The Venture Intelligence Blog

Online Restaurant guide Zomato has acquired New Zealand's MenuMania in an estimated INR 5 crore all-cash deal, making the acquirer the largest player in its space in the island country which has over 15,000 restaurants. Started in 2006 by Auckland-based techie Cristian Rosescu, MenuMania was the largest rival to Zomato in New Zealand. It had started its operations in Auckland and Wellington in July last year With this acquisition, Zomato has operations across 12 countries. The company raised $37 million (Rs 227 crore) last year from Sequoia Capital and existing investor Info Edge. Source: Economic Times Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

UK-based publishing group Pearson invested Rs 30 lakh in Hyderabad-based school chain operator Sudiksha Knowledge Solutions. Sudiksha aims to use the funds to expand its schools to more locations in and around the city. The company also plans to pilot a franchisee model with existing and new entrepreneurs.  Source: Business Line   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Online consumer feedback platform Akosha has raised $5.2 million from Sequoia Capital India. The funding will be used to invest in technology and to expand the company’s OneDirect Suite of enterprise solutions like customer service benchmarking, online feedback CRM, and reputation management solutions.  Source: Nextbigwhat   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

NCR-based tea cafe chain 'Chaayos' has raised angel investment of over Rs 2 crore from Powai Lake Ventures and is looking to raise venture capital to open nearly 50-odd stores across the country. Currently, there are five cafes with the theme 'Experiments with Chai' in Gurgaon and Noida and five more would be opened by the end of this year. The chai chain is also looking to sell merchandise including adrak-tusli chai, desichai, green tea, chai masala and chaimug.  Source: Business Line Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Odisha-based consumer dairy foods company Milk Mantra has raised series C funding of INR 80 crore from Fidelity Growth Partners India and existing investor, Aavishkaar India II Company Ltd. The transaction provided an exit to most of the angel investors and Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital Fund. Unitus Capital was the sole financial advisor to Milk Mantra on this transaction and Amarchand & Mangaldas , Wadia Ghandy and Universal Legal acted as legal advisors.  Milk Mantra Dairy was founded in August 2009 by Srikumar Misra to create sustainable impact on among farmers using innovative dairy products and technology. The company produces a range of products like milk, probiotic dahi, paneer, lassi and buttermilk under the ‘Milky Moo’ brand from its processing plant at Gop, Odisha. This round of funding will help Milk Mantra expand its operations across Eastern India as well as launch products such as milkshake.   Source: Press Release Venture Intelli...

Aspada Investment Company, which is backed with a significant commitment from the Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF), has made a commitment of INR 12 crore (USD $2 million) in Bangalore-based Capital Float, a business that provides working capital loans to underserved small businesses via a technology-led loan origination and credit underwriting platform. Capital Float works with SMEs in manufacturing, services and e-commerce and is led by Gaurav Hinduja and Sashank Rishyasringa, who both returned to India to start the firm after completing their MBAs at Stanford University. Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Silicon Valley incubator Y Combinator will invest $120,000 (Rs 72 lakh) in Delhi-based ClearSharp Technology, which runs the online tax filing portal Cleartax.in. ClearTax is founded by Archit Gupta, a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Guwahati and his father Raja Ram, a chartered accountant. Around 3 lakh people have used ClearTax's services so far and it expects twice that number to use the portal in the current tax season. It counts Royal Bank of Scotland, In-Mobi and Flipkart as customers.  Source: Economic Times   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

GenNext Ventures, the venture investing arm of Mukesh Ambani, is backing Kolkata-based video surveillance technology maker Videonetics Technologies . Videonetics develops a range of video management and analytic software and has filed over 20 patents. This is the first round of institutional funding for the six-year old company that counts the Airports Authority of India, Mushriff Mall & Capital Plaza Mall in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait's Information and Communication Ministry as customers.  Source: Economic Times   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Tutorvista founder K.Ganesh has invested in New Delhi-based ecommerce marketplace Overcart.com which sells the unsold stock and seal open products of larger ecommerce companies to retail consumers and smaller retailers. The company will use the proceeds to build its team and to build itsr supply chain and operations. Overcart.com had earlier raised $25,000 from GSF Acceleratorand a host of angel investors including Naveen Tewari, cofounder and chief executive of InMobi and Vijay Shekhar Sharma of One97 Communications.  Source: Economic Times Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Pathfinder Publishing’s career counselling platform Careers360 has raised investment from five angel investors led by Ranjan Pai of Manipal Group, Satya Narayanan of Career Launcher, Mahesh Murthy of Pinstorm and two other financial investors. Prior to this, Netcore founder Rajesh Jain had invested in the company during its launch in 2009.  Careers360 will be using this investment to build a education marketplace called myCareers360, that will allow students to evaluate, compare and purchase education products and services across various parameters like price, quality and suitability. At present, myCareers360 offers admission counselling services, test preparation services and study material for competitive exams in various disciplines like medical, engineering, law, pharmacy, commerce, MBA and hotel management among others.  Source: Media Nama   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (p...

