UpGrad raises $210 million in new funding round

A new round of fundraise from marquee investors was announced by upGrad, led by Ronnie Screwvala. A new fresh air is coming to the edtech sector where thousands of layoffs have been announced recently due to the $210 million round that included participation from ETS Global, Bodhi Tree, Kaizen Management Advisors and others. The team's strength will grow to 7600 from the present 4800 in the next 3 months and will include about 170 full-time faculty, 1600 teachers, and over 5000 on-contract coaches and mentors, according to the company. The founders invested $12.5 million in this round to be able to maintain their 50 per cent ownership in upGrad.

Global B2B SaaS platform for customer engagement and retention CleverTap signed definitive agreements to raise $105 million in a Series D funding round led by CDPQ, a global investment group that committed $75 million, with participation from IIFL AMC's Tech Fund, along with existing investors Tiger Global and Sequoia India. Funds will be used to support CleverTap's global expansion and to promote the development of its world-class solutions and technology. A user engagement suite is set to be offered by brands as a result of CleverTap's Customer Engagement and retention platform, which is powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence.

In other major VC transactions, Mumbai-based wealth management platform dezerv bagged $21 million as part of a new funding round led by Accel. The round has returned investors including Whiteboard Capital, Elevation Capital, Matrix Partners India, and GTM Ventures. Within six months of its launch, the start-up had secured $7 million.

Jodo, a fintech start-up in the educational payments space, raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Tiger Global Management. The round also saw participation from existing investors, Elevation Capital and Matrix Partners India, from whom Jodo had previously raised $4 million.

Travel and hospitality technology platform OYO has announced the acquisition of Danish-based holiday company Bornholmske Feriehuse for an undisclosed sum. Bornholmske Feriehuse, a full stack operator, provides end-to- end solutions to homeowners, operates 737 holiday homes spread over 30 holiday parks on its platform. The company will clock more than 2.5 lakh guest nights in the year 2022, OYO said.

Orange Health, a health-tech start-up building diagnostic lab service, snapped up the Gurugram-based diagnostic lab Rapidx to expand to the NCR region for an undisclosed sum. Rapidx has 6,50, 000 patient orders, based on the Founders Amit Arora, Kishore Gemini and Dipti Ekka. Orange Health said that it will leverage Rapidx's infrastructure and familiarity with Gurugram and Delhi to strengthen its foothold in the region.

CoinSwitch announced the Web 3 Discovery Fund, a corporate venture capital initiative that will invest in early-stage start-ups building solutions for the Web 3 landscape. The fund will curate portfolio start-ups and give single-window access to the likes of Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Woodstock Fund and Elevation Capital and incubation partner Buidlers Tribe. The company said that the Web 3 Discovery Fund will be an active investor and will provide strategic support to portfolio start-ups.