Tag: Funding

Velocity.in raises $20 million in funding led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures

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Velocity.in, a Bengaluru-based fintech start-up, has raised $20 million in Series A funding from Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures along with the participation from Presight Capital, Utsav Somani’s iSeed, Maninder Gulati (Oyo), Zac Prince (BlockFi) and Philippe De Mota (Hedosophia).

Combined with the $10 million seed round announced earlier this year, Velocity has raised a total of $30 million in equity till now. In addition, Velocity has also raised multiple debt lines with NBFCs to scale its revenue-based financing platform.

Launched in early 2020, Velocity offers revenue-based financing to e-commerce businesses as an alternative to venture capital and traditional bank debt. Within the span of 1.5 years, over 1,500 D2C and e-commerce businesses have signed up for Velocity’s revenue-based financing. The fintech player claims to have over ₹1,200 crore fundable revenues connected to its platform and has processed 250+ investments across 175 companies. With the new capital, the start-up aims to deploy over ₹1,000 crore towards 1,000+ e-commerce businesses.

Commenting on the fundraise, Abhiroop Medhekar, co-founder and CEO of Velocity, said, “Our vision is to build the future of business financing in India. Valar’s investment in our Series A has reaffirmed the firm’s belief in Velocity. We are keen to use this funding to build multiple world class products for thousands of new-age businesses.”

Andrew McCormack of Valar Ventures, said: “Since our last investment, Velocity has grown 10x and secured the lead position in this fast-growing market. Despite this exponential growth, their portfolio quality remains strong. We were impressed by their strong customer orientation, tech-product DNA, and ambitious growth plans.”

Velocity leverages digital data to evaluate an application across 50+ parameters and extend up to ₹3 crore of finance within five days. The repayments happen flexibly as a share of the company’s online revenues. Velocity does not take any collateral, personal guarantee or equity dilution and only charges a fixed fee of 4-8 per cent on the deployed capital.

Brands that have historically raised capital through Velocity are said to have grown their revenues by 1.5x within six months of funding and 78 per cent of these brands become repeat customers. Velocity’s portfolio includes companies like PowerGummies, Green Soul, WallMantra, BellaVita, Smoor Chocolates and CrossBeats.

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SoftBank may invest $10 billion in Indian startups in 2022, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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SoftBank Group Corp. can invest $5 billion to $10 billion in India next year if it finds valuations attractive, said Rajeev Misra, chief executive officer of SoftBank Investment Advisers.

“If we find the right companies, we could invest $5 billion to $10 billion in 2022,” Misra said on Thursday at the Bloomberg India Economic Forum. “If we find the right opportunities at the right valuation.”

So far, investments in India haven’t disappointed the Japanese giant with its portfolio of startups in the country sitting atop sizable gains in valuations. SoftBank is planning to raise the stakes in India — having invested $3 billion in 2021 — just as global firms grow more wary of bets in China with tighter regulations across a number of industries hurting deals there.

India has been a bright spot for SoftBank, whose Vision Fund reported a record loss of 825.1 billion yen ($7.2 billion) for the quarter ended in September, on the decline in value of public holdings such as the Korean e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. and the Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Global Inc. The Japanese company invested early in the Indian market, taking a stake in ride-hailing giant Ola and e-commerce leader Flipkart, before its acquisition by Walmart Inc.

SoftBank also invested in digital payments pioneer Paytm, which is poised to raise $2.5 billion in its initial public offering. Oyo Hotels & Homes, also backed by SoftBank, filed preliminary documents for an 84.3 billion rupee ($1.1 billion) initial public offering in October.

India’s tech ecosystem is taking off and SoftBank’s patience will be “rewarded,” Misra said. “It is India’s time.”



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Lysto raises $3 m funding from BEENEXT, others

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NFT start-up Lysto on Thursday said it has raised $3 million (about ₹22.3 crore) from various entities, including BEENEXT, Better Capital and Cloud Capital.

The seed round saw participation from angel investors and entrepreneurs, including Binny Bansal (Flipkart co-founder), Sandeep Nailwal and Jaynti Kanani (Polygon co-founders), Pradyumna Agarwal (Temasek Managing Director), Nitish Mittersain (Nazara Games founder) and Kunal Shah (Cred founder).

Besides, Ashish Hemrajani and Parikshit Dhar (BookMyShow co-founders), Anupam Mittal (Shaadi.com), Ashish Gupta (Helion Ventures founder), Kumar Sudarsan (Qwikcilver founder) and others also participated in the funding round, according to a statement. The funding will help with product development and allow Lysto to invest in the expansion of team that will help achieve its mission of furthering and simplifying the adoption of NFTs, it added.

