Our weekly column summarizes the tech financing highlights in China this week.
Online groceries are the highlight of the tech financing trend in India this week. According to Bigbasket, India’s retail market is now worth over USD 900 billion and among that, grocery shopping accounts for about USD 600 billion. This week, online grocery startup, BigBasket, raised USD 300 million in funding led by Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba. BigBasket has the largest online food and grocery stores in India. The company will use the money to build farmer networks, expand deeper into existing cities, and become the most preferred employer for blue-collar jobs.
1. On February 5th, ed-tech startup, CollegeDekho, which runs a portal that lets students compare colleges, select courses, determine cutoffs for preferred courses, and access other career-related content, raised USD 2 million in funding from Man Capital LLP and Girnar Software. The funds will be used to bolster the company’s technology capabilities, expand collaboration with international colleges, and ramp up marketing by adding more offline campaigns.
2. On February 6th, a healthcare startup, healthi.in, raised USD 3 million in funding from Montane Ventures. healthi.in offers customised and technology-backed preventive health checkup packages. The startup will use the funds to fastrack its product development, bolster its product and technology teams, and scale up efforts to reach customers.
3. On February 6th, logistics management startup, FarEye, raised USD 9.5 million for Series C from Deutsche Post DHL Group. The company plans to use the capital to expand the logistics management platform’s presence across Europe and the U.S. later this year.
4. On February 8th, online food delivery startup, Swiggy, raised USD 100 million led by existing investor, Naspers, with a new investor, Meituan-Dianping, a Chinese e-commerce service platform, participating. The capital will be used to further market expansion.
(Top photo from Baidu Images.)
