Online Lingerie Platform PrettySecrets.com Gets $6M Led By RB InvestmentsMumbai-based online lingerie platform, PrettySecrets.com has raised $6 million (Rs.40 crore) in its latest round of funding led by Singapore-based venture capital fund RB Investments Pte. Ltd, as per Deal Street Asia report. Existing investor Orios Venture Partners also participated in the round. The company will use the funds on adding new products and categories to its platform as well as invest in improving its supply chain and for marketing campaigns.Launched in 2012, PrettySecrets.com was founded by Karan Behal who comes from experience in manufacturing, export, retailing and marketing of lingerie products. The company claims to sell over 1,000 products on its platform.
NewQuest Closes $540M in Third Asian Secondaries Fund, Plans to Augment its Presence in IndiaNewQuest Capital Partners has marked the final close of its third secondaries fund ‘NewQuest Asia Fund III, LP’ at over $540 million.The funding was led by a diverse group of pension funds, sovereign funds, insurers and financial institutions based in Asia, North America, Europe and the Middle East. As per VCCircle report, the fund had an original upper limit of $520 million, which was increased due to the strong demand.NewQuest Asia Fund III will focus on minority and control transactions worth $25 million to $75 million per company, and $50 million to $250 million for portfolio acquisitions. The firm invests in infrastructure-related sectors including power, roads, construction and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) along with logistics.
TLabs Joins Hands with Stripe Atlas Network For Global Reach Times Internet’s startup accelerator, TLabs, has partnered with Stripe Atlas Network to provide a global reach to Indian entrepreneurs.
Atlas is a service by Stripe that gives entrepreneurs access to some fundamental tools and infrastructure for starting and growing a global internet business. Also, it will help entrepreneurs set up a business in the U.S., save on travel costs, legal fee, document creation, and other tedious processes. Atlas is currently available as an invite-only private beta.
Hyperlocal Grocery Marketplace LazyLad Shuts OperationsHyperlocal mobile commerce marketplace LazyLad has pulled down its shutters, laying off close to 30 people in the process. Saurabh Singla, co-founder and CEO, LazyLad confirmed the development to Techcircle. The company is looking at pivoting into a business-to-business (B2B) focused marketplace. In February 2016, LazyLad was in advanced talks to raise $2.5 million from Japanese investors but it seems that the talks fell apart, which prompted the company to take the decision.
Government to Revamp Startup India Policy For Better ResultsFive months after its launch by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government's Startup India initiative is due for an overhaul to improve participation, The Economic Times reported. The move comes after only 200 startups registered for recognition, with 30 being shortlisted by the inter-ministerial board. Among the 30, only one firm Hyderabad-based Cygni Energy was given full recognition. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) will create a learning module on incorporation of a company and business models and will provide counselling and training services to those startups that are unable to furnish all the documents. Besides this, startups will no longer need a certificate of recognition from the government to access legal help for filing patents.
China Overtakes India for Tesla Manufacturing Hub
Tesla Motors will set up its production base in Shanghai, China in an investment that may be valued at $9 billion. The firm has signed an agreement with Jinqiao Group, a Shanghai government-owned company, to build its production facilities in the municipality, ar per Bloomberg report. Each party may invest about 30 billion yuan ($4.5 billion) in the partnership, with Jinqiao putting up land for most of its share. By setting up a manufacturing unit in China, Tesla can avoid a 25% import levy which would make its vehicles more competitive against Audi and BMW and local auto firms BYD Co. and BAIC Motor Corp.
Quick Heal Buys IT Security Firm Junco TechnologiesQuick Heal Technologies has acquired an IT security firm Junco Technologies, and will be launching a new line of business, Seqrite Services to be headed by Junco founder Rohit Srivastwa.
Seqrite Services will operate as a division of Seqrite, the enterprise business of Quick Heal and will offer cyber security consulting services. The company also announced the launch of the Quick Heal Academy which will work in conjunction with universities, law enforcement agencies, and educational institutions to offer training in cyber security, as per ET report.
Payment Platform PayPal Appoints Anupam Pahuja as MD, India
PayPal, a payment platform, has appointed Anupam Pahuja as the Managing Director and Country Manager for India.
Pahuja has been with the company for six years and was head, technology for Paypal in the APAC region. He will be responsible for all aspects of PayPal's business in India and for further strengthening the company's operations here.
Tech Mahindra Buys UK Based Digital Tech Firm The BIO AgencyTech Mahindra has agreed to buy UK-based digital technology firm The BIO Agency for an enterprise value of 40 million pounds, as it continues its acquisition spree, reported ET.
Last month, the IT arm of the Mahindra Group bought UK-based financial services firm Target Group in a deal valued at more than 112 million pounds. It bought fabled Italian car design firm Pininfarina in December.
E-Invoicing Startup SpiderG Raises Seed Round of FundingPune-based Gladiris Technologies that owns and operates its free e-invoicing app SpiderG, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from a group of investors.
Rahul Kirloskar, chairman at Kirloskar Pneumatic; Fusion Tech Ventures, the investment arm of Praj’s Pramod Chaudhary; Adi Saravanan, president of Allsec Securities; Pravin Dongre, CEO at Glencore Grain India and Mahendra Doshi of LPK Securities participated in this round of funding.
