Start-Ups

India’s unicorns and soonicorns, flush with money, are chasing top talent like never before to keep up with their rapid growth. In India, around 130 unicorns and soonicorns are expected to hire twice as many CXOs in 2022 as they did in 2021. According to Xpheno, a specialist staffing firm, these 130 unicorns and soonicorns are likely to hire 100 to 120 CXOs in 2021, compared to 50 in 2021. Xpheno mapped 400 CXOs across 75 unicorns and over 50 soonicorns for this survey, capturing their professional profiles in order…

Ola plans to open 500 dark stores across 20 cities as part of an aggressive push for its quick commerce service, Ola Dash. The move comes at a time when several platforms, including Swiggy and Zomato, are looking to expand their presence in this fast-growing market. Others, such as Zomato-backed BlinkIt (formerly Grofers), Dunzo, and Mumbai-based Zepto, are beefing up their instant delivery offerings as well. Swiggy raised $700 million in a funding round led by US asset manager Invesco earlier this week, valued at $10.7 billion. Last week, Zepto…

Hyderabad-based Our Food, a tech-driven agribusiness platform, has raised $6 million in a growth funding round led by 3Lines Venture Capital and C4D Asia Fund. Lalit Jalan, Chairman of 3Lines India and former CEO of Reliance Infrastructure, will join the company’s board of directors as part of the deal. The startup had previously raised $200,000 in a seed round from 3Lines and 10,000 Startups, a Nasscom initiative to support technology entrepreneurship in the country, in 2018. Bala Reddy, an IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus, founded the company in 2016 with the goal of…

Logistics startup LoadShare is in advanced talks to raise around $50 million in a Series C financing round from new and existing investors. LoadShare had raised around $13 million [Rs 100 crore] in its Series B round in May 2020, so the new round comes after a 20-month hiatus. To date, the Bengaluru-based firm has raised nearly $18 million. “LoadShare is all set to close a $50 million round in which Tiger Global will be the lead investor with $25-30 million,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. “The terms…

DealShare, a social commerce startup focused on groceries and essentials, has raised around $130 million in its Series E round, putting it in the exclusive club of unicorns. This is DealShare’s first round in 2022. According to regulatory filings, DealShare has approved the allotment of 42983 series E CCPS to raise Rs 968.67 crore (roughly $130 million). Tiger Global led the round with $39.1 million, followed by Alpha Wave, Kora Investment, DF International Partners, and Twenty Nine Capital Partners, who each contributed $31.3 million, $27.4 million, $19.6 million, and $11.7…

Ankur Warikoo, Tanmay Bhatt, Pranjal Kamra, and CA Rachna Ranade are among the celebrity finfluencers who have contributed to Wint Wealth, a debt investment aggregator platform. In a three-month period, this round was only available to retail investors, subject matter experts, and finfluencers. As a result, the platform now has 15 celebrity influencers as equity shareholders. According to a press release, the funds will be used for marketing and expansion. In addition to Warikoo, Bhatt, Kamra, and Ranade, the list includes Mandeep and Rishabh of Labour Law Advisors, Mukul Malik…

Curefoods, a cloud kitchen startup, has merged with Maverix, a competitor backed by Accel Partners, Swiggy, and Zephyr. According to people familiar with the deal, Curefoods will be valued at around $280 million, or about Rs 2,100 crore, after the merger. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed by the companies. Curefoods will have 125 kitchens across 12 cities after merging with Maverix, which has over 50 locations in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. This will make it one of the country’s largest cloud kitchen players. As part of the…

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) and innovation ecosystem T-Hub announced that 13 Indian startups in the hardware and internet of things (IoT) sectors will each receive a grant of Rs 7.5 lakh from MeitY as part of Digital India’s Scale Up programme on Thursday. According to T-Hub, this is a partial grant that has been distributed to startups that have demonstrated proof of concept, built a customer base, and shown the ability to scale across the country. The remaining funds will be distributed once they have completed…