This year’s April remained stable in terms of VC inflow into Indian startups. The total amount this month was near to $500 million, with the middle-sized deals giving the boost this week.
The third week of April had $441.43M in Venture Funding across 29 deals.
While the momentum of this trend is unclear in the weeks ahead, some experts think that it might be threatened by macroeconomic conditions. This could necessitate certain prudence.
Top deals of the week
Food Delivery Giants Swiggy & Zomato Invest In UrbanPiper’s $24 Mn Funding Round
B2B SaaS startup UrbanPiper has raised $24 Mn in Series B funding led by existing investors Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Swiggy and Zomato.
The Bengaluru-based startup plans to use the funds to scale its product and engineering teams, strengthen the platform capabilities, as well as broaden offerings to enable more services to restaurants.
HR tech SaaS platform Expertia AI raises $1.2 million
Expertia AI, a deeptech virtual recruitment platform has raised $1.2 million in seed funding led by Chiratae Ventures and Endiya Partners with participation from Entrepreneur First and angel investor Archana Priyadarshini.
Kanishk Shukla, Co-founder and CEO, said, “Our vision is to become a global skill cloud offering real-time hiring as a service to businesses worldwide. Our first solution tailored for the SMEs is an AI-powered virtual recruiter which uses proprietary algorithms, metadata and platform integrations to organically source and deliver top 10 job applicants within a few hours.”
Also Read: Weekly Funding Update – India (Apr 09 – Apr 15)
Agritech Startup Eeki Foods Raises $6.5 Mn In Series A Funding; Plans To Add More Barren Land For Farming
Agritech startup Eeki Foods has raised Series A funding of $6.5 Mn led by General Catalyst (GC) with participation from Avaana Capital and Better Capital.
Eeki Foods plans to use the fresh funds to scale to hundreds of acres. The startup will focus on building the team, technology and organisational scale in the coming year.
Audio platform Headfone bags $10 million funding led by Elevation Capital
Audio-content platform Headfone announced it had raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Elevation Capital.
The round also saw participation from existing investor Hashed, a South Korean venture capital firm, and angel investors such as Meta’s vice president and India managing director Ajit Mohan, comedian Biswa Kalyan Rath and Google executive Anshumani Ruddra.
Crypto startup Flippy raises $1.15 million in a seed round
New age social crypto discovery platform Flippy has announced the launch of its mobile app in India with a fundraising of $1.15 million in a seed round. Redstart Labs, a wholly-owned subsidiary of InfoEdge, has led the round with participation from Entrepreneur First, Justin Caldbeck, Alex Lin, and Anirudh Rastogi.
The funds will be used to focus on building a team of junior and senior-level engineering talent to scale flippy’s operations, the company said in a press release.
Cyrpto exchange CoinDCX clocks in $135 Mn in Series D, crosses $2.1 Bn in valuation
Indian Cryptocurrency exchange platform CoinDCX is now evaluated at $2.1 Billion, after the Mumbai based startup secured series D funding of $135 Million. Along with existing backer Pantera Capital, CoinDCX roped in Steadview Capital as a leading new investor.
While Steadview and Pantera accounted for around 50% of the fresh capital infused, the round also saw participation from other investors including B capital, Kingsway Capital, DraperDragon, Republic, and Kindred Ventures. The company’s existing US-Based investor CoinBase, who recently launched their own exchange platform in India, were also seen increasing their stake.
With the freshly acquired funding, the company plans to bring in another 600 employees to its current employee base of 400.
Recur Club raises $30M in seed round
Recur Club, the fintech startup whose platform enables companies to raise capital in a non-dilutive manner, has raised $30 million in seed round of funding through a combination of debt and equity.
The funding round was led by InfoEdge Ventures and Village Global with participation from Aditya Birla Finance, U GRO CAPITAL, and Incred Financial Services. The round also saw participation from a group of angel investors.
Financepeer bags $31 million in funding from QED, Aavishkaar Capital
Financepeer, an education focussed fintech startup, has raised $31 million in its Series B funding round, led by QED Investors and Aavishkaar Capital. US-based edtech investor Ardent Ventures, DMI Sparkle Fund, 9Unicorn, LC Nueva AIF and Maxar VC also participated in the round. The company raised $3 million in 2020 from MS Fincap, Danube, Aar Em Ventures, Angelbay Holdings, JITO Angel Network, and HEM Angels.
