Spinner, other startups enter Indian unicorn club
India's startup sector produces more and more unicorns or companies with over $1 billion in valuation every passing week. The week before, Realty platform NoBroker, used car marketplace Spinny and online stockbroking platform Upstox entered the coveted unicorn club with their latest funding rounds.
The new round of funding was led by NoBroker, which has existing investors General Atlantic and Tiger Global Management, along with new backer Moore Strategic Ventures. The deal values the company at $1 billion, helping it become the first prop-tech unicorn in India. NoBroker has raised $361 million so far.
Abu Dhabi-based ADQ and New York-based investment firm Tiger Global led a $285 million Series E funding round in used car marketplace Spinny, making it the fourth unicorn in the used car space after Cars 24, CarDekho and Droom. Venture capital funds Arena Holdings and Avenir Growth also participated in the round.
The new round of funding from Tiger Global led to a valuation of $34 billion, according to Entrackr. Tiger Global invested 185 crore in the round, which could lead to more investors joining in. In September of 2019, Tiger Global had backed the company with a $25 million cheque.
The VC rounds were raised this week by sports tech firm Dream Sports, Digital lender Indifi, and online beauty startup Purplle.
Dream Sports'parent company Dream Sports raised $840 million at a valuation of $8 billion on Wednesday. The funding round was led by investors such as Falcon Edge, DST Global, D 1 Capital, Tiger Global and RedBird Capital. TPG and Footpath Ventures also participated, making it one of the largest investments in the sports tech sector.
CX Partners and OP Finnfund Global Impact Fund I, along with existing investors CDC Group, Omidyar Network, Flourish Ventures, Elevar Equity and Accel injected Rs 140 crore of Series D equity capital into the company while Vivriti, Northern Arc, SIDBI, and others invested in Rs 165 crore of debt.
The U.S. DFC United States International Development Finance Corporation will invest 35 crore in Indifi. The online lending platform offers customized business loans to micro, small and medium enterprises MSMEs in the travel, hotel, e-commerce, restaurant, trading, and retail segments.
It plans to invest the new funds in order to serve more customers, identify additional segments of MSMEs, and to develop technology and product development.
The new investor, Premji Invest, led a new tranche of $65 million for online beauty platform Purplle. This investment comes weeks after a $75 million funding from Kedaara Capital, along with Sequoia Capital India and Blume Ventures.
According to the beauty startup, the infusion will speed up the growth of the company, as well as to build a multibillion-dollar company from India. The firm closed its Series D $140 million funds-raise.
Some early-stage venture capital firms, such as WaterBridge Ventures and Blume Ventures, have marked fund close milestones. Blume raised $150 million for its second fund, 50% more than the planned size, as it closed its fourth India-dedicated fund at $105 million.