Start-Ups

Mensa Brands, a Bengaluru-based technology-led ‘House of Brands’ built for the e-commerce industry, announced today the acquisition of a majority stake in Florona, a personal care brand that primarily targets customers in the United States and Canada. So far, Mensa Brands has acquired 16 brands. Mensa Brands had previously acquired Estalon, High Star, Lilpicks, Folkulture, and Ishin, among others. Notably, when it raised $135 million in a Series B funding round in November last year, the startup became India’s fastest and the world’s second-fastest unicorn. Florona, founded by Aayush Gupta,…

Lightbox, March Gaming, and Duane Park Ventures led a $25 million (Rs 185 crore) Series A funding round for Rooter, a game streaming and e-sports platform. In addition to IeAD Sports & Health Tech Partners, four other funds—9Unicorns, ADvantage, Capital-A, and Goal Ventures—invested in the round. “We will use the capital in three areas: increasing user growth, creating a robust content creator ecosystem, and building a marketplace,” said Piyush, founder and chief executive of Rooter. Rooter, founded by Piyush Kumar and Dipesh Agarwal, has emerged as the largest player in…

LEAD, which enables school classrooms to use online learning tools, announcied on January 13 that it had raised $100 million at a valuation of $1.1 billion, catapulting it into the coveted unicorn club of internet startups. Unicorns are private companies worth a billion dollars or more. LEAD received funding from existing investors WestBridge Capital and GSV Ventures. The acquisition makes it India’s third unicorn of the year, following consumer brand Mamaearth and analytics firm Fractal. LEAD is also India’s sixth online education unicorn, following Byju’s, Vedantu, Unacademy, Eruditus, and UpGrad….

Owl Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that has invested in Indian companies such as Byju’s and Leap, has raised more than $1 billion in new funds, including $640 million for its fifth fund. Other funds closed by the edtech-focused firm include $270 million for its second Opportunity Fund and more than $100 million in special purpose vehicles, according to a statement issued by Owl Venture on Friday. The global rise of education technology has been contributed by various factors including blended learning, remote work, the rise of direct-to-consumer…

Consumer electronics startup boAt has been one of India’s top sellers of wearables and audio accessories for the past few years. The company, which is also planning an IPO at a valuation of more than $1.4 billion, has been profitable and has crossed the Rs 1,500 crore revenue mark in FY21. According to its annual financial statement filed with the MCA, boAt’s operating revenues increased by 2.2X, rising from Rs 700.44 crore in FY20 to Rs 1,511.7 crore in FY21. Wireless earphones and headphones were the company’s most profitable product…

Kaleidofin, a fintech startup based in Chennai that provides financial services to underserved customers in the informal economy, has raised $10 million (roughly Rs 74 crore) in a new funding round led by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. The Series B round was also attended by existing institutional investors Oiko Credit, Flourish Ventures, Omidyar Network, Blume Ventures, and Bharat Fund. Kaleifofin, which has so far raised $18 million in funding, intends to use the funds for technology development, risk management, and bolstering its data science capabilities. IFMR Group, a…

Curefoods has raised $62 million in funding from Iron Pillar, Chiratae Ventures, Sixteenth Street Capital, Accel Partners, and Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal, amid a significant increase in demand for cloud kitchens and online-only restaurants. Curefoods is run by Ankit Nagori, a former Flipkart executive who branched out from Curefit, which he co-founded with Myntra founder Mukesh Bansal. By acquiring, incubating, and licencing other food brands, the company hopes to create a multi-brand, Thrasio-like play. It already has 20 brands under its umbrella, 15 of which are fully acquired. “If you…

FPL Technologies, a Pune-based fintech startup, has raised $75 million in a Series C funding round led by its existing investor QED Investors, with participation from Janchor Partners, Sequoia Capital India, Matrix Partners, and Hummingbird Ventures. The new equity was raised at a post-money valuation of $750 million.The latest round of funding comes just ten months after FPL Technologies raised $35 million in Series B funding. The latest round of investment (Series C funding round) brings the company’s total funding to around $125 million since its inception. FPL Technologies intends…

Refyne, a platform that allows employees to draw their salaries on demand, announced a new funding round of $82 million led by New York-based investment firm Tiger Global. Existing investors such as QED Investors, DST Global partners, Jigsaw VC, XYZ Capital, and RTP Global participated in the financing. According to the company, Digital Horizon is a new investor who has joined the team. Earned Wage Access (EWA), also known as on-demand pay, allows employees to access a portion of their accumulated wages before payday, with the remainder paid on the…

WhatsApp is working on a few intriguing updates. The most recent feature found in the messaging app has a lot to do with voice notes. WhatsApp users will soon be able to listen to voice notes even after the chat window has been closed. The current set up allows users to listen to voice notes as long as the chat window is open. When you close the chat window, the voice note is also interrupted. However, things may change in a later update. According to Wabetanino, a new feature that…