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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...

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 ...

Karnataka Launches Programme to Fund SC/ST Entrepreneurs

8Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

INDIA

Karnataka Launches Programme to Fund SC/ST Entrepreneurs

India has been coming up with various programmes for startups for a long time. The Karnataka State Government has now launched its ambitious programme called Unnati. This programme is basically focused on promoting technology startups steered by SC/ST entrepreneurs as well as those that are developing a product or a solution with a strong rural-focus. “We will support these startups by way of funding which can go up to Rs 50 lakh,” Social Welfare Minister Priyank Kharge said. The programme has been divided into two categories so as to provide benefits. These include: - The startups where an SC/ST entrepreneur has a substantial stake with a hands-on role in the management. For this, the only criterion is the idea has to be good enough regardless of the sector. ...

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...