NFTs

An NFT (Non-fungible token) is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger, called a blockchain, that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore, not interchangeable. NFTs can be used to represent items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files.

In an increasingly digital world, businesses and consumers are turning to NFTs as a means of establishing unique ownership of digital assets on the blockchain.

Lysto, which was founded in 2021, has offices in Bengaluru and Singapore. It aims to take NFTs to more than 4 billion internet users through millions of use cases.

“NFTs are becoming an integral part of business and culture. With its applications across industries, it is a multi-billion dollar industry, which is largely restricted to digital art and collectibles currently.”

“As the market expands, we see that every e-commerce player, every production (entertainment, gaming, animation), and every brand would want to launch NFTs to raise funds and monetise their offerings,” Sadiq Ahamed, founder and CEO of Lysto, said.

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Troo Good raises ₹55 cr funding from OAKS Asset Management

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Millet-based snacking company Troo Good has raised ₹55 crore in a funding round led by OAKS Asset Management.

The Hyderabad-headquartered company will use the funds raised in the Series A funding round to expand their business from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana into several other States across India, as well as achieve their mission of serving nutritious and affordable snacks to 1 crore children every day, a company statement said.

“We have come a long way in creating a robust pipeline of products and corresponding expertise and are now looking to scale rapidly. We are delighted to have OAKS on board and backing us for this next exciting phase of the Troo Good journey,” it said.

“We expect to have a significant ramp-up in the millet based snacking segment over the next decade and Troo Good is ideally positioned to be at the forefront of this wave,” said Raju Bhupathi, Founder of Troo Good.

Customer base

Currently, the company serves nearly 10 lakh children every day and expects this number to go up significantly as they open new markets.

“We are convinced that Troo Good will create an extraordinary pan-India nutritional food brand over the next few years. We are excited about partnering with Troo Good on this journey over the next few years,” Vishal Ootam, CEO and Founder at OAKS Asset Management said.

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Finzy raises $2 mn bridge to Series A

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Finzy, a P2P lending platform, has raised $2 million as a bridge to $10 million Series A round.

The company will use the funding to strengthen its technology and enhance product offerings for its lenders and borrowers. Finzy was launched in June 2017 and offers personal unsecured loans with interest rates starting at 7.99 per cent per annum.

Commenting on the development, Amit More, CEO and Founder, Finzy said “We have raised this bridge round from our existing investors. We are in the documentation stage with a Silicon Valley-based technology fund and expect our Series A to close within a couple of months. To save excessive dilution at an early stage, we would limit our Series A raise to $10 million though we have demand for a much higher investment number.”

Finzy claims to have more than 1 lakh customers and the largest outstanding loan book amongst all P2P platforms in India. In 2018, the company has raised $2.3 million pre-series A funding from a clutch of senior professionals from the BFSI industry.

Some of the existing players in the P2P lending space include Faircent, LenDenClub, Paisa Dukan, and RupeeCircle, among others. Fintech unicorns like BharatPe and Cred have also recently entered the P2P lending space in India by launching ‘12% Club’ and ‘Cred Mint’, respectively.

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Avanti Finance raises Rs 306 cr in equity, debt funding, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Mumbai, Financial inclusion-focussed non-banking lender Avanti Finance has raised USD 15 million (Rs 111 crore) in series-A2 equity funding round from existing investors Oikocredit, Nomura, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the KR Shroff Foundation, as well as Rs 195 crore in debt. With this cash infusion, Avanti has completed its series-A equity and also debt funding round, raising a total of USD 41 million or Rs 306 crore, the Bengaluru-based company said in a statement on Thursday. It did not, however, say from where it has raised the debt.

Avanti will use the funds to strengthen its tech platform and bolster data science, apart from enhancing its product suite and to expand the team, Rahul Gupta, chief executive of Avanti, said.

Avanti has built a digital platform that facilitates a paperless, presence-less, and cashless approach to lending to reduce cost and friction for the un-served and un-derserved, especially in rural India.

Avanti partners with a diverse set of organisations with strong roots in local communities to offer loan products that are hyperlocal and focused on livelihood sustainability across 21 states covering over 200 districts.

