Bertelsmann India Investments earmarks $500 million for investments in India

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Bertelsmann India Investments earmarks $500 million for investments in India

The venture capital fund Bertelsmann India Investments BII announced it has earmarked $500 million for new and follow-on investments in India. BII kicks off an early-stage program with the new fund allocation, under which it plans to make at least 3 -- 4 Series A investments in a year. Series A investments will be in the range of $2 -- 5 million. The company plans to invest in health-tech, enterprise-tech, future of work, fintech, agritech, deeptech, and Web 3 for the 2022 and 2023 period. The fund said it will open more offices in India, including in Mumbai and Bangalore. The fund is headquartered in Delhi.

Retail tech firm Arzooo, realty platform PropShare, business-to- business B2B marketplace Solv, and fintech start-ups Progcap and GetVantage raised new funding rounds in a relatively mooted week for start-up funding.

This is Xu's first investment in India. Existing investors, including Celesta Capital and 3 Lines VC, also participated in this round. The company had raised Series A funding from Celesta and 3 Lines earlier in the day, followed by an investment from Zoom founder Eric Yuan.

In a Series B funding round, PropShare secured $47 million in a real estate investment platform, led by WestBridge Capital. The existing investor Pravega Ventures participated in the round. The company said it would use fresh capital to expand to new geographies, strengthen distribution channels and invest in technology and people.

Progcap pocked $40 million in private equity capital fundraising at a valuation of $600 million as part of its Series C extension, taking the total round to $70 million. Creation Investments and Tiger Global Management led the funding round, and Google joined as the new investor. Existing investor Sequoia Capital India also participated in the round. This funding will be used to support the expansion and acceleration of product development. Progcap has raised $100 million in equity and has received $1 billion in the last 12 months.

Solv, a marketplace for small businesses, raised $40 million in a new round of funding led by Japanese financial firm SBI Holdings. SC Ventures took the start-up funding to nearly $80 million, and took the start-up funding to date. The Bengaluru-based company is going to use fresh capital to grow its buy now pay later BNPL product besides rolling out more high-margin products and expanding to new geographies.

GetVantage, a revenue-based financing platform for SMEs, secured $36 million in a funding round led by Varanium Nexgen Fintech Fund and DMI Sparkle Fund. The investors in this round are Dream Incubator Japan and Chiratae Ventures. Other investors who participated in the round included Sony Innovation Fund, InCred Capital and Haldiram's Family Office. The latest round brings GetVantage's total funding to over $40 million, a result of the $5 million seed round announced in 2020. This includes multiple debt lines with leading NBFC partners to scale its finance and growth platform.