Tag: Scripbox

Funding Rundown: Lummo gets $80 mn, Scripbox raises $21 mn in Series D & Rocketlane bags $18 mn

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Here’s a lowdown of the top deals from the startup space:

Tiger Global & Sequoia Capital India invests $80M in SaaS startup Lummo

SaaS startup Lummo (previously known as BukuKas) has secured $80 million in Series C funding round led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India.
Other global tech and e-commerce investors such as CapitalG (independent growth fund of Google parent company Alphabet); NuvemShop CEO Santiago Sosa; and former Lazada CEO Max Bittner also participated in the fundraise.

The startup is seeking to accelerate the business growth of MSMEs in Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia. In addition, Lummo’s flagship product, TOKKO, has been rebranded to LummoSHOP as it aims to cement its status as a leading software solution to entrepreneurs and brands.

Lummo was launched in December 2019 as BukuKas, a bookkeeping app for MSMEs, with the objective of empowering and digitizing them. It later expanded its business by launching TOKKO, an online direct-to-consumer commerce builder, in November 2020. TOKKO’s (now LummoSHOP) GMV which grew 11X from December 2020 to December 2021, the firm added.

Digit secures $70M for its general insurance biz: Report

General insurance provider Digit Insurance has raised fresh funds for its general insurance firm from Wellington Hadley Harbor and Ithan Creek Master Investors. Digit has approved the allotment of 165,77,070 equity shares at an issue price of Rs 314 per share to raise 520.52 crore or $70 million, as per an Entrackr report.

Boston-based asset management firm Wellington Hadley Harbor has invested $55 million in this round while the remaining sum has come from Ithan Creek Master. The company has also passed a special resolution to amend the conditions of the employee stock appreciation rights plan to make the scheme more beneficial for employees, the report added.

Avendus announces the first close of its Structured Credit Fund II at Rs 432 Cr

Avendus PE Investment Advisors, an asset management arm of Avendus Group, has marked the first close of its second structured credit fund Avendus Structured Credit Fund II (ASCF II) by raising Rs 432 crore (around $57.85 million).

It has secured the funds primarily from family offices, high net worth individuals (HNIs), two private insurance firms and two private sector banks.
“Around 40% of the investors from the first fund participated in the second fund as well,” said Nilesh Dhedhi, Fund Manager, Avendus Structured Credit Fund. The investment firm’s ASCF–II, a category 2 Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) is targeting a total corpus of Rs 1,000 crore including the green shoe option of Rs 500 crore.

The company plans to invest in secured transactions of operating companies as well as holding companies alongside Avendus Finance, the non-banking financial company (NBFC) of Avendus. The sector-agnostic fund will target a total of around 10-12 transactions with a ticket size of around Rs 150-200 crore to be invested over the next 1-2 years with an investment tenure of 3-5 years. The fund is evaluating multiple deals in sectors such as IT services, B2B services, specialized manufacturing, healthcare etc.

“Till now, our fund has received commitments from 100+ investors including 4 institutions and we hope to continue the same momentum over the next 2-3 months,” said Nilesh Dhedhi, Fund Manager, Avendus Structured Credit Fund.

Scripbox raises $21M in Series D round led by Accel Partners

Wealth management platform Scripbox has raised $21 million led by Accel Partners. The series D round, a combination of debt and equity saw participation from Transpose Platform, DMI Alternative Investment Fund – The Sparkle Fund, InnoVen Capital, Trifecta Capital, KPB Family Trust, LetsVenture, Kube VC, and YY Capital.

Angel investors including, Alok Ohrie of Dell Technologies, MakeMyTrip’s Deep Kalra, Girish Mathrubootham and Shanmugam Krishnasamy of Freshworks among others joined the round. The company will use the funds to expand its product line-up, build the brand and customer acquisition.

The Omidyar Network and Transpose Platform backed firm has seen business grow manifold through the pandemic, with assets under management (AUMs) close to Rs 5,000 crores, cumulative transactions have crossed 8.1 million to-date.

It has users in 2500+ cities and towns in India. Scripbox’s proprietary algorithms use data, maths, technology to deliver better customer outcomes. Over the last year, the digital wealth manager has added Indian and US Equities, fixed deposits, and insurance to its product portfolio. It has also partnered with Stockal for US equity investments.