Unitus Capital acted as the exclusive financial transaction advisor to Avanti and Abhiraj Krishna Associates acted as the legal advisors to Avanti. PTI BEN MKJ



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Fintech platform Groww raises $251 m in Series-E funding

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Fintech platform Groww has raised $251 million at a valuation of $3 billion, led by ICONIQ Growth. The current round also saw participation from investors like Alkeon, Lone Pine Capital and Steadfast.

Groww’s existing investors Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, YC Continuity, Tiger Global and Propel Venture Partners also participated in the round.

Extending reach

Started in 2016, Groww enables Indian retail investors to invest in direct mutual funds, stocks, ETFs and IPO. Groww plans to extend its reach to the under-penetrated geographies, strengthen the team and scale tech infrastructure. The company also plans to continue making significant investments in spreading financial education and awareness.

Lalit Keshre, CEO and Co-Founder of Groww, said, “Over the last five years, we have built a product that customers love and have lowered the barriers to investing across India. We are making a difference in the lives of millions of Indians by democratising access. And it seems the journey has just begun with such a huge opportunity ahead of us.”

Financial services market

“Groww has been helping transform the way India invests by building a platform that exemplifies simplicity, trust, and constant innovation. The financial services market in India is already large, growing rapidly, and ripe for disruption. During the last couple of years, Groww has demonstrated that they are ready to seize that opportunity through strong accelerating momentum predicated on strength of technology,” said Yoonkee Sull, partner at ICONIQ Growth.

Groww was founded by Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh and Ishan Bansal. Groww enables retail investors to access financial products and services through its web and mobile app on both iOS and Android. Groww is backed by marquee investors, including Sequoia Capital India, Y Combinator, Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global and Iconiq Growth.

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Bankers see risk in chase for commercial papers, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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MUMBAI: Availability of cheap funds in the money markets through commercial papers is prompting financial intermediaries to arbitrage and chase higher returns. While broking firms are raising funds for funding of initial public offers (IPOs), bankers fear that the money might find a way into riskier assets.

The surplus liquidity in the money market has resulted in the heightened issuance of commercial papers. The average monthly outstanding during the first half of the current financial year has been over Rs 4 lakh crore. However, according to bankers, concerns are emerging on the nature of issuers with some borrowing at high rates.

Commercial papers, although debt instruments like bonds, are for very short tenures (usually three months), because of which issuers can get better ratings than they would for longer-term bonds. These are issued by corporates as well as finance companies and, in recent times, mutual funds have turned out to be major investors in this segment.The share of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) in total commercial paper issuances increased to 43.2% in H1 of 2021-22 from 21.9% in the corresponding period of the previous year, while that of corporates moderated to 46.2% from 64.9% over the same period. Top-rated borrowers can raise funds at close to the reverse repo rate of 3.35%, which is the rate at which banks lend to the RBI. However, yield-chasing fund managers make small investments in high-yield papers and there have been outlier issuers at 12-13% as well.

According to bankers, there is a likelihood that the availability of cheap funds might prompt some intermediaries to arbitrate with more risky investments such as stressed assets. Although companies dealing in stressed assets do not borrow directly from money markets, they can raise money through intermediaries who have access.

Last month, SBI chairman Dinesh Khara said that the drop in credit deposit ratio has resulted in the mispricing of credit risk by banks. “There is a temptation on the part of lenders to go down the risk curve and misprice the risk. We are starting to see this,” he said. While bank deposits rose 3.2% to Rs 156 lakh crore in FY22 up to September 24, advances grew only 0.1% to Rs 109.5 lakh crore in the same period.

The RBI’s monetary policy report noted that commercial paper issuances increased to Rs 10.1 lakh crore during H1 2021-22 from Rs 7.9 lakh crore in H1FY21. Their rates were on an average 46 basis points (100bps = 1 percentage point) higher than the repo rate. However, the yields have risen due to increased issuances by NBFCs, partly to mobilise resources for investment in IPOs, but moderated subsequently, the report said.



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CoinSwitch Kuber is India’s 2nd crypto unicorn

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Notwithstanding the regulatory uncertainty over the legality of cryptocurrencies, India now has two crypto unicorns.

On Wednesday, CoinSwitch Kuber announced raising over $260 million in Series C funding round from a clutch of investors, valuing the company at $1.9 billion.

This makes the Bengaluru-based start-up more valuable than rival CoinDCX, which became India’s first cryptocurrency unicorn after it raised $90 million in August.

Indian cryptocurrency market likely to reach up to $241 million by 2030: Nasscom

Investments flowing in

Indian start-ups in the crypto space have received 73 per cent more funding in the first six months of calendar 2021 compared to the whole of 2020, according to data from Tracxn.

