19th April: Udaan, CoinDCX, Zilingo, Lightspeed VP & Whatfix.
Most significant stories about the Indian startup & tech ecosystem in 120 seconds.
From The CapTable newsroom
Growth-stage startups poach execs from Amazon, Udaan & Flipkart.
“It is hard and takes a lot of convincing to leave a company like Amazon. But people now realize that the upside of being in a fast-paced startup is bigger than being a cog in the machine,” said a person who joined a buzzy venture recently after working at the online retail giant for eight years.
Over half a dozen top executives quit Amazon India last year, moving to startups such as Shiprocket, GoKwik, Swiggy, and Rebel Foods. These include Prakash Dutta, who made the switch after a stint of over six years, and Atul Mehta, who left after five years. Dutta and Mehta became COOs of Rebel and Shiprocket, respectively (read more).
Other significant stories about the startup ecosystem
Crypto trading exchange CoinDCX has raised $135.9 million (about Rs 1,000 crore) from investors led by Pantera Capital and Steadview Capital, doubling its valuation to $2.15 billion in less than a year to become the most valued crypto trading platform in India. The funding comes in the backdrop of crypto exchanges facing newly introduced taxation rules in India. CoinDCX and its peers, like WazirX and CoinSwitch Kuber, have seen their volumes plummet to new lows this month due to restricted access to modes of depositing money for users (read more).
School fee-focused lending platform Financepeer has raised around $38 million in a Series B round led by QED Fund. This would be the second institutional round for the Bengaluru-based firm. It had raised Series A led by Jaipur-based NBFC, MS Fincap in September 2020 (read more).
Zerodha, one of the country’s largest online brokerages, has posted an almost 60% year-on-year jump in both its profits and revenues for 2021-22 at around Rs 1,800 crore and Rs 4,300 crore, respectively, its founder and chief executive, Nithin Kamath said (read more).
After suspending Ankiti Bose from her post as chief executive officer, the board of Zilingo Pte is discussing replacing her for good amid an investigation into the Singapore startup’s accounting practices, according to people familiar with the matter (read more).
Recur Technologies PTE, a Singapore-based financing platform, announced fundraising of $30 million in a combination of equity and debt from a clutch of Indian investors. The financial technology startup operates in India through its Delhi-based subsidiary called Recur Club Technologies. InfoEdge Ventures, the investment arm of Info Edge (India) and Village Global have invested $2 million in equities of the parent company (read more).
Walmart-owned e-tailer Flipkart said that it has acquired a direct-to-consumer (D2C) software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform ANS Commerce for an undisclosed amount. The deal is yet to be completed and is expected to be closed in the second half of 2022 subject to “customary closing conditions”, the company said (read more).
Whatfix, digital adoption platform (DAP), today announced the acquisition of Leap (previously Jiny), a mobile-first onboarding and assistance platform that caters to digital adoption platforms for mobile applications. The deal marks Whatfix's first mobile DAP product-focused acquisition, as well as its largest M&A deal so far (read more).
Collateral-free micro, small & medium enterprise (MSME) loans provider Kinara Capital closed a fresh equity round of Rs 380 crore led by global investment manager Nuveen with participation from Dutch microfinance fund ASN Microkredietfonds advised by impact-focused investment manager Triple Jump (read more).
Insurance startup Loop has raised $25 million as a part of a new funding round, co-led by existing investors General Catalyst and Elevation Capital (formerly Saif Partners). The round also saw participation from Silicon Valley-based serial entrepreneur and investor Vinod Khosla and his fund Khosla Ventures. US-based Optum Ventures and Sierra Ventures also participated (read more).
Fintech startup, SaveIN has raised $4 million (or roughly Rs 30 crore) as a part of its seed funding round from existing backers Y Combinator and other investors including 10X Group, Leonis VC, and Goodwater Capital. Other investors participating as a part of the round include – Nordstar, Rebel Fund, Pioneer Fund, Soma Capital, and SCM Advisors (read more).
Lightspeed Venture Partners has elevated Shuvi Shrivastava, Pinn Lawjindakul and Rahul Taneja, to the position of partners in its early-stage investment advisory team. The fund, which has backed startups like Byju's, ShareChat and Udaan, has an eight-member early-stage team, of which three are women (read more).