MyGlamm unveils Good Glamm Group; Trifecta Capital leads a Rs 255-cr top-up to its Series C fundraise

D2C beauty brand MyGlamm announced the formation of the Good Glamm Group. The venture claims this announcement consolidates its position as a ‘Digital House of Brands’ powered by a content-to-commerce strategy.

The company has also topped up its Series C fundraise with a Rs 255-crore infusion led by an equity investment from the Trifecta Leaders Fund and structured financing from Trifecta Capital and Stride Ventures. With this additional funding, the Good Glamm Group has earmarked a Rs 750-crore war-chest to make strategic investments in innovative beauty and personal care brands.

Brands that come under the Good Glamm Group umbrella will be able to leverage a large digital audience comprising 8.8 crore POPxo annual users, 220,000 Plixxo influencers and BabyChakra’s 2-crore mothers’ community and a network of 10,000 doctors. This digital reach, combined with MyGlamm’s 20,000 offline points of sale, gives the Good Glamm Group an unprecedented scale, further amplified by the group’s expertise in DTC growth, new product development and technology and data science.

With a senior leadership team comprising industry veterans from traditional FMCG companies like Unilever, Godrej, L’Oreal and new age e-commerce giants like Myntra and Nykaa and led by Group Founder and CEO Darpan Sanghvi along with Co-Founders Priyanka Gill and Naiyya Saggi, the Good Glamm Group now aims to be the digital FMCG conglomerate of the future.

Fintech startup Capital Float gets $50 mn from Lightrock India

Fintech startup Capital Float has raised $50 million in an equity funding round led by Lightrock India.

New investors such as David Velez, Founder of Nubank, Latin America's largest fintech firm; Cred Founder Kunal Shah; and Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs, also invested in the startup's latest round. The startup's existing investors Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, Creation Investments Capital Management, and Dinesh Hinduja family office also participated in the latest round.

Capital Float said it will use the funds to scale its BNPL (buy now play later) platform, and expand its partner ecosystem.

"By solving for affordability as well as convenience, in a fully-regulated format, we believe that our BNPL approach can responsibly expand access to credit to over 100 million customers who are starting to transact online," said Capital Float's co-founders Sashank Rishyasringa and Gaurav Hinduja.

The startup claims to have 2.5 million customers using its platform, powering over Rs 2,000 crore-worth online purchases on an annual basis. It has partnered with platforms, including Amazon, MakeMyTrip, Unacademy, and boAt Lifestyle to help buyers check out using the BNPL option.

Spinny to turn unicorn with $1.9-bn valuation: Report

Used car retailer Spinny is all set to score a new round and attain the coveted unicorn status.

The company is in late-stage talks to mop up $250-300 million from new and existing investors, as per a report by Entrackr. Avenir Growth, General Catalyst, Fundamentum, Accel and some new investors will also participate in the fresh round.

Investors are offering 2x premium in the new round over the last one. Spinny is likely be valued anywhere between $1.7-1.9 billion in this round, the report added.

B2B startup bijnis raises $30 mn in Series B

B2B factories startup bijnis has secured $30 million in Series B funding round.

The round was led by Westbridge Capital, with participation from existing investors InfoEdge, Matrix Partners India, Sequoia India, and Waterbridge Ventures.

The funding will primarily be used towards expanding the manufacturers’ base and helping them grow their factories via expanding retailer base on the platform. Additionally, this infusion of capital will be used for building out technology and products focused on increasing the production efficiency of factories, the company said in a statement.

Founded in 2015, bijnis aims to empower and uplift the community of Indian manufacturers. It operates in the $100-billion industry that is largely in the unorganised categories of fashion, footwear and lifestyle. Over 5,000 manufacturers are currently running their business on the ‘bijnis factory app.’

The bijnis factory app builds digital factory profiles that enables small, medium and large manufacturers to expand their businesses.

