LIGHTSPEED
ETtech Deals Digest: Startups raise $1.71 billion in June 2024, marking a 148% on-year increase
The fundraise was done by startups in the early and late stages across 85 rounds, said private market intelligence platform Tracxn.
Cash strapped Stability AI raises $80 million with new CEO and board
According to a person familiar with the matter, Stability AI has raised about $80 million in funding from a group of investors including Coatue Management, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. The firm also released AI models to generate audio and video using text prompts and named former Facebook President Sean Parker as executive board chairman of its board.
B2B fashion platform Zyod raises $18 million in funding
Zyod's equity funding round was led by venture firm RTP Global, while the debt capital came from Stride Ventures, Trifecta Capital and Alteria Capital. In April last year, Zyod had raised $3.5 million in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture.
ETtech Deals Digest: Startup funding soars to $748.5 million this week
Startups raised $748.5 million in the third week of June, with Mumbai-based Zepto securing $665 million. This marked an eightfold increase from the previous week. Top deals included Zepto, EKA Mobility, Wrogn, OrbitShift, and Alyve Health.
8X Ventures closes India-focused deeptech fund at Rs 200 crore
8X Ventures announced the first close of its second India-focused deeptech fund at Rs 200 crore, with a green shoe option of Rs 100 crore, aiming to back 18-20 early-stage Indian deeptech startups over three years.
Scoop: DST Global, Lightspeed, others may join Zepto’s financing round valuing it at about $3 billion
Investors are bullish about the company, lured by the growing adoption of ultra-fast delivery platforms despite the high cash burn that typically accompanies these kinds of good-for-consumer businesses.
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Zepto’s mega financing; shareholder battle at Kenko Health
Happy Wednesday! Zepto is holding talks with investment fund DST Global and venture capital firm Lightspeed for funding. Details on this and more in today's ETtech Morning Dispatch.
SuprDaily founder Puneet Kumar joins Nexus as venture partner
Kumar joining Nexus Venture Partners adds to a long list of top personnel changes at venture firms in India over the last 8-10 months. He was previously at startup accelerator Y Combinator and had also founded Supr Daily along with Shreyas Nagdawane and Rohit Jain.
Sanjay Nayar’s Sorin Investments raises Rs 1,350 crore
Early-stage venture firm Sorin Investments, founded by veteran dealmaker and former KKR India CEO Sanjay Nayar, made the final close of its maiden fund at Rs 1,350 crore, sources told ET. Through this fund, Sorin will back startups looking to raise Series A funding.
France looks to elusive EU capital market to fix startup funding
A hodgepodge of local regulations and oversight has kept Europe's financial markets largely shaped by national borders, preventing the emergence of deep capital markets to rival the United States.
GPT-4o set to disrupt conversational AI, edtech and call centre business
ChatGPT creator OpenAI announced the launch of GPT-4o, its newest flagship model, during a livestream on Monday. Chief technology officer Mira Murati described GPT-4o as "much faster" and "improves capabilities across text, vision, and audio".
Former Unacademy COO raises $11 million from Matrix, Lightspeed for new edtech venture
Bengaluru-based startup Beyond Odds Technologies will provide employability-led training, certification, and recruitment services in the grey-collar workforce segment. It connects employers on the demand side to its talent supply base among students.
France's Mistral AI seeks funding at $5 billion valuation: report
French startup Mistral AI engages investors for funding at a $5 billion valuation, facing EU scrutiny over partnership with Microsoft and revenue generation, post raising $415M in December.
Lightspeed partners Abhishek Nag, Vaibhav Agrawal quit
Vaibhav Agrawal is set to launch his own venture firm. Abhishek Nag has joined Mumbai-based 360 One (formerly IIFL Wealth & Asset Management) to lead early-stage investments. has joined Mumbai-based 360 One (formerly IIFL Wealth & Asset Management) to lead early-stage investments.
