Weekly rundown: Bertelsmann commits $500 mn for India investments; Arzooo, Propshare raise new rounds

Sector agnostic venture capital fund Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) announced it has earmarked $500 million for new and follow-on investments in India. With the fresh fund allocation, BII kick starts an early-stage program, under which it plans to make at least 3-4 Series A investments in a year. Series A investments will be in the range of $2-5 million. The company plans to focus on investments in the health-tech, enterprise-tech, future of work, fintech, agritech, deeptech, and Web3 for the 2022 and 2023 period. The fund said it will open more offices in India including in Mumbai and Bangalore. The fund is currently headquartered in Delhi.

In a relatively muted week for start-up funding, retail tech firm Arzooo, realty platform PropShare, business-to-business (B2B) marketplace Solv, and fintech start-ups Progcap and GetVantage raised new funding rounds.

Bengaluru-based Arzooo secured $70 million in a new funding round backed by global and Indian venture capitalists including Japan-based SBI Investment, Trifecta Leaders Fund, and Doordash founder Tony Xu. This is Xu’s first India investment. Existing investors including Celesta Capital and 3 Lines VC also participated in this round. The company had earlier raised its Series A funding from Celesta and 3 Lines, followed by an investment from Zoom founder Eric Yuan.

Real estate investment platform PropShare bagged $47 million in a Series B funding round led by WestBridge Capital. Existing investor Pravega Ventures participated in the round. The company said it will use the fresh capital to expand to new geographies and strengthen distribution channels and invest in technology and people.

Fintech platform Progcap pocked $40 million in private equity capital fundraising round at a valuation of $600 million as part of its Series C extension, taking the total round to $70 million. Creation Investments and Tiger Global Management led the funding round and Google joined as the new investor. Existing investor Sequoia Capital India also participated in the round. This funding will be utilised to support the expansion and acceleration of product development. Progcap has raised $100 million in equity and recorded annualised disbursals worth $1 billion in the last 12 months.

Solv, a marketplace for small businesses, raised $40 million in a new round of funding led by Japanese financial firm SBI Holdings. SC Ventures also participated in the round, taking the start-up overall funding till date to nearly $80 million. The Bengaluru-headquartered company will utilize the fresh capital to grow its buy now pay later (BNPL) product besides rolling out more high-margin products and expanding to new geographies.

GetVantage, a revenue-based financing fintech and growth platform for SMEs, secured $36 million in a funding round led by Varanium Nexgen Fintech Fund and DMI Sparkle Fund. Returning investors in this round are Chiratae Ventures and Dream Incubator Japan. Other new investors who participated in this round included Sony Innovation Fund, InCred Capital, and Haldiram’s Family Office among others. Combined with the $5 million seed round announced in 2020, the latest round has brought GetVantage’s total funding till date to over $40 million. This includes multiple debt lines with leading NBFC partners to rapidly scale its finance and growth platform.