22nd February: Flipkart, Facilio, Paytm, Ola & BillDesk.
Most significant stories about the Indian startups & tech ecosystem in under 120 seconds.
From The CapTable newsroom
In less than a year, Flipkart’s employee count has increased by 28% to over 32,000. Many company veterans have been appointed to lead new verticals after some top executives quit to start up or turn investors.
Flipkart, India’s most valuable ecommerce company, has been on an expansion spree for the past 18 months, from launching healthcare and travel to boosting grocery and reselling. The common thread here is how the old guard is steering new businesses and initiatives.
This became apparent a few months ago when Flipkart boss Kalyan Krishnamurthy elevated Nandita Sinha as the Myntra CEO. Sinha, previously a vice-president, replaced Amar Nagaram, who left the organization last year (read more).
Some other significant stories about the ecosystem.
Property operations software platform Facilio has raised $35 million in a funding round led by Dragoneer Investment Group with participation from Brookfield Growth and existing investors Accel India and Tiger Global Management (read more).
Healthtech startup MediBuddy has raised $125 million in a funding round from Quadria Capital and Lightrock India. The latest funding round saw participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, India Life Sciences Fund III, Rebright Partners, Jafco Asia, TeamFund LP, FinSight Ventures, InnoVen Capital, Stride Ventures, and Alteria Capital (read more).
In what is possibly the largest venture capital funding into the defense sector, NewSpace Research & Technologies, a Bengaluru-based startup that specializes in drone technology has raised $21 million in a round led by Pavestone Technology Fund. The funding was raised at an undisclosed valuation. The startup aims to become a unicorn within the next five years (read more).
Paytm Payments Bank had become an official acquiring partner for the government's e-RUPI vouchers initiative. The bank has partnered with Paytm parent One97 Communications Ltd (OCL) to leverage the latter’s merchant base. With this, Paytm’s merchants will be able to collect payments through e-RUPI. Paytm says it has a merchant base of almost 25 million at present (read more).
Ride-hailing company Ola has raised ₹150 crores in another tranche in its ongoing Series J round from Axis Growth Avenues AIF and Arrow Multi-Asset Fund. Ola has raised the fresh funds at a valuation of $7.15-7.3 billion (read more).
India’s competition watchdog is seeking more information about the proposed $4.7 billion buyouts of Indian fintech BillDesk by payments major PayU India, according to multiple people in the know who said the Prosus- backed multinational is seeking advice from consulting firms on the matter. Prosus is the Dutch-listed arm of the South African group Naspers (read more).
Qyuki Digital Media, a creator management and monetization company, has held talks with strategic investors such as news aggregation platform Dailyhunt and music and entertainment firm Saregama, to sell a majority stake (read more).
Agritech startup Krishify has closed $6.2 million in its pre-Series A round that saw the additional participation of VC fund Omnivore alongside existing investors Ankur Capital, Omidyar Network India, and Orios Venture Partners (read more).
Influencer marketing platform Adicube has raised ₹12 crores or $1.6 million led by Pitcherlabs Ventures and a clutch of angels, including Chandrahas Panigrahi, Founder Edukemy, Ashish Padiyar, and Brijesh Damodaran, Founders, Auxano Capital (read more).
Chargeup, a battery swapping network for electric two- and three-wheelers, has raised $2.5 million in its pre-Series A round led by Capital-A and co-led by Anicut Capital. Tiger Shroff, Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta (founders of boAt), and Shraddha Kapoor have also participated (read more).
Baaz Bikes (ElecTorq Technologies) has received $2 million in its pre-Series A led by Kalaari Capital. Existing Investors like AdvantEdge, 9Unicorns, and Sumant Sinha (CMD-Renew Power) also participated in this round (read more).