Here are the five biggest funding rounds of this week as we look back and summarize some of the best funding activities during the last five days. Like always, we will shed light on how companies plan to utilize the fresh funds and the possible impact on the respective industry.
Amazon Pay: Amazon Pay, digital payment arm of Amazon, received a big bonanza of $79.8 Mn (INR 590 Cr) ahead of the big Diwali sale. The funding will most probably help Amazon Pay in offering huge cashback and discount offers to customers during the festive season.
The company will also use funds to offer debit card EMI and cardless EMI to facilitate big ticket sales, according the latest company filing with ROC.
Following the latest funding, Amazon Pay has received total funding of Rs 1,600 crore since 2016. Amazon’s digital payment arm is facing stiff competition from Flipkart owned PhonePe and Alibaba backed Paytm.
The company was recently in news for acquiring personal assistant platform Tapzo for $40 Mn.
Droom: With $30 Bn in its kitty, Gurgaon based Droom raised second biggest funding round of this week. The round was led by two new investors. Both these new investors hailed from Japan, with one of them being identified as Joe Hirao – president and CEO of Tokyo based Zigexn Co. No existing investor participated in the round.
Droom will use the fresh funds for making investment in Droom Credit Services, which offers instant loans for buying used cars and bikes. It will also use big chunk of funds for ramping up firm’s automobile inspection services.
This is Droom’s second funding round this year. The company had raised nearly $25 Bn from auto giant Toyota earlier this year. The investment marked Toyota’s first ever investment in India’s startup ecosystem.
Origo Commodities: One of the best things to happen this week was the funding of Origo Commodities. The best thing being that this Gurgaon based startup hails from agriculture sector, which often does not receive as much importance and attention in the investment community.
Origo Commodities raised $10.9 Mn (INR 80 Cr) from clutch of impact investors including Oikocredit, Triodos Investment Management, and Caspian SME Impact Fund IV. The agritech startup will use the funds to ramp up its products and reach to customers who are in the need of financing and logistic solution.
GoBOLT: Logistic sector is widely considered as one of the most investment friendly sectors. This fact was once again vindicated this week, after B2B logistic startup GoBolt raised $5.46 Mn (INR 40 Cr) in series A funding round. The round was led by early-stage VC firm Aavishkaar.
New Delhi based startup will use latest funds for wide range of purposes – strengthening its team, expand territorial presence across the country and ramping up its technology. The company will also use funds to foray into several promising business segment.
9stacks: Online poker startup 9stacks secured $3.84Mn in pre Series A round. The round was led by clutch of investors including Swati Gupta (founder, IndustryBuying), Maheshwer Peri (founder, Careers360), Shubhajit Sen (ex-CMO, Micromax) and others. 9stacks said that it will use funds to scale up technology and further improve their design team. It also added that the funds will also be utilized to search for newer markets and explore newer categories.
