Weekly Funding Roundup: It's raining Unicorns!

In the past week, the Indian Startup Ecosystem witnessed a burgeoning number of Unicorns. It was a running joke on Twitter that read: Very anxious since 7 AM- "Kaun Banega Unicorn Aaj?". . With 6 startups turning Unicorns in a span of four days, the total funds raised crossed $2.5 Bn. That is, in the second week of April, we saw 25% of 2020 funding in only 4 months of 2021.

CRED, Groww, PharmEasy, ShareChat, GupShup and Meesho crosses a valuation of $1 Bn. But here are some other notable investments of Week 2 of April.

1. Kudos

Digital lending infrastructure company Kudos has raised an undisclosed amount of Pre-Series A funding from top tier fintech founders and super angels. The stellar group of investors include Nithin Kamath of Zerodha, Nitin Gupta of UNI, Patanjali Somayaji of Walnut, Sumit Maniyar of Rupeek, Nischal Shetty of WazirX, Anish Achuthan of Open Banking, Ganesh Rao of NOCP & ex-Suryoday Microfinance, Amit Choudhary of DawaaDost & ex-Motilal Oswal, the entire leadership team of One Card and Vaibhav Domkundwar of Better Capital who has been a strategic advisor to the company.

2. AntWak

AntWak, the Bengaluru-based experiential learning startup, has raised seed funding led by Matrix Partners India. The round also saw participation from Kunal Shah, Founder, CRED, and Vaibhav Domkundwar, Founder, Better Capital. With this funding, AntWak said it plans to invest deeper in content and education infrastructure. It will also build world-class marketing and inside sales team.

3. PlayShifu

Augmented reality technology startup PlayShifu on Tuesday raised Series B funding of $17 million from Inventus Capital India with Inflexor Ventures joining as a new investor. Existing investors Chiratae Ventures and Bharat Innovation Fund also participated in this round.

4. Karnival

The seed round worth $250K in Karnival witnessed participation from marquee investors. Some of the prominent names were including Krishna Kumar- Founder Simplilearn, Dravya Dholakia -Dholakia Ventures, Shashwat Kumar- Khetal Advisors Singapore, Abhay Tandon, Dinesh Agrawal, Avnish Sabharwal, Abhishek Kishore Gupta, Suman Das. Further, We Founder Circle led the funding round. Karnival had previously raised USD 35K in the pre-seed round in 2020 from Sanjay Mehta backed 100X.VC

5. Redis Lab

Redis Labs today announced it has closed $110 million in financing led by a new investor, Tiger Global, which brings the company’s valuation to more than $2 billion. The company’s Series G round also includes participation from another new investor, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and existing Redis Labs investor TCV. Additionally, Tiger, SoftBank, and TCV acquired additional ownership as part of a $200 million secondary transaction.

6. Superpro.ai

Superpro.ai, the world’s first video communication workflows platform, has raised USD 300K as part of their Seed Round led by IvyCap Ventures Angel Fund. The funding round also saw the participation of Penthalon Ventures, ah! Ventures and Superpro.ai’s existing investor SOSV. Besides, angel investors including Piyush Prahladka (ex-Google, ex-Uber), Gopi Vikranth (Associate Principal at ZS, ex-Mu-sigma) from the US have also participated.

7. Pitstop

Pitstop, a Bengaluru-based tech-enabled multi-brand car service provider, said it raised $3.5 million in a pre-Series B round led by Ventureast. ACKO Technologies, LetsVenture, AngelList India, and Blume Ventures, among others, also participated in the round.

8. PumPumPum

PumPumPum, India’s only startup to offer ‘Used Car Leasing’ in the corporate and retail segment has secured Rs 5.5 crore Pre-Series A funding led by Inflection Point Ventures. Lets Venture & Agility Ventures also participated in the funding round. Further, PumPumPum plans to utilise the capital for category disruption, consumer awareness. It also aims to look at technology development, brand building and expansion.

9. Puresh Daily

Tabling dairy and fresh farm produce to end customers in 'Bharat', Ranchi-based Puresh Daily has caused a lot of excitement within the Indian angel investment network. Recently, the food-tech startup has raised ₹1.2 crores in its seed round. The funding round was led by Dhianu Das of Alfa ventures and Agility Venture Partners.

10. Avanti Finance

Tech-led NBFC Avanti Finance on Wednesday said it raised $26 million (Rs 195 crore) in Series A and debt from Oikocredit, Nomura, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Technopreneur-cum-philanthropist Pratul Shroff and existing investor NRJN Trust also participated in the round.

11. Spinny

Gurugram-based online used car retailing platform, Spinny, on Thursday announced that it has raised $ 65 million in a Series C round led by silicon valley based venture capital firm, General Catalyst. GC is also the early backers of Airbnb, Stripe, Snapchat, Vroom, Cazoo, etc. Other new investors in the round include Feroz Dewan’s Arena Holdings and Think Investments. In addition to these, the round also saw participation from existing investors Elevation Capital, the Fundamentum Partnership, and others. The additional funding takes the overall funds raised by Spinny to date to more than $120 million.

12. Goseeko

Digital Futurists Angels Network (DFAN), a global, community-backed Angel network has invested an undisclosed amount in Edtech startup Goseeko Technologies Pvt. Ltd.