It’s high time for startups to take a step ahead, as investors are ready to make their pockets light! The first quarter of the year proved good for the Indian economy. According to the reports by Trading Economics, the growth was 7.9 percent which is recorded highest in the previous six quarters.
Again this time, the E-Commerce startups grabbed the highest funds and then at the second place came the logistics startups.
Let’s bring into the limelight:
The highest Funded Indian Startups
#1 Flipkart
Flipkart an Indian E-Commerce giant established in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal has been on the top list of grabbing funds.
With the top investors from across the globe, it has now listed on board Baillie Gifford, Greenoaks capital, Steadview capital and many more (CrunchBase).
With total 12 rounds of funding and 16 investors on board, Flipkart has raised the total of US $3.2 billion.
Report of YourStory suggests, with more amount of funding, it is continuously growing its team and has now reached a team size of 35,000. Moreover, Flipkart is acquiring many more startups one over the other.
Recently Flipkart’s Myntra acquired rival fashion site Jabong and a payment startup PhonePe.
:: Read Customer Reviews of Flipkart ::
#2 Snapdeal
Another Indian E-Commerce giant Snapdeal founded in 2010 by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal stood second in the list of grabbing highest funds. As per the report of CrunchBase, with the latest investment from world’s largest pension funds, Ontario Teachers’ pension plan and Singapore-based investment entity Brother Fortune Apparel have led the 11th round of funding for Snapdeal.
With this, the total funds raised by Snapdeal raised to US $1.17 billion.
Recently Snapdeal acquired Reduce Data, a programmatic advertising platform. Before this acquisition, Snapdeal acquired Indian giant Freecharge, a mobile payments company.
:: Read Customer Reviews of Snapdeal ::
#3 OLA
Ola is a private cab booking company, headquartered at Banglore and founded by Bhavish Aggarwal. Ola grabbed the third position in the list of top fund grabbers with its investors from India and overseas as well. As per the reports of the CrunchBase, OLA has Baillie Gifford, DST Global, Softbank Capital and other huge players on board as investors. Its last round of funding was in Dec 2015, where OLA raised $57.3 million.
As per the reports of YourStory, with the last funding, the total amount of funds grabbed by OLA raised to $1.2 billion. It seems that OLA needs more funds to come in, to survive in the cutting throat competitive market.
The report says that there was an increase in the revenues of OLA which led it to $62 million in the previous financial year. With the increase in funding, the team of OLA crossed a milestone of 5000 people.
#4 Paytm 
Paytm, an E-Commerce and mobile payments company was founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma. It is headquartered at Noida and is a subsidiary firm of One97 Communications. According to the buzz on CrunchBase, Paytm has three major investors on board. They are Mountain Capital, China’s E-Commerce giant Alibaba and Indian Industrialist Ratan Tata.
The last round of funding for Paytm was in August 2016, where Mountain Capital invested a handsome amount of $60 million.
With the last round of funding, the total funds grabbed by Paytm raised to $728 million, says YourStory.com.
“The fresh capital will allow Paytm to enhance payments, commerce, and financial services. It will also be used for expansion and scaling up, boosting payments and commerce, and building and launching the proposed Paytm Payments Bank said Vijay Shekher”, founder and CEO of Paytm.
Read Customer Reviews of Paytm
#5 Quikr 
Quikr, an online classifieds website was founded in 2008 by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas and headquartered at Banglore. The report of CrunchBase says that Quikr has few major giants like Brand Capital, Kinnevik AB, Tiger Global Management, etc on board, for investments.
According to Times of India, the last round of funding was done by Brand Capital worth $20 million and before that its previous investors Kinnevik AB and Tiger Global Management had invested a huge amount of $150 million.
With these funding, the total amount grabbed by Quikr raised to $350 million. With the new funds received by Quikr, they have started a slew of new services that include Quikr Next and is also facilitation logistics in selected cities.
#6 Big Basket 
Big Basket, an online grocery platform was founded in 2011 by a team of five experienced entrepreneurs – Hari Menson, VS Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh and Abhinay Chaudhari. It is headquartered at Bangalore and serves various cities of India.
As per the report by CrunchBase, Big Basket has huge investors like Abraaj group, Bessemer Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners, etc.
The report of Live Mint says, Big Basket has got fresh funds of $150 million and this makes up the total funding amount to $246 million.
The company sells over 19,000 products across 1,000 brands and claims to serve over one million orders per month.
#7 OYO Rooms 
OYO was founded back in 2013 by Ritesh Agarwal. The company started with one hotel in Gurgaon and then it started scaling up. Now, OYO has around 7500 hotels in 220 cities of India and it has been named as India’s largest budget hotel chain.
Recently, budget hotel aggregator OYO grabbed a huge amount of funding worth $62 million from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp (Live Mint). With this round of funding the total amount that OYO managed to grab is $230 million.
The reports suggest that the fresh funds are to be used for expanding its services and to strengthen OYO’s new offering – Flagship.
#8 Zomato 
Zomato is an online restaurant search and ordering application. It was founded back in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah.
According to the reports of CrunchBase, Zomato has grabbed funding from the giants like Temasek Holdings, VY Capital, Info edge, etc.
