Deal Roundup: Khatabook leads startup dealmaking; Delhivery makes big-ticket logistics buy

Kirana-tech startup Khatabook scooped up half of this week’s technology startup funding as investors put a total of $200 million to work across 24 deals.

Of this, $100 million was raised by Khatabook in its Series C funding round led by US-based venture capital firms Tribe Capital and Moore Strategic Ventures (MSV).   Other investors who participated in the round include Alkeon Capital and existing investors B Capital Group, Sequoia Capital, Tencent, RTP Ventures, Unilever Ventures, and Better Capital.

The round also saw participation from former and current partners of Andreessen Horowitz including Balaji Srinivasan and Sriram Krishnan, who invested in their personal capacity.

With this fundraise, the valuation of the startup stands at $600 million.

In other significant VC deals, lifestyle rental startup Furlenco, cloud kitchen platform Curefoods, gold-focused digital alternative credit platform indiagold and edtech platform Camp K12 raised double-digit funding rounds.

House of Kieraya, the newly christened umbrella brand of Furlenco, entered into a $15 million asset financing deal with TradeCred, an alternate debt platform.

Over eight large family offices participated in the deal. To create an end-to-end furniture supply chain ecosystem within itself, Furlenco recently formed House of Kieraya that now includes three brands — Furlenco, furniture subscription service UNLMTD, and remanufactured furniture brand Furbicle.

Curefoods, a cloud kitchen platform floated by Cure.fit co-founder Ankit Nagori, landed $13 million as part of its Series A funding round led by venture firm Iron Pillar. The funding round saw participation from Nordstar and Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal.

Angel investors Adil Allana, Rashmi Kwatra, Lydia Jett and Kunal Shah also pooled in capital as part of this funding round.

With the latest funding round, Curefoods, which operates brands like EatFit, Yumlane, Aligarh House Biryani and Masalabox, has raised $20 million so far.

indiagold, founded by former Paytm executives Deepak Abbot and Nitin Misra, raised $12 million from PayU, the payments and fintech business of Prosus, and Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI) fund.

Better Tomorrow Ventures, 3one4 Capital, Rainmatter Capital, and existing investor Leo Capital also participated in the round.

Gurugram headquartered edtech platform Camp K12 landed $12 million as part of its Series A round for expansion into new geographies and add new formats.

The round was co-led by Matrix Partners India and Elevation Capital, said a statement issued by the company.

On the M&A front, logistics and supply chain services company Delhivery announced the acquisition of Bengaluru-based rival Spoton Logistics on Thursday. The deal is worth $235 million. The development comes months before Delhivery’s public market debut to be announced before March 2022. 

The acquisition is expected to strengthen the consumer and business portfolios for the two companies.

The week also saw textile manufacturer and distributor Suumaya Industries snapping up a 51% stake in agri-tech company payAgri Innovations to strengthen its diversification plans. The company, however, did not disclose the financial details of the deal. 

The firm said the acquisition will help it gain a strong foothold in the agri value chain business.

The deal will also help the company get access to southern markets. Founded by KVM Rajkumar and Rajeev G Kaimal in 2017, payAgri operates at the farm gate level with primary investments in processing infrastructure for focused value chains.