Funds

Fintech company Clear, formerly known as ClearTax, announced on Monday that it raised $75 million in a Series C funding round led by Kora Capital, Stripe, Alua Capital, Think Investment and existing investors.

Bengaluru-based performing arts academy, Kafqa Academy announced that it has secured $1.3 million in pre-launch funding from leading institutional investors & tech entrepreneurs. Founded by Shariq Plasticwala, former director at Amazon India, Kafqa Academy aims to serve artists from their first step in the performing arts to their success on the largest stages in the world.

India’s largest platform-first martech startup, Wondrlab, has raised $7 million in a round of pre-series funding. The round was led by Pi Ventures LLP, Tanas Capital, Prodapt Holdings and several independent investors including Priyamvada Balaji of Lucas Indian Service and Gopal Srinivasan of TVS Capital.

CarDekho, India’s largest car search platform, has announced a $250mn round of funding that included $200mn Series E equity and $50mn debt in its pre IPO round. With the latest fundraising, CarDekho joins the unicorn club with a valuation of $1.2bn and becomes the first unicorn based in Jaipur, Rajasthan.

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.