Another week has come to an end, and the Indian startup ecosystem has had a productive week in retrospect. Not just funding, there were also had acquisitions this week. Let's take a look at what's been hitting the news in recent days.

SenseHQ

SoftBank Vision Fund 2, funded by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp., would invest $50 million in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) firm SenseHQ, valuing it at more than $500 million.

SenseHQ, operated by Sense Talent Labs Inc., is a talent engagement and staffing platform powered by HR technology that lets businesses employ and engage with applicants in large groups.

Sense's Indian unit's managing director, Sanjay Dharmani said, “with this funding, we will continue to ramp up our go-to-market strategy and increase awareness with companies that hire at scale across rapidly growing industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, logistics and retail”.

Sense has now raised a total of $90 million in funding. SenseHQ is based in San Francisco, although it has now established a Telangana-based subsidiary.

Pocket FM

Pocket FM, an audio-based over-the-top (OTT) platform, has raised $22.4 million in a Series B fundraising round headed by Lightspeed.

Times Group and Tanglin Venture Partners, who were first-time investors in the company, also participated in the Series B round.

The funds will be used to expand the company's operations, strengthen its network of content creators, and expand its footprint across geographies, according to the company. The profits from crowdfunding will also be used to invest in technology and improve user suggestions.

Pocket FM, which has been around for three years, allows creators to offer premium audio-based long-form content in eight Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Bangla.

Pine Labs

Pine Labs, an online payments and merchant solutions company, is in the last stages of talks with Falcon Edge to raise $100 million, after which it will be valued at roughly $5-5.5 billion, according to sources. Pine Labs is now planning to list in the United States by the end of the first half of next year.

Pine Labs, sponsored by Sequoia Capital and Mastercard, is a renowned payments startup known for its merchant payments platform. It just entered the online payments market as part of its diversification strategy. Plural, the company's payment gateway platform, was established in October to enter India's fast-growing online payments sector.

Pine Labs' current round of funding follows a $100 million investment from Invesco, a US-based investment business, in September. This was preceded by a $600 million investment in the company this year, split into two tranches.

Pristyn Care

Health technology firm Pristyn Care raised roughly $100 million in its Series E round, headed by Sequoia Capital US, valuing it at $1.4 billion.

This makes it the newest member of the coveted unicorn club, which includes companies valued at $1 billion or more and are privately held.

According to the filings, the Gurugram-based firm has raised $85 million from Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Winter Capital, and other current investors. It is in the midst of filing documentation for a further $15 million in funding, bringing the total amount raised to $100 million.

According to sources, the company may seek an additional $15-$20 million in funding from a global investor.

Acquistitions

UpGrad

Ronnie Screwvala’s co-owned online higher education company, upGrad is set to acquire Talentedge for around ? 350-400 crore.

upGrad will acquire Arrina Education Services, the holding company of Talentedge Education Ventures.

“We are leaders by far in the higher education space in India,” Screwvala, chairperson of upGrad said. “Currently we are twice as much as the next player, but we want to grow the gap to 4X before we branch out.”

He added that upGrad has cemented its leadership position as the most integrated player in the higher education in Asia, serving learners and working professionals across the age group of 18-50 years.

RateGain

RateGain, a travel IT incubator, has acquired INR 598.83 crore in an anchor round ahead of its IPO.

At the highest price band of INR 425 per equity share, RateGain has allotted 14,090,136 equity shares.

The Government of Singapore, Nippon Mutual Fund, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Nomura, Pinebridge, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, SBI Life Insurance, Axis Mutual Fund, Birla Mutual Fund, and ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund were among the significant anchor investors.

Singapore's government has put in roughly INR 70 crore, while India's Monetary Authority has put in INR 15.10 crore.

Agrostar

AgroStar, a Pune-based agro-tech startup, said that it has acquired $70 million (INR. 527 crores) in its Series D funding round to accelerate the growth of its technical platform through omnichannel expansion and market connections.

Hero Enterprise, global asset management Schroders Capital, Evolvence, and the UK's development financing organisation CDC spearheaded this funding round. Aavishkaar Capital, Rabo Frontier Ventures, Bertelsmann, Chiratae Ventures, and Accel were among the established Agro star investors. The Raine Group served as the transaction's only advisor.

Shardul Sheth, AgroStar's co-founder and chief executive officer, stated, “we are now doubling down on our omnichannel strategy to provide a seamless experience to our farmers across various touchpoints both digital and physical. We plan to utilize the funding to strengthen our tech platform, hire senior talent, expand into new categories, geographies and scale to over 5,000 AgroStar branded retail stores to fuel our omnichannel strategy. We will also expand our services to provide meaningful market linkage value additions,"

Exponent Energy

Exponent Energy, a technology incubator focused on making energy for electric vehicles (EVs) acquired $5 million in a pre-Series A round of funding. The financing was headed by YourNest VC, an existing investor.

Other current investors, such as 3one4 Capital and AdvantEdge VC, increased their stakes in the latest round, which included Motherson Group, a leading global supplier of automotive components.

Exponent Energy, led by former Ather Energy CPO Arun Vinayak and his Ather Energy colleague Sanjay Byalal, intends to simplify energy for electric vehicles. In accordance with this, the business recently revealed the E-pack and E-pump, a battery pack and charging station that, when combined, allows for a 15-minute rapid charge and a 3000 cycle life warranty (a new industry standard) – all while using a variety of low-cost Li-ion cells.

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