The start-up ecosystem in India has grown significantly in recent years, with a surge in the number of entrepreneurs, investors, and supporting stakeholders. The government has been instrumental in creating a conducive environment for start-ups with initiatives like Start-up India, which offers start-ups tax breaks and other benefits. Additionally, incubators and accelerators have emerged in various parts of the country, providing much-needed support to young companies. India is recognized as one of the fastest-growing start-up ecosystems globally, with several successful start-ups in areas such as e-commerce, fintech, health tech, edtech, and more.

This week, we saw the logistics company Xpressbees announced that Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, had invested $40 million in it; and the largest managed office space supplier in Gujarat, DevX, said that it has raised $ 3 million in capital from prestigious investors including the Urmin Family Office, the Bidiwala Family Office, Navneet Publications, Venus Infrastructure, and structural consulting firm Ducon. Here is the compilation of top 5 startups that raised million dollar funds this week.

Xpressbees

The logistics company Xpressbees announced that Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, had invested $40 million in it. Through a secondary acquisition from a company's early investor, this investment will be made. Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth, ChrysCapital, Alibaba Group, Elevation Capital, Investcorp, Norwest Venture Partners, and Gaja Capital are just a few of the investors who have backed the firm. Khazanah will purchase the investment from a company's early investor in a secondary transaction. The sole financial advisor on this transaction was Avendus Capital.

"We keep moving forward on our road to becoming a leading player in end-to-end logistics and strive to take advantage of any strategic opportunities. The Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, Khazanah, is the ideal partner for us on this journey because of its rigorous long-term investment strategy, according to Amitava Saha, founder and CEO of Xpressbees.

QuickReply.ai

A WhatsApp marketing platform called QuickReply.ai reported raising $1.14 million in a round that was led by Leo Capital, which contributed $0.75 million. The company announced in a statement that additional investors, including Pentathlon Ventures, GSF, Deepak Diwakar (cofounder of MindTickle), Azhar Iqubal (cofounder and CEO of Inshorts), and Dinesh Agarwal (founder and CEO of Indiamart), took part in the seed investment round.

QuickReply.ai, a company founded in 2021 by Himanshu and Hridayesh Gupta, provides direct-to-consumer (D2C) companies and online retailers with an end-to-end WhatsApp engagement platform. As co-founder and CEO Himanshu Gupta noted, "Following extensive growth over the last 18 months, this seed funding will be significant for us to further strengthen our proposition and drive innovation at a more rapid pace."

Capria Ventures

With a $100 million objective close, Capria Ventures, a global impact investing company with a focus on India among other countries, launched its Global South Fund II. The firm with its headquarters in Seattle, Washington, the new fund will concentrate on funding 20 to 25 tech businesses in the entrepreneurial hotspots of India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

With this, the fund aims to find entrepreneurs who will revolutionise businesses in a variety of industries, with a new emphasis on startups in the field of climate change. The new fund has received its first close from institutional investors who are returning, including OIP Investment Trust and Gates Ventures, as well as foundations, people, and family offices like Crystal Springs Foundation, Sall Family Foundation, Brakeman Family Trust, and the two Pioneer Square Labs founders. In response to a request for comment, it declined to release the first close corpus.

Lokal

A hyperlocal content, community, and classifieds platform called Lokal has raised Rs 120 crore in a Series B fundraising round from new investors Global Brain and Sony Innovation Fund, along with support from India Quotient and other long-term investors. The company intends to make use of the money to grow in current markets, introduce new product categories and capabilities, and bolster its product and technology teams.

We observe a natural increase in the population's use of internet-based services among non-English speakers, necessitating the necessity for alternative social platforms like Lokal. As the team expands across the quickly expanding advertising sector, we look forward to assisting them', stated Gen Tsuchikawa, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Sony Ventures Corporation. With the new fundraising round included, the business has received around Rs 225 crore in funding to date and employs 110 people.

DevX

The largest managed office space supplier in Gujarat, DevX, said today that it has raised $ 3 million in capital from prestigious investors including the Urmin Family Office, the Bidiwala Family Office, Navneet Publications, Venus Infrastructure, and structural consulting firm Ducon. The funds will be used to expand nationally and internationally and increase the area under administration from 9,00,000 square feet to 2 million square feet.

DevX, a co-working space and accelerator created in September 2017 by three entrepreneurs the RUPaiyya trio, as they are called in the ecosystem and one publicly traded company, Dev Information Technology Ltd., has just been recognized as Gujarat's market leader in the Managed office space segment. The business was envisioned as a startup accelerator that nurtured innovative firms by meeting all of their needs. Through associated strategic alliances and services, the company positions DevX as an equal partner in growth.

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