Deal Roundup: Foodtech makes a splash in public, private markets; BYJU’s seals Epic buy

In a significant week for Indian technology startups, foodtech unicorn Zomato marked a strong debut on the bourses on Friday while rival Swiggy raised a massive growth round. 

Gurugram headquartered Zomato listed its shares at Rs 116 per share on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), a 52.63% premium to the issue price of Rs 76. The stock opened at Rs 115 a share on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), up 51.32% from the final issue price. The share price soared as high as Rs 138.9 soon after its launch in the morning, up about 83% jump from its issue price. The company’s overall market capitalisation crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark (about $13.33 billion) after the listing. 

Get all the updates on the IPO here.   

Meanwhile, Swiggy beefed up its warchest with a $1.25 bn funding round, co-led by SoftBank Group Corp and existing backer Prosus Ventures. The latest capital infusion will boost Swiggy’s core food delivery business and help build its new food and non-food adjacencies, with the largest investments going into its non-food businesses. 

In other big-ticket deals, Temasek Holdings and Falcon Edge Capital led a $220 million investment in omnichannel D2C retailer Lenskart. The Faridabad, Haryana based company said it will use the capital to grow exponentially over the next three to four years and expand its omni-channel presence and operations across India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. 

Pre-owned cars platform Spinny on Monday said it raised $108 million as part of a Series D funding round led by Tiger Global Management with the US based alternative investment firm alone pooling in $75 million. New York based Avenir Growth also joined as a new investor in this round with an investment of $20 million. 

Online first baby products retailer FirstCry backed GlobalBees, billed as India’s largest Thrasio-style house of brands venture, secured $150 million (Rs 1,124 crore) in a mix of equity and debt in a Series A round of funding. As part of the round led by FirstCry and a few of its backers, Lightspeed Venture Partners came in as a new investor.  

Logistics-technology startup BlackBuck entered the coveted unicorn club with its latest round. It bagged $67 million as part of a Series E funding round led by Tribe Capital, IFC Emerging Asia Fund and VEF.

Bengaluru-based health and fitness platform HealthifyMe landed $75 million in a Series C round led by LeapFrog and Khosla Ventures. The round takes the total capital raised by HealthifyMe to over $100 million till date. 

In total, 35 startups raised capital this week. Of those 30 accounted for a little over $2 billion invested during the week. Five did not disclose their funding value. 

The week also saw significant merger and acquisition activity. 

Continuing on its aggressive inorganic growth run, BYJU’s acquired Epic, a Redwood City, California based digital reading platform for children, for $500 million. The Bengaluru headquartered edtech has earmarked investments up to $1 billion for expansion in the North American market.

In another edtech deal, global alternative assets manager Blackstone Group said it had agreed to acquire a controlling stake in ed-tech firm Simplilearn Solutions, which provides training destination for professional certification courses. The transaction marked the global private equity major’s second major bet in the digital learning space in India. Blackstone is also an investor in Byju’s. 

Flush with fresh capital that it raised in April, online payment gateway startup Razorpay Software said it has bought risk tech software as a service (SaaS) platform TERA Finlabs. Razorpay said the acquisition fits into its strategy to support micro small and medium enterprises (SMEs).  

YouTube said it will acquire video commerce app simsim to help its viewers discover and buy products from local businesses. The company announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire simsim and the transaction is expected to complete in the coming weeks. It did not disclose the financial details of the deal. 

Incubator and accelerator Venture Catalysts acquired the India operations of California-headquartered accelerator Z Nation Lab and voice-first culinary AI platform Tinychef acquired meal planning app Zelish.