The Indian start-up ecosystem had a productive week. In the third week of December, there were a number of investment rounds. Several companies benefited from the week since they were able to raise capital for new market expansion and increased manufacturing. Let's take a peek at what's been making headlines recently.

Hoopr

Hoopr, a music licencing marketplace, has garnered $1.5 million in a seed fundraising round headed by Venture Catalysts and 9Unicorns. 

GSharp Media, founded in 2018, is a content and technology firm that owns the Songfest India and Hoopr brands. Hoopr is a platform that allows video producers and corporations to licence royalty-free music for their videos, commercials, and films.

Hoopr cofounder and CEO Gaurav Dagaonkar stated, “we’d like to thank our investors for their belief and conviction in us. At GSharp Media we believe in creating data and technology driven products and brands that help creators. We will continue to invest in growing our library and building features on the Hoopr platform across the next 12 months. For me personally, the fact that Hoopr provides millions of music creators a new source of income, is a very satisfying feeling.”

Ninjacart

A supply chain for fresh produce, Ninjacart, has raised $145 million from Flipkart and Walmart Inc., in what the Indian e-commerce firm said was the biggest deal in India’s agritech space.

Flipkart will also leverage the Ninajacart investment to strengthen its wider grocery offering Supermart.

Compared with $500 million in its previous round, the deal would peg Ninjacart’s valuation at $750-800 million.

“With this investment, we are further able to strengthen our grocery footprint and offering as consumers across the country throng to e-grocery for quality and affordable options in the fresh category,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, chief executive, Flipkart Group. “Our investment and partnership in Ninjakart over the years is a testament to the continued commitment and success we have seen in our endeavour to create a democratic and organised agriculture market.”

JustPay

Payments technology startup Juspay said it raised $ 60 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund. Existing investors VEF and Wellington Management also participated in the round.

While SoftBank has put $50 million in this round, the rest came from the existing investors, said Vimal Kumar, founder and CEO, Juspay.

“We will need to hire more people and train then for this (expansion). We have around 600 people and should get to around 1,000 next year,” Kumar said. He said his team was involved in building the Bhim app on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in a matter of three weeks.

Juspay said it sees 300 million online transactions per month with a gross value of over $5 Billion along with having the highest number of payment SDK (software development kit) installed across 250 million mobile phones. Today, the bulk of mobile payments in India go through Juspay’s platform, the company said. It processes around 11 million transactions per day, it added.

Nexprt

B2B manufacturing and commerce startup, Nexprt has raised $5 million in Seed funding from Sequoia Capital India and Lightspeed. The round also saw participation from early backers, Titan Capital and other notable angel investors. The company plans to use the proceeds to scale the existing business and launch new business verticals in the manufacturing domain.

The Indian manufacturing and exports space is a $200 billion+ industry on a high growth trajectory with significant tailwinds in the form of global macro factors like supply chain diversification and massive government support through the ‘Make in India’ initiative. However, the manufacturing space, dominated by MSMEs, has historically lacked capabilities to compete with institutional players across Southeast Asia and China. Their inability to manufacture at scale and innovate in manufacturing impacts their global competitiveness, potentially resulting in billions of dollars of global commerce not being routed through India.

Pi Green Innovations

Pi Green Innovations, a cleantech firm, has raised approximately $4.5 million in Series A funding. The Opus Consulting Investment Fund led the round, which raised $4.3 million. Other key investors took part in the round as well. Harshal Morde, director of Morde Foods, had previously provided $300,000 in startup finance.

According to a recent study conducted by Dalberg Advisors in collaboration with Clean Air Fund and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the economic cost of air pollution in India is estimated to be around $95 billion. “The problem is not only air pollution, but also the sustainability of existing solutions. Thus, with our filterless technology, we have a huge opportunity to develop and implement solutions for the reduction of particulate matter (PM) emissions on a sustainable basis. With patents in over 30 countries including USA, UK, China and EU, our technology is 'Made in India’ for the global market. We are grateful to our investors for their confidence in our mission,” said Irfan Pathan, Co-founder and CEO, Pi Green.

Acquisitions

Good Glamm Group

The Good Glamm Group, which owns the MyGlamm brand, has acquired MissMalini Entertainment, a celebrity and influencer talent management network, in a cash and stock deal. The acquisition's financial terms were not disclosed.

“With the acquisition of Baby Chakra and ScoopWhoop, we had got a good hold on the influencer community… but with MissMalini Entertainment, we now have access to the premium and celebrity influencer network,” says, Darpan Sanghvi cofounder and CEO of The Good Glamm Group.

According to Sanghvi, the direct-to-consumer brand will invest an additional $10 million in the platform to assist develop its influencer base, which will eventually play into the content-to-commerce conglomerate's strategy.

Adda247

Adda247, an Indian edtech company, has invested $20 million (INR 150 crore) in cash and stock to acquire Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exam-focused edtech startup StudyIQ.

Abhishek Jain established StudyIQ in 2014, an edtech website focused at people studying for UPSC and State Public Service Commission (PSC) exams. Every month, it claims to have over 11 million organic subscribers and over 100 million views.

According to StudyIQ, the company's gross income for FY21 was INR 33 Cr, a threefold increase over the previous year.

Anil Nagar, Adda247's founder and CEO, stated, “StudyIQ has been revolutionising the segment with a phenomenal success rate in these high stake exams. StudyIQ students will invariably figure among top 10 rankers in most of the State PSC exams. We will get a huge leverage of their strength in the segment and the brand they have created over the years.”

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