Deal Street: Yamaha Backs Self-Drive Rental Startup, GOQii Eyes Japan After Fundraise

Five Indian startups raised $110 million or about Rs 770 crore in angel, seed or venture capital funding last week, across sectors such as home services, smart wearable, car rental, among others.

The funding pack was led by Bengaluru-based startups.

UrbanClap Raises $50 Million As It Looks To Expand

UrbanClap, an on-demand home services startup, raised $50 million (around Rs 350 crore) in a fresh round of funding led by Steadview Capital and existing investor Vy Capital.

This investment values the Ratan Tata-backed company at about $480 million, more than double the valuation when it raised $21 million last year, a person privy to the development told BloombergQuint requesting anonymity.

Bengaluru-based UrbanClap said it will use the investment to accelerate addition of customers and service partners, build product and technology teams, improve training capabilities and enhance its supply-chain. It also plans to expand to tier-2 cities starting with Chandigarh.

Self-Drive Platform Drivezy Raises $20 Million From Yamaha, Others

Drivezy, a self-drive vehicle rental platform, raised $20 million or Rs 141.4 crore in a growth funding round led by existing Japanese investor Das Capital.

Its existing investors Axan Partners and venture firm IT-Farm also participated in the round. Motorbike maker Yamaha also joined the funding round as a new investor, the company said in a statement.

Drivezy said it plans to use the fresh capital for geographical expansion and integrating its services. The latest round takes the overall funding to $31 million (Rs 219 crore).

Amish Parashar, partner at Silicon Valley-based Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory, will serve as an observer on the board of Drivezy as part of the deal, the startup said.

Founded in 2015, the company started off as a platform that allowed individual car owners to list their idle vehicles for rent on an hourly, daily, weekly and monthly basis. The company has also included two-wheelers on its platform.

The self-drive platform, which has presence in eight Indian cities, launched its one-way car rental service in February this year.

Drivezy said it has 2,000 owners and 7,000-plus operational cars, motorcycles and scooters which are rented by more than 37,000 customers every month.

GOQii Raises Fresh Funds From Mitsui & Co.

GOQii Inc., which makes wearable fitness devices, raised an undisclosed amount in funding led by Japanese conglomerate Mitsui & Co.

The New York-based blockchain merchant bank Galaxy Digital and Denlow Investment Trust, which is a limited partner (LP) in several global consumer and tech-focused funds, also participated in the round, GOQii said in a statement.

Existing investors New Enterprise Associates, DSG Consumer Partners, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Ratan Tata also contributed to the round in which Trifecta came in with venture debt, the statement said.

While the company did not disclose the size of the deal, it has raised around $30 million, according to one person privy to the development.

The fresh investment will be deployed to increase the headcount, ramp up marketing initiatives and expand to Japan, besides strengthening local operations. A part of investment will also go into strengthening GOQii's big data analytics & artificial intelligence platform, the company said.

Others

Verloop, a Bengaluru-based software-as-a-service platform, raised $3 million or about Rs 21 crore in growth round led by IDFC Parampara Fund. Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan and Dr Ranjan Pai also participated in the funding round, the company said in a statement.

CloudSEK, a security risk-management startup based out of Bengaluru, raised around $1.9 million or about Rs 14 crore in fresh funding led by early-stage investors Exfinity Venture Partners and StartupXseed, the company said in a statement.