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Grocery Delivery Startup Instacart Secures $600 million

17Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Grocery Delivery Startup Instacart Secures $600 million

A startup that delivers grocery called Instacart has reportedly raised funds amounting to $600 million in its latest funding round. The funds have been basically raised to fight against its rivals as it competes against players like Amazon and valuing the company at $7.6 billion. The company is based in San-Francisco-based and has been steadily growing in the last few years, helped by partnerships more than 300 retailers including Walmart, Aldi and Kroger. This latest financing round was led by investment firm D1 Capital Partners which raised Instacart's funding till date to more than $1.6 billion. The company has plans to use these funds to further expand in North America and also invest in marketing and hiring. The company said it now has about $1.2 billion in cash to spend on ...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

Walmart Acquired E-commerce Platform Flipkart Forays Into Mobile Insurance

7Oct By PriyankaNo Comments

News

Walmart Acquired E-commerce Platform Flipkart Forays Into Mobile Insurance

Walmart acquired India's e-commerce platform Flipkart said it's foraying into the insurance segment after securing a corporate agent license. To begin with, Flipkart has partnered with Bajaj Allianz General Insurance to offer customised insurance solutions to power its mobile phone protection programme for all leading mobile phone brands that are sold on its platform, Flipkart said in a statement. It added that under the programme, it will offer both cash payout option or free pick up, service and drop convenience to customers. The insurance offering will be available from 10 October, the start of Flipkart’s The Big Billion Days (TBBD). “In line with our customer-first policy and as the market leader in this segment, insurance felt like the logical next step in providing consum...

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...

Amazon Pay Gets Huge Investment Ahead of Festive Season

5Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Amazon Pay Gets Huge Investment Ahead of Festive Season

The retail giant Amazon is continuing to invest considerable capital into its payments arm Amazon Pay, adding Rs 590 crore in the recent infusion. This move comes just before the festival sale of Amazon. With this, Amazon Pay is expected to offer large cashbacks to customers during the upcoming sales to attract more customers. Also, it may offer affordability products such as debit card EMI and cardless EMI to push sales of high-ticket products. “Our focus is to make digital payments the most trusted, convenient and rewarding choice for customers. We continue to explore ways to do this, in partnership with banks, processors, fintech companies and ecosystem partners,” an Amazon Pay spokesperson said. Along with this, the company also has plans to start selling insurance in India, as pe...

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...

SoftBank Vision Fund to Invest $250 Million in India’s Popular Logistics Firm

4Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

SoftBank Vision Fund to Invest $250 Million in India’s Popular Logistics Firm

The well-known SoftBank Vision Fund is in talks to invest $200-250 million (Rs 1,470-1,837 crore) in Indian ecommerce-focused logistics company Delhivery. The fund that was started by SoftBank’s Japanese billionaire founder, Masayoshi Son will make Delhivery’s valuation reach around $1.2 billion. This move will take the company to the unicorn club and it will become one of the most known delivery platform in the country. “They have been evaluating Delhivery seriously for the past few months but a transaction is not final yet,” said a person familiar to the matter. This investment will provide Delhivery a better capital runway, given that it comes after it was reported that the logistics firm decided to push back plans for an anticipated $350 million initial public offering, an issue i...

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...