Customer on-boarding platform Rocketlane bags $18M in Series A round/

Rocketlane, a platform that SaaS businesses use to onboard new customers and help reduce churn, has raised $18 million in a Series A round of funding. The round was led by previous Asana investor, 8VC, with participation from Nexus Venture Partners, Matrix Partners India, and prominent angel investor, Gokul Rajaram. This comes just seven months after Rocketlane announced its seed funding round, bringing the total capital invested to $21 million. The funding will be used to expand product offerings, accelerate marketing, and grow the Rocketlane team, the company said in a statement.

“This funding round follows on the back of very strong early customer growth, and validates the market pull in the category as well as the clear product leadership position we’ve established,” said, Srikrishnan Ganesan, CEO & Co-founder, Rocketlane. The startup helps businesses accelerate their time-to-value, boost customer satisfaction, and reduce churn. Rocketlane customers include Chargebee, ParcelLab, Yellow.ai, LinkSquares, Appcues, and Netcore.

Foodtech platform Pluckk gets $5M seed capital from Exponentia Ventures

Fresh produce foodtech venture, Pluckk has raised $5 million (around Rs 37 crore) seed capital in a funding round from Exponentia Ventures, a fund focussed on emerging business ideas in both B2C and B2B space.
Pluckk is aiming to build a digital commerce business to serve the growing demand of lifestyle-oriented fresh produce, it stated. “This round of funding will be utilised towards building the right team, technology, farm to fork infrastructure, customer acquisition and expansion into key metro cities,” the firm said in a statement.

A part of this fund will also be utilized to acquire Indus Fresh – an existing player in the fresh FnV category serving both B2C and B2B customers like Flipkart, Amazon, Swiggy, Dunzo and Zepto, it said without giving details.
With this fresh funding, the products and services of Pluckk will now also be made available to a wider set of consumers in key metro cities such as Bangalore and Mumbai (further expansion plans to Gurugram, Pune, Hyderabad) on its direct-to-consumer (D2C) platform as well as through leading ecommerce platforms under its brand name.

The Indian online grocery market size is currently valued at $4 billion growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37% and is expected to grow 10X touching $40 billion in the next seven years. Of the total grocery market, fruits and vegetables account for 15-20% of the market size, Pluckk aims to gain a higher single-digit share of this market in the next 3-5 years.

threedots raises $4M led from Kalaari Capital, others

Community investing platform, threedots, has raised $4 million in seed round of funding led by Kalaari Capital. Better Capital, iSeed, Cloud capital, Kunal Shah (Cred), Lalit Keshre (Groww), Jitendra Gupta (Jupiter), Amrish and Sweta Rau (Pine labs), Ramakant Sharma (Livspace), Rohit MA (cloud9), Giri Malpani (Malpani Family), Mohit Daga and others, also participated in the funding round.

The funds will be used for strengthening the product and expanding the team, the company said in a statement. The app offers users a daily dose of financial news and a finance centric community apart from stock investing. threedots has already onboarded 100+ market experts who guide users in their community as well as partnerships with Groww, Coindcx, and Finshots.

Matchlog raises $3M to decarbonise the shipping industry

MatchLog, a container logistics optimisation platform, has raised $3 million in its pre-series A round through Blue Ashva Capital, a leading Singapore and India-based VC, Rainmatter Climate, and Capital-A, an early-stage investor.
The capital raised will be deployed to develop the tech platform further for AI and machine learning based pairing of cargo across India, grow the multi-modal share in addition to road transport and expand its footprint to more ports in India and around the world, the firm said in a statement.

MatchLog offers at scale the ability to turnaround a container from an import to export cycle, thereby eliminating unnecessary empty runs to and from the container yards. In 2021 alone, the company claims to have saved 1 m + kgs of carbon emission through its efforts.

B2B marketplace NowPurchase gets $2.4M in seed round from Orios & InfoEdge

Procurement technology company NowPurchase, has raised $2.4 million in a seed funding round led by Orios Venture Partners and InfoEdge Ventures.
Angel investor Neeraj Arora (ex-WhatsApp global business head & Co-Founder HalloApp) also participated in the funding round. The company said it will use the new funds towards expanding its procurement business by establishing a global supplier base and expanding into other parts of India.

