funding | Pixr8 News

13May By reutersNo Comments

FUNDING

Apple Invests $1 Billion in Chinese Ride-Hailing Service Didi Chuxing

Apple Inc said on Thursday it has invested $1 billion in Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing, a move that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said would help the company better understand the critical Chinese market. The tech giant's rare investment gives it a stake in two burgeoning waves of technology - the sharing economy and car technology - as the iPhone business that propelled it to record profitability shows signs of maturing. Apple is trying to reinvigorate sales in China, where it has come under greater pressure from regulators, and Cook is traveling to the country this month. The move aligns Apple with Uber Technologies Inc's chief rival in China, as automakers and technology companies forge new alliances and make cross investments. General Motors, for example, recently...

13May By PriyankaNo Comments

FUNDING

Online Hotels Aggregator Startup Stayzilla Raises $13 Million Funding

As per the mint report, Stayzilla has raised $13 million Series C funding from existing investors Matrix Partners and Nexus Ventures, according to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies. In report the funding round of online aggregator of budget hotels split into three tranches of $8.8 million (Rs.58.5 crore), $1.9 million (Rs.13 crore) and $2.4 million (Rs.16.3 crore), between November 2015 and March 2016. About Stayzilla - Stayzilla was founded by Yogendra Vasupal, Sachit Singhi and Rupal Yogendra. The company which started off by offering travelers stay options in budget hotels, last year forayed into home stays, connecting travellers with homeowners with spare accommodation in their houses. Earlier, Stayzilla raised close to $20 million from Nexus Venture Partners...

12May By AnkitaNo Comments

FUNDING

Online Lending Platform Capital Float Raised USD 25 million (Rs 170 crore) Funding

Online lending platform Capital Float has raised USD 25 million (Rs 170 crore), led by Creation Investments Capital Management. The Series B financing also saw "significant participation" from existing investors like SAIF Partners, Sequoia India and Aspada, Capital Float said in a statement. This is the third round of funding, bringing the total equity capital raised by the company to USD 42 million. This round of growth capital will help Capital Float expand its lending footprint to over 20,000 small and medium enterprises in over 100 cities, and introduce new financial products online, it said. Founded in 2013, Capital Float has created a proprietary technology platform to evaluate the financial health of SMEs and efficiently deliver working capital to a segment that is under...

12May By PriyankaNo Comments

FUNDING

T-Hub incubated Life Circle Has Raised $150,000 Funding

Hyderabad based Life Circle Health Services has raised an amount of $150,000 as funding from European senior healthcare service provider GROUPE SOS. Life Circle is a home nursing service start-up being incubated at T-Hub, an incubation centre initiated by the Telangana government. Anant Kumar, Founder and CEO of Life Circle, said that they have offered over 150,000 hours of home nursing services till date. Life Circle provides verified caregivers to create a seamless continuum of care. They offer work related training and psychological counselling to the caretakers to give flexible care and engagement to the seniors. With these funds, the company plans to expand its services in the Hyderabad market. Very soon the company would launch its services in New Delhi - NCR markets. I...

Ex-IAS Officer Led Startup Unacademy Raised $500,000

12May By AdityaNo Comments

FUNDING

Ex-IAS Officer Led Startup Unacademy Raised $500,000

Led by Ex-IAS officer, Unacademy a education technology platform has raised $500,000 led by Blume Ventures. Google's Rajan Anandan, CommonFloor founder Sumit Jain and redBus founder Phanindra Sama, among others has also participated. "Unacademy's vision is to distribute knowledge of the educators and innovators in the form of mini courses having lessons of not more than 10 minutes each," said Gaurav Munjal, CEO, Unacademy, who started the company along with 24-year old Roman Saini. "Delivery of education in India needs radical shifts," and Karthik Reddy,Managing Partner, Blume Ventures. "Unacademy is a manifestation of the team's vision to make all forms of educative material so intuitive and accessible that learning becomes extremely interesting and scalable," he added. ALSO ...

11May By AnkitaNo Comments

FUNDING

Faircent Raises Series A Funding From JM Financials, Picks Up 10 pc Stake

Financial services firm JM Financial today said it has acquired close to 10 per cent stake in peer-to-peer (P2P) lending startup Faircent. Though the amount has been undisclosed but it's estimated to be close to Rs 16.5 crore (between USD 2.5 million to 3 million). In a filing to the BSE, the company said its subsidiary JM Financial Products has executed the agreement to acquire securities representing up to 9.84 percent on a fully diluted basis of the total paid-up capital of faircent. Faircent is engaged in the business of operating a web portal and mobile application under the name of Faircent.com which provides a virtual peer-to-peer lending marketplace. Without disclosing the deal size, Faircent founder and CEO Rajat Gandhi said "funds raised from the transaction would be used ...

