Over the last year, startup funding has fundamentally altered the startup ecoystem. 2021 proved to be a year of funding, with $35.4 billion being poured into the start-up ecosystem, compared to $13 billion in 2020. This year, there were 1,926 investment rounds, with 674 of them being Series A+ rounds. Furthermore, 3,143 new companies were created and regardless of the year of formation, almost 1,638 new enterprises were funded this year.

The Indian start-up ecosystem had a productive week. In the third week of December, there were a number of investment rounds. Several companies benefited from the week since they were able to raise capital for new market expansion and increased manufacturing. On this Christmas eve Let's take some time to peek at what's been making headlines recently in the Startup Ecosystem.

Razorpay

The Bangalore-headquartered startup Razorpay said it has raised $375 million in its Series F financing round. The new round was co-led by Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital and TCV.

Existing investors Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, GIC and Y Combinator also participated in the new round, said Razorpay. Razorpay says it has amassed over 8 million businesses including Facebook, Swiggy, Cred, National Pension System, Indian Oil among its customers.

“Our payments businesses continues to keep getting stronger. In the last one and a half years, we have also been able to prove our thesis on neobanking and lending,” said Harshil Mathur, co-founder and chief executive Razorpay. “We want to ensure that when you start a company, and sign up with Razorpay, we do everything for you on the financial side-from opening a bank account to building payments and disbursals and salary payouts. You don’t have to step out and use multiple tools,” he added.

Zepto

Mumbai-based Zepto has secured $100 million from its previous investor, Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator's Continuity Fund, signalling the frenzied dealmaking in the so-called ultrafast delivery area.

The Mumbai-based company, which is one of the most talked-about startups this year, has more than doubled its valuation to $570 million after raising $60 million at a valuation of $225 million just two months ago.

Glade Brook Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Global Founders Capital, and Contrary Capital were among the new and current investors in the round.

Jumbotail

Jumbotail, a business-to-business e-commerce startup that provides food to mom-and-pop shops, announced the completion of $85 million Series C investment.

Artal Asia Pte. Ltd., a subsidiary of Invus, a worldwide equity investment firm with over $10 billion in evergreen capital under management, led the financing.

The round was also attended by Ajax Capital, the family office of renowned FMCG entrepreneur Ajay Gupta. Early investors Nexus Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital took minor part-exits in the secondary, making this Series C round a mix of main and secondary investments. This brings the company's total capital raised to $125 million. The corporation didn't say how much it was worth.

Flo Mobility

Apart from other angel investors, Flo Mobility, a firm developing vision-based autonomous driving technology for a variety of vehicles, has raised $400,000 in funding from DevX Venture Fund, Venture Garage Angels, and Blume Founders Fund.

The mobility firm, founded in 2019 by Manesh Jain and Mohan Sivam, aims to provide autonomy-as-a-service by integrating its technology into everything from electric scooters to agri-weeders and even lawn mowers.

It claims that its cost-effective, compute-light, and interoperable stack can be applied to current vehicles and equipment, allowing them to function autonomously or remotely.

“Autonomous tech is finding its way around multiple applications and I believe our platform centric approach and subscription based pricing will pave the way to build a multi billion dollar business,” said Jain, who is also the CEO of Flo Mobility.

Ripplr

Ripplr, a distribution and logistics startup, has raised $12 million (about Rs 90 crore) in a funding round led by Japanese firm Sojitz Corporation and Stride Ventures, which included a combination of equity and debt. Existing investors 3one4 Capital, Zephyr Peacock India Growth Fund, and Chand Family Office joined the pre-series B funding round.

In January 2021, the Bengaluru startup raised $3 million in a series-A financing.

Angel investors, including the Licious founders Vivek and Abhay, and the Kaleyra founders Aniketh and Ashish, took part, according to the Bengaluru startup.

Abhishek Nehru and Santosh Dabke, cofounders of Ripplr, told PTI that they plan to invest USD12 million in building and scaling up an asset-light, tech-enabled FMCG distribution network. This will entail expanding into new geographies and developing strong technological skills, as well as product creation and attracting new people.

NABVENTURES

In a Series A round led by NABVENTURES, the Indian ‘egg-focussed’ consumer company Eggoz has raised $3.5 Mn.

Rebright Partners Bellerive Capital, Avaana Capital and angel investors Indresh Saluja and Sanjiv Rangrass also participated in the round.

Eggoz procures fresh, chemical-free eggs from farmers and supposedly within 24 hours of laying delivers them to retailers. By deploying IoT infrastructure and other technologies, the startup works closely with farmers. Including pH tests, quality grading, cleaning and UV sanitisation, Eggoz puts eggs through 11 safety checks.

The startup will use the funds towards launching new egg-based value-added products, increasing its brand footprint and entering new geographies.

Yodacart

Yodacart, an e-commerce start-up founded by Vikas Sharma, an XLRI Jamshedpur student, has received $225,000 in pre-seed capital from Ajith Daniel, a New York-based Angel Investor. Ajith, by the way, is an XLRI alumnus. Yodacart is a company that specialises in last-mile logistics, same-day delivery, and customer service using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

"With an existing presence in Maharashtra and covering more than 350 SKUs, the company plans to use the funds to enhance the platform, expand product categories, and expand nationally, growing its services by 50X within the next year. As part of the funding investment, Yodacart will also receive support from two portfolio companies headed by Ajith Daniel," a company statement said.

NirogStreet

NirogStreet, a technology-driven Ayurveda doctor platform, has secured $4 million in a round headed by Crescent Enterprises and ICMG's CE-Ventures corporate venture capital platform.

The round was also attended by Gokul Rajaram, board member at Coinbase and Pinterest; Wavemaker partners; Anuj Srivastava, founder at Livspace; Rajeev Kannan, management executive officer at Sumitomo, Singapore; Suresh Vasudevan, CEO of Sysdig USA; Ramakant Sharma, cofounder of Livspace, Andy Hwang, ex-Google executive, Ashutosh Sinha, former CEO at Morgan Stanley, Dr. Kyohei Takano, a Tokyo-based gynecologist, Arup Dutta, VP of global quantitative equity at Mackenzine Investments, and Lalit Mittal, head, Livspace Interior Business.