Another week comes to a close, and in retrospect, the Indian startup ecosystem has had a fruitful week. Several companies benefited from the week since they were able to raise funds for expansion into new markets, team building, and new product development. A slew of startups saw capital raise coming their way, whether it was in the form of large-scale investments or small early-stage investments. Let's take a look at what's been making headlines in the last few days.

Neobank Jupiter

Neobank Jupiter is in talks with US-based venture fund QED Investors to co-lead a fresh $100 million funding round with its existing backer Sequoia Capital India. Tiger Global, based in New York, is in talks with Jupiter to participate in the investment round. Tiger Global is one of India's most aggressive venture investors. Jupiter's value will more than double to roughly $700 million if the sale goes through, according to sources.

Jupiter, founded by Jitendra Gupta — who previously founded Citrus Pay and then sold it to Prosus fintech arm PayU — has closed a $45 million fundraising round led by Brazil's neobank NuBank and others.

QED Investors is a fintech focused investor formed by Nigel Morris, who is also the creator of Capital One Financial Services. It recently announced the completion of two funds with a combined capital of more than $1 billion to back entrepreneurs at all stages in the US and around the world. It has invested in a number of major fintech companies, including Nubank, SoFi, and Klarna.

Delhivery

Delhivery, a new gen logistics company, has filed drafting documents with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to fund INR 7,460 crore through an Initial Public Offering (IPO). The business would fund INR 5,000 crore through the issuing of new shares, with an additional INR 2,460 crore raised through an Offer For Sale (OFS) in which some of its current investors will dilute their holdings.

According to the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP), selling stockholders include private equity firm Carlyle, SoftBank Vision Fund, and Times Internet.

Carlyle and SoftBank, among others, were planned to sell portions of their shares as part of the Gurugram-based Delhivery's roughly $1 billion IPO's INR 2,000-2,500 crore OFS. According to the DHRP, Suraj Saharan, Kapil Bharati and Mohit Tandon, three of the five founders of Delhivery, are selling shares in the OFS.

TTSF Cloud One

TTSF Cloud One, a Hyderabad-based multi-brand cloud kitchen chain founded by the designers of The ThickShake Factory, has secured $5.3 million in a seed round headed by Brand Capital, the Times Group's strategic investment arm.

Yeshwanth Mocherla and Ashwin Mocherla founded the ThickShake factory eight years ago, and it has now developed into a quick-service restaurant franchise with over 125 branches.

The two brothers began building, establishing, and growing out multiple D2C F&B brands by starting TTSF Cloud One in 2020. Apart from the milkshake business, the company also owns the Wowffles – an artisanal dessert brand and the Prowl foods – a health food brand.

Despite the start-up's efforts to break into the D2C arena, the majority of its sales are made through food aggregator apps such as Swiggy and Zomato, according to the company.

Sify Infinit Spaces Ltd.

Sify Infinit Spaces Ltd., Sify Technological Ltd.'s centre unit, is garnering INR 1,000 crore from the Kotak Special Situations Fund.

The investment will take the form of compulsorily convertible debentures, which will convert into equity based on Sify Infinit Spaces' operational success over a set period of time. The funds will be utilised to establish new data centres in Noida, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai as well as to invest in renewable energy requirements for these facilities.

Sify currently operates ten data centres in India, servicing both domestic and international businesses. In response to increased demand from these cities, it has announced plans to build 200 MW data centres in Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai over the next four years.

BlueSemi

Sunil Kumar Maddikatla, an alumnus of the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H), founded BlueSemi, a T-Hub-incubated firm has acquired $69 million in capital from Luxembourg-based investment organization GEM Global Yield LLC.

In roughly two months, the company plans to deploy a health-tech product that measures six vital signs non-invasively in less than 60 seconds, including blood glucose, ECG, heart rate, blood pressure, SpO2, and temperature.

“The idea is to create awareness about the body, eating habits and activity to help prevent a host of lifestyle diseases,” said Sunil, CEO of BlueSemi, adding that the USP of the product was that it’s the size of a mobile phone and can be used by multiple users.

Absolute Foods

Absolute Foods is putting together a $75-90 million (Rs 558-670 crore) funding round led by global investors Falcon Edge and Tiger Global, valuing the five-year-old farming and supply chain startup at $250-300 million.

According to sources, the company is expected to raise a large portion of the money in the next few weeks, in what could be one of the largest Series A funding rounds in India's agritech space.

“Currently, due diligence is being carried out and the final binding offers will be submitted in a fortnight,” one of the people said. The company, the person said, began with raising a smaller round but expanded the size of the round given strong investor interest. “It wanted to raise a smaller $10-20 million round, but the investor interest has forced them to extend the round.

Faze Technologies

Faze Technologies, a Mumbai-based start-up that leverages NFTs to allow fans to gather, utilise, play, and communicate with cricket, has secured $17.4 million in a seed round. Coatue Management, Sequoia Capital India, Dapper Labs, Samsung Next, and Courtside Ventures also participated in the round, which was led by Tiger Global.

The firm, founded by Anshum Bhambri, Sundar Raman (former CEO of Reliance Sports and founding COO of the Indian Premier League), and Kushagra Kohli, wants to use the capital to establish an NFT Marketplace, acquire a user base, and employ people across departments. In collaboration with Dapper Labs, it will also debut its coins on the Flow blockchain.

Faze claims to be creating a cricket fandom metaverse. It also recently teamed up with the International Cricket Council (ICC) to develop unique digital collections of some of cricket's greatest moments.

SupplyNote

SupplyNote, a B2B SaaS company that helps food and beverage companies digitise and automate their supply chains and procurement, has secured $1.2 million in a pre-series A investment sponsored by Venture Catalysts.

Astor Management, SOSV, Riso Capital, Manjal Investments, Angelbay, SucSEED Ventures, DevX Fund, Sarcha Advisors, and Faad Network were among the investors in the round.

Since its establishment in 2015, the company has raised a total of $2.8 million, including this round. GHV Accelerator, Artesian Ventures, and DAS Capital were among the investors in the company's prior rounds.

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