Funding News
RateGain Travel Technologies raises Rs 599 crore from anchor investors, opens for public subscription
Travel and hospitality Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company RateGain opened for subscription to raise Rs 1,336 crore from its Initial Public Offering (IPO) today. The price band has been fixed at Rs 405 to Rs 425 per share. Ahead of the opening for public subscription, the company announced raising Rs 598.83 crore from 34 marquee investors.
Founded in 2004 by Bhanu Chopra, RateGain provides hotels with a SaaS platform for revenue management, reputation management and online distribution. The platform also works with airlines, Online Travel Agents (OTAs), meta-search companies, vacation rental and package providers, car rental companies, and others.
Edtech startup PlanetSpark raises $13.5M in Series B from Prime Venture Partners and others
Gurugram-based edtech startup PlanetSpark on Tuesday raised $13.5 million in a Series-B funding round from Prime Venture Partners and marquee global entrepreneurs including Binny Bansal, Deep Kalra, Dr Ashish Gupta, Gokul Rajaram, and Shirish Nandkarni.
PlanetSpark had earlier raised $3.7 million in previous rounds, from Prime Ventures, FIITJEE and several angel networks. The latest round takes the total amount raised by the edtech platform to $17.2 million, till date.
LenDenClub raises $10M in Series A round; eyes new financial services
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending platform LenDenClub has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Tuscan Ventures, Ohm Stock Brokers, Artha Venture Fund, and angel investors, including Kunal Shah (Founder, CRED), Alok Bansal (Co-founder, PolicyBazaar), Ramakant Sharma (Co-founder, Livspace), Hardik Pandya (Indian cricketer), and Krishna Bhupal (Co-founder of Promaxo).
With the latest round, the fintech startup now stands at a valuation of over $51 million. It had earlier raised $1.5 million as part of its pre-Series A round led by Micro VC fund Artha Venture Fund – I, Transworld Group, and Shuchi Kothari of the DSP Group. The latest round brings LenDenClub total funding raised to $11.5 million
Keka HR raises $1.6M through trading subscriptions on Recur Club
HR tech platform for SMEs in India, Keka HR has raised $1.6 million in non-dilutive growth capital through Recur Club, a new-age subscription-based financing platform.
According to the company, the capital infusion on Recur Club took two days to get completed. Keka plans to use the funds for growth and customer acquisition by investing in marketing and sales.
Keka is looking at Recur Club as a long term growth partner to continue enabling HR teams to adapt, evolve, and scale by working more effectively.
ZiffyHealth raises $260K from KareKeba Ventures, and others
ZiffyHealth, a digital healthcare startup based in Pune, has raised $260,000 in a seed funding round led by KareKeba Ventures, a Patna-based angel investment platform with participation from Digital Futurists Angels Network, a New Delhi-based community-backed angel network, Jharkhand Angel Network (JAN), and O2 Angels.
The startup is aiming to achieve 100 e-clinics and a five-million user-base benchmark in the next 12-14 months, and to reach out to 75-80 percent of India in the next three to four years.
Incubated at Atal Innovation Mission-Pinnacle, ZiffyHealth was featured in the NITI AYOG Coffee-Table Magazine as a promising solution. Through its integrated LVAD (Live Vital Access Devices), the startup is partnering with pharmacies to disrupt the sector and convert chemist stores into e-Clinics. During the consultation, the doctor has access to not just historical health trends but also live vitals and the heartbeat.
SaaS platform for D2C ecommerce brands Corner raises funds from IAN Fund
Corner, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that provides data-driven customer engagement products for D2C ecommerce stores, has raised a funding round led by IAN Fund.
With this raise of Rs 50 lakh, it will start to expand its core engineering and customer success teams and further enhance its product features.
Arun Augustine co-founded Corner with Jovis Joseph in 2019 at IIM, Bangalore, during the Startup Launchpad programme organised by NSRCEL.
The startup is based in Kerala and was incubated by the Kerala StartUp Mission (KSUM), the state nodal agency of the Government of Kerala for entrepreneurship development.
The company caters to brands and online merchants owning their e-commerce stores. Corner provides a data-driven layer to improve customer engagement for such D2C brands.
General News
Indian SaaS sector sees 170 pc jump in investments in one year: Bain and Company
The Indian Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has come of age as six new companies from the sector including Eightfold, Gupshup, BrowserStack, Chargebee, Innovaccer and MindTickle were valued at over $1 billion in 2021.
With this, the total number of SaaS unicorns in India grew to 13, according to the India SaaS Report 2021 by Bain and Company.
The report defines Indian SaaS companies as those being founded domestically by Indian founders or SaaS companies with founders of Indian origins who employ a majority workforce in India, serving both domestic and global customers.