NowPurchase will also use the funds to further strengthen the technology team to build out its procurement platform and expand the offering of its manufacturing intelligence software-MetalCloud, it added.

The B2B marketplace for metals, provides its users with a WhatsApp bot to discover prices and stock in real time, a dedicated technically trained team to provide on-ground service and quality assurance, and a proprietary software-MetalCloud to optimize their manufacturing process.
The company claims to have grown ten-fold since launching its platform for foundries in September 2020.

Crypto-native social platform Sahicoin gets $1.75M in seed round

Crypto-native social platform, Sahicoin, has raised $1.75 million in the latest seed round led by Alameda Ventures (FTX), Better Capital Ventures, and other institutional investors. The current seed round witnessed participation from multiple founders, CXOs, and angel investors, including Kunal Shah from CRED, the Indian cricketer Suresh Raina, YouTuber and Podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia, Naveen Kukreja – Paisabazaar, Aneesh Reddy – Capillary, Gyanesh Maheshwar – Coinbase, Prashan Agarwal – Gaana, Ariel Jalali – Paragon Tech, Sasi Kanth Nagalla – Stripe, Nitish Maini & Rohit Agarwal – WorldQuant, Amit Arora – Evercore, Amit Chand – TCNS, Ajinkya Kulkarni – Wintwealth, Saurabh Aggarwal – Fitso, Prabhat Gupta – TravelTriangle, Prateek Sharma, and others.

The fresh round of funding will be deployed to scale the team across engineering & product, and grow the platform, the company said in a statement. “Since crypto is global by nature, our growth too, is not just limited to India. We plan to partner with key exchanges, DeFi, and NFT players, which will expedite the onboarding of the next billion users onto the crypto ecosystem,” said Amit Nayak, co-founder & CEO of Sahicoin.

Diginoor.io raises $1M from Polygon, Kunal Shah: Reports

NFT marketplace, Diginoor launched with non-fungible tokens of south superstar Rajinikanth’s movies today announced $1 million in its seed funding.
The round saw participation from Contrary Capital, Sandeep Nailwal, FOunder, Polygon Technology, Cred’s Kunal Shah, Abdul Wahab Al-Halabi, MD at Embassy Capital, among others, as per reports.

Diginoor aims to make NFT adoption mainstream in India with curated Indian entertainment content. Some of their partners include production houses including AVM Productions, Reliance Entertainment, and other movie studios.
Diginoor also plans to start selling Bollywood NFTs along with exclusive music and celebrity NFTs, the reports added.

SaaS startup Trainn raises $700K from Speciale Invest & Arka Venture Labs

B2B SaaS startup Trainn, has bagged $700,000 in a seed funding round led by Speciale Invest and Arka Venture Labs. Angel investors including Founders of Chargebee, Shan Krishnasamy – CTO of Freshworks, Abhishek Goyal – Co-founder of Tracxn, among others also participated in the funding round.

The company plans to deploy the fresh funds towards expanding its team, fuel go-to-market programs, and accelerate product development. Trainn aims to help SaaS businesses drive meaningful ROI, increase adoption and customer retention through customer education, while also reducing support costs and expensive in-person training, it said in a statement.

Dogsee Chew raises Rs 50 Cr in Series A round

Pet foods startup Dogsee Chew has raised Rs 50 crore in Series A funding round from Mankind Pharma along with existing investor, Sixth Sense Ventures. The investment in the firm that offers 100 per cent vegetarian dog treats marks Mankind Pharma’s entry into the pet food category, Dogsee Chew said in a statement. Sixth Sense Ventures had also earlier participated in the company’s pre-series A funding in November 2021, it added.

The funds will be primarily used towards brand building, R&D, and building a strong distribution network, the company said, adding it currently exports its products to over 30 countries.

Insuretech startup Finsall raises Rs 12 Cr in Pre Series A round

Insurance focused Fintech platform Finsall has raised Rs 12 crore in a Pre Series A round from its existing investors, Unicorn India Ventures and SEA Fund, along with a clutch of other investors. This is the second round of investment by UIV, which is known for discovering high potential fintech companies like Open Bank and SmartCoin, the company said.

