Start-Ups

Darwinbox, a human resources technology platform, has raised $72 million in a Series D round led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), with participation from existing investors Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia India, Lightspeed India, Endiya Partners, 3One4Capital, JGDEV, and SCB 10X. DarwinBox received $15 million in a round led by Salesforce Ventures, the investment arm of the global customer relationship management giant Salesforce, a year ago. According to Darwinbox, the company’s valuation after this round will exceed $1 billion, bringing the total investment raised by the company to more than $110 million….

Indiamart Intermesh Ltd., a business-to-business marketplace, has agreed to acquire 100 percent of accounting platform Busy Infotech Pvt. Ltd for a whopping 500 Cr. TheB2B firm is also a participant in Simply Vyapar Apps Pvt. Ltd.’s Series B funding round. It is also acquiring 75,000, 0.0001 percent compulsorily convertible debentures of Legistify, a startup that provides software tools to firms to manage their legal workflows, through its wholly owned subsidiary Tradezeal. Busy Infotech, founded in 1997, is one of the largest accounting software companies in the country, with a pan-India…

Edtech startup upGrad has moved the majority of its information technology infrastructure to Amazon Web Services to rapidly scale its online learning experience. According to AWS, the unicorn led by Ronnie Screwvala was able to double its user base to two million in eight months and quadruple the time spent on its platform during the same time period. “Going all-in on AWS allows upGrad to meet the rapid growth of their learner base as it scales to more than 100 countries, and provides a secure and personalised experience to learners…

Flint, a Bengaluru-based cryptocurrency startup, has raised $5.1 million in a seed round led by Sequoia Capital India and GFC. Coinbase Ventures, Hashed, IOSG, Better Capital, Antler India, and MSA Capital were among the 11 institutional investors who participated in the round. The valuation at which the funding was raised was not disclosed by the company. This funding round was also attended by over 60 angel investors from around the world. Kunal Shah, founder of CRED, Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, Kunal Bahl, co-founder of Snapdeal via Titan Capital, comedian…

Surge, Sequoia Capital India’s accelerator programme, has begun its sixth edition with the admission of 20 early-stage startups. The accelerator will begin on January 27th, with founders participating in a 16-week virtual programme. The Surge platform provides startups with scale-up assistance, as well as $1-$2 million in capital from Sequoia and co-investments from other investors. Since its inception three years ago, the has evaluated 10,000 businesses. With the addition of the sixth cohort, the Surge community now includes 246 founders from 112 startups in over 15 industries, including Software-as-a-Service (SaaS),…

Darwinbox has raised $72 million in a funding round led by Netflix backer TCV, valuing the cloud-based HRtech startup at more than $1 billion, making it the fourth unicorn this year. With the latest round of funding, the Hyderabad- and Singapore-based firm has raised a total of $110 million from investors, according to cofounder Jayant Paleti. Existing investors such as Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Lightspeed India, Endiya Partners, 3One4Capital, JGDEV, and SCB 10X participated in the round. Salesforce made its first bet in India last year when it invested…

The Delhi government issued a proposal scheme on Monday to regulate the transportation activities of various tech companies in the NCR, including food delivery, mobility, and e-commerce. The law applies to all such vehicles operating in Delhi. The draught was created in collaboration with 40 companies, including Ola, Uber, Flipkart, Amazon, Bluesmart, Bounce, and Ninjacart. All aggregators will be granted a permit to operate in the region. The draught focuses on electrification, pricing transparency, and access to data—such as the number of drivers on the road, vehicle quality, driver ratings,…

Kissflow, a software-as-a-service startup, has launched a “fully managed” platform for community managers, with the platform expected to generate $10 million in revenue over the next three years. “There are a lot of SaaS companies building communities because the differentiator and the stickiness is moving away from just products, because products are becoming more or less similar and comparable,” Suresh Sambandam, CEO of Kissflow said.“What is providing stickiness is how people are building a community layer around the core of their product. If you’re not able to build that, people…

Tube Investments of India Ltd (TII), a Muruguppa group company, announced on Monday that it will acquire a 70% stake in startup Cellestial E-Mobility Pvt Ltd for Rs 161 crore. Cellestial E-Mobility designs and manufactures electric tractors, aviation ground support equipment, and other electric machinery. According to a regulatory filing, TII has already designed and developed two tractor prototypes for production. TII, which has recently launched an electric 3-wheeler initiative as part of its foray into clean mobility, has also announced the establishment of a new 100% subsidiary with an…