Gladiris Technology was founded in 2013 by Ashwani Rathore, Prakash Nair and Harshal Ingale, currently serves around 350 businesses and plans to scale the count up to 20,000 in a year. SpiderG also plans to take its revenue from INR 1.5 Cr to INR 22 Cr by the end of this year.
Indiabulls to Raise Up to $150MIndiabulls Alternative Investments Ltd plans to raise up to $150 million for a new fund from non-resident Indian (NRI) investors based in West Asia, Asia-Pacific and Europe. India Opportunities Fund, a real estate-focused, alternative investment fund (AIF), allows NRI investors, along with persons of Indian origin (PIOs) and other foreign investors, to participate in domestic real estate investments. It plans to initially raise Rs.500 crore and raise an additional Rs.500 crore in case of higher-than-expected demand. The fund has a tenure of four years, extendable by a year, as perDealStreetAsia report.
Bessemer Ventures May Invest $12M in SwiggyUS-based venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners is in advanced talks to invest around $12 million in food-delivery company Swiggy, as per ET report. If the deal goes through, it will value the company at around $200 million. Last month, it was reported that Swiggy has raised an additional $7 million from existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, DST Global and Accel Partners, valuing the company at $130 million. In January, the Bangalore-based company had raised $30 million in Series C round of funding from New York-based Harmony Partners and Singapore-based RB investments. The raised funding will help Swiggy compete strongly with restaurant listing company Zomato, which entered the food delivery business last year, as well as the Sequoia Capital-backed Roadrunnr-TinyOwl combine and Rocket Internet portfolio company Foodpanda.
Rubique to Raise Up to $15MOnline loan facilitator Rubique is in the process of raising $10-15 million in the second round of funding and aims to close with about $25 million by the end of 2016. The Mumbai-based company plans to use the amount to strengthen its technology backbone and focus on distribution and promotion to reach out to a larger base of customers, as per ET reported.
It plans to expand to Ahmedabad, Chennai, Jaipur and Chandigarh, after having established its presence in Mum bai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad.
The company, which counts Kalaari Capital, along with YourNest Angel Fund, Globvestor and Dexter Angel Circle as its investors, had received $3 million in its first round of funding last year.
Cyclops Medtech Raises Seed RoundCyclops Medtech has raised an undisclosed seed round of funding from CP Bothra, Chairman and Managing Director of Medreich Pharma, a generic drug manufacturing major which was recently acquired by Japan’s Meiji Seika. The team had earlier raised a pre-seed round of funding for basic prototype development from a leading surgeon in Benglauru.
The startup was founded by a team of doctors and a serial entrepreneur — DR Srinivas, Ravi Nayar, and Niranjan Subbarao. The startup focuses on building and manufacturing diagnostic solutions for episodic neurological events like vertigo with the use of eye-tracking technology.
With the newly raised funding, the team is now set to build and manufacture the product. The team has already tied up with a manufacturing facility Vinayas, based out of Mysore.
Infibeam to Invest $9M in Payment Gateway Firm CCAvenueInfibeam has signed an agreement with payment gateway firm CCAvenue to invest up to Rs 60 crore ($8.9 million) in the company. Last month, Infibeam announced to back the company with Rs 45 crore ($6.7 million) through its wholly-owned subsidiary NSI Infinium Global Pvt Ltd. Following that, the company has announced today that it has increased the investment size now as earlier it was an intimation amount.
The company was founded in 2010 by Vishal Mehta, a former Amazon executive, Infibeam offers cloud-based e-commerce platform service in B2C and B2B verticals.
Freshdesk Launches CRM Solution for SMB Sales TeamsSan Francisco- and Chennai-headquartered cloud-based Freshdesk Inc has launched a customer relationship management (CRM) solution designed for corporate sales teams.
The product, Freshsales, will feature sales functions including lead, deal and account management; email and phone integration, user behaviour tracking as well as lead scoring and reporting on a single product, doing away with the task of multiple integrations onto a CRM platform. The mobile app version of the solution will be available on iOS and Android, as per VCCircle report.
Govt Allows 100% FDI for Online Grocery StartupsIn a boost to retailers and grocery startups such as Bigbasket and Grofers, the Indian government on Monday allowed 100% FDI in food retail, including through e-commerce, provided such items are produced, processed or manufactured in the country.
This will allow multi-brand retail giants such as Walmart to look at their food business here closely and perhaps even foray into B2C food retail, ET reported. Currently, the US giant operates a B2B business here since FDI in multi-brand retail is not allowed.
Samsung Shows Dedication to IoT with $1.2B Investment and R&DSamsung Electronics Vice Chairman & CEO Dr. Oh-Hyun Kwon unveiled Samsung’s vision for ‘Human-Centered IoT,’ including a strategy to spend $1.2 billion over 4 years for U.S.-based Internet of Things (IoT) R&D and investments. This will be led by the Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center, Global Innovation Center and Samsung Research America, part of Samsung’s U.S. footprint of more than 15,000 employees across the country.