Finsall plans to use the fresh funds raised for scaling its technology platform, signing new insurance partners with an aim to increase its market share in the Indian insurance premium financing market, it said. The company will also be looking to enter into lending partnerships with top banks and NBFCs. “We currently have customers in more than 500 cities pan India with a special focus on under banked and underserved rural pockets. We have also opened financing for multiple products within the insurance industry to continue our scale up and build a strong business model,” said Tim Mathews, Co-founder & CEO, Finsall.

Finsall is an end-to-end technology process for insurance premium financing. They have built a multi lender platform for banks and NBFCs so that lending can be done at scale and in a sustainable manner. Finsall opened up financing for other insurance premium in addition to catering to retail customers in motor and health insurance.

Reloy secures Rs 5 Cr in strategic Pre-Series A round from IPV

Real estate digital amenities provider Reloy has raised Rs 5 crore in a strategic pre-Series A round led by Inflection Point Ventures (IPV), Fawkes Fund, family office of Greenpanel and Greenlam, and over 50 prominent angels.
The funds raised will be used for expanding operations and fine tuning the product for a commercial launch, the firm said in a statement.

Reloy claims to have influenced over Rs 700 crore sales in the real estate industry with clients like Sharpoorji Pallonji, Godrej Properties, Mahindra Lifespaces, Piramal Realty, Gera K Raheja, Birla Estates and Century Real Estate.

The company expects to generate sales worth Rs 5,000 crore of sales for its current clients in the coming financial year. Reloy is also looking to create conveniences in housing projects through its digital amenities. These digital amenities increase customer delight and boost referral sales by up to 200 percent, the startup added.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Scripbox raises $21 million in Series D round led by Accel Partners

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Wealth management platform Scripbox has raised $21 million in series D round led by Accel Partners. The funding round, a combination of debt and equity, saw participation from Transpose Platform, DMI Alternative Investment Fund – The Sparkle Fund, InnoVen Capital, Trifecta Capital, KPB Family Trust, LetsVenture, Kube VC, and YY Capital.

Angel investors including, Alok Ohrie of Dell Technologies, MakeMyTrip’s Deep Kalra, Girish Mathrubootham and Shanmugam Krishnasamy of Freshworks among others joined the round.

The company will use the funds to expand its product line-up, build the brand and customer acquisition.

The Omidyar Network and Transpose Platform backed firm has seen its business growing manifold through the pandemic, with assets under management (AUMs) close to Rs 5,000 crore. The company’s cumulative transactions have crossed 8.1 million to-date. It has users in 2500-plus cities and towns in India. Scripbox’s proprietary algorithms use data, maths, technology to deliver better customer outcomes.

“Combining technology with human touch, we have built deep trust relationships with our client base, helping them grow their wealth prudently and achieve their financial goals systematically. This investment will accelerate our next phase of growth, further strengthening our market position”, said Atul Shinghal, Founder & CEO, Scripbox.

Over the last year, the digital wealth manager has added Indian and US Equities, fixed deposits, and insurance to its product portfolio. It has also partnered with Stockal for US equity investments.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Scripbox opens direct route for users to invest in US stocks in partnership with Stockal

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Digital wealth management platform Scripbox will now allow its users to invest directly in shares of companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges.

Earlier, Scripbox’s users could only invest in publicly-listed shares of stocks on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or NASDAQ via U.S. equity-based mutual funds. The solution has been developed in partnership with Stockal – a global investing platform.

The move comes at a time when some of Scripbox’s peers have started offering the novelty of picking up U.S. stocks while Zerodha remains cautious about it.

“Scripbox will enable investing in the US market effortlessly, while we partner with customers to manage their wealth with diversified portfolios, all in one place.” said Atul Shinghal, Founder & CEO, Scripbox.

To see widespread adoption of its latest investment offering, the fintech platform claims to offer benefits such as easy access, guided remittances, zero account opening and maintenance fees along with the option of investing in fractional shares. Under the Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) guidelines, the limit for outward remittance per financial year stands at $250,000.