5G wireless startup Astrome raises $3.4 mn from IAN Fund & others

Astrome, a 5G wireless deep-tech startup, has raised $3.4 million in a round led by IAN Fund, Urania Ventures, and Cognizant Founder Lakshmi Narayanan. The round also saw participation from Impact Collective, ArtPark, and a consortium of US-based angel investors.

The company said it will use the funds to expand into the US market, strengthen global operator trials, and further commercialisation of its core technology through new products.

“Our first two products, GigaMesh and GigaSat, have a combined addressable market of $34 billion globally. This market is expanding quickly due to the rising need for mobile and broadband communication infrastructure as a result of the change in lifestyle in the last two years,” Neha Satak, Co-founder of Astrome, said.

With offices in India and the US, the company signed its first overseas deal with a South-East Asian telecom operator in 2021.

Glamyo Health raises $3 mn in Series A led by Ananta Capital

Healthcare startup Glamyo Health has raised $3 million in a Series A round led by Ananta Capital and with participation from Agility ventures, Udtara Ventures, We Founder Circle, and Dexter Angels.

Other investors include Tej Kapoor (Managing Partner at Fosun), Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura (Founders of Licious), Dhruv Kapoor (Partner at Sistema), Aditya Singh (Principal at Stride VC), Ayush Jain (Leading South India for AWS), etc.

“In the last three quarters we have witnessed 300 percentage surge in the business on our platform. Besides we have also grown 3x in a number of cities in the past three months," Archit Garg, Co-Founder at Glamyo Health, said.

Currently, the firm has presence in 10 cities such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, and also tier 2 cities like Indore, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh and Patna. The firm is also planning to scale up in 20 more cities in the next six months.

Fintech startup CashBook secures $2.3 mn

Fintech startup CashBook has raised $2.3 million in a seed round led by prominent VCs JAM and Better Tomorrow Ventures. Kunal Shah, Anupam Mittal, and a host of other angel investors also participated in the round.

The startup will use the funds to further enhance the product and expand its pan-India reach, the company said in a statement.

“CashBook offers a simple and reliable solution for digital record keeping. With tens of millions of small businesses, the Indian market offers tremendous growth opportunities for CashBook. Glad to support the founder’s vision to accelerate the digital transformation of SMBs in India,” said Justin Mateen, Co-founder, Tinder, and investor at JAM Fund.

CashBook is a digital record-keeping app using which businesses can add entries, segregate records, and find overall balance instantly.

Manch Technologies closes $1.1 mn in pre-Series A funding

SaaS-based startup Manch Technologies has closed $1.1 million as part of its pre-Series A round led by Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund. The round also saw participation from Pentathlon Ventures.

The funds will be used to step up global growth and product development initiatives, the company said. The startup will also hire more staff in business development and marketing, and plans to significantly increase investment across marketing, sales, and customer support functions as it gears up to scale.

Manch provides a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, which is focused on digitalising interactions of enterprises with their external stakeholders. It had earlier raised funding from lead angel investor and Thinksoft Co-Founder Asvini Kumar, along with others.

Currently, the startup has over 30 customers in India and abroad, which leverage the platform to automate their business processes such as customer, vendor and merchant engagement, contract execution workflows, workforce management, identity verification, fraud control, and lending marketplace.

Edtech startup byteXL scores $200K in angel round

US-based edtech startup byteXL, which has its India office in Hyderabad, has raised $200,000 in angel round from Joseph Joy, President of Joy Family Investments, US, along with others.

The upskilling startup said it will use the funding to enhance content, improve product portfolio, and grow its sales and marketing team, among other things.

The startup said it is also looking to expand its India operations to Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab, and other northern parts of the country.

The edtech platform provides new skills and upgrades existing ones, among its users. byteXL claims to have a 78 percent renewal rate and is active among 42,000 students across 55 colleges. The platform's engagement rate stands at 75 percent, it said in a statement.

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)