India Funding : CureFit to Raise Funding from Ratan Tata & Hrithik Roshan; Oyo Rooms to Raise $300-$500M & More

Here is a list of funding deals that happened in Indian Startup Ecosystem. Check out the brief description about all of them:

Ratan Tata and Bollywood Actor Hrithik Roshan in Talks to Invest in CureFit

Ratan Tata and Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan are in talks to invest in CureFit, a healthcare startup founded by Flipkart executives Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori. The startup has so far raised about $20 million and backed by venture capital firms such as Kalaari Capital, Accel Partners and IDG Ventures. Roshan wants to take an equity stake in the company.

“This partnership will mostly be a cash-plus-equity deal,” said Roshan, who worked with Bansal in Myntra for his lifestyle brand HRX. The deal is expected to be finalised in the next few months.

Tata’s new venture fund with University of California Investments is also in talks to invest in CureFit. Tata is already an angel investor in CureFit and the fresh investment could be a part of the new round of $15-20 million, which the startup plans to raise this year, reported ET.

Bengaluru Based Fintech Startup Finly.io Raises Funding

Digital payment company ItzCash has made an equity investment in Bengaluru-based fintech startup Finly.io. The startup which has developed an expense management tool for corporates, will use ItzCash’s prepaid card for expense management and disbursement. The deal is part equity investment and part business partnership, but did not disclose the amount.

Itzcash is also looking to make more investments and partnerships in the fintech space this year.

Oyo Rooms in Talks to Raise $300-$500M from SoftBank

Hotel aggregator Oyo Rooms is in talks to raise about $300-500 million (Rs 2,000-3,330 crore) from SoftBank Vision Fund, according to ET report. The deal, if successful, could value the Gurgaon-based startup — founded in 2012 by 23-year-old Ritesh Agarwal —at $1.2 billion (Rs 8,000 crore) making it the latest member of the Unicorn club.

SoftBank will likely hold over a 50% stake in Oyo if the transaction goes through. It is already an investor in Oyo, having invested $120 million across two rounds in 2015 and 2016 for over 25% stake in the company.

Gurgaon Based Startup Accelerator GSF Makes Fresh Investments in 5 Startups

Gurgaon-based startup accelerator Global Super Angels Forum (GSF) has made fresh investments in its fifth batch’s five startups. The five startups are, bot-assistant player YellowAnt, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven chatbot solution HeyMojo, deep-learning tech startup Silversparrow, app-based health program Breathe Wellbeing, and tech-enabled investment platform Oro Wealth.

GSF has invested $65,000-100,000 in each of these startups which will be heading to San Francisco and Tokyo in March to network with the tech ecosystems there. All the investors who backed these startups include GSF founder Rajesh Sawhney; Hiro Mashita, M&S PTE; Anand Chandrasekaran, Head of Platform and Product Partnerships at Facebook; Sumesh Menon, Founder of U2opia Mobile and Woo; Dinesh Agarwal, Founder of IndiaMart; Ashish Toshniwal, Founder of Y Media Labs, San Franscisco; and Sri Peddu, Powerhouse venture.

Jewellery eCommerce Marketplace Johari Shop Gets Angel Funding

Jewellery e-commerce marketplace Johari Shop has raised $94,000 (Rs 62.5 lakh) from three angel investors, to power its omni-channel efforts, reported VC Circle.

The startup aims to utilize the raised fundingl to work on its omni-channel strategy that would start with the launch of its first brick-and-mortar store in Bangalore’s VR mall by the end of February. The investors’ names are still undisclosed by the company.

Johari Shop wants to expand its physical retail presence to two more cities–Mumbai and Delhi–and plans to open 11 such stores over the course of next one year.

SoftBank is Close to Invest $3B in US Based Startup WeWork

Japan's SoftBank Group Corp is close to making an investment of over $3 billion in U.S. office-sharing startup WeWork, CNBC reported on Monday. SoftBank is looking at a $2 billion primary tranche of funding in New York-based WeWork, followed by a secondary round worth more than $1 billion.

The company could increase the size of the secondary investment to nearly $2 billion for a total investment of almost $4 billion. If the deal closed, WeWork would be valued at more than $20 billion.