Meesho Aims To Be Valuated Over $4 Billion

Latest Meesho News-

After just three months, of its previous funding round, Meesho, who is one of the best rising startups in India, is back at fundraising. This time it’s even bigger and better, with an aim to grab almost double its valuation. The social commerce platform is taking bigger steps now and is talking $100 million now, in a new round from two new and existing investors.

“Meesho is looking at a $100 million round from two new investors and existing backers including SoftBank and Prosus,” said one of the sources while staying anonymous. “The round will also have a major secondary component that’ll make it even better for the rising startup.” This attempt to raise the Startup financials is a big step for Meesho’s future.

When the funding goes through, this will be the second time Meesho got funding in the year 2021 and established a good rapport among the investors. The social commerce platform, became the unicorn of Indian startups in April when it raised $300 million from SoftBank and others in a single round. 

According to recent reports by anonymous sources, Meesho is going to be valued at over $3.5 billion in this new investment round. This investment will give Meesho a boosted jump in the company’s valuation as compared to its valuation in April this year.

“Meesho will ramp up its consumer internet play with this new round to eventually challenge Amazon and Flipkart in top 10 and tier I cities markets,” said the same anonymous source. Emails regarding this Latest Startup News, sent to all the companies involved in this investment round could not get any official response. So, there’s no official confirmation of the matter yet.

Meesho has come up like a champion and has set down roots very deep in the soil of social eCommerce by acing the reseller model since 2015. However, the company has also been experimenting, since last year, with a new model that enables customers to order goods directly from Meesho, this gives the rising startup an added advantage. Currently, the company is trying a new method called the white label solution to let itself enter the stage where it is able to get direct orders from the consumers. And the anonymous sources also stated that Meesho will soon start fulfilling these direct orders with Meesho’s own branding.

“Meesho has risen from the ashes and has reached the sky by establishing itself as the third-largest social e-commerce business after Walmart. There has been a lot of inbound interest from investors in Meesho, which tells everyone that there’s a long way to go for Meesho.

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Airblack, Makeup And Beauty Upskill Platform Raises Millions

Latest Startup News-

Airblack, an online makeup and beauty upskilling platform, has raised $5.2 million in its Series A round funding. The Indian startup Airblack started as a travel and hospitality venture but due to the impact of Covid 19 on startups, the company had to switch to another line of business that saw a new boom due to the same Pandemic, the online education business. The series A round funding, was led by Info Edge Ventures and Elevation Capital, who are also former SAIF partners. Atelier Ventures and Better Capital also took part in helping the rising Indian Startup to grow, Some angel investors from the Indian Startup Community including Kunal Shah, founder of Cred, Ankur Nagpal, Founder and CEO of teachable and Sanjeev Barnwal, Founder and CTO of Meesho also participated with great vim and vigor.

The fund raised, will act as fuel in the accelerating wagon of Airblack, for the expansion of the brand and the introduction of new clubs for users and investment will also be made in product management and development part of the business, engineering and marketing will also get new budgets to raise the brand awareness, said Airblack to press in a recent release.

The startup is founded by former Elevation Capital’s executives, Pulkit Pujara and Videt Jaiswal who worked on this idea together, the startup helps aspiring people to upskill and become what is called the micro-entrepreneurs in the beauty skilling industry. This startup funding news, indicates that investors see great potential in this rising Indian Startup, and have also given a hint that they might fund more upcoming startups in India, if they see some potential.

Started as a company that was focused on the travel and hospitality industry, Airblack changed lanes to the beauty side after the pandemic hit the travel and hospitality industry, and brought everyone in that business on their knees. Airblack had raised $1.5 million seed capital from elevation in August 2019. According to the startup spokespersons, over 25,000 students have attended their various courses across more than 500 cities, and it clocks a surprisingly huge amount of time spent on online classes, over 45,000 hours of live classes every month. This supports the claim of Airblack about their expansion plans and the potential of business all over the globe, not only it’s a piece of good news for the rising startup but also for the Indian Business Community. Let’s see how far this series A funding takes Airblack on the journey to its success.

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Latest Startup News - Indian Startup To Touch New Height Amidst Covid-19

Covid 19 Impact on Startups-

The Pandemic of Covid-19 took the world by storm, everything was shaken to its core. Even some businesses that had deep strong roots, couldn’t endure it’s ferocity. While the world was learning to continue living amidst the impact of covid-19, there was a rising startup which was on its way to glory. While the waves kept hitting the world, ‘The New Shop’ a startup by two brother-sister and a friend, knew how to ride this tide and find the kingdom of new success

Founded in March19 by brother and sister Aastha Almast and Charak Almast, and their dear friend Mani Dev Gyawali, The New Shop fundamentally is a chain of 24-hour open convenience retail stores that are located in various corners of the world. Lead and owned by Accelerate ProductX Ventures Pvt ltd, The New Shop has an aim to become a brand that's just a walk away from everyone’s place.

