Indian Startups Acquisitions & Fundings News [30 May- 04 Jun]

Startup Fundings News

This week the 33 Indian startups raised funds, and 28 of them received an estimated total of $525.81 million. MoEngage and Cuemath were among the top fundraisers who raked in the sums of $77 and $57 million, respectively. This week, 30 local startups raised funds worth around $250 million.

In the meantime, the amount of funding for five of the startups was not disclosed.

Growth/ late-stage deals

This week, nine late-stage and growth startups have taken on funds that include MoEngage's $77 million round as well as Cuemath's round of $57 million. In addition, fintech startup Slice and DC2's cosmetics company Sugar Cosmetics and cloud kitchen brand Curefoods have raked 50 million dollars each.

Early-stage deals

In the early stages of deals, 19 companies have acquired money in five different rounds. The gaming startup Eloelo was the highest on the list, with a $13 million round. The list comprises Aerospace company Bellatrix Aerospace and agritech startup Nutrifresh.

Unknown deals

Unotag, Glovatrix, Kwicpic, Offee, and EzeRx have not disclosed their financials.

City and segment-wise fundings

In the week that just ended, Bengaluru was on top in terms of the number of startup deals as well as the amount of money they raised. According to Fintrackr's statistics, 15 Bengaluru-based companies have raised money this week, totaling $297.54 million, or 56.59 percent of the total funds. This week, Mumbai-based and Delhi-based startups have raised $165.84 million and $45 million in 3 and 6 deals, respectively. They were followed by Hyderabad as well as Pune with 2 and 3 deals, respectively.

Startups in Fintech were among the leading segments in terms of the quantity of deals. Startups in this field received $85 million through four deals. D2C, edtech, SaaS, health tech, crypto, and E-V startups are followed on the list.

Startup Acquisitions News

Apart from more than 30 funding rounds, the week also saw 3 acquisitions.

The list includes the acquisition of OneDirect by Gupshup, data science startup Prakshep by Arya.ag and Verb Studio by Kafqa Academy.

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Lenskart Subsidiary Styled Venture Neso Brands Raises $100 Mn

Lenskart Subsidiary Neso Brands News

Neso Brands, a subsidiary of the omnichannel brand Lenskart has raised more than $100 million during one of the biggest seed rounds of any company. Neso Brands' investors include KKR, Softbank, Alpha Wave Global and Temasek. 

The company based in Singapore said it would invest in eyewear brands that appeal to consumers and expand them through synergies with Lenskart Group.

In addition to the funding, Neso Brands has also announced the appointment of Bjorn Bergstrom as the company's new CEO. Before becoming Neso's CEO, Bergstrom served as chief growth officer and interim chief technology and product officer at Sweden-based fashion brand NA-KD.

"By investing in the most promising new brands in the [eyewear] industry and leveraging centralized resources across technology, manufacturing and distribution, Neso Brands will be uniquely positioned to scale the eyewear brands of the future," Bergstrom added. 

Lenskart creator Peyush Bansal has said, "It is our firm conviction that the brands of eyewear that we have today won't be the ones that will be in the near future. Neso is our plan to work with global founders to create brand names for the future of eyewear.

Lenskart had already raised $125 million over two tranches of its series I round back in April. Based on Fintrackr's estimates, the Peyush Bansal-led firm is worth $4.32 billion, and it is hoping to close the round at $5 billion.

A few days ago, ET revealed that Lenskart had registered the D2C company with Neso Brands and that it was seeking funding from the outside to fund the new subsidiary.

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Lenskart currently serves more than 10 million users and is present in 235 cities throughout India and Singapore. The company's revenue was the sum of 905.3 crores in FY21 as opposed to the figure of Rs 900 crore in FY20 as per the company's annual financial statements. In addition, the company achieved an increase in its annual profits by more than 4.6X to 28.92 crore from 6.32 million in FY20.

Neso Brands' $100 million round is the biggest seed round ever for an Indian-origin company. Established in 2022, Neso Brands is the latest addition to India's list of brands roll-up startups following the successes of two unicorns within the industry, Mensa Brands and GlobalBees. Neso Brands will only look for brands that sell eyewear and expand them to create a Thrasio-like venture.

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Delhivery IPO Open Up on 11th May Reduces Issue Size By 30%

Delhivery IPO News

The initial share sale of Delhivery is scheduled to begin on the 11th of May, according to the information that is available at the exchanges. The media reports suggest that the size of the issue is now at Rs 5,235 crore in the wake of market volatility and uncertain geo-political circumstances.

The company originally set out to raise Rs7,460 crore via an initial public offering (IPO). The IPO consists of fresh equity issues that can reach Rs.4,000 crore as well as an offer to sell shares totalling up to 1235 crores.

Under the OFS, the investors Carlyle Group and SoftBank as together with Delhivery's co-founders are expected to sell their stakes in the company that handles logistics.

In the draft documents, CA Swift Investments, an entity belonging to Carlyle Group, will sell shares worth the amount of Rs454 crore. SVF Doorbell (Cayman) Ltd which is an arm that is part of Softbank Group, will offload shares worth Rs365 crore. Deli CMF Pte Ltd, an entirely-owned subsidiary of the private capital funds China Momentum Fund, L.P. will auction shares worth 200 crores, and Times Internet will sell shares worth the sum of Rs165 crore.

