[Weekly Deals Roundup] Licious, BlueStone, Ekincare & others raise funds

D2C Unicorn Licious, Jwellery seller BlueStone, Ekincare, and other startups raised funding in this week.

D2C Unicorn Licious raises $150 mn in Series F2

Licious, a Food and Beverage Services company has raised $150 million in Series F2 round from Singapore-based Amansa Capital, along with Kotak PE & Axis Growth Avenues AIF – I.

With this fundraise, the company plans to invest in a technological intervention that will help category development and improve the overall customer experience. The startup also invests in strategic acquisition and widening and deepening the brand’s reach.

Bangalore-based startup Licious was founded in 2015 by Vivek Gupta and AbhayHanjura, Licious is India’s first D2C Unicorn. The company serves fresh meat and seafood.

Jwellery seller BlueStone raises $30mn from Hero Enterprise

At a valuation of $410 million the Accel-backed jewellery seller Bluestone has raised $30 million in funding from Sunil Kant Munjal, Chairman, Hero Enterprise.

With this fundraise, the company plans to use the funds to increase its manufacturing capabilities and also expand its store presence across India.

Xeno raises $1.6 mn seed funding led by global funds &others

Xeno, the commerce Marketing Services startup has raised $1.6 million in a seed funding round from global funds including early Klaviyo backer TJ Mahony’s Vinyl Capital, AnkurNagpal’s Vibe Capital, Java Capital, and Angel Invest Ventures.

The company will use the funds to expand its workforce across engineering, product, marketing, sales, and customer success. It is hiring for multiple roles and plans to double its team size in 2022.

Delhi-based startup founded in 2018 by Pranav Ahuja, Xeno is a marketing services company that helps B2C brands run one-to-one marketing campaigns at scale to their existing customers.

Jupiter International raises Rs 170 Crore funding

Solar photovoltaic cell manufacturer Jupiter International has raised ₹170 crores from funds managed by wealth management firm Edelweiss Alternative Asset Advisors (EAAA).

The new capital was raised through a combination of debt and convertible-to-equity instruments.

The company plans to utilized the funds as growth capital to enhance its manufacturing capacity and set up a new greenfield capacity of 2,000 megawatts (MW) integrated cell plus module line.

Revfin raises Rs 100 Crore in debt

Revfin a Fintech EV financing company has raised Rs 100 crore in debt led by Northern Arc, Liquiloans, UK-based Shell Foundation, and others.

The company plans to use the funds to expand into new geographies for financing three-wheelers and to provide loans for two-wheelers in the e-commerce delivery space. It is looking to foray into states like Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Punjab for electric three-wheeler financing as it aims to grow revenue five times over the current rate of Rs 12 crore annually in the new financial year.

100X.VC backed honc raises $400k in pre-Seed funding

100X.VC backed honc, a tech-first company for car washes at the doorstep, has raised $400k in a pre-Seed round, from AmeyMashelkar (Head of JioGenNext), Dr. Raghunath A Mashelkar (Independent Director at RIL), Jasminder Singh Gulati (Co-founder at NowFloats), Dholakia Ventures, Nilesh Patel (Leadership team, Cisco systems) and 100X.VC.

The company parts of the Class 06 batch, will use the funds to expand its partner network across Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Gurugram in the next 12 months. Honc thinks to upgrade its tech stack to scale across gated communities and business parks using location intelligence and user review systems.

inFeedo raises $12 mn from Jungle Ventures, Tiger Global

Employee experience startup inFeedo has raised $12 million in Series A funding round from Jungle Ventures and Tiger Global.

The startup plans to use the funds to triple its product line, double its team, and accelerate growth in Southeast Asia, the US, and India in the next few years. Currently, infeedo is hiring for over 140 remote roles across all functions in these areas, specifically marketing, product, engineering, and sales.

India’s only free sleep app Neend raises $700k in seed round led by Better Capital

Neend, India’s leading mobile-based application for sleep management has announced that it has raised $700k in its latest pre-seed round.

The funds will be used for linguistic expansion and create more depth in categories like YogNidra, guided meditation sessions, and music, amongst others. In addition to this, Neend will also collaborate with professional sleep experts to help users to measure, understand, and fix their sleep.

UpScalio raises $15mn from Gulf Islamic Investments, others

UpScalio an eCommerce roll-up company has raised $12 million in a pre-Series B round in a mix of debt and equity from UAE-based Gulf Islamic Investments (GII).

