Deal Alert: Streaming app maker Nityaa Labs selected for GSF Accelerator

Nityaa Labs, a Pune-based developer of AirStream, an app using which users can stream media content and other files from their PC to smartphone, has been selected to be a part of GSF Accelerators second batch. 



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Deal Alert: Kalaari Capital invests Rs.22-Cr in app development firm Robosoft

Udupi-based mobile application developer Robosoft Technologies has raised Rs 22 crore in a first round of funding from Kalaari Capital. Robosoft creates mobile applications for external clients and also creates its own apps through its 99Games and Global Delight units. The company, which has developed apps for brands like The Times of India, Sony, HP, Disney, Reliance and Vodafone, is now

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Why the Hungama about Hotels?

Businessworld has a Cover Story on why "Everyone wants to own a hotel in India. And that is leading to a complex mating ritual between all sorts of players".

Everyone
wants to own a hotel in India. And that is leading to a complex mating
ritual between all sorts of players - See more at:
http://businessworld.in/en/storypage/-/bw/the-great-hotel-swayamvara/r937929.37490/page/0#

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Deal Alert: Gray Matters Capital invests in Unitus Capital

Bangalore-based impact investment bank Unitus Capital has raised capital from a consortium of investors led by social venture capital firm Gray Matters Capital. The proceeds from the second round of institutional funding will be used by Unitus to expand operations in India and South-East Asia. Unitus works across sectors including microfinance, renewable energy and healthcare and education.

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New Fund Alert: Pharma firm Cipla floats corporate venturing arm

Drug
maker Cipla  has launched Cipla Ventures, a new in-house division to
invest in companies internationally, including from start-up hubs like
Boston and London, in areas such as biotechnology, medical devices and
new chemical entity. The venture will be led by Chandru Chawla, who has
been appointed head of the new business ventures, and helping him will
be Samina Vaziralli, who is the

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Deal Alert: K. Ganesh, Meena Ganesh acquire 35% in OnlinePrasad

GrowthStory.In,  the investment arm of serial technology entrepreneurs, K Ganesh and Meena Ganesh, has picked 35% stake in OnlinePrasad, a Bangalore-based venture that delivers religious merchandise from temples to people's doorsteps.

Founded
by former Bain & Co analyst Goonjan Mall, the one year-old portal
now provides puja facilities at more than 30 well-known temples from
Vaishno Devi to

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Deal Alert: Minjar Cloud Solutions acquires social apps firm Adepto

Bangalore-based
Minjar Cloud Solutions has acquired start-up venture Adepto Solutions,
which offers a platform to launch customized applications on Facebook
and other social media. Adepto had “pivoted” its business from being a
social app for e-commerce platform (Trolly) to helping build instant
apps under its new service Crowdnub.

The
three year old Adepto was part of the Microsoft

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Redbuzz and the Future of Indian Venture Capital

While June began with the IPO of  JustDial, the second "pure play" Internet company to list publicly in India, mid-month has been all about Naspers/ibibo acquiring redBus. Some interesting takes:

A VC-loving, Uber Entrepreneur's (read: Mr.Rodinhood, Alok Kejriwal) view of why the deal is super news

Former Seedfund (redBus investor) member Anand Lunia's take on why the deal is not as much of a

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Deal Alert: Taxiforsure raises new round from Accel, Blume & Helion

Online taxi aggregator Taxiforsure has raised its Series A round from its seed investors Accel Partners, Helion Venture Partners and Blume Ventures. Taxiforsure claims to clock around 2000 bookings per day across Bangalore and Delhi



The company has partnered with around 25 cab operators in Bangalore and around 15 in Delhi and claims to have reached operational profitability in Bangalore. It

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Deal Alert: Blume, Mumbai Angels, MMT co-founder invest in WeAreHolidays

Holiday recommendation startup, WeAreHolidays, has raised a seed round of funding from Blume Venture Capital, Mumbai Angels, MakeMyTrip co-founder Sachin Bhatia and another undisclosed angel group. The company is developing an artificial intelligence driven online platform aimed at the customized holiday market and offers pre-designed packages based on the customer’s interest. The money raised

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Deal Alert: responsAbility invests in portable sanitation services company Saraplast

Saraplast, India’s leading portable sanitation services company, receives investment from a fund of responsAbility.



Saraplast is India’s leading provider of portable toilet sanitation services that cater to the



underserved segment of the society. It services portable toilets across major cities in the country



through its brand 3S.



