run by former TC editor Ouriel Ohayon, has raised $4 million in seed funding. The funding round was led by Benson Oak Ventures, Samsung Next, Elron Ventures. The company is planning to use these funds to build a “better wallet,” obviously the elusive Holy Grail in the crypto world. Omer Shlomovits, Tal Be’ery, and Gary Benattar are deep crypto researchers and developers and helped build the wallet of Ohayon’s dreams. “We wanted something that did not feel like a pre-AOL experience, that was incredibly superior in terms of security, and simple to use,” he said. “We wanted a solution that brings peace of mind and that did not force the user into compromising between convenience and security which is, unfortunately, the current state of affairs. We quickly realized that ...

Philippines-based First Circle Raised $25 Million for Regional Expansion

3Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Philippines-based First Circle Raised $25 Million for Regional Expansion

Philippines based SME lending platform First Circle has reportedly secured funds amounting to $26 million in a fresh funding round. This round was led by Venturra Capital. The other backers that participated in the funding round were Insignia Ventures Partners, Hong Kong’s Silverhorn Investment Advisors, and Tryb Group. The company plans to use these funds for the purpose of regional expansion. Prior to this, the company raised $2.5 million, including a $1.3 million seed round 18 months ago. Founded by Irish duo CEO Patrick Lynch and CTO Tony Ennis, the goal of the company is to help small businesses scale by offering them short-term loans. “A lack of access to capital is a problem that faces tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of businesses in the Philippines,” Patrick...

2Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Indian Online Poker Platform Secures Rs 28 Crore From WaterBridge Ventures

SparSkills Technologies, the owner and operator of online poker platform 9stacks has raised funds amounting to Rs 28 crore in Series A funding round. This particular round was led by early-stage venture capital firm, WaterBridge Ventures. The funds raised through this funding round will be used by the company to expand its team, and further build its technology platform. Prior to this funding, 9stacks raised Rs 10 crore from a clutch of angel investors last December. “We have sharp focus on analytics. Therefore some of the money will go towards deepening that side, as we get more into machine learning. We are looking at newer markets, therefore some of the proceeds will go towards that,” Sudhir Kamath, chief executive of 9stacks stated. Founded in 2017 by Kamath, 9stacks is a 14-year ...

1Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Vahdam Teas Secures $2.5 million in a Fresh Funding Round

An Indian online tea brand called Vahdam Teas has reportedly raised funds amounting to $2.5 million (Rs 16 Crore) in its third institutional round of fundraising. This round was led by existing investor Fireside Ventures. With this funding round, the company plans to expand its presence in the US which is one of the largest markets of the company. Also, a part of the funds will be used towards customer acquisition and brand building and also in exploring new markets in India. The company is based in New Delhi and was founded in 2016 by Bala Sarda. Vahdam Teas is a vertically-integrated, online-first tea brand. The tea is procured directly from 150-200 plantations and tea growers in India and Nepal within 24-48 hours of production. Bala Sarda, Founder, Vahdam Teas, said, “We are exci...