Upstox 40th🦄, Udaan in grocery biz🥦, Paytm gains📈
Upstox 40th🦄, Udaan in grocery biz🥦, Paytm gains📈
Upstox turns unicorn, Udaan enters grocery business, Paytm shares extend gains to third day in a row, Funding Deals & more.
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Upstox turns unicorn with fresh round from Tiger Global🦄
November has already seen five startups turn unicorns, with two joining the coveted club just this week. Now, a sixth company has turned unicorn this month: Upstox.
The online investment platform has raised $25 million from existing investor Tiger Global. The fresh funding appears to be a part of a larger round for the company.
Upstox has raised the fresh funds at a valuation of $3.4 billion or Rs 25,458 crore (post-money). The price per share has grown 28X as compared to Series B share price of Rs 3,514 per share.
With this, Upstox’s valuation has surpassed its close rival Groww which was recently valued at $3 billion following a $251 million financing round in October. It is also the 40th startup to be valued at over $1 billion in 2021.
Upstox directly competes with Zerodha, Groww and IndMoney. Apart from Zerodha, Tiger is an investor in all three stockbroking companies.
B2B unicorn Udaan aims to onboard 5 million retailers by Dec 2022 in new grocery play🍅
Udaan is a Bengaluru-based business-to-business ecommerce company. According to sources, it is entering the consumer-focused grocery business with a new platform called Price Company.
Udaan's entry is notable and significant for a B2B ecommerce firm at a time when online grocery adoption is growing. It also means that Meesho, which is backed by SoftBank, and DealShare, which is backed by Tiger Global, have a new competitor.
Udaan wants to leverage its network of small retailers and kirana store owners to tap into the consumer demand. By the way, Udaan has been testing a grocery delivery service called Pickily in Bengaluru, and recently expanded it to Hyderabad.
Udaan is looking to replicate the model used by China’s Pinduoduo. That’s how DealShare started operations in India too, largely modeling itself on Pinduoduo, also known as PDD.
Hot Shorts⚡
Thrasio-style direct-to-consumer (D2C) venture GlobalBees has added three more startups to its portfolio list. The company has picked up a majority stake in Healthyhey (dietary supplements maker), Rey Naturals (hair care products brand) and Intellilens (eyewear brand) for undisclosed amounts.
Early-stage VC firm WaterBridge Ventures has raised $150 million for its Fund II, 50% more than the planned size.
Xponents, an employee engagement platform has recently raised $1.56 million in a seed funding round led by a UAE based venture capitalist.
BlackRock, Canada Pension bought more Paytm stock after rout😬
Many of the biggest investors in Paytm’s record-breaking initial public offering increased their stakes in the Indian fintech giant after shares plunged by as much as 41% in the first two days after listing.
BlackRock Inc. and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board were among so-called anchor investors in the IPO that bought more Paytm shares on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The stock climbed for a third day on Thursday, rallying as much as 7% to Rs 1,875 in early trading. That’s still a fair distance away from its issue price of Rs 2,150.
Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said last week that the stock’s early tumble was “no indicator of the value of our company". He said in an interview, “We are in it for the long haul. We’ll put our heads down and execute.”
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