Recently in 2015, Zomato managed to grab a huge amount of $60 million from Temsek Holdings and VY Capital.
As per the reports of YourStory, Zomato has grabbed a total amount of $225 million from various investors in a time frame of around 8 years. With the increasing funds, the company acquired US-based UrabanSpoon.
Further, to provide its customers the facility of bookings, it acquired NextTable.
#9 INMOBI
InMobi was founded in 2007 in India with 17 offices across the globe. It is founded and headed by Naveen Tiwari. The CrunchBase report says that InMobi has few giant investors like SoftBank Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, etc.
Recently, InMobi was successful to grab a handsome amount of $100 million. The report of YourStory says that including the latest round of funding the total amount that InMobi grabbed is $220 million.
“We are excited about the opportunities and the yet untapped potential in the mobile advertising market. Wait and watch out for some of the truly disruptive products coming out in the next few weeks from our end”, says Naveen.
Also read: Top Mobile Repairing Startups in India (2018)
#10 Car Trade 
Car trade, as its name suggests, started as a B2B and B2C platform for cars. It was founded in 2010 by Vinay Sanghi and is now headquartered at Mumbai. The CrunchBase report suggests that Car Trade has got funds from the investors like March Capital Partners, Temasek Holdings, Warburg Pincus, etc. Recently, it had got the funding of $30.2 million from Warburg Pincus.
Yourstory suggests that with this round of funding the total amount grabbed by Car Trade is now $188 million. “This investment is a validation of CarTrade’s business model and growth plans in the Indian online auto space. The funds raised shall be used to further expand our services organically and through acquisitions.
We will continue to focus on products, services and strengthening our technology capabilities and platforms, to deliver a seamless online experience for auto enthusiasts across the country.” said Vinay.
#11 Grofers 
Grofers is an online on-demand grocery delivery service. It was founded in December 2013 by Saurabh Kumar and Albinder Dhindsa. CrunchBase report says, Grofers has been recently funded by SoftBank, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management. Recently it grabbed a good amount of $120 million from SoftBank.
Yourstory report says, with the final round of funding, the total amount of funds grabbed by Grofers reached to $165 million.
Grofers currently delivers the on-demand products in 25 cities and as claimed, they get 30,000 orders in a day.
#12 Ecom Express 
Ecom Express a logistics company was founded in 2013 by T.A. Krishnan, K. Satyanarayana, Manju Dhawan, Sanjeev Saxena. The CrunchBase report suggests that Eco Express has two major investors on board, they are Warburg Pincus and Peepul Capital. Recently Ecom Express grabbed a funding of $133 million and this summed up to the total funding of $149 million.
Ecom Express with the increasing funds is expanding its service area. As per the claims by Ecom Express it serves 2,800 pin-codes through more than 320 delivery centers and 8000 employees. “These initiatives will help us deliver superior customer experience and build a scalable business. We look forward to leveraging Warburg Pincus’ domain expertise in logistics and the firm’s global network of relationships,” TA Krishnan, chief executive of Ecom Express.
#13 Pepperfry 
Pepperfry an online furniture and decorative store is now holding a good grip over the market. According to the report of CrunchBase, it has three major investors on board including Norwest Venture Partners, Bertelsmann India, Goldmen Sachs. The last round of funding led them to get $100 million of funding.
This made the total amount to reach $128 million. “Ramping up our studios and expanding to 1,000 cities is the business plan for the next two years, we wanted to have capital ready as we start this expansion,” said Murty.
Read customers review of Pepperfry
#14 Delhivery
Delhivery is an E-Commerce company based out of Gurgaon. Back in 2011, it was founded by Mohit Tandon, Sahil Barua, Bhavesh Manglani, Kapil Bharati, Suraj Saharan.
The CrunchBase report says, it has got funded by investors like Tiger Global Management, Multiples Alternate Assets Management Pvt. Ltd., Nexus Venture Partners.
Recently they grabbed the funding of $85 million which led their total funding amount to $126 million. Initially, Delhivery started as a transportation service provider and then it included one over the other services. The services include strategic sourcing, catalog management, inventory management, etc.
#15 Housing.com 
Housing.com was launched in 2012 by Rahul Yadav, Advitya Sharma, Abhishek Anand, Sanat Ghosh, Ravish Naresh and seven others. The CrunchBase report says, it has investors on board like SoftBank, Helion Venture Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, etc. With its last round of funding, Housing.com grabbed $14.7 million from SoftBank.
A yourstroy report says, with the last round of funding the total amount that Housing.com managed to grab as investment till date is $126 million. After the funding, the CEO of the company added “Softbank’s continued support as both investors and advisors to Housing is invaluable to us and signifies their long-term commitment to the Company. We believe 2016 will be a great year for the company.”
Also Check: These are the Top 10 Leading Logistics Startups in India
At Last
This is how the Indian startups are grabbing huge funds one after the other. This shows that this is the right time for Entrepreneurs to go ahead and open up their bud to make beautiful flowers.
A lot of investors from across the globe are excited to invest in the Indian startups, especially online startups.
It’s time to sit back and observe who will be in the top position, the next time.