Dream11 parent draws $400 mn in secondary fundraise, weekly dealmaking hits $667 mn

In one of the largest secondary fundraising among Indian startups, fantasy gaming platform Dream11’s parent Dream Sports raised $400 million this week from several investors including Netflix and Airbnb backer TCV.  

The deal marks the first ever India investment for Silicon Valley based TCV, which led the round along with returning investors D1 Capital Partners and Falcon Edge. Existing investors Tiger Global, ChrysCapital, TPG Growth, Steadview Capital and Footpath Ventures participated in this round. It did not disclose details on the investors who sold their stakes as part of the secondary round.  

Overall, it was a fairly busy week for startup dealmaking. A total of $667.3 million was raised by 27 startups while nine did not disclose funding value. 

Finnovation Tech Solutions, the holding entity of fintech firms KreditBee and Krazybee Services, bagged the second largest deal of the week.

NewQuest Capital Partners, a TPG-backed Asia-Pacific-focused secondaries private equity platform and Motilal Oswal Private Equity led $70 million in a follow-on funding round just a month after its Series C fundraise.  

Online beauty products marketplace Purplle secured $45 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital India and returning investor Verlinvest. Returning investors Blume Ventures and JSW Ventures participated in the round. As part of the round, early-stage investor IvyCap Ventures, which entered Purplle as a Series A investor, exited part of its stake in the startup.  

Location based social networking video platform Public App landed $41.3 million in a fresh funding round, led by venture capital firm A91 Partners, with participation from undisclosed returning investors. Public App’s first funding round in September 2020 marked the return of former Tiger Global Management executive Lee Fixel. 
 
Offline-to-online merchant platform operator DotPe secured a Series A stage fundraise of $27.5 million from PayU, Info Edge Ventures, and new investor Google. 

The Gurugram based company was founded by former PayU co-founder Shailaz Nag with former PayU executives Gyanesh Sharma and Anurag Gupta in 2020. It digitises quick service restaurant themed models, ranging from enterprises to small businesses, with its solutions of in-store and remote ordering, online payments, and delivery. 

Social ecommerce platform CityMall raised $11 million in its Series A round led by Accel while B2B revenue-based financing facilitator Velocity,  SME digitisation platform FloBiz,  online lending and financial services provider True Balance  and biotech startup Zaara Biotech have raised $10 million each this week. 

The week also saw three deals in the mergers and acquisitions front. 

Digital ledger app startup Khatabook acquired SaaS business management app Biz Analyst in a deal worth $10 million in a mix of cash and equity.

Ed-tech unicorn Unacademy took over Handa Ka Funda -- an online teaching portal for CAT and other MBA examinations -- for an undisclosed amount. 

Cloud-based digital workflow technology provider ServiceNow signed an agreement to acquire Hyderabad-headquartered robotic process automation (RPA) company Intellibot. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.