Founded in 2012, Scripbox seeks to simplify wealth management – be it investing in U.S. equities, buying insurance, constructing an investment portfolio or receiving financial advice. It uses a proprietary algorithm to help pick the best mutual funds based on the profile of the customer.

Currently, the platform’s assets under management stand at over Rs 3,600 crore with customers in more than 2,500 cities and towns across India.

The fintech company’s partner for the new venture – Stockal – wants to leverage this customer base. “Our partnership with Scripbox will help us reach a truly wide market of Indian investors, and introduce them to a hassle-free way of investing in US stocks,” said Sitashwa Srivastava, Co-Founder and CEO, Stockal.

Stockal’s platform enables investments in a diverse set of global assets from a single account from anywhere in the world. Stockal is currently onboarding investors from emerging economies like India and the Middle East with plans to launch its platform in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil, according to the company statement.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

How I became financially free: Scripbox CEO explains his time-tested techniques

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

The world we live in today is largely defined by free-market economics and attaining financial freedom really seems to be the holy grail of the salaried. This is perhaps even more applicable to a transitioning economy such as India where there is no social safety net (at least not yet).

But what does ‘financial freedom’ really mean?

If you ask me and on the basis of my own financial history, I’d say financial freedom is really a journey as much as it is a destination and basically means not having to depend on a salary to meet your expenses. And by virtue of that, I believe that it’s not a one-size-fits-all as both the journey and the destination will differ not only from person to person but also from generation to generation.

For many people, financial freedom may simply be about having a financial cushion at the end of their working lives in order to cover their basic living expenses and have some leftover for the simple pleasures of life. Or in other words, being rich. This model of financial freedom certainly applied to the generation before us. But it may mean something completely different to today’s millennials. For them, it could be the intention to live truly free and not be bound to a job as the generations before them.

In my case, my quest for freedom was and continues to remain a journey rather than a destination. As a journey, it has involved many ups and a few downs. My journey started in 2001 when the EMI for my two-wheeler ended and I decided to invest that money in mutual funds through SIP. Short story – I have never skipped an SIP and became financially free in 2015.

The long story…

I wasn’t obsessed about being rich. Neither was I obsessed about a number. For me, financial freedom means having the time and the mind space to do whatever I want while my day-to-day financial obligations were being met without me or my family’s active focus on enabling that.

Two years into the marriage, I realised that I want to be able to travel and pursue my passions without feeling trapped by a 9-to-5. This was really my personal trigger, one that would also resonate with many young people today. To achieve this, I knew that not only do I need to work for money but money also needs to work for me. I realised that I need to invest my money so that my money grows, beats inflation, and I am able to accumulate wealth over the long term.

In the initial years, I took the help of a financial advisor to get started. But the advice that has always been my guiding mantra has been this famous quote from none other than the master of wealth creation, Warren Buffet that says, “Be greedy when others are fearful and be fearful when others are greedy”. This outlined the approach I took for my investments. Every time the markets tanked, I continued to invest and even increased my SIP when I could. Additionally, I kept increasing my investments every year, without fail. I treated my investments like an EMI and thus were mandatory.

Case in point, when the markets crashed in 2008-09, I panicked like everyone else and considered withdrawing all my investments. But good sense prevailed and I stayed invested. The markets picked up and the value of my portfolio grew.

What started at the age of 25-26, resulted in financial freedom at 40. I invested for my children’s higher education as soon as they were born so that when they go to college, I don’t need to dip into my retirement funds. For every long or short term goal, I planned early and systematically invested to achieve it.

If I can be financially free, so can others

Scripbox simplifies every single aspect of investing in mutual funds and provides actionable and reliable advice. Scripbox is an investment service that helps you get started, plan for all your life goals, and invest for them. If I can be financially free, so can everyone else and at Scripbox, I do this at scale — help others become financially free.

Your personal journey to wealth creation can begin with a few lakhs, a few thousands or even a few hundreds. It’s conviction that you need – not a high salary, coupled with the discipline to curb discretionary spending and ensure you have a certain amount to invest regularly.

Investing is no rocket science. Becoming financially free is a definite possibility for most of us. If I could do it then I am sure almost anyone can. And that’s my mission in life as Scripbox’s CEO – help everyone achieve this goal.

Ashok Kumar ER is the CEO of Scripbox.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow