This week, GoPigeon had raised $1.5 million (around Rs 10 crore) in a pre-Series A funding round from venture capital investor Nexus Venture Partners. Quikr acquired on-demand home beauty services provider StayGlad. Here are 8 funding and acquisition news which made headlines in the startup space.
1. SHEROES acquires online counselling platform LoveDoctor
SHEROES, the career portal for women, acquired an online counselling platform, LoveDoctor.in, for an undisclosed amount. LoveDoctor founder and CEO Avani Parekh will join SHEROES as the Director of Community and Empathy and focus on building a career helpline #AskMonica to counsel and guide women.
2. Deal discovery platform Nearbuy raises Rs. 15 crore in Venture Debt from BlackSoil
India’s largest local commerce platform Nearbuy has raised venture debt of Rs 15 crore (about $2.25 million) from non-banking financial company BlackSoil Capital. The Gurgaon-based company plans to use the capital to invest in customer and merchant technology.
3. The deal finally happens, PayU is buying rival Citrus Pay for Rs 865 crore
PayU is buying Citrus Pay for Rs 865 crore, making this one of the biggest deals in the country’s fin-tech space. The entity created from the merger will be competing with Alibaba-backed Paytm, Snapdeal-owned FreeCharge and MobiKwik.
According to Laurent le Moal, CEO of PayU, the merged entity will process a forecasted 150 million transactions in 2016, worth a combined $4.2 billion, and will grow at over 50% annually.
4. Quikr acquires beauty services startup StayGlad
Online classifieds firm Quikr has acquired on-demand home beauty services provider StayGlad for an undisclosed sum after the start-up failed to attract new investors and ran out of cash, making its eighth acquisition of struggling rivals in a weak-funding market.
5. Wellness app Poshtick raises $450,000 from two HNI’s
Noida-based Poshtick, a health & wellness startup, has raised $450K funding from two HNIs, Bhavya Sharma and Amit Nagar. Founded in 2016 by Pranav Sharma and Kritik Thakur, Poshtick offers a combination of functional, nutritional, and value-added food products providing end-to-end health solutions.
6. Logistics service provider GoPigeon gets $1.5 million from Nexus Venture
Bangalore-based on-demand logistics service provider GoPigeon has raised $1.5 million (around Rs 10 crore) in a pre-Series A funding round from venture capital investor Nexus Venture Partners. Balodis Technologies Pvt. Ltd which operates GoPigeon, was founded in 2015 by IIT Kharagpur alumni Yeshu Singh, Deovrat Singh and Sourav Sarkar.
7. Purple Style Labs raises funding via LetsVenture & Calcutta Angels Network
Mumbai-based personal styling startup, Purple Style Labs, has raised about INR 3 Crore seed funding via LetsVenture. The round was led by Augment Ventures and Rahul Kayan. Purple Style was founded in August 2015 by Abhishek Agarwal, an IIT-Bombay graduate and ex-banker with Deutsche.
8. Intel acquires chip design company Soft Machines for $300 million
Intel Corporation reportedly acquired US-based chip-design company, Soft Machines for $300 million. Soft Machines is a semiconductor company co-developing VISC architecture-based processor and SoC products for all major performance computing platforms and has raised close to $175 million in funding to date.
