Deal Roundup: Zomato, Xpressbees, Ather mop up 90% of weekly startup funding

Three growth stage firms -- Zomato, Xpressbees and Ather Energy -- together scooped up $291 million or 91% of the $320 million raised by startups in the second week of November.

Zomato’s latest tranche to its pre-IPO round was the largest fundraising of the week while Xpressbees replenished its war chest to expand delivery footprint to cover the entire country, and Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal further increased his stake in electric scooter manufacturer Ather Energy.

This week saw a 5-fold week-on-week jump in startup dealmaking which stood at $60.5 million in last week. 

Of the 23 startups that raised funds this week, 19 were early stage deals. Six of them did not disclose the sum raised. Rental startup Furlenco was the other growth stage company that secured capital this week.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) made two overseas acquisitions this week -- select assets of Pramerica Systems Ireland and Postbank Systems, Germany -- to strengthen its global delivery capabilities and growth outlook.

On the VC fundraising front, venture debt firms BlackSoil and Stride Ventures raised capital.

Funding

Zomato: Zomato added Rs 1,085 crore ($145.8 million) more to its ongoing growth funding round from a clutch of global private equity funds, alternative asset management firms and hedge fund players. Seoul-based Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, London-based Steadview Capital, New York-based Luxor Capital Group and Lugard Road Capital, ASP India Fund and London Stock Exchange-listed Pacific Horizon Investment Trust have participated in this tranche.

Xpressbees: Pune-based logistics platform Xpressbees raised $110 million in a growth funding round, led by Investcorp, Norwest Venture Partners and Gaja Capital.

Ather Energy: Bengaluru-based Ather Energy secured $35 million in a growth round, dubbed as Series D, led by Sachin Bansal. Bansal, an angel investor in Ather, has so far invested $53 million in the company. The round also saw participation from returning investor Hero MotoCorp. The motorcycle major has thus far invested close to $62 million in the company across multiple rounds since 2016.

Furlenco: Furniture rental startup Furlenco bagged Rs 53 crore ($7.1 million) in debt financing from multiple investors including Rangoli Resorts, Beeline Impex, Aditya Burman and  Crescent Enterprises. The startup’s board has also passed a resolution to raise around Rs 39.1-47.6 crore in equity funding. 

Slice: Bangalore-based Slice, a digital lending platform targeted at young professionals and students, secured Rs 39 crore (about $5.2 million) in debt funding from Vivriti Capital, Northern Arc Capital, InCred, Growth Source, Ashv and others.

E learning platform FrontRow, p2p (peer-to-peer) ecommerce startup CityMall, online communications management services provider Uolo, AI (artificial intelligence) sales assistant startup Nektar.ai, and enterprise mobility firm Routematic are among the startups that raised investments this week.

M&A

TCS-Pramerica Systems Ireland: TCS said it will acquire staff and select assets of Pramerica Systems Ireland, from Prudential Financial (PFI) to expand its global delivery capabilities. The arrangement, from Prudential’s subsidiary based in Letterkenny, Ireland, will see TCS absorb over 1,500 staff.

TCS- Postbank Systems: The Mumbai-based firm also announced the acquisition of Bonn, Germany based Postbank Systems, the technology services unit of Deutsche Bank, by the end of 2020. The deal will help TCS scale its presence in Germany and strengthen its growth outlook. Post deal, the 1,500 Postbank Systems employees will join TCS.

Park Place Technologies-Curvature: Data centre hardware maintenance company Park Place Technologies has bought Curvature, an IT support, products, and services company.  According to the company, the deal has doubled employee as well as revenue size of Mayfield Heights, Ohio headquartered Park Place Technologies.

Gabbardeals-InstaOne Software: PNR Retail owned omnichannel platform Gabbardeals acquired InstaOne Software, a SaaS (software as a service) company. The acquisition allows Gabbardeals to build full-stack PoS (point of sale) systems for better last-mile connectivity and delivery of consumer electronics. 

Kovai.co-Cerebrata: Coimbatore and London-based enterprise software product company Kovai.co acquired Cerebrata, a SaaS product company based out of Udaipur, Rajasthan. Cerebrata, specializing in developing productivity tools to manage Microsoft Azure resources, is Kovai.co’s first acquisition. The company said the acquisition will strengthen its solutions that help enterprises manage and monitor Microsoft BizTalk and Azure Serverless environments.

Funds

Stride Ventures: Delhi headquartered venture debt firm Stride Ventures raised Rs 85 crore (about $11.4 million) from state-run financial institution Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). The infusion is expected to strengthen the deployment of its maiden fund, Stride Venture India Debt Fund I, which has a target corpus of $70.5 million. Stride marked the first close of the debut fund at $14.1 million in December. 

BlackSoil: Mumbai-based venture debt and non-banking financial company (NBFC) BlackSoil marked the first close of its maiden secured credit fund at $14.7 million (Rs 110 crore). Dubbed BlackSoil India Credit Fund (BICF), the fund expects to raise $47 million (Rs 350 crore) overall for its category II AIF from family offices and high net worth individuals (HNIs).