Autorickshaw-Hailing App AUTOnCAB Shuts DownAutorickshaw-hailing app AUTOnCAB shuts down its operations because of stiff competition from its heavily funded rivals.
“Uber and Ola have been offering a lot of discounts and incentives,” Vinti Doshi, AUTOnCAB’s Co-founder and CEO said. We did not want to burn cash unnecessarily. It is just a game of burning cash at the moment.”
AUTOnCAB, operated by New Delhi-based NGA Technologies Pvt. Ltd, laid off 40 employees in the process. The company was running operations in six cities—Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Kota, Chandigarh and Jaipur.
It has been noticed from past couple of years that dozen of tech- driven startups have shut down in india. Startups in the food-tech, grocery delivery and e-commerce have been the worst hit as they struggled to raise fresh funding from investors, who have turned cautious and are now looking for sustainable business models.
E-Commerce Aggregator Baggout Gets Funding From Jabong CTO, CommonFloor CEONew Delhi-based product aggregation website Baggout has raised funding from multiple angel investors. He declined to disclose the amount the startup raised, as reported by TechCircle.
The current investors are Jabong CTO Sumit Jain, CommonFloor co-founder and CEO Sumit Jain, DGM Network founder Anurag Gupta, IREO PE Fund director Varun Khanna and Faraz Khan.
According to the sources, Baggout run by S.B. WebTech Pvt Ltd, was in talks with the Indian Angel Network and other individual investors to raise a little more than Rs 2 crore ($300,000) funding.
Deepak Jain, an alumnus of IIT Roorkee and IIM Ahmedabad, started Baggout in 2014 with his school friend Prashant Mahajan, who is the CTO of the startup.
This is Baggout’s second round of funding, after it raised a small amount from two investors in March.
VC-Backed Food Delivery Startup Bite Club Pauses OperationsGurgaon-based startup Bite Club has stopped its food delivery operations, one of its co-founders said, joining a growing list of ventures failing to make money in a segment that was investors’ darling last year.
“We are on a temporary halt right now. We are working on a different strategy,” Prateek Agarwal, who is also the company’s CEO, told TechCircle. He didn’t specify any reason for halting the operations or give any details of the strategy.
Bite Club will also lay off employees, Agarwal said but didn’t disclose any number.
The company was founded by in November 2014 by Agarwal, Aushim Krishan and Siddharth Sharma. It operated a managed marketplace for food delivery, and took on board housewives, recipe bloggers, restaurant chefs and former restaurant owners to prepare food.
ZopNow Co-Founder Mukesh Singh Steps Aside; Raj Pandey New CEOOnline grocer ZopNow’s co-founder Mukesh Singh has stepped aside and former JP Morgan executive director Raj Pandey has joined the firm as CEO.
Founded in 2011, ZopNow, incorporated as ZN Retail Pvt. Ltd, is backed by Accel Partners, Times Internet, Qualcomm Ventures and Dragoneer Investment Group and has raised around $12 million so far, as quoted by TechCircle.
ZopNow’s new CEO Pandey has spent a decade in investment banking in New York with JP Morgan, advising companies mostly in technology, media and telecom industries on mergers and acquisitions, IPOs, private placement, debt and capital raising.
Singh is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur. A former general manager at Amazon India and senior vice president at MakeMyTrip, Singh founded the company with another IIT Kanpur alumnus Bal Krishn Birla. However, Singh and Birla fell out and parted ways two years later.
In a mail to the employee's, Singh said he would work on the tech-enabled operations side of the company while Pandey will focus on investor relations and marketing.
ShopClues Buys Bangalore-Based Startup Momoe To Build Payments BizOnline shopping marketplace ShopClues has acquired Bangalore-based Momoe Technologies Pvt. Ltd, as it looks to build a payments business and better compete with bigger rivals including Flipkart and Amazon, as quoted by TechCircle.
The Gurgaon-based e-commerce company didn’t disclose the financial terms of the part-cash, part-stock transaction.
The e-tailer said in a statement it will use Momoe’s technology to boost its payment network for merchants and will look to tie this in its hyperlocal commerce business. The takeover deal is in sync with ShopClues’ inclusion of a chat feature ‘ShopClues Connect’ that enables consumers to connect directly with merchants on the platform, it added.
Momoe’s mobile payments app allows users to pay offline merchants such as restaurants, grocery stores, pharmacies, spas and salons by using credit or debit cards, net banking and mobile wallets.
The company was founded by Utkarsh Biradar, Karthik Vaidyanathan, Ganesh Balakrishnan, Neelesh Bam and Aiman Ashraf.
Meet The Four Ed-tech Ventures Graduating From Startup Accelerator EduGild’s First BatchFour startups from the first batch of EduGild, an education-technology startup accelerator run by Maharashtra Institute of Technology, are all set to hit the wider market as they graduate out of the programme.
Launched in June 2015, EduGild provides mentoring and guidance to ed-tech startups regarding starting a company, helps them with pitching to venture capitalists, business management, customer acquisition, marketing and assists in scaling up business.
We essentially look at technology companies that have a play in education such as startups working on solutions like adaptive learning, learning analytics, student housing, student loans, gamification, augmented reality, and cognitive skill developments in children studying in grade 10 or below,” said Rishi Kapal, CEO of EduGild, as reported by TechCircle.
