Deal Roundup: Three $100 mn+ funding rounds, weekly dealmaking tally just shy of $500 mn

Food delivery unicorn Zomato’s draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) filing and Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) greenlight for Tata Digital’s majority stake acquisition in egrocer BigBasket made for a busy week in the technology startup universe.  

Zomato filed a DRHP for an initial public offering (IPO) of up to Rs 8,250 crore, paving the way to become the first firm in the Indian foodtech space and the first unicorn to publicly list. Info Edge, an early investor and the largest shareholder in the company, said it will sell shares worth Rs 750 crore in the upcoming IPO. 

Tata Digital, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons, received CCI’s approval to acquire up to 64.3% in BigBasket. The deal will reportedly value the Bengaluru-based company at Rs 13,500 crore ($1.8 billion). The acquisition ties into the conglomerate’s strategy of launching a super app for the group’s consumer-facing businesses and strengthens Tata’s proposed ecommerce play across retail, grocery, epharmacy and other sectors. 

Three startups -- Urban Company, upGrad and Stanza Living -- raised more than $100 million separately, taking the weekly startup dealmaking value to $487.3 million. Ten other startups also raised investments in the last week of the month. 

On-demand home services marketplace Urban Company topped the funding charts with its $188 million growth funding round. The round was led by Prosus, the Euronext listed entity that holds South African conglomerate Naspers’ international internet assets. Dubai-based Vy Capital, alternative investments firms Steadview Capital and Tiger Global Management, DF International Partners, and Boston-based Wellington Management participated in the round. 

The week also witnessed Ronnie Screwvala-promoted upGrad raising its first ever external funding since its inception in 2015. The Mumbai headquartered edtech platform landed $120 million from Singapore based sovereign fund Temasek. 
 
Co-living startup Stanza Living bagged $102 million in a growth funding round led by Alpha Wave Ventures, managed by New York-based Falcon Edge Capital. Matrix Partners India, SCI Investments, Redwood Trust and Moraine Master also participated in the round. 

Other prominent deals of the week included the $30 million funding round in Lead School, which offers an integrated academic excellence system to schools, and the $22.5 million Series C funding round in Thiruvananthapuram-based cloud dental software solutions provider CareStack.  

On the M&A front, Pune based information technology (IT) services firm Tech Mahindra acquired Denver, Colorado headquartered Eventus Solutions Group for $44 million in an all-cash deal.  The deal marks Tech Mahindra’s second acquisition announcement in as many weeks. Last week, the firm said it bought cloud automation and DevOps services provider DigitalOnUs for $120 million. 

Omnichannel eyewear brand Lenskart has brought on board the three-member team of Lucknow based milk and grocery delivery company DailyJoy via an acqui-hire.