Additionally, the co-founders of Delhivery the trio of Kapil Bharati Mohit Tandon and Suraj Saharanwill sell shares for Rs5 crore in cash, Rs40 million and Rs6 crore, respectively.

Also read: Newton’s School’s Valuation Jumps 7x With $25 Mn Funding

The proceeds of the fresh issue will be used for the financing of organic growth initiatives, as well as funding growth through acquisitions, and other strategic initiatives as well as for general corporate objectives.

Kotak Mahindra Capital, Morgan Stanley India, Bofa Securities India along with Citigroup Global Markets are leading the IPO. The company that handles logistics for e-commerce has an all-India network and provides services to 17 045 post index number (PIN) codes up to June 30th, 2021.

It offers solutions for supply chain management to a wide range of 21,342 customers who are active including direct-to-consumer online retailers, e-commerce marketplaces and small and medium-sized enterprises across a variety of verticals, including FMCG and consumer durables consumer electronics and lifestyle, retail, manufacturing and automotive.

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Newton’s School’s Valuation Jumps 7x With $25 Mn Funding

Steadview Capital led the Series B round of funding for Newton School, an online coding training platform that is income sharing-based. The company has raised Rs 188.4 crore (or $25 million). This new round comes within 15 months of the company's previous Series A investment, which saw them pick up $5 million from RTP Global.

The Newton School, Bengaluru, has approved a special resolution to allot 10 equity shares and 5,473 Series A preference shares in order to raise Rs. 188.4 crore (or $25 million), regulatory filings indicate.

Steadview contributed $15 million to this round, while Nexus and RTP Global contributed $5.9 million each and $3.4 million, respectively. Sama Family Trust and AngelList invested the remainder.

According to Fintrackr estimates, Newton School raised fresh funds at an estimated value of Rs 1,034 crore (or $138 million). This represents a sevenfold increase in the company's valuation compared to $20 million in previous rounds.

After the allotment, Newton School's co-founders Siddhartha Mahashwari and Nishant Chandra have reduced their combined stake from 44.68% down to 35.89%.

Nexus holds the largest stake with 24.72%, followed by RTP Global with 14.42% stake and Steadview at 11.11% and 11.11%, respectively.

Also read: Meesho Rebrands Farmiso to Meesho Superstore and Integrates It to Its Core App

About Newton School

The US-based Lambada School has inspired Newton School. InterviewBit's Scaler is the market leader, along with Masai School (and Pesto), among others.

Newton School saw a remarkable jump in operating revenue in FY21. In FY21, the company had a revenue of Rs 4.18 crore, compared to Rs 5 lakh for FY20.

Its losses have risen by more than 150% to Rs 4.57 Crore during FY20's fiscal year, compared with Rs 1.82crore in FY20.

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Meesho Rebrands Farmiso to Meesho Superstore and Integrates It to Its Core App

Ecommerce start-up Meesho has announced it will be integrating its grocery operations into its main application by the beginning of the week of May. Along with this announcement, they also changed Farmiso (Meesho’s grocery business) to Meesho Superstore.

This will allow Meesho to grow its user base, particularly in the category of daily essentials that is available within Tier 2 and higher markets. With this move, the customers of Meesho can now gain access to additional product listings through a single platform. 

The announcement was made by Meesho CEO and co-founder Vidit Aatrey said, "As more users from Tier 2+ regions become at ease with buying online, the demand for grocery online is growing. We are delighted to incorporate Meesho Superstore into our main application."

The company also added "What was initially an experimental project of the service in Karnataka is now gaining progress across six states. Based on our focus on the user this integration will give millions of Meesho customers a seamless shopping experience while also giving us the opportunity to build more synergies in areas like marketing to customers, technology, products and talent."

The pilot Aatrey mentions is the test run carried out by the company that operates an e-commerce platform Meesho in Karnataka in July of last year. What started as a test phase with grocery offerings in Karnataka, has now expanded to six states for Meesho including Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana & Andhra Pradesh. Moreover, Meesho now plans to expand its superstore to 12 states by the end of the year. 

Meesho Superstore currently offers 500 products in a variety of categories including fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, grocery items as well as packaged food as well as other categories.

After the integration is completed after which the startup will be able to offer its users 100 million the ability to access more than 87 million active listings for products in 36 categories from a single platform, according to the startup.

It was established in 2015 by Vidit Aatrey, Sanjeev Bhanwal, Meesho is a social commerce platform that allows individuals and small companies to market their products by buying it from resellers before selling them to customers through Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram as well as other social media platforms.

In its most recent funding round the startup was able to raise $570 million which was led by Fidelity Management as well as B Capital Group at a valuation of $5 billion.

In total, Meesho has raised just less than one billion dollars of financing over multiple rounds. It is in competition with big players like Dealshare and Flipkart-backed Shopsy as well as the B2B-focused unicorn Udaan.

