Agri start-up Utkal Tubers has raised $4.6 million (Rs 30 cr) from CapAleph Indian Millennium SME Fund and Zephyr Peacock India Fund. The early-stage start-up, a potato seeds company, completed a year of operation in March 2017, producing 1,000 tonnes of potato seeds in 2016. This year (2017), it…
Start Up India
Unclear norms: P2P lending start-ups face funding woes
Mumbai: The fledgling peer-to-peer lending start-ups, which had been waiting for almost a year for the Reserve Bank of India to lay down the rules of operations, may find the going tougher. While on the one hand, delay in regulations is affecting their fund-raising plans, it is also casting a sha…
VC start-up investments hit 22 month low of $125m in April
Even as April saw poster boys of the start-up ecosystem Flipkart and Ola rack up funds, overall investments touched new lows. Venture capital funding marked a 22-month low at $125 million across 31 deals. The number of investments shrank by 6 per cent compared with the same period last year, whil…
Here’s how Chinese investors are helping Indian start-ups
The first time iXigo Founder Aloke Bajpai pitched to Fosun Kinzon Capital, the venture capital arm of Chinese conglomerate Fosun, it was through an interpreter. He was uncomfortable with the language barrier — a major factor that impedes the intermingling of the start-up ecosystems of the two nei…
LegalRaasta raises $5 m in Series A round from Impanix Capital
Delhi-based start-up, LegalRaasta, which provides finance & taxation services to SMEs, has raised around $5 million in Series A funding from Impanix Capital. LegalRaasta plans to use these funds in building GST compliance software for SMEs, CAs & enterprises. They will offer both a standa…
Leg-up to BioTech start-ups! May soon get relaxation of 3 more years for eligibility
Bio-technology firms are likely to soon get a relaxation of an additional three years in the eligibility criteria for being recognised as start-ups. The Department of Bio-technology (DBT) has sent a formal proposal to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) stating that the requi…
SBI sanctions credit facilities of $3.1 m to Aye Finance; NBFC to now reach out to more MSEs
Gurugram-based NBFC Aye Finance has been sanctioned credit facilities to the tune of $3.1 million (Rs 20 crore) from the country’s largest public sector bank State Bank of India (SBI), for the purposes of on-lending. The credit facility will enable Aye Finance to further its goal of financial inc…
EarlySalary bags $4 m in series A from IDG Ventures India & DHFL
Chennai: Fintech start-up EarlySalary on May 10 said that it has raised Series A funding of $4 million from IDG Ventures India and Dewan Housing Finance. Founded by Akshay Mehrotra and Ashish Goyal, the company had raised seed funding from Ashok Agarwal of Transcorp International earlier. The sta…
Fintech firm Invoice Bazaar raises funds from former Citigroup exec
Invoice Bazaar Holdings Ltd, a Dubai-based fintech firm founded by IIM Kolkata alumnus Anand Nagaraj, has raised funding from Shirish Apte, former Asia-Pacific CEO and Chairman at Citigroup. Apte has joined the advisory board of Invoice Bazaar, the start-up said in a statement. It didn’t disclose…
Karnataka govt grants Rs 10.7 cr to bolster 26 BioTech start-ups
The Karnataka Government said it has granted Rs 10.70 crore to 26 start-ups in the BioTech sector to bolster innovation. The 26 winners of the Idea2PoC (proof of concept), an initiative organised by the Karnataka Startup Cell, received cheques ranging upto Rs 50 lakh (each) in the first tranche f…