Our weekly column summarizes the tech financing highlights in India this week.
Online trading is booming in India, and this has created a huge market for e-commerce, which requires high-quality logistics services and other technological support. This week, logistics startup Xpressbees raised USD 35 million in Series D funding from Alibaba. Xpressbees was created as the logistics arm of baby products retailer FirstCry in 2012. In September 2015, the company was spun off from FirstCry as BusyBees Logistics Solutions and began operating as an independent business. After this financing round that secured new support from China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, Xpressbees will improve its services to meet its partners’ demands in the e-commerce industry.
On January 27th, ed-tech startup Grey Atom, which provides learning programs to help students study data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence, raised USD 1 million in financing led by Pravega Ventures. The startup will build an AI-enabled learning platform which will provide information on learners’ progress and weaknesses.
On January 29th, healthcare technology startup eKincare, which helps users assess, track and stay informed about their health, raised USD 1.5 million for Series A financing from Ventureast and Endiya Partners. The startup will use the funding to beef up its technology platform, expand its sales team, and coordinate with more doctors.
On January 31st, ed-tech startup iNurture, which provides formal higher education programs in India, raised USD 4.4 million in Series C funding led by Ventureast. The funding will be used to expand iNurture’s e-learning platform and improve its operations.
On February 1st, inFact, a mobile app that aggregates news and infotainment content, raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Joel George, a Saudi Arabia-based angel investor. inFact plans to launch its news segment in English and will expand its coverage with regional languages such as Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada and Hindi.
(Top photo from 699pic.com)