This comes amid a growing excitement in the super app segment. This is because Tata Neu is scheduled to launch for all users on the 7th of April. The company that runs the fintech arm of MakeMyTrip, a travel company TripMoney has purchased an overwhelming stake in the foreign exchange startup BookMyForex.This is in accordance with the company's plan of creating its very individual travel super application.

This is in addition to other conglomerates on the internet like Amazon, Paytm, and Reliance Jio which have developed their own super apps. Each is competing for a piece of the market, offering numerous services under one roof.

The e-commerce and grocery market together are extremely competitive and present a tremendous opportunity for companies in these industries to earn new revenues. Based on Bain & Company, India's social commerce gross merchandise value was valued at $2 billion in 2020, and it is projected to be $20 billion in 2025.

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Similar to this another study found the Indian online food market to be in the region of $3.95 billion in 2021. This was expected to grow to $26.63 Bn in 2027. This would mean around 33 percent.

The flurry of activity in the super-app segment has been driven by the spread of online shopping that has increased exponentially over the past few years. Big conglomerates are vying for a share of this market, Meesho's battle is only just beginning.

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Byju’s Raises $800 Mn at $22 Bn Valuation

Edtech giant Byju's company has raised over $800 million through an upcoming round, which saw Bengaluru-based CEO and founder Byju Raveendran make a $400 million investment.

The round included participation from Investors Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners and BlackRock with an estimated value of $22 billion. This makes it the highest-valued startup in India.

According to media reports Raveendran's stake within the company has increased to 25 percent. Prior to this round the stake in Byju's holdings for promoters of Byju's was estimated to be 22.55 percent as per Financial Tracker's estimations. Byju's is also in discussions to launch an initial round of $1 billion.

Also read: CityMall Raises $75 Mn in Series C Round Led by Norwest

Byju's was able to raise its most recent tranche for an estimated value at $1.8 billion.

According to Byju, there are more than 150 million users on its platform, with an average annual rate of renewal at 86 percent. Although the company didn't release its most recent financial figures, it did report an 82.31 percent growth in its operating revenues up to Rs 2,381 crore for FY20. In the same time, its losses increased 30 times to 262 crore.

The firm was in the process of reaching the profitability mark in FY19.

In addition to the increase in fundraising, Byju's has also spent approximately $2.5 billion to acquire half a dozen startups. Aakash Educational Services was the biggest acquisition for the company with a cost of about $1 billion. The company also paid about 600 million in exchange for Great Learning and $500 million for the US-based Epic which is a reading platform. The company recently purchased the recruitment platform Superset through Great Learning.

Also read: Wakefit Slips Into Losses After Crossing Rs 400 Cr in Revenue

Get all the latest startup news and upcoming IPO news on Entrackr.

CityMall Raises $75 Mn in Series C Round Led by Norwest

A social-commerce platform called CityMall has received Rs 574 crore or $75 million, led by Norwest Venture Partners and participated by other investors, both existing and new investors. This is the third round of funding for the firm based in Gurugram in the past year.

CityMall has granted the allotment of one equity share and 11771 preferential shares at the price of 458,716 to raise $574 crore (or $75m), the regulatory reports indicate. Norwest Capital and Citius Fund are the two biggest participants in the round, with an investment of Rs 142.52 crore and the sum of Rs 112.52 crore, respectively. Jungle Venture, Elevation Capital, AM Holding, General Catalysts, Waterbridge Ventures, and Accel have a total of Rs 90 crore, 60 crores, and the sum of Rs 56.2 crore as well as the sum of Rs 30 crore and 22.5 crores, respectively.

Entrackr was exclusive information regarding this particular round back in October. CityMall raised $11 million in Series A in March and $22.5 million Series B by June. As per Financial Tracker's estimations, the company is valued at 320 million dollars in its Series C round.

Also read: Wakefit Slips Into Losses After Crossing Rs 400 Cr in Revenue

Additionally, the company has also expanded its ESOP option pool from 1381 to 2912 options, and it is now worth 135 crores, equivalent to $17.5 million.

CityMall offers the categories of lifestyle, grocery, and other categories by establishing an extensive network of community-based resellers in tier II as well as III towns. The company claims to have 200K customers and 20,000 resellers in eight cities within Haryana. Haryana.

CityMall has earned money at the beginning of the year during the year-end of March 2021. The operating revenue was the sum of Rs 14.95 crore for FY21. However, it suffered a loss of the equivalent of 10.4 crores over the same time.

CityMall's rival that is closed, DealShare, recently added to the Series E funding round with 45 million dollars. The Tiger Global-backed business was the second unicorn to emerge from the world of social commerce, following Meesho. CityMall is also in competition against Farmio by Meesho and a couple of others.

Also read: SharkTank's Ashneer Grover Demands Rs.4000 Crore to Leave His Company BharatPe

The Angad Kikla and Naisheel Vardhan-led company joined a few startups which have raised three capital rounds over the past twelve months. On Monday, the B2B animal protein market Captain Fresh announced its $50 million Series C round. The Bengaluru-based business's previous two rounds took place in July and December this year.

Get all the latest startup news and upcoming IPO news on Entrackr.