The Indian startup ecosystem has set a new record by bagging another round of funding in a few sectors like HealthTech, Age-tech, FinTech, Battery tech & Social commerce marking another win for the startupreneurs by raising funds and updating the growth probability and standardizing the products and services. The week went by successfully witnessing funds in every stage of funding from Pre-series B funding to series A to series B to series C, to series D.

Sector: HealthTech

Funding Round: Pre-Series B

Startup: Pandorum Technologies

Established Year: 2011

Funding News: Pandorum Technologies secures $11 million Investment to advance its Regenerative Therapy for Corneal Blindness

Founded by Arun Chandru & Dr. Tuhin Bhowmick, the startup company focuses on Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. With the Pre-series B Funding round, in which the company raised $11 million Investment. Pandorum aims to progress towards the First-in-Human study of its Flagship product Kuragenx- the 'Liquid Cornea', to treat corneal blindness.

Investors: The funding was sourced from Ashish Kacholia, Everest Finance Investment, Acebright Pharma and Ms. Bandana Kankani's syndicate along with existing investors Mr. Sunil Kant Munjal and the Indian Angel Network.

The funding will also allow the company to advance its tunable technology platform that has demonstrated regenerative potential beyond cornea, such as, for liver, lung and neuronal tissues.

In January, the startup raised $8 million funding from prominent investors such as Binny Bansal’s 021 Capital and Sunil Kant Munjal

"We are thrilled to have the support of the notable investors, including Mr. Ashish Kacholia- as we continue to innovate and develop therapeutics to restore healthy tissue functions, in order to help the patients suffering from unmet clinical needs. Our flagship product Kuragenx combines proprietary biomaterials with regenerative nanotherapy, guiding the formation of a functional corneal tissue to restore vision. This is a First-in-Class approach that can truly blur the line between treatment and cure" said Dr. Tuhin Bhowmick, Co-Founder & CEO of Pandorum Technologies.

Sector: Age-tech

Funding Round: Series A

Startup: Kites Senior Care

Established Year: 2016

Funding News: Kites Senior Care Startup lifts 45 crore to improve Quality of Life for Senior Citizens

Bengaluru-based Geriatric-specialized startup, Kites Senior Care has uplifted 45 crore (approximately $5.4 million) in a Series A funding round

Investor: Chairman of Manipal Education & Medical Group- MEMG, Ranjan Pai via his family office.

Earlier in the month of January 2023, the age-tech startup has secured 14 crore in a pre-series A funding round led by same Ranjan Pai.

In a press release, the company said that the acquired capital will be utilized to intensify the organization’s presence in cities such as Chennai, Bengaluru & Hyderabad. Meanwhile, it also aims to facilitate its expansion into three major cities across Southern India.

Established in 2016 by Reema & Rajagopal, Kites Senior Care dedicates in an array of geriatric services & solutions that includes post-operative, post-hospitalization rehabilitative care, palliative care, dementia care & respite care. They provide both inside elder care facilities & the home care services for senior citizens.

A SaaS based B2B fintech platform Perfios has recently raised $80 million in a new funding round led by Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), which is the late-stage venture and growth investment arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

Sector: Battery tech

Funding Round: Series B

Startup: Perfios

Established Year: 2018

Funding News: Battery Manufacturing Startup LOHUM Raises $54 million in series B Funding

Battery tech startup LOHUM, which is a known name Battery manufacturing and recycling has declared that, it has recently raised $54 million in a Series B funding round

Investors: Singularity Growth, Private Equity, Cactus Venture Partners, and Venture East among other new and existing venture firms

The company will utilize this freshly raised funding to determine their expanded position in the market. It said in a press release that from this fund they will strengthen recycling operations across India. It will also expand to new energy transitioning markets in North America, the EU and MENA region.

For this New Year, Lohum has planned to build an in-house ecosystem of battery recycling, battery repurposing, transition materials refining, Cathode Active Material (CAM), i.e. integrated battery lifecycle management.

Previously, the farm has raised, more than $37 million across multiple segments and it was valued at $422 million post-allotment of the latest tranche. In last fiscal also LOHUM has performed really well and improved its revenue nearly three-fold to 308 crore from 106 crore in FY23.

Sector: Social commerce

Funding Round: Series C

Startup: CityMall

Established Year: 2019

Funding News: CityMall Inks a deal of $75 million in Series C funding Round Shows 140% Growth

Social commerce startup brand CityMall has cracked the deal and raised $75 million in its Series C round.The freshly raised fund enabled it to hack 140% growth in its gross revenue in the last fiscal year.

Investor: Norwest Ventures

About the costing part, the company said that, the procurement of goods is the largest burn accounting for 62% of the firm’s overall expenditure. In line with scale, this cost surged 2.4X to 326 crore in FY23 while its employee benefits saw an increase of 56.4% during the said period.

On the other hand, the rent, advertising cum promotional, transportation, cloud/hosting, contractual manpower, and other overheads took the overall expenditure up by 88.53% to 526 crore in FY23 from 279 crore in FY22.

Previously, the startup raised $75 million in 2022 Series C funding led by Norwest Venture Partners.

The company CityMall was aiming to help the 200-300 million new to Internet users realize the power of Internet and e-commerce. They are planning to create India's largest chain of virtual stores on WhatsApp. The company mainly deals in lifestyle, grocery, and other essentials through a network of community resellers in tier II and III cities. This Gurugram Based farm has collaborated with 20,000 resellers and 200K consumers in eight smaller cities across the state of Haryana.

Sector: FinTech

Funding Round: Series D

Startup: Perfios

Established Year: 2018

Funding News: B2B fintech startup Perfios Secures $80 million from Teachers' Venture Growth

This Bengaluru based firm gained this fresh fund just after six months of earning $229 million in its Series D investment. With this recently raised fund, the company joins the unicorn club with the valuation more than $1 billion.

Investor: Teachers' Venture Growth

By this, Perfios is planning to continue its international expansion and strengthen its global footprint, it also wants to use this fund towards exploring inorganic growth opportunities. It also intends to invest in its tech stack to power the end-to-end customer journeys across banking, insurance, and embedded commerce.

Perfios acquired finance firm Karza Technologies before FY23, and the 600 crore investment has paid off, as the latter alone generated 168 crore in revenue and 51 crore in profit after tax in the previous fiscal year. With this recent fundraising round, Perfios becomes the second unicorn of 2024 in the Indian startup landscape.

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