The Venture Intelligence Blog

Powered by mega bets on E-Commerce, 2014 is 2nd biggest year for PE investments after 2007 Flipkart, Snapdeal and Olacabs account for 5 of Top 10 investments during ‘14  After plunging to a four year low in 2013, Private Equity investments in India bounced back by 47.3% during 2014 to touch $10.9 billion (across 436 deals) – the second highest figure ever, behind only the $14.5 billion (across 529 deals) invested in 2007, according to data from Venture Intelligence, a research service focused on private company financials, transactions and valuations. The surge was led by mega deals in Online Services companies - including especially E-Commerce firms – that accounted for almost $4.1 billion (across 106 deals) or 37.6% of the investment pie during the year. (Note: Venture Intelligence's PE data does not include investments in Real Estate.) Just the top two home grown e-tailers, Flipkart and Snapdeal, collected almost $3 billion between them in 2014. Flipkart, via its Sin...

IDG Ventures India has invested in PlaySimple, a mobile social gaming company through its seed fund program. The company is focused on mobile games in the trivia, word and puzzle categories. Yezdi Lashkari, a former executive, at Zynga, also participated as an angel investor as part of the round. The money will be used to build a portfolio of mobile casual games targeting the global markets. Playsimple also plans to increase its team from six to 20 and is looking to hire game designers and UI experts.   Source: Yourstory.com 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.

Kyron Global Accelerator plans has announced its third batch of startups, most of which come from the enterprise or media space including:  Cubito: A transportation logistics Automation startup, infusing intelligence into business processes involving transportation.  Xpense Manager: A Software as a Service company addressing traditional problems in areas of business productivity & finance domain by devising applications which are more user focused than process driven.  Eywa Media Innovations: Eywa Media is a product that would make TV watching interactive and fun.  Viamagus: A SaaS product startup that helps simplify the way businesses and individuals build & maintain their online presence and do business online. Cashkumar: An online platform that provides the best rates for foreign currency exchange in Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune. Adwyze: A marketing optimization platform, which allows marketers to improve the performance of th...

Delhi-based retail technology startup Primaseller has raised funding from Mumbai Angels led by member Dr.Aniruddha Malpani with participation from US-based tech entrepreneur Kishore Ganji and others. The startup provides software as a service platform that helps retailers grow their business by allowing them to manage both brick and mortar stores as well as sell on multiple online channels. It will use the funds to increase the number of online channels offered and build a stronger customer base. 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.

Yellow-and-black taxis aggregator BookMyCab has raised a Series A round of funding led by impact investment firm Contrarion Drishti managed Contrarian Vridhhi Fund-I. The funding round also saw participation from BookMyCab's existing backers Mumbai Angels and YourNest Angel Fund. The company, which currently operates about 3,000 cabs in Mumbai, will use the proceeds to expand its operations in the northern and southern parts of the country. It recently acquired Hyderabad-based online taxi booking service provider CabOnClick. The company is also in talks with other venture capital firms to raise its next round of funding.  Source: Times of India   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 Newslett...

Seattle and Bangalore-based Unitus Seed Fund has invested in education-focused start-ups Curiositi and Cue Learn, a month after it roped in Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Michael and Susan Dell Foundation as its anchor investors. Founded in 2013 by former Wipro executives Vinod Abraham and Manoj Thandassery,  Bangalore-based Curiositi partners with schools to affordably transform their science curriculum. Curiositi maps the curriculum to its port folio of over 80 science activity kits and delivers these kits to help students explore activities relevant to them. New Delhi-based Cue Learn provides after-school learning programs for maths and English. The year-old startup, founded by Manan and Jagjit Khurma, has over 25 learning centres and will use the new funds to expand operations across states and add to its product line.  Source: Economic Times   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transa...

Vliv, a mobile video tech start-up, has raised seed funding from Mumbai Angels Network and a group of senior executives of technology companies such as Manish Dalal of Verisign, Srini Raghavan of Scientific Games and Pari Natarajan of Zinnov. Vliv makes the app that comes with all the tools needed to create personal movies and share them. Vliv, which has offices in Santa Clara, CA (USA) and Delhi, will use the funds to expand its footprint and launch its next video app simultaneously in over 15 global languages. Vaibhav Suri co-founded Vliv two years ago along with his Yahoo colleagues Ashish Chadha and Kiran Kulkarni.  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 Newslette...

Utthishta Yekum Fund, a Hyderabad-based seed fund, has invested INR 25 lakh to pick a 9% stake in the start-up Vaave promoted by Coherendz India Pvt Ltd. Vaave helps educational institutions build exclusive networking portals for their alumni. About 50 institutions have been using the product to connect with their old students. Vaave also offers a placement and training portal, online events registration and merchandise store.  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.

Bangalore-based IT services firm Avekshaa Technologies has raised about INR 3 crore ($500,000) from a clutch of investors, including Karnataka government's KITVEN fund and ex-Infosys CFO V Balakrishnan. The company, founded by former senior executives of Infosys, will use the funds to target the US market and develop technology. The company, currently valued at $8 million (about INR 48 crore) will also be entering the Australian market. Avekshaa offers software modelling as a service and works with teams to optimise software during development. The company has 18 paying customers, including ICICI Lombard, IndusInd Bank, and HDFC. It expects $2 million (about INR 12 crore) in revenue this fiscal.  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 D...

Gurgaon-based Grofers which has developed an app that helps customers get goods delivered from shops around them, has raised funding from Sequoia Capital India. Founded by Saurabh Kumar and Albinder Dhindsa, Grofers has 200+ people and has expanded to Mumbai and Bangalore. The company has tied up with over 150 merchants, processes close to 33,000 orders every month and generates 20 new leads per outlet every month.  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.

Delhi-based Youth4work, a start-up offering pre-assessed talent for-hire to companies, has raised INR 2.8 crore in bridge capital from Aurum Equity Partners, Global Asia Partners and UK-based angel investor Dan Sandhu. Founded by Rachit Jain in 2012, Youth4Work offers a platform where individuals showcase their talent and skills in which they are tested and ranked. The company has 5 lakh users and aims to reach one million users in the next eight months. It will use the funding for enhancing marketing, user experience and the team. The company's user base spans to 250 cities across India, with a network of 5,400 colleges and 9,000 registered recruiters. Its clients include Microsoft, Adobe, Mahindra and Aon Hewitt.  Source: Times of India   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 i...

The Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has led an investment in Aakar Innovations, a maker of compostable sanitary pads. The round received participation from Artha Platform, a philanthropy community. Aakar’s sanitary pads are produced and sold by women entrepreneurs in their own villages. So far, around 22 machines have been sold across India of which 15 are already operational. The rest will be functional by mid-December.  Source: Business Standard   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.