Funding Rundown: Innovaccer raises $150 mn, Uni secures $70 mn, Softbank Vision Fund invests $60 mn in Juspay

Here’s a lowdown of the top deals from the startup space:

Healthtech startup Innovaccer has raised a $150 million in Series E funding round led by Mubadala Capital, at a valuation of $3.2 billion.

Other investors including B Capital Group, Microsoft’s M12 fund, OMERS Growth Equity, Dragoneer, Steadview Capital, Tiger Global Management, Whale Rock Capital Management, Avidity Partners, and Schonfeld Strategic Advisors also participated in this round.

With this investment, Innovacer has raised a total of over $375 million in funding. The company plans to use its new funding to invest in R&D and recruit new hires as it rapidly scales its customer experience, product, and engineering talent, it said in a statement.

The company also intends to release a new portfolio of Innovation Accelerators programme in 2022 that is aimed at aiding healthcare organisations tackle the most common and high-impact clinical, operational, and financial use cases on its platform.

Fintech startup Uni has raised $70 million in Series-A funding round led by General Catalyst, with participation from Eight Roads Ventures, Elevation Capital, Arbor Ventures and existing investors Lightspeed and Accel.

The funds will be utilised to scale up the team, launch new products and invest further in technology to redefine consumer experience, the startup's co-founder and Chief Executive Nitin Gupta said.

Including the latest funding round, Uni has raised $88.5 million so far. The firm aims to bring in a range of credit products starting with its 'pay later' card, 'Pay 1/3rd' card.

With the new round of funding, the fintech startup targets to hit monthly disbursals of Rs 1,500 crore next year, having already hit Rs 175 crore in monthly disbursals within six months of the launch in June 2021.

Juspay Technologies has announced $60 million in Series C funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 with participation from existing investors VEF and Wellington Management.

The firm intends to invest the funds in technology and product development to scale its business in payments and product adjacencies like credit - both in India and globally. Avendus Capital has advised Juspay in this funding round.

Founded in 2012, Juspay processes 11 million transactions per day, including for transactions for leading merchants like Amazon, Flipkart and Swiggy. The company's offerings include Juspay Safe - a payment browser that simplifies payment authentication, HyperSDK - a payments SDK distribution installed across 250 million mobile phones, and Express Checkout -  a payments orchestration platform to boost transaction success rates.

Varanium NexGen Fund, a fintech-focused venture capital (VC) fund of Varanium Capital has marked its final close at Rs 140 crore.

The fund invests in early-stage fintech startups and its investors include family offices, financial institutions, professionals, and entrepreneurs including former CEOs and CXOs of banks, said the company in a statement.

The fund has so far invested in five startups and has made commitments to three more startups. It aims to make investments in 14-18 startups in total, it said. Current investments include Homecapital, Riskcovry, Easebuzz, TartanHQ and Dronapay.

Private label manufacturer of personal care products Vedic Cosmeceuticals has raised Rs 25 crore in Series A funding round led by Sixth Sense Ventures.

“We aim to utilize the raised funds to expand our outreach to newer markets and global clientele, and considerably scale up operations and take our Research & Development to the next level,” said Mohit Goel, Founder Vedic Cosmeceuticals.

The company currently has a monthly production capacity of 300 metric tons and aims to upscale it to 1000 metric tons.

The company manufactures personal care products for Indian cosmetic brands including Nykaa, Moms Co., Sirona and Arata with a fifth of their current production exported to Europe.

Home decor startup Nestasia has raised $4 million in a Series A funding round led by Stellaris Venture Partners.

This also marks first investment in the home decor and lifestyle segment by Stellaris, which closed its $225 million funding round recently.

A group of more than 60 high net worth individuals, including entrepreneurs and industry professionals such as MamaEarth’s Varun Alagh, Delhivery’s Sahil Barua and Deutsche India’s Dilip Khandelwal, also participated in the round.

Nestasia is looking to reach over 10 million households in India by 2025. With new launches every week, the brand is also looking to increase its range to 10,000 products by June 2022, further expanding into other categories including cookware and soft furnishings.

With this round, Nestasia is looking to invest on its platform, products, technology and infrastructure, it said in a statement.

Singapore-headquartered HR process automation startup HireQuotient has raised $1.8 million in a Pre- Seed funding round from leading angel investors.

The angel round saw founders such as Binny Bansal (Flipkart), Sumant Sinha (ReNew Power), Mohan Lakhamraju (Great Learning), Sujeet Kumar (Udaan), Kunal Shah (Cred), and Nimesh Kampani (Trica) and his syndicate on the LetsVenture platform, pitching in.

HireQuotient will use the funding to accelerate technology and product development to enable them to better serve clients across different industries and roles in US, and EU, it said in a statement.

Ecommerce enablement startup ShopConnect has raised $1.5 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by from IBS Technology and Consulting Services, the holding company of IBS Software.

The company in a statement said it will use the fresh funds to expand its business in India, US and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) markets. This would also help it to accelerate its product and technology innovation and invest further in R&D initiatives to constantly improve its IP assets portfolio, the firm added.

ShopConnect is a sector-agnostic AR-integrated video shopping platform for interactive ecommerce and AI-powered sales promotion targeted at brick-and-mortar fashion retailers that are trying to get into ecommerce.

“We aim to onboard 2500 premium brands in fashion & accessories, footwear, jewellery, furniture, and electronics across India and other geographies in the next three years,” said Dilli Babu Nandarapu, founder and CEO of ShopConnect.

D2C brand Haus & Kinder has raised $1.3 million in a Pre-Series funding round led by angel investor Shaival Desai.

The firm is looking to raise a further $5 million in a Series A funding round early next year.

The company will use the capital to strengthen its brand and accelerate new product launches in the home and new-born baby category, it said in a statement.

Haus & Kinder claims to have grown to 400-odd SKUs in bedsheet, towels and baby swaddles segments and has served more than two million consumers across 300 cities in India as well as in UAE.

Frendy, a community group buying platform has raised a pre–Series A funding of Rs 10 crore from Pavitar Singh (Chief Technology Officer- Sprinklr), Abhishek Khurana (SVP product engineering, Sprinklr) and the Desai family office (investors in Infibeam, Licious, PetPooja, PeeSafe).

The will utilise the funds for growth, expanding its team and meeting working capital needs, it said in a statement.  The startup is in the final stage of discussions with several investors to close its series A round of Rs 30 crore in the next few months, it added.

The platform provides discounts on groceries and other daily needs-related items to tier two- tier six towns through the neighbourhood homepreneurs.

Homegrown creator monetisation startup TagMango has raised undisclosed capital in a pre-Series A round from JAM Fund (founder of Tinder, Justin Mateen), Ankur Nagpal (founder of Teachable), Soma Capital, TA Ventures and Belief Partners.

The current round also saw participation from prominent creators like Varun Duggirala, Evan Luthra, Prakhar Gupta and MSB Vision, and Pioneer Fund.

The startup plans to utilise the funds for product development, creator acquisition, community building and team expansion, it said in a statement.

The platform said it is currently focusing on sectors such as finance, education and food. TagMango is eyeing a revenue of over $10 million in creator earnings for 2021.

Nutrition brand CocoWorks, operated by Roligt Foods, has raised an undisclosed amount from entrepreneur Kanthi Dutt.

The firm plans to allocate the funds to expand their omni-channel presence; support the ecosystem with its state-of-the-art, sustainable offerings; streamline logistical structure and acquire talent for its industrial growth, it said in a statement.

Cocoworks was incubated by T-Hub's Lab32 recent cohort and is also a part of recent T-angel cohort of T-HUB.