“India is a budding country that is on a path to growth and therefore the third-largest consumer market globally. The new on-the-go and modern lifestyle of India, needs regulated, normalized and hygienic retail services across the country at affordable prices, at transit points and around the clock services,” said 35-year-old co-founder Aastha Almast. “We wanted to experiment to find the perfect size of the shop and an exemplary location for expansion of our brand. We finalized three store sizes, small (10 sq. ft), medium (50 sq. ft), and enormous (100-150 sq. ft),” said Mani Dev Gyawali.

The founders of this Rising Startup tested each of those store sizes at seven location categories such as educational institutions, offices and co-working spaces, hotels, shopping complexes, college hostels, and railway platforms. They also explored with the different merchandise options to market more Indian products that act as alternatives to their non-Indian counterpart. Then they measured their acceptance in an ecosystem where people need those goods, and it worked well for them.

“By January 2020, we grew to a number of 100 stores all over Delhi in all sizes and even grabbed a deal with Indian Railways for their plan to expand The New Shop,” says Aastha. This led the rising startup to reach new transit points where they could explore their business strength such as, highways, petrol pumps, and bus terminals. But when the rising startup started touching new heights of success, the pandemic brought them on their knees, and every one of its stores had to shut doors to walk-in customers, due to government regulations and curfews. However, what came as a blessing in disguise for them was the very fact that they were already working on a technology for omni-channel selling, which was supposed to be launched in the future, after the company had grown exponentially and had reached a huge scale,” says Aastha.

The New Shop earns money from the sale of products at its chain of 24*7 open stores and works on a variable cost model of business, where it works with higher margin brands and everyone of its operating costs share a percentage of that margin. 

Presently, all of its functional stores earn a good revenue to boost the startup financials, between Rs 15 lakh per month to Rs 30 lakh per month and are earning good profit on unit economics level.

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Latest Startup News - Indian Startup WazirX Gets A Notice To Show Cause

What is a Show Cause Notice?

A show cause notice is given when disciplinary violations are found against a company. It asks the organization to explain why a certain action was taken in a manner not compliant with the rules and why they should not face criminal charges and penalties.

In this case, the Indian startup WazirX got a show cause notice because the regulatory agency Enforcement Directorate alleged that WazirX allowed the exchange of crypto currencies kept in pool account wallets to be available for other exchanges, which probably could be held by people in foreign places that can’t be traced to pinpoint the destination of such exchanges.

In a reply, WazirX has said that they haven’t received any show cause notice and all the transactions were made in compliance with the laws and regulations of crypto currency exchange. Additionally, WazirX is ready to cooperate with any investigation that may be launched by ED to validate its claim.

According to ED, a show cause notice has been served to Nischal Shetty and Sameer Hanuman Mhatre the directors of WazirX, under the Foreign Management Act, 1999 (FEMA concerning) cryptocurrency exchange and transactions totaling Rs 2,790.74 crore. The investigation, ED declared, was part of an ongoing probe into alleged money laundering activities being carried out on Indian soil. EdD also suspects that Chinese-owned illegal online betting applications are playing a crucial role in this criminal activity.

In a report released by ED, they state that the crypto exchange had not documented these transactions under the regulations of FEMA for remittances in foreign currency, or followed the required KYC procedures and guidelines for the allocation of non-WazirX wallets. Other documentation such as addresses, the purpose of transferring the currency, and the IP addresses of other wallets were not collected as well, it alleged. 

“This clearly tells the world that WazirX is in clear violation of the mandatory Anti-Money Laundering and Combating of Financing of Terrorism precaution norms. Also, the FEMA guidelines which are applicable to Virtual Currency exchanges too. Crypto-currencies are like tangible assets and could be used as an instrument of payment to be used for terrorism and other harmful criminal activities.

 

In September 2019, Chinese global cryptocurrency, Binance acquired WazirX, one of India's largest exchanges. Since then, India's cryptocurrency ecosystem has been corrupted primarily from an unclear regulatory environment, in April 2021, daily trading volumes on WazirX crossed $200 million, catching the attention of everyone including ED.

Startup Funding News - "Tiger Global To Invest A Fortune In Classplus"

Tiger Global the giant that is supposedly talking to numerous startups in India about funding their future, is in talks to invest $25-$30 million in the promising Indian startup Classplus, according to sources established in the industry and indirectly involved in the deal. This newly acquired deal will include both primary investment and secondary transactions, which values the five-year-old Indian startup at over $250 million, as reported by Entrackr. The next round follows a $30 million of investment, one of the sources said. The talks of the new deal haven’t closed, so terms may change when these companies sit together again.

Classplus — which has built a Shopify-like platform for coaching canters to easily accept charges digitally from college students, and ship lessons and research materials to the students who subscribed to their services, additionally got them $10.3 million in September from Falcon Edge’s AWI, cricketer Sourav Ganguly and current buyers RTP World and Blume Ventures. This made the startup financials skyrocket and get in the race of becoming the best Edtech startup that India has seen. According to startup funding news and rumors, that spherical had valued Classplus at about $73 million, in response to analysis agency Tracxn.

Classplus didn’t reply to an invitation for remark. Sources requested anonymity because the matter is non-public. As tens of tens of many scholars — and their dad and mom — embrace digital studying apps, Classplus is betting that an entire bunch of 1000’s academics and training facilities that have gained popularity in their neighborhoods are right here to stay.