Here are the four startups graduating from the accelerator programme:
Simulanis: The startup offers a number of products that use 3D gaming, augmented reality (AR), and blended e-learning-based tools for engineering learning. Its flagship AR app SARAL, currently available on Android, converts 2D images on paper into 3D models.
Classboat: Pune-based Classboat is a marketplace that collaborates with educators and instructors to offer a variety of classes in an easy-to-navigate space. It helps educators with student acquisition.
Gradopedia: Based in Mumbai, Gradopedia is a career intelligence platform which maps graduates to career profiles and helps them evaluate where they stand.
Instafeez: This Bangalore-based startup provides unified payments, communication, commerce and learning aggregation solution by aggregating all the stakeholders onto a single platform.
Chandigarh Angels Network Ties Up With TurningIdeas Venture PartnersTurningIdeas Venture Partners, a Delhi-based angel investor network, has tied up with Chandigarh Angels Network to mentor startups and help them connect with investors.
Ashish Mittal, co-founder and chief mentor at incubation and acceleration platform TurningIdeas Solutions, which runs the network said that “ the tie-up will enable TurningIdeas Venture to refer its potential investees to Chandigarh Angel” as quoted by TechCircle.
Mittal said both the networks will jointly organise startup conferences, demo days, investor meetups and hackathons. “We see great synergy in the partnering with Chandigarh Angels, helping startups in scaling their businesses,” he said.
Chandigarh Angels board member Kunal Nandwani said the partnership is aimed at propelling the startup ecosystem in north India.
Incorporated in last September, Chandigarh Angels aims to invest between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 2 crore in fledgling tech firms across sectors such as education, healthcare and finance. It counts Sameer Jain, CEO of Net Solutions; and Mohit Chitkara, vice president at Chitkara University, among others, as members.
Ed-Tech Firm Transweb Raises Funding From 500 StartupsDelhi-based educational-technology firm Transweb Educational Services Pvt. Ltd has raised its Series A round of funding from 500 Startups, a Silicon Valley-based startup accelerator and early-stage VC fund house.
The transaction was routed through 500 Startups IV LP, a $200 million seed fund managed by 500 Startups Management Co. LLC.
Transweb, which provides online tutorial services, has raised over Rs 80 lakh ($120,000) from the US-based firm on a fully diluted basis through a preferential allotment, as reported by TechCircle.
The company, which was launched in 2006 by IIT Delhi alumni Aditya Singhal and Nishant Sinha, provides online tutoring services through its five websites—askIITians, eMedicaPrep, transtutors, transwebtutors and mycollegesabroad.
The funding will be used for marketing of transtutors and increase its team strength. Transtutors is a question-and-answer format website for homework help.
Keiretsu Forum, Others to Invest $450K In Customised Online Jewellery Brand AuGravAuGrav, a Coimbatore-based startup that designs and sells personalised precious jewellery to end-customers and retailers, is in talks with the Chennai chapter of global angel network Keiretsu Forum and others to raise close to $450,000 (around Rs 3 crore) in seed investments.
The startup wants to invest the capital to expand its team and strengthen its marketing efforts and research initiatives, said Vivek Krishna, founder of AuGrav, as reported by TechCircle.
Those with whom the firm is in talks include a few South India-based high-net worth individuals (HNIs).
Owned and operated by Krizda India Pvt Ltd, AuGrav was launched in October 2014 by Krishna and underwent two pivots before transforming into a 3D printed personalised gold jewellery brand.
It was launched as a plain gold Jewellery e-commerce company and later changed its business model to be a marketplace or an aggregator for jewellery for a short period.
Deal Origination Platform For FIs BankerBay Raises $2M in Third Funding RoundBangalore- and Singapore-based BankerBay Technologies Pte Ltd, which helps private equity and venture capital firms, hedge funds, banks and investment banks locate deal flow and capital, has raised $2 million in funding from a group of unnamed investors.
The funding will be used for global expansion and building sales, marketing and business development teams in London and New York, it said in a statement as quoted by TechCircle.
“Leveraging technology is important to help foster investment in the fragmented middle market as the entire traditional investment banking industry continues to face pressure, cutbacks and big reductions in budget,” said Romesh Jayawickrama, founder and CEO of BankerBay.
BankerBay is used by financial institutions across North America, Western Europe, APAC, Latam and MENA. The company’s primary focus is the global mid-market segment that involves deals and investment opportunities ranging from $10 million to $250 million in transaction value.
Online Grocery Startup SatvaCart Raises Angel FundingSatvaCart, a Gurgaon-based online grocery retailer, has raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Abhijit Avasthi (Sideways),Karan Chellani (Partner, Grace Capital Ventures) and SP Vijay(Founder, Tarento Technologies).
The raised funds will be utilised to achieve complete break-even within next 4 quarters as quoted by Inc42.
The startup is also aiming to raise additional $2 Mn in next angel round. Earlier, in July 2015.
SatvaCart raised a seed round from Palaash Ventures. Prior to this, in November 2015, it raised another angel round of $1.8 Mn from undisclosed investors.
Satvacart was launched in January 2015 by Rahul Hari and chose to keep its operations within the same city (Gurgaon) inspired by the business model of FreshDirect in the US.
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This is Chitrakshi Suneja currently pursuing graduation and diploma in journalism and mass communication. She is crazy about Writing stuff on Startups, Entrepreneurs and reading as well.
