Exclusive: EnCashea in talks to buy smaller rival RaddiMan; raises funding from Kunal Shah, others

Bangalore-based scrap collection and recycling startup EnCashea has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from FreeCharge co-founders Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon, Tracxn Labs and a group of unnamed investors. The company is now in advanced talks to acquire its city-based rival RaddiMan, a person privy to the development told TechCircle.in.

In addition, EnCashea has held a couple of rounds talks with one of the most active angel investors in India to raise its Series A round.

Priyank Jain, co-founder and CEO of EnCashea, declined to comment on the possible acquisition and its next fund raising, but confirmed the angel investment.

The angel investment, raised a few months ago, was used to build its Android app, strengthen team, enhance its warehouse capabilities and to expand operations to more localities in Bangalore, Jain said.

Operated by EnCashea Technologies Pvt. Ltd, the startup was founded in August 2015 by Jain along with Harshal Chaudhari and Rahul Jaiswal, all IIT graduates. Jain worked with Avendus Capital and Dezyre in the past while Chaudhari was associated with Schlumberger and Ather Energy, and Jaiswal worked with Tavant Technologies, Fiscal Services and Snapwiz before launching EnCashea.

The startup enables users to schedule scrap pickup both on its website and Android app. It doesn't have any minimum order as of now. It collects segregated, recyclable scrap from both households and corporates and sells directly to paper mills and e-waste recyclers, thus becoming the only middleman between scrap generator and scrap recycler.

"We provide an end-o-end solution to ensure that the waste you generate gets recycled properly," Jain said.

It currently operates only in Bangalore, but plans to expand to either Chennai or Hyderabad post the next round of funding. Jain said the company was clocking about Rs 70,000 in revenues in December last year but grew its business to generate around Rs 8 lakh last month.

"We have been doing about 140 monthly orders in December, last month we did 1,100 orders and have served more than 7,000 households so far," he said.

Corporate orders account for about 15% of the business currently and the rest comes from households. The company plans to grow its corporate business to equal to that of households. EnCashea counts HP, Apple, Swiggy and Urban Ladder among its corporate clients.

It offers prices in different bands for consumers.

RaddiMan was founded by Shobha Rani, a school teacher-turned-entrepreneur, in May 2015. The company, which claims to have recycled almost 35 tonnes of scrap so far, is actively operational in East Bangalore and some part of South Bangalore.

"The two companies are currently evaluating the opportunity. The discussions are in an advanced stage and a deal could be inked in a couple of weeks," said the person cited above. "RaddiMan enjoys a strong customer base. Therefore, the market is what really attracted EnCashea's attention. Also, RaddiMan has a strong, talented team which EnCashea will be absorbing post the acquisition," the person said.

Other startups in the scrap collection and waste management segment include KabadiExpress, Pastiwala, Karma Recycling, Pom Pom, ExtraCarbon and Attero Recycling.

In what could be one of the biggest investments in this space in India, Noida-based Attero Recycling Pvt. Ltd, which is into e-waste disposal and management, raised $16.5 million in its Series C round led by private equity fund Forum Synergies (India) in August 2014.

Most recently, KabadiExpress raised Rs 1 crore (about $147,000) from a Delhi-based investor in June this year while e-waste management startup Karma Recycling raised an undisclosed amount in June last year from Infuse Ventures and Low Carbon Enterprise Fund, a fund managed by Environmental Resources Management Foundation.

Gurgaon-based waste management company ExtraCarbon secured Rs 1.5 crore ($225,000) in a round led by Brand Capital, the ad-for-equity investment arm of Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL).

Vododara-based waste paper collection and recycling startup Sort India Enviro Solutions Ltd, which operates under the brand Pastiwala, had raised $4 million (approximately Rs 25 crore) from Agnus Capital, a private investment arm of the promoters of public listed drug maker Strides Arcolab.

Like this report? Sign up for our daily newsletter to get our top reports.