FUNDING | Pixr8 News

25May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

SoftBank Urges OYO to Seek New Investors For $500-700 Mn Funding Round

Softbank, the Japanese conglomerate owned by Masayoshi Son, recently agreed to sell its stakes in Flipkart for $4 bn following an investment of $2.5 Bn in mid-2017 for its 20% stakes in the e-commerce company. However, the company is very well focused and determined to bet on other companies that will remain profitable and growing. Therefore urging Indian hospitality service, OYO to get new investors on board, following which the Japanese giant will participate in a funding round reported to be worth $500-700 Mn. A report from MoneyControl claimed that “many Chinese investors are interested in hospitality as a sector.” The report also stated that the valuation of OYO will be subject to appreciation from the new investors. However, a new funding round is most likely to mark the entry ...

25May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

AR-Focused Ed-Tech Startup Raises $2 Mn Funding

Smartivity Labs, an Augmented Reality (AR) EdTech startup, recently raised $2 Mn from Ashish Kacholia, an early venture investor. The funds raised will serve to scale Smartivity’s operations in international markets. Smartivity Labs is also backed by S Chand Group, a publishing company based in Delhi. We closed 2017-18 at $1.4 Mn at around 2.5x to 3x year-on-year growth. This year, we are projecting around $3.5 Mn. We are also on the verge of finalizing newer markets like Japan, China, Russia and Western Europe, said Tushar A Amin, co-founder of Smartivity Labs. The association between Smartivity Labs and S Chand Group is to develop academic content for subjects such as science, technology, English and Mathematics (STEM) as well as arts in order to provide a learning-based DIY kit. T...

25May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Oxygen Optimizer Startup Raises Rs 2 Crore Funding

Bonphul Air Products Pvt. Ltd, the company behind oxygen optimizer ‘OxyMax’, recently raised Rs 2 crore (Approx $293,000) in an angel funding round from Atul Gupta, director at computer spare parts firm Rx Infotech, and Saurabh Rastogi, director at packaging and food processing machines manufacturer Karmesh Global Technologies. In a previous round of funding that occurred in October 2017, Bonphul received an undisclosed amount from Satish Bhatia, an investor based in Faridabad. The funds raised will be used to expand the company’s product portfolio and drive its sales and marketing network. Additionally, it is planning to boost its technology development and provide customized solutions for uses in various segments such as hospitals, schools and shopping malls. Bonphul was founded...

Reliance Industries Unit Invests Rs 10 Cr in Digital Healthcare Startup

24May By Lavina TolaniNo Comments

FUNDING

Reliance Industries Unit Invests Rs 10 Cr in Digital Healthcare Startup

Mukesh Ambani led firm Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) has invested a mammoth amount of Rs. 10 crores in an early stage healthcare technology platform called KareXpert Technologies Pvt. Ltd. According to the sources, the investment has been made by RIL’s subsidiary and investment arm, Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Ltd (RIIHL). A person familiar with the matter said, "RIIHL has bought 22,222 preference shares in KareXpert Technologies Pvt. Ltd by way of private placement at a cost of Rs 4,500 a share and later may buy the entire lot of 66,666 preference shares in a few tranches, probably by pumping in another Rs20 crore." KareXpert Technologies is a digital healthcare provider startup founded in 2004 by Nidhi Jain. Based in Gurugram, company claims its technology to b...

24May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Former Flipkart Employees’ Startup Raises Rs 1.5 Crore Funding

Arzooo.com, a reverse auction platform, recently raised Rs1.5 crore in a seed funding round from Omphalos Ventures India. The funds raised will be used to develop the platform’s technology and expand its operations to the top most prominent cities in India by March 2019. Arzooo.com was founded by two former Flipkart employees, Khushnud Khan and Rishi Raj. The startup recently boomed in India’s e-commerce ecosystem in July 2017 with their unique reverse auction model which provides high value buyers with the lowest price on designated products, therefore beating down the competition in other online platform. Since inception, the startup caters over 2,000 customers with an average ticket size of Rs 22,000 on high quality branded products and report a monthly run rate of Rs 7 million...

24May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Vernacular Chatbot Platform Raises Seed Funding From IIM-Ahmedabad

DheeYantra Research Labs, the company behind vernacular chatbot platform dhee.ai, recently raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a seed round led by Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), the incubator-cum-investment arm of IIM-Ahmedabad. This funding round also witnessed the participation of Gopal Krishna, former managing director of Maxim India Integrated Circuits and stock market mogul Vijay Kedia. The funds raised will serve to strengthen the firm’s sales and marketing units while also investing on additional features such as improving support in additional languages for the Indian and overseas markets. DheeYantra was founded in 2017 by Vidhu Beenie and Sreekumar Jairaj and provides voice and text-based platform dhee.ai, which is supported by their fla...