Impact investor Aspada has committed to invest over $2 million in Schedulers Logistics, an integrated cold-chain trucking operator that provides end-to-end cold storage and secondary distribution for fresh fruit & vegetable, food processing, and pharmaceutical industries. The investment will be used to increase the company's presence in underserved regions such as the Eastern and North-Eastern states.  In April 2013, Aspada had announced an investment in end-to-end fresh vegetable supply chain company - Lawrencedale Agri Processing, which aggregates produce and sells to retail consumers in major markets under the LEAF brand. In January 2014, Aspada announced an investment in ThinkLink Supply Chain Services, a provider of turnkey project management, design, skill development and staffing services in India's logistics and supply chain sectors. In March 2014, Aspada made an investment in NeoGrowth Credit, a merchant cash advance business that provides loans to small merc...

TouchTalent, an online marketplace for creative talent, has raised INR 4 crore in a seed round led by SAIF Partners. About 15 angel investors - including Deep Kalra of MakeMyTrip and Sachin and Binny Bansal of Flipkart - also particpated in the syndicated round on online fundraising platform LetsVenture.  Founded in 2012 by ex-IIT Delhi students Prasad and Mohammad Wasim, TouchTalent is a web-based community that connects creative professionals such as artists, musicians, photographers and designers, and helps them to share, display and monetise their creations. The company is targeting an user base 2 million by the end of the year from the curent 300,000. The pre-revenue startup, which currently plans to make money through a premium subscription model, will consider going for its Series A round of funding by the end of the current fiscal. Source: Economic Times Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transact...

Exfinity, the early-stage venture capital fund formed by IT Services sector veterans including T.V. Mohandas Pai, Girish Paranjpe and V. Balakrishnan, has announced the closure of the first fund of Rs 100 crore. The fund expects to invest $1 million - $2 million (Rs 6 crore - Rs 12 crore) each across 15-20 companies. The investments will be in products, platforms and IP in emerging areas like cloud, mobility and analytics. The fund has a green shoe option of Rs 25 crore that is now open for exercise.  Reservoir Investment Managers, which manages Exfinity, has signed term sheets with three startups and is conducting due diligence on them. One is in the analytics space, another in the unmanned aerial vehicle space, and the third has a software solution for big data centres to reduce power consumption and capital expenditure.  Source: Times of India   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions ...

Mumbai-based in-stream video ads technologies provider AdSparx has raised an angel round of Rs. 3.5 crore led by Indian Angel Network, followed by Mumbai Angels and GrowX Ventures. Started by former Patni Computers employee Kunal Lagwankar in 2012, AdSparx provides mid-roll technology for buffer-free ad streaming within online video content and has clients such as NexGTV, Vodafone, Airtel and Sony Liv. The company plans to use the money to expand internationally in Singapore and the US, besides covering the domestic market and adding more media houses to its customer list.  LetsVenture CEO Manish Singhal and Indian Angel Network's Sharad Sharma acted as lead investors for the deal.  Source: Economic Times   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal ...

Enterprise software maker Covacsis Technologies has received INR 7 crore in second round funding led by Mukesh Ambani-promoted GenNext Ventures and with participation from Cisco and existing investor Blume Ventures. The Mumbai-based startup founded in 2009 by two IIT Bombay graduates - Tarun Mishra and Abhijeet Mhatre - helps manufacturing companies make their factories more efficient. Covacsis will use the funding to enhance its existing product, team and geographical reach. The company will also expand its headcount from current 62 to 75 by end of the year.  The product developed by Covacsis provides real time data on how a factory is performing, how much money the company is losing on the shop floor and reasons for it. This information is available across platforms like mobiles, tablets and computers. The company charges anywhere from Rs 75 lakh to Rs 4 crore on installing the software in each plant and then enters into services contract with clients. Its client list inclu...

Nykaa.com, the beauty e-commerce portal promoted by investment-banker-turned entrepreneur Falguni Nayar, has raised funds from investors including a family office and a hedge fund. The new investors will together hold close to 20% in the e-commerce venture. After the completion of the latest transaction, the stake of Falguni Nayar and her husband Sanjay Nayar will come down to 75-76%.  Nykaa, which sells popular brands including Calvin Klein, Nautica, Espirit and Jaguar, will use the funds to expand its online business and set up offline retail stores, including one at Terminal 3 of New Delhi's airport. The company is targeting a turnover in excess of Rs 100-120 crore over the next two years.  Source: Economic Times   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the ...