Deal Roundup: BillDesk acquisition dominates M&A play; Skit leads the week’s startup dealmaking

In a week dominated by PayU’s $4.7 billion bid for payment gateway BillDesk, startups in India raised $100.71 million (Rs 735.7 crore) from investors across 19 deals. This is nearly half of $200 million raised by startups across 24 deals.

However, some of the investments did not disclose the amount raised by the startups.

In addition to this, IT services companies HCL and TechMahindra invested $2.5 million in total in Delaware, US-based 5G services and IoT services provider Austin GIS.

The week saw eight seed, pre-seed and angel rounds in the technology startup space, led by investment platform dezerv which raised $7 million from Matrix Partners India and Elevation Capital.

The round also saw participation from angel investors across the startup world, including Kunal Shah of CRED, Ramakant Sharma of LivSpace, Asish Mohapatra and Ruchi Kalra from OfBusiness, Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal of Meesho and Shashvat Nakrani and Suhail Sameer of BharatPe.

Among the other deals, Bengaluru-based AI-based voice automation platform Skit announced raising $23 million in a Series B round of funding led by WestBridge Capital.

Returning investors Kalaari Capital, Exfinity Ventures, IAN Fund, LetsVenture and SenseAI also participated in the round.

The company said it was looking to expand to the US and Southeast Asian markets.

Online travel platform Zo World raised $17.8 million from Luxembourg-based private alternative investment group GEM Global Yield.

App servicing the spiritual and devotional needs of Indians, AppsForBharat secured $10 million led by Elevation Capital.

The round also saw participation from returning investors Sequoia Capital, BEENEXT and Matrix Partners India.

Another company which raised $10 million this week was Tata Digital backed fitness app Cure.fit’s diabetes-focused vertical, Sugar.fit.

Apart from Cure.fit, Endiya Partners and Tanglin Venture Partners also participated in the funding round.

SMB digitisation platform Bikayi also announced raising $10.8 million in a Series A round of funding led by Sequoia capital India.

Apart from the acquisition of BillDesk, other mergers and acquisitions this week included medtech company Healthium’s acquisition of medical device maker CareNow.

Other M&A activities included acquisition of upskilling platform Coding Elements by Scaler Academy for $1 million and Nazara Technology’s bet on skill-based real-money gaming with $25.5 million acquisition of OpenPlay.