Another week of tepid funding for Indian startups

The torrid run of Indian startups raising big funds continued into the third week of September. Though there was some uptick in terms of the deal amount from the last week, the figures were still far away from what the startups raised before the onset of the tech winter. The number of funding rounds of $100 million and upwards has fallen from 29 in the first quarter of the calendar year to 18 in the second quarter and just three in the third quarter (as of August 24).

With large PE and VC funds still placing their bets cautiously amid the volatile macroeconomic environment, the dry spell might continue for some time.

EV startup Yulu and Google-backed DotPe led the funding charts for this week.

Yulu raises $82 million from Canada’s Magna:
Yulu Bikes, which offers small electric two-wheelers on rent, raised $82 million (about Rs 653 crore) from investors led by Canada’s Magna to drive its expansion plan. Existing investors, including Bajaj Auto, also participated in the funding round, which saw automotive parts major Magna pump in $77 million. Amit Gupta, cofounder of Bengaluru-based Yulu, told ET that the funds will be used for deploying more bikes and for setting up a battery-swapping network with Magna

Google-backed payments startup DotPe picks up $54.4 million: Google-backed
DotPe, founded by PayU India cofounder Shailaz Nag, is raising Rs 434.5 crore (or roughly $54.4 million) in funding led by Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek. DotPe provides small and medium enterprises with a full-stack solution to set up an online payments and delivery system. It also provides store management and marketing management tools to these businesses.

Sigmoid raises $12 million from Sequoia Capital India: Data engineering and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions provider
Sigmoid raised $12 million in funding in a mix of primary and secondary funding, as part of its latest funding round from Sequoia Capital India. With the current round, Sequoia has $19.3 million in Sigmoid. The startup will use the capital to evolve its market offerings, expand delivery centers and cater to new industries.

Rephrase.ai bags $10.6 million:
Rephrase.ai, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup, raised $10.6 million in funding led by Red Ventures. Existing investor Silver Lake also participated in the round along with 8VC and other investors. It will use the funds to enhance its capabilities by integrating product experiences, scaling hiring, including within the engineering, AI, product, sales, and marketing teams; and expanding its presence in North America.

Procol picks up $6.4 million: Procurement management software
Procol raised $6.4 million (Rs 51 crore) in funding from GMO Venture Partners, Alarko Ventures, Esas Ventures, FounderBank Capital, and Anchorage Capital. Procol is a procurement technology company that helps enterprises streamline their manual procurement processes across their fragmented small and medium enterprises (SME) supplier base.

Centricity bags $4 million from Burman family office: B2B wealthtech startup
Centricity bagged $4 million in funding led by the Burman family office, Shantanu Agarwal (LNJ Bhilwara group), and Arun Jain (Intellect design arena/founder-Polaris Software Labs) at a valuation of $20 million. Started this year by former Senior Private Bankers, Centricity aims to build a tech solution for a largely unorganised independent financial advisors (IFA) community.

Other done deals

Matrix Partners pumps $2.4 million in Ximkart: Cross-border raw material sourcing startup
Ximkart raised $2.4 million in funding led by Matrix Partners India. The startup will use the funds to strengthen its position in existing categories, launch new categories and expand to newer geographies across procurement, sales, technology and operations.

Peer Robotics raises $2.3 million: Peer Robotics, a mobile robotics solution designed to work with humans,
raised $2.3 million in funding led by Kalaari Capital, with participation from existing investors Axilor Ventures, Connecticut Innovations and Innopact VC. The company’s robots learn from humans in real time allowing people on the shop floor to integrate and deploy solutions alongside them easily.

Stay on top of technology and startup news that matters. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for the latest and must-read tech news, delivered straight to your inbox.