Over half of India’s population do not have access

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Deal Alert: Asian Healthcare Fund invests Rs 22-Cr in Wellspring Healthcare

Asian Healthcare Fund (AHF), along with existing investors, has invested Rs. 22 crore in Wellspring Healthcare, which operates a chain of primary healthcare clinics under the brand name Healthspring Community Medical Centres. Wellspring Healthcare plans to raise about Rs 50 crore over the next six months.



Wellspring, which has a network of seven clinics in Mumbai, seeks to provide modern

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Deal Alert: Nexus backed Cloudbyte secures second round of funding

CloudByte
Raises New Funding to Meet Increasing Customer Demand in the Cloud
Service Provider and Enterprise Private Cloud Markets 



Fidelity Worldwide Investment Leads Series B Funding Round to Help Storage QoS Company Expand



CloudByte,
the first company to guarantee quality of service (QoS) to every
application from a shared
storage platform, announced today that it has raised $4

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Deal Alert: Local TV ads firm Amagi raises Rs.30-Cr from Mayfield, existing investors

Amagi Media Labs which offers advertisers to buy ad spots on TV channels in India has raised close to Rs 30 crore from Mayfield Fund and existing investors, Nadathur Group and Ojas Ventures. Vikram Godse, from Mayfield will join the board.

Amagi had previously raised about Rs 37 crore from Nadathur Group and Ojas Ventures.



Amagi is now functional in 35 cities in India including the metros

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Deal Alert: Omnivore invests in fruit & vegetable fly trap firm Barrix

Omnivore Partners has invested in Bangalore based Barrix Agro Sciences Pvt Ltd, a maker of fruit and vegetable fly traps. Subhadeep Sanyal, Investment Manager at Omnivore Partners, has joined the board.






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Deal Alert: YourStory acquires social enterprise platform ThinkChange India

Online media and events firm YourStory.in has acquired social enterprise platform ThinkChange India. ThinkChange India will be merging with SocialStory, YourStory.in’s online platform focusing on the social enterprise and impact investing sectors. 



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Deal Alert: German firm Delivery Hero invests addl $5-M in online food ordering service TastyKhana

Berlin-based global online food ordering and take-out service Delivery Hero has invested $ 5 million in Pune-based food delivery site TastyKhana at a $16-18 million valuation. Prior to this, DeliveryHero had invested in a seed round in early 2012.



TastyKhana was launched in 2007 in Pune by Shachin Bhardwaj and Sheldon D’Souza. It claims to have scaled from 2 cities in 2012 to 7 cities with

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Deal Alert: VentureNursery-backed online recruitment service InterviewMaster raises angel funding

Recruitment solutions start-up InterviewMaster has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from angel investors linked to startup accelerator, VentureNursery. The Bangalore-based company provides automated video clips to screen candidates before job interviews and was selected for acceleration by VentureNursery in December 2012.



Recruitment managers can set up interviews on the company’s

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Deal Alert: HDFC co-invests with Lumis Partners in HR Services firm PeopleStrong

HDFC Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of publicly listed Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), has invested in PeopleStrong, a HR outsourcing and technology company. Apart from HDFC Holdings, existing PE investor Lumis Partners also invested in the round. Gurgaon-based PeopleStrong was started in 2006 and services client across business segments such as BFSI, IT/ITES, automobiles,

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Deal Alert: iPad based e-learning co Tabtor raises $1-M from Aarin Capital, others

Tabtor, an iPad based e-learning solutions company has closed a $1 million seed round led by New Jersey based SoundBoard Angel Fund and including Bangalore based Aarin Capital Partners, BITS Spark Angels Sand Hill Angels and other individual investors.



The New Jersey-based startup was founded by Raj E Valli, a former Wabco Holdings executive. Tabtor tracks a student’s learning path using

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A former VC on "How venture capitalists kill startups"

Looks like this is say-it-as-I-see-it season! Here's Manoj Gupta, formerly a Principal at Nexus Ventures and now Founder of Craftsvilla (which is backed by VCs including Nexus), in Economic Times:

Here (in India) entrepreneurship is like standing in a sandstorm - you do not know your path ahead and are constantly buffeted by strong winds. In the US, it is more like a foggy day - the path ahead

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Inbound Interest from (an Associate at) a VC firm...its meaning and worth for Entrepreneurs

Vijay Anand of accelerator The Startup Centre has an interesting post on how entrepreneurs often end up wasting precious time by getting all excited about the research expeditions of associates at VC firms.

When you get an email or a call from a VC Firm, the first question to
ask is to get them to introduce themselves. If its an associate – or if
you are getting an email, check up on the site

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Deal Alert: Intel invests $16-M across SnapDeal, Bright Lifecare, Singapore’s Reebonz

Intel Capital has made three investments totaling $16 million in Asia’s e-commerce segment. These include Delhi-based SnapDeal, owned by Jasper Infotech, Gurgaon-based Bright Lifecare and Singapore-based Reebonz.com. The funds will be used by the three companies to scale up their operations and extend their businesses in Asia. 



The investment in SnapDeal is part of the $50 million Series D

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Deal Alert: Games2win acquires Delhi-based studio Backyard Game FactorRy

Mumbai-based gaming company Games2win India Pvt Ltd has acquired Backyard Game FactorRy, a casual games studio based in Delhi. Backyard Game FactorRy was founded in 2010 and builds web and mobile casual games. Its promoter Rahul Jaiswal will continue to head the company. 



Games2win raised $2 million in its third round of financing from US-based Clearstone Venture Partners two months ago.

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Deal Alert: Just Dial gains 19% on listing

The Internet and mobile-based search company Just Dial gained about 19% in intraday on its first day upon listing. The company’s opening price on listing was Rs 590 on the NSE compared to the IPO price of Rs.530 (and Rs.483 for retail investors).



Mumbai-based Just Dial, which offers search for local businesses through Internet and mobile platforms, sold 17.5 million shares through the IPO,

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Deal Alert: Digital ad network Adfederal Media merges with Lyxel Digital; combo to raise funding

Delhi-based digital ad network AdFederal Media has merged its operations with Gurgaon-based Dynamis Partners backed proprietary digital advertising start-up Lyxel Digital. Founded in 2010, AdFederal focuses on behavioural analytics based digital advertising. Nishith Srivastava, Founder and CEO, AdFederal will continue to work with Lyxel as Chief Technology Officer, to drive the Data management

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Deal Alert: Nexus Venture Partners invests in Housing.co.in

Housing.co.in secures $2.5m funding from Nexus Venture Partners

To establish Data Science Lab (DSL) and develop breakthrough new technologies



Housing.co.in, the fastest growing completely map based real estate search portal announced that it has raised $2.5mn of funding from Nexus Venture Partners, India’s leading VC fund. Housing.co.in has revolutionized house hunting through its unique

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Deal Alert: Canada’s Valent acquires online luxury portal Bornrich

Online luxury publication, BornRich.com, has been acquired by the Canadian-based internet firm Valnet Inc. The online magazine, featuring lifestyle content, has a global reach of over 2.5 million readers with around 4 million impressions a month in the luxury niche.



BornRich.com was founded in January, 2006 by Nandini Rathi who previously co-founded Instamedia network and Betaout.com. With

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Deal Alert: Wipro invests $5-M in M2M platform provider Axeda

Wipro has made a $5-million investment for a minority stake in Axeda, a provider of cloud-based service and software for managing connected products and delivering machine-to-machine (M2M) applications. Wipro has already partnered with US-based Axeda which is among the top three service providers specialising in M-to-M software, which facilitates communication between connected devices such as

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Deal Alert: Car sharing service Zoom raises $30K angel funding from Larry Summers

Bangalore-based ZoomCar India Pvt Ltd, which operates the membership-based car rental service ZoomCar.in, has raised $30,000 in angel funding from the former US treasury secretary Larry Summers in the form of warrants. Prior to this, Zoom had raised an angel round of $215,000 from Empire Angels (New York), Lady Barbara Judge and several other angel investors last month. The company has raised

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Deal Alert: Blue Star Infotech invests in analytics firm Activecubes

Publicly listed Software services and solutions provider Star Infotech has bought a stake in Activecubes Solutions India. Started in 2007, Bangalore-based Activecubes provides business intelligence and analytics services to clients across financial services, consumer packaged goods, retail, telecom and healthcare. 



Source: Press Release

 



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Deal Alert: FirstPost acquires satire site FakingNews.com

Network18's online news portal FirstPost.com has acquired FakingNews.com, a satire portal, for an undisclosed amount. FakingNews.com will remain as a standalone entity and founder Rahul Roushan will remain its editor. 



Source: Medianama.com




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Deal Alert: Snapdeal acquires Sequoia backed Shopo.in

Online group buying service Snapdeal.com has acquired the assets of Shopo.in, a portal for Indian designer and handcrafted products. Shopo’s investors included Sequoia Capital and Sashi Reddi, among other angels. In a span of two years, the company, started by Theyagarajan S and Krithika Nelson, has built a wide assortment of handcrafted products across categories such as apparel, accessories,

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