Some of the big star-up funding deals of the week included Lenskart, Indifi, Idea Forge, Home Land and Unnati. The start-up funding value in the week to June 16, 2023 was 44% higher compared to the previous week. The fund raises were spread across online retailing, drone start-ups and Agritech businesses.
Start-up funding bounces to $190 million in the week
For the week ended June 16, 2023 the start-ups saw fund raising of $190 million across a total of 21 deals on the street. That is 44% higher compared to the previous week, but then the previous was sharply lower so the base effect may have played a role. In a mega funding round, Piyush Bansal owned Lenskart bagged $100 million funding from ChrysCapital. Lenskart is hungry for cash and has raised nearly $850 million in the last on year itself. Lenskart will use the funds to spruce up its eyewear business. It has consistently tried to position eyewear as a lifestyle category. Meanwhile Indifi, the lending tech start-up, has bagged $35 million from ICICI Venture, British International, Omidyar Network etc. Indifi will use the funds to expand its presence, especially in the MSME sector.
Delhi may have banned hailing cabs and made life tough for them, but Mumbai appears to be more open. Recently, Mumbai based Everest Fleet bagged $20 million funding from Uber. The funding will allow Everest Fleet to upgrade its fleet from a pure CNG fleet to an EV plus CNG fleet. Everest Fleet targets 10,000 EVs in the fleet by 2026. In another significant deal, drone major, Idea Forge has raised Rs60 crore in a pre-IPO round. The IPO is expected to open later this month at a size of Rs650 crore. Investors in the pre-IPO round included Tata AIG General Insurance, Motilal Oswal and 360-one Asset Management. In another deal during the week, home interior solutions company, Home Lane, bagged Rs75 crore funding from existing investors. MS Dhoni is an investor in this start-up. These funds will help them accelerate growth and expansion plans.
Then there were smaller rounds of funding too during the week. MyKare, the start-up that connects patients with hospitals, raised $2.01 million to invest more in the value chain. It will invest in manpower and customer experience. It has over 85,000 registered patients and tie-ups with over 200 hospitals. In another round, EV scooter start-up, Starya Mobility, bagged $2 million from Ah Ventures and Exedy Clutch India. The idea is to create better technology EV scooters that can climb gradients with an angle as steep as 21 degrees. Finally, online B2B marketplace, Yarn Bazaar also bagged $1.8 million funding to expand its operations. Yarn Bazaar is a one-stop shop for all yarn related requirements. Several family offices were also active in this funding round.
Here is a quick look at the other side; which is the PE fund raising activity. Tiger Global, which had targeted raising $6 billion for its latest fund would now have to be content with $2.7 billion. This would be the 16th Private Equity Fund from Tiger Global. Much of this cash is likely to be deployed into India. In another deal, Proparco has invested $35 million into Quadria Capital, a healthtech focussed PE outfit. Quadria has invested in India also and Medi Buddy of Bengaluru is one of its holdings. The moral of the story is that, even though the action may not be robust, there is still appetite for good start-up ideas.
Big start-up strategies this week?
Here is a quick take on some of the key start-up strategies evidenced last week.
Start-up story of the week – Can Indian Fintechs become $100 billion ventures
To be fair, that day may not be fair off, at least if you go by what Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retail, feels about the India potential. Wal-Mart owns two outstanding digital properties in India viz. Flipkart and Phone Pe. Now, in a recent public statement, Wal-Mart has stated that it expects these two companies to touch $100 billion businesses. They are expecting strong tailwinds in the form of a robustly growing market place to boost the valuation of these companies to above $100 billion. Both are decacorns already and as per the latest fund raising, Flipkart is valued at close to $35 billion.
Wal-Mart has been quite vocal that it expects the Indian market to outgrow the Chinese market by the end of the current calendar year. That would give a lot of bargaining power to India in the global sweepstakes. That may not happen immediately, but that is surely something to hope for.
Finally, in an otherwise moderate week for start-up funding, Indian start-ups like Paytm, Nykaa, Delhivery and Zomato gained sharply from lower levels. Of course, they are still far from their IPO prices, but the bounce is encouraging for sure. One must await to see if higher levels invite P/E funds to dump holdings. That may not be a great sign.
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