20th April: PhonePe, GOAT Brand Labs, Eruditus, Headfone & Microsoft.
Most significant stories about the Indian startup & tech ecosystem in 120 seconds.
From The CapTable newsroom
PhonePe: A startup within a startup.
The revolving door in senior ranks is a reality for most startups. The larger tech ecosystem, in fact, is identified with staff turnover driven by an intense talent war. Payments player PhonePe, however, has bucked this trend. Most of its top leaders have stuck around for five years or more. Most of its top leaders have stuck around for five years or more. Given that the company is only seven years old, this counts as a notable feat.
Hemant Gala and Vishal Gupta, who oversee financial services and products, respectively, joined Bengaluru-based PhonePe more than six years ago. Chief people officer Manmeet Sandhu, head of offline business Vivek Lohcheb and head of strategy Karthik Raghupathy are set to complete five years (read more).
Other significant stories about the ecosystem
Ramesh Bafna, the chief financial officer (CFO) at Singapore's troubled business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce startup Zilingo, has emerged as one of the contenders to take over as its interim CEO, Bafna’s appointment has not been finalised yet (read more).
Video editing software startup VideoVerse, formerly known as Toch AI, has raised $46.8 million in a funding round led by A91 Partners and Alpha Wave Global. Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal also participated in the round, as did Stride Ventures, Innoven Capital and Pacific Western Bank, among others. The funding is a mix of equity and debt (read more).
Goat Brand Labs, a rollup ecommerce platform, is in the final stages of closing a $50 million financing round with new investors like Venture Catalyst and 9 Unicorns coming on board. Existing investors like Flipkart Ventures, Tiger Global and others will also participate in the fundraise (read more).
Financepeer, an education focussed fintech startup, has raised $31 million in a funding round led by QED Investors and Aavishkaar Capital. The company offers loans to students to pay school and college fees. It will use the funds to enhance its technology platform and offerings, expand and strengthen its education-institution partnerships, and deepen its reach in rural areas (read more).
Ashwin Damera, cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) of edtech startup Eruditus has invested $32 million in venture debt firm Innoven Capital India Fund through his personal office. With this Damera is now the second-largest LP (limited partner) in the fund. LPs are sponsors in an investment fund. Damera and his wife Bhagyashree Damera co-manage his personal investments (read more).
Rigi, a platform for creators and influencers, has raised $10 million in a funding round co-led by Accel India, Sequoia Capital India, and Stellaris Venture Partners. The company will use the funding for strengthening its technology, hiring, and expansion. Rigi was part of the first cohort of Accel Atoms, a program by Accel India for pre-seed startups (read more).
Trade finance platform Vayana Network has raised Rs 114 crore (about $15 million) in an extension of its ongoing fundraise, led by International Finance Corporation (IFC) and PayU, the fintech arm of Dutch multinational Prosus. With this, the company has closed its latest fundraising of Rs 397 crore (about $52 million) (read more).
Chennai and Delaware-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup Everstage has raised $13 million in a funding round led by Elevation Capital, with participation from existing investor 3one4 Capital (read more).
Audio OTT platform, Headfone has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Elevation Capital. The company said it will use the funds to establish its presence in other languages. Founded in 2018 by former Facebook software engineers, Pratham Khandelwal and Yogesh Sharma, Headfone is an audio OTT platform that primarily offers audio dramas in fiction genres like horror, thriller, romance, and so on (read more).
Microsoft India announced two new initiatives to help startup entrepreneurs innovate and grow in the country. Under the Microsoft AI Innovate initiative, the company will introduce its second cohort of startups, as well as a new hackathon for startups to provide resources and support to developers for creating digital solutions (read more).