Startup Digest: Top stories of the day

Updated : March 17, 2021 07:24:07 IST

Here's a wrap of the top startup stories today (March 17).

Shunwei Capital exits Bombinate Technologies, parent company of Vokal and Koo

Chinese venture capital firm Shunwei Capital has exited Indian microblogging platform Koo. Former Indian cricketer Javagal Srinath, Bookmyshow founder Ashish Hemrajanai, Udaan co-founder Sujeet Kumar, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy, and Zerodha founder Nikhil Kamath have bought out Shunwei’s stake, the company said. Shunwei Capital owned more than 9 percent in Bombinate Technologies, the company said in a statement. Koo's investors include 3one4 Capital, Kalaari Capital, and Blume Ventures. In February, Aprameya Radhakrishna, the CEO and co-founder of Koo had told CNBC-TV18, that Shunwei Capital was on its way out.

OZiva raises $12 million in Series B Led By Eight Roads Ventures

Plant-based nutrition brand OZiva has raised $12 million in a series B round led by new investor Eight Roads Ventures, with participation from F-Prime Capital and existing investor Matrix Partners India. The brand has a portfolio of products across categories such as women’s health, skin, hair, men’s health, and general wellness, developed using natural, plant-based ingredients. It combines modern science and technology with the goodness of Ayurvedic herbs to enable holistic living, the company claims. The funds from this round will be used to build out the team, enter new product categories, build out its technology platform to provide more value-added services , and establish OZiva as a leading consumer health brand in India, the company said.

Euler Motors raises additional $2.6 million in its Series A round

Euler Motors has closed its series A funding round at $9.5 million with additional investments of $2.6 million raised from new investor ADB Ventures, the venture investing arm of Asian Development Bank and existing investor, Blume Ventures. This also marks the first investment by ADB Ventures in an EV company globally.

The new funds will be used for Euler Motors’ upcoming launch of its three-wheeler cargo vehicle this year, and support market expansion in India to cities like Bangalore, Kolkata, Ahmedabad & Pune, in addition to Delhi NCR. This round follows capital infusion of $4 million led by its existing investors - Inventus Capital and Jetty Ventures – announced earlier this month. With this, Euler Motors has raised a total of $11.6 million since inception in 2018. Investors include ADB Ventures, Blume Ventures, Inventus Capital, Jetty Ventures, US based Emergent Ventures, Andrew Lee, Sujeet Kumar, Cofounder, Udaan, and Srinivas Anumolu & K Ganesh from Growth Story.

Blive raises $1 million in a pre-series A round

EV experience platform BLive has raised $1 million as part of follow-on capital of Pre-Series A round. The funding which was a combination of debt & equity was led by LetsVenture, Mumbai Angels, JITO and Credit Wise Capital. The company had raised funds led by a strategic investment from DNA Networks in September 2019. The company is operates in 15 cities across 9 states, and claims to have successfully completed over 10,000 eBike tours.

MODIFI announces $60 million debt facility with SVB; To address increasing demand in India & fuel global expansion

Global fintech, MODIFI has announced a new $60 million debt facility with Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), bringing its total raised capital to $111 million. The facility from SVB’s German Branch will be used to address increasing demand in India and other existing markets, as well as fuel MODIFI’s continued growth in new geographies, particularly the US, the company said.

The venture claims, expansion into the US, paired with the existing coverage, will establish MODIFI as the only digital trade finance platform focused on SMEs that spans the three major trading regions of Europe, Asia and North America - a cluster which encompasses approximately 80 percent of global imports and exports respectively. MODIFI’s digital trade finance platform provides SMEs with buyer and seller financing in a matter of days. Founded in 2018, MODIFI is tackling a $20 trillion industry in which 50 percent of requests for Trade Finance by SMEs are rejected by banks, resulting in a funding gap of $1.5 trillion annually.