TCS Q4 net profit up 9%; two partners leave Lightspeed
Revenue from operations saw a marginal 3.5% year-on-year increase to Rs 61,327 crore. In constant currency terms, TCS clocked a revenue growth of 2.2% in the March quarter. The growth was led by the India business (up 38%), followed by the UK (6.2%).
Sprinto raises $20 million in funding from Accel, Elevation Capital, Blume Ventures
The risk and compliance automation platform for businesses plans to use the funds for R&D, improving customer experience and expanding into new markets.
Scrut Automation raises $10 million in funding round from existing investors
Governance, risk and compliance (GRC) platform Scrut Automation said it will use the funds to strengthen its platform capabilities, incorporate generative AI use cases to reduce the manual effort for risk and compliance teams, and expand to North American and European markets.
ETtech Deals Digest: Startup funding in March falls 37% to $623 million
Technology startups raised $622.5 million in March 2024, a 37% decline from the previous year. Blume Ventures was a prominent investor, supporting startups in health monitoring, digital lending, and sustainable packaging.
Stability AI founder steps down to pursue 'decentralised AI'
Emad Mostaque resigns from Stability AI to focus on decentralized AI. Interim co-CEOs appointed. Investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue Management. Board appreciates Mostaque's leadership. Seeking permanent CEO. Known for 'Stable Diffusion'. Facing fundraising challenges.
Pocket FM’s fresh fundraise likely to value audio streaming startup at $1.2 billion
ADIA and others in talks to join new round; secondary share sale also in the works, said people in the know. The latest funding round discussions come on the back of its $103 million raise announced by the company on Wednesday.
Pocket FM raises $103 mn in Series D round from Lightspeed, Stepstone Group
Pocket FM, a prominent audio entertainment platform, has secured $103 million in Series D funding led by Lightspeed, along with Stepstone Group's participation, bringing its total funding to $196.5 million. This funding will facilitate Pocket FM's expansion into the U.S., Europe, and LATAM markets in 2024, while strengthening its exclusive content library and creator community.
VCs hire experts to help with exits as LPs look for returns
One of the major concerns voiced by investors regarding India consistently has been the lack of exit liquidity opportunities. To take on this problem, over the last two years, leading venture capital funds including Lightspeed, Accel and Matrix Partners India have sought out professionals with investment banking expertise.
Lightspeed appoints Vivek Gambhir, Kevin Aluwi as venture partners for India, Southeast Asia
The move to bolster its India and Southeast Asia team comes at a time when local and global peers such as Peak XV Partners, Elevation Capital and Accel have doubled down on the region by raising record capital amid a funding downturn.
Exponent Energy raises $26 million in funding led by Eight Roads Ventures
Existing investors like Lightspeed, YourNest VC, 3one4 Capital, AdvantEdge VC and the family office of Pawan Munjal, executive chairman, Hero MotoCorp, also participated, as did TDK Ventures, a new investor.
Gen AI startup Sarvam AI raises $41 million in funding from Lightspeed, Peak XV and Khosla Ventures
Sarvam AI’s immediate focus areas include training artificial intelligence models to support a diverse set of Indian languages and voice-first interfaces. It will also work with Indian enterprises to co-build domain-specific AI models on their data.
Manufacturing supply chain startup Keychain raises $18 million in funding led by Lightspeed
Keychain currently aims to help its clients with services ranging from competitive intelligence and manufacturer sourcing to terms negotiation, onboarding and compliance.
Language model ops startup Portkey.ai raises $3 million in funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
Portkey.ai offers integrations with LLMs such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Langchain, LlamaIndex, among others. It serves millions of requests a day for innovative generative AI companies.
ETtech Deals Digest: Early stage deals only respite in funding starved week for startups
As many as 10 out of the 12 fundraises in technology startups in the first full week of August were seed-stage deals, with cheque sizes ranging from $150,000 to $1.7 million, among the ones disclosed.
Stable Money secures $5 million funding from Matrix, Lightspeed and others
The Bengaluru-based startup is building a fixed-return investment app for consumers offering FDs, bonds and other products
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