Weekly Musings – Big start-up updates for the week to January 19, 2024

22 Jan 2024 , 08:05 AM

After start-ups raised $1 billion in December, the first 3 weeks of January has seen just about one-fourth or $250 million raised till date. In the previous two weeks; the start-ups had raised $58 million and $145 million respectively. In the latest week to January 19, 2024, start-ups raised $136 million across 21 start-up deals. Once again, the start-up story was dominated by a handful of names in the segment.

The number of deals were lower at just 21 deals, compared to 25 deals last week. That is indicative of a lot of mid-ticket deals in the vicinity of around $4-$5 million on an average. Compared to the average of the last 5 weeks, the start-up funding in the latest week was -41.9% lower, largely due to the substantial funds raised by start-ups in the second and third week of December 2023. Here is the story of start-up fund raising over the last 6 weeks.

Funding Week	Start-up funding raised
Week ending December 15, 2023	$527 million
Week ending December 22, 2024	$349 million
Week ending December 29, 2023	$90 million
Week ending January 05, 2024	$58 million
Week ending January 12, 2024	$145 million
Average of previous 5 weeks	$234 million
Week ending January 19, 2024	$136 million

The start-up funding for the latest week ended January 19, 2024 was lower by -12.4% on a week-on-week basis, but sharply lower by -41.9% compared to the average of the last 5 weeks. In fact, the start-up funding for the week marked the second consecutive week when start-up funding was above $100 million. In 4 out of the last 6 weeks, the start-up funding has stayed above the $100 million mark. Clearly, the momentum of December appears to be rubbing off on January also, although the quantum of start-up funding in the last two quarters remains sharply lower on a yoy basis. Here is the story of the major start-up funding deals of the week; with the details of the financers and the application of the funds.

Wow! Momo gets $42 million to expand its QSR brand

Khazanah Nasional Bhd, the Malaysian Sovereign Fund, will infuse $42 million (Rs350 crore) into Wow! Momo, a leading QSR start-up brand in India. The investment will be a mix of primary and secondary infusion. Apart from Khazanah, exiting investor (OAKS Asset) will also participate to the tune of Rs60 crore in the start-up funding round of Wow! Momo. 

The funding round will be used by the company for fuelling the rapid growth and expansion of the QSR (quick service restaurant) brand. It will also deploy funds to strengthen distribution and R&D. Apart from its flagship Wow! Momo brand, its other brands like Wow! China and Wow! Chicken are also very popular brands.

International Battery Company (IBC) bags $35 million for India expansion plans

IBC is planning to set up an EV battery green battery manufacturing facility in Karnataka in India. The funding of $35 million (Rs291 crore) is intended towards expanding its India manufacturing plans. The funding round was led by RTP Global with participation from Beenext, Veda VC and other strategic global investors base out of the US and South Korea. 

IBC offers rechargeable batteries to its customers operating in small mobility sectors, and its plant is scheduled to go operational from year 2025 onwards. The $35 million funding is part of its Pre-Series-A funding round led by RTP Global, with participation from Beenext, Veda VC and a few other strategic Korean and US Investors.

OneCard raises $14.4 million to offer innovative products

Fintech play, OneCard has raised $14.4 million (Rs120 crore) from Alteria Capital. The funds will be used by OneCard will be deployed for innovating products and enhancing customer experience in the fintech space. Incidentally, OneCard offers credit card-related services like credit score check and expense management application. 

The fund infusion was done into FPL Technologies, which is the parent company of OneCard. Interestingly, this funding comes exactly two weeks after Alteria Capital had extended a loan of Rs95 crore to OneCard. Alteria has a fairly interesting start-up portfolio in India; including Rebel Foods, Spinny, Mensa Brands and Zepto. 

FinAGG raises $11 million to enhance credit offerings to MSMEs

In its latest round, FinAGG has raised $11 million (Rs91.40 crore) in a funding round led by Blue Orchard and Tata Capital. FinAGG will use the funds raised to expand and scale up its offline and online presence. The funds will also go towards sharpening its global outreach, and driving product innovation. 

Incidentally, FinAGG offers credit solutions to distributors, retailers and MSMEs that are part of the upstream and downstream supply chain of a brand. Apart from Blue Orchard and Tata Capital, the SIDBI and Prime Venture Partners also participated in this round of funding. Prime is an existing investor in FinAGG.

Alt Mobility raises $6 million to scale up EV Asset Management Platform

Alt Mobility was founded by Dev Arora, Anuj Gupta, Manas Arora, Harsh Goyal, and Jayant Gupta in the year 2021. It has raised $6 million (Rs50 crore) in a Pre-Series-A funding round. The funding round was led by Shell Ventures, Eurazeo, EV2 Ventures and Twynam. Alt Mobility enables third party rapid EV fleet management through its asset management platform. This frees up time and resources for the EV company. 

Alt Mobility will use the funding for adding to its team strength, scaling up its engineering team and to add more heft to FleetOS, its EV asset management platform. Alt Mobility also has aggressive plans in the future to launch new verticals within its business model. These include drive-to-own model, parametric insurance, fleet depots (parking and charging), battery refurbishment unit. The funding round of $6 million was a mix of debt and equity.

AquaExchange raises $6 million funding to boost its aquaculture vertical

AquaExchange has raised $6 million (Rs50 crore) funding from London-based PE firm Ocean 14. Apart from Ocean 14, the round also saw participation from existing investors like Endiya Partners and Accion Venture Labs. AquaExchange will use the funds to scale up the adoption of its platform and tap into select international markets for exports. The product portfolio of AquaExchange includes IOT (internet of things) powered feed automation and power management devices.

