ICICI Bank to pick up stake in Myclassboard; GigIndia, qZense raise funds

Private sector lender ICICI Bank is set to acquire a 9.09% stake in education technology platform Myclassboard Educational Solutions (MESPL) for a cash consideration of Rs 4.5 crore, the company said in a regulatory filing.

“Post investment, ICICI Bank will hold 9.09% stake in MESPL through acquisition of 100 equity shares and 104,890 Cumulative Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares on fully diluted basis,” the statement said.

The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of February 2021, and since the acquisition of shareholding is below 10%, regulatory approval is not required, ICICI said.

Launched in 2009, MESPL offers an online school management platform and has a reported turnover of Rs 12 crore for the financial year 2019-20.

Read: Visa, ICICI Bank partner to accelerate innovation in fintech ecosystem

Angels back GigIndia

Pune-based B2B marketplace GigIndia has raised additional funds from new angel investors, closing its Series A funding round at $1 million (Rs 7.6 crore).

GigIndia plans to use the fresh capital to improve its technology platform. This will help the company build and manage a larger community of gig workers to serve contracts signed with enterprises next year, a statement said.

In July, the company raised capital in a funding round led by Japanese investor Incubate Fund India, with participation from Beyond Next Ventures, along with existing angel investors, including former TCS CEO, S Ramadorai.

Launched in June 2017 by Sahil Sharma and Aditya Shirole, GigIndia claims to provide businesses on-demand work completion at scale via gig workforce in sales, marketing, recruitment, operations and product verticals. The startup, which provides freelance and long term jobs, leverages technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence to enable faster turnaround and quality checks.

GigIndia said in the statement that it has more than 8,00,000 gig workers registered on the platform across 200+ cities in India, despite an 80% loss in business due to the lockdown.  

Agritech firm qZense raises seed capital

Agritech startup qZense Labs has raised $600,000 (Rs 4.5 crore) in a seed funding round from Mumbai-based incubator Venture Catalysts.

Other participants in this round include 9Unicorns, the accelerator fund set up by Venture Catalysts; Chennai Angels; Entrepreneur First; and Lumis Partners.

The agritech startup, which focuses on quality control and management of fresh produce, will use the capital to scale its team and accelerate marketing efforts, a statement said.

Founded in 2019 by Rubal Chib and Srishti Batra, qZense claims to provide end-to-end IoT-based solutions that offer quality assessment through a grading process. It also offers clients a web dashboard that gives them real-time insights and alerts as their produce gets scanned.