These investments are coming from some of the top names in the private equity and venture capital space.

For instance, CoinSwitch Kuber’s latest funding is from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Coinbase Ventures, Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global.

The investment comes even as the government is yet to spell out its stand on whether cryptocurrencies are legal.

The Reserve Bank of India has expressed its reservation on cryptocurrencies. Even China’s central bank has announced a blanket ban on all cryptocurrency transactions and mining in that country.

Ashish Singhal, Co-founder and CEO, CoinSwitch Kuber, said, “There is some worry over regulations in the short run but we are confident that in the long run there will be positive developments in the cryptocurrency and blockchain segment.

“This is the reason why marquee investors are also putting their bets on India.”

Cryptocurrency — the time to act is now

Upbeat on India

According to a report by US-based blockchain data platform Chainalysis, India’s cryptocurrency market this year grew 641 per cent over the past year.

Large institutional-size transfers above $10 million worth of cryptocurrency represent 42 per cent of transactions from India-based addresses, the report said adding that the numbers suggest that India’s cryptocurrency investors are part of larger, more sophisticated organisations.

Ajeet Khurana, founder of crypto funding consortium Genezis Network, said the perception that something could go wrong is not shared by investors.

“Investors believe cryptocurrency is too big to fail. Further, Indian companies are now large enough and have a global presence to withstand any adverse action in India,” he said.

Rameesh Kailasam, CEO, Indiatech.org, explained that the crypto industry is in a scenario where a product or commodity is moving freely in a market and people are trading in it without being classified under any regulatory body.

“This is like a free animal moving around without a named regulation. While the RBI is in a hurry to work on the regulations, the government is keeping the door partly open. This has emboldened users and investors trading on these platforms to invest freely. One would like to believe that if the sector becomes large and significant enough, it will be difficult to shut it down entirely,” he said.

CoinSwitch Kuber’s Singhal is hoping that the fresh investments would help him scale up.

“Our average user age is about 25 years and we are adding 1-2 million users to CoinSwitch Kuber every month, of which 60 per cent are new users. There is a huge demand and interest and we believe that India can become No 1 in crypto adoption from the No 2 spot at present,” he said.

JOINING THE UNICORN CLUB

Pips its rival CoinDCX to become the most valuable crypto company in India

Began operations in India in June 2020

User base is at over 10 million; plans to onboard 50 million Indians on its platform

 

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Housing credit fintech Homeville raises $7 million

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Homeville, a financial technology company in the housing finance space, has raised $7 million funding with participation from 9Unicorns, Varanium NexGen Fund, JITO Angel Network, CREDAI Members Network, BlackSoil and Earlsfield Capital, among other investors.

Founded by IIM alumni Lalit Menghani, Madhusudan Sharma and Prasad Ajinkya, the startup offers technology-enabled solutions for home buyers.

The technology architecture is based on open banking principles and designs.

Home loans may build up momentum as consumers dare to dream ‘big’

Homeville’s three platforms include HomeCapital for down payment assistance — it has facilitated $250 million worth of housing sales; Bharat Housing Network for co-lending infrastructure in affordable housing finance; and HomeNxt, a business-to-consumer platform, currently in beta stage, which uses technology for mortgage underwriting and delivery.

The company is building the software stack for the digital mortgage platform.

Co-founder Sharma said, “We pioneered India’s first down payment assistance programme to accelerate housing for first-time home buyers. With our digital mortgage product and co-lending platform for affordable home finance, we are deepening our commitment to home buyers and India’s housing finance ecosystem.”

Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Founder, 9Unicorns and Venture Catalysts, added, “The company is building the missing credit network and fintech rails in the massive Indian housing ecosystem. This will accelerate the housing-for-all mission and create a massive social impact.”

Are festive home loan offers worth it?

Jaxay Shah, MD of Savvy group, investor in JITO Angel Network and former national president of CREDAI added, “Homeville’s platforms address the challenges faced by millennial home-buyers and the real estate market. The company aims to help accelerate the $100-billion housing industry, poised to reach approximately $500 billion by 2025. With their disruptive technology and the strong founding team, Homeville aims to broaden the entire housing finance market.”

“Housing is a priority for government and regulators across the world. The long-term and safe nature of housing finance assets create a large opportunity for new-age technology companies for building interesting fintech models. Homeville is uniquely positioned to be a market leader in the technology business driving home finance digitally,” Aparajit Bhandarkar, Partner, Varanium Capital, added.

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