Funds

Niro, a homegrown embedded consumer lending Fintech, has raised $3.5 Mn in a seed funding round led by Elevar Equity. The funding also saw participation from angel investors like Kunal Shah, Nitin Gupta, Bala Parthasarathy, the Patni Family Office, R. Ramaraj & Aseem Dhru.

Aqua Security, an Israel-based leading pure-play cloud-native security provider with operations in India, has recently concluded its first-ever Aquathon, a global employee well-being initiative. Proceeds of the initiative will go directly to COVID relief support for India, focused on helping the families whose breadwinners have succumbed to coronavirus.

GTM Buddy, a sales-tech SaaS startup, has announced that it has raised $2 million in its seedround, led by Stellaris Venture Partners. Founded by Sreedhar Peddineni, a serial entrepreneur, along with co-founders Santa Thounaojam, Sundar Vellaichamy, and Chandramani Tiwary, GTM Buddy is reimagining the sales enablement category and intends to be a category disruptor

Bikayi, one of the fastest-growing mobile-commerce enablers, has raised $10.8 million in Series-A funding round led by Sequoia Capital India. Earlier in August 2020, the company had raised $2 million as a part of its seed round of funding led by Y Combinator.

JSW Paints, India’s environment-friendly paints company and part of the US$ 13 billion JSW Group, has entered the Delhi market. It is offering consumers in Delhi a portfolio of 1808 water-based decorative paints for their homes. Indian Olympic Gold Medallist Neeraj Chopra flagged-off the product roll-out in Delhi during a retailers’ function organized in the city. The company is planning to establish a strong retail presence across the Delhi market by March 2022.

Gurgaon-based HR Tech Startup Advantage Club today announced that it has raised USD 1.7 Million in a fresh round led by Y-Combinator, Broom Ventures, Liquid.vc, and Kunal Shah. Leading angel investors from the US, Middle East and Southeast Asia also participated in the funding round.

The 10,000 Crore Metal Packaging Industry which is already distressed with the implementation of the Quality Control Order (QCO) is now irked by yet another decision of the government as Steel sector does not come under the ambit of RoDTEP scheme.

Stellaris Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm, has announced the closing of its second fund at $225 million. In addition to strong support from existing Limited Partners, the fund saw participation from several new global institutions.

Canara Robeco Asset Management Company Limited announces the launch of their new fund offer (NFO), Canara Robeco Value Fund - an open-ended equity scheme that would follow a value investment strategy, to invest in businesses that are trading at a price less than their intrinsic values and are expected to realise their true worth in the future.

Online higher education portal upGrad has made it to the unicorn list with latest funding of $185 million at a market valuation of $1.2 billion. The Ronnie Screwvala-headed edtech company raised funds from the Singapore-based Temasek, World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) and IIFL in the last 60 days. The Mumbai-based edtech firm had raised $120 million from Temasek.