India saw VC investments of $10 billion in 2020, added 7000 startups & 12 unicorns: IVCA - Bain & Company Report

A pandemic notwithstanding, India clocked VC investments of about $10 billion in 2020, which is the highest in recent years after 2019, according to the India Venture Capital Report 2021 by IVCA and Bain & Company. The year saw continued momentum in consumer tech and SaaS space - VC investment value in consumer tech and SaaS grew by 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively, in 2020 vs. 2019. India focused funds raised $3 billion in the year, 40 percent higher than in 2019. Leading VC firms - Sequoia Capital, Elevation Partners, Falcon Edge, and Lightspeed closed new funds for India investments in 2020.

"In terms of key sectors receiving investments, consumer tech, SaaS, and fintech continued to lead the way, accounting for 75 percent of VC investments in 2020 vs. 65 percent in 2019. Fourteen of 22 VC deals were more than $100 million in size. Key subsectors receiving investments included edtech, foodtech, gaming, and media and entertainment in consumer tech; verticalised solutions within SaaS; and payments within fintech. SaaS in particular saw clear signs of maturity, with average deal size increasing dramatically in 2020 over 2019—$14 million in 2019, growing to $25 million in 2020”, the report said.

India is now among top five startup ecosystems globally, 7,000 new startups were founded in 2020, with a 13 percent growth in seed stage deals. The year also saw the largest ever increase in unicorns in a single year - 12 unicorns compared to eight in 2019. India is now home to 37 unicorns. Even though investors were bullish, average deal size in 2020 declined by 15 percent vs. 2019, driven by a higher number of smaller deals.

"Going forward, we expect deal momentum in India to continue into 2021, with the second half of 2020 seeing deal activity recover to pre-Covid19 levels—VC investments totalled $3 billion in January to March, declined to $1.1 billion in April to June, and then recovered to $3 billion each in the next two quarters. Further, the number of active VC funds continued to grow in 2020 – at 520 vs 480 in 2019, with multiple new funds investing such as Inflection Point, Avataar, Coatue, D1 Capital, amongst others," the report said.

2020 saw a slowdown in VC exits – down 70 percent from $4.4 billion in 2019 to $1.3 billion in 2020 due to depressed valuations and disruption of operations of startups. It is expected to recover over the next 1–2 years as portfolios mature. Compared to 2019, investment value grew 6x in Edtech, 4x in Foodtech, 2.7x in Gaming, and 2.4x in media & entertainment, signifying the role of Covid-19 in accelerating digital adoption. Meanwhile, industrial lockdowns and decline in economic activity negatively affected investments into B2B commerce and tech that saw investment value declining by 50 percent in 2020.

"We expect recovery over the next 1–2 years as portfolios of top VC investors mature (most portfolios did not reach maturity in 2020, in addition to Covid-19 impacting exit valuations and disrupting business models across sectors). Overall, the strength of India’s VC ecosystem has driven real economic value for the country—VC investments have played a pivotal role in bolstering the start-up ecosystem in India—only behind US and China globally—and have created more than 3 million jobs directly or indirectly over the past eight years," the report said.

Apple Inc spending from 'Green Bonds' hits $2.8 billion

Apple Inc say it has allotted $2.8 billion raised from “green bonds” that last year funded 17 projects that will generate 1.2 gigawatts of renewable energy. The company said the projects will avoid an average of 921,000 metric tonne of carbon emissions each year, which it said is equal to removing nearly 200,000 cars from the road. Green bonds are a category of fixed-income securities that raise capital for projects with environmental benefits, such as renewable energy or low-carbon transport.

Apple, one of the largest private-sector issuers of such bonds, is using the capital as part of its effort to become carbon neutral across its sprawling manufacturing supply chain by 2030. The company has issued three sets of green bonds since 2016 totaling $4.7 billion. Among Apple’s 2020 green bond projects was what it said was a set of two onshore wind turbines in Denmark that it said are that nation’s largest.

The company said the 200-meter tall turbines near Esbjerg will generate 62 gigawatt hours of electricity each year for Apple’s data center in Viborg, with all surplus energy going to the Danish grid. Apple said other projects last year were a 180-acre solar power site near its data center in Reno, Nevada, that will generate 270 megawatts of power along with its other Nevada projects; a 112-megawatt power purchase agreement with a wind farm near Chicago to offset power consumption in that region; and a 165-megawatt solar power development project with three other companies near Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Published : March 17, 2021 07:24 PM IST

Startup Digest: Top stories of the day

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