Our weekly column summarizes tech financing highlights in India.
Consumer lending to the blue-collared workforce is a large, untapped, and hard-to-solve opportunity in India, not only for startups, but also for investors. Capital from investors all over the world is pouring into India’s fin-tech related industries. On March 14th, Avail Finance raised USD 17 million in a fresh round of funding led by venture capital firm Matrix Partners. Avail Finance is an online lending platform that provides loans to consumers who work as office boys, cleaning staff, and other blue collar jobs at big companies. The startup plans to grow their portfolio with funding from the latest round. Avail Finance will use the funds to expand its team and develop its technology.
1. On March 8, HireXP, a recruitment solutions startup that uses recruitment software to automate hiring workflow, raised an undisclosed funding from Ambarish Gupta. The startup plans to use the capital to assemble a new product line aimed at campus hiring. Besides that, it plans to use the funds towards applying artificial intelligence into its existing platform.
2. On March 12, HealthAssure raised USD 1 million from The HR Fund. HealthAssure is a primary healthcare services aggregator that ties-ups with hospitals, clinics, laboratories and doctors in addition to partnerships with insurance companies to offer effective healthcare schemes for corporate employees at attractive rates. Besides investing in its digitisation and distribution initiatives, the company will use the money to develop new primary healthcare products.
3. On March 13, Callido Learning, an ed-tech startup that creates digital tools for developing and assessing critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, raised USD 2 million from a UK-based publisher. The company will use the funds to boost overseas expansion.
4. SmartQ raised USD 1 million funding for financing on March 14. SmartQ is a food-tech aggregator which enables queue-less ordering at food courts in shopping malls and corporate offices. SmartQ will use the newly raised funding to increase its customer bases both in India and in overseas market.
（Top photo from 699pic.com）
