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CoinDCX, upGrad, Eruditus entered the Indian startup unicorn club this week

Overall, $1.54 Bn was raised by startups across 31 deals

Tracxn and ixigo filed their draft prospectus ahead of their respective IPO launches

There’s no stopping the influx of new unicorns in the Indian market. This week, upGrad and Eruditus flew the edtech flag high with their respective unicorn rounds, taking the total number of unicorns in India to 22. While upGrad raised $185 Mn, Eruditus quadrupled its valuation with a massive $450 Mn round. Both companies join BYJU’S and Unacademy in the edtech unicorn club.

CoinDCX became the first crypto startup to enter the unicorn club, while VerSe Innovation, which operates Dailyhunt and Josh, also pulled in a mega $450 Mn round and is now valued at close to $3 Bn.

Overall, $1.54 Bn was raised by startups across 31 deals this week. Here’s a look at the funding tracker for this week:

Startup IPO News

Tracxn Files DRHP Ahead Of IPO

Bengaluru-based data intelligence platform Tracxn has filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the market regulator SEBI ahead of an initial public offering. The Tracxn Technologies offer solely comprises an offer of sale of up to 3.86 Cr equity shares.

As per the DRHP, Tracxn founders Abhishek Goyal and Neha Singh will offload around 76.6 Lakh of equity shares. Flipkart founders Binny and Sachin Bansal will offload up to 12.6 Lakh of equity shares each. Elevation Capital will be offloading up to 1 Cr equity shares, while Accel India is expected to offload up to 40 Lakh equity shares, SCI Investment will sell up to 21 Lakh equity shares.

MobiKwik Shuffles Board

MobiKwik has announced the appointment of four new independent directors to its board, including investment professional and former MD of Blackstone and Oppenheimer, Dr Punita Kumar Sinha, diplomat and former ambassador of India to Egypt and UAE, Navdeep Singh Suri, fintech entrepreneur and cofounder of PaySense, Sayali Karanjkar, and chief technology officer of LinkedIn, Raghu Ram Hiremagalur. The appointment comes just a month after the company became a public limited entity on July 12 from a private limited company.

ixigo Files DRHP To Raise INR 1,600 Cr Through IPO

Gurugram-based online travel ticket aggregator Le Travenues Technology, which operates travel platform ixigo, has filed the draft red herring prospectus as it looks to raise INR 1,600 Cr through an initial public offering. ixigo will issue fresh shares worth INR 750 Cr and the rest of the INR 850 Cr would be sold by existing investors in the offer for sale portion. The issue is expected to give an exit opportunity to early investors Elevation Capital and Micromax.

Earlier this week, fellow travel platform MakeMyTrip announced that it has exited ixigo after making an 8x return on its investment.

CarTrade IPO Oversubscribed 20.29 Times

CarTrade’s initial public offering (IPO) was oversubscribed 20.29 times on the closing day of the subscription, having received bids for 263,174,823 shares against 12,972,552 shares on offer, according to data collected from stock exchanges. The Mumbai-based auto marketplace’s IPO had a slow start as the net subscription status stood at 99% of the total offering in the first two days. However, it had been oversubscribed 1.53 times by retail individual investors at the end of its second day of subscription on Tuesday (August 10).

Startup M&As This Week

Amid record funding, mergers and acquisitions are growing at a rapid pace too. This year, the Indian startup ecosystem has seen close to 80 M&A deals already, which is easily one of the highest among the tally in recent years.

Whatfix Closes Nittio Learn Deal

Following its $90 Mn Series D funding round in June, digital adoption SaaS platform Whatfix closed the acquisition of Nittio Learn, a learning management systems provider.  The acquisition will help Whatfix enhance the training capabilities of its platform for personalised, adaptive and rich learning. Nittio Learn’s toolset includes additional content options, assessment capabilities, and training course allocation

Khadim Batti, CEO and cofounder of Whatfix, said, “We’re delighted to get Nittio Learn onboard on our journey to provide our customers with all the necessary tools to execute such a massive digital transformation effort. We are continuously reimagining Digital Adoption alongside our customers as we grow and expand into new markets over the next year and beyond.”

Pravin Jadhav’s Raise Acquires Moneylicious

Raise Financial Services, the fintech startup founded by Paytm Money cofounder and former CEO Pravin Jadhav, has acquired stockbroking firm Moneylicious Securities for an undisclosed sum. Founded in 2012, Moneylicious offers stockbroking services and operates with the BSE, NSE and commodities exchanges.

The acquisition has been approved by regulators, Jadhav said. As part of the deal, Moneylicious founder and CEO Jayprakash Gupta will join Raise as a cofounder, while Moneylicious will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Raise, which is looking to provide an array of financial services under its banner.

JetSynthesys Forms New Esports Entity With Skyesports Acquisition

Digital entertainment platform JetSynthesys has acquired Chennai-based esports venture Skyesports to create a new entity called Jet Skyesports Gaming. The aim of the company is to build esports at a grassroot level in India ahead of the Asian Games 2022, which will include esports as a medal event. Founded by Shiva Nandy in 2018, Skyesports has so far hosted several esports tournaments such as Skyesports Championship, Skyesports League, and Skyesports GrandSlam, among others.