Weekly Musings – Big start-up updates for the week to March 22, 2024

26 Mar 2024 , 07:33 AM

The start-up funding story continued its momentum in the latest week to March 22, 2024, with the fund raising at $205 Million in the week. This is lower than the previous week but slightly higher than the average of the last 5 weeks. There were several big ticket deals in the week, with Pocket FM accounting for more than half the total start-up fund raising for the week. What is material is that in 8 out of the last 9 weeks, the start-ups raised more than $100 Million per week.  In the 5 weeks prior to the current week, the start-up collections were to the tune of $2256 Million, $150 Million, $381 Million, $ 110 Million, and $125 Million. In the latest week to March 22, 2024, start-ups raised $205 Million across just 14 start-up deals, with Pocket FM account for more than half the fund raising.

The number of deals in the latest week stood at 14 deals; compared with 18 deals, 17 deals, 27 deals, 15 deals, and 18 deals respectively in the 5 weeks prior to that. That is indicative of a slew of big-ticket deals in the vicinity of over $15-20 Million on an average. Compared to the average of the last 5 weeks, the start-up funding in the latest week was 3.54% higher. On a week-on-week (WOW) basis the start-up collections were -9.29% lower. Ecommerce accounted for 30% of funding this week. Here is the 6-week start up story of India Inc.

Funding Week	Start-up funding raised
Week ending February 16, 2024	$125 Million
Week ending February 23, 2024	$110 Million
Week ending March 01, 2024	$381 Million
Week ending March 08, 2024	$150 Million
Week ending March 15, 2024	$226 Million
Average of previous 5 weeks	$198 Million
Week ending March 22, 2024	$205 Million

The start-up funding for the latest week ended March 22, 2024 was lower on week-on-week basis; but slightly higher than the average of the previous five weeks. Early stage start-up funding in the current week saw a 3-fold rise over the previous week at $19.25 Million. While equity dominated, there is increasing reliance on debt too. OTT platform dominated the start-up funding scene sectorally, but that was largely about just one deal of Pocket FM.

Pocket FM raises $103 Million to fuel its global OTT expansion

In the biggest round of funding this week, account for more than half the funding amount, Pocket FM raised $103 Million (₹857 Crore) in a Series-D round led by Lightspeed Ventures and Stepstone Group. The fund will be used by Pocket FM to expand its presence in the US, Europe and in Latin America. The funding round values the company at an enterprise valuation of nearly $750 Million. Pocket FM boasts of a robust content library of audio series catering to a strong consumption behaviour on the platform. The OTT channel is looking to reshape the future of entertainment. The focus of Pocket FM will continue to be on tapping into unique and exclusive stories to solidify leadership in this emerging category. Pocket FM is also looking to create strong IP playbook.

Good Glamm Group In Talks To Raise $70 Million at Unicorn valuations

The Global Glamm group is in advanced talks to raise about $70 Million (₹585 Crore), which will value the company at close to $1.20 Billion. Nearly half the funding round is expected to be raised from new investors while the other half will come from existing investors like Prosus Ventures and Bessemer Partners. However, since the deal is not concluded, it has not been included in the total fund raising calculations for the week. Global Glamm group is also eyeing an IPO and a listing by Diwali next year. The Global Glamm group is a content-to-commerce platform, and the funds are being raised as part of its Series-E funding.

Curefoods gets $25 Million funding from Binny Bansal

Curefoods has raised a cool $25 Million (₹209 Crore) as funding from Three State Ventures, a start-up funding outfit owned by former Flipkart honcho and founder, Binny Bansal. The fund raising is likely to value the company at around $400 Million. Curefoods will use the funds to expand its online business; apart from some of its popular brands like Nomad Pizza and Sharief Bhai Biryani. This is part of the ongoing ₹300 Crore funding series that started in April 2023. Curefoods is a cloud kitchen start-up based out of Bengaluru. Binny Bansal has now already invested up to ₹500 Crore in this venture. Recently, Curefoods had roped in the former CEO of Tata Starbucks to lead their operations.

Jumbotail Pockets raises $18.3 Million to scale up its GTM product suite

Jumbotail Pockets has just raised around $18.3 Million (₹151 Crore) to help brands reach more Kirana outlets across India. The fresh funds will help scale up its suite of GTM (Go-To-Market) products and services for new and emerging brands to reach mass market consumers. The vehicle will be the all-India Kirana store network. Jumbotail Pockets is also currently working on development of an AI-driven technology platform to trigger higher customer wallet share. This will be done by leveraging deep sourcing capabilities across FMCG and staples across its Kirana value chain. Jumbotail is a 100% digital order company.

