India-based WaterBridge Ventures Raises $7M in its Fund and Targets $10-15M in its FutureWaterBridge Ventures has made first close at $7 million in its fund that has a targeted corpus of between $10-15 million.
The firm was founded by private equity veteran Manish Kheterpal last year, with the aim of raising smaller-sized funds to invest in early stage startups. The company has raised the funds mainly from India-based institutional investors, including wealthy individuals, companies and family offices. Kheterpal will be making 10-15 investments in early-stage startups at the Series A stage, with average funding between $300,000- $600,000.
The fund will focus on investments in analytics decision making solutions, e-commerce and transportation, both among sectors that have received big amounts of funding. The firm also promises look to invest in tech firms in healthcare, finance and education sectors as reported by DealStreetAsia.
iD Fresh Food In Talks to Raise Rs 100 Cr ($14.7M) from Private Equity
Venture capital (VC) firm Helion Venture Partners-backed iD Fresh Food (India) Pvt. Ltd, has initiated talks to raise at least Rs.100 crore ($14.7 million) from private equity (PE) funds, according to two people aware of the development. The company was started by IIM Bangalore alumnus P.C. Musthafa, sells various packaged ready-to-cook products such as idli and dosa batter. VC firm Helion Venture Partners had invested Rs.35 crore in the Bengaluru-based firm in October 2014. “Helion had picked up around 25% stake in the company, valuing it at over Rs.140 crore.At that time the company’s revenues were around Rs.40 crore, as reported by DealStreetAsia.
Budget Hotel Aggregator FabHotels Raises $8MFabHotels, a tech-enabled hospitality start-up formed by former Rocket Internet executives, has raised $8 million (approx Rs.54 crore) in a series A round of funding from Accel Partners and RB Investments, as quoted by DealStreetAsia. Mohandas Pai’s Aarin Capital and Qualcomm Ventures also participated in the funding round, Aggarwal said. In July 2015, the startup raised a seed round of $2.25 million from Accel Partners and Qualcomm Ventures. The budget hotels space is a market dominated by SoftBank Corp.-backed OYO Rooms. The company has so far raised $125 million in three rounds of funding. In August 2015, OYO Rooms raised $100 million in a funding round led by SoftBank. OYO’s other backers include Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Greenoaks Capital.
IoT Startup Locanix Raises Rs 2 Cr from Goldman Sachs' Execs and CiscoAhmedabad-based logistic IoT startup, Locanix has received a funding of Rs 2 crore from investors including senior executives at investment bank Goldman Sachs and technology company Cisco.
"The money will be used for further scaling up," said Ruchit Surati, cofounder, Locanix.
The three-year-old startup used GPS tracking to provide innovative logistic solutions that help improve safety, security and operational efficiency. The startup initially began with door-to-door marketing and has bagged clients like DSK Toyata, Sadbhav Engineering and Amul. It has partnered with truck manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra's truck & bus division (MTBD) as quoted by Economic Times.
Amazon Web Services launches Data Centres in Mumbai to Hasten Growth in IndiaAmazon Web Services said it was opening its first data centres in India, as the public cloud giant looks to boost growth in what is already one of its fastest growing markets. Part of the ecommerce giant Amazon.com, the infrastructure-as-a-service division was started ten years ago. AWS, is now on track to being a $10 billion annual business this year. It has an operating margin of over 24 percent.
An AWS region can have multiple data centres, or availability zones for its consumers. Amazon's data centres in India are in Mumbai, which will likely boost the amount of work AWS can do with banking and the healthcare sectors. Jassy, who was appointed CEO of infrastructure-as-service business in April, said 89 of the top 100 startups in India were hosted on AWS and that large companies like Tata Motors and Axis Bank also used the cloud platform, as reported by Economic Times.
Ola to Invest Rs 350 Cr in Haryana Over 5 YearsTaxi hailing app Ola has signed an agreement with Haryana government to create over 10,000 entrepreneurs in the state with an investment of Rs 350 crore over the period of five years, as per ETTech report.
"We are proud to partner with the Haryana government to create more than 10,000 entrepreneurship opportunities across the state. To this end, we are planning to invest over Rs 350 crore in Haryana over the next 5 years," Chief Operating Officer, Ola, Pranay Jivrajka said in a statement.
Ola will work with the Haryana government to introduce innovative and customised mobility solutions like Ola Auto, Ola Bike, Ola Share and Ola Shuttle across the state. Jivrajka said Ola will work with the government to train and provide the required skill set to thousands of men and women across Haryana in an effort to make them entrepreneurs.Ola is present in five cities in Haryana including Gurgaon, Faridabad, Panchkula, Kurukshetra and Ambala, and plans to expand its services in the region further.
Hello Tax Raises Angel Round Of FundingHello Tax, an app that helps users fill income tax returns easily, has raised an angel round of funding from a high-profile investor, as per VCCircle report. Himanshu Kumar, co-founder, Hello Tax, said it will use this first round of external funding for marketing for the app.
“Hello Tax helps users keep track of their investment right from the beginning of the financial year. Users can also keep documents related to reimbursement like hotel, travel and food bills,” Kumar said.
The app, which is operated by Delhi-based iTechFlock Software Pvt Ltd, has raised Rs 2 crore ($294,000) from Sanjeev Sinha, chief managing director at brokerage firm Amrapali Aadya. Amrapali, which was launched in 2004, offers services such as online equity trading, mutual funds and insurance, among others.
The app is available for Android, iOS and Windows users. Users also have the option to upload their Form 16 for the same.
Ed-tech Startup MySuperBrain Raises Angel Round of FundingMySuperBrain, an online talent discovery platform for students operated by Hyderabad-based Bojja IT Solutions Pvt Ltd, has secured an undisclosed amount in angel funding from tech consultancy firm Soniks Consulting.
MySuperBrain plans to use the funds for marketing initiatives and augmenting the technology vertical, co-founder and CEO Raghavendar Reddy Bojja told Techcircle. The startup was founded in 2011 by IIM-Kozhikode alumni Bojja and Yuvaraju Atmakuri. It offers a platform for students to showcase their talent in academics and other activities such as music, dance and painting.
Matrix Partners Backed Home Products Marketplace Zimply Shuts Shop Matrix Partners-backed mobile marketplace for home décor and interior designing products, Zimply,has shut down its operations, a person familiar with the development told VCCircle. The website and app of the startup are also no longer accessible.
The startup, was founded by three IIT alumni — Baweja, Verma Ishaan Bhola and Verma in 2014. It allowed users to shop online for home and decoration products including furniture, décor and lighting. According to information available with VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle, the firm had raised around $510,000 (Rs 3.39 crore) last year from Matrix Partners and angel investors including Sahil Barua, co-founder of logistics startup Delhivery, and Pranay Chulet, co-founder and CEO of online classifieds company Quikr. The shutdown of Zimply further reiterates the fact that startups are fighting for survival as investors turn off the funding tap, putting pressure on startups to cut costs. While startups looking for their first cheque from investors haven’t been impacted as much, mid- and late-stage venture capital funding has slowed down this year as investors become cautious about pegging ever-higher valuations on firms without a clear visibility on revenue or operational growth as reported by Tech Circle.
BW Reporters
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.
