Flipkart to back 6 startups💡, Jar at $300 Mn🏺, Big VC funds bullish on EV startups🛵
Flipkart to back 6 startups💡, Jar at $300 Mn🏺, Big VC funds bullish on EV startups🛵
Flipkart’s venture arm to back six startups, Jar at $300 mn valuation, VC funds turn bullish on EV startups, Funding Deals and more.
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Flipkart’s venture arm to back six startups in accelerator program💰
Flipkart Ventures, the venture capital arm of Flipkart, will back six startups under its accelerator program, Flipkart Leap Ahead, as it looks to expand its startup investments and take on rival Amazon.
Startups selected for the program include metaverse-focused platform Dopplr, insurtech firm Livwell, and logistics startup LogisticsNow. Each startup will receive an equity investment of up to $500,000 and a mentorship program designed by Bain & Company.
“Through this endeavour, we aim to be a catalyst in the growing startup community by continuing to expand our program each year and presenting growth opportunities to emerging entrepreneurs,” said Ravi Iyer, senior vice-president of corporate development at Flipkart.
Tiger Global leads fresh funding in Jar at $300 million valuation🏺
Jar, a fintech app for savings has raised $22.6 million in its Series B funding round led by existing investor Tiger Global at a valuation of $300 million.
Other existing investors like Arkam Ventures, Eximius Ventures, Force Ventures, LetsVenture, Rocketship Venture Capital and WEH Ventures also participated in the round, besides new investors such as 1Finance, Capier Investments, Cloud Capital, Folius Ventures, Panther-a Capital, Prophetic Ventures and others.
The Bengaluru-based startup had raised $32 million led by Tiger Global in February, after which it was valued at around $200 million.
Jar plans to use the new funds to expand its workforce and strengthen its tech stack. It also plans to offer more investment products across mutual funds, insurance and lending.
Hot Shorts⚡
Copperpod Digital, the parent company of Metamaxx.io, has raised USD 10 million in funding led by KFC Ventures.
Design-to-manufacturing SaaS startup Prolance has raised $2 million in funding led by Foundamental and Axilor.
The Health Factory, a D2C food brand has raised Rs 2 crore in a seed funding round led by Venture Garage, Happilo founder Vikas Nahar, and other angel investors.
Premium D2C personal care brand Zlade has raised Rs 1.1 crores from Velocity.in, a revenue-based financier, across 3 rounds of financing.
Renewable energy-focused deep tech startup Renkube has secured Rs 2.4 crores in a seed funding round led by CIIE.CO.
Big VC funds turn bullish on EV startups amid funding slowdown🛵
Mainstream venture capital (VC) funds have increasingly deployed funds in the electric mobility space even as financing in the wider startup ecosystem has witnessed a slowdown over the past few months.
Lightspeed Venture Partners announced its maiden bet on an electric vehicle (EV) startup by leading a $13 million funding round in Bengaluru-based fast charging startup Exponent Energy on July 17.
In June, battery swapping startup Battery Smart said it had picked up $25 million led by New York-based investment firm Tiger Global, with participation from Blume Ventures and Orios Ventures.
This was Tiger Global's third investment in the EV sector after having backed Ather Energy in 2016 as well as Ola Electric in March 2019.
VCs have traditionally stayed away from EV companies as they are not scalable like startups building software, fintech or consumer technology platforms. But that is changing as EV startups are raising more money than ever before.
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