Optimo Loan bags $10 Million to strengthen its MSME lending stack

Optimo Loan, founded by Prashant Pitti of EaseMyTrip, has raised seed funding to the tune of $10 Million (₹83 Crore) from Blume Ventures and Omnivore. Optimo will use the fresh funds to expand its operations across India, enhance the technology stack, broaden its human talent base and to expand to 20 locations in rural India. Optimo Loan is currently building a co-lending platform for MSMEs, with a unique underwriting methodology. There will also be additional infusion by the founder, Prashant Pitti. The idea of this venture is also to promote social and financial inclusion for the unbanked sections of the Indian population, which is line with the vision of the Modi government.

Subko Coffee gets $10 Million from NK Squared for 25% stake

Subko Coffee has bagged $10 Million (₹83 Crore) from NK Squared, the venture funding outfit backed by the co-founders of Zerodha. Nearly 80% of the funding contribution in this round came from NK Squared with the balance coming from Blume Ventures and Progressive LLP. NK Squared will get 25% stake in Subko Coffee against this funding infusion, which values Subko Coffee at around ₹290 Crore. Subko Coffee offers caffeinated drinks, baked goods, and coffee roasters based out of Mumbai. This is part of the Series-B round of funding. Subko Coffee’s existing investors include Jay Mehta, Gauri Khan, and John Abraham. The company competes in the market against Third Wave Coffee, Blue Tokai, Rage Coffee, Slay Coffee, Sleepy Owl, and Seven Beans.

Liquidnitro Games raises $5.25 Million to deploy artificial intelligence stack

Liquidnitro Games has just got $5.25 Million (₹43 Crore) from Prosus Ventures in a seed funding round. Liquidnitro was founded in the year 2023 to leverage data, AI and technology driven insights to craft fun and engaging experiences for players. The funds raised will be used to build a world class studio as well as to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and enhance its technology stack to boost production pipelines and offer live services capabilities at economies of scale. Essentially, Liquidnitro partners with games studios and IP owners worldwide to help expand into new markets and unlock value. Gaming has been a big growth sector in India, although venture funding has been quite spasmodic.

Sprih gets $3 Million kitty to assist companies curb carbon emissions

Sprih, the cleantech start-up, has just bagged $3 Million (₹25 Crore) in funding from Leo Capital. Sprih plans to use these funds for sales and marketing activities to support its global expansion efforts. The company was founded in 2022 to offer AI-powered cleantech platform to help companies streamline their path towards attaining green sustainability. It offers technological solutions helping enterprises in creating a data-driven strategy that is immediately actionable. Apart from using the funds to expand its presence, the company will also invest in high quality talent for creation of AI models centred on climate, and also look to broaden and deepen its partner ecosystem. Sprih caters to companies across a cross-section of industries like manufacturing, construction, chemicals, paints, pharma, IT, and higher education.

HCIN Networks gets $1.50 Million to boost networking solutions portfolio

HCIN Networks raised $1.50 Million (₹12.50 Crore) to expand its reach in the telecom and internet infrastructure sector. The funds will also be used to streamline implementation of current projects. Its portfolio of clients serviced include big names like Bharti Airtel, Indus Towers, Reliance Retail, Hughes Communications, Lenskart etc. The funding came entirely from Swatika Investmart. It has an existing order book position of around ₹40 Crore.

Beatoven gets $1.30 Million to offer AI-powered music creation solutions

Beatoven, which caters to content creators helping them earn royalty, has just raised $1.30 Million (₹11 Crore) from IVY Cap Ventures and others. The funding will be used by Beatoven to trigger growth across user experience, editing features, etc. The start-up reportedly has over 1 Million users globally, with 96% of its revenues coming from global markets. The fresh capital will also be deployed to grow its team across research and development for music creation and composition. The company will also create a scalable go-to-market strategy so as to be able to have a persistent funnel of new users globally.

Apart from these, there were also other fund raising efforts in the week like Vobble which got funding of $1 Million in seed funding. Vobble is an audio content platform focussed on children aged between 4 to 12 years. The funding came from Lumikai and Blume Founders Fund.