Hrithik Roshan Pours $878.2K in Fitness Startup CureFit

24May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Hrithik Roshan Pours $878.2K in Fitness Startup CureFit

Bengaluru-based fitness startup CureFit recently raised $878.2K from Bollywood star and brand ambassador Hrithik Roshan. MCA filings reveal that the prominent actor invested directly in Cure.Fit as well as through his entity, Extreme Brands. In August 2017, CureFit secured the ‘Krrish’ star as its brand ambassador, signing a five-year contract for a total of $14.63 Mn. CureFit was founded by former Flipkart executives Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori in 2016 and aims at providing a holistic healthcare platform with deep emphasis on mind, body and nutrition. With this ambition to make healthy lifestyle accessible to all, CureFit has effectively integrated physical fitness, mental fitness, healthy eating, and is planning to launch a care section in one app, under Cult.fit, Mind.fit, Eat....

24May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Ed-Tech E-commerce Raises Pre-Series A Funding

Edyoo, an e-commerce platform focused in selling school products, recently raised $1 Mn in pre-series A funding from RS Shanbag, Chairman and MD of Valuepoint Group. The funds raised will serve the purpose of product development, technology, marketing and expansion of team in its areas of operation. Edyoo was founded in June 2017 by Rakshit Kejriwal – who also co-founded DropKaffe -- and is an online marketplace that offers items destined to school children between the ages of four and 18, notably, uniforms, stationery, water bottles, and more. Additionally, the e-commerce platform offers several other value-added products and services, such as EMI on school fees, health check-up plans, insurance on education, sports packages and edutainment. Edyoo currently boasts a team of 30 e...

23May By Lavina TolaniNo Comments

FUNDING

HMD Global Bags “Unicorn Status” Post $100 Mn Funding

HMD Globals, the Finnish company that manufactures Nokia smartphones and feature phones has been successful in raising $100 million from investors to scale up its business operations and fund its growth. The latest funding has put HMD grab the "unicorn status" with a current market valuation of exceeding $1 billion. The round of investment was led by Geneva-based Ginko Ventures via Alpha Ginko Ltd. with participation from DMJ Asia Investment Opportunity and Wonderful Stars which is a subsidiary of FIH Mobile Ltd. Florian Seiche, CEO, HMD Global, said in a statement on Monday, We are thrilled to have these investors join us in our journey to script the next chapter of Nokia phones. It is our ambition to deliver great smartphones that delight our fans while staying true to o...

23May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Blue-Collar Workforce Focused Startup Raises Series A Funding

BetterPlace, an HRtech startup for the blue-collar workforce, recently raised $3 Mn in Series A funding led by 3one4 Capital. This round of funding also saw the participation of Venture Highway and Unitus Ventures. “We are focused on addressing the $12 Bn blue-collar ecosystem in the country. A significant part of the funds will be utilized to strengthen the existing ecosystem using frictionless solutions powered by AI and machine learning,” said Pravin Agarwala, co-founder and CEO of Betterplace. The funds used will serve to add new solutions and expand the business in different verticals, for example, skilling, compliance and fintech services as well, in a bid to fortify its position as a single platform for the semi-formal workforce of India. This is the third time that BetterP...

22May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Gurugram-based Milk Delivery Startup Raises $7 Mn Series A Funding

Milkbasket, the grocery and milk delivery startup, recently raised $7 million in a series-A funding round led by Kalaari Capital. This funding round also saw the participation of existing investors Unilever Ventures and Blume Ventures and the arrival of new investor Beenext Ventures. The milk and grocery delivery space has seen several investments in recent times with startups such as Daily Ninja and Doodhwala raising funds. Earlier this year, Milkbasket raised $3 million from investment arm of consumer packaged goods company, Unilever. This latest influx of capital means that the milk and delivery startup has so far raised about $11 million. CEO Anant Goel announced that the funds raised will strengthen the startup’s technology, reach and abilities. Milkbasket currently serves ab...

22May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

Bangalore-Based Video Creation Platform Raises Funding from Blume Ventures

Rocketium.com Technologies Pvt. Ltd, the video creation platform recently raised Rs 2 Crore ($ 300K) as seed funding round from Blume Ventures, the early stage-focused venture capital firm and several angel investors. The additional investors include Raghunandan G., co-founder and former CEO of TaxiForSure, now acquired by Ola; Hari TN, who heads the human resource of online grocery store BigBasket; senior executives from Apple, Freshworks, Microsoft and SpaceX notably also participated in this funding round, the video creation platform mentioned in a statement. Satej Sirur and Anurag Dwivedi, who were both former employees at TaxiForSure, founded Rocketium. The funds raised will serve the purpose of expanding the company’s global reach by hiring sales and marketing executives and bu...