The Week that Was: Indian Startup News Overview (28th Aug - 2nd Sept)


The Week that Was: Indian Startup News Overview (28th Aug - 2nd Sept)
Startups in India have given rise to more startups. Enablers, accelerators, and incubators are firms providing startups with growth advice and decision-making tools. By advising on government policies to act as market catalysts, they grow the maturity of young ventures. Startup India has laid down several measures to ease compliance with the most complex laws for startups to ensure the associated risks are prevented or mitigated. It has collaborated with various Ministries to provide such ease of functioning for startups. The multiple States in India have also been encouraged to incorporate such best practices, thus benefiting the national startup ecosystem.
Indian startups once again awed us, with some raising millions of dollars while also acquiring other companies, with some startups focusing on expanding their presence in several other cities. This week, two-wheeler financing startup Bike Bazaar said it has raised Rs 170 crore of equity funding led by Women’s World Banking Asset Management; and Contractor management platform Onsite said that it has raised $1.5 million in funding from Fundamental this week.
Here is a list of the top five startups that performed exceptionally well this week!
Bike Bazaar
Two-wheeler financing startup Bike Bazaar said it has raised Rs 170 crore of equity funding led by Women’s World Banking Asset Management (WAM) with participation from existing investors including Elevar Equity and Faering Capital. Elevar was the early investor in Bike Bazaar and continues to hold the largest stake in the business.
The company intends to use the funds to increase its business in rural India and also scale its marketplace business for the sale and purchase of used two-wheelers. Founded in 2017 by former Bajaj Auto executive Srinivas Kantheti and former Bajaj Finance executive Karunakaran Vadakkepat as a used two-wheeler financing business, Bike Bazaar has now several businesses within the two-wheeler segment including new two-wheeler financing, a marketplace for pre-owned two-wheelers, and a new electric vehicle financing business besides additional services like leasing and insurance. It will add servicing as well, officials said.
EarlySalary
Digital lending fintech EarlySalary has raised $110 million (about Rs 878.8 crore) from investors co-led by private equity majors TPG's Rise Fund and Norwest Venture Partners, the company said. The Pune-based company said it plans to use the investment to accelerate its loan book, increase its presence to 150 cities, hire more for senior management functions, and grow the scope of its buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) business.
EarlySalary’s existing investor Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Ltd. also participated in the round. That EarlySalary was closing a $100-million fundraise from TPG and Norwest. The round values EarlySalary at about $300 million, as reported earlier, quoting people familiar with the deal’s details.
Jio
American technology giant Meta and Reliance Industries subsidiary Jio Platforms today announced the launch of an end-to-end shopping experience on WhatsApp, where consumers can shop from JioMart right within their WhatsApp chat. JioMart on WhatsApp will enable users in India, to browse through JioMart’s grocery catalogue, add items to cart, and make the payment to complete the purchase without leaving the WhatsApp chat.
Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Meta, said in a Facebook post, “Excited to launch our partnership with JioMart in India. This is our first-ever end-to-end shopping experience on WhatsApp people can now buy groceries from JioMart right in a chat. Business messaging is an area with real momentum and chat-based experiences like this will be the go-to way people and businesses communicate in the years to come.”
Kula 
Talent recruitment platform Kula has raised $12 million in seed funding. Sequoia and SquarePeg were part of the funding round along with existing investors such as Venture Highway and Together Fund. The platform is based out of California, USA and has registered offices in Chennai, India, works on automating outbound recruitment and making referrals smooth and effortless. 
The team of twelve has built a talent pool of candidates from Linkedin, GitHub and other employee networks and then automated all communications across multiple channels (emails, InMails, LinkedIn connection requests) for the client's use. Founded in 2021 by Achuthanand Tanjore Ravi, the recruitment platform has secured $15 million through pre-seed and seed funding now and has built a waitlist of over 1200 brands.
Onsite
Contractor management platform Onsite said that it has raised $1.5 million in funding from Fundamental. Other investors were Artha Ventures, Redbay Ventures, Madhumala Ventures, and angel investment from Rahul Garg (Moglix), Varun Alagh (Mamaearth), Abhishek Goyal (Tracxn), Tonmoy Shingal (Mettl), Manish Kumar (KredX), Ravi Garikapati (Davinta), Kunal (Glowroad), Ashish Sharma (Innoven), Pankaj Raina, Archit Rathi, Prashan Agarwal, Sandeep Saboo, Manvi Chandak. Founded in March 2021, the Onsite app is a cloud-based platform that claims to empower 100,000+ contractors in financial tracking and team collaboration. The product is available in seven languages and used by contractors.
“We saw an opportunity to revolutionise construction management in India, saving companies both time and money. Although there are tools available in Western markets (Briq, Procore, Assignar), Onsite is the first-of-its-kind in the APAC and we look forward to seeing the impact of this technology on the sector,” said Akshansh, Co-founder of Onsite. Onsite aims to digitise India’s 10 million+ SME construction businesses and will use the funding to develop its platform and expand its technology team.