The company said that UpScalio has built a team of over 120 experts across all functions, who have the necessary experience to grow e-commerce Indian companies.

Sedai raises $15mn in Series A funding

Sedai, an autonomous cloud platform for SREs has raised $15 million in Series A funding round from Norwest Venture Partners with participation from Sierra Ventures and Uncorrelated Ventures, Bringing the total funding to $18.8 million.

With this fundraise the company said it is setting up a Research & Development centre and product engineering division in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala to increase support for all cloud platforms and broaden its ecosystem.

Bioenergy firm GPS Renewables raises Series B funding

Bioenergy technology firm GPS Renewables has raised funds in series B funding round from Neev Fund II, managed by SBICap Ventures.

With this fundraise the company plans to use the funds towards R&D and to support GPS Renewables’ next phase of growth and expansion.

Bangalore-based clean-tech firm GPS Renewables was founded in 2012 by SreekrishnaSankar&Mainak Chakraborty, GPS Renewables is a Renewable Energy Semiconductor Manufacturing company that helps to solve the urban waste problem by utilizing its technologies and business models.

Mobile game developer studio LILA Games raises $10mn funding

LILA Games, a F2P mobile game studio has raised $10 million in Series A funding round from Rainfall and included participation from BITKRAFT Ventures, Galaxy Interactive, Sequoia Capital, and KRAFTON Inc.

The company plans to use the funds to develop their first title and to further build out their Bangalore, India-based team.

Growfitter raises $1 mn in Pre-Series A round

Shark tank India featured Health and fitness platform Growfitter has raised $1 million in a Pre-Series A round led by Inflection Point Ventures.

The company will use the funds to build technology infrastructure and expand business operations, hiring, and branding of the platform.

Adtech platform Excellent Publicity raises $500K from marquee investors

Excellent Publicity, an advertising agency has raised $500k from marquee investors.

The company will use the funds to expand its serviceable territories to all metro cities in India. It also plans to invest in further developing its Programmatic Advertising and Data Analysis technology, including the AI-powered media buying and planning tool and also buying out an ad agency certified by the Indian Newspaper Society (INS).

Ahmedabad-headquartered adtech firm was founded in 2011, Excellent publicity is One of the fastest-growing media agency that has earned an envious reputation in the advertisement segment for creating, nurturing, and enhancing brands.

Scribble Data raises $2.2 mn seed funding led by Blume Ventures

Scribble Data, an ML feature engineering startup has raised $2.2 million in seed funding led by Blume Ventures.

This seed round will be used to build out Scribble’s product roadmap, and to build a strong presence for Scribble Data in the North American market as they grow their customer base. The product roadmap includes a low code consumption interface for teams to access and use features produced on the platform, as well as additional apps that bring data teams closer to specific solutions like anti-money laundering, benchmarking, personalization, and recommendations, among others, the company said in a statement.

ekincare raises $15 mn funding in Series B round

Health benefits platform ekincare has raised $15 mn funding in a Series B round from HealthQuad and Sabre Partners.

With this fundraise the company plans to use the funds to accelerate growth and deliver simplified health benefits and insurance experience to employers.

Hyderabad-based startup founded in 2014 Kiran Kalakuntla and SrikanthSamudrala, ekincare is a personalized, full-stack customizable health benefits platform that helps employers design health benefits packages that best suits the needs of employees and their families.

Healthtech startup Curelink raises $3.5 mn in seed funding

Healthtech startup Curelink has raised $3.5 million in seed funding from Elevation Capital and Venture Highway.

The startup plans to use the funds for geographical expansion and diversification of services across different medical specializations such as dermatology, pediatrics, and psychiatry.

Gurugram-based healthtech startup was founded in 2021 by IIT-Roorkee graduates AmanSingla and Divyansh Jain, CureLink serves as a platform to help doctors and medical care providers to reach out to patients through WhatsApp.

Looppanel raises $1 mn pre-Seed round from Speciale Invest, others

Obtan Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs software development startup Looppanel has raised $1 million pre-seed round of funding from Speciale Invest with First Cheque and other angel investors.

The company has also received a grant from Sequoia Capital India as part of the Sequoia Spark program.

The startup plans to use the funds to ramp up their team as they add new capabilities to their products and expand their footprint across the US and EU.