Groyyo gets $5.4 million to offer manufacturing solutions to MSMEs

Groyyo the B2B (business to business) manufacturing and supply chain enablement startup, raised $5.40 million (Rs45 crore) as part of its debt funding round. The funding was led by Lighthouse Canton and Trifecta Capital. Groyyo offers manufacturing solutions to MSMEs in the fashion and lifestyle industries. This solution is offered through a unified platform, which allows these MSMEs to expand and scale up their business ventures, without very heavy upfront investments required. Groyyo will also be stacking up tis technology stack, boost its finances and reinforce its strategic commitment to rethink the manufacturing sector. An order management application will be used to help out the MSMEs in Delhi NCR region.

BuyEazzy secures $4.25 million funding to expand into remote pockets

In a Series-A round funding, BuyEazzy secured $4.25 million (Rs35.30 crore). The funding came from Info Edge Ventures, with participation from existing investors like Incubate Fund Asia and M-Venture Partners. BuyEazzy was founded by Rahul Aggarwal and in 2021 in Mysuru to cater to the unfulfilled beauty and wellness needs of consumers in the Tier-II cities. Generally, these smaller cities have limited access to a wide assortment of beauty products is limited. BuyEazzy will use the fresh funds so raised to expand to more than 40 cities across key geographies and also to add about 2 million customers offline. 

Upswing secures $4.2 million to build array of deposit and lending products

Upswing Financial Technologies raised $4.2 million (Rs35 crore) in a pre-series-A round of funding. Upswing is an open finance B2B ecosystem enabler. The funding round was led by Quona Capital, with participation from existing investors, QED Investors. Mumbai based Upswing will deploy the fresh funds to expand footprint of its multi-bank deposit product. It will also use the funds for building new products in the deposits and lending space. Upswing was founded by ex-bankers in 2021 and offers low-code SAAS (software as a service) based banking platform so clients can embed banking products in their offerings. Upswing targets Fintech and ConsumerTech players for its seamless financial services offerings.

zbyte secures $4 million funding to enable Web3 adoption across verticals

zbyte, the Web3 startup, raised $4 million (Rs33.20 crore) in a strategic funding round from Cartography Capital and Quarterback Financial. it includes additional funding commitment of $1 million to be infused at a future date. Zbyte, the web3 start-up, will use the fresh capital infusion to ramp up hiring, accelerate product development and demonstrate use cases of the new platform. It had recently announced the launch of Mainnet, the fully developed and deployed blockchain protocol. Zbyte, founded in 2021, enables developers to build on existing protocols through its low-code and no-code platform.

INDRA gets $4 million funding for its B2B Water Purification Solutions

Cleantech solutions provider, INDRA, raised $4 million (Rs33.20 crore) in Series-A funding. The funding round was led by Mela Ventures and Emerald Technology Ventures; with participation from Peak Sustainability Ventures and The Climate Angels. INDRA was founded in 2017 by Amrit Nayak and Krunal Patel, to solve complex problem of water treatment in industrial and sewage segment. INDRA offers innovative electro-chemical oxidation and coagulation process solution to treat water on a B2B basis. Its current cleantech offering, a plug-and-play solution, occupies 90% less space compared to peer solutions and recovers 99% of treated water. INDRA, reportedly, generated 4500 tons less sludge, used 3600 tons lower harmful chemicals and lowered greenhouse gases by 850 tonnes. 

KisanKonnect raises $3.7 million to boost agriculture playbook

KisanKonnect is a Mumbai based omnichannel farm-to-fork startup. The start-up has just raised $3.7 million (Rs31 crore) in a pre-Series-A funding round led by Green Frontier Capital. Additionally, the funding round also saw participation from Dhanuka Agritech and VC Grid, apart from other family offices. KisanKonnect will use the funds to enhance its activities in climate-smart agriculture interventions with its 5,000 farmers. In addition, KisanKonnect will also use the funds to strengthen its fresh-produce supply chain technology and add new farm stores to existing ones in Mumbai and Pune. KisanKonnect does away with middle men in the supply chain by sourcing food directly from its network of farmers via village-level collection centres. The company sells farm products directly to customers through its D2C platform to over 1 lakh customers at present. 

InPrime Finserv secures $3 million funding to scale up its loan portfolio

InPrime Finserv, the Bengaluru based digital NBFC and fintech player, has raised funding of $3 million (Rs24 crore) in a Series-A funding round led by Matrix Partners. InPrime Finserv will use the fresh funds to expand its geographical footprint, strengthen risk, engineering, analytics, and sales, and to obviously scale up its loan portfolio. InPrime provides financial services to the informal economy in India. Apart from Matrix Partners, existing investors of InPrime Finserv like InfoEdge Ventures, Titan Capital and Kettleborough also participated in this funding round. 

Other funding stories for the week to January 19, 2024

In addition to the above, there were other smaller rounds of funding that happened during the week in the start-up space. 

1. Jeh Aerospace, the Hyderabad based aerospace and defence manufacturing startup, raised $2.75 million(Rs21 crore) in a seed funding round led by General Catalyst. 

    

2. Adya.ai bagged $1.2 million (Rs10 crore) funding from India Angels Network (IAN) to help small enterprises to build apps on the ONDC platform. 

    

3. Finally, Zingavita, the D2C wellness brand, also raised $1.2 million (Rs10 crore) to foray into the Ayurveda space. It will use the funds for expansion and new products. 

Start-up funding in the week to January 19, 2024 may be lower in terms of amount, but continues to be robust in terms of the spread of start-up funding deals. That is good news.