10May By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

INDIA

UAE-Based Indian Firms To Invest USD 3.6 Billion In UP

DUBAI: Five leading Indian-owned businesses in the UAE will invest over USD 3.68 billion in infrastructure and industrial development initiatives in Uttar Pradesh after an MoU was signed in this regard during an investment forum held in Dubai. The move comes after UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had launched an ambitious programme to boost all-round development of the state by attracting NRI investments from across the globe, especially from the Middle East. The UAE-based Indian companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the state government which was represented by a high-level delegation of officials who visited the UAE on Thursday. The names of the investors will be announced by the UP government in the coming weeks. The companies pledged to invest in the state's ...

10May By AnkitaNo Comments

FUNDING

Healthifyme a Mobile Based Fitness Startup Raises $6 million Funding

HealthifyMe, a mobile health and fitness startup today announced Series A funding of USD 6 million (about 40 crores) led by IDG Ventures India, Inventus Capital and Blume Ventures. The funding comes just a year after announcement of seed round led by angel investors and Micromax, the company said in a release. Stating that HealthifyMes funding comes on the back of strong growth, it said adding that with in a years time, the company has scaled up users to 5,00,000 from 30,000 users in January 2015. The funds will be used to further develop its digital coaching platform and to accelerate growth in India, the company said. "With these funds we plan to impact 5 million users and tie-up with over 500 corporate and healthcare partners. Our aim is to be the best in the world and we wi...

From Unicorn to Cockroach- Zomato Valuation Goes Half

9May By NitishNo Comments

News

From Unicorn to Cockroach- Zomato Valuation Goes Half

Not getting over Fund crunch cyclone in Indian startup ecosystem, it seems one more cyclone is going to hit Indian startups called as "valuation cut-off". After India's leading e-commerce company Flipkart valuation cut-off, the cyclone is hitting one more Indian startup "Zomato". The brokerage arm of HSBC's bank, HSBC Securities and Capital Markets has slashed the valuation of Zomato by half from $1 billion to $500 million. However, Info Edge which currently owns a 50.1% stake in the company disagreed with HSBC's estimate. In the note, which raised concerns around Zomato's ad-heavy business model, international operations and growing competition in the online food ordering segment, according to a report by Mint. What matters is that your business has strong fundamentals, positiv...

Online Retailer Nykaa.com To Raise Rs 60-100 Cr

5May By AnkitaNo Comments

FUNDING

Online Retailer Nykaa.com To Raise Rs 60-100 Cr

Online beauty retailer Nykaa.com today said it plans to raise Rs 60-100 crores for marketing and setting up warehouses even as it focuses on opening more retail outlets to deepen its footprint. "We plan to raise another Rs 60 to Rs 100 crore from private sources...majority of investment will be into marketing to build the brand, warehouses and also on technology to enable more number of shoppers to shop simultaneously on the portal," Nykaa.com Founder and CEO Falguni Nayar told reporters here. The company had raised USD 9.5 million from private equity firm TVS Capital last year. To expand its offline presence, the former investment banker said the company plans to open 30 stores in 30 cities by 2020. She further said the company has three warehouses in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. "W...

IFC Leads Rs. 400 cr Investment in Lenskart

5May By PriyankaNo Comments

FUNDING

IFC Leads Rs. 400 cr Investment in Lenskart

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is investing Rs. 171 Crores in Indian eyewear company Lenskart, to help the company expand access to high-quality and affordable eye-care products in tier-3, tier-4 cities. IFC was the lead investor for the Rs. 400 cr Series D investment round which also saw participation from TPG Growth, Adveq Management and IDG Ventures. In addition, Ratan Tata and Kris Gopalakrishnan (co-founder of Infosys) invested in their personal capacity as part of this round. Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to this transaction. Lenskart is into assembly, manufacturing, wholesale distribution and supply of high quality eyewear products, such as eyeglasses, power sunglasses and contact lenses. Company plans to utilize the funds for strengthening its te...

Amazon Bolsters Voice Based-Platform Alexa With Investment in TrackR

3May By AnkitaNo Comments

FUNDING

Amazon Bolsters Voice Based-Platform Alexa With Investment in TrackR

Amazon.com Inc is investing between $250,000 and $500,000 in Bluetooth technology company TrackR to extend the reach of its Alexa virtual assistant, according to a source familiar with the matter Alexa is the cloud-based system that controls the Amazon Echo, a speaker system launched by Amazon in 2014 that has emerged as a surprise hit. "Alexa" is the name the device responds to when users make requests, such as "turn on radio." Amazon and TrackR declined to comment on the size of the investment. Like Apple Inc's Siri and Google's Google Now, Alexa is designed to answer questions or take other actions in response to simple voice queries. Unlike its rivals, Amazon allows non-Amazon devices to integrate Alexa technology. The investment in TrackR came through Amazon's $100 million "...