The startup is serving these hyperlocal tutoring facilities which could be current in almost every nook and cranny in India. “Anybody who was born during a middle-class household right here has doubtless attended these tuition lessons,” Mukul Rustagi, co-founder and chief of Classplus. The facilities that classplus tries to help are generally small-scale or medium-level setups that could be great at what they do, and provide top-of-the-class education but are struggling to expand their reach in the academic world themselves. These kinds of local academic and training classes are extremely popular in their locality. They rarely do any advertising and college students determine about them by way of word-of-mouth buzz,” he stated then.

Now, this has inspired startup leaders to keep moving forward, after the lockdown was lifted in India and the Indian startup world saw the new India that did everything digitally, the rules of the business world changed forever. After the rise of classpluss, startups have gotten a new hope to get out from under the impact of Covid-19 on startups and the losses that this pandemic has inflicted upon them. Many brilliant startups were slaughtered by the two-edged sword of a pandemic but this new deal is now giving them a reason to get back up and fight.

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Oyo Rooms - Surviving the Pandemic

Oyo rooms which emerged as an internet start-up and took India by storm through its unconventional ideas and liberal approach towards couples has become a giant in the Hospitality Industry. By giving the Indian youth some freedom and a private space to live their romantic dreams OYO established very strong roots in the ground of hospitality.

The ongoing pandemic of Covid-19 virus has taken down many industry giants and OYO is no stranger to its devastating powers. Before the pandemic struck India hard and brought it’s economy down on its knees, OYO was the Pegasus of Indian hotel industry that caught a little cold when Covid-19 impact struck the market down and bleeded out many companies like it.

Nevertheless, as we know that OYO doesn’t know how to give up and back down, it pushed back the avalanche of economic, operational and functional disaster and is constantly trying to get back up while the COVID-19 waves keep on hitting India and the world badly. OYO's India business is now EBITDA positive and the company is earning similar gross profits globally in dollars since January 2021 as it did  This OYO news is a relief for the investors and the CEO Ritesh Agarwal.

'OYO is on a steady path of resurgence in 2021 and we are seeing signs of recovery across India, Europe, and Southeast Asia. OYO's survival through the Covid crisis and our resurgence show that we are a company with strong fundamentals and high value potential,' said the firm's founder and Group CEO Ritesh Agarwal in an e-mail in March.

This is a story opposite to the BigBasket News, Grofers News which explained how these grocery delivering companies earned a huge profit during the pandemic. The pandemic was not all the same for everyone, some were able to make a fortune out of it, some were barely able to drag themselves out of the economic breakdown and some didn’t even live to see the light of day after the COVID-19 crisis.

Covid-19’s impact on Startups was brutal, many crumbled, went bankrupt or said that they had the money to survive only for a few days or months and if they didn’t receive any magical help, they will be doomed and might not get back up on their feet. Some managed to save themselves with funding from investors or the government and some saw a rapid rise in their business. However, this isn’t over so let’s brace ourselves and work together to come out of it unharmed, healthy and happy.

Latest Startup Funding News

 Here are some of the latest startup news-

 

Rupeek-

 

Rupeek, a gold-based hybrid loan platform has raised $33 million or Rs 239 crore in its Series E round led by GGV Capital and four other investors. Previously, Rupeek has raised $30 million in Series D financing led by Flipkart’s co-founder Binny Bansal.

 

iNurture-

 

iNurture has raised $10 million or Rs 71.5 crore, in a bridge financing round from Kimera Ltd, a Dubai-based family office. iNurture is an Edtech company that provides higher education programs in India. It is a twelve-year-old firm launched by Ashwin Ajila that provides industry-relevant graduation and post-graduation degree programs in partnership with recognized colleges and universities in India. It leverages its partnerships with industries to promote guest lectures, internships, industrial visits, live projects, and placement assistance.

Bewakoof-

 

Bewakoof a Direct to consumer or D2C fashion brand has raised funds from IvyCap Ventures. The fresh raise will be used to help the company streamline its operations, which was severely hit during the onset of the pandemic. Bewakoof was founded by Prabhkiran Singh and Siddharth Munot in April 2012. The brand sells trendy apparel and accessories and its customer base includes a huge audience of millennials across tier I, II, and III cities.

MyGlamn-

 

MyGlamn is an Omnichannel direct-to-consumer beauty brand that has raised $24 million or Rs 175 crore in its Series C funding round led by Ascent Capital, Amazon, and Wipro Consumer. It is the latest funding for them after a gap of 20 months. Previously, the startup which is based out of Mumbai has raised Rs 100 crore in the previous round led by Bessemer Venture Partners in June 2019.

PolicyBazaar-

 

PolicyBazaar, an online insurance aggregator has recently raised $75 million in a round led by Falcon Edge Capital. This capital infusion for the IPO-bound company has materialized after 18 months. According to Yashish Dahiya, the co-founder and Group CEO of PolicyBazaar, this raise will be used to expand the policybazaar.ae operations and relations in the UAE that is involved with insurance, loans, and credit cards. PolicyBazaar, based in Gurgaon has previously raised its last